Character Assisted Lucid Dreaming - CALD

These characters of mine are made before I sleep, and I develop them extensively.
I have 9, but I’d imagine you’d only need maybe 1 or 2 to help you…
To become close with them, I first I had to make them in detail. It took me a good 3 or 4 years to get them where they are now, but only because I have others to work on, and I didn’t really concentrate much on it until this/last year.
Their relationships with the others really brought them to life, as Talon was the first, she was developed more quickly while she interacted with the other still-less-developed than her, boys.

Then her brother, Naknus was developed. He was there from the start, and was later paid more attention to, and ‘evoloved’.
Generally, the character with the most attention was the more developed, and I rped alot. So, putting them into many different situations helped me see how’d they act.

Recently, after finding out their entire histories intimately, their friends, family, intrests, designing their looks, their culture (as they are a race I made… they live entirely in the world I am working on…) and how they are mentally, it all came together to give me two almost entirely independent characters. The others still tend to need some sort of input from me to start talking, and still feel ‘puppet-like’ as Talon and Naknus can interact with me smoothly and the others can’t. They all interact with each other fairly well (despite some fights and disagreements and messes and such) it’s just those two that I really know very, very well.

Before I decided to actively talk with Talon and Naknus, I had to take a day or two to solidify the thought that “Yes, they are in my head, yes I made them. They don’t exist on this plane, but do in another. They are not of this reality.”. This was so that I wouldn’t get confused, and so this little experiment didn’t twist my perception around, like some dream-time-stretch experiments I’ve heard of. The kind where the user sort of messes up their perception of time passage… twisting my perception of reality would be very, very bad.

Anyways, after that, I talked with them actively, learned even more about them, and moreso about their personalities. I treat them like real people in my conversations, and try not to talk down to them. But a key point is that I remember at all times they exist solely in the reality I’ve created for them within my own mind. So then, after organising everything in my head so I have ‘Mind Space’ a place where my thoughts happen (and my dreams, in sleep) I could ask them to help me with dreams, or finding myself… finding memories, ect. by sending them there as I talk (makes sense to me, as they’d be there if I think of them… :3).

An important part, though, is that while I am still making them, I try to interact with them, to 1, find more about their personalities, even as I make them, and 2, to be friends with them, and try to get them more realistic rather then just make them automatically like me.
Yus.

That’s all I can really think of at the moment… if you have any other questions I’d be glad to answer it…

A note, though… just because they were my characters… doesn’t mean they’ll always agree! Haha, yesterday I tried again, and Naknus got more annoyed and said he wouldn’t help me go lucid that night. I fell asleep after so I’ll have to see if Talon or he will tonight XD… Sorry for the long post but the relationship between me-My characters-their world-their culture and all that is very very complex, it’s for more than just dreams…Making and knowing them is enjoyable for me, and I hope it will be for you too!

Oh… extensive information ^^

Thank you for the reply. The topic really piqued my curiosity after reading your initial post - and I am most grateful for reading it, too.

But, yes - so these characters of yours are post-dream characters, existing in what you tag, “Mind Space”… a mental plane. (Reminds me of AP…) Three to four years is quite a long time to develop characters. I’ve spent an extensive time on characters myself, but the attention was dispersed amongst many. I do, however, have in mind several characters I am currently investing much attention into - via music.

(Audio stimuli have proven to advance my visualization… See, how I begin developing a character is solidifying the visual appearance first. Of course, their personality develops parallel with it, but it’s usually the last aspect I cultivate. Mainly because it is sometimes difficult when I am developing a character unlike myself - that’s why it helps to observe other people… Interacting would probably be better, but I’d like to harbor the notion that my subconscious will compensate for what I cannot consciously…)

So, did you lay a template of the general persona/attitude you wanted them to possess and allow the rest to develop organically? Or did you develop a “shell” and simulate it under various situations until a “randomized” disposition developed? And - if you don’t mind the volley of questions - how similar are their personalities to yours? I mean, of course, it will be apparent that they will share some qualities, but are there any character traits they possess that you are not consciously aware of even in yourself - something separate of your persona? One last question, for now… When you’re “roleplaying” these characters, or interacting with them, are their actions or responses the initial thoughts that surface in your mind - like a subconscious aspect - or are they somewhat separate from your subconscious/random thoughts? How do you know? And -I know… I lied :slight_smile: - do you personally interact with them in WL or within your dreams?

