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Lucid Dreams / Lucid Dreaming

Agreed that it's likely trauma-related, OP. All it takes to register as a traumatic experience in the brain is that she believed she was in mortal danger at the time.

I have PTSD as well as lucid dreams (both intentional and unintentional) There are distinct differences and it can be distressing. seeking the help of a doctor or therapist would be good, as well as reviewing any medication she might be taking.
 
Thanks for all the replies, everybody :)
I'll pass along what you've said and see what her thoughts are.
EnolaGaia's point is valid - I'm not sure what the level of lucidity is, only my friend can really answer that.
I may point her to this thread so she can take part in the discussion herself, if there's no objections?
 
Not sure if this is an appropriate place but here goes. This is more of a did it happen to me kind of question though.

For a long time I've been trying to lucid dream. A few months ago I became aware of my dream state and started to control certain events. I couldn't maintain control for long before I woke up due to becoming too aware. This happened on a few occasions. Last night I had a similar experience but was able to stay more calm and when the dream started to fade I relaxed more and managed to recover and continue dreaming.

But here's my dilemma. Was I really lucid dreaming? Was I controlling my dream or did I just dream that I was? When you are full awake and look back at your 'lucid dream' how do you know that you were exercising real control and that you were not simply dreaming that you were in control?
 
I'd put it this way ...

If you seem to exert discretionary control over your actions as an actor within the dream, you may or may not have achieved lucidity. The evidence supports (what's called ...) lucidity to the extent you are consciously / deliberatively proactive (as an actor; within the dream), as opposed to being passive and reactive.

This is difficult to evaluate, because it's the actor second-guessing himself as an actor from a first-person perspective within the flow of the dream 'play'.

You are definitely in the area of lucidity if and when you can be proactive about the dream itself - e.g., figuratively or literally change the setting, the script, the actors, etc. Phrased another way, if you can shift from being solely an actor to being an observer and manipulator of the actor (or overall play) - e.g., as scriptwriter, director, audience member - you're in lucid territory.
 
ie ... post something in this thread and in your forthcoming dreams try and do it / say it / refer to it explicitly

then come back and tell us about it ... an elephant ...
 
Most of the literature on how to have lucid dreams wil stress the importance of introducing a control element to use as a reference. Mine is a watch - it's a distinctive model. When I suspect that I'm in lucidity, I check my watch. If I'm wearing the watch, chances are I'm lucid.
 
I've started taking vitamin b6 in it's more absorbable form P5P and so far have had very vivid dreams both nights I have taken it. I don't normally remember my dreams but these were very clear.
 
Years ago I used to have dreams I would walk around a dream of a city that I eventually got to know everywhere about, i would know I was back there and would decide where to go and what to look at.
A few days ago i realised that i was back there again, i was dreaming about being unable to find a cinema until i remembered i was dreaming and knew that if i walked down this alley out of the main street i would find it there.

I also tend to have continuous dreams sometimes over a few nights, sometimes over one night with a toilet break in between, can recognise almost immediately when this happens and pay attention to the subplots.

Have also induced pure emotion into dreams as a method of stress relief, when you stressed out pure fear flooding through your mind can have such an exhilarating effect and when my love life dies concentrating on pure lust gets it all out of my system.
 
I had my first lucid dream the other day!

Last week I’d been abroad and my body clock was having a lot of trouble adjusting, causing me to constantly wake up at silly o’clock in the morning. One night this happened and I was hugely annoyed at myself, since I had a very busy day planned and needed to get my sleep. Eventually I managed to drift off again.

I dreamt I was walking down the street when I felt myself beginning to wake up. Dream-me was furious and I started shouting at myself to stay asleep and not wake up. I ordered myself to stay in the dream, and that if I kept trying to wake up I would make myself stay. At which point I started running down the street, held my arms wide and whoosh, started flying! I hovered in the air and said “See, look how awesome this is, you can’t do this when you’re awake!” I messed around with my dream-powers for a bit before concluding that I probably should start to get up, and woke up again.

