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Call me a liar all you want, but I've done it twice.
The first time I was in highschool (about 10 years ago) I did a lot of research (for papers and personal interest) on dreams and learned about lucid dreaming. I thought it was all a bunch of crap. Waking up in the middle of your dreams? Crazy talk. Well...then I started to read more about it and told myself I must learn how.
Well, I did it. Not long after reading a how-to book. I was surprised to find out it really takes only a few meditation techniqes and a dream diary. It didn't happen the first night, but I believe it was a few nights later.
I never thought I would be able to experience flying. Flying without any support what so ever. It was something I could never have imagined. I told my parents about it but they didn't seem all that interested.
I tried many other times to do it again but to no avail. Until a few nights ago. It was a little different from the last time. I felt that I have fallen asleep and then opened my eyes in my room, completly awake. I was a little paranoid and kept thinking to myself that Phil (Xavier) was going to walk into the room and see me sleeping with my eyes open, staring at the wall. That was when I realized what was happening. It was like a "click" went off into my head. I immediatly remembered my last lucid dream and set off flying through the air. No where really interesting, just down a dirt road, but I must have going pretty fast because the scenery would change, to farms then to city building and back to the country. I then flew over a small lake or pond.
I woke up at that point with a profound sense of sadness. That it was only a dream. There was also a bit of pride at being able to do it again.
Has anyone else ever had a lucid dream? I'm eager to hear of other people's experiences.
posted
My dad taught me when I was very young how to, in my sleep, control nightmares. For instance, if I was being chased by a wolf, I'd pick up a feather and tickle him to make him laugh and fall down, and then it wasn't scary. I quickly learned, at age 3, to do this without having to wake up.
But then, he'd been teaching me meditation and self-hypnosis techniques since I was 2 1/2 or so.
I've never thought of using this ability just for fun, but I probably could if I tried. The only time the technique I learned doesn't work for me is when I'm sleepwalking. I think it's a different state than regular dreaming or something.
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♪ Now it's time to say good night, good night, sleep tight Now the sun turns out his light, good night, sleep tight ♫
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Theres also a technique that my brother taught me after taking pychology classes in high school. Draw a familiar symbol on your hand, something that has a meaning to you, or just a regualar shape. Then just always look at it, like during the day, just keep looking back at it, and when you are tell yourself it isnt a dream So it becomes familiar to you. Then while your dreaming you might stumble upon looking at your hand and noticing that the symbol is gone. Thus you relieze it is a dream, then you get control of your dream.
Also theres a little method that i discovered myself. When your woken up into a half awake half asleep state you usually wish to go back to bed. If you do fall back to sleep, right before you do start thinking of what you wish to dream about, and somehow dream and thought intertwine.
Sucky thing is that i havn't been dreaming much lately, and it has just be pissing me off, alot.
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Lucid dreaming is the best; unfortunately it doesn't happen to me very often. When it does, the main thing I try to do is fly.
I love flying in dreams -- especially in vivid ones when it seems so very real.
I had a friend who was a lucid dreamer, and his method for 'alerting' himself that he was in a dream was to perform what he called a "gravity check." He would point his fingers at his feet and if he was dreaming, he would levitate. If it was real life, of course, nothing would happen.
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Yes I've had three. They each were amazing experiences. I can't do it at will as some people can. Also, after I wake, I'm usually rather disappointed at the low importance of the things I choose to do. Then I imagine all sort of really cool things I will do next time I have one, then it's years before I have one again so I forget, and then the next time it happens I just fly around K-Mart parking lot again or something silly like that.
But the feeling of having unlimited power and unlimited possibilities is the coolest part about it. That feeling totally carries over into waking life, I've found, and takes a while to wear off.
I think it represents truth in some deep way. We do have near total control over our lives and over everything around us, if we only could learn how to unlock it.
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I'm trying to stay awake so I can get my husband up at 4 so we'll be on time for breakfast at Boon's house, and you're making it harder! Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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Everybody should check out Waking Life, a movie directed by Richard Linklater...they discuss a lot of philosophical stuff, but one of the main ideas is how to tell if you're awake or dreaming and how most of us don't question that during "the day" as it were, instead just assuming they're "awake"
They suggest the light switch test -- if you're in a room, anytime, switch a light on and off. If the light changes, you're awake. If it doesn't, you're dreaming. Or you didn't pay your electric bill. ;-)
The other test is to look at your alarm clock...like when you wake up and you still might be dreaming? Check it out, and if you can't make out what the numbers are, you're probably still asleep!
I find it all intensely fascinating, along with that whole sleep paralysis thing.
