Jump to content
The Dark Mod Forums

Lucid dreams


oDDity

Recommended Posts

Anyone get them?

I had one last night, and used it to fly around my neighbourhood like Superman - except better, since I could float through walls like a ghost as well.

The only problem is they tend not to last very long, since you tend to wake up as soon as you realise you're dreaming.

It'd be great to be able to induce them at will, but it's a very difficult technique to master. I've been reading up on some techniques no wikipedia which I'm going to practice.

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

character models site

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've had no more than three or so that I can remember having, and only one I can recall, my whole life. Several times I've committed to trying to learn the skill, even reading on the subject and trying some (lame) methods, but I give up after only a few days of trying. Stupid really, I should keep at it -- if you succeed you could have a whole second life where you can do literally anything you think of.

 

The one I can remember was very brief. I remember approaching the stopstreet near my house, and instead of stopping saying to myself, "this is a dream. I'm not going to stop!" And I ran the stopsign. No problems. I then stopped at the next corner and walked right into someone's house and went upstairs into some brick room. That's about it.

 

you tend to wake up as soon as you realise you're dreaming.

Yup, it seems that anything which gets me excited in the dream (like, the act of realizing it's a dream or flying or uh, embracing Cindy Crawford) always wakes me up immediately. So in more than one sense of the word, I never manage to "score." Instead, I generally lumber through dreams like someone's puppet, no control at all, like most of us I guess.

 

I'd be interested in hearing any progress you make. Maybe it'll inspire me to give it (yet) another go.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The method I'm going to practice is WILD

There are many techniques aimed at entering a WILD. The key to these techniques is recognizing the hypnagogic stage, which is within the border of being awake and being asleep. If a person is successful in staying aware while this stage occurs, he or she will eventually enter the dream state while being fully aware that it is a dream.

 

There are key times at which this state is best entered; while success at normal bedtime after having been awake all day is very difficult, it is relatively easy after sleeping for 3–7 hours or in the afternoon during a nap. Techniques for inducing WILDs abound. Dreamers may count, envision themselves climbing or descending stairs, chant to themselves, explore elaborate, passive sexual fantasies, control their breathing, counting their breaths to keep their thoughts from drifting, concentrate on relaxing their body from their toes to their head, allow images to flow through their "mind's eye" and envision themselves jumping into the image, to maintain concentration and keep their mind awake, while still being calm enough to let their body sleep.

 

During the actual transition into the dream state, one is likely to experience sleep paralysis, including rapid vibrations, a sequence of loud sounds and a feeling of twirling into another state of body awareness, "to drift off into another dimension". Also there is frequently a sensation of falling rapidly or dropping through the bed as one enters the dream state. After the transition there may be the sensation of entering a dark black room from which one can induce any dream scenario of one's choosing, simply by concentrating on it. The key to success is not to panic, especially during the transition, which can be quite sudden.

 

I think we've all woken up thinking we've heard a loud noise, but that is actually part of the hypnopompic and hypnagogic stages of going in and out of conciousness. And we've all experienced sleep paralysis, which is also a normal part of dreaming, since if your brain did not 'switch off' your voluntary motor functions, you'd perform the same action in real life as in the dream. The only part of you that does that, are you eyes, and some trained lucid dreamers can communicate with researchers while they are actually dreaming by using eye movement signals.

So, there's no point using that technique when you first go to sleep at night, it should be used when you wake up in the night from REM sleep, and then when you fall asleep you will go straight back into REM.

 

Techniques for remaining in the lucid state longer:

 

The first technique involves spinning one's dream body. He proposed that when spinning, the dreamer is engaging parts of the brain that may also be involved in REM activity, helping to prolong REM sleep. The second technique is rubbing one's hands. This technique is intended to engage the dreamer's brain in producing the sensation of rubbing hands, preventing the sensation of lying in bed from creeping into awareness. LaBerge tested his hypothesis by asking 34 volunteers to either spin, rub their hands, or do nothing. Results showed 90% of dreams were prolonged by hand rubbing and 96% prolonged by spinning. Only 33% of lucid dreams were prolonged with taking no action.