The whole thing was so weird. I felt incredibly powerful because literally I could do anything. One thing that was bizarre is that I usually dream in third person, but when the dream became lucid it suddenly jumped to first person. It was rather fun though and a shame it didn’t last longer.
 
Lucid dreaming can be induced by electric scalp stimulation, study finds

Scientists have discovered that it is possible to induce lucid dreaming in sleepers by applying mild electrical currents to their scalps, a study says.

Lucid dreaming is when a sleeper recognises they are dreaming and may even be able to manipulate the dream's plot and control their behaviour.

"The key finding is that you can, surprisingly, by scalp stimulation, influence the brain. And you can influence the brain in such a way that a sleeper, a dreamer, becomes aware that he is dreaming," said Professor J Allan Hobson, from Harvard Medical School, who co-authored the paper published in Nature Neuroscience.

etc
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Bit late to the party, but here's something that works. When you're dreaming and try to turn a light on, it either won't come on at all or will come on very dimly. Don't know why this is a fact but it just is. Therefore you'll know you're dreaming and can safely jump out of the window and fly to your holiday destination of choice. What can possibly go wrong?
 
Commanding yourself to look at your hands in a dream seems to work as well.

That bit comes from a Carlos Casteneda book, but I can confirm that it works...assuming you can think to look at your hands.
 
I'd say if you had the control to look at your hands in the first place you are already lucid dreaming.
 
I think I finally experienced a lucid type dream state overnight. Struggling to stay asleep these days with extreme hayfever drymouth. Very broken sleep nightly. Lots of strong dreams and shallow REM periods.

So anyway I ventured mentally to Ireland. Never been before but have been obsessed with going for a few years now and am hoping like hell against current circumstantial shit to get there this time next year. I kind of woke up inside the dream, so to speak, wondering if I were really there and recognising that I wasn't. I held the perception for a few moments quite deliberately, and that was it. I didn't get to do anything unfortunately. It was the sweetest feeling.

As soon as technology can bottle that, I'm a gone junkie.
 
I lucid dreamed a few times. 1st time happened while I was hollidaying in Turkey a few years back. I was at a wedding reception (in the dream) and noticed some people were eating massive grapes. This started making me think ‘whats going on here?‘. I then said to my partner that I couldnt remember the flight home from Turkey and she tried to convince me that I could. (This is reoccuring in my lucid dreams -other people in the dreams trying to convince me im not dreaming). I then told her, and knew fine well that I was dreaming. I said 'watch this‘ outstretched my arms and just concentrated on levitating, which I did. This seemed to really piss her off and as she walked away I was thinking of the limitless possibilities ahead of me - I bloody well woke up. I have had lucid dreams since - normally involving deceased friends, thats how I realise im dreaming, often wake at this point but have found the spinning technique to work.
 
"An international team of researchers was able to achieve real-time dialogues with people in the midst of lucid dreams, a phenomenon that is called “interactive dreaming,” according to a study published on Thursday in Current Biology.
Participants in the study were able to correctly respond to questions, such as simple math problems, while they were deep in the throes of rapid-eye movement (REM) sleep."

https://www.vice.com/en/article/4ad...unication-with-lucid-dreamers-in-breakthrough

link to research is here:
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(21)00059-2
 
There's an article in The Guardian about Lucid Dreaming.

Can lucid dreaming help us understand consciousness?​

Illustration of a lucid dreamer

Some hope that lucid dreams can enhance performance in waking life. Photograph: agsandrew/Getty Images/iStockphoto
The ability to control our dreams is a skill that more of us are seeking to acquire for sheer pleasure. But if taken seriously, scientists believe it could unlock new secrets of the mind

