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Lucid Dreams / Lucid Dreaming

Hello Node!

My 'interesting results', since you asked ;) -

The first time I became lucid was in a dream about reading a biography of Hitler. I thought to myself: 'I don't have any books on Hitler... I must be dreaming!' The lucidity always comes upon me with a sudden rush of vividness and detail, as if the dream had turned from a 2D image into 3D.

The most beautiful was a log-cabin I explored in an arctic wilderness. The hardness of the ground and the way the frost scrunched underfoot was quite breathtaking. The heat and crackle of the fire I discovered inside, against the arctic silence, filled me with awe...

The most exciting was becoming lucid in my bedroom, jumping out the bedroom window and flying over the town. The buildings rolled past as I flew over them, in complete detail. I landed on a roof and watched someone through a skylight reading a book, amazed to think that this person had no existence in reality...

But it's when you think over the experience afterwards that the doubts set in. It's not 'consciousness' as we ordinarily understand it, in which case - why call it 'consciousness' at all?

Someone in FT somewhere criticised the alien abduction phenomenon, arguing that these were lucid dreams, because - given the number of optically impaired people in the world - no one ever complained about not being able to see what the aliens were doing, despite being snatched from their beds without glasses or contacts... Having read Node's post, now I'm not so sure!

Duncan.
 
Hey, duncan!
The lucidity always comes upon me with a sudden rush of vividness and detail, as if the dream had turned from a 2D image into 3D
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Same here - my problem is remaining asleep once this occurs :( It's as if I have to maintain a sort of 'relaxed control' of things - control too much and I wake myself, relax too much and the lucidity leaks away.

I've been most successful when overly tired, or in a heat-induced torpor. I'm a light sleeper normally, so this makes sense - the active mind can't wake the exhausted body - and a couple of times I've surfaced from the dream into a sleep paralysis episode. Never managed flying...can hover about a bit and do huge jumps, but under the circumstances I reckon I'm too near "conciousness" to block out my physical awareness. Like the glasses thing, that seems a bit stupid! :oops: Perhaps I'm just weirdly repressed!

Ok, probably time to search out a dedicated thread for this, now that I'm interested, but I'll be checking back to see if Dilemma has any luck!
 
Node said:
....although I can produce whatever imagery I want, it's not in focus (obviously not lucid enough to deliberately dream some contact lenses!).
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People say that you know its a dream if you cannot read text in books or on signs. I say thats false. I've read clear writing before in dreams. I also remember on a particular occasion that I was in a city and i could see buildings off in the distance ( i think it was paris). There was a pond with ducks and whatnot. I wanted to capture the image i was seeing. And when i woke up, i remember there was leaves blowing around, the image was crystal clear, no blurriness. Please dont think I get these results each time though!!
 
still having nightmares. Still very tired. Dont drink, smoke or do drugs, and I am nt having any particularly stressful events going on. Havent eaten any thing before going to bed either. Maybe it is just some kind of weird insomnia. Have started the dream log, still no luck making any changes to the dream though. Still the same thing, night after night. I think I will try som tynelol pm and see if that helps. On a lighter note, the advise and info everyone is posting is very interesting, and i m reading some great books on the subject :D
 
^ ^ ^ "The feeling of awareness and freedom with your own actions have to become synonimous in order to control your dreams"

Please do realize while you are awake that you can control your own actions. I know it sounds too simple but trust me on this. And dont just realize it, truly understand it inside and out that you can take a step if you want (and then actually do it). Or, you can speak if you choose to (and then say something aloud). This way, when you do have dreams, it will carry over. But it will only carry over if you fully realize that you can control your own actions while you're awake. Do you understand all of this?
 
dilemma
Dont drink, smoke or do drugs
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I think this could be your problem!

Sorry, I couldn't resist... :lol:

Totally agree on the reading thing, Human. Sometimes I've been reading a book before turning out the light, and I'll start dreaming that I'm still awake and reading it. Next day I open the book and think "Wait, this isn't what happened last night!".
Please do realize while you are awake that you can control your own actions.
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I think I know what you're getting at, but to be honest I suffer from enough existential angst as it is! Sound's like this practice might go hand-in-hand with the zen meditation I'm always "just about to start" practising.
 
Totally disagree about the reading thing!