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*chuckle* ...call you a liar... That's funny. I guess people are just too skeptical or close-minded these days. I'm glad that you had such a great experience Valentine. Lucid dreaming is pretty much second nature to me, so I certainly wouldn't call you a liar. I dream intensely every night and have done so since I can remember. I can become lucid at will, but my dreams are usually a lot of fun and rarely nightmares so most of the time I let them take their course. I've grown to prefer NOT interfering with what my brain's doing. But sometimes a dream will get kind of boring and I do whatever I want. Specifically, I remember one that was a family reunion where we were all eating together. Nothing special going on, so I proceeded to transform all of the furniture in the room and started turning my relatives into other people. I think I turned my uncle into Bill Clinton for example. Heh...strange. Oddly enough I don't remember ever choosing to fly. I have flying dreams pretty often without trying. It's more exciting to me when it comes naturally. I'm curious if any of you have had sleep paralysis. It's often connected with lucid dreaming. I've had it a few times, but if you don't know what I'm talking about then nevermind.
There have been a few times in my life where I've been plagued by some really nasty nightmares, so I have my own way to ensure that I can become lucid. Maybe it could help some of you. I have a small ring that I wear on my pinky finger, just a simple little thing, but I wear it all the time. Day and night. I have made a habit of fiddling with it, so it has become a trigger for me to become lucid instantly when I see it in a dream. I've researched it a bit and seen that other lucid dreamers use a similar method. They create a 'trigger' that helps them become lucid. It could be a ring, a gesture, or even something like a birth mark or freckle. Ya never know...it could work for you.
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I can exert a pretty large amount of control in dreams, usually, and change regular nightmares.
BUT I can't seem to be able to do anything about nightmares based in reality. It's like they are flashbacks that happen during sleep, and I have NEVER been able to control them.
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I lucid dream often. I don't keep a diary of my dreams but I remember many of them and I think about them. Some of my dreams are so vivid that they actually seem the same as real memories when I think back. I know they aren't but they seem to feel the same in my head as a real memory.
I too change nightmares, go flying, or build grand empires on occasion. Sex dreams are fun too! Posts: 4953 | Registered: Jan 2004
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I lucid dream every now and then. Like Tatiana, I do it spontaneously rather than on command. I've tried various techniques to induce lucid dreaming, everything from mental exercises to an eye mask thing with LEDs that start flashing when you enter REM sleep, but none of them have really worked.
I also do a limited lucid dreaming thing, in which if something doesn't work in my dream I back time up a minute or so and do it again, changing what I'm doing slightly. I repeat this until I get the result I'm after, and then resume the flow of the dream.
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When I was a kid I used to be able to do this, but whenever I try it now I just wake myself up.
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I saw this thread and assumed it was about the cryogenic reanimation story, since in Vanilla Sky the company that uses cryogenics to keep people alive is called Lucid Dream.
But, man, apparently I Lucid Dream all the time. But I'm not sure what it is. Is it like a point in your dream where you say, "Wait a minute, this is a dream, I can do whatever I want"? Because then, yeah, I do that all the time. It's pretty crazy. Sometimes I get some weird stuff.
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That's exactly what it is Book. Some, but not most, can do it without any meditation or journal.
Anyone see that ST:TNG episode, "Green Flying Troi" (that's not the offical name, just coined one) where Troi tries to remember a message in her dreams to tell a race to do something to save their ship? Pretty cheesy episode but this thread made me think of it and laugh.
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Waking Life is an amazing movie. Each year the upperclassmen in our college try and tackle a few freshmen and make them watch it. Our professors found out and one of our philosophy professors used a scene from the movie as part of a general lecture.
I learned to lucid dream while taking a college course on Jung. We were doing dream workshops and the intense study really helped me focus on my dreams as vital fountains of information, rather than pretty colors that happen in my head when I sleep. I'm not too good about controlling what happens but I'd say 4 out 5 times I can recognize when I'm dreaming. Once I'm in a conscious state of mind I like to ask questions. The best was learning to control nightmares and letting them become an outlet for stress and frustration. Nothing like spending a night killing zombies to make a person ready to face the morning.
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This is something special? I realize I'm in a dream all the time. I only occasionally change stuff, though... Mostly its like making stuff appear in my hands or changing surroundings or something...
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quote:Originally posted by Valentine014: Anyone see that ST:TNG episode, "Green Flying Troi" (that's not the official name, just coined one) where Troi tries to remember a message in her dreams to tell a race to do something to save their ship?
I'm sorry, but that is NOT the name of that episode. The name of that episode is "One Moon Circles" (I have absolutely no memory of what the official name is, but I know several people who call it that -- including me ).
