I’ve read a few threads in the archive about lucid dreaming that took place about a year ago, and a few people seem to be able to do it on here. I’d like to go a little further down the rabbit hole with this thread though.
Now first, by Lucid Dreaming, I dont simply mean “Wow, I have a vivid dream last night” or “Man! That seemed very real to me last night.”
I mean a dream in which you know that you are dreaming, and subsequently are able to control the goings-on in the dream. The knowing that you are dreaming is the key however. Lets try and keep the focus on these kinds of experiences, not simply “I had this really wild dream this one time.”
Im curious mainly if anyone on this board has been able to actually start the process of inducing and reliably having lucid dreams. Seems like a very cool idea.
I’m reading up on it online and it sounds fairly plausible. Its happened to me a few times but they seem to end right when I make the connection that I’m dreaming, which is fairly typical I hear.
[quote]Split wrote:
if u figure out a quick easy way let me know ive had a few over my life and they are awesome[/quote]
Nothing sounds quite quick and easy, although many people seem to be successful with the WBTB technique (Wake-Back-To-Bed) which involved waking up, then going back to bed 30-90 minutes after.
Other techniques include adopting a mantra of “I will recognize that I am dreaming” and keeping a detailed dream journal. The idea is become more aware of your dreams.
There is a WikiBook on it I am reading right now, sounds very interesting.
Ha, quite right. However, I dont quite have the imagination to simply close my eyes and have something seem as “real” as a dream to me. If you do consider yourself very fortunate. I dont think I can make out more than a white line or a moving dot when I close my eyes. I can “imagine” flying, but doing it in a dream would appear to be much more “realistic” to me.
Having control of a dream, which many say they can do (not normally something I place much faith in) seems reasonable because I have done so for fleeting moments myself. Just think of the cool stuff you could do in “dream land.”
I saw one of the threads and started doing some reading… if you search on google search Lucid Dream to find out all about… also try LucidRemix. Its a mp3 that people swear by its 30 minutes long and people usually hook their alarm clocks to it.
Supposedly if you wake up later in the night after about 4 hours and start to play it then, it induces the lucid dream (it is sounds from everyday life like traffic and things that are supposed to make you aware in your dream). I’ve found a decent amount of posts that say it works but I really was just more interested as to see what it was all about. I’ve never tried it though. Good luck
When I was younger I became aware of the concept and had maybe 3 instances of lucid dreaming, the realization itself brought me to wake, I had maybe 5 seconds of “game time” in the dream.
These days I don’t remember my dreams much at all ever upon waking, it’s rare to realize I have dreamed at all. However the last dream I do remember was only a few days ago, it was more of a nightmare actually, I self realized and began to wake up. The weird part is, during this wake up procedure, I opened my eyes and could hear my alarm (music), I could see my hand from the arm my head was laying on, but I could not move, like I was trapped in my body. I also remember at least feeling as if I couldn’t breathe. This lasted 5, maybe 10 at most, seconds as well, but it scared the shit out of me.
…and now I’m sure someone will go find that article that says scientist can’t locate the part of the brain responsible for nightmares or whatever it was, and they are caused by demons ohhh.
ZMA helps to induce remarkably vivid and borderline lucid dreams for me. I say borderline, because I have ‘woken’ in the dream state numerous times after taking ZMA.
However, one of the things to learn to control is not waking yourself up from the realisation that you are dreaming.
I’ve experienced lucid dreaming before, but only in limited, confused outbursts.
However, almost all of my dreams, I directly exert control over. Although I may not be consciously ‘awake’ in the dream state. There is a line in the sand there, but all of this dream stuff is pretty interrelated.
Be careful with the information you trust though. The amount of stupid new-age hippy crap that surrounds dreams and dreaming is staggering. So it can be quite a challenge to find solid information.
There is some interesting phenomena linked to dreams though. Basically, every alien abduction, angel sighting, spoke to god…etc ‘moment’ can be directly linked to dreaming. A lot of strange things happen to your senses in the gray area between being fully asleep and fully awake.