You can't read in a dream, because in a dream you are confronted not with a word printed on a page, but with an image of a word. And for a word to be truly a word, it has to be a symbol not an image!

It's a subtle difference, but extremely important. It helps avoid all those endless crappy debates you read about whether people dream in 'colour' or 'black and white'. Listen up folks: when you dream you don't 'see' anything - your eyes are shut! You might have an image of a red rose (let's say), but an image of something red isn't itself necessarily red. (Like the words 'red rose', for instance. No redness there; it's only in your mind!) So you don't 'see' a red rose in your dream; instead you dream that the rose is red. Dreaming is not seeing; you dream that you see!

Hence you cannot read in a dream. You'll wake up having dreamt that you read something, and will probably be able to say something about what it was that you read. But most probably it won't entirely make sense. Or be as profound in the morning as it seemed during the dream. The texts you encounter in dreams are always kind of 'autistic', because they come from the dreamer's own mental imagery, and not from outside his or her mind. True reading - on the other hand - involves engagement with symbols, and symbols point to meanings outside ourselves which can be shared with other minds...

:furious: Here endeth the lesson... My rant is over...

My hunch is that dreaming is so unlike the way the mind works when we're awake that it's even more interesting than it seems. The more you think about what dreams are like, the weirder and weirder the whole thing gets...

Duncan.
 
Wow, good stuff Duncan! :D

It's a cogent argument, but I think it's based on a host of dubious assumptions...
Let me get a few hours sleep and I'll start a new thread, 'cause we're going waaay off topic. :no-no:

Do I have your permission to quote the above post in it's entirety, just to kick things off?

Here endeth the lesson... My rant is over...
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Say it aint so!
 
Hi monomark -

(So... they made you change your name too... but I shall always think of you as Node...)

Please quote away - and where you lead I shall follow...

Still worried about our original poster, though. Dilemma, if you don't have a doctor who's liable to medicate you on sight, could you go and see him / her? I don't know, but there may be a physical or neurological cause to your complaint. If you're seriously worried about you health, it might be time to give up the paranormal discussion boards and seek medical advice.

Daniel (formerly: duncan)
 
Something I found useful was to 'continue' the dream when I woke up by just imagining a new ending. Eventually, it might become part of the dream.

I became aware I was dreaming because I had the same dream over and over and over. Eventually, I recognised what was going on and found I had the ability to change it. AFter that, I found that I occasionally had the ability to 'step putside of myself' during the dream and start controlling it.
 
I can't really find another thread for this, but this is close enough I guess.

I have problems with nightmares. I have for most of my life. They come in batches, so I'll have a spate of nightmares every night for a couple of weeks, then they go away for several months.

Having tried the lucid dreaming thing to 'direct' my dreams, in truth, I force myself to wake up before I get to the really scary bit, so at least there's no waking up shivering in a cold sweat of terror, however, I can't get back to sleep very quickly. Also, knowing that I'm in one of my 'nightmare seasons', before I go to sleep, it's on the edge of my mind that I'll have a disturbed nights sleep.

I'm currently in one of those seasons, (have you seen the times I'm posting???) but this one is becoming much more prolonged. I've often thought that the season passes because I get to a point where I'm so tired, my sleep pattern alters so that I hit the dream sleep part closer to the time I should be getting up, rather than in the middle of the night. Even if that's not the case, thinking that seems to work. It's vaguely reassuring to think I'll soon be too tired to dream.

However, I'm not working ATM, so as there's no real reason to crawl out of bed an some unearthly hour to put my nose on a grindstone. I'm loath to go to the docs about this, as, well, I'm not sure why :oops: I think this is why things seem so prolonged.

Any tips or solutions would be greatly appreciated. My googling attempts seem to just pull up a swath of dream forums, populated by the illiterate. (OK so that's cruel, my English isn't the best in the world, but I can't bring myself to attempt a solution that comes with the recommendation 'it werked four me').
 
Before you have these nightmares, do you get a lot of phosphene light shows when you've closed your eyes before you go to sleep? You're mind's still over-active. I used to get it a lot. I had some humdinger nightmares, including night-hag experiences of an intense and gothic sort.

First, keep busy, keep occupied. Physical activity, like walking, or cycling, is good, if you've got a bit of spare time on you hands. Household chores and getting your house in order can help focus the mind, too. You want to be physically tired, rather than emotionally tired, before you go to bed.

