Lucid Dreaming!

[AtT]

Have any of you ever experienced lucid dreaming and/or know how to control it and do it more often? Last night I had my first one in a long time that involved having sex on a giant tiger running through a jungle or something. And I specify ON and not WITH. Eventually I ended up floating in a dark area with nothing in it unable to wake up and pretty bored. Trying to force my eyes open in the dream tends to wake me up eventually (like with my hands pulling them open). Usually when I realize I am dreaming and can control it it involves flying or sex or occasionally changing objects around while also intensely fighting my OCD thought of "Man, I sure hope I don't make that scary girl from The Ring appear out of the bed,wall,floor,etc. to try to kill me."

Anyone else have any lucid dreams / techniques they would like to share? Crazy.. lol

[greepish]

Eh, I hate how I can never actually control my dreams despite sometimes knowing I'm in one. I'll be like "oh right, I'm dreaming..." [then weird dream stuff happens]

[AtT]

Supposedly there's a way to do it. I usually am the same way but sometimes if I focus really hard I can make something happen. The problem is if I focus on that too much the entire world around me disappears and I end up in a world with nothing in it.

[TehDruid]

Funny that such a topic opened. Relatively recently, a friend of mine who has supposedly done some research on the matter was telling me some stuff:

A way of realizing that you're asleep while you are is to find a number in the dream (say, a phone number written somewhere). You'll notice that if you look away, then look at the number again, it will be completely different, with a different number of digits probably, too. I have this happen to me a few times in my life but I haven't trained myself to take control (and I doubt that I'm gonna not that I know how to lol).

Another technique is to create an item (like carve a special symbol out of wood, for example) that you only know of its existence (not supposed to show it to anybody else) and have it be your "dream symbol". You have to sit and focus on it for some time each day to "imprint" it in your mind. Then you'll be able to "take" it with you into your dreams, as a figment of your thought, and you'll know that you're dreaming when you see it, supposedly.

[AtT]

Hmm interesting idea. I find that if I am dreaming and ask myself "How, exactly did I get here?" I will realize that I'm dreaming. I read that if you get in the habit of doing little checks to make sure you're awake every you will start doing them in your dreams too. Your guess is as good as mine on how to take control. I usually either wake up or turn the dream world into something that resembles the Abyss. I have been able to create people purposefully though but their existence is fleeting. Maybe I should try to focus on changing myself (ie flying) rather than altering the entire world at once? I wish I was good at/liked drugs.. users are always so good at controlling their consciousness, I bet they'd be excellent at this.

Also don't be a dick to yourself and make zombies everywhere I do that sometimes and it's scary.. lol

[TehDruid]

Yeah this same friend of mine is hitting the occasional weed, he's a bit of a psycho in general though. I personally haven't ever tried it and I'm 23. And, well, it's illegal. It's mostly because I like to have my wits about me, though. I remember my first time getting seriously drunk some years ago, everything was f-ed up (i'm confident that you're familiar). And worse part, I couldn't remember any events that occurred for about 2 hours going into peak wasted situation (and I'm kind of afraid I might have done something pretty ugly but who knows ), so I try and take it easy even with alcohol.

[AtT]

I'm not talking about weed or booze I mean psychedelics. (Also I do not get fucked up because I do not enjoy it, drugs are not for me) A friend of mine in highschool used to get high off stuff you wouldn't believe and hearing him talk about it.. he was convinced that a bad trip was a myth. Kid must have had incredible control of his mind to withstand that without panicking. I'd be interested to know if heavy drug users might be better at this sort of thing.

[Pteriforever]

Another tip-off that you're dreaming: You can run at full speed while underwater.

[greepish]

I'm not talking about weed or booze I mean psychedelics. (Also I do not get fucked up because I do not enjoy it, drugs are not for me) A friend of mine in highschool used to get high off stuff you wouldn't believe and hearing him talk about it.. he was convinced that a bad trip was a myth. Kid must have had incredible control of his mind to withstand that without panicking. I'd be interested to know if heavy drug users might be better at this sort of thing.

I wouldn't be surprised, lucid dreaming is apparently easiest when you're a little screwed up by sleeping at odd intervals, so getting high probably has a similar effect.

[AtT]

I wouldn't be surprised, lucid dreaming is apparently easiest when you're a little screwed up by sleeping at odd intervals, so getting high probably has a similar effect.

Falling asleep high does make you have weird dreams but I don't know about lucid. Might help

Funny thing is.. sleep deprivation is like a drug. Take a little and you're just a bit stoned. A bit more and you get more severe symptoms (anxiety, depression, frustration, anger, etc though possibly with periods of serene calmness). You will become less able to operate a vehicle or think clearly. Eventually you will actually start to hallucinate and if you "overdose" you can actually die of organ failure.

