Lucid Dreaming

[+ oldNbusted]

A little background info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucid_dream

 

While I've always had occasional experiences of lucid dreaming, my recent increase in vidid dreams has made me more interested in the lucid phenomenon and I was wondering if anyone here has also practiced this and how did it go?

 

Once thing I learned talking to a friend about this, was dreaming from different perspectives. I've always dreamed in the first person, I am me and I experience the dream from my point of view, like real life. He surprised me when he said he always experiences his dreams from the third person perspective, like he is watching a movie of himself. It had never occurred to me that was a possibility and it turns out there is even second person dreaming where you are someone else in the dream.

 

And yes, I love Inception even though the plot hinges around the idea that events in dreams take place at an accelerated pace relative to the real world, an idea that has been disproven with fMRI scans.

[rvwnsd]

I dream in both first and third person. Not at the same time, of course.

[Mydavid]

I can never remember my dreams, so I don't know which person they are.

[+ Gar1eth]

I've had dreams where I'm both people talking to each other across a table. Also dreams where I'm another person entirely - occasionally female.

 

 

I remember once having a dream where I told another person in the dream that it was a dream. But I don't really think I was aware of what was going on as a dream.

 

 

I had dreams of being female-well really a girl-when I was younger-possibly once or twice since then. But usually only a specific girl. I think it was Tabitha from Bewitched. To balance this out I also had dreams where I was Superboy. Interestingly enough what I remember from my Tabitha dreams is I often had problems doing magic. And in the Superboy dreams I had trouble flying.

 

What a Forum this is!! I don't think I've ever said anything to anyone about the Tabitha dreams before. Not even when I was in therapy. I've always been embarrassed by them.

 

Gman

[rvwnsd]

I had dreams of being female-well really a girl-when I was younger-possibly once or twice since then. But usually only a specific girl. I think it was Tabitha from Bewitched. To balance this out I also had dreams where I was Superboy. Interestingly enough what I remember from my Tabitha dreams is I often had problems doing magic. And in the Superboy dreams I had trouble flying.

 

What a Forum this is!! I don't think I've ever said anything to anyone about the Tabitha dreams before. Not even when I was in therapy. I've always been embarrassed by them.

 

Gman

Better Tabitha than

http://rs33.pbsrc.com/albums/d77/marinaguy/gladys_kravitz.jpg~c200

 

 

 

 

Glad we provide a safe haven. ;-)

[NathanJustice]

I had a huge lucid dreaming phase, and for a while, I had them nightly.

 

The allure for most when it comes to lucid dreaming is generally the ability to do whatever you want in the dream which while lucid feels the same or better than reality. Things impossible or fatal here in our waking life are possible or repeatable in a dream state.

 

For some spiritual people, like myself, it's believed about lucid dreaming things like; it's our key to raised consciousness, it's an extra period in every day to learn about yourself/reality (advanced learning), and that your lucid dream state is closer to your true self than your physical state which is influenced more by outside reality.

 

Some of my coolest experiences were seeing a massive, multi-colored aurora borealis above a nighttime dock party that I could shape with my thoughts, viewing a breathtakingly hyper realistic English countryside from a massive castle while mythical creatures roamed around distant castles, seeing hyper realistic colors I don't know how to describe or create again, experiencing simulated death and the afterlife in multiple ways including existence as many forms, and of course being able to fulfill sexual and romantic fantasies with any person I could imagine. I also no longer have nightmares even outside of lucidity as my dream self is aware it can defend itself with unlimited, God-like options.

 

All of these things I got to experience as if it was the same as reality and upon waking I could generally feel my world getting smaller, my thoughts getting contained, my memories of the dream being evaporated, and a solid reality forcing its way back to my attention. The dream world feels bright, breathtaking, and vibrant compared to waking life.

 

If you haven't tried, start lucid dreaming, it's amazing! The easiest starting points would be a dream journal, inducing lucidity, and reality checks. With a dream journal you must be vigilant of writing your dreams down every night as soon as you wake up, walking backwards through the dream and remembering as much as possible with no disturbances. Reality checks are asking yourself 'am I dreaming?' and looking around for suspicious things. There are consistent rules within a dream and recognizing them can trigger a lucid dream. A good way to induce a lucid dream is wake up 5 hours into your sleep when your REM cycle is becoming its longest and stay up for 30 or more minutes, if possible having some tolerable amount of caffeine or sugar will help too. When you go to bed you will have a high chance of being awake in your dream.

 

As long as this seemed, I could go on for many more paragraphs about lucidity. It's a massive topic with set rules like a science despite what people think concerning dreams being random. They're actually structured and can be very consistent amongst individuals.

[BasketBaller]

I rarely remember my dreams but all of the ones I do remember have been first person. The most vivid one I ever had was as a teenager, when I dreamed I was in the lower level of the National Gallery of Art, where there was, unexpectedly, a grocery store. I was in line when Prince Charles came up behind me and asked if he could go ahead of me since he was only buying a package of bacon. I was so startled I woke up.

[LADoug1]

Freud (?) said that we are everyone in our dreams. I never understood this concept.

[+ Gar1eth]

Freud (?) said that we are everyone in our dreams. I never understood this concept.

I'll take a stab.

 

We make up our dreams. They are from us. No one else but us puts the people, places, events into our dreams. How can every part of the dream not be part of us? Now I won't go so far as to say it all has some specific meaning.

 

Gman