Next, try keeping a dream diary. A notebook and pen beside the bed to write down what you remember if you have to force yourself to wake up. Writing the stuff down might help to objectify the problem. Being trapped in a stressful situation used to bring on the nightmares and lucid dreaming for me. Are there things out in the real World that are causing undue stress? Could even be the uncertainty of being out of work acting as a trigger.

Try reading, or doing simple word/number puzzles, for a half hour, or so, before turning the lights out and going to sleep, so your mind has a chance to relax. The likes of PG Wodehouse, Terry Pratchett, or James Herriot, rather than HP Lovecraft, or Stephen King, for reading matter, I'd say.

Before finally going to sleep, control your breathing by breathing in through your nose and out through your mouth in a regular 1-2-3 count, whilst repeating to yourself, 'I will be in control of my dreams', five times, before you nod off.

Some of this stuff worked for me. I haven't tried the notebook beside the bed, but the rest can be effective.
 
While I know this is a bit off topic, I hope I will be forgiven.

I find the entire idea of nightmares fascinating. I honestly can`t recall having anything that could be called a "nightmare" since early childhood. I can remember having some quite scary dreams long long ago (and then being sleepy in school because of being awake half the night after waking up from them)... But I don`t think that I have had one since elementary school.

Oddly unsettling dreams that leave me in thought once waking - yes. Sad dreams where I will cry in my sleep - yes. Subject matter that should be scary, yes... but nothing where I feel fear.

I am wondering whether this is some special trait, or whether it is something I could push toward being lucid. Even if I dream of something that would definitely fall into the category of horror, I am never in the slightest afraid in the dream, and am always a step back from the action... As if watching something play out as in a movie or book. Recalling the dream after waking up has the same feeling as if I had read it (there is something deeper to the feeling than with a movie... Maybe this is just because I prefer books though.)

As not all my dreams are "detached" or third person, perhaps I have found a way to automatically step back from the dream and detach myself from it if it seems to be frightening. I can vaguely remember a few occasions where I have thought "I do not like the way this is going" and woken myself up - but those have been depressing dreams instead of anything directly frightening. Think loved ones dying, etc.

For the longest time, I thought that nightmares were something you just naturally grew out of. :oops:
 
P_M -

No, there are no light shows before I drop off, nor do I really have too much trouble dropping off. The nightmares are of a similar nature, fortunately, it probably helps me pull myself out of them. Although I wouldn't mind a little variety. Tamyu mentioned the idea of growing out of nightmares, and that's a good way to explain the way they have developed, I seem to have a more adult interpretation of the events.

I'm pretty good at keeping myself busy, I don't have hours of boredom during the day, but I am being less physical than I would like to be, there's only so many laps around my local park I can stomach, and the cash flow really restricts many wider excursions.

There's not much need for a dream diary, one entry is all I need, it's like my dreams are on a UK Gold channel or something, for those not in the UK, that means endless repeats. Equally, I'm not especially anxious about being out of work, more just fed up. As for a trigger, well, I've been trying to come up with that one for years, I'm not sure there is a specific trigger, if anything, it may well be that I just think to myself 'Oooh haven't had a nightmare for a while'.

I guess I'm just concerned as this seems like a prolonged batch, and has occurred following a fairly recent batch. I'm sure there is a link to being less physically tired, but generally, that just means I sleep less, not have interrupted sleep. If I have one talent, sleep is it. About the only thing I've found that put's a brake on a batch or prevents a batch starting is getting truly blotto, but I've learned to love my liver.

I'll give the breathing thing a go starting tonight though.


Tamyu -

Don't apologise, any discussion around nightmares might just produce some mention of technique that will help. I've kind of resigned myself to having these nightmares for always, that attitude does seem to take the sting out of them, so maybe nightmare is too strong a word, but they are disturbing.
 
This sounds silly, but have you tried talking to a dream figure?

I mean when you're awake. You're having the same or similar dream over and over, right? There must be some consistent, significant central image that, if not an actual person, can be personified enough to hold an imaginary conversation with it? So, when you're awake and calm, have an imaginary conversation, either in your head, writing out both parts, or vocalizing your part of the conversation and listening for the reply.

For example, if the dream involves being followed by a large snake, you'd start by asking: "Why are you following me?"

Because I want to eat you.