 

I've had quite a few that I can remember actually, without trying. Perhaps 6 in the last few years. I do generally tend to use them for nefarious purposes of course, since there's not really much you can do that's constructive in a dream, and you dont' have much time.

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

character models site

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In the past couple years I've experimented a bit with lucid dreaming, so to induce better dreams I've tried Galamantine and Choline chemical subs. Galamantine inhibits the breakdown of Acetylcholine, and Choline promotes its production. ACh promotes R.E.M sleep where we dream most. It's a safer, healthier mindfuck than asswhipping drugs :)

Loose BOWELS are the first sign of THE CHOLERA MORBUS!
Link to comment
Share on other sites

When I was young I read a lot of books about this, and tried to make it happen. Never worked though. It happened only on it's own sometimes. Sometimes I even had the chance to change something consciously which is really cool. :)

 

I think everyone's mind is different to different things, and this is one of those.

 

In my experience I've never really had a lucid dream persay like I can fly and change or create what I'm looking at, but In all my dreams, I'm always in control of what I do. The dreams where I am in a video game are pretty awesome.

 

Another good thing to try is a dream journal, write what you remember as soon as you wake up

and you'll have some better dream recall.

|=-=------=-=|

happycheeze.deviantart.com

 

Moddb

 

Gamers Outreach, a nonprofit that uses videogames to raise money for chairty.

|=-=------=-=|

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I use to have dreams about this girl I was in love with. She would haunt me every 6 months or so for like 3-5 years. I eventually got over it and she's gone and I know she has a good life etc. She's not my type though and that's just what I needed to realize.

 

That's a recurring dream. Not a lucid dream. lol

 

I started practicing lucid dreaming when I was in my early twenties. At this point, I can pretty much go into one at will...unless I'm really caught up in what's happening in the dream and miss it. Generally though, I'm always aware I'm dreaming..so sometimes I let the dream take whatever direction it wants...or I'll step in and have some fun with the world. ;) Flying is definitely on the top of my list of things to do. It just gives you such a sense of freedom. I would eventually like to get to a point where I can stop the dream, rewind it...or simply change it into something else entirely. Maybe use it as a testing ground of sorts...maybe even use that time to practice piano and anything else I don't have time to finish during the day. I've read some articles where people have lucid dreamed they were playing an instrument and shown definite improvement in their skills.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So which technique do you use?

 

I used to do a mixture of techniques to get into them. I've tried imagining warmth building up in my chest and working through my body, until I feel like I'm floating in the bed...extremely relaxing. I also find repeating a word (in my mind, not out loud), or simply focusing on what it was that I wanted to do in my dream helped too. It took a lot of effort years ago, but once you get used to it...you can really clue in that you're dreaming quite easily, and take control whenever you want. I guess I can't really say I use a technique anymore, I just go to sleep and more often than not, I'm controlling it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Since it seems we have experts onboard, the next things I'd wonder:

 

1. Surely it "takes away" from the dream experience, in that you don't believe it anymore? I've read that the freedom and control adds to it in much greater ways, but I can't imagine it not feeling completely flat once I know it's fake. To revisit the example above, instead of deliverin' it to Ms. Crawford, you'd know you were just getting off with a figment of your imagination. Lame?

 

2. Are you left more tired afterward? No, I don't mean from the deliverin'. I mean from lack of rest for the brain. If the brain's working all day, and then when it's due for rest, it's now doing conscious and aware simulations, when the hell's the thing going to get any peace and quiet?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, you only spend about half your sleep time in REM anyway, so you still get plenty of rest, and also, you dream 5 or 6 different dreams per night, so you only control one of them, say at the end of the night when the REM period lasts longer (up to an hour).

