Lucid Dreaming

Jim

For the last 6 years I've been experimenting with lucid dreaming. It happens very rarely, about 2 or 3 times a year. For anyone that doesn't know its a dream where the dreamer knows its a dream and can control it.

Last time it happened was a week ago. I was in Norway and had to meet friends of mine the next morning. I dreamt I was hungover and thought "Oh ****, I have to meet these people tomorrow...oh ****, thats in Norway! what am I doing in Ireland....oh wait, this is prob a dream"

Still in the dream I tried to fly, which I could, which indicated to me that it was a dream. Does anyone else lucid dream? Its a balance between doing what you want and waking up. The film Waking Life indicates the two indicators of dreaming is not being able to change the light levels and not being able to read digital dials, which is both true.

Tar.Aldarion

Move to sleeping & dreaming

Mr.Nice Guy

I read about lucid dreaming and found it quite interesting. I found a forum and was considering giving it a shot but I read one guy talking about a nightmare he had which was also a lucid dream and apparently it was more scary than your average nightmare! Wasn't too keen after that. :pac:

Kiith

Can you do anything in these lucid dreams? If so, i'm there

I think i've had one or two in my time, where i realise its a dream, and change the scenario. I usually end up flying around the place, its theres nothing better then a flying dream. Great feeling when you wake up.

Doctor DooM

Moving thread to sleeping and dreaming (OP might get a serious answer here )

Tar.Aldarion

There are other mentions of lucid dreaming here if you want to read them. The dew times I realise I am in a dream, I wake up too soon to be able t do anything about it. I hve woken myself up on purpose doing it though, it's pretty cool.

Mr.Nice Guy

Tara Le d'Arion wrote: »

There are other mentions of lucid dreaming here if you want to read them. The dew times I realise I am in a dream, I wake up too soon to be able t do anything about it. I hve woken myself up on purpose doing it though, it's pretty cool.

How did you wake yourself from the dream?

Tar.Aldarion

Once I realised I was dreaming I just thought to myself and opened my already open eyes, which is weird.

Or you can do what chakote does. heh

Goodshape

That's happened to me too. Like I'm 'testing' to see if I'm dreaming or not...

"Am I dreaming?!... wow.. could be! That'd be really cool! Well, let's try and wake up to see!"

*open eyes*

"wow.. yeah, I was dreaming! And... eh... now I'm not . FAIL"


But when you manage not to be such a dumbass and wake yourself up to see if you were sleeping, lucid dreaming can be very very very cool. I managed to train myself to do it quite often a few years ago but I just don't have the same amount of time for sleeping and laying about as I used to... totally got out of the 'habbit'

Rozabeez

Yeah this happens to me, usually its when something awful is happening and in the dream I recall thinking, "Oh its ok, your alarm will go off at 9, etc."

grizzly

The BBC have an article about how there's been an explosion of interest in it lately. I'd be afraid that years from now they'll get everyone lucid dreaming and the technology will have me continuing to work in my sleep *shudder*

Gumbi

It's certainly fascinating. I think the OP's definition is slightly mis-leading. A lucid dream is one in which you are lucid, ie aware of it being a dream. I don't think this necessarily implies the ability to control it.

In any case, I've had dreams over the years in which I've had vague notions of them being dreams. Sometimes I have urges to do something "cool" thereafter. The thing is, I'm not truly conscious at this point, and am only vaguely, very vaguely (pardon the term) lucid. Is this what it feels like to be aware you're dreaming? Is it possible to be totally aware of your surroundings? Is the experience. Lose to reality? Are you truly fully conscious during a lucid dream? If so, I'd love to give it a real shot

KoolKid

I have had a couple of cases where I rationalized I was dreaming. I basically thought ,this must be a dream because I should could not be here etc etc...
Once you realise that ,you have the ability to wake yourself just by thinking about it.

Gumbi

KoolKid wrote: »

I have had a couple of cases where I rationalized I was dreaming. I basically thought ,this must be a dream because I should could not be here etc etc...
Once you realise that ,you have the ability to wake yourself just by thinking about it.

Was it true awareness, or something similar?

KoolKid

It would be awareness that it was not real. I did not have any other control except the ability to awake from it.

Thunderbird2

Ive had this happen whenever i wake up and go back asleep . Not a huge fan of it. Isnt there another way of doing it where you let yourself get extreamly tired while lying on your back.stay awake but let your body relax compleatly. Your dreaming while your awake and cant move . A friend of mine likes messing around with stuff like this

Dramatik

I've been doing it since I was young, I used to have re-occuring dreams of being chased and then stabbed in the back, because it was a re-occuring dream I started to realise it was the same dream whilst dreaming and therefore I knew what was going to happen. So from then on as soon as I felt a bad/dark atmosphere creeping into the dream I would wake myself up.

So how do you wake yourself up from a bad dream? Basicly you have to realise you are actualy dreaming whilst dreaming which is kind of hard to remember but it gets easier once you've got it into your head and done it a few times. I know this sounds wierd but when I want to wake up I start shaking my head from left to right in the dream and then I just wake up in my bed shaking my head, the movement just seems to wake me up. The hardest thing was actualy remembering to do this whilst actualy in a dream. I haven't had a bad dream since I figured this out.

