Lucid Dreaming

[Hachi86]

Ive been trying this for a while. Its when you train yourself during the day to ask yourself, "Am i dreaming?". Then when you fall asleep and actually are dreaming, you ask the question again. If you can determine that you are in fact dreaming, you can do whatever you want to in the dream. Ive done it only once, and of all things i wrecked cars. Has anyone else heard of/done this?

[jamuko]

Man, you make it sound so easy. Determining whether or not you are in a dream is really hard, and even if you do manage to do it, it's still very hard to make it into what someone would call a "lucid dream". Our minds are just so hectic, you have to be very disciplined to be able to accomplish this kind of thing while asleep. And sadly, chances are if you are that disciplined with it, your dreams tend to end up stale and uninteresting.

I have realized my dreams are dreams on occasion, but I can't do it on cue. I have to get lucky and hope my mind works itself out in this way one day, and even when it does, my dream still tends to flow as usual - I have some thought like "Oh cool, this is a dream and I know it lol" and then continue as normal. Either that or I enter a really useless kind of lucid dream where you control EVERYTHING, including the results of your actions and everyone's reactions... not fun at all. Might as well be daydreaming.

Anyway, simply training yourself to think about whether or not you are in a dream is a flawed plan. You are not actually training yourself to prove whether or not you are in a dream - you're really training yourself to think "Am I dreaming? Heh, not this time!" You will continue to think that even when you are actually in a dream after all. In order for it to work, you would really have to PROVE to yourself that what you are experiencing is only a dream. How do you do this? While in a dream, even though it often makes little logical sense, your mind has tricked itself into believing that it does... and no matter what you try to do to prove it to yourself, it is quite easy for your mind to keep tricking you into thinking you're still in reality.

For example... a dream feels real, right? And you also feel like reading this post right now is real too, correct? How are you to know the difference? For all you know, everything you are doing this very second could be a dream. How do you prove that it's not? You can't, because you fully believe that you are in reality. The same thing happens in a dream. I had a dream recently where I questioned several times whether or not the situation was real. I came to the conclusion "of course it's real, it feels real and I am unable to do anything to disprove it." Just like reality.

How do you prove to yourself that your current, very real-seeming experience isn't in fact real? Any experiment you try to do to prove that it is a dream will only work out in such a way that will continue the perception of reality.

[Hachi86]

I didnt take the time to explain it throughly. In order to determine if you are dreaming, you can either read something in the dream and see if it changes because text changes in dreams alot; or you could check the time once or twice.

Once you actually do it, youll probably be so excited that you wake yourself up. I did that a couple times before i actually had a full lucid dream. Its a weird feeling, really hard to describe. Its like there are two of you, one in real life, and the other in the dream. You have to have extreme patience to do this because it will take you a LONG time to actually have a lucid dream unless you are a "natural".

[Kekiz]

I have come to the conclusion i was dreaming before but i usually wake up soon after that because i know im dreaming.

[Reach]

Well, most dreams happen during REM sleep, and during such the brain is highly awake and active, so it is probably possible to more conciously tap into this world. How you go about doing this, however...I would not be the one to tell you.

I have had some experiences where I have been able to manipulate what is happening in the dream, or could force myself to wake up. I could argue that the waking up part might not actually be a concious decision, though manipulating the dream seems like it is.

I suppose a problem with this though is that a lot of my dreams don't make a lot of sense to begin with. Sometimes they're set in familiar settings, but a lot of the time they're not and none of it makes any logical sense or looks familiar aside from the fact I will randomly recognize certain people in this dream, or places I do know are mixed into this hodgepodge of other things.

So, it is hard to say wether or not that dream manipulation is actually a concious process of mine or if it is just what happened. It seemed to me like I was able to manipulate the dream freely in these cases, but looks can be trickery.