(I’m at a dilemma with the some aspect of each question I asked. Such the reason I asked them…)

  • Angstyboy

Ohhhh I’m loving this~~~ ^^
I quite like this audio way of development for yours! ~~
And my characters, though developed in Mindspace, reside in Aria, the world I made for them…

I usually find a feeling of a character-- an essense if you will.
Whether it be a flash of silver eyes, a name I hear, a feeling evoked by music, or randomlly created throughout my day, an essense comes to me and I feel compelled to capture and convey it to the world. So, generally, I will capture said essense, usually visually in drawings, then I name him (usually male) and if it is his name that I found, then I will give him a body and appearence, vaguely in my mind, at least. After I capture this pre-made character feeling, I develop them by letting it just grow…

Truthfully, almost each and every character I have came into existance differently. My oldest, made when I was 9 or 10, were simply hollow, and I acted them out in rps. Some characters in fact, after they are somewhat made, just fade away. It would be difficult for me to be so general in this answer, so forgive the length, I must go into some detail–

Talon Arana - My very first alias, and was originally just a name, an alternate for my own as I still do not give my own name out on the internet. She was changed from roleplay to roleplay to fit the situation, and eventually through 2 years of roleplay, a pattern formed which eventually became her base, and she grew into a seperate entity, and soon into a very very developed character. The one she is today is through 4 years of extremely complex growing, which I could dedicate an entire post to.

Takone Anaka - Born of a need for companionship for Talon, he was a constant companion for her in rps. Because of his heavy reliance on Talon for existance, he is still not as advanced as her or Naknus. His personality went from one situation to another, and his appearence as well. Eventually, characteristics from a close friend (who was a boy) seeped into Takone, and in the end he was a very cheerful character-- just like my friend. His appearence solidified from one picture that turned out nicely.

Naknus Arana - Born of need for an enemy for Talon. His existance was very faint, and he faded in and out of obscurity until last year. I fished him out of my entire character list ( I have about 49+ characters, only 9 of which have been developed enough to be concidered of the “main” bunch) and he exploded into attention, and just… unexpectedly became very, very real…

Nakarus Arana - Naknus’s and Talon’s older brother, a good helper that was made to aid Talon in her battles–randomly. He’s still vague appearance-wise, but he has a cheery personality that is… kind of changing. He is still one of my less developed characters.

Those are all of the “old time” characters in my main bunch now, they were made mindlessly, and then evolved.

Leon Airayu - Born of need for rivalry against Takone for Talon’s attention. Made an initial drawing, and designed his personality from the get-go. His appearance has changed drastically, but his personality still holds. He is one of the most purposefully made characters I have-- meaning I designed every single thing about him, very little was his own growing or of outside inspiration.

Azen(aki) Ainen(ku) - Born of inspiration from a particularly well drawn fanart by another artist, and some really inspiring movies. He had only one drawing to show his appearence. His appearence hasn’t changed at all-- but his history, and personality have changed because of more inspiring movies and rps.

Kazurai Aizen - Born as another competitor against Takone and Leon for Talon, his personality was made, but appearance and history changed dramatically because of rps.

Ghost - Born of my sadness at the time in school, and of a doodle that turned into a drawing. His personality and appearence occured to me all at once-- He hasn’t changed, and can be concidered a main character, since he ‘talks’ without any input from me. But because he is mute, and is busy with keeping me de-stressed (yes, and it works too!) in mindspace, I don’t ask him much to do anything else. He helps me keep inner-harmony. It should be known though, even though he was born from sadness, he has really no emotion to convey-- perhaps a numbness I wanted at the time.

Ein Eru - Born of a rp with a friend. Plain and simple, there was a villain a friend and me made together, and I took him, changed him, and he was mine. His is still the most changing personality, but his general appearence was caught on paper from the beginning.

Those are my 9. They were all made differently, but in general, I get a hint of their being, and catch their visual image in my mind’s eye or on paper, then it goes from there.

Alot of the time, no their personalities aren’t too much like mine. But will have an aspect of their own that is shared with mine. Some, like Naknus for example, even express some of my emotion for me. Naknus is my anger, he is feirce once he snaps-- as I am… however, he doesn’t calm quickly-- I do… :3
Talon, she is generally happy with giagantic spurts of overly-joyful-gleeful-waaaaytooenergetic hyper attacks… As I am often in class.

