• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Lucid Dreams / Lucid Dreaming

A

Anonymous

Guest
I used to lucid dream a lot when I was yonger but don't seem to now at all. I heard that there are some techniques you can use to induce a state of lucid dreaming. Does anybody know any?
 
There are apparently some gadgets being sold which purport to help you with lucid dreaming. You might find some advertised on the net:

http://www.lifetools.com/

There used to be a company run by a mad UK scientist, but I can't remember what the name was...he used to advertise in Fortean Times small ads many moons ago.
 
It's worth a visit to the Lucidity Institute website for techniques and advice. Stephen LaBerge's book 'Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming' contains a number of techniques to attain (and retain) lucidity.
 
That's interesting.I get quite a few dreams in which I want to wake up,but can't get the strength to lift my head in the dream,which corresponds to doing so in real life.These dreams occur during the morning,when I really should be awake,and it's almost like being in a state of being half-asleep and half-awake.The dreams take in anything which is going on in the room,such as the TV which may be switched on,and these things become part of the dream.Does anyone else experience this?
 
Lately I've been trying (rather casually) to have lucid dreams. Almost immediately I started having 'waking' dreams where I get up and look around then later realize I just dreamed that I woke up. Last night I had a very interesting experience. I *think* I was in the middle of a dream when I suddenly gained consciousness. Everything went black, but I was still asleep. I tried the spinning method, but I didn't really have a dream-body at the time. Everything was still black. Gradually, I became aware of myself lying there in bed. I could feel the saliva in my mouth and the weight of the pillow on my hands. I tried to swallow, and could sort of feel a swallowing sensation, but my body didn't respond. Tried moving my hands, but there was no response. I remember even considering I was experiencing sleep paralysis, but decided I wasn't, since I was still totally asleep. Never had an experience like it before in my life. The last thing I remember is trying to will myself awake so I could move. I think I just lost my lucidity and went back to dreaming.
 
Angeline said:
That's interesting.I get quite a few dreams in which I want to wake up,but can't get the strength to lift my head in the dream,which corresponds to doing so in real life.These dreams occur during the morning,when I really should be awake,and it's almost like being in a state of being half-asleep and half-awake.The dreams take in anything which is going on in the room,such as the TV which may be switched on,and these things become part of the dream.Does anyone else experience this?


I experience this all the time in the morning, my mom will come to wake me up and her voice will be incorperated into my dream. also, if i'm not sleeping well at night this will happen to me, like last night i was halfway awake and halfway asleep in the middle of the night and this commercial came on the radio came on and it was incorperated into my dream.. its quite strange
 
Hi all, im fairly new to this site so forgive me if this topic has been covered already.


I have always had what i described as unusual dreams, as in that i always remember them in great detail even weeks, months and years later. I alwys dream in colour, and my dreams are always increadibly vivid. I can control my dreams, what i want to do, what happens and can quite often "carry my dream on" into other nights, like a mini tv series!

I was discussing this with a friend who said i was describing lucid dreams. After reading a bit about them I can understand what they are but al I want to know is WHY? Can i enhance them in any way, or use them?

Any help gratefully recieved.

Many thanks
 
hi mel: i also have very vivid dreams sometimes,but they do tend to get forgotten whilst trying to recall them to someone.
I DO occasionally have a terrifying dream that has reccured since i was about 10 and in it i can recall colour taste smell touch and even FEEL it . I WAS there totally, however, unlike you, i cannot control any dream direction, can you do it naturally or do you have to " programme " yourself ?
 
Hi Gold!

Thats the part i don't understand! It's completely naturel! I've never tried to do it, it just happens!

Strangly I have had a frightening dreams as well, starting when I was about 5/6 I was in a room at the far end. At the other side was a large roll of red carpet with about 10 children standing behind it. On the left hand side of the carpet stood a character best described as a Willy Wonka character, dressed in purple with a giant hat-pin stuck through the carpet.
Basically the dream happened once every few months with the master drawing out the pin and the children rolling the carpet towards me. Each dream the carpet was getting closer to me.
It finally ended when I was about 16 when the carpet rolled over me. But.....started again from the beginnning 2 years ago but i've only had 2 since. Im 25 now.
It is the ONLY recurring dream i've ever had but also the ONLY dream i have not been able to control!

Any ideas?
 
Wish there was some way of continuing the dream I had last night.;)
 
Well, there's good news in store. A developed ability in lucid dreaming enables you to do just that. The Lucidity Institute (mentioned in the thread kindly linked to by rynner) gives some techniques for enhancing lucid dream states. I bought a book by Stephen LaBerge (one of the Institute's founders) that lists detailed techniques. Dilligent practise is the only remaining ingredient.
 
Hey Mel!