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Actually, it was Marina Sirtis herself that named that episode, "Green Flying Troi." I looked it up in my Nitpickers Guide for Next Generation Trekkers (oh god, I am such a geek) and the episode is ACTUALLY called Night Terrors. Posts: 2064 | Registered: Dec 2003
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You know, I've heard other people say that before, that she doesn't really get into it like the others. If I remember correctly, she and Jonathan Frakes did an interview for TV Guide a few months ago and she was quoted as saying something to that effect. Which is too bad, she's my favorite. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Green Flying Troi
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It's not so much "getting into" -- she seems (seemed, I guess, since I haven't been to a con in close to a decade) to enjoy cons, and talking to fans, and signing autographs even -- it's getting it. As is, comprehending.
Probably better that way. There are enough ST celebs who like to chant, "Get a life!" Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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If I'm running around doing whatever I want in my dreams it generally means that I'm half asleep. By which I mean, I'm easily awoken and can wake myself up if I know I need to get up by calling my own name in my dream. But I don't think that's what lucid dreaming is, although I suspect that's what most people mean when they say they've had a lucid a dream.
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I think you're on the right track, Bob, but I think you really are completely asleep when you are dreaming. I can relate to the feeling, though. I can wake myself up when I please, but I assure you, I am in a full dream state.
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I've had lucid dreams, where I was able to control. I've also had dreams where I recognized it was a dream but was still not in control.
I've also done almost everything that people say is supposed to be impossible in dreams. There is no way for me to prove any of the following, especially not in an internet forum, so I won't try. Believe me or not as you see fit.
I've hit the bottom while dreaming of falling, without waking up. Several times. First time was in a falling elevator, later just falling by myself.
I've died in dreams. I once had a dream where I died, remembered my own death, and decended into hell. What hell was like in this dream is fairly dirty when subjected to standard dream interpretation rules, so we'll skip it.
I've read in dreams. The part of your brain that reads isn't supposed to be active during dreams. Most "reading" in dreams is just glancing at a page and getting the gist of a concept from it. I have actually read, seeing specific letters and sounding out the words from them. The first time it was very labor-intensive, like sounding out a long word you've never seen before in a language you barely now. Later it's become easier. This one is still rare for me though.
I've had precognitive dreams. Never of anything that was useful to know ahead of time, just a very specific scene, about 5-20 seconds long, that later occurred to me in real life. It would cause a sense of deja vu, but this has happened enough times where I clearly remembered that it had also happened in a dream that I know it's not *just* deja vu.
I once had a dream that lasted 3 days of subjective time. I remember going to bed and waking up, both inside the dream. When I finally did wake up it took me several minutes of sitting on the edge of my bed to sort out what had and had not actually happened, and what day it really was.
I've had a series of dreams where I would wake up, get dressed, and go to work, then wake up, get dressed, and go to work, then wake up, get dressed, and go to work, etc. Each time I had a different bedroom, different clothes that I wore, a different morning routine, and if I made it to work before waking up I had a different job. This happened for a few nights in a row. When I actually did wake up, I didn't really realize it.
Edit: I've felt physical pain in dreams. I know enough other people who've done this one to have concluded the whole "pinch me to prove I'm not dreaming" is BS, so forgot to mention it. /edit
There's some others, but this post is long enough. Suffice to say, my dreams are weird.
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All of those things people say "can't possibly happen in dreams" have no idea what they're talking about. A dream is where all the things that can't happen in real life, do.
My advice for all the newbies of the lucid dreaming world: try to fly and if you need some directions, it's the second star to the north and straight on 'till midnight. Posts: 2064 | Registered: Dec 2003
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Yeah, I've fallen in my dreams and landed at the bottom hundreds of times, and died in my dreams dozens of times, and I've had many pre-cog dreams, too. Oddly enough, it's at the point that I recognize the pre-cog dreams as such when I wake up from them, even though the actual event won't happen for a long time. I just wait. And then it eventually happens. I've actually met friends in my dreams, and then meet them IRL years later.
And I've had dreams where I had great difficulty in separating them from reality.
But lucid dreaming? Oh, no. Not me. Nightmares? Puh-lenty. But none that I can control.
ketchupqueen, I'd love to learn what your dad taught you. Meditation and self-hypnosis and the ability to change my nightmares would probably help me a lot.
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On one or two occasions in a pre-cog dream I actually dreamed myself thinking "Hey, I remember dreaming this. What happened next?" The few seconds after that thought almost made my head explode. I absolutely cannot describe that experience in words.
Most of my actual nightmares are situations that when described aren't really that scary, they're just inexplicably terrifying in the dream. I've also had dreams that many people would describe as nightmares but I was totally calm in them and they didn't bother me at all.
My former roommate, Troll, has done extensive out-of-body meditation. I've rarely gotten that to work, and only very briefly, where it's hard to tell if I'm just imagining it. He's done things like project himself from his room to mine, poke at my ear, then later come into my room and ask "When was the last time your ear itched? Which ear?" That got pretty eerie. He did similar tests with friends in different cities. It seemed to work with one of them 200 miles away, but he could only get any sort of results with people he knew really well.