One time during exam week after studying roughly 14 hours I noticed that if I laid down for even a few seconds I would start falling asleep. It is not called "falling" asleep for no reason, either. If you are consciously paying attention to what your body is doing when you fall asleep you can feel the sensation of falling while also being mildly to strongly paralyzed and unable to move, while being still (somewhat) awake. I did that several times and wanted to test what would happen if I resisted the urge to jerk myself awake due to the fear/panic caused by the sensation. Basically I was only able to prolong the feeling while also keeping myself awake. Not really enjoyable though. I think this "fear" is why it's hard to fall asleep when you are thinking about sleeping. Being exhausted speeds up this process which is why I jumped on the opportunity to test it. Maybe this could be an approach to lucid dreaming? thinking about it while you fall asleep I mean. I don't know, but I don't particularly enjoy being paralyzed and falling in an empty dark place. I'm not very good at it though.

Also, when things go to shit, if I try to pull my eyelids apart (in the dream, they feel closed but are opened, so i can grab them and try to pull them open while still being able to see, but closing them in the dream first helps) and that usually works eventually, while also jerking my body violently sometimes helps. When I have control somewhat I tend to make things worse, not better, but still. How do you wake yourself up when you know you're dreaming? Of course, finding a group of beautiful women who want to sleep with you is grounds for waking up immediately, so theres that..

[TehDruid]

How do you wake yourself up when you know you're dreaming? Of course, finding a group of beautiful women who want to sleep with you is grounds for waking up immediately, so theres that..

Ah... I rarely have sexual dreams (damn it! you don't have to worry about STDs in the Dream World! ). And unfortunately I can't do what I want in them. But yeah, it seems that whenever you get overexcited you wake up. I remember once when I was a kid I saw myself falling down in a seemingly endless darkness, from a 3rd person perspective though. In the dream, I also saw my face, I was suddenly opening my eyes wide and then closing them, going back to the falling scene, as If I were trying to stop it from happening, and then after the 3rd time I closed my eyes, I woke up for real. That's the weirdest thing I've seen in my life. Although recently I happened to see a big list of numbers in a dream and kept turning my head back and forth, only to see them changing every time I looked at them. I swear I felt a little dizzy in the dream from all the looking. I should have realized I was sleeping but I don't know how.

[PerverseSuffering]

Oh god
Lucid dreaming
The thing I've wasted a year and a half on
Tell no more.


Most flexible self-forming tool, though.

[Jeremiah]

The closest I've got to lucid dreaming was seeing all these weird things happening, and saying to my friend "remind me to tell you about this when I'm awake."

[Serne]

One time during exam week after studying roughly 14 hours I noticed that if I laid down for even a few seconds I would start falling asleep. It is not called "falling" asleep for no reason, either. If you are consciously paying attention to what your body is doing when you fall asleep you can feel the sensation of falling while also being mildly to strongly paralyzed and unable to move, while being still (somewhat) awake. I did that several times and wanted to test what would happen if I resisted the urge to jerk myself awake due to the fear/panic caused by the sensation. Basically I was only able to prolong the feeling while also keeping myself awake. Not really enjoyable though. I think this "fear" is why it's hard to fall asleep when you are thinking about sleeping. Being exhausted speeds up this process which is why I jumped on the opportunity to test it. Maybe this could be an approach to lucid dreaming? thinking about it while you fall asleep I mean. I don't know, but I don't particularly enjoy being paralyzed and falling in an empty dark place. I'm not very good at it though.

If you can split your focus while in that semi paralyzed state, and create a visualization about the kind of dream you want to have you can use it as a gate into that dream. However do note that for the best effect you will actually have to mentally create or recreate the images, sounds, textures, etc. of the place you want to be. once that is done if you start to explore that area it should to a straight transition into a fully lucid dream.

Oh and that chick from The Ring is a type of Japanese ghost. A spirit consumed by hatred.

[Confidence Interval]

having sex on a giant tiger running through a jungle or something. And I specify ON and not WITH.

Where's your sense of adventure?

[invisiblesandwich]

I've had brief moments of lucidity in dreams before, but despite the obvious possibilities, I've never really tried to develop lucid dreaming skills. Not sure what that says about me, but my dreams are already wacky enough as it is, with such things as trying to eat food with high gravity, cataclysmic flooding, gratuitous appearances of the Simpsons, and people questioning the very plot of the dreams they're in.

[AtT]

Oh god
Lucid dreaming
The thing I've wasted a year and a half on
Tell no more.


Most flexible self-forming tool, though.

Does this mean you are able to do it regularly? Is that possible?

Interesting ideas posted here. I also read that writing your dreams down helps so I started doing that. Trouble is a lot of them I don't want to remember but if I can control my dreams maybe I can stop the bad ones.

