Lucid Dreaming

[cleef]

Anyone else here ever experienced this?

For those that have never heard of this concept lucid dreaming it is a dream in which the person is aware that he or she is dreaming while the dream is in progress

also what do you think the reasons are for dreams in the first place?

[Hit The North]

Given the lack of philosophical content I'm going to move this thread to Science and Environment as it appears to be a psychological or brain-function issue.

[benhur]

Anyone else here ever experienced this?

For those that have never heard of this concept lucid dreaming it is a dream in which the person is aware that he or she is dreaming while the dream is in progress

also what do you think the reasons are for dreams in the first place?

It's happened to me three or four times. Once I was able to move objects (in the dream, once I became lucid), but when I tried to fly, I couldn't. Most Buddhists believe there isn't much diff. between the real and dream world. While dreaming, you feel it's real, in which case this 'real world' appears false. While waking up, the dream world becomes false, and so on. This is their argument.

[which doctor]

It's happened to me three or four times. Once I was able to move objects (in the dream, once I became lucid), but when I tried to fly, I couldn't. Most Buddhists believe there isn't much diff. between the real and dream world. While dreaming, you feel it's real, in which case this 'real world' appears false. While waking up, the dream world becomes false, and so on. This is their argument.
I don't believe I've ever achieved lucid dreaming. I used to be very interested in it and would take a variety of supplements (B6, Melatonin, passionflower) to help stimulate the process. I did have some pretty crazy and vivid dreams, but nothing lucid.

[rednordman]

I also have experienced this. Frankly its very weird, but in a cool way. An example of this is of dreams where i am out and about, and i end up offending someone close to me or causing damage to property (please dont ask me why i dream about this, i'v no idea). I'll initially feel very guilty like i would if it was really to happen, but then in all the panic and remorse, i realise that its a dream, but don't wake up immedietly, so its like im conscious when i'm unconcscious (sounds strange i know). Then i may try something crazy in the dream, but thats when i wake up:D.

[Dean]

I also have experienced this. Frankly its very weird, but in a cool way. An example of this is of dreams where i am out and about, and i end up offending someone close to me or causing damage to property (please dont ask me why i dream about this, i'v no idea). I'll initially feel very guilty like i would if it was really to happen, but then in all the panic and remorse, i realise that its a dream, but don't wake up immedietly, so its like im conscious when i'm unconcscious (sounds strange i know). Then i may try something crazy in the dream, but thats when i wake up:D.

Maybe it has to do with the moral aloneness that communists experience in a society that values private property.

As for lucid dreaming... I believe that "night hallucinations" are a form of it, I've definitely experienced it.

[rednordman]

Maybe it has to do with the moral aloneness that communists experience in a society that values private property.

As for lucid dreaming... I believe that "night hallucinations" are a form of it, I've definitely experienced it.
mmm...interesting. That certainly makes sense, even though i'v had dreams like that for quite a long time, childhood included.
Are night hallucinations the freaky things that you can sometimes see when you awake very quickly from sleep and your vision is all distorted and messed up (sometimes you can even see objects/faces that where in the dream for a very brief moment)?

[Dust Bunnies]

Every time I dream I always believe it is somewhat real for some reason... Even when I can teleport by snapping my fingers and then I do some crazy things, I fail to realize that it is a dream. I guess it is a good thing even in my sub-conscious I don't go run around and destroy things?

I even had a dog bite me in a dream, didn't feel anything, but yet though maybe my clothes absorbed it or something...

[Kukulofori]

I'm an experienced lucid dreamer, I wrote an FAQ on it for GameFAQs. Fun stuff.

The secret is to will it. If you do anything beyond that you're trying too hard and doing more harm than good.

It's like learning how to walk.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

I've sometimes realised I'm in a dream, but that realisation usually causes me to wake up. The thing is though, some really wierd things have happened in my dreams without me realising that I was dreaming. That's why nightmares scare the fuck out of me.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Once I had a dream that I was being that I was in a car chase, and very distantly, in my dream, I could hear Bruce Springsteen's "Born In The USA" in the background. It got increasingly louder and louder, and I began to think, "Am I in a dream?" A few seconds later, I woke up. (I forgot to turn my radio off before I went to sleep, and Born in the USA was playing.)