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If, by out-of-body meditation, you mean the soul leaving the body and roaming around, then yes, I've done that extensively. Only I had no conscious control over it - it just happened. Started when I was very young and continued until my late teens and would happen in my sleep or when I was awake. I used to hear the most interesting conversation and see some things that were not meant for my eyes (like my father's attempted suicide).
But in my case, it was definitely not healthy nor desireable and is actually a symptom of a dissociative disorder.
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I had a pre-cog dream, the last time when what dreamed about ahppened I thought " Hey, I remember dreaming that" but when I think of what happens next it was not good but it didn't happen.
I don't dream really maybe once or twice a year. It could be more but I never remember them.
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Of course Lucid Dreaming or the "First Gate of Dreaming" is part of the Warrior's path, congratulations! I do it frequently when I have the energy for it, just set up dreaming by stopping your internal dialogue before sleep and issuing the command to raise your hands and look at them. Then you are there! Enjoy them but look out. Lucid dreaming is an invitation to the unknown to come into your life and lead you off.
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I've learned to do it out of sheer terror. That's how I've learned to control my consistent nightmares, at least. Now, I no longer fail all my classes, but rather ski down slopes with nude models chasing me, much like the scene from Meaning of Life, but with more snow.
...you think I'm joking, but I'm not.
EDIT: also, instead of plunging into my grave, I often turn into a hero/monster, and continue changing the City as I see fit.
Again, not joking.
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There are more certain tests that your friend could do, Enigmatic, to prove that he's really having an out of body experience. For example, if you have any shelves that are located above head height, you could place a playing card or series of playing cards face up on it, without yourself looking to see what they are. The next time he is having one of his out of body experiences, he can float up and make note of which cards are being displayed, and then you can check to confirm that he's got the correct answer.
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All of my dreams really are lucid dreams. I always know I'm dreaming and can contol everything in my dreams, or wake up at will. I think it started when I was little my dad was never very sympathetic to bad dreams and he told me to just wake up if something bad happens. It actually is kind of irritating, because to me it's not really a dream if you are controlling everything. I try to keep myself from controlling it, but I always know it's a dream, and if it is a bad dream, or something is threatening me, I either fly away, of wake up. I tend not to remember most of my dreams though.
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Wow! I read this thread with interest a couple of days ago. How cool is Lucid dreaming, right?
Well, today I stayed home from work sick. I had the worst headache last night, of which I'm still getting twinges occassionally. So, I slept several hours this morning.
I was dreaming that I had a bundle of creative writing assignments, and I was thinking back to the last creative writing class. It was held after the semester break and the teacher had read us the riot act for not having our assignments or something done. So I was holding the assignments and I thought... Wait a second...that class was over months ago and I know we didn't have another class, because my OTHER class was over, too. Hey! I think I'm dreaming! So I looked down and decided to see if I could float. And I could! So woo hoo! I knew it was a dream.
There starts the lucid dreaming. For part of it, I went flying. The sky was beautiful with awesome stars and clouds. And there was a fairy type creature leading me..and I couldn't figure out if she was supposed to BE me or not.
I don't remember all of it, and some bits I'm NOT sharing.. but it was awesome.
Go lucid dreaming!!
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I do often. It comes and goes in spurts though. Usually I am on a computer, often writing computer code with my brain. I can read and comprehend the words, but often the letters themselves are meaningless Matrix-like symbols. The only other major plotline is meeting a soul mate. When I wake up from that one I often have an indescribable sense of loss. I have died a few times in my dreams, but I always get resurrected.
I cannot really control when it happens, though. The most reliable way would be to stay up for a couple of days, optionally taking some Benadryl before sleeping. That is more of a waking dream in some ways though. Other ways to encourage it are opium and the self-hypnosis techniques described above.
I have had a few precogs too, but I get those when awake as well. I think it is just my subconscious integrating information my conscious has discarded as irrelevant, and making leaps based on that rather than actual foresight.
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Second star to the right and straight on 'til morning.
</nitpick>
I lucid dream too, and hit the ground when falling and all that other stuff you're not "supposed" to be able to do in dreams. And I always dream in color, the first time I heard someone say you only dream in black & white I laughed at them.
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I had a friend who could control his dreams. He could also tell himself to wake up at a certain time and he would be wide awake within ten minutes or so of the time he wanted to get up. I often have nightmares, actually, more than good dreams. I call out sometimes at night but I've never woken anyone in the same room with me. I haven't had many lucid dreams but I can always wake myself up. I'm just glad I don't remeber most of my dreams because I often wake up terrified.
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