David Robson
Sun 14 Nov 2021 07.00 GMT



Michelle Carr is frequently plagued by tidal waves in her dreams. What should be a terrifying nightmare, however, can quickly turn into a whimsical adventure – thanks to her ability to control her dreams. She can transform herself into a dolphin and swim into the water. Once, she transformed the wave itself, turning it into a giant snail with a huge shell. “It came right up to me – it was a really beautiful moment.”
There’s a thriving online community of people who are now trying to learn how to lucid dream. (A single subreddit devoted to the phenomenon has more than 400,000 members.) Many are simply looking for entertainment. “It’s just so exciting and unbelievable to be in a lucid dream and to witness your mind creating this completely vivid simulation,” says Carr, who is a sleep researcher at the University of Rochester in New York state. Others hope that exercising skills in their dreams will increase their real-life abilities. “A lot of elite athletes use lucid dreams to practise their sport.”
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https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/nov/14/can-lucid-dreaming-help-us-understand-consciousness
 
Just sharing my experience of lucid dreams on this thread:

I have vivid and very odd dreams. I remember lots when I wake up from them too. Usually I am aware when I am asleep that I am dreaming, and that someone is no longer alive in reality/or the circumstances don't match reality/that the event isn't happening in "real life."

It is like my brain is able to compartmentalise or split into different versions of me: The Observer/interpreter and the Dreamer/active "me" in the dream.

The Observer seems to be a part of my brain that is aware it is a dream when I sleep. It's like having a part of the brain observing the dream/noticing what doesn't match real events/reality. It knows it is a dream where my brain is trying to process trauma or work out a solution to a problem etc.....Even when my dreams are really odd/weird there is a part of my brain processing it and on waking/recalling I can interpret symbolism/meaning. There are a few rare totally random ones that were total nonsense to me though too, although even then I can sense the feelings my brain may be exploring.

I have dreams that revisit past things that have happened but as if I am experiencing them again in the present, but the details are not correct. e.g mobile phones exist but in reality mobile phones were not affordable/we didn't have access to them. Or the specific details are not the same as what actually happened. The "observer" notices this - and probably helps me remember this when I wake up, recall the details and see what my brain was processing/working through.

Whatever dreams I have the active visible Dreamer "me" in the dream is still young in appearance. It is as if I stopped physically ageing in my dreams some time ago.

Having an "Observer" seems a bit like not really sleeping - because there is an active part of my brain actively "watching."

I used to think I remembered all my dreams but that might not be true. Maybe I do have dreams that the "Observer" doesn't observe/interpret/record but I don't remember those? I wonder whether the brain decides whether to switch off the observer or if it is totally dependant on how much sleep I get before REM/dream states start? Is the "Observer" necessary for me to remember dreams or is that just something that I always have in my dreams?

I have had lucid dreams most of my life, as far as I remember. I wonder if I "learnt" to do this at some point (how?) or if I have always been able to do this?

I don't always sleep very well (as a child I had problems too). Sometimes I can't get to sleep for a long time. Sometimes I can get to sleep but I keep waking up at various points.

I do have nights where I don't remember dreaming, but those are quite unusual/rare (as far as I know).

Actually controlling the content of dreams or the actions of the active "me" in the dream is not something that I think I do.

I do enjoy dreams. I actually feel disappointed on the rare mornings when I don't remember dreaming anything.

I haven't read books on the subject of Lucid dreaming. I wonder if I would gain anything from reading about it? I have assumed my experiences were normal and that my brain/mind was working through feelings/problems/making sense of stuff in its own way.​
 
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I mentioned last month that I had signed up with Breathguru® and had started their yogic breathing techniques for a minimum of 10 minutes a day. My aim was to improve the quality of my sleep and mitigate my occasional occurrences of sleep apnoea.
I'm convinced that it is already having a positive effect.
One of the unexpected but serendipitous side effects is that my dreams have started to become more vivid and regularly semi-lucid.
I'm into the 2nd day of Breathguru's "Summer Camp", which featured a much longer breathing session (around 40 minutes) and a theme of "emotional surfing". Had an absolute doozy of a lucid dream last night: was at some sort of outdoor event in the evening and an achingly beautiful woman, who seemed to be an amalgamation of several women I'd known going back to college days, was sitting at my right and we started chatting away (interestingly in French), holding hands and it was obvious where it was heading. The dream girl (long auburn hair and wearing a full-length, patterned grey and green dress) asked me if I had someone and this is where the lucidity kicked in with the thought "hey I know this is only a dream but it would still feel like being unfaithful".
 