I can lucid dream, though not very well.

I can be having a dream, something odd will happen that I'll notice, and I'll suddenly realise that it is a dream.

But this is short lived because the key to lucid dreaming, for me at least, is too understand that it's happening, but to completely ignore it. So my lucid dreaming usually lasts only minutes, but is fun nonetheless.

This guy in purple you mentioned, was he bald by any chance?

I'm asking seriously because he sounds spookily like something my brother saw (dreamed about?) when he was very young.

He was about 2 1/2 and just able to talk enough to get his point across. We had been sharing a room at a relatives house and had been sleeping on the floor. I woke up in the middle of the night to hear him crying, I was about 13. He'd moved so much in his sleep that he was now under the bed and couldn't see where he was.

In the morning he kept telling my mum that while he was under the bed he was dancing with a nasty man, wearing purple, who had no hair. He didn't like the man, but couldn't stop dancing. This was seriously creepy coming from a two year old. I was spooked enough to want to swap rooms.

:confused: :confused:
 
I used to have lucid dreams all the time when I was young, like about 4 and 5. Mostly, they were nightmares and all I did with my lucidness was wake myself up. In fact, it was the same recurring nightmare I had that was lucid, ie, I was aware I was dreaming, and able to direct events as far as the imagination of a 4 year old allowed.
I've sadly lost the ability as I've grown up, which is a damn shame as I can think of many more interesting things to do in my sleep now :cool: but maybe it's all for the best: I'd never be out of bed, otherwise!
 
Achieving The Illusive Lucid

I've recently become interested in Lucid Dreaming, is there anyone else here who is experienced in such a thing?

I've listened to some advice and started keeping a journal, I'm told I should look out for 'dreamsigns', but have come across none as yet.

I know I'm very new to this thing and it's gonna take alot of time, but does anyone have any other tips I should be taking into account?

Also, how long will it take me to identify 'dreamsigns'?

Ta.
 
I'm not all that good at achieving lucidity intentionally, but I can tell you what does work for me. (I have a friend who used to achieve lucidity as a weird sort of hobby. I can ask him for some tips if you like)

For some reason, I usually see "traditional" dream signs in my dreams (such as clocks with impossible times, being in impossible situations, etc) without recognizing it, but there is one surefire way that works every time.

For the past couple years I've been having a recurring dream in which a tooth, or multiple teeth fall out. It has happened with such regularity that within a year whenever this happens, I immediately recognize that I'm dreaming and do as much as I can before it ends...usually in what feels like 30 seconds to a minute.

To date I have been able to levitate water out of a glass, levitate myself, and fly around for a good amount of time.

I would suggest that if you have recurring themes in your dreams that are poweful enough (for some reason, losing a tooth or two is a tragic event for me in my dreams) AND different enough from what you experience in real life (I don't exactly loose teeth every day), try to recognize what they are and use those for your dreamsigns.

Hope that helps some!
 
I tried to induce lucid dreaming myself recently. What I did, this may sound strange, was to ask myself, at regular intervals in the day, Am I Dreaming? Am I Dreaming? Am I Dreaming? The answer being, for a couple of days, No, No, No. But then, during a dream, I asked myself the question and I realised that Yes, this was indeed a dream. So I managed to control a good part of the rest of this dream (I won't go into details!) until gradually my subconscious seemed to take over again and I lost control once more. So this method worked for me.
 
Re: Achieving The Illusive Lucid

It happens to me all the time, especially after periods of sleep deprivation. Suddenly being in a place you weren't in a minute ago is one of the first signs, usually followed by the thought 'oh, crap, I'm asleep...' This usually results in my being woken up rather harshly, one way or another.
 
HP Tinker said:
What I did, this may sound strange, was to ask myself, at regular intervals in the day, Am I Dreaming? Am I Dreaming? Am I Dreaming? The answer being, for a couple of days, No, No, No. But then, during a dream, I asked myself the question and I realised that Yes, this was indeed a dream.

This is the best established method for achieving lucidity in dreams, as far as I know. I tried it, but I just kept forgetting to do the 'reality checks'...

http://www.lucidity.com/
 
I usally have dreams about been back at school then
I realise that I am dreaming and so can chance things in it. I have asked a few people if they could ever do this when dreaming but they said no.I just thought that I was imaging it maybe I am.
 
I sometimes realise I'm asleep and dreaming but very rarely manage to do anything interesting in my dreams :)

If you haven't already come across it, 'Lucid Dreaming' by Stephen LaBerge is quite a good book on this topic.

Unlikely
 
wasn't there a lucid dream machine advertised in the pages of FT once? I seem to remember seeing one but alas...!
 
