Exploring Lucid Dreaming: Real or Fake?

[Gamish]

I have never had a lucid dream yet (except for when I was 5), but I am going through training. I have a question about lucid dreaming tho. When you have a lucid dream, are the decisions you make in the dream made my YOU, or are the decisions just made by your subconscious?:uhh: Will I just wake one day and say that I had a lucid dream, because I had a dream that I realized I was dreaming? If this is so, I don't know if I want to go throughout the hassle of training for lucid dream induction, because it seems like a rather fake experience, like any other dream. I want it to be ME in the dream, not my subconscious. Can someone who has had a lucid dream experience give me some insite on this?

Thanks in advance

 

[Problem+Solve=Reason]

I have never had one. But a good movie to rent might be Vanilla Sky...

----- nwO ruoY evaH ,deeN oN <----?eeS I tahW eeS uoY oD

 

[dekoi]

This belongs in Philosophy?

 

[phoenixthoth]

This isn't philosophy, I don't think, but here goes...

I've had several lucid dreams. I have not had training for this except perhaps that I do write down in detail about 90% of the dreams I remember.

I was definitely me in these dreams. I should also mention that I was NOT all powerful. I had a lot of power to do things but I couldn't do everything. The key example is controlling those with strong wills.

I have also had dreams where I had powers but I didn't know I was dreaming at the time.

One thing that I have been learning slowly is staying asleep. When you have a lucid dream, you know you're dreaming, of course, but you can also sense waking up. I can't even begin to explain how to resist this momentum towards waking up; just do it. :) Then you can continue your lucid dream.

I have also popped into wakefulness for a moment but returned right back to sleep. The lucid dream continued.

If you want a copy of my lucid dreams, feel free to PM me.

One of the most memorable ones was when I was invited by some force into a movie theater. Then I projected the thought, "dazzle me," and I became a complex geometric pattern with multicolors and many dimensions and surfaces. The closest thing that comes to it are some of the 3D pictures Mathematica draws, except this is not so orderly and symmetrical.

BTW, maybe 10-20% of the time, I dream within moments of closing my eyes, and before I am asleep. This seems to happen only when I'm very tired (I think--haven't really looked for a pattern)...

So, yes, you are you in the dream. You have near total control over the dream.

 

[tumor]

You know what I do, I stay as late each day as I can and then i have to take bus to/from work each day,and sometimes I have those wild dreams half sleping while being carefull not to miss my stop.
I would not call this dreams lucid but they are somehow very deep and on all topics.sometimes my brain is talking in clear and in very sophisticated way that even I'm very surprised.cool.
I still wait for my brain to tell me winning lottery numbers,so far negative results

 

[Gamish]

This isn't philosophy, I don't think, but here goes...

I've had several lucid dreams. I have not had training for this except perhaps that I do write down in detail about 90% of the dreams I remember.

I was definitely me in these dreams. I should also mention that I was NOT all powerful. I had a lot of power to do things but I couldn't do everything. The key example is controlling those with strong wills.

I have also had dreams where I had powers but I didn't know I was dreaming at the time.

One thing that I have been learning slowly is staying asleep. When you have a lucid dream, you know you're dreaming, of course, but you can also sense waking up. I can't even begin to explain how to resist this momentum towards waking up; just do it. :) Then you can continue your lucid dream.

I have also popped into wakefulness for a moment but returned right back to sleep. The lucid dream continued.

If you want a copy of my lucid dreams, feel free to PM me.

One of the most memorable ones was when I was invited by some force into a movie theater. Then I projected the thought, "dazzle me," and I became a complex geometric pattern with multicolors and many dimensions and surfaces. The closest thing that comes to it are some of the 3D pictures Mathematica draws, except this is not so orderly and symmetrical.

BTW, maybe 10-20% of the time, I dream within moments of closing my eyes, and before I am asleep. This seems to happen only when I'm very tired (I think--haven't really looked for a pattern)...

So, yes, you are you in the dream. You have near total control over the dream.

This is nice to hear, I can't wait to have a lucid dream .
When I do become lucid, I wounder what I will do, fly, have sex, do some hacking...I know, I will travel faster than light! I wounder how my imagination will work with length contraction, time dilation, and other things. Sorry for all the weird terms for those who are not into physics. Anyway, can you recommend what I can do to have lucid dreams? It seems to hard ro accomplish, even if I record my dreams, and do all the reality checks over and over.

BTW, I didn't think this belongs in philosophy either, but I did not know where else to put it.

 

[phoenixthoth]

I have always been surprised by lucid dreams and while I am me, I do think sort of instinctively. That is to say that I don't think I can plan what to do in a lucid dream and remember the plan during a dream. I bet there are people who can do that, though.

