Lucid Dreams
 

What are they exactly, and why do so many people practice them?

To put it simply, a lucid dream is a dream in which the sleeper is aware that they are dreaming and they can actively participate in the dream and control the imagery of the dream. It's been researched scientifically and its existence has been well-established.

I've personally never been able to have a lucid dream.

So are you seeing yourself through 3rd person or 1st person in the dream?

I think it depends on the person, if you are someone who usually dreams in 1st person than it will most likely be through 1st person, and vice versa.

Lucid dreaming is basically the idea once you become fully aware that you're dreaming, you're able to have total control of everything that goes own, you become a god of your own dreamstate.

I have had a lot of dreams where I became aware that I was dreaming, but I have never been able to manipulate my dream environment, there's some kind of technique to it or some sh*t. Would like to learn, because that would be f*cking awesome.

I tend to have just about any kind of dream, from both 1st and 3rd person perspectives, surreal dreams, vivid dreams, my mind is so f*cked up I never know what to expect.

I've had several lucid dreams, but how much control I have over the sleep environment varies. Sometimes I'll suddenly be aware I'm only dreaming when there's something unpleasant going on and then it's a kind of relief and I just shift the dream onto a more pleasant course. Sometimes the awareness that it's just a dream is a little more lasting and I actively try to use it, usually I try to fly :laughing: But I don't usually have full control. Typically, it's a bit hard to gain height above ground.

My perspective (such as 1st, 3rd) in the dreams can change as well, I think.

edit :

Thread moved to Lounge and cleaned up.

I've had a lot of dreams that basically looked like non-existant 2D platformer games.

And a lot that looked like cartoons.

For me that's really no surprise.

someone has been watchin vanillia sky way too much

(p.s. good to see you boo)

If I have a dream it'll frequently be lucid. A while back I started becoming aware that I was dreaming, usually at this point I'd wake up out of surrise I guess but eventually began to take that in my stride. After which I became more and more determined that this was my dream so I'll do what I damn well please in it. Sometimes that doesn't work so well, others it can be pretty successful. Though another way to look at it would be to say I'm not controlling the dream, my subconscious is telling me what's going to happen next and I'm convincing myself that I'm determining the direction of the dream. Sometimes it's hard to tell.

I have woken up for a few minutes and I have been able to put myself back into the same dream as it were. This usually happens in the summer when it's light around 5-7 AM so I know I have woken up checked the clock knowing it's too early to get up and slipped back into the dream. Obviously this is only the pleasant dreams.

Slightly off topic but I have had a few dreams where you seem to meet your perfect partner but you have never seen them before in your damn life. Talking about a kick in the balls when you wake up :(

^^^
That happened me once in a dream. I met some cool girl and she seemed like the perfect girl for me, like i've been waiting my entire life for her and it felt like it was for real. Then i woke up...

I don't think i've ever had a proper lucid dream but i have had dreams where i seemed to have some control to a degree. I'd love to be able to experience one though, i must look into the topic a bit more.

i found practicing simple transcendental meditation while going to sleep was the best way to trigger lucid dreams / out of body experieneces.

i've had the dreams a handful of times and the OOB once for sure. the dreams are kind of odd in my experience, the element of control does not directly correlate to the control you have over your faculties while you're awake. in my lucid dreams the control was more in terms of where i would focus my experience (choosing where to look / what to smell etc.)

as for the OOB action, i used to wake up and be able to see the room i was in clearly. that's simply not possible. i wear glasses and always take them off before going to sleep. after a few mornings of this i figured my consciousness was waking up before my body so i put it to the test and tried leaving my room. made it to the doorway of my room then decided to 'look' back to see if i could see my body in my bed. as i turned i was filled with the most intense feeling of dread i've ever had and my vision went white and i forced myself to wake up (in bed).

that was around 2001 and i haven't tried it since. it's not that i don't want to so much as not practicing the meditation nearly enough anymore.

The art of controlling your dreams. I've been doing this ever since I can remember.

how is it that I've never even heard of this before! Very interesting. I have some pretty weird dreams (mostly stressful, subconcious needs somewhere to put it all) but if i had even a little bit of control....hmm

Do you wake up more or less rested than usual? Cause how much I dream usually has a direct corollation to how rested i feel in the mornings.

When I lucid dream, I get the same amount of rest as any other night. If I happen to wake up naturally and uninterrupted however, I'm definitely in a good mood. Because you are controlling the circumstances in your dream, waking up happy tends to be a side effect. :]

Nothing sucks more than being awoken when you're in the midst of an awesome lucid dream (or any dream for that matter).