Once you able to realise you are in a dream you can better control the outcome of the dream if any. If I'm having a boring dream and there's cars in it sometimes I like to break into a car and go driving it's funny cause the car door's are always unlocked and you never need a key to get them started they just start by themselves, I've even ghostied my parents car off a cliff in a dream before just because there was nothing interesting going on in the dream. I'm not sure if that's what you're supposed to use lucid dreaming for but it does make a boring dream more interesting ha ha!

jigital

Thunderbird2 wrote: »

Ive had this happen whenever i wake up and go back asleep . Not a huge fan of it. Isnt there another way of doing it where you let yourself get extreamly tired while lying on your back.stay awake but let your body relax compleatly. Your dreaming while your awake and cant move . A friend of mine likes messing around with stuff like this

I think what you're referring to is a WILD (wake-initiated lucid dream), where you fall asleep without losing consciousness.

ferretone

I've been having lucid dreams now and again for many years. Gradually over time I've become aware of many signals that I'm dreaming. A great part of these have relation to technological devices not working properly: a light switch has no effect on the ambient lighting of a dream, for example; clocks, computers, mobile phones, all do not perform as I expect them to. Even a mirror will often give me big clues: sometimes they've given me a big fright, as they show a completely different facial expression to what I feel on my dream face

Once I start to get these cues, I get one of 2 reactions, either I say "ow I'm dreaming gonna wake up now", which can lead to a succession of amusing attempts. I remember one time when I realised, I was sitting beside the hubby in my dream, and said to him, "oh no, we're dreaming, gotta wake up!" and he said "what do you mean, 'we're dreaming?'", can't believe I missed that cue :rolleyes: This one led into another dreaming/wakie up situation. But ultimately into another lucid dream, once I worked through the layers a bit.

Cos that's the other reaction, I say, "cool, I'm dreaming", after which I do take control, and have a quite euphoric dreaming experience, where I know the laws of reality don't apply, so I can do things I can't when waking. And yes, flying does seem to be top of the list when this happens. It is such a liberating experience to chose a landscape/forest/whatever, and soar across it to your heart's content. And definitely puts you in a fantastic mood starting out the next day. I get this anything from 1-6 times a month throughout the year nowadays.

mhigh86

I'm not sure if I'm having lucid dreams but, I've given up the smokes again, and wear nicotine patches, I normally never remember any dreams, but if I forget to take off the patch before bed I have to most vivid dreams, I;m not able to control what happens while dreaming but I know it's a dream as my surrounding change suddenly, I just have to go with the flow, some crazy stuff though.

aaabbbb

Majority of my dreams are lucid well the ones I remember anyway! I also don't dream that much !!

Casillas

If only this could be controlled through technology, it would make for the greatest gaming console ever invented.

oldfart

I used to be able to do this when I was a child - I wish I never lost the ability - it was amazing. I would (being a child) always start flying around, up over the house like a superhero, but it was always so vivid aswell! I still have the ability to realise when I am dreaming - but as soon as I realise I wake now, instead of being able to control what happens. this only happens me when something bad happens in a dream, and I never have any bad dreams as a result. I also could wake just before my alarm went off, from telling myself what time to get up at before going to sleep. These days I cant wake even when the alarm is going off lol!!
I used to have recurring dreams about tornados too, until one went passed the house last year, I havent dreamt about them since ... would still like to go storm chasing though... it has been a lifelong dream of mine lol

zenno

oldfart wrote: »

I used to be able to do this when I was a child - I wish I never lost the ability - it was amazing. I would (being a child) always start flying around, up over the house like a superhero, but it was always so vivid aswell! I still have the ability to realise when I am dreaming - but as soon as I realise I wake now, instead of being able to control what happens. this only happens me when something bad happens in a dream, and I never have any bad dreams as a result. I also could wake just before my alarm went off, from telling myself what time to get up at before going to sleep. These days I cant wake even when the alarm is going off lol!!
I used to have recurring dreams about tornados too, until one went passed the house last year, I havent dreamt about them since ... would still like to go storm chasing though... it has been a lifelong dream of mine lol

I used to be able to control it as well but now when it happens it's a lot harder and when i awake inside a lucid dream if i think of it too much the surroundings get all fuzzy like a tv screen with no signal and i wake up giving out to myself for losing it.

some of these lucid dreams are just amazing as you are awake inside a real life-life dream and once when i was in one before i was standing on a mountain hill-side on a hot and sunny day and i awake in the dream so i looked at the gravel on the ground and picked up a stone and i couldn't believe how real it was, it was as real as if it was real waking life and i could feel the stone as if it was real and so decided to walk up the mountain for ages until i lost it again but lucid dreams are quite amazing if you can master it.

Anakranox

I had one a few days ago, this is the second one I have had in several months.
This was the best one I experienced so far. I realised it was a dream because there were two identical copies of my pet in the room. Knowing there was just one. I realised it couldn't be real then came to the conclusion that I was dreaming.

I have to admit I became very excited and did the first thing I could think of which was change the shape of my right hand into a physically impossible shape. At this point I was certain that I was dreaming. So I started manipulating my surroundings, able to lift objects, break glass by looking at it, fly and jump incredibly far. If you have achieved true control you can fight back if the dream becomes a nightmare.
Towards the end of the lucid dream I was surrounded by zombies(things that, although not real, I find eerie) and I was able to banish them in a second.

Really excited about doing it again soon!