As for being lame because you know it's not real - well, it is real in a sense, to your brain it's the same deal, you can touch taste smell etc just as in real life. After all, you interactions with the world are all dealt with internally by the brain anyway, you experience of the world IS your brain, it takes external stimuli and then translates them into your senses.

For example, if you can imagine being scared strongly enough, your brain reacts in the same way as if you were really scared, and releases the same hormones etc. Your brain really doesn't know the difference between thoughts and external reality.

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

character models site

Link to comment
Share on other sites

One thing that I could do, when I still did this kind of thing, was to "select" a dream. So when I went to bed, before I fell asleep, I concentrated on the stuff that I wanted to know about myself. For example, a relation to a friend or such. This worked quite well. In those cases I usually had pretty clear dreams, and I always knew exactly what the symbolic representation meant. :) But this was a close to dream control as I could get. Maybe I would have gotten better if I pursued it more.

 

Did you ever have a dream in sequences? I remember from my childhood where I had a certain dream and it stopped at one point. Next day I dreamed the same but a bit different and farther, just as if it were a sequel. :) Happened to me a few days with several sequences (not just two days).

Gerhard

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wow this stuff kind of sounds like science fiction, being able to be semi-aware of your dreams and exert some influence over them. A few people I've talked to used to say they could do it or were attempting it, and reckoned that trying to recall as much of your dreams as possible and and then recording them in a log was a way; I can't see how this would make much difference as it's a bit after-the-fact but they claimed it was working for them and allowed them to eventually take control.

 

I've never had a flying dream, which would be unreal, but I've had plenty of the sort of micro-dreams where I'm falling from a very high height towards the ground; you know the ones where you wake up before you go splat! :wacko: Other than that my dreams tend to be so strange that I can't recall them, with people or locations I know very distorted and weird, like I dream of my house only the geometry and colour and layout are all very alien, sometimes defying physics and the like. Occasionally my dreams are incredibly violent; with me either the perpetrator or the victim. Makes me feel sometimes like I'm a character in a H.P. Lovecraft story or something, I reckon Freud would have a field day with me :laugh:

 

But flying in a dream would be fantastic, and Mrs Crawford sounds good too. In fact, now all you gotta do is combine the two together: Flying whilst deliverin' it to Mrs Crawford...

 

:laugh:

Edited by SplaTtzZ
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've never had a flying dream, which would be unreal, but I've had plenty of the sort of micro-dreams where I'm falling from a very high height towards the ground; you know the ones where you wake up before you go splat!

My flight (limited as it is, thank goodness) in dreams generally comes in the form of falling upward uncontrollably. A lot of really clear things can be read into that -- I'm, shall we say uncomfortable with heights, it's a loss of personal control, a reversal of the known (gravity), etc. Let me tell you, it really, really sucks, when you're riding a bike down the street, and you hit a curb, and as a result start flying up, up, up...

 

This made me think of an old one I had I'll relate, as it shows a strange connection between dreams and consciousness, and no doubt distortion of time. The brief version: I was walking along to this wizard's castle in the sky or mountains (this was when I was about 5 years old) along a very narrow, winding, infinitely high path -- couldn't see the ground below. Again with the friggin' heights. <_< Then we were fighting a battle or something. Anyway, he blasted the ground beneath me and it tore away, and of course, I started to fall. I then woke up very abruptly with a violent thud, as I smacked body and face against the floor in my bedroom -- I had fallen from the top bunk straight to the floor (no injuries!).

 

The question I've had over the years is obvious: did I somehow manage to fall out of the bed during this one particularly appropriate dream (too much coincidence -- I've never fallen out of bed before or since), or much more intriguing: did I start to fall from rolling out of bed, and then my mind created and played out that entire dream in a fraction of a second to explain it?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is an herb available, actually a few of them but supposedly this one is the best, called the Xhosa dream herb after the Xhosa people of Western Africa who use it in shamanic rites. I bought one of these plants but it died over the winter. You are supposed to dry out the roots, grind them into a powder, mix with water and shake them up in a water bottle. A whitish foam will form which you sip. When you start feeling bloated, its enough.

