Autosuggestion
A basic guide
What is autosuggestion?When people talk about autosuggestion, often times they are conflating two similar but separate techniques: autosuggestion and self-affirmation. Autosuggestion is the process of tapping into your unconscious mind via a mental image, short phrase, or the like to make it more receptive or contributive to the pursuit of lucid dreaming. It is a passive method, often requiring a relaxed or meditative state to work effectively. It is often paired with hypnosis and hypnotherapy for this reason. When it does work, the effects vary heavily between people. It is generally effective, easy to perform, and a core concept of the MILD method.
The cousin of autosuggestion is self-affirmation. It does not require relaxation or meditation, and can be performed at any point during the day. It can best be thought of as building up determination, or reassuring one's self that lucid dreaming is easy and possible. These are done on a fairly conscious level, whereas autosuggestion is usually, well, automatic. A short sentence is the most common medium of choice for self-affirmation.
Both methods have varying degrees of efficacy for different people. Some people who love autosuggestion will despise self-affirmation, and vice-versa. Some people love both. It's a matter of personal preference, and the amount of effort you're willing to invest in this technique to become lucid.
How do I perform autosuggestion or self-affirmation?The first step is selection of a mantra. Most people choose a short, simple phrase. People with experience sometimes use a mental image or emotion instead, but a phrase is usually the best place to start. When crafting a mantra, it is imperative that it be short, simple, and avoid negative words. If it's in the present tense, even better. For example, "I lucid dream every night" or "I remember all my dreams" are good mantras, whereas "I will someday not forget my dreams, nor shall I not become lucid, maybe, sort of," is a wreck of a mantra. What you want to happen is to have your conscious and unconscious minds truly believe the mantra, so something silly like "I ride pink elephants to work every day" isn't going to happen.
Once you have prepared your mantra, you may begin. If doing autosuggestion, relax and begin repeating your mantra in your head. If you can fall asleep doing it, that is wonderful. If you're like most people, though, you'll want to do it for only 5-15 minutes, then stop and fall asleep, or get up and go about the rest of your day. The more relaxed and focused you can become on your mantra, the better.
If you're doing self-affirmation, repeat your mantra at any time you darn well feel like it. You can also use this as a sort of awareness check in conjunction with a DILD. Self-affirmations have more conscious clutter to pass through than autosuggestions, so it's more about volume and quantity to get the message to really soak in.
How long does it take to start working?This part is highly subjective, and depends on numerous factors, such as how much time and effort you put into it, how relaxed you are, and how lucky you are. People with no lucid experience can fluke out and get it to work the first night, or it can take one or several months. From what I've observed, any method to lucidity usually takes at least 2 weeks to 1 month, unless a person has some natural talent for it, or they're lucky. Remember that with all methods, it takes time to master, and very few people will be able to reliably get lucid off of any method right out the gate. The more you practice, the easier and more frequent your successes will be.
Good luck. Carpe Omnious.