I think that's the closest I've ever come.

[mikelepore]

Anyone else here ever experienced this?

For those that have never heard of this concept lucid dreaming it is a dream in which the person is aware that he or she is dreaming while the dream is in progress

This happens to me a lot. The sequence is always like this: at first everything seems like normal reality. But then I notice one thing wrong with the environment, for example, a new wall has appeared in my house, or there are two moons, or Chicago is in Japan, or some other detail that I realize is incorrect. Then I ask myself, what's more likely, that someone has really made such a change, or that this is a dream? I always conclude that it's more probable that it's a dream. Now I know, but usually I still can't control situations, although I often try. If something unpleasant is going on, I just have to wait until it disappears by itself.

But when the location of the dream story is far away, I can always find my way home. I remember the geography of where I live in the Hudson River valley, so I float up in the sky far enough to recognize the outline of the continent, and there's New York harbor, then I follow the river north to my home town. So if it's an unpleasant dream, I get out of the situation by floating to my own house, and I will wait there for myself to wake up.



also what do you think the reasons are for dreams in the first place?

This is a guess. I think it has something to do with Freud's principle that consciousness is a threshold level. It's like when a bump in the ocean floor rises above the water level, we say: there's an island; but if that same island is below the surface we see only the water. In the mind we have many thoughts that don't have enough intensity to rise above the threshold of awareness, so we are thinking them but we don't know that we are thinking them. A subset of our thoughts have sufficient amplitude to rise above the threshold of consciousness, so we know that we are having those thoughts. When we go to sleep, the sensory inputs are disabled. The threshold drops to such a low level that we become aware of the normally unconscious contents of random memory locations, or perhaps the hopes, fears, etc. that keep cycling around in us. The neocortex always needs patterns, so it makes up a story out of these random memory reads. The visual cortex and other sensory regions will act on any inputs available rather than be idle, so the brain produces the feeling that the made-up story is coming in through the senses.

Don't bet on any of this. Not really my field of specialty. I'm a physics and engineering person.

[which doctor]

Once I had a dream that I was being that I was in a car chase, and very distantly, in my dream, I could hear Bruce Springsteen's "Born In The USA" in the background. It got increasingly louder and louder, and I began to think, "Am I in a dream?" A few seconds later, I woke up. (I forgot to turn my radio off before I went to sleep, and Born in the USA was playing.)

I think that's the closest I've ever come.
I've experiences similar phenomenon. It's interesting how reality and fantasy can meet like that.

[Dean]

Once I had a dream that I was being that I was in a car chase, and very distantly, in my dream, I could hear Bruce Springsteen's "Born In The USA" in the background. It got increasingly louder and louder, and I began to think, "Am I in a dream?" A few seconds later, I woke up. (I forgot to turn my radio off before I went to sleep, and Born in the USA was playing.)

I think that's the closest I've ever come.

I constantly experience music in my dreams. I often imagine being spoken to as a singer serenades me from my speakers...

Once when I was in high school, I was having a dream about this hot girl I was after at the time. In the dream, I was talking to her and a couple friends on a beach. Suddenly she starts running from me, along the beach. I run after her, and after a while she stops, turns and yells "Go home to your mother - this isn't some communist day care center! &c."

I woke up, continuing to hear it, and this is how I discovered the secret track on "Misery Machine." I was terrified for a second that someone was in my room yelling at me.

[eyedrop]

I have been dabbling with lucid dreaming before. I would recommend the book Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming for anyone interested in practising at it. It is written as an introductionary book by Stephen Laberge. The scientist who developed an experiment where he could communicate to the other sleep scientists with special eyemovements in his dream while they stimulated him with flashes of light. The book is quite good and thourough although it has some spiritual overtones in a few chapters.


In my own personal experiences I could do some quite interesting things when I was at my top. When I had an uncomfortable dream, I could lay down in the morning and redream the dream while changing a few parts of it so it ended up being a positive dream instead so I wake up in a perfectly good mood.

I think I got about 3-4 A4 notebooks full of notes on my dreams, but I ended up quitting working on it as it took too much energy. Spending half an hour wriing down dreams every morning wasn't really worth my meager results.