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I am finding that, as I age, I am coming back round into lucid dreaming again. I did it a lot as a youngster, but through my 30's and right up to early 50's I didn't have many experiences, but that might co incide with having caring responsibiilities and maybe not being able to get the level of sleep that I needed. Now I'm in my 60's and live alone, it's happening more frequently.

But also, oddly enough, so is some kind of almost deja vu when I'm falling asleep. I never had this before but now, just as I drop into sleep I feel as though I am 'remembering' things that have happened during the day, which are sometimes so incongruous that I jerk awake thinking 'well, THAT certainly never happened'. Must be something to do with the way my brain is handling falling asleep - which may link in to the increased lucidity?
 
How to Lucid Dream (Even if You Think You Can’t)

What, exactly, is lucid dreaming? The experience is a metacognitive state in which you become aware of your existence inside of a dream and sometimes grab the reins from Morpheus to control aspects of what transpires.

Whether you’re trying to have your first lucid dream or attempting to increase their frequency, remember these tips the next time you show up nude to your high school reunion and desperately need something to cover up.

5 tips follow:

https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-lucid-dream/

maximus otter
 
We have several threads on this fascinating theme. :)

Anyway...

Last night I slept well until the early hours. A public part of my workplace is covered by external CCTV that's available online so when I woke up I had a look before settling down again. All was well.

At some time after that I dreamed I was walking along the area I'd seen on the CCTV. Colleagues looked alarmed and greeted me with 'Scargy! What're you doing here? You're not due in for hours!'

I replied calmly ' I'm not actually here, I'm at home in bed.'
Techy then woke me up with a cup of coffee.

So if there's a report of a tousle-haired party strolling along there shortly before 6am, barefoot, wearing grey shorts and a green running vest, who disappeared before the witnesses' very eyes, that would be me. :chuckle:
 
The other day I was sitting in my comfy chair in the apartment, the dogs were lying in the kitchen and I was waiting on news about my sister`s surgery. I went out to the kitchen and started seeing some weird things. I reasoned that I was actually not in the kitchen but asleep in the chair and dreaming, so tried to see if I could conjure up some specific images and it actually worked.
A bit later I woke up in my bed where I remembered that that isn`t my apartment, I have no dogs and my sister is doing fine.
 
Xanatic* said:
The other day I was sitting in my comfy chair in the apartment, the dogs were lying in the kitchen and I was waiting on news about my sister`s surgery. I went out to the kitchen and started seeing some weird things. I reasoned that I was actually not in the kitchen but asleep in the chair and dreaming, so tried to see if I could conjure up some specific images and it actually worked.
A bit later I woke up in my bed where I remembered that that isn`t my apartment, I have no dogs and my sister is doing fine.
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Was it a dream, or did you merge with another 'you' in a parallel dimension?
 
There's an interesting article on the use of electromyography sensors to let subjects control a virtual car while lucid dreaming. This sort of two-way interaction has a fair bit of potential, and we might hear more of it in future. One thing it does tend to confirm is that lucid dreamers do have proper consciousness. Anyone who has ever lucid dreamed would have no doubts on that poit, but now we have some objective evidence.

You can read an account of it here:

https://thedebrief.org/lucid-dreami...l-control-of-a-virtual-object-while-sleeping/

Or download the preprint paper here:

https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/xzmwh
 
Salmonellus said:
There's an interesting article on the use of electromyography sensors to let subjects control a virtual car while lucid dreaming. This sort of two-way interaction has a fair bit of potential, and we might hear more of it in future. One thing it does tend to confirm is that lucid dreamers do have proper consciousness. Anyone who has ever lucid dreamed would have no doubts on that poit, but now we have some objective evidence.

You can read an account of it here:

https://thedebrief.org/lucid-dreami...l-control-of-a-virtual-object-while-sleeping/

Or download the preprint paper here:

https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/xzmwh
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I wonder if people have made great discoveries, and great inventions when asleep, I know my thought can on occasion wander into some ways to improve something I've came across, only problem is it's not easy to remember what it was when I wake up!:dunno:
 
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