What do you mean by this? Takone has some personality from a friend of mine, and each of my boys (and Talon) have one or more characteristics of mine. In some of them, more subtle features and others, more prominant…

When it comes to the responses of my characters–
With roleplaying, all of their actions occur to my mind all of a sudden, they probably come from my subconsious. However, I concider the rp versions of my characters generally seperate from my actual characters, as sometimes they will do things unlike what they’d normally do-- with the exception of
Mind Roleplays Where the characters of mine, and another’s directly interact-- with the knowledge of the creators being around and being watched, and that the other set of characters belong to someone else. This differs from normal roleplaying, as they don’t realise they have one creator, and exist only in that roleplay scape.

When it comes to interacting with me, only Talon, Naknus, and sometimes Ghost’s actions and words seem to take their own life seperate of my subconsious/random thoughts. At least, when I put enough effort to go to them and talk (I put no effort into them replying, however…). The others, because they are not fully developed, or not enough, still feel puppet-like because their actions and thoughts occur to me right before they do them-- they stem from me although I do not force them to do what they do directly, it does come from me at some level, I can still feel it. However, I can still speak with them, as in their initial creation I give them some live, so I don’t have to forcefully think of their responses, it just happens.

I personally interact with them out of sleep… though I have spoken to Azen and Naknus in my dreams-- they seemed slightly different then my waking mind versions of them…

Thank you so much for your questions! I hope I answered them fully, please forgive the horrifically long answer!

^^ Have anymore?

With much admiration,
-Talon

You put me to shame in my laziness. =0)

Haha, what do you mean? ^^ all this-- this character stuff was all pretty fluid, I didn’t put massive amounts of effort into it… it just-- Happened XD
I am very lazy as well, no worries XD I am procrastinating with my typing as we–kind of speak… I’m supposed to be drawing up a mural right now @__a XD =))~

My world has been suffering from atrophe as I fiddle on other things. =0) I feel rather guilty for it. lol

XDD What’s a atrophe…? I think we should sytop this as it is rather off-topic…>>;;

Atrophe: when something fades away or loses strength due to lack of use.

Actually your thread has inspired me to work on my world as I’m going to sleep. =0) I have a few interesting candidates to develop character-wise.

Ahh that’s wonderful…! :3 I am so glad it helped…
Sweet dreams~

I attempted last night with (a much diffrent) Shatter, and my Wolf SG/Subconsious charcter Terragus. It didn’t work. I will try again, and also I ask for tips.

Hmm… This is really starting to sound a lot like tulpas, now.

Yes, my audio method not only increases my visualization when developing my characters, but also sets a general mood that I can then associate with whichever character(s) I am developing at the time. I also am prone to rerun a character through the same scenario countless times to the same song. Basically, “perfecting the scene”. This can cause me to become an exacting vetriloquist. I really need to learn to let them - as the song goes - “Just Be”…

As for the origin/nature of my characters, I’ve actually adopted a few dream characters to develop. I do, however, have several other characters that came to me in WL. I’ve discovered that each have their individual quirks when it comes to development. Dream characters require less energy than WL-developed characters.

The question you didn’t seem to understand - nevermind - you answered it fine. And, I seem to have no more questions as of the moment. Thank you for answering my other questions, though ^^

Talon, what do you mean by IWL? Is it like a trance?

Make sure to try and get involved in the conversation and that you do it while your sleepy-- I was content with where I was in the conversation, and ended it with ‘he’ll help me go lucid’ before I went to sleep immediately.

is Tulpa good or bad?
Anyways-- it seems complex, I really do love your audio development technique-- may I try it some time?

I have a few from dreams, but I don’t refer to them as characters, as I did not create them consiously… I made resolution with them though, as a member of the four hurt me O-o;; (slit my shoulders–agh!). I made it a goal to find them in a lucid after my brief while of talking to them smoothly.

I’m glad I answered your question well! :3
Thanks for the replies, it has made me joyous this day.
-Talon

Irl is In real life, or in waking life, as you put.
I interact with my characters while I am awake. I go into that state of mind in which you day dream-- lose focus slightly with that around me ( I dare not go entirely, I’m too aware of my enviroment for me to do that…my reflexes when I am startled are bad…^^;:wink: and I go inside my head for a bit, to the place where I think. After that, I try to will Talon and Naknus there, but only ever one at a time… I will try both one day, but one is intimidating enough, with the knowledge I no longer can predict what they say… Anyways, it is not a trance, but I do KIND OF go into a trance when I speak with them… I did this way of going lucid right before I slept, I was in bed already, sleepy… so perhaps I was mostly asleep while I spoke with them…

Did I answer your question…?