[cleef]

I have been dabbling with lucid dreaming before. I would recommend the book Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming for anyone interested in practising at it. It is written as an introductionary book by Stephen Laberge. The scientist who developed an experiment where he could communicate to the other sleep scientists with special eyemovements in his dream while they stimulated him with flashes of light. The book is quite good and thourough although it has some spiritual overtones in a few chapters.


In my own personal experiences I could do some quite interesting things when I was at my top. When I had an uncomfortable dream, I could lay down in the morning and redream the dream while changing a few parts of it so it ended up being a positive dream instead so I wake up in a perfectly good mood.

I think I got about 3-4 A4 notebooks full of notes on my dreams, but I ended up quitting working on it as it took too much energy. Spending half an hour wriing down dreams every morning wasn't really worth my meager results.

Yes i would definetley recommend that book (i have an ebook copy for all interested) and i am not sure a dream diary is entirely neccesary although it does greatly help improve results

[eyedrop]

A dream diary was neccesary for me to be able to remember dreams with some frequency. When I did it I was able to remember from 1 to 4 dreams every night. Usually I only remember a dream once every second month.:(

[cleef]

i guess i must just be lucky in that i remember around 3 dreams a night anyway without the use of a diary, as you say it is a tiring process and you need alot of motivation...


if you want to increase the chance of this i'd suggest waking up around 1 1/2 - 2 hours earlier than you normally would staying up for at least 15 minutes then going back to bed for the remainder of your sleep...

[eyedrop]

On the other hand I always get a book full of funny little short stories when I write a dream-diary. I'm thinking of taking it up again. It's always amusing going to bed wondering what crazy little stories your mind will have shown you after sleeping.

Unfortunately I get little enough sleep as it is and i shouldn't divide it up even further with a 15 break in the morning.

But the main point of the dream-diary for me is to get me too think of what I have dreamt in the morning.

[Dystisis]

I had a lucid nightmare once. That wasn't very fun.

It was in "halfsleep", I was barely sleeping at all. Reality and dream kind of mixed, my nightmare continued even after I woke up... Pretty shaking.

[Dust Bunnies]

I recently had the power of lucidity recently, but the dream ended and I do not remember the next dream. Although it can be a bit scary when your sub-conscious meets your consciousness. I was trying to sleep and all I saw was an evil face and felt a chill, I opened my eyes and wished I would never experience a half way nightmare like that.

[Forward Union]

I've had a lucid dream once before. Once I realised I was in a dream I decided I could mess about. As soon as I started to conciously move I woke myself up. Other people are more lucky.

Studies have shown that once in a Lucid dream you can pretty much do anything you choose to imagine. With a few notable exceptions including;

Reading. You can't read anything in a Lucid dream, words are gibberish, blurry, changing or nonsensical. Apparently it can be fun trying though.

Tell the time. Clock times change sporadically. Mechanical clocks tend to have no visable numbers, or you wont be able to understand the time. Digital clocks just change every time you look at them. Could be 8:15 then 23:45 or whatever.

See your reflections. Most subjects didn't see anything, many have said they only see 'monsters' 'deamons' or 'corpses' staring back at them. Normally triggering a nightmare. I find that qute interesting, it's either one or the other. Maybe says alot about humanity.
There have obviously been lots of studies into lucid dreams, and there's nothing particularly mysterious about them. They've even managed to pin down efective techniques for having them. Supposedly going to bed in a state of exhastion, having a regular dream, waking up to think about that dream for several minutes and falling back to sleep enduces a Lucid dream with a 60% success rate.

People are confusing Lucid dreaming with halfsleep and vivid dreams. Make no mistake, a lucid dream is exactly like the present time. Look around the room, think about it, that's how your mind operates in a lucid dream. You could even think about this thread, or what you'll do in the morning, current affairs, anything you want. Except your suroundings are fiction.

[Dean]

I've had a lucid dream once before. Once I realised I was in a dream I decided I could mess about. As soon as I started to conciously move I woke myself up. Other people are more lucky.