I've always been interested in the dimensions and benifits of meditation, but now im REALLY interested. I will have to look into this very soon. Unfortunitely meditation is not really a book-learning skill :(

I dreamed last night I was on a boat in a sea of richy black liquid, the sea went out in all directions, and several large candles extended upwards from it, like watchtowers, the melted wax splashed tidal waves which rocked the boat two and fro', I flowed to the boat motion noticing that some of the candle towers were melting down to the stump, the flame nearly touching the water. I turned my camera and realized I was made of wood, I couldn't move and my feet were nailed to the stern of the ship, I tried to scream but I couldn't because I was obviously wood. Then I heard the sound of my friend Alec doing a bad rendition of the opening riff from Smoke on the Water and a giant radish with a caricatured face of Robert Fripp burst from the thick black water and opened its mouth to reveal teeth as thin as needles in several hundread rows, the teeth began to roar like an engine and spun in a circular motion, like some chainsaw vortex of horror. As Robert the Radish enveloped me in its buzzing mouth I thought about using the blunt side of a katana as a resonator.

I woke up naked in my bathroom. My fists were bloody.

@VeggieLover: You should! By the way, meditation is different for everyone. The general consensus is that you find somewhere quiet to just focus on your thoughts. However, I sometimes meditate while listening to music (I mean, really paying attention to the sounds), or by writing stream of conscience style thoughts. There's no right or wrong way to meditate!

my mind tends to run in circles constantly (unless im stoned, unlike a lot of normal ppl) so the few times ive tried i just kind of get this background moving color blob of thoughts in the background, not really meditation.
One of my guy friends meditates all the time, and while i know its different for everyone, I'll probably ask him for a few tips.

Terrible Lizard, I'm a bit worried about the whole bloodied fist thing. Perhaps you should not get that intoxicated around hazardous objects (with your clothes off anyway)

Ahaha
Sometimes drugs do help. Good luck!

lol you guys are going to get a trip outta my dreams. I'll let you know since I'm going to bed now. Tomorrow will be a new post and you guys will have a good laugh.

Never lucid dreamed before, although I've sort of controlled them before. But I either lose control of it rather quickly, or I just wake up. I've always wanted to though.

I seem to have a lot of weird/funny dreams though. Last night I dreamed that me and few friends were at cedar Point. Almost every roller coaster that we rode broke down or collapsed while we were on it, but we all somehow survived. The only rides that didn't break were the water slides, but whenever I tried to go down one of them, I would slip on the water while trying to get on the slide and fell flat on my back, and when it hit the water I somehow ended up on the bottom of the slide in an instant, almost like I was slipping down them. After the day was over we all went and stayed the night in a large apartment complex made out of cardboard that was inside the park. Inside the rooms there were no beds or anything, it was just a large, somewhat dark and filthy room with one light bulb sticking out of the ceiling. People would often visit from other rooms by tearing down the weak cardboard walls, which would always instantly repair themselves whenever I wasn't looking at them. Me and my friends were sitting at a small table talking to each other until one of them brought out a huge suitcase. He opened it and it was filled with a bunch of individually wrapped up joints, which everybody except for me smoked. Everybody would lean back in their chairs, take the first puff and then fall over where they would all lay with their backs to ground, acting like a dog getting it's belly rubbed would, loudly panting. I eventually got bored of watching them so I got up and tore one of the cardboard walls down and walked into the next room, got a short glimpse of it and then woke up.

I like having weird dreams, haven't had any that were disturbing or unpleasant in a while, which is good.

:rofl: Thank you for that

Once I had a dream that I was someone else, and I realized I was dreaming while crouching on a sloped ledge (which is exactly how it happened, not sure why I remember that), but then I forgot and my dream continued.

I never figure out that im dreaming. Half the time i can't even figure out what actually happened and what i dreamed in the mornings. Especially if i take a nap and dream and wake up in the evening...then im so freaking dissoriented. Its like being stoned but without the loss of brain cells.

For any one interested in learning how to lucid dream, here's a good guide I found. How to Lucid Dream - wikiHow

I personally love dreaming. My freshman year of college i had a two hour gap between classes and I would always take a nap. I dreamed every time and the nap was short enough that I would remember it every time I woke up. That was my favorite part of the day. Wish I had written some of them down.

I had the lamest lucid dream, possibly in history: A child [a student of mine in my dream] was bending from a bridge, looking at the river underneath him. I knew he was going to fall so I tried to pull him back, but only managed to catch his shorts. His shorts started to stretch and the kid kept falling, so knowing he was going to die, I looked into the sky screaming the ugliest sound. And that's when I noticed that it was a dream, so I logically decided to keep screaming because the fall of the kid was sudden. After screaming I look back at the river still holding his stretching shorts, the boy reaches the river or death. so I got really sad, but then felt, "what the hell it's only a dream, I'm gonna jump too" and I jumped after him. It turned out that the child was still alive splashing in the water.

That's a really boring dream! my ordinary dreams are incredibly good, and in this one I didn't even get the "Fall" feeling when I threw myself. bummer.