[JeffQyzt]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087175/

[Grimm]

Does this mean you are able to do it regularly? Is that possible?

Badly written article but http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_yoga . There are many forms of mental training that don't involve hallucinogenics. If you're at all interested, investigate them.

[TwilightPhoenix]

I've tried off and on to get to be able to consistently dream lucidly. I still haven't had a lucid dream in years, but I can usually at least remember one of my dreams now, on occasion several per night. I remember them better on mornings where I don't have anywhere to be. Having an alarm clock go off and then going right back to sleep usually means I'll remember that dream pretty well in comparison to others. Judging by days where I wake up and fall back to sleep repeatedly instead of getting out of bed, dreams take a little over a hour to go from start to finish

[AtT]

Badly written article but http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_yoga . There are many forms of mental training that don't involve hallucinogenics. If you're at all interested, investigate them.

I am very interested actually. I've had trouble with anxiety/depression in the past and lately IBS and (now) have a huge aversion to drugs (for me personally, not as a concept). I have been very interested in the mind's ability to control the body both positively and negatively and have had some rather extraordinary experiences myself (in real life mind over body situations) and would love to be able to recreate or repress them with some regularity. The shrink I've been seeing lately (I'm fairly apposed to the idea but admit that something needs to change) encouraged me (as well as my experience with lucidity) to write down my dreams upon waking. While I have no spiritual beliefs of any kind, I do believe that there could be some benefit to remembering dreams, especially recurring ones. Many of my dreams are fairly disturbing or depressing so I tried to forget them on purpose, but those dreams may be the important ones to remember, especially as they seem to be strongly correlated to obvious issues I've had in the past. I think it's definitely worth trying out if you've never done it, if for nothing more than the entertainment value of the images your brain produces when it's tripping out on various apparently necessary chemicals during sleep.

I've tried off and on to get to be able to consistently dream lucidly. I still haven't had a lucid dream in years, but I can usually at least remember one of my dreams now, on occasion several per night. I remember them better on mornings where I don't have anywhere to be. Having an alarm clock go off and then going right back to sleep usually means I'll remember that dream pretty well in comparison to others. Judging by days where I wake up and fall back to sleep repeatedly instead of getting out of bed, dreams take a little over a hour to go from start to finish

I think it is true that if you are woken up (especially during REM sleep) you are much more likely to remember a dream. I'm not sure how long REM sleep lasts, but I believe this is when the mind is most active in a dreaming sense, somebody correct me if I'm wrong. I'm not sure how long dreams actually take though, my interpretation of time in a dream seems to be unrelated to actual time, I have had long detailed dreams in the span of 20 minutes and brief fleeting dreams over several hours, I'm not sure if this correlates at all to the time spent in REM sleep or which cycle you are actually in.

[TwilightPhoenix]

Well, the time estimate thing isn't how long the dream actually lasts, but rather about how much time occurs between me falling back asleep and then waking up again later. It's usually around 70 minutes for me, give or take some.

I've also had dreams occur immediately when drifting off to sleep while trying to stay awake, but these I can never remember more than tiny bits so small they tell me nothing about the dream, if anything at all. A few minutes later I'll wake up and realize I dozed off.

[PerverseSuffering]

Oh god
Lucid dreaming
The thing I've wasted a year and a half on
Tell no more.


Most flexible self-forming tool, though.

Does this mean you are able to do it regularly? Is that possible?

Interesting ideas posted here. I also read that writing your dreams down helps so I started doing that. Trouble is a lot of them I don't want to remember but if I can control my dreams maybe I can stop the bad ones.

I am not able to do it AT ALL, "wasted"'s the word. Been there once or twice, blind and useless.

Writing down your dreams is VITAL, absolutely NECESSARY for regular and stable lucid dreaming. Dream diary is the key item to success! The thing is, you must write stuff down as soon as you wake up (you may lay for a bit recalling your dream though, perfectly OK).
Basically, for results all you need is just dream diary and reality checking.
Reality is best checked this way: you sometimes look at your open palm, asking yourself SINCERELY if it's dream or reality now. While doing this, you should also, well... invoke the feeling, you know, when it's silent and you suddenly hear a sound and try to find out where it is from - that kind of feeling. Tension.
DO NOT make this routine. Don't do this way too often, too - ten times a day will do. It's not a fixed number, though, just do the check as soon as you remember about it. No fanaticism.

Well, what else... Oh, concentrate on just ONE way of checking reality, preferrably the one I'd recommended. Better forget about all that light-switching stuff, etc., it's too situational.

Oh, and remember that all you encounter in your dreams CAN'T HARM YOU IN NO WAY. It's all you. Yes, the whole thing is your subconscious is purely the figment of your life so far. And if you see anything scary, yes, embrace it, as it is your fear, and it should go away as soon as you accept it and love it.

tl;dr, all right. But hey, I was in for a long time.