 

Nothing happens until you sleep but then supposedly you can enjoy lucid dreams. I plan on trying this at some point.

 

Vadrosaul, where do you get your chemicals at?

 

An interesting note: I recently watched the wonderful animation "Paprika" and the interview with the director and the author whose book is the inspiration for the movie. They were discussing lucid dreaming and the author said something I found interesting. He believes that it is NOT safe to play around in the subconscious mind, that it fucks up the order of things in your head or something. Lucid dreaming is ok if its just a naturally occurring event but to seek out ways to enter the subconscious mind consciously is not a good thing, he thinks. He tried once and said he felt empty the next day, as if a void had opened in his head.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My flight (limited as it is, thank goodness) in dreams generally comes in the form of falling upward uncontrollably

 

My flight dreams are either "swimming" through the air--I actually do a butterfly stroke to propel myself along, and if I stop I start to fall--or it's a glorified 'gliding', where I jump out a window and can glide an exceptionally long distance before finally landing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My flight dreams are either "swimming" through the air--I actually do a butterfly stroke to propel myself along, and if I stop I start to fall--or it's a glorified 'gliding', where I jump out a window and can glide an exceptionally long distance before finally landing.

 

Happens to me as well. Often it starts with a great swooping, and then suddenly it doesn't work anymore, and I have to swim and struggle.

Gerhard

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I used to work on lucid dreaming techniques as well. It was rather natural for me. My general dreams even usually leave me with a good deal of control and last for longer than 30 minutes (when I recount them, I can usually dredge up a good 20 minutes and know there is still much more behind it.) When they are lucid, there are times when I would honestly get confused if I were awake or not, and never know for sure until I'm actually awake.

 

The techniques that worked for me... it would usually be a time, e.g., in the late morning, just after you would normally get up on a weekday, you bring yourself back into sleep. And of course just focusing on what you want to do; "think" about staying lucid when you induce yourself into a dreamstate; then it's just practice.

 

One trick that seemed to work well for me was to focus on something very concrete and textured, almost visceral ... so e.g., I would focus on an image of a cut of burlap very close up in my mind, or some kind of material similarly visceral (easier to show than explain), and very quickly the image would "emerge" very realistically to me, maybe because it's such a viscreal texture. Anyway, that was a technique to get very "realistic" images into my mind, but it was also usually a good staging ground to get a lucid dream up-and-going.

 

Another technique that worked for me was to consider the space around me and focus on that, to reconstruct where the walls and ceiling and windows, etc, are, so my already live "feeling" of the space around could merge with a dream feeling of the space around me-in-dream, and put me-in-dream in the room I was already in, now to a very realistic and visceral degree in the dream ... these in particular were the times where I'd really confuse my mind whether I was really awake or asleep, even after I pass my hand through a wall ...

 

Some things I notice while lucid dreaming ... yes I can fly like swimming, even the boyancy property is there where I slowly rise like one can in a pool. I notice that, when I try to run, my legs feel like they have lead weights on them and hold me back (unfortunate because I have lots of running dreams from my crosscountry days), which I read was part of the same mechanism that inhibits your legs in sleep. I find it impossible to keep a coherent text that I can read (as is normal, I read), but I did feel a small victory the first time I managed to read a text one letter at a time ("Quarter"), only to see that the letters had changed as soon as I "read" them. (All I had done was forced the letter as I "read" it.)

 

I had a very visceral dream just this morning where I had a lot of control (I have degrees of lucidity; the ultimate is when I can't tell it's not the real world; here I had conscious control and it was very detailed, but not that far). It was also surprisingly textbook Freudian, about my father falling from a tree, fortunately into a pool of water below.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The question I've had over the years is obvious: did I somehow manage to fall out of the bed during this one particularly appropriate dream (too much coincidence -- I've never fallen out of bed before or since), or much more intriguing: did I start to fall from rolling out of bed, and then my mind created and played out that entire dream in a fraction of a second to explain it?

