Lucid Dreams

[McBuh]

I see a lot of public knitting. I just wonder how people can do it on crowded, bumpy train rides.

[The Evil Cashew]

I think i have had them.

I remmebr for awhile i was having these really great dreams adn then i would wake up and be sad they were done.

BUT

then i started having the really good dreams and then all of a sudden my dream would liek.. stop and i would find myseld there saying "This will be over soon. its just a dream" and then sometimes "right away" or sometimes i do a few things and then i wake up when my alarm goes of

so i dunno. is that lucid dreaming? i dunno if i controlled my dreams... i'd have to think about it.

Oh i do know hat also one time i was having this reoccuring dream and after the first couple ngihts i would have the same dream again and in my dream i woul dbe like "i did this before" and then i kinda fast forwarded a bit to something new in the dream

this making any sense?

~Cashew

[Mith]

I've had them. I almost always have some awareness that I'm dreaming. Like if something bad or scary is happening, I'll wake myself up. And sometimes I'll know that I'm dreaming, and then I'll think, "that means I can fly!" Is it just me, though, or does anyone else hear their own voice when they're dreaming? Because I usually tell myself to do something before I do it in dreams. I'll be thinking, "okay I should wake up now," or, "its just a dream, I bet I can fly now."

[The Evil Cashew]

i have talked to myself in my dreams yes.. specifically teh ones where i was like "This is a dream. iw ill waje up shrotly"

~Cashew

[Juliette]

I see a lot of public knitting. I just wonder how people can do it on crowded, bumpy train rides.

Awww, that's easy. ^^ Last winter when I was working on that plushy scarlet scarf, not only was I able to do it just about anywhere, but also without looking. But that's off topic. ;)

Juliette

[SorryNotSorry]

A few of my dreams kind of piss me off, when they're the type in which I'm picked to play the Jesus bit (=chosen to take the gaff for others' screwups). Must have something to do with the jewelry-design thing having brought me increased independence. In this case, my dreams are reflecting the sorry life I'm in the process of leaving behind... so the people in my life who've been the "want-machines" are left standing alone to lament their own bad luck.

Just last night, in fact, I had a dream in which I was minding my own business, and out of about 3 dozen people, my name was called, to come to the lobby and be a scapegoat. A couple of the other guys there muttered why can't they just go instead, but no... the person in the lobby insisted it had to be Marty.

[Jartan]

It also helps to weird others out, if they see it, which of course is more valuable than lucid dreaming.

Excellent! I think I'd go for sitting on a bus next to someone and staring at a page saying 'Check you're still in reality'.

Other ways to check if you're dreaming are things like machines not working (lights don't switch on, clocks display odd times) and noticing things you often dream about. If I'm stressed I often dream about school (I'm psychologically scarred ^-^) Since I left there 5 years ago if I ever find myself there I should notice that I'm dreaming.

Having said which it's amazing how the mind works. Just last night I was facing down a 20ft dinosaur in a dream and didn't think anything of it. Later on in the night I was in my bedroom, and my bedside table was about 3ft away from where I keep it. 'Oh look, I must be dreaming'. :roll:

(By the way, if anyone does want to learn I'm more than happy to tell you everything I've picked up, just contact me)

[mumbleberry]

.

[youarewhatyoulove]

i can never tell if i am asleep or not, and i drift so much that sometimes it's more like i'm making a movie in my head than actually dreaming. i kinda confuse myself a bit.

[Idedalus]

It sounds like other people have done this as well, but for a few months I kept a journal and wrote down all of my dreams with the goal of having lucid dreams. I even read a book by Stephen LaBerge, the guy who validated lucid dreaming in a lab setting. I think I had one lucid dream toward the end. I was able to fly and could control things to a certain extent. I had flown in dreams before, but this was different. I even saw my reflection in a pool of water, which was interesting. There were definitely dream elements that I wasn't in control of though, so it wasn't as realistic as the dreams other people have described.

It was difficult to remember everything and record it all in the morning, so I would wake up after certain dreams. Getting back to sleep wasn't always easy though. I gave up on keeping track of dreams though because it interrupted my sleep cycle too much.

[Docking_Duck]

there are some times i'm fully aware i'm dreaming and can make choices about what I'm dreaming of. Its not all that uncommon to happen but it doesn't happen every night either

[v4point0]

I used to have lucid dreams when I was younger. I remember as long as I didn't actually utter the words "This is a dream" in the dream I was able to go on and control it.

I no longer have any lucid dreams....or good dreams for that matter. I actually like nightmares because they're like watching a horror movie, but I just keep having depressing dreams now and they're so close to reality I can't tell they're dreams (like, they actually start with me "waking up" in the morning)

[Mr. Ten Below]

I have these a lot, but it tends to be when I'm either half asleep or half awake. I rarely remember the half asleep ones unless something wakes me up suddenly. But whenever I'm allowed to sleep as long as I want, I usually wake up at some point in the morning and then fall partially back to sleep, and it's during this time that I have the lucid dreams.

I'm often not in these, but I can control them. The thing is that I control them in very strange ways. It's not the same as writing a story because I have a different kind of consciousness and make choices about the dream that I would have never thought of if I was just writing something while awake. It's sad to be woken up from a lucid dream and lose the ability to make these bizarre (but often very cool) stories. I find myself thinking "Hey! I was watching that!" as if someone had turned off the TV on me, same as I do with normal dreams.