[AtT]

Writing down my dreams I've realized that most of them are painfully depressing. At least the ones I remember upon waking. No lucidity yet since that accidental time a few days ago but I've been focusing more on remembering and not controlling. That actually has worked, I tend to remember one or two dreams a night instead of a few a week. Not necessarily pleasant, but at least it's a start.

[corax2009]

I've had lucid dreams on and off since I was 8. Got plenty of books on the craft, but too lazy and too disappointed in the results to stick it out with the practice.

[AtT]

I had another lucid dream! This time I either woke up/woke myself up from a dream I can't remember at all and had no doubt in my mind that I was awake. I thought what the hell I might as well do some of those 'dream checks' that I read about online and had been doing before when I was actively trying to dream lucidly (I kind of stopped for exam week needed regular non-stressful sleep). I looked around, everything was fine. I was in my bed, my dog was where he always was, the blankets were in the same spot as well (I had woken up already before and managed to fall back asleep apparently) but I remembered how my blankets and dog looked. I looked at my hands and tried to force my right thumb through my left hand. I tried and focused very hard. It worked. Immediately my head was pounding very hard and my ears were ringing loudly and the world disappeared. Everything was mostly black but I tried to create things. I started simple and made some colorful shapes and whatnot. I tried to recreate my girlfriend and did but in poor detail. I managed to force off the images of the east asian style ghosts (ie the ring) that consistently haunt my dreams especially lucid. Still the pounding in my head and ringing in my ears was unbearable so I decided to wake up because it was hurting. I forced my eyes open and was laying in bed. Everything looked ok, dog was fine, covers were fine. I tried to force my thumb through my hand again very hard and it kind of worked, but I wasn't sure if I had done it because my hands were shaking. I ran/floated to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. I was pretty worried I was still dreaming so I looked hard in the mirror and tried to morph my face. It worked somewhat. I was sweating profusely and screamed but my scream sounded nothing like my voice but instead a tea-kettle, an inhuman and terrifying scream. As I was screaming I floated backwards away from the mirror, actually further than the size of my bathroom will allow. The pounding and ringing was unbearable and worse than before and I was trying to wake up. I felt like I sat up almost entirely and mostly opened my eyes before I was awake (I'm still not sure if I did or not) and my dog and blankets were/are actually in the exact same spot that I dreamed them twice.

Do any of you who have had/have lucid dreams have the head-pounding sensation and/or ears ringing? It's so strong and annoying/painful for me sometimes that I have to give up and try to wake up to make it stop. Is there any way to control it you think? I wish the stupid world would stop disappearing and I could keep my physical body as well. Still.. a fun weird night!

EDIT: from some brief googleing I read about something called Exploding Head Syndrome that sounds sort of like what happens to me occasionally (from lucid dreaming usually) but is not a problem really just interesting that whatever that feeling is might have a name. I also read about hypnagogic hallucinations which are the kind of thing that happens when you are just falling asleep/waking. This describes the "falling" sensation and whatever that is common right before falling asleep as well as other situations. Unfortunately I think that I may be only experiencing hypnagogic hallucinations instead of purely lucid dreaming which might explain why I have such poor control over what I'm doing/seeing and how very much is black (the inside of my eyelids perhaps). I read the hallucinations are more common in drug users, people that are exhausted, have high anxiety or sleeping disorders, or are on a prescription medication. It is true that last time I had a "lucid" dream and this time I was on my stomach meds (a type of Librax) for IBS. I only take it part time, for a few days every couple of weeks when my symptoms get bad. The medicine is a stomach relaxant but does have a mild anti-anxiety component to it that may contribute to my dream craziness, though I certainly have weird dreams when I'm not on it. I occasionally also have something like this feeling falling asleep after being awake for 20-30+ hours. The only noticeable effect of my medicine is it makes my stomach hurt less usually and arguably causes a tiny bit of drowsiness occasionally. I don't think it lasts more than 5-6 hours though at most I don't know if it would have effected my dreams or not but it could be a possibility. Interesting stuff.

[TwilightPhoenix]

I had a dream last night I was playing Aion. Except I was trying to find Runes of Zot in the game's instances and some of the monsters had Torment and Hellfire (mostly the latter) and I kept running into packs of 4-6 with those attacks. It really hurt and I spent most of those fights running away and still almost getting killed, but luckily I was able to heal myself between Hellfire barrages. I had five runes out of six and was trying to figure out how I was going to beat Brass-Eye Grogget and take his rune from Steel Rake before my alarm went off.

[Pteriforever]

My sister reports occasionally having lucid dreams which are too chaotic to control much at all.