Regardless, I seem to be able to force certain dreams, I.E. I can think about something very deeply before going to bed and I usually dream about it. Contextually the dream can change subjects rapidly without control though, and most of the time the dream is forgotten if I do not immediately put into effect eleborate and procedural memory techniques. I would say my memory of it only lasts 20-60 seconds without recall. I assume this is because the dream is probably, for the most part, sensory imagery and most of it won't make it into your working memory unless you immedately start thinking about it. That could also explain while most of it is all ravaged and rather random, but I am not a dream expert. It would be interesting to see exactly what your frontal cortex is actively doing during the dream, which would probably point to wether or not you can consciously control your dream or not. (though, I don't think anyone has 'proven' the frontal cortex is responsible for conscious decisions)

[xjohnieboyx]

I've come to realize that lucid dreams, so to speak, can occur. I don't know to which extent one could control it, however.

I've experienced a self-manipulated dream several times before, but it's not like I was planning on it. It kind of just happened. However, I've gotten the feeling of deja-vu quite a few times during the day, and when I get this feeling, I remember that I saw this in my dream, or something similar to.

I don't know how to explain it otherwise, but basically what I'm trying to say is that I've experienced something pretty weird. I would be going through daily life, then suddenly something would happen that would make me remember my entire dream that night.

It's quite complicated, I assume. The process of sleep is what i call a "mini death" in a sense. Personally, I find it quite hard to explain. Reach said that dreaming occurs in the REM stage of sleep, that's basically all I know

[jewpinthethird]

My friends were big into lucid dreaming and likewise, I was influenced to give it a try. I have been aware that I am dreaming only to wake up shortly afterwards. I know that if you wake up you can attempt to "spin" in your sleep, which supposedly puts you back under, but it never lasts long.

[xjohnieboyx]

What I'm wondering is something like this (referring to the OP, who said he can control his dreams basically): Would you be able to wake up after a dream, fall back asleep, and dream the rest/continuation of the dream you had just dreamt?

[Tokzic]

I once tried to become a lucid dreamer. I asked myself, once an hour, whether or not I was dreaming or not and checked whether or not to see if it was reality. Yes, it was obvious when I was not dreaming, but the idea is to make it so that it was integrated in your life so much that you would do it in your dreams. Once you realize that you are dreaming, it's supposedly easy to manipulate your dream world to a really cool extent. You can create entire worlds, talk to imaginary characters, or even question your subconscious.

I tried to do it for a month, got one lucid dream, woke up upon realizing I was in it, then gave up after another week of nothing.

[slipstrike0159]

An easy way we distinguish reality from a dream is that when we are in this one state (what we call reality) one thing affects another and then the next day things always pick up where you left off the last day. Dreams dont continue, at least not as often as what we call reality and since we all experience it together and the things that happen here affect other people as well as yourself we call it reality.

[Tokzic]

Originally Posted by slipstrike0159

An easy way we distinguish reality from a dream is that when we are in this one state (what we call reality) one thing affects another and then the next day things always pick up where you left off the last day. Dreams dont continue, at least not as often as what we call reality and since we all experience it together and the things that happen here affect other people as well as yourself we call it reality.

I said that it was pathetically effortless to differentiate reality from a dream while conscious. What's difficult is remembering to consider whether or not you are in reality while in a dream.

[waffydude]

I've only had a handful of lucid dreams in my life, but they were always pretty cool experiences.

Apparently, some people have been able to train themselves to have the dreams very often. I remember reading about some professor who consistently had 2-3 lucid dreams a night, or something along those lines. I sometimes tell myself that I'll delve further into the topic and try some stuff for myself, but I never really have the motivation to, unfortunately. Maybe some day.

[Hachi86]

I wanna get really big into it, because there is so much you can do. Ive had failed attempts that have been really weird though. For instance, once i realized i was doing it and woke up, only to realize that i couldnt move and i had an intense feeling of fear.

Another one i had was i was half awake, half dreaming, and i was slipping between the dream world and the real world. There were times where both seemed real, and i was in "two places at once".

[JasonKey]

consistently failed at this for years ..

Simply put, unless I wake up while dreaming .. I don't remember them, so I always thought that had something to do with it.

[talisman]

I have dreams regularly where I have some degree of control over what happens, but they are far from what I would call "lucid". Also, I suspect that they aren't REM dreams but are more stage one/stage two hallucinatory type stuff, because I've found that I can move somewhat during them (and you can't move during REM sleep unless you're messed up). And like others here, if I try to control them too much, I will eventually wake up (which is another reason I suspect they aren't REM dreams).