It can carry over into your waking state as well. Once you have wrapped your head around lucid dreaming, and ‘experienced’ it, it can influence your perception in reality, similar to how taking a drug like LSD can have long standing effects and ‘relapse’ like events.
But, rather than trying to find explanations for a lot of this funny and weird stuff, most people just slap some god to it all and call it a day. Ah well. It’s neat stuff though.
[quote]Malevolence wrote:
Be careful with the information you trust though. The amount of stupid new-age hippy crap that surrounds dreams and dreaming is staggering. So it can be quite a challenge to find solid information.
There is some interesting phenomena linked to dreams though. Basically, every alien abduction, angel sighting, spoke to god…etc ‘moment’ can be directly linked to dreaming. A lot of strange things happen to your senses in the gray area between being fully asleep and fully awake.
[/quote]
As stated above I usually dont take the publics word for certain things they claim to be real or work (Aliens,Alternative Medicine,Big Foot,Ghosts, most paranormal phenomenon) but these are something I have experienced myself and almost every I talk to about them. Problem is that everyone has the same thing happen where it only lasts 5 seconds. I’m just trying to see if anyone has been able to make it last longer, which seems plausible.
I also believe that many things like seeing a ghost in your room at night and not being able to move, the “hour of the wolf” TC has talked about, out of body experiences can be explained by either lucid dreams or by waking dreams which are slightly different.
I’m asking on here instead of the Lucid forums because I feel I would get a bias answer over there. I bet if I went to a Big Foot website they would tell me Big foot is real, you know?
I’ve read that there are people who go to sleep with nicotine patches or wake up in the middle of the night and smoke or chew nicorette to induce some powerful lucid dreaming effects. You might look up the mechanism, because there are probably other ways to do it using the same pathways but without the nicotine if you are averse.
This post prompted me to stop lurking for once and comment on something I actually know a thing or two about. It is entirely possible to control your dreams for an extended period of time but it does take work and mostly practice. The first step, though, is inducing consciousness mid-dream which I think probably works differently for everyone.
Methods that i’ve heard of include looking at your hand a few times a day and doing a reality check (by simply looking around and asking yourself “is this all real?”) until this ritual becomes habitual - eventually you will do the same thing during a dream and realize what’s going on. Or wearing a watch that beeps every hour and performing the same reality check. Or simply telling yourself “I am going to realize I’m dreaming tonight” while falling asleep.
The trouble isn’t in realizing you are dreaming, though. The difficulty lies in sustaining your awareness once you’ve realized you’re in a dream. At this point, most people get excited and wake up a few moments later. Don’t let this happen. Keep your cool and focus on your surroundings.
This may sound silly, but if you sense you are losing your grip and are about to wake up, then start spinning. I have no idea why this works but it does. Remain calm and keep yourself busy and don’t let your concentration slide or you may slip right out of your awareness and fall back into ignorance of your dream.
At first, it would probably be best to just practice keeping your awareness and preventing yourself from waking up. Once you are confident that you can remain lucid for more than just a few moments, then you can begin to actually manipulate your environment and control your dream.
Thats Brayton, you clearly have some enthusiasm about the issue.
I’ve read most of what you said on another site so perhaps I should take that advice. The spinning thing sounded weird, but in the event I am able to acheive a controlled dream state, I will keep that in mind.
Also, the mantra thing seems to be a good first step too. Should be interesting if I am able to acheive these kinds of states in my dreams.
Once you get the hang of it, send me a pm and I’ll explain some methods I’ve come up with that might make controlling parts of your dream a little bit easier.
Probably prompted by reading this thread yesterday, last night I had a dream where I was flying through the house, and realized ‘Hey, I’m flying, I must be dreaming,’ and tried to control the dream. At the point it felt like I was imagining, and actually had that thought in the dream as well, and woke up almost right away.
I’ve had a lucid dream. Its an amazing experience. I explored an ice castle populated by Inuits. (we both like low carb diets) At a bar in the ice castle I tried to convince the Inuits that they were just a figment of my imagination by lighting a candle with a little concentration. Somehow the Inuits were unimpressed and just turned around and went about business.