Okay, but why me? There's plenty of other things to eat in this dream. Why waste all this energy following me in and out of buildings, up hill, and down dale? Besides, you're ginormous. I wouldn't even make a bulge in your stomach. I'm not worth the trouble. You'd be hungry again in an hour.

And so on. Don't think about it too hard - do it like you have those imaginary conversations with the guy who pissed you off the other day. You may well find yourself telling yourself why you're having the nightmare; and once you understand that, it may be absurdly easy to figure out what you need to do to stop it; or the nightmare may at least be less disturbing.
 
Well P_M, I tried the breathing thing, well, I concentrated on my breathing until I nodded off, I still had a nightmare, but I seem less tired from broken sleep, which is a huge bonus, so I'll keep that one up.

Peni - Yes, you're right, there is a central figure in the nightmare. It happens to be a real person, that I know in real life, however, I have nothing nice to say about or to. In fact I've gone to great pains to ensure I never see or speak to this person. But you've knida flicked a light switch on for me. See I'm also having a few issues with my housemate, all very petty and not really worth mentioning, so I'm not. It didn't hurt that he sloped down from his room at the same time as I was reading your post. Perhaps my reticence with my housemate in my waking life is being translated in my mind into a similar situation with my dream figure, seeing as I don't want to speak to that person either. But talk about molehills and mountains! I would never equate my housemate with my dream figure, they are in no way comparable. My dream figure is a truly vile individual, my housemate just makes free with my coffee, tea, shampoo, pasta, rice, etc, and has no idea how to use any cleaning product. Just typical houseshare stuff that I've come across before, and come up with different ways to combat, rather than go down a confrontation route.
 
In my late teens early twenties I had dreams where the Predator from the movies was chasing after me. I was utterly terrified. It went on for a few years until I found out about lucid dreaming techniques and started practising. I slowly got to the point where I could slightly control my actions in these dreams and one night I turned round in the dreams and fought back. Because it was a dream I was able to fight back with a ferocity I don't posses in real life. Result: one dead Predator and no more of these nightmares.

More recently I started getting virtually the same dreams only with zombies in them. I realised that I had not continued to practise any of the techniques and was really rusty. In the end I just stopped reading zombie books or watching any films of telly connected with the genre. Not even pictures. It is a bit difficult considering how trendy zombies are at the moment but I've stopped having the dreams.

I am way too influenced by what I watch/read.
 
I wonder if the dreams we have are just our sleeping selves mulling over the days events, with a big pinch of our emotional state thrown into the mix.

If, as Static says, the things she has been reading/watching influence her dreams, why am I not having interesting dreams about Miss Coombs from American Gothic? It's my bedtime DVD ATM.
 
I don't dream often and I've lucid dreams very infrequently. But a few days ago I had one.

I was standing in a nondescript suburban playground and looking around me. I knew I was dreaming and I was surprised at the huge amount of detail that was visible. Rows of houses with windows and windowframes and different brick and strone textures. I looked very carefully but couldn't detect any "low resolution" parts of the image (like when you zoom in on a photograph).

So either:
1) my brain fooled me into thinking that I saw a complete detailed picture
2) I really produced a 3000 * 3000 pixel image in my dream - and that in 360 degrees

I bet it's nr. 1.
 
Are you sure your brain wasn't killing a bit of time on Google Streetview?
 
A guy at work told me he sees his dreams in as much detail as real life. He says all the details are there, flawlessly generated by his own mind, and he occasionally has a problem telling it apart from reality.
 
gncxx said:
Are you sure your brain wasn't killing a bit of time on Google Streetview?
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Yes, I was thinking that myself. It really had that "zoom function" feeling. Still amazing - I hope my brain does not really store all that information.
 
Unwanted lucid dreaming

I'm not sure where this belongs out of Notes & Queries, The Human Condition and Chat, so mods, I shall defer to you!

Does anyone know anything about *unwanted* lucid dreams?
For those that don't know, a lucid dream is one where you're aware that you are dreaming, and can often influence the events in the dream.
It sounds like it should be a fantastic thing, and many people practise to achieve it.

However, I have a friend who never tried to do it on purpose, and had never experienced it until she had a car accident (no head injuries) just over a year ago. Since then, she lucid dreams every night and finds that she never, ever, feels rested (presumably as she's 'concious' during sleep). She desperately wants to return to having normal dreams but doesn't know who or where to turn to for help (her doctor has said it's just one of those things!) - can anyone offer any guidance?
 