Just wanted to post this account of this morning's lucid dream:

I went downstairs and it was christmas, all the decorations and the tree.
I asked my mum if it was christmas and she said "of course!" but I knew it wasn't, it was the middle of May

So I realised I was dreaming, and woke up, went downstairs and it was christmas. So I said to my mum, "it's not christmas" and she said "of course it is!"

So I went "GRRRR I'm sick of this dream, it's stupid because I know it's not christmas" and I was going "wake up wake up wake up wake up" and then I realised that as I was dreaming, I could do anything I wanted.

So I was just about to start flying when I went into another dream where I didn't know I was dreaming.
HOW ANNOYING!

pinkle
 
Had my first ever moment of lucid dreaming this morning!

I was in a 2nd hand junk shop, and was getting along well with the occupiers (a man and a woman about my age). We walked through some tunnels at the back of the shop and emerged on the roof overlooking Blackpool at night (only it was completely different, of course...). It looked magnificent and I said something like "This is f**king amazing!" Then, I just suddenly realised that I was dreaming, punched the air (!) and said "F**king hell! I'm dreaming!" I then (somewhat predictably, perhaps!) decided to fly and felt my body and in particular my legs buzzing intensely and oddly, which slightly worried me and woke me up.

Does anyone else experience this buzzing sensation?

I can't see what exactly tipped me off that I was dreaming. I just suddenly knew.

I can't wait to go back to sleep to try it again!
 
I haven't lucid-dreamed since i was really really little, except for once, recently, when at the point of almost waking i realised i was dreaming, and managed with great effort to "push myself" back into the dream and remain asleep. although i can't for the life of me remember what the dream was about.
 
Only ever had this happen to me once.

In the dream I was getting on a bus, opened my purse to pay the fare, and found my purse full of jelly beans instead of money. The bus driver got a bit shirty...as they do....so I told him it was my dream and I just rode around on the bus. If I saw anything I did'nt like I would then just change it.

Usually I dream of places I have never been to......and have no idea of were they are, and I'm just doing normal boring things...... but its always in colour.
 
are there any accounts of people who have started lucid dreaming and have become so fascinated by the ability to live and be fully conscious in a dream world that they have become totally obsessed and not bothered to live their lives outside of it?
 
pooter said:
For the past couple years I've been having a recurring dream in which a tooth, or multiple teeth fall out. It has happened with such regularity that within a year whenever this happens, I immediately recognize that I'm dreaming and do as much as I can before it ends...usually in what feels like 30 seconds to a minute.
Recurring dream themes is also the way I do it. I can't just will a lucid dream but I do have these dream themes that re-occur. One of them was also teetch falling out - but that never made me lucid (actually it turns out it was telling me that I needed one of my teeth pulling out oddly enough)

A couple that have resulted in lucid dreams are:

My car not having an engine - actually this turned out to have some element of truth - the car was a ringer and the only original component matching the number plate was the engine. Meaning the shell I had was from the stolen car I guess.. Anyway this dream kept happening and after a while I recognised it as a dream.

(different) Car being stolen (well actually I go to get in and its just not outside my house or wherever I just left it). This happened a lot - I started recognising this. I certainly hope this isn't linked to real life in any way! Once lucid though I can summon my car to be parked where I want (look away and back again - seems my dreams don't have auto refresh hehe)

I have re-occurring dreams in which the moon appears to be orbiting the planet every 10 seconds. This I now recognise as a dream. I really don't know if anything this is connected to in real life. But it gets me lucid so heh, do I care?

Most nightmares work. But sometimes there seems to be another force in the dream that does not want me lucid and will actually end the dream. Dreams are weird eh?

And once I was at work and the phone displays were displaying stuff that would in fact be impossible on their screens - for some reason I picked that one up as a dream and got lucid on it.

I find that I can do a lot of things (have just about managed to fly sometimes) and have made people disappear - sometimes though I cannot make people disappear. Dunno why. The best way to get your way is to think 'wouldnt it be funny if.....' and it may well happen. Conversly thinking 'I hope x doesnt happen' will often have the same effect (albeit a negative one) :-/ go figure.

On the whole though great fun even if I do tend to wake up very shortly afterwards. If this happens I can sometimes slip straight into the same dream and lucidity just by 'knowing' that I will before I go back to sleep.

'tis most fun.
 
When you're asking yourself 'am I dreaming?' you have to really think about the answer - otherwise you'll get into such a habit of saying 'no' that you'll say 'no' in your dream too!
I haven't lucidly dreamt for ages - though I haven't tried - but one thing that is interesting to do is to try and switch a light on or off in your dream. Your brain doesn't seem to be very good at convincingly coping with this. Also you can try smashing something, a glass - see if it gives a convincing sound, or even smashes at all.
 
Back
Top