the lucid dreaming thread

[redwolfy]

who here has heard of/ done lucid dreaming

post your dreams and tips here

for info on lucid dreaming start here

http://www.world-of-lucid-dreaming.com/

[Brabbit1987]

I have done this before, it does work. There are many tips, but you probably would already know them.

Dream Journals are a must. If you need help remembering your dreams, then grab a glass of water before bed, drink half of it and think to yourself you will remember your dreams when you wake up. Place the glass somewhere you can grab it when you wake up. Then drink the rest of it, and that should help.

Reality checks are also a great way to increase your chances of a lucid dream. Look at a clock to make sure the numbers make sense. In dreams, numbers on a clock don't ever seem to be accurate. Pinching yourself in real life. Checks like these if done enough in real life, it will eventually occur during a dream.

Really though, the more you do this, the more dreams you will remember and the more likely you will have more lucid dreams. It really is fun, at one point I was remember nearly 4 - 6 dreams a night.

[KevinW42]

I had a dream go semi-lucid once. I had just gone down a really long, spiraling hallway and hit a dead end. I turned around to go back, but I didn't want to go through the entire length again. I then realized that it was a dream and made the hallway shorter. After that, I promptly forgot that it was a dream, and I don't really remember what happened afterwards.

[Boffinbox]

+1 for confirming this works. started back in october 2010 (from that very same website, funnily enough)

the simple tip is to get a board marker or felt tip marker, and draw a symbol on your palm. any random symbol of your own choosing, and make sure it's your own. when going about your daily business, you'll remember it's there - and that's the time when you do your reality checks. the idea is that soon enough, you'll look at your hand w/ symbol in your dream, and on cue you will automatically perform the reality checks, without really trying to.

i'll admit, lately i've been getting a bit lax on the dream journal side of things. exams and what not.

[satcharna]

Dreamt I was flying once, it was amazing. Just the feeling of doing something you'd never be able to do in the real world, even though only in a dream, it's incredible. +1 that this works, even though I've only done it once.

[ShachonianX]

I also had a semi-lucid dream once. It was in another thread. I'll put it here.

I was just sleeping, when I began dreaming. in it, I was in the Hunger Games. Every once and a while (in the dream) I would wake up in my house and do a Hunger Games related game. Then I would wake up back in the Hunger Games and it would keep happening. Near the end of the Hunger Games, I ended up in a classroom in my school, where the other people competing (my classmates) would be there. Then I left school to go home, and some other weird stuff happened, involving evil clowns and Darth Vader. Then I woke up. The thing is, my dream felt so real. I actually somewhat didn't think it was a dream in my mind. Strange or what?

Also, it actually felt that the dream was real-life. I actually started questioning reality after waking up for a while.

[Astrobug]

Lucid dreaming is absolutely fascinating to me, for whatever reason. It took me quite a while to really get it working, but since then I can manage to get one with only some concentrated effort. The thing that I've had the most success with is counting fingers; Hands never look right in dreams. It's also worth noting that a reality check does not induce lucidity, but confirms it. The trick is just being aware of your surroundings, especially during the day.

I rarely spend time altering dreams, however. I have a strange preference to simply explore what my mind likes to churn out. Some surreal things can pop up.

Oh, also, using The Force is pretty boss.

[SalmonellaDingDong]

Surprised to see a thread about this.

I LD 5-6 times/week. Usually via WBTB or DEILD although I've had some success with WILD and FILD.

It's my favorite thing ever.

I used a journal when I first got interested in lucid dreaming but have since stopped using it. I find that I can remember them well enough without it.

I've had a few KSP themed dreams, and KSP was very helpful in showing me what the Earthrise would look like from the Moon. A few nights ago I door teleported to the moon and watched it rise.

Makes me even sadder that nobody on this planet cares about space exploration enough.

[Rage097]

I think i'll try this lucid dreaming stuff.

[SalmonellaDingDong]

www.dreamviews.com

[Rage097]

www.dreamviews.com

I just glanced at the home page and...I read everything in a really soothing voice...It just looks good enough to invoke calmness...I'm sold!

[Spaceisbeautifulul]

Man, dreaming has always been something I wanted to do regularly. A lucid dream would be amazing.

Trying everything I can to dream tonight, it sounds very calming too.