I was wondering the same thing. I think it answered my question. So… let’s see, is this how it goes? You relax somewhere and enter “mindspace”, then imagine Aria into the space, and then you ‘summon’ one of those two main characters and begin talking to them. Do I kind of get it? I want to learn how to do this. It’s sounds brilliant

Lol, no… Mindspace and Aria are two different places.
However, they are both personal to me… you can make places all your own! It doesn’t matter the name… Mindspace is the name of the place where I go think, and Aria is a world I am designing in my head. Aria is where my characters live, and is a personal project of mine to draw and publish one day…

But anyways, since both are closely related ( I visually imagine them in my head, they are seperated by a wall) my characters can go from one to another, but LIVE in Aria.

I go and relax, usually in bed as I fall asleep (for this at least), ‘will’ (summon) the character I want to talk to (usually only Talon or Naknus, because I can talk to all my characters in Aria…).

I have ‘organised’ what’s inside my head with three primary levels:
Aria, which I made myself, thus the closest to the surface,

Mindspace, my consious mind where my thoughts are, connected to Aria, but visually I see it diagonal and lower from Aria.

Then my unconsious mind, which is connected to mindspace, and again, lower and diagonal to. They’re all connected like steps, at different levels.

When I sleep, I have the belief that my dreams start in mindspace, and may even occur in it. But my dreams come from my unconsious mind. SO, by having highly developed characters, I can put them in mindspace as I sleep and try to convince them to get me lucid. But…since the key is to have characters seperate from your consious control to do this…

I can’t always convince them to do it! Hah XD.

Yesterday, I couldn’t convince Naknus to get me lucid, and it’s hard convincing Talon to do ANYTHING. So she halfheartedly said she’d try… meh… Regardless to say I didn’t go lucid… but I had lots of vivid dreams… that I can only remember scenes of! XD Ah well. Lucid dreams I always remember each time so…

Yus. Did I answer the question…? O-o; (forgive the ramble)

What I gather so far is that Talon Arana is your character you’ve created in your mind. When you go to sleep you know this character so well that it appears in your Dream and will make you become Lucid. Forgive me but this sounds a little strange to me… are these 9 characters sort of “imaginary” friends or are they characters you’ve thought up and are using for the purpose of your dreams?

As you said, it took you 3-4 years to develop your characters but… to develop your characters what sort of steps did you take? As in, did you lie in bed thinking of first the name, then the looks, etc. and go over them repeatedly so you remember them clearly? I find it difficult to think up an entire personality in which I would know off by heart.

Well, first of all, my 9 characters were never made with the intention to help me in dreams, they are characters I draw in a story SET in Aria. I roleplay with them, draw them, write stories with them. Everything you’d expect a character to be. But I took another step, because I know from interviews with certain manga artists, that the key to conveying a convincing character is to treat them like real people, and get to know them as much as possible. I gave them as much life as I could, and for Talon and Naknus, they turned out much more realistic then the rest (personality wise). And, it’s not that Talon appears in my dreams (naknus never did) It’s that I believe they exist solely in my mind, so I can ask them to help me with related subjects. So…Maybe this works for me, because in this complex way I convince myself “someone will help me go lucid” or maybe me characters actually do something, in the way I have made things work in my head… I dunno :P.

Call them ‘imaginary friends, tools’ whatever you’d like, :3 I use my characters in an array of things, expressing myself through art is one, helping in my contemplation is another ( I constantly think, having a kind-of-but-not-really view of things is nice, since I detach myself from their character early on in development), even stress relief. Lucid dreaming, since it has been an intrest of mine for almost half a year now, has become one of the things I use my characters for, and the only ones that seem to fit the work is Talon and Naknus, my most developed.

I developed my characters through roleplaying, and just adding to them as I see fit.
Mostly, when I make a character, I get a flash of how they will be, and work towards that by drawing them and giving that vague body a kind of personality. After awhile of trying to make them convincing to myself, they eventually start to become almost automatic in their responces.

E.g: When making Ein, I saw a quiet hateful type, so I would test that out with roleplaying, and he changed into a more quiet, thoughtful type, with much hidden stress and such…

Well my point is, I made my characters for the fun of it, for the joy of drawing them, roleplaying with them, writing stories about them… and sharing them with others who might be interested. It didn’t occur to me to use them as lucidity tools until a few nights ago when it crossed my mind as I was going to sleep…:3

Did I answer you questions…? ^^;

-Talon

Wow lots there… :smile: thanks you definately answered my question.

You say you draw characters… perhaps you’re interested in helping out in LD4ALL Flash Film Project?

Link: [community.ld4all.com/t/ld4all-flash-film-project-2007/24769/1)