As far as I'm concerned, what you mentioned is better in a lucid dream than in real life (whatever that means :tongue2: ).

Hmmm... what can you do? I wish I knew a scientific method because I could publish it and make a fortune! Kidding aside, what I do is write down 90% of my dreams. I think they got more vivid the more I wrote them down. I didn't start having lucid dreams until a year of writing dreams down; so be patient. Meditation right before sleeping may also help. I haven't noticed a correlation; ie, it doesn't automatically induce a lucid dream.

If you want to keep close track, rate each dream on various parameters, like vividness, level of control, self-alertness, and duration. And write them down and track these ratings as the weeks go by. I bet you'll see a steady climb. I don't do this but I think it couldn't hurt.

 

[jammieg]

If you want to lucid dream you'll have some success from learning basic meditation techniques such as breathing and relaxing exercises, actually there are several medical benefits so far to learning meditation or relaxation exercises, also, you might try autosuggestion, some people are highly suggestible and pick up on these things right away so you might try this:
Once you in bed take 5 minutes to use a breathing or relaxing technique and imagine yourself going to sleep and in the middle of a dream you become fully aware that you are dreaming but it doesn't startle you(that's important) instead you see yourself dabbling in the dream world a bit and when you wake up you feel a sense of well being and excitement from having had such a dream. Autosuggestion is basically "what you can percieve you can achieve" type mind control. I would say from personal experience it's a little like being God sometimes, sometimes they aren't so grand, at first they always startled me and I would wake up but you get use to it with practice at meditation and calming, I think I've only had maybe 30 to 60 but mostly when I'm meditating a lot so I'm probably still considered a novice I mean I haven't yet been able to have a lucid wet dream which is really what it's all about for me that would have to be the ultimate lucid dream. The second most potent rush I've ever had was from one particular lucid dream

Theoretically I suspect what is going on is that the lower or animal brain grows docile enough to be guided by the insanity of the highier brain or dreams to a point that one "feels" self aware or has reached that threshold at which the lower brain is taking a bit of control of the highier and letting go at the same time, otherwise when one becomes aware they immediately wake up or wake up as they become aware but in either case the animal brain or instincts and emotions are dominating in control during the waking and awareness process.

 

[Kerrie]

i am not sure if this is called lucid dreaming, but there are some dreams of mine where "i" am in total control of the situation in the dream...i am able to dictate what will happen next, and that gives me a little entertainment while sleeping...in order to get to this amount of control at will, i think one has to focus on it consistently.

 

[Gamish]

I type my dreams on the comptuter, usually in Wordpad. Do you think that it would be better the actually write my dreams on paper, because it seems more personal? I wrote on paper over and over "A am dreaming, I will have a lucid dream, I will be aware of my dreamstate". I hope this does something. Before I go to bed, I have this method of meditation. I don't move a muscle, litterally, and this will allow my mind to wounder off into dreams. These dreams are rather fake, because 1.I am still awake, and 2.I am not in REM sleep. Does anyone else have any thoughts on lucid dreaming, and induction tequniques?

 

[Esnas]

Most of what has been said about lucid dreaming seems right on. When I was experimenting with dreaming, intention counted a lot. Also having a note pad and easy writing ball point pen by the bedside helped. I wanted to be able to write without waking up entirely and without self censoring. Just cross out "mistakes" because the misspelled words and grammatical errors often carried double meanings. There seemed to be more than one level to a dream. Unfortunate, now I don't seem to have time for dream experimentation.

 

[phoenixthoth]

Most of what has been said about lucid dreaming seems right on. When I was experimenting with dreaming, intention counted a lot. Also having a note pad and easy writing ball point pen by the bedside helped. I wanted to be able to write without waking up entirely and without self censoring. Just cross out "mistakes" because the misspelled words and grammatical errors often carried double meanings. There seemed to be more than one level to a dream. Unfortunate, now I don't seem to have time for dream experimentation.

That's an interesting point about the "blurting", the grammar and spelling mistakes. It's definitely right on the money.

 

[Gamish]

Can someone help me with a half lucid dream I had last night. I had a dream that I as lucid dreaming. I don't think that it was an acutal Lucid Dream. The night before this happend, I wrote on paper over and over "A am dreaming, I will have a lucid dream, I will be aware of my dreamstate". I think this did something. And also, I remember that somewhere in one of my dreams, in a negative situation, there was this "thing" chasting me, and I thought "I don't hage to put up with this, I am dreaming". I thought I could change the situation or something. Nothing happened after that. These can't be lucid dreams, because it simple did not feel like it was actually ME in the dream, they felt like any other dream. In the dream that I was lucid dreaming, I was flying and stuff. Can someone please tell me what kind of a dream this was? I will type the dream below.