Just to clear one thing up, controlling imagery and participating take A LOT of practice, at least for most people. Without work a normal lucid dreamer will only be able to control smaller aspects or just themselves.

Also I can promise you that you have had many lucid dream you just dont remember them. Think of it this way, how many of your dreams a night do you actually remember the next day? My guess is not 5-6 (thats the amount an average person would have in a short time sleeping) Lucid dreams are remembered the same way regular dreams are. So if you dont remember all of the normal ones you wont remember your lucids. For all you know you could have had a controlled night with the man of your dreams, but you would never know.

I suggest starting a journal that you wright your dreams in once you wake up. After a few weeks you will start remembering much more.

Thats odd that happens. Typically the most important part to continuing a dream or remembering is keeping your eyes closed. Light makes you quickly forget what it was about.

And that happens to me alot! Makes you want to stay in bed haha

I believe those are called Wild's (Wake Induced Lucid Dream). There are many kinds, most being Dild's (dream induced lucid dream) Some people actually use your method more often because they feel they have more control over the dream and when it can happen.

If you want a link to the forum I go to theirs a bunch of guides from people who really know what there doing better than me there.

I've never had a proper lucid dream, generally if I realise I'm dreaming I'll be a bit relieved this doesn't have consequences, but I forget pretty quickly. I am quite good at what Jackhammer mentioned, waking up but managing to jump back into your dream.

I haven't been remembering my dreams as much lately, but I think they're getting better. The production values have gone up a notch I guess.

Does anyone go through an artistic process in their dreams, a few weeks ago I composed what I thought was a brilliantly clever poem in a dream, and even when I was mostly awake I still had the feeling that the wordplay was good. But I dropped the ball and didn't write it down, now I can't get it back.

The last month I've been saying jokes in my dreams that I feel are hilarious, to wake up to see that they may be witty but not that funny. I never wrote songs in my sleep, but I definitely made some good paintings, I try to sketch them sometimes [But in dreams, all the imageries can be used in drawings, so I don't think that counts]

You remember dreams when you're disturbed during REM, which is the period of sleep in which dreams occur. If you don't remember your dreams it's a pretty good indicator that you're getting good, undisturbed sleep.

Thats not true. You dont remember your dreams because you dont have experience remembering them... Being disturbed in REM is not necessarily how one remembers.

As a general and overarching statement it has more truth than your assertions. You're talking about people specifically trying to remember dreams, I'm talking about people in general.

Research indicates:
Dreams happen during REM.
REM is the rejuvenating part of sleep.
You're more likely to remember your dream if you're awoken during REM, whilst aspects remain in short term memory so that you have the opportunity to commit them to long term memory.
If you are a normal person not putting stress on remembering dreams and bed down for a good nights sleep to wake up refreshed in the morning, remembering your dreams is an indication that REM is being disturbed and you're a restless sleeper. If you have few dreams you're a deep sleeper and your REM is allowed to complete it's cycles, meaning you wake up more refreshed.

In the instance of people who sleep with the purpose of intentionally trying to remember their dreams that raises whole other questions about the ability to consciously commit the dream to long term memory whilst in a subconscious state. It's a separate discussion to the point I was making.

I think this also raises questions about the quality of sleep one gets when having a lucid dream. I wonder if being mentally aware during REM makes you less refreshed in the morning.

This is hard to determine, primarily because it's entirely possible that we do not wake up during all lucid dreams and thus do not remember having had them. It's therefore impossible for the layman to determine whether they're especially tired from the lucid dream, or just tired from having been woken during REM. As far as I'm aware there's not been developed a hard and fast way to test this.

Every time I have one, I always end up flying around. Quite an experience!!

I have always so badly wanted to be able to lucid dream and make myself fly. Always. But I never can. My dreams are always either one end of the spectrum or the other - either I'm completely unconsciously immersed in my dreams that I have no control whatsoever, so I've realised it's a dream and woken up. The most I've ever been able to control myself doing in a dream is turning off a light switch. And even then I woke up immediately.

I usually fly in almost every dream, tho they're never lucid. My uncontrolled dreams are already amazing enough.

The other night I pulled an all nighter to get all my work done...I ended up falling asleep and drooling on my lab report (haha gross i know) but i was supposed to be making up choreography for my Show Choir practice that morning and I dreamed (lucidly, my first ever!) that I was graphing the dance (as i fell asleep graphing my biology lab results). I was aware that it made no sense in the dream and kept trying to wake myself up to finish, but i couldn't (unfortunetely, i ended up having to turn in things late...)

anyway, the points are:
1. WOOOOOOO i finally had a lucid dream! (though this one was based on stress rather than meditation)!
and
2. Don't try to make up a dance and do your lab report at the same time!