And reach, my understanding is that the frontal lobes, particularly the ventromedial sections, play a large role in decision making as it regards personal and social situations. But that does not necessarily involve consciousness, or limit consciousness to that area. From what I've studied, consciousness is just whatever is being attended to on the cortex, while some degree of awareness persists for those things that are not being attended to.

[ToshX]

Am I the only one that notices it fairly often?

It's just like "This cannot be real, therefore it is a dream, meaning I can do whatever I want." Then just that happens, usually turning out to be something sexual, rofl.

I really don't know how it works. I don't do anything special, I just realize sometimes that it's a dream. It happens maybe, I don't know, once every week or two? It isn't like an every night thing, but it is a considerable amount.

But there's some nights when you're dreaming and know it, along with having FULL awareness of what's going on, but you still can't make some stuff happen. It's odd, really. What's even more odd is you can spawn things that you've never even thought of before, such as the worlds people were talking about.

So basically, even if you learn to control it, you aren't guaranteed that you will REALLY be able to control it.

[Z3ratul]

Originally Posted by jamuko

I have to get lucky and hope my mind works itself out in this way one day, and even when it does, my dream still tends to flow as usual - I have some thought like "Oh cool, this is a dream and I know it lol" and then continue as normal.

Basically describes it for me. I'll either have some self-awareness that goes away after a few seconds, or I become self-aware and wake up not too long after. I've certainly realized I'm dreaming, but very rarely do I ever remember having any control over my dream. Usually it's just me doing these actions in a dream, feeling emotions, etc, and at the same time, being a seeming third-person observer that has no control over my actions... rather, just watching them unfold like a movie.

As far as pursuing 'lucid dreaming', my best suggestion is mainly to do what you're doing. You want to have an active, conscious check on your reality when you're awake so that when you're asleep, you can use that check to determine what the case is. Usually I use something that has a predictable effect. Look at a clock, turn away for a few moments, and look at the clock again and verify that it's the same time (or one minute off, w/e). Or, take a good look at your hands- count and wiggle each of your fingers to ten. The theory here is that while dreams are very much like reality in how we feel and how it displays itself, there are usually inconsistencies within our own mind that the real world wouldn't have. This way, when you look back at the clock it will probably have a different time, or at observing your hands, you may not have all ten fingers (I recall this happening to myself in a dream once). Figure something out for yourself along these lines... that's the best thing I can think of. How to stay in a lucid state, however, probably just requires practice. Not being surprised at all by your newfound awareness.

Hope that helps. It's not something I go out of my way to try and achieve, but when it does, I enjoy it while it lasts.

Ps: I love it when CT turns into anecdote.

[8Shade8]

Hmm, lucid dreamin. Happened to me once, and thats about it. I just realize I was dreaming about being in New York, and I wanted to be able to jump really high. So I started jumping around sky scrapers. They supposedly have pills that induce lucid dreaming, but I have friends that are really into it, and they say a half of a 20oz. of Coke will help you get into the state.

They gave me pretty specific instructions. Once a day you have to look at your hand and say to yourself "if I see my hand in my sleep I will be aware of what I am doing." This is supposed to set some kind of reaction in your unconsiousness. Its like when you start to sneeze you automatically cover your mouth. This is supposed to be the same principle. Also they said that when you do actually become concious in your dream, do not freak out and get excited, otherwise you will wake up.

They gave me other tips too. When you are lucid dreaming and you want to change something, you can't just think about it and it will happen. You have to think about it and then turn a page of a book, or walk around a corner, to change the landscape or something. They said once you do this though, to not try and look back wondering where it is, because then logic will kick in and you will wake up. Don't try to make sense of anything.

Hope this helps

[ShadowSkill]

Originally Posted by jewpinthethird

My friends were big into lucid dreaming and likewise, I was influenced to give it a try. I have been aware that I am dreaming only to wake up shortly afterwards. I know that if you wake up you can attempt to "spin" in your sleep, which supposedly puts you back under, but it never lasts long.

'Spin' can also be used to quickly wake yourself up from a dream.

[RandomPscho]

What is spin?