How traumatic was the car crash that your friend was involved in? It sound like she might be suffering from a form of post-traumatic stress disorder.

I've had lucid dreams, a long time ago. They can be induced, however, similar to other sorts of vivid dreaming, they're usually sign that that some part of the sufferer, either mentally, or physically, is trapped. Whether it be by being wrapped tight in the bedsheets, caught in some sort of stressful situation in waking life, or being trapped in some sort of mental loop caused by an extreme event. Lucid dreams can allow the dreamer to take control of dream events, because it is much more difficult to cope with conscious events in waking life, whether ongoing, or past events in a short-hand of knotted emotions, still too much in the forefront of the sub-processes of the semi-conscious mind. Manifesting as a zombie process running in the background. The best way to deal with them, is by digging them out, root and branch.

Maybe she should go back to her doctor and emphasize just how much distress these lucid dreams are causing her? Talking it all out with a good therapist might help.
 
I had dreams of that kind after my wife died. Still have the occasional one. They are unpleasant because though you make decisions in the dreams they still end up where you didn't want them to. Still, perhaps they were trying to tell me there was nothing I could have done to prevent her death. (It was cancer, not an accident or anything).
 
If she's lucid, could she perhaps decide to go to sleep in the dream?

I find that I easily get distracted from lucidity by focusing on details. Sometimes I even fade in and out of lucidity as a dream calls for it.
 
There's more to 'lucid dreaming' than simply being aware one is in a dream. Awareness of being in a dream can happen in a liminal state - e.g., just before fully awaking. Full-blown lucidity connotes not just awareness of being in a dream, but being able to think and act as a proactive agent within that dream context.

I suspect what your friend describes as lucid dreaming is actually an increase of awareness (if not frequency or duration) of being in a liminal state. This in turn could be a symptom of either (a) inability to get into or stay within a deeper sleep or (b) heightened background stress / anxiety levels. Both of these would involve a sleep disturbance condition consistent with her not feeling well rested. It wouldn't require full-blown PTSD to cause such sleep disturbances.

In other words, this sounds to me like a sleep disturbance issue. I'd suggest starting with facilitating a better sleeping situation (regular hours; sufficient sleep time; eliminate stimulants near bedtime; etc.).
 
I've only ever had one lucid dream and I didn't understand at the time that's what it was. It was during a period of great stress - it only happened once and has never happened since.

I'm not sure I agree with EnolaGaia - having read fairly extensively on the subject now, not many deliberate practicioners will experience full-blown lucid dreams every night, nor would they recommend it, and I don't think that's purely a sleep-issue.

It seems there is a cause and effect thing going on with the car accident, and there are so many weird things that can happen to someone after such a physical or emotional trauma (e.g. like taking a knock and ending up speaking in a foreign accent). Maybe she should try a bit of hypnotherapy and have the therapist put her in 'safe mode' and try to effectively re-boot her.
 
Sergeant_Pluck said:
...

It seems there is a cause and effect thing going on with the car accident, and there are so many weird things that can happen to someone after such a physical or emotional trauma (e.g. like taking a knock and ending up speaking in a foreign accent). Maybe she should try a bit of hypnotherapy and have the therapist put her in 'safe mode' and try to effectively re-boot her.
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I don't recommend going for a full mental reboot, as it can take a while before all the updates are re-loaded. Definitely a last resort. ;)
 
Sergeant_Pluck said:
... I'm not sure I agree with EnolaGaia - having read fairly extensively on the subject now, not many deliberate practicioners will experience full-blown lucid dreams every night, nor would they recommend it, and I don't think that's purely a sleep-issue ...
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Just in case I wasn't clear ... Full-blown lucid dreaming (a) isn't simply a matter of being aware of being in a dream and (b) isn't symptomatic of a sleep disturbance problem.

The original poster mentioned no evidence of full lucidity (which would entail proactive / discretionary control while within the dream), and noted the friend "never feels rested." These are classic symptoms of REM deficiency, overly-rapid 'surfacing' from deeper sleep, and / or inability to adequately complete deeper sleep cycles. These in turn are classic symptoms of a stress- or substance-induced sleep disturbance condition.
 
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