Dream

This dream is rather unclrear, and rather strange, but at the same time, important. But hear goes. I was in this place, a very strange place. In the dream, I was like trying to meditate or something, in order to have a lucid dream. So, in the dream, the first thing I did was try to fly. I lifted up into the air, and began to fly around this very strange place. The best that I can describe it as was like a narrow stream of water, with things on the sides. The sides might have been made of stone. I think I saw Mr. Burns there or something of the sort. Next thing I remember, I am holding my sister sara with me. I try to fly while I am holding her, but I can't. I either didn't fly, or I plumited to the ground. Next thing I know, I am in a bathroom stall. In the stall, I saw pairs of clothing. I saw several pairs of blue jeans, and at least 1 pair of boxers, and there was 1 pair of gray swiming trunks. I might have worked at this place in which my dream was located. I saw someone come into the bathroom, I think that was a bad thing, because I wanted to do some stuff. Anyway, it was like the clothing that was there was clothing that I left there, so I wanted to take it home. I took off my pants (lol) and began to put on double and tripple layers of the pants, so that I can take them home with me. I put on the extra boxers, over my boxers, and I think I put on the swimming trunks (Anthough, I sort of think the swiming trunks was the only thing I did not put on(. Anyway, after I was done putting it all on, a man walked into my stall, and I was like "Good thing I already finished putting the clothes on", or I said something to that effect. I do not believe that this was a lucid dream, it was a dream about trying to have a lucid dream. It is hard to explaine, but that is what it was.

 

[hypnagogue]

A lucid dream is defined as a dream in which the dreamer is aware that s/he is in the middle of having a dream. If, during a dream, you suddenly realize "Hey, I'm dreaming this!" then you have become lucid. It can be difficult to maintain the lucid state; in my experience, the dream usually fades and/or I wake up shortly after becoming lucid. However, if you can become lucid and continue to dream, you should be able to exert volitional control over yourself (and, to some extent, the setting and events in the dream itself) in the same sort of way you exert volitional control over yourself in waking life. During a lucid dream, you may or may not feel like 'you'; certainly, things will seem stranger in general, simply because dreams in general tend to be strange.

If you're interested in learning about lucid dreaming, http://www.lucidity.com/ is a great place to start. Be sure to check out the FAQ, which includes scientifically tested methods for inducing lucid dreams.

 

[Gamish]

A lucid dream is defined as a dream in which the dreamer is aware that s/he is in the middle of having a dream. If, during a dream, you suddenly realize "Hey, I'm dreaming this!" then you have become lucid. It can be difficult to maintain the lucid state; in my experience, the dream usually fades and/or I wake up shortly after becoming lucid. However, if you can become lucid and continue to dream, you should be able to exert volitional control over yourself (and, to some extent, the setting and events in the dream itself) in the same sort of way you exert volitional control over yourself in waking life. During a lucid dream, you may or may not feel like 'you'; certainly, things will seem stranger in general, simply because dreams in general tend to be strange.

If you're interested in learning about lucid dreaming, http://www.lucidity.com/ is a great place to start. Be sure to check out the FAQ, which includes scientifically tested methods for inducing lucid dreams.

Yep, I have been to all those sites, and printed everything. I am training now. I don't think my dream was actually a lucid one tho, I would know. Thanks anyways.

 

[gravenewworld]

What is it called where you dream actually comes true in real life? I have had this happen to me manytimes, I don't care whether you believe me or not. I know it has happened. I will have dreams of events that are of no signifigance, but they will happen in real life. For example last week I went to NYC for the first time ever in my life, and when I was about to walk around this corner, I already knew what was going to be there (buildings etc.) because I remembered suddenly in a dream I had before going around the same corner.

 

[phoenixthoth]

I think that is called a prophetic dream.

 

[Gamish]

What is it called where you dream actually comes true in real life? I have had this happen to me manytimes, I don't care whether you believe me or not. I know it has happened. I will have dreams of events that are of no signifigance, but they will happen in real life. For example last week I went to NYC for the first time ever in my life, and when I was about to walk around this corner, I already knew what was going to be there (buildings etc.) because I remembered suddenly in a dream I had before going around the same corner.

Dreams are an all too natural thing, but yes, I do believe you. I KNOW God speaks to people through deams, as he has done it all my life. Most christians refuse this notion of dreams. Yes, there are natural dreams too. anyway, god is always trying to show you something through dreams. I hope this doesn't get deleted for being "Religis" lol.