Anyone heard of Lucid Dreaming?
Posted on: October 23, 2007 - 7:58am
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Anyone heard of Lucid Dreaming?
I've always been interested in the subject, just wondering if anyone else has. It seemingly has nothing to do with metaphysics or anything supernatural like that. Basically, it's being able to "wake up" when you're dreaming, allowing conscious thought. This means that you can do whatever you want when you dream, and you can control every aspect of it. I have a few books about it, and I have practiced it a few times with results. It just takes a lot of time.
But, anyway, has anyone else tried this technique?
JESUS SAVES!!! .... and takes only half damage!
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Yea back when i was in my neo-pagan phase i tried inducing lucid dreaming among other more psudeoscientfic ideas, none of them worked for me. Although i did have 1 dream where i was lucid it rocked.
but Lucid dreaming isn't psudeoscientfic like astral projection and other such nonsense. Its a very real thing like you said.
I also, in my post-Christian phase, played around with lucid dreaming for some years, along with autohypnosis, transcendental meditation, out of body experiences and trance scrying. They're all variations on the same technique of consciously getting your brain to do funky things. It's true that there's no real supernatural component to it. What I learned is that (1) your brain is a great toy that can do all kinds of fun stuff that most people apparently never tried out and (2) my religious experiences were just neurochemical states that I can have again any time I want without all the guilt or mumbo-jumbo.
For lucid dreaming the technique that worked best was twofold: (1) keep a journal in which you record your dreams *every day.* Everybody dreams, but not everybody remembers their dreams because it's a learned skill. I eventually had to stop keeping a dream journal because I was remembering so many dreams every night that it would take me an hour or two to write them all down. (2) tell yourself before you go to sleep "I will have a lucid dream--I will notice that I'm dreaming, but not wake up." Eventually you'll start to notice certain trigger clues in your dreams that will tell you that you're asleep (one of mine was flying) and then you can have them pretty frequently.
I eventually had to stop playing with lucid dreaming because I started dreaming every night that I was having a lucid dream and then waking up, and then finding out after a little while that I was actually still asleep and having another lucid dream. Dreaming that you're waking up 5 or 6 times a night gets to be really tiring and frustrating after awhile.
But I did benefit in that lucid dreaming cured the insomnia that I had for most of my life until then (by teaching me to control when I'm asleep and when I'm awake) and I usually don't use an alarm clock anymore because I can wake up at whatever time I want within a minute or two, as long as I know what time it is when I go to sleep.
"After Jesus was born, the Old Testament basically became a way for Bible publishers to keep their word count up." -Stephen Colbert
Yes and no. When I'm having a dream that's getting too unpleasant or disturbing, I think to myself (while still dreaming) "okay I don't like this anymore, I need to wake up now.", and I do wake up.
I've tried to direct my dreams while remaining in a dream state but that has never worked very well. It usually wakes me up. I'm too lazy to actually study a technique to learn to do this.
Susan
Yeah, lucid dreaming rocks, but I only got it once. (That I can remeber) I would like to pratice more at controlling my dreams since last night I dreamed that raptors and T-rex were killing everyone in Bestbuy while I tried to buy a computer game.
I actualy had, and some times have, many of these dreams, it's prety difficult to realize that you are dreaming and many times you wake up when you do but if don't you have absolute control, it's really nice to be truly free, even if it's only in a dream...
As for doing it when you want I think the best method is the one Textom used.
You can train yourself to become lucid more often. Recording your dreams and learning how to induce a WILD really help. Your typical sleep cycle will usually generate about 5-10 dreams, only one of which you may or may not remember. Simply being able to remember your dreams more readily helps you remember when you become lucid since you actually are lucid for a good number of dreams, you simply don't remember them.
I kept a dream journal (yeah, pretty faggy I know) for about a year. After that year I could remember up to 5 dreams a night. About once every week I'd have a lucid dream for a good few months, but they slowly went away as I stopped remembering my dreams.
I dont know if this is the same thing, but I 99% of the time remember my dreams. Usually 4 or more of them. When I try to explain my deams to people they never make sense, cuz one will end and the other will begin without a break in between.
I can also control a lot of my dreams. If things start to get to scary, I just change it ( ie turning the image of a dead person into a hamburger, thus changing everything thats going on in the dream.). If I realize in this dream I dont seem to be able to fly, I'll start flying. If I realize I'm about to walk out and give a speech naked, I'll stop and think "No, I dont want this dream to go this way". Then I decide what clothes I want to wear, (and this is probly ridiculous, but I'll just squeeze my eyes shut and when I "open" them, things are the way I want them to be).
I actually didnt sleep much when I was younger because my dreams were so vivid and scary. I would remember long horrific nightmares that would haunt me for days, so I just wouldnt sleep. I think I had to learn to control my dreams jut so I could start getting good nights sleep. It wasnt until I was about 16 or 17 that I learned to control my dreams.
Is that lucid dreaming?
Me: I just don't know honey, maybe I'm just too ignorant to claim myself as an atheist. Then again, "magic man done it", doesn't seem like the enlightened point of view.
Yep, that pretty much sums it up. Basically, from what I've read, it works like this. Normally when you go to bed, your body and mind are both asleep. Now, the point of lucid dreaming is to wake up your mind while your body still sleeps. So, yes, if you're good enough you can do whatever the heck you want with your dreams.
I'm glad to hear that some of you have had sucessful experiences. I might try keeping my dream journal again (although this time I might just invest in a laptop instead of a notebook. Much easier).