 

The third, and most likely[1], explanation is that the dream and the falling had no temporal connection whatsoever, but were "retrofitted" as being simultaneous once you woke up. I suspect that dreams are much less like a linear movie and more like a random bag of images which are assembled into a semi-coherent whole once the conscious mind takes over.

 

[1] According to Dennett, who I tend to agree with.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Over half of my dreams involve flying or telekinesis like opening doors before I approach them or pulling a small item into my hands, which might indicate I'm on some level aware it's a dream, but I never care it's a dream, because I continue doing the same mindless things. Sexual encounters in my dreams are very rare, twice in my life. I too, find the normal waking-up time perfect for attempts. Sometimes in the afternoon i rest my head on my stack of books in a quiet room and I see absolutely clear sunlit image of something. On many occasions I see and try to read text, it must be clear, if it gets slightly blurry it means I lost control over it. Frequently it's not in English, rather Latin, German, or Occitan. Sometimes it's clear without changing for a long time and I read it over and over again to remember it, but I am so deep in sleep that when I wake up i remember two words at best, or nothing. Sometimes I'm marginally asleep and I try to read it with access to my waking consciousness, but after a second it becomes blurry and I drift closer to waking up.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Over half of my dreams involve flying or telekinesis like opening doors before I approach them or pulling a small item into my hands, which might indicate I'm on some level aware it's a dream, but I never care it's a dream, because I continue doing the same mindless things.

No, assuming a fantastical role or having superhuman characteristics is not necessarily indicative of lucid dreaming. It is merely the subconcious applying your inherent creativity to your dream. That would be common among the type of people who visit TDM (sci-fi/fantasy aficionado's).

 

No one should go overboard with lucid dreaming. It is not a superior form of dreaming in any sense. Losing yourself within a role your subconcious has assigned you in a dream is just as interesting as realizing your in a dream and thus exerting influential control of its elements, especially if you have the personality of a douché.

Loose BOWELS are the first sign of THE CHOLERA MORBUS!
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

Try going to sleep with a nicotine patch on! One of the listed side effects is "vivid dreams" and they ain't kidding. Very lifelike, bizarre and memorable. When you're trying to quit smoking you can take the patch off before bed but I never do :)

 

The thing that never fails to give me very vivid and lucid (i.e. controllable) dreams is getting overheated. If I bundle myself up in blankets and get hot when I sleep I'll usually wake up after a lucid dream.

Edited by Ratty
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I had a dream I was suffocating in a building. So I went and opened some windows in that building. It turned out I was actually suffocation and I just lifted the blanket. Weird.

 

I have lucid dreams very rarely, unfortunately. Usually I can't control them at all, or I wake up once I start realizing they are dreams and I have control over them...

Too late to save us but try to understand

The seas were empty -- there was hunger in the land

We let the madmen write the golden rules

We were just Children of the Moon

We're lost in the middle of a hopeless world

Children, Children of the Moon watch the world go by

Children, Children of the Moon are hiding from the Sun and the Sky

 

© The Alan Parsons Project - Children of the Moon

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recent Status Updates

    • Petike the Taffer

      I've finally managed to log in to The Dark Mod Wiki. I'm back in the saddle and before the holidays start in full, I'll be adding a few new FM articles and doing other updates. Written in Stone is already done.
      · 4 replies
    • nbohr1more

      TDM 15th Anniversary Contest is now active! Please declare your participation: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22413-the-dark-mod-15th-anniversary-contest-entry-thread/
       
      · 0 replies
    • JackFarmer

      @TheUnbeholden
      You cannot receive PMs. Could you please be so kind and check your mailbox if it is full (or maybe you switched off the function)?
      · 1 reply
    • OrbWeaver

      I like the new frob highlight but it would nice if it was less "flickery" while moving over objects (especially barred metal doors).
      · 4 replies
    • nbohr1more

      Please vote in the 15th Anniversary Contest Theme Poll
       
      · 0 replies
×
×
  • Create New...