Lucid dreams.

Post Reply New Topic

One of my old classmates asked me about lucid dreams, you know, when you're perfectly aware that you're dreaming. Is it common amongst you guys? Has it ever happened to you lot? It recently happened to me, and I remember a couple of lucid dreams during my childhood, but not many. I would therefore like to read about your experiences.

BTW: Happy weekend!

Yes, and they were so much better and more intense than so-called RL. Still working on how to evoke them deliberately. There are numerous sites on this topic, different methods ...

Have a Happy Weekend too!

When I was younger (a child into my early teens), I would realize I was dreaming during frightening dreams and could then wake myself up.

Now I am 31 years old and have developed the ability to basically jump right into the dreamscape I want. Imagine being awake, laying in bed with your eyes closed and then instantly landing on your feet in a combat scenario and actually knowing that it is a dream/simulation/etc. That is what it's like!

I highly recommend development of lucid dreaming skills. My sleeping life is far more exciting than my waking life.

I had some, but I couldn't control them properly, I tried to fly without success, I also tried to turn into werewolf when pursued by ninjas but I turned them instead, it was worse
You can get this dreams with some techniques to remember dreams + reality tests, I tried it and it worked, but then I forgot about it and I stopped practicing.
I should practise again because I think dreams are important, real or not they are part of our life too, and we spend most of our lives sleeping.

Yes, I often have lucid dreams. It tends to happen when I go to bed in an anxious or frightened state.

For instance, my family was away for a weekend and I was at home by myself. Despite being almost 26, I am terrified of the dark; paranormal subjects used to be a special interest of mine...I only stopped pursuing it because I realized I was too frightened to ever actually 'investigate.' Anyway, I was in bed, with the door shut, and I had the light on out in the hallway (in case I had to get up or something). Well, I was incredibly anxious, jumping at every noise...and then I heard someone out in the hallway; it was unmistakeable. I was laying there, literally paralyzed with fear (my limbs would not move), waiting for the person to come in and probably kill me, when I noticed that there was no ring of light around my door, as there had been when I got in bed. This made me aware that I was dreaming, and I promptly woke up. My room looked exactly as it had in the dream, but the ring of light was back around my door.

This happens A LOT.

Also, my dreams tend to be incredibly realistic; typically exact replicas of my waking life. This gave me a lot of trouble growing up, because I would always think that the events from my dreams had actually happened. It might take me a couple of days or even weeks to understand it was a dream.

jenniferjupiter's post reminded me that when I take a melatonin supplement, my ability to dream lucidly is amplified about 100-fold.

I can do it without melatonin easily but the length of time I am lucid in the dreamspace is much shorter. It's really bizarre because I will be in the middle of a lucid combat dream and notice that I am starting to dematerialize and I immediately think to myself (in the dream state), "Damn it! I forgot to swallow melatonin before bed!" and then the dream ends even if I don't wake up right then. It is like turning off one of those old analog television sets where the image collapses down to a pinpoint of light before going out completely.

My brain is a fascinating place to live. I am pretty stoked that I have you guys to talk to about it now.

No I don't think it happens to me very much.

I've had a few attempts at attaining lucidity, but despite performing regular reality checks I rarely did the checks in my dreams. A few times I went lucid only for the dreams to collapse. Three times I have managed to sustain lucidity for a while, twice recently when I wasn't trying! My dream control is very weak though, the first time I was too busy trying to sustain the dream to attempt anything. The third time (which was only a few weeks ago) I tried to fly but couldn't really take off, so there was a frustrating lack of control.

The second time was laughable, not really appropriate for a public forum. It was the only time I had an element of control, but my body failed me after two seconds.

short explanation:

melatonin is a hormone that regulates the mammalian sleep wake cycle and can be an effective treatment for insomnia. it does not induce lucidity in dreams but it significantly prolongs the rem stages that are associated with dreaming. prior to waking up naturally, before the first rem (dream) stage and in between rem stages the human mind goes through several more or less unconscious non-rem stages. when waking up in the middle of a dream the dream content can easily be remembered, which becomes less likely after the usual natural process of traversing from a very active dream state to an almost inactive state of mind to the wake state. in case of the dream being lucid you can witness your brain slowly switching into a non-rem state (dematerilization / fading of the current dreamscape).

for me remembering my dreams (lucid or not) and thereby keeping in touch with the dream reality is the most important factor evoking lucidity. and i absolutely agree on the dream reality being much more vivid and interesting compared to real life. i just love it.

I experimented with this back in the 80's. Never had much control, but I definitely remember having dreams within my dreams. Hey, its wild, but it happened and I knew the firt one was a dream, but not until alarm rung that the awake "Reality" was also a dream state.
Since I've been taking Lyrica some of my dreams have become less intense, plus not remembering them all that much. In my teens & 20s I lived as much in dreams as real life. Always knew when I was dreaming, well mostly, but recalled EVERYTHING..

Sincerely,
Matthew