JESUS SAVES!!! .... and takes only half damage!
I got into Lucid Dreaming to the extent I thought it was practical for me. I have control of my dreams to the point that if one is becoming unpleasant I can change the direction, but I usually let whatever is going to happen happen otherwise. As far as remembering the dream, I've always had a better than average recall of my dreams anyway -- roughly 3-5 a week -- I almost never write them down unless they are very interesting. I never felt the need to increase those numbers. But the main thing I learned how to do that has benefited me the most (and I will always be grateful that I learned it) is that I don't need an alarm clock anymore. If I'm used to waking up at a certain time, I will wake up normally without doing anything. If I want to wake up at a different time, all I have to do is look at a clock, take note of the time it is then vs. the time I want to wake up, take note how many hours or minutes it is between the two, and go to sleep. It is like setting (or resetting) the alarm in my head, and has worked better for me than a bedside alarm ever did. I can do it just as easily for 3-4 hours as I can for 30 minutes. I've been doing this since the 1980's when I first read about it in OMNI magazine, and I must say waking up this way is totally different than waking up to an annoying alarm. It seems like a more natural way to wake up. In other words, most of the time, I feel like I've had enough sleep when I wake up instead of how I used to feel when I would curse the alarm and hit the snooze button. I can't imagine how much of an annoyance that has saved me over the years. It was like removing a daily pain in the ass from my life.
Anyone really interested in lucid dreaming might consider renting the movie Waking Life which is a very unique film about "a man who shuffles through a dream meeting various people and discussing the meanings and purposes of the universe."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waking_Life
The film is also interesting artistically, as each scene is done in vector images by different artists.
edit: sorry, double-post.
I've kept one since 1995 and still do!
I've had a few lucid dreams but they were not anticipated or planned. They just happened and for some strange reason, even though I knew I was dreaming and in control, I still couldn't for the life of me control everything, especially the characters. Even though I was the director and screenwriter, the stars were stubborn and wanted to do it their way.
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I've tried my very best to have lucid dreams but it never quite works for me. I often have the very opposite of a lucid dream. I wanted to try lucid dreaming as a way to prevent sleep paralysis. I thought if I could realize I was dreaming and have control, I would be less likely to enter the state of sleep paralysis. During sleep paralysis you're somewhat conscious, perhaps hallucinating (in my case definitely hallucinating; though it seems like a dream), your eyes may be open, but you are unable to move or speak. The experience had for a long time been traumatic for me. I know not to panic now and I can force myself awake or sometimes I return back to sleep, but I continue to experience sleep paralysis. Lately I've been attempting to realize I'm dreaming by chanting to myself, 'when you see a wall, you're in a dream.' before I fall asleep. This has had limited success, however, as I tend to have dreams that involve lots of walls, or me trying to break through walls without ever doing the realization part. Retrospectively I smack myself on the forehead for not noticing. I wish I could. All I can do is keep trying though. I really want to see if it helps with the sleep paralysis and it'd be just plain cool to be able to control my dreams.
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
Thomathy, one thing you could do, since you seem to be concious, is to physically write a random symbol on your hand and check it while you are hallucinating. This worked for me (to an extent) in doing my reality checks while being lucid and others report great success.
Further, some report having different length digits, and this happens to me occasionaly as well. My pointer finger is the longest on my left hand but second shortest on my right. I figure this is do to the usage of them but I'm unsure.
I don't think I explained clearly enough. The problem is that I'm semi-conscious to fully aware and I can't move. Sleep paralysis. I'm aware of all the signs you can look for in a dream in order to be able to realize you're dreaming and they're not working. I have to keep trying. Sleep paralysis is not dreaming and doesn't happen when you are asleep. The problem with sleep paralysis is that my eyes are open, I'm usually fully aware, I'm experiencing hypnagogia (the hallucinations) but I'm totally immobilized as my motor neurons are functioning like I'm still in REM sleep. I can't call out, make a fist, move my legs, roll my body, turn my head, open my mouth, move a finger or a toe, breathing is difficult (because I'm breathing like I'm asleep and my muscles are non-responsive to conscious control) and I usually can't even move my eyes. Sometimes an actual dream, different than the hypnagogia, will play superimposed over the image of my room that my eyes see. That's the most frightening part and it is also usually during those episodes that I can't force myself awake, but just fall back to sleep and continue dreaming without knowing it until I wake up again. If I was totally ignorant of it happening (the sleep paralysis) as most are, since it seems so much like a nightmarish dream, then I wouldn't be so concerned about it, but most of the time when it happens I know that it's happening. I want to try to enter a lucid dream state because I figure I can prevent the onset of sleep paralysis by being able to exert some control over when I wake up from a dream (beside the other cool stuff I could do in the dream).
Sleep paralysis happens in the morning hours for me with the first sunlight, when I'm laying supine and 'waking up'. Frankly, I enjoy having sleep paralysis and look forward to what I'll experience the next time it does happen. I just really want the option of not having the experience. -Like if I were having a nightmare, and though I couldn't possibly know what time it really was, I could change it to something pleasant or just wake up and not risk having sleep paralysis with the nightmare playing. It's really hard not to get panicked during that sort of episode. I'll never know if I can wake myself up without entering sleep paralysis if I never have a lucid dream. So, I keep trying to experience one and I keep failing. I'll take the advice, CrimsonEdge, as perhaps the sign will appear in a dream on my hand if I do it for real and I'll have the realization. It's worth a shot.
BigUniverse wrote,
"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."
I have heard of it but meber tried it, maybe after reading this thread I shall.