Thanks for telling me about this.

[Spaceisbeautifulul]

Surprised to see a thread about this.

I LD 5-6 times/week. Usually via WBTB or DEILD although I've had some success with WILD and FILD.

It's my favorite thing ever.

I used a journal when I first got interested in lucid dreaming but have since stopped using it. I find that I can remember them well enough without it.

I've had a few KSP themed dreams, and KSP was very helpful in showing me what the Earthrise would look like from the Moon. A few nights ago I door teleported to the moon and watched it rise.

Makes me even sadder that nobody on this planet cares about space exploration enough.

A couple things;

5-6 times a WEEK? HOLY DANG IT I wish I were you right now.

Nobody cares about space? I'm with you on that.

Is the dream journal helpful?

[Astrobug]

www.dreamviews.com

+1 for Dreamviews, its where I learned my stuff.

And, as stated earlier, dream journals purposefully task your brain to remember enough to write down. It's tricky to remember much the first few nights, but you'll be blown away later on. I could recall 3 or 4 dreams per night when I was faithfully keeping up with it.

[SalmonellaDingDong]

A couple things;

5-6 times a WEEK? HOLY DANG IT I wish I were you right now.

Nobody cares about space? I'm with you on that.

Is the dream journal helpful?

It requires active effort to get that many. I do around 50-60 reality checks per day(are you dreaming right now? plug your nose and inhale) while doing my best to maintain awareness throughout the day and RCing the instant anything seems off.

If people cared about space we would be sending humans to the outer planets by now, instead there are people that "don't see the point" in space exploration and thus refuse to fund it appropriately even though it is our everything and we owe our existence to cosmic chance.

It's helpful. You should use one. Wake up each day and lay still for a few minutes and try to remember any dreams you had. Moving right away in the morning will make you forget them instantly. Even if you don't remember any dreams, go write "I don't remember any dreams from last night" in your journal so your brain knows that it needs to start remembering them. If you only remember slight details, write them. Try and use the details to jog your memory of what happened. Sometimes making things up to fill in the spaces between the details helps you remember the next night better.

Try to follow a format in your journal.

Where were you? Was it somewhere you are often? Or was it an original landscape your mind created?

Who were you with? The same people often show up in dreams. They can be famous people or someone you last saw in middle school ten years ago. Generally I still recognize people from my past even with the aging that is applied automatically. One of my MILD mantras is "If I see anyone I know, I am dreaming". My parents are often in my dreams. I often dream about living in my old room. I look outside and see the truck my mom drove ten years ago instead of the one she has now.

What were you doing? Were you banging Emma Watson/Sophie Turner/Maisie Williams/Rose Leslie/Emilia Clarke? Driving a Lamborghini? Rock climbing?

What made you realize you were dreaming? This is the important one. This one is your "dream sign". Almost everybody has one, it might just take a while to realize what it is. It took me a month before I finally found common themes in my dreams. My dream sign is seeing people I know. Usually my ex girlfriend. This is a good dream indicator because I would never be around her in real life. Another one of mine is being in my own house. Things are usually almost perfect detail wise, but as I walk around each day I check things to make sure they're correct. This has helped me realize I was dreaming before,

Always do a reality check when you first wake up in the morning. Before you lay and think about your dreams. It's only large movements that ruin your memory.

Reality checks:

Plug nose and breathe in, this works the best for me and a lot of other people. That big lungful of air never feels as good as it does when you breathe it in with your nostrils plugged and realize you're in your own universe.

Count fingers, make sure you have ten. Then look at one hand at a time. Do you have five? Or six? Are your fingers see through? Is it tough to tell how many fingers you have? I touch my fingers as I count them. This helps in dreams so do it awake too.

Push finger through palm, this one is simple. Just take your right pointer finger and push it through your left palm. It will go through. This works most of the time but I have had it fail, so I went to the nose one. This doesn't trigger vividness like breathing will.

Close one eye, can you see your nose? Self explanatory. You won't see your nose in dreams.

When you reality check throughout the day be sure you don't do them mindlessly otherwise it's pointless. You need to think to yourself "Am I dreaming?" and really consider that you could just be inside your own head right now. You know the feeling of looking around inside a dream, marveling at how real everything looks? You need to make yourself feel like that while awake. I look upon the world with a sense of wonder, and remind myself of my cosmic insignificance. That usually does it.