Studies have shown that once in a Lucid dream you can pretty much do anything you choose to imagine. With a few notable exceptions including;

Reading. You can't read anything in a Lucid dream, words are gibberish, blurry, changing or nonsensical. Apparently it can be fun trying though.

Tell the time. Clock times change sporadically. Mechanical clocks tend to have no visable numbers, or you wont be able to understand the time. Digital clocks just change every time you look at them. Could be 8:15 then 23:45 or whatever.

See your reflections. Most subjects didn't see anything, many have said they only see 'monsters' 'deamons' or 'corpses' staring back at them. Normally triggering a nightmare. I find that qute interesting, it's either one or the other. Maybe says alot about humanity.
There have obviously been lots of studies into lucid dreams, and there's nothing particularly mysterious about them. They've even managed to pin down efective techniques for having them. Supposedly going to bed in a state of exhastion, having a regular dream, waking up to think about that dream for several minutes and falling back to sleep enduces a Lucid dream with a 60% success rate.

People are confusing Lucid dreaming with halfsleep and vivid dreams. Make no mistake, a lucid dream is exactly like the present time. Look around the room, think about it, that's how your mind operates in a lucid dream. You could even think about this thread, or what you'll do in the morning, current affairs, anything you want. Except your suroundings are fiction.

Interesting - do you have a link for this info?

[Forward Union]

Interesting - do you have a link for this info?

There is plenty on the Wiki page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucid_dreaming

Even more interesting



Common reality tests include:

The nose reality check: Pinch your nose and if you are able to breathe without using your mouth, it is a dream.[34] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucid_dreaming#cite_note-33)
Try to stick your finger through the palm of your hand.[35] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucid_dreaming#cite_note-34)
Looking at one's digital watch (remembering the time), looking away, and looking back. As with text, the time will probably have changed randomly and radically at the second glance or contain strange letters and characters. (Analog watches do not usually change in dreams, while digital watches have great tendency to do so.)[36] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucid_dreaming#cite_note-35)
Flipping a light switch. Light levels rarely change as a result of the switch flipping in dreams.[37] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucid_dreaming#cite_note-light-and-mirror-36)
Looking into a mirror; in dreams, reflections from a mirror often appear to be blurred, distorted, incorrect or frightening.[37] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucid_dreaming#cite_note-light-and-mirror-36)
Looking at the ground beneath one's feet or at one's hands. If one does this within a dream the difference in appearance of the ground or one's hands from the normal waking state is often enough to alert the conscious to the dream state.[38] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucid_dreaming#cite_note-hands-and-ground-37)

[mikelepore]

The reading test stopped working for me years ago. At first I could look at a sign and after a few seconds the letters of the alphabet would always begin turning into triangles and other shapes. But then that stopped, and I could stare at a printed sign with no changes to the letters, at least long enough so I would forget to continue staring at it, and I would turn away too quickly.

When I tried a page of a book I couldn't tell the difference between the inability to read it at all and the environment being too foggy and dimly lit to read it, or my contact lenses being lost.

Something that usually works with me is that gravity doesn't work correctly. A thrown object appears to moves at a constant vertical speed, it fails to slow down as it's rising, and it fails to speed up as it's falling. Then I say to myself that it looks like normal gravity has been turned off. After I say that, I'm able to float into the sky. I can control my sideways direction but frustrated that I can't control my altitude or speed. So I just float toward home at the slow speed which I'm unable to change.

One time my only hint that it wasn't real was that I went back to visit my parents' old house where I grew up, and no longer have any belongings there, but I saw my desk there. Everything else was normal. I couldn't control anything, so I just continued the visit with the family, notifying everyone I saw that they didn't really exist, which made each person laugh.

[Pirate turtle the 11th]

Oh i get those like bi-weekly.

Great fun.

[Mecha_Shiva]

Has anyone ever had this happen to them? Sometimes Ill be having a dream or I just wake up for no reason. But when I wake up, like just my brain wakes up, not the rest of my body! It's so scary. Like I can't move at all I can't even open my eyes. I'm stuck like this for what feels like hours, but it's prolly only like a few min. And the whole time in my head I'm like "MOVE YOUR ARM, OPEN YOUR EYES ,COME ON, COME ONE, WHAT THE FUCK, MOOOVE!" No one else I ask so far has said this happens to them too. But it happens to me at least once a week.