[Idedalus]

But whenever I'm allowed to sleep as long as I want, I usually wake up at some point in the morning and then fall partially back to sleep, and it's during this time that I have the lucid dreams.

This is when I had what I thought was my lucid dream. In his book, Stephen LaBerge also says this is the best time for him. He would get up early in the morning and do some activity that required a little exertion, then fall back to sleep. By waking up and then falling back to sleep you somehow find a balance between consciousness and sleep, which allows for the lucidity. That's what he seemed to say at least :-)

[Parth]

Hey wow, how come I never saw this thread before?

I stumbled upon a very useful site www.dreamviews.com a while back, and for a while I was constantly reality-checking. This paid off when I had this AMAZING lucid dream, where I flew over my suburb, and the colours in the dream were really vibrant. After waking up, the first thing I said was "wow".

You'd think that would be reason to keep doing it but I lost my motivation to do it after that. It was almost like the climax to a long build up and I didn't feel I needed to have another. Maybe I could get back into the reality-checking habit and try for some more.

[Mr. Ten Below]

That makes sense, Idedalus. Before seeing this thread and finding this term "lucid dream" I always just considered it the border or space between consciousness and unconsciousness, which is basically what you said. I actually assumed that it happened to everyone regularly while falling asleep or waking up.

[Idedalus]

I stumbled upon a very useful site www.dreamviews.com a while back, and for a while I was constantly reality-checking.

That is a great website. Thanks for the link :-)

[CrazyCatLover]

I'm pretty much always aware of the fact that I'm dreaming while the dream takes place. I've found, however, that I cannot control my nightmares (but can control others). I spend the whole time trying to wake up and can't and end up feeling trapped in a horrific situation. It's very frightning. I usually don't remember my dreams, though. All the ones I remember have been lucid dreams.

[stainedandroid]

Occasionally, I will have lucid dreams. But, as far as I can recall, only when the dream is upsetting. If a dream gets out of hand, unsettling or something, I tend to become aware, and try to wake up. It happened just last night, actually. Being stressed and anxious from the moment you wake up is no fun.

[Cicero]

I kept a dream diary a while ago. It didn't help me to have a lucid dream but I got pretty good at remembering them afterwards. I hardly remember any of them now so I'm thinking of starting the diary up again.

[osito]

It was about 25 years ago that I got involved in a research project on lucid dreaming in the Clinical Psych Dep't at UT Austin, modeled after LaBerge's research. They had a stellar lab subject who could (1) produce the "lucid wave" on the EEG (a sudden series of sine waves smack in the middle of the REM salad) and (2) do a pre-cued L-R-L-R-L eye movement to tell the observers that he was lucid now.

Pretty amazing. I saw the EEG printouts of both of these.

I'm a light sleeper and tend not to sleep well in unfamiliar places, so I didn't produce many dreams at all in the sleep lab, but at home, oh wow. I had some 25-30 of them over about four months that were extended, full of themes like body aerobatics, walking through walls, long-distance space and time travel (via a vibrating closet-like space I called "the black place"), false awakenings (dreams within dreams), a recurring red and blue tapestry with an intricate pattern like those of Persian rugs which could be small, as on the back of a dollar bill or huge, covering a mountainside. When I went lucid, I had a great burst of energy (corresponds to the lucid wave except that I wasn't hooked up to prove it) that had to be dissipated into the dream (leap off a cliff, fly, etc.) or it would wake me up.

Then they slowly stopped happening, and I moved off into other things and didn't pursue them. They are all recorded in my ongoing dream journal. I am still in touch with the researcher (Bob Price) and have thought of getting back into this sometime. Bob is the president of INACS here in Austin.

http://inacs.net/site/about/

Here's an interview with Stephen LaBerge:

http://ca.geocities.com/dcherniack@rogers.com/laberge.htm

Thanks, Parth, for that great link (pasted again here). I will check it out!

http://www.dreamviews.com/

[Bluemith]

I started working on lucid dreaming when my marrige was at its worst. I did a lot of research into it, looking for the technique that suited me best. I tried several of them including the reality checks that a lt of people have mentioned. None seemed to work so i sort of gave up on it. Then one night, i had this dream of drowning. Panic set in as the pressure in my lungs grew. I can remember thinking that i wasnt really drowning, that i was in fact in a dream so i took a big breath of water. and then i was off swimming through the ocean, swimming past whales and skimming along the ocean floor.

That dream was like the start of a new life for me. My dreams are lucid nearly every night now. Its really crazy, i can step in and out of myself, taking turns playing the main character and watching from afar. I get so much enjoyment from my dreams that i tend to sleep for hours too long to fullfill some quest or mission that im working on. Ive even been able to wake up and then go back to sleep and get right back into the dream i was having, kinda like pausing a game and comming back to it.

I cant remember having a dream reciently in which i wasnt aware that it was a dream. I go to bed looking foward to playing out my dreams. I like to drift off to sleep with an idea for a dream in my head. I havent mastered this yet, but i can get somewhat close to dreaming about what i intended to.

Although i can alter nearly every dream that im aware of, most of the time i just like to sit back and watch the dream, sometimes jumping in to experience certian things. But for the most part, i just let things flow to see what will happen.

The dream world can be way more exciting than real life