Do reality checks when something happens. Someone bumps into you, somebody honks their car. You dropped something. Stubbed your toe. Argued with someone. You're on a roller coaster. Do a reality check. I've realized I was dreaming while riding roller coasters in my dream theme park. Also realized I was dreaming by almost falling out of a crazy ass water slide at the same dream park.

I return to the same setting as previous dreams quite a bit. I'm familiar with the layout of these places by now since they usually stay fairly consistent, and I can change whatever I need to change instantly anyways. These are the previously mentioned theme park, my house, a hillside about a mile down the road from me, and a couple other areas that are exactly the same every time I go there but would take me hours to write enough detail about to make myself feel as though I've explained them well enough to be useful.

Here are some links useful for anyone interested in lucid dreaming:

http://www.reddit.com/r/LucidDreaming

http://www.reddit.com/r/LucidDreaming/comments/rsvp7/the_three_steps_for_learning_to_lucid_dream/

http://www.reddit.com/r/LucidDreaming/wiki/faq

All day Awareness tutorial, DO THIS IT WORKS: http://www.dreamviews.com/induction-techniques/113253-all-day-awareness-dild-tutorial-kingyoshi.html

ld4all is another lucid dreaming forum like dreamviews, here are tutorials: http://www.ld4all.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=30

Want to read a lot about lucid dreaming? http://web.archive.org/web/20090626100930/http://www.realityshifter.com/2007/mastering-the-art-of-lucid-dreaming-full-series/

Are you dreaming? Ponder that for a moment while I go get carpal tunnel surgery from typing this much

Also if the OP could put that info in the OP that would be great.

Edited June 5, 2013 by SalmonellaDingDong

[Trekkette]

I basically always have these half lucid dreams. Enough that I can go, "this is weird; I must be dreaming" but not enough to grab hold and make anything happen.

The biggest way I've found to get there is after a warm shower, lying in bed listening to something soothing on my iPod. I'm partial to audiobooks. Most of the time, I almost drop off to sleep as the chapter ends, and for 5-10 minutes, I'm in that lucid state. Then my leg or back cramps and I'm awake again.

[SalmonellaDingDong]

You should stabilize. Look at your hands for a minute and nothing else. When you look back up things will be vivid. That or take the lucidity pills in your pocket.

Also try rubbing your hands together, or feeling the ground. Feel things. You need to immerse yourself in as many senses as possible so you are anchored in the dream.

Running my hands through grass always works for me.

Voice commands work in lucid dreams too. You can yell out "Clarity!" or "Enhance!" or "Increase lucidity!" and if you say them with enough conviction they work.

Edited June 5, 2013 by SalmonellaDingDong

[The Destroyer]

I once had a dream where I said to myself: This is a dream! But I don't know if I actually was aware or if it was because I said "I will have a lucid dream" 10 times before bed.

I have had lucid dreams sometimes. Usually when it involves sharks coming to eat me or dogs wanting to bite me, I close my eyes hard in the dream, and then try to open them but keep them closed in the dream.

Actually works.

[SalmonellaDingDong]

Usually eye closing is an instant wakeup. I would not recommend ever closing your eyes in a dream.

It takes some getting used to considering how many things cause us to close them reflexively.

[DannySwish]

Ah, coincidences. I was just looking up lucid dreaming videos on YouTube, and saw this here on the front page without intending to find anything here.

[SalmonellaDingDong]

Seems like a perfect time for a reality check then.

[redwolfy]

owwww..............awwww

[The Destroyer]

Usually eye closing is an instant wakeup. I would not recommend ever closing your eyes in a dream.

It takes some getting used to considering how many things cause us to close them reflexively.

Why? I dream so often, and if It's going from a good dream to insta-bad and scary, I should wake up.

[Flixxbeatz]

I've tried lucid dreaming once. What I got was sleep paralysis. Twice. In succession.

[SalmonellaDingDong]

Why? I dream so often, and if It's going from a good dream to insta-bad and scary, I should wake up.

Well yeah, if you want to wake up then close them. But if you're trying to dream don't. Ideally to wake yourself up whenever you want you would hold your breath.