I kinda have lucid dreams in a way I think. Ill be dreaming, and I get something really cool, like a pretty neckalace or once I had a dog, and then I'll realize I'm dreaming and i don't really have the thing in real life. And then I won't want to wake up cuz I know when I wake up it'll be gone, but then I wake up anyway and I'm sad. But I can't control what happens in the dream at all.
But the not being able to move thing is really freaky, sometimes I can't sleep cuz I know it might happen.:crying:

[Hostage]

Has anyone ever had this happen to them? Sometimes Ill be having a dream or I just wake up for no reason. But when I wake up, like just my brain wakes up, not the rest of my body! It's so scary. Like I can't move at all I can't even open my eyes. I'm stuck like this for what feels like hours, but it's prolly only like a few min. And the whole time in my head I'm like "MOVE YOUR ARM, OPEN YOUR EYES ,COME ON, COME ONE, WHAT THE FUCK, MOOOVE!" No one else I ask so far has said this happens to them too. But it happens to me at least once a week.



That may be the case that you're not really awake.. there are types of other dreams called: False Awakenings.

Where you'd 'wake up' in your room in a dream, and it would be just as real like if you got up for real.

My most cases of lucid dreaming were always heavily nightmarish false awakenings, which somehow would even reach the amount of 15 false awakenings in a night! Once i remember waking up in another dream for 5 consecutive times, and they were all nightmares.

As for reality checks, I used to try to put on the light, and check the colour of the walls and the size of my bed.. if anything of these were weird or the lights wouldn't light up.. then i'm dreaming. (it becomes a habit to do reality checks then, if you think about it hard)

Something you might not want to experience if you're not so into experimenting with your sleep.. is sleep paralysis. Its a state where your mind goes in a deep sleep suddenly, for example waking up in the middle of a sleep.. spending 15mins awake and suddenly, bang, you're asleep.. it feels like alot of things, i've had 5 in my life and they were all fucked up beyond belief

You are paralysed and feel alot of pins and needles and you're totally 'concious' and you feel stuff like; aural hallucinations, you're convinced something very evil is in the room (like some demon), feel getting pulled off your bed, feel stuff touching you, or something that happened only once to me.. i felt the bed sheets go off, but somehow i could pull them up.. suddenly i felt something warm laying on its side right behind me.. when i thought about it, i realised it was me looking at myself while i was into the paralysis.. it was so fucked up haha

Now i dont dream anymore though, i used to love the adrenaline rushes i used to get i would be scared to death haha

Ps: after a sleep paralysis.. you go in the lucidest dream evar!

[eyedrop]

Sligthly wrong on what a sleep paralysis is.

When you are in the REM fase, of your sleep, your body is paralysed so all the movements you do in your dream doesn't translate over to movements of your body.

Here is a part of an article explaining it.
Sleep paralysis occurs sometimes when a person
is waking from or falling into REM sleep, the state in which most
vivid dreams occur. During REM sleep, the muscles of the body,
excluding the eye muscles and those responsible for circulation
and respiration, are immobilized by orders from a nerve center in
the lower brain. This prevents us from acting out our dreams.
Occasionally, this paralysis turns on or remains active while the
person's mind is fully awake and aware of the world.

Some of the experiences people have reported during sleep
paralysis are: "I feel completely removed from myself," "feeling
of being separated from my body," "eerie, rushing experiences,"
and hearing "hissing in the ears," and "roaring in the head."
These events appear to be much like the OBE sensations of
vibrations, strange noises, and drifting away from the physical
body (Everett, 1983). Fear has also been described as a common
component of sleep paralysis (see the "Question and Answer" in
NightLight, Vol. 2, No. 1 for a discussion of overcoming fear in
sleep paralysis.)



Article (http://lucidity.com/NL32.OBEandLD.html)

[Dust Bunnies]

Hm, maybe in the future someone will invent a machine where if your hooked up to it can give you a lucid dream. Many times I forget to do a reality check and think my dreams are real life. :blushing: