Lucid Dreaming

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Lucid_Dreaming:_Introduction

Been mulling over this for a few minutes, and ****it, I am trying it. I'm determined to master it sometime this year.

This really cool. I've done it a few times, but you always wake up tired as hell like you didn't get any rest.

For a little while about half a year ago I was getting these pretty regularly, without even trying. I've lost it since, though. Very fun, and for some reason it doesn't strike you as omg surreal. Something would just click inside my head mid-dream and I'd think "wait, hold on, this shouldn't be happening, this is a dream... therefore I can do whatever the hell I like now" and I sort of took it for granted and had some fun with it.

Incidentally, I was actually reading that article a couple of days ago, prompted by a thread on another board, so I've been thinking of trying it again. Don't like the sound of the sleep paralysis that comes with some of it, though. They can keep that.

Saw a Star Trek episode that revolved around it. Seemed interesting, but not worth it. To quote Mitch Hedburg: "I hate dreaming, cuz its like work. THere I am, in my nince comfortable bed, and all of a sudden I have to build a gokart with my ex landlord."

Anytime I realize that I'm dreaming I normally wake up right afterwards...bummer.

Pretty much, I trained myself to be able to do this. It's really weird, and it'll sound stupid, but it worked and i've had some wacky *** dreams because of it:

When you're laying in bed, wait until you're just about to pass out. When you do, mentally scream "Wake up" at yourself and try to raise your arms. You probably won't, because you're going to be 99.99% asleep, but the action of telling yourself wake up and the attempt of controlling yourself physically will still resonate through your mind as you'll know what it'll feel like. By the time you go to sleep, you'll still remember what it is to feel like that, and you'll tell yourself "hey, i'm asleep." From there, you can do -anything-

I've had some cool dreams because of this. Lets just say that Kate Beckinsale wasn't gonna be walking right by the time my dream was done, and Steve Vai wasn't too happy about me playing all his solos during his set.

I dont remember ever being in the in between stages.:/

For me, I lay down, and get up a few hours later. There is no time to yell wake up:/

I think that this may well already be one of the best threads I've seen on VGC, simply because I know at least one person here has tried it.

Scott: Does writing everything down immediately in the morning help?

Like the article said, ive experienced this a few times in my life. One instance is where im dreaming im at my grandmother's house...i run and jump off this cliff she has in her back yard and start falling to the creek below, then im able to fly and i fly all over the place which is actually quite fun. Other than the 2 or 3 times thats ever happened...i cant do this.

What i did find interesting was the mentioning of sleep paralysis. Ive experienced this many times in my life and it is totally crazy. your entirely unable to move, except for maybe being able to twitch a few muscles in your neck when you try to move your head. Then you feel this overwhelming feeling of anxiety because you feel your paralyzed...and suffocating because you notice your breathing is much slower as well as your heartbeat.

It happened to me multiple times this sunday. i stayed up until 5am saturday night and had to be at work at 7:30 on sunday. There is hardly any planes in the sky on the weekend so its not really even work, i just have to be there. I went to the back room and passed out for 20 minutes and just before i fell into a deep sleep i tried waking myself up (falling asleep in the military anytime is frowned upon, no matter how little work there is to be done), only to find that i could think completely coherently, but entirely unable to move. Its a really scary feeling...fells almost like what i imagine dying of natural causes would feel like.

This is the coolest thing I've ever heard, I will definately be trying this out for myself. I think I recall having one of these actually, I was home in my backyard and I just jumped and flew right over my house. The feeling of flying was incredible.

Yeah, it's brilliant. I used to have some pretty regularly myself - oddly enough, though, they'd all start in the schoolyard from my primary school. Of course, I could just teleport myself anywhere I wanted from there, but it was weird that it was always the same origin.

But as for now - unless it's by utter chance, I won't get one. I'm like LoS - I get my head down and it seems like I wake up almost immediately.

I don't dream, but it sounds interesting.

Jack, keeping a dream journal never crossed my mind when it came to this, but i'm sure you could keep a log of failed attempts until you're able to do this. Now, granted, it's usually hit-and-miss, but i'm able to do it more often that not. I don't do it much, because the next day seriously makes you feel like you've had no rest. This is because your brain literally thinks you're awake, and your brain percieves everything for you being real. Your body is still working, but you're asleep. It really kicks your *** :)

But yeah, keep a log of attempts you've made and the reaction you've gotten from your dreams. If you nail it, you'll know whats going on in your dream, you can make things happen, and you get to play God of your own mind. But as weird as it is, just be careful. While you are sleeping and just making things up, there will be **** that does happen that will freak you out. Every time I try to lucid dream, I get to deal with a "shadow" version of me. It really is freaky, but it's there. I see this figure who looks exactly like me, is wearing exactly everything I am, but the color scheme is blacks & grays. It's eyes are blood red and stuff. Now, i've talked to people about channeling things outside of this, and you can get some weird stuff. Like I said, it's worth the time, just be careful about how often you do it and what it is you bring into your dream.

I've experienced such a thing a few times before, as the text says, usually right before I woke up. I figured that in the process of waking up, my mind became more aware and I was able to realize I was dreaming for the short time before I woke up completely. I might try this... I'll keep reading.

Also learned the term "trance logic," a concept I've realized and refered to while describing my dreams but haven't been able to name properly. Shveet.

I heard of this before. So its like controlling your dreams right?

Anyways Ill have to try it this friday or something. Anyways I believe I had a few dreams like this, one of which I was on a roof or something and jumped off and fell into a lake of some sort, it was quite fun, but right after I hit the water I wake up right away. But I have not had a dream like that in years sadly.

But yeah ill have to try it sometime.

It may be easy for me because, though my dream recall is poor, I am very aware of elements in my dreams and may become lucid easily by noticing them. I know that if I am scared, I will not be able to move effectively or call for help. I have previously recognized that, while dreaming, I can breathe underwater (trance logic, at the time, has me believe it is normal). My dreams, both good and bad, often involve some form of apocalypse.

The most unique aspect of my dreams, however, is the old house. When I was younger, I would often dream of being in a house precisely like my own, but very old, rotted, and downright evil. In different dreams, I would be chased by dogs or attacked by zombies... sometimes there would be an infestation of a scorpion colony with a colossal queen, or maybe I'd find a basement waterway with man-eating mermaid beasts. For the long time I dreamed of it, I seemed to learn every corner of it; I knew which areas hosted different dangers, where I could go to find shelter or weapons, and where I'd actually hidden or left an object in a previous dream.

Eventually, I escaped the house... literally escaped it by finding a door to the outside. I stepped out to see a desert flatland, nothing in sight but mountains in the distance and a single paved road with sidewalks on either side, much like the roads here where I live. The whether was typical of an Arizona desert; the sky was dark with clouds, but the ground still seemed more or less bright, a concept any fellow desert rogue should understand. In fact, the only thing that was all the dark was, as I turned to face it, the house I'd just emerged from. Outside, the house looked just as evil. Like my house, it was in the center of a cul-de-sac with an incredibly tall palm tree outside of it. It was made of old, black, rotting wood instead of plaster, or whatever mine's really made of. The windows were dark and appeared even more like eyes than my true house does. It does not appear to be angry or threatening or carrying any kind of emotion at all... it allows the memories I have of it to supply the terror instead. It looks back at me, the impossibly tall tree swaying slightly in the fair wind. I am not outragiously afraid, but I do have a hollow feeling inside me, a forboding and ominous feeling I usually find in my apocalypse dreams. I'll never forget the quiet horror of that house looking at me the way it did. I turned and walked away from the house, out of the cul-de-sac with only one plot and down the road stretching into the horizon.

I eventually discovered, as I returned to the road in another dream, more enjoyable world I still find myself visiting sometimes. However, the house does not wish itself completely obliterated. Even in my most cheerful of dreams, in the most unrelated settings, I will see it in a picture frame or on a television screen, and I will feel that hollow, ominous feeling again. Now that I am no longer tortured by it, I have a respect for it... few things can inspire that kind of feeling in me. I apologize for my long description, but I wanted to portray the embodiment of that feeling as well as I could.

Anyway, yeah. The point is that the dreams I remember tend to be very profound, and trying to explore them at least a few times is an opportunity I cannot pass up.

The best lucid dream that I ever had, I had about six or so years ago, and I've been working on turning it into a novella ever since.

[quote=Suggestions for what you can do]Have sex- multiple girls from your own fantasy world giving you pleasure in every way imaginable!!
The excitement, or closing your eyes, can cause you to wake up.

"Yeah, isn't that the worst? Guys always wake up after!"

Please tell me someone gets this

I totally do.

Although it brings up the question of if you get exhausted in dreams, what happens?

Linko just made me lol quite hard.

I really dont think that I want to try this, even if I could. My dreams, when I do remember them (which is like once every couple of months) fall into two categories. The first, and more rare, is jsut freaking weird. They make ZERO sense. Its hard to describe, but things just sorta dont work they way they would in reality.

The second, which is sadly more common, are ones that I dont really remember, but cause me to wake up paranoid, terrified, and ready to kill anything near me that moves. I almost took out my cat once when I lived at home after waking up from one of these. I remember waking up and seeing satans head near my feet, and then it moved and I realized it was my cat. Scariest thing to ever happen to me.

I've always found lucid dreaming to be quite facinating. I used to be able to do it somewhat often. Usually, I would be standing at the edge of my sidewalk in front of my house, and I'd 'will' myself to just float up and fly into the sky. I could feel myself doing this in the dreams. I'll have to see if I can accomplish this again sometime soon.

I'm almost certain I ended up dreaming about lucid dreaming, but didnt actually have a lucid dream :/ Once the radio woke me up in the morning I had forgotten everything that happened in the dreams. March break is fast approaching, I'll probably start a journal then and see what happens.

I've been lucid dreaming for 8+ years and know quite a bit about it. One fun thing I've done on purpose before is move my real human body while still "asleep" dreaming. And then there's all those other in-dream experiments like walking through mirrors, flying, etc.

I love it. Lucid dreaming is amazing to me and one of my favorite things to experience. Here are two of my favorite web sites about the subject:

http://www.ld4all.com
http://www.dreamviews.com

What I want to do next is try and talk to God. I have some questions, heh. I think if I try to see God it might just come across as a blinding light, so I was thinking of alternatives. Perhaps I can put myself in front of a computer and instant message God, or call him on the phone.

3/14/2006

Hey all, I wanted to share this with you.

I was with an older lady. Somehow we're teleporting through dimensions to avoid the end of the world. We try to avoid the night and the rain since that seems to me the most dangerous. When one world is about to end due to a flood or something, we use a teleport machine to go to another one. The teleport machines always seem to be a big metal object, with stairs that we go up to and walk down a walkway to push the button.

I see us flipping through a few worlds.

"That one is dark."
"That one is rainy."
"That one is getting dark."
"Hey, this one looks okay."

We get there and it's okay at first. We're at this older huge house. We're in the front yard, and there's a big lake. We walk onto the wooden dock and the wind starts picking up big time, and it starts getting darker all of a sudden.

She yells at me, "I thought you said this was a good world!"

Apparently I'm her guide, the person who is supposed to keep her safe. She seems kinda *****y, but would probably be a nice person under different circumstances.

I reply, "It was fine before, I don't know why the hell this is happening. Let's get inside, there is probably some sort of shelter."

It starts to rain a little while we go inside the house.

"We have to see if anyone is here," I say.

We look around and no one is on the first floor. There are a few things in the house but it seems like the people were moving out. We go upstairs and look around. I go to the left and find a bedroom. It seems to have been a young girl's room by what was in it. I look on her book case and I see some candy, some girly books, and other things. I look in a drawer and I see a notepad. I open it and I read something, but I don't exactly remember what it said. All I think I remember is the word "East" and it said like 5 words total.

I yell out to the old lady I'm with, "Hey, come check this out. This was probably a girl's room."

She comes in, and then I realize, "Hey... this isn't real. I'm dreaming." My dream is now a Lucid Dream.

"Hey, guess what. You're not real, you're just a dream."

She looks at me and then turns away and starts walking down the hall. I'm not sure where she went but she's gone now. She looked different this time, like a middle-aged black woman instead of a senior white woman.

I start talking to myself. "Okay, I gotta keep this going."

I yell out, "Awareness! Awareness!"

The purpose of yelling that out is to make your mind more aware that you're in a dream and therefore help put you in control and keep you lucid. It's a well-known technique. I also start rubbing my in-dream hands very quick, another technique to help keep the dream going. I seem to have very good control now, so I continue on with something I've been wanting to do for a long time; I talk directly to God.

I think of IMing God from a computer, but instead I choose to go with a phone. "I need to make a phone appear."

I tried to make one appear in the girl's bedroom but I didn't see one. I walked down the hall and there was one in the wall. I dial God's number (463 on the phone spells GOD) but I hit the wrong number at first. Somehow I dial my brother and God at the same time, and they both answer. I tell them I'll call them back. So I hang up, and I more carefully call God again.

God: Hello.
Jon: Hey God! How are you doing?
God: I'm in way over my head up here. What's up?
Jon: Well, I've been wanting to ask you something. Why did my ex and I break up? Was there something I could have done?
God: I know you've been looking for some kind of hidden subconsious link to the reason and your heart, but if you just search your heart you know exactly why. I really must be going now, Jon.
Jon: Yeah...
Jon: But hey, God, you still there?
God: Yes.
Jon: I know you're God, so can't you just tell me a straight answer?
God: I need to go. There are lots of people trying to get through.

It seems straight answers are not God's style, not even in my own mind. What he said to me didn't make sense in the dream, which is why I asked him again, but it does make sense to me now that I've thought about it. God's voice was male, by the way, and pretty deep. He sounded kind.

So I look down the hallway and see a window. "Haha, time to fly."

I run towards it and jump through. Suddenly I'm not just two stories up, I'm hundreds. I'm already in the clouds and falling fast. I look behind me and I see a white tower through the clouds, it looked like some kind of government building. I put my fists in front of me like superman and attempt to pull up. I pull up too hard and now I'm falling back-first. Oops. I straighten myself out and am now diving through the sky.

I am through the clouds and can see the ground. It's so beautiful and colorful! I see lots of forests and they're so green. I see some towns too. I'm quickly getting closer to the ground, I can hear the wind wizzing by. I need to start pulling up. I know hitting the ground won't kill me, but I don't want to lose the dream speed. I try using the wind to get me going forward like a bird would but I'm having trouble, I keep falling.

I haven't dream fly in months, so I'm out of practice. I imagine a burst of energy coming from the bottom of my feet, and this helps me go forward and balance some but I'm still not in perfect control. Either way, it's still lots of fun.

But then everything goes black. I can feel my real-life eyes moving, in REM sleep. I can't bring any picture back. I know my mind is ready to wake up, so I go ahead and open my eyes. Dream over, I'm awake.

That was interesting, Jon. Quite funny too. You know the rush you get when you poke your head out of a moving car window? Try to imagine that, and you might be able to regain altitude. If you haven't ever done that, then imagine the rush you get when you are movie extremely fast on a bike; like riding down a steep hill for instance.

I haven't had many lucid dreams lately... mainly because I haven't been trying to! I've completely forgotten about this whole thing. Now that I've read this topic, I'm quite interested in it again. I'm going to try it tonight. I'll post a dream log tommorrow if I remember it.

Jon: Very interesting! All the more reason for me to get into this. I've been recording all my dreams for the past week, and surprisingly there's only been one day so far after which I couldn't remember a thing.

Although, once I do manage to get an LD, the first thing I'm gonna do is attend a boxing match between [url=http://www.geocities.com/julistuff/Zoidberg.jpg]this guy[/url] and [url=http://www.nuclearblastusa.com/bands/immortal/immortal.jpg]these[/url] wonderful people...

That's really awesome Jon, your dreams seem to have alot more organization than mine. I've been trying to keep a log for a week now and I've discovered my dreams are completely erratic, the scene changes very rapidly and people appear and disappear even faster. Thats why Its been very hard to remember exactly what happened in the morning.

I seem to have very short dreams. I don't know why.

I didn't go to sleep tonight. FOR NO REASON.

I'm not sure what's wrong with me. It's not insomnia, this time.

I slept today from 6am to 11pm. But that's because I was up for 25 hours straight. I went to the bathroom and saw my eyes were red, so I thought I better get to bed.

[quote=Wings]I didn't go to sleep tonight. FOR NO REASON.

I'm not sure what's wrong with me. It's not insomnia, this time.

That happens to me every once in a while. Sometimes it's nice in a way 'cause you just have more time to conciously relax or do something, but about three in five times, it's just really inconvenient.

My lucid dreams seem to be more bizarre more often than not. I'm always stuck in some wierd situation that forces me to think up a power and use it(sometimes I come up with the strangest powers). Other times I'm lazy and fly away fromt he scene. Some LD's I have put "limitations" on me so that I am not able to do all things I would like. During one such drema I had a long time ago, I gave myself the power to transform into anything I believe it was. I have no idea why either. I would transform into things at random jsut for fun, but when someone tried to assult me in a library(I ahve no idead why I happened to go to a library) I could not transform.

Lord, I've got to get my lucid dreams to work. Whenever I realize that I'm dreaming, I try and think of the most bizarre thing I'd like to do, and then I walk up, really dissapointed. I'll give Jon's "Awareness! Awareness!" a shot.

Yeah, I agree with Mystic. Until you get more practice or 'advanced' it's better to not try and change everything.

That was the first time I ever used the "Awareness! Awareness!" trick. I usually spin wildly to keep myself in the dream and more aware, but I like this new way because sometimes after spinning I would find myself in some place new.

i'm actually pretty good at this my favorite way of getting around that way is running really fast anmd going through stuff. It seems the easiest way to get around is to teleport but I want to find a way to get to places before I think about going there in my dreams I think that would be cool.

Oh, I had an LD for the first time a few weeks ago.

I was at some kind of GDC-derivative and they had a Revolution on the demo floor. I played with it for a while and summoned some friends.

Then we flew out a window to a nearby water park.

I don't remember some of it. I think I lost lucidity halfway through.

I read the title and I saw "Liquid Dreams," and then I was like "OMG i love o'town. ashley parker angel is so cool!" but then I realized this wasn't about O'Town.

...

Wow. I haven't heard about that band for years. I didn't know anyone ever liked them.

Klarth, have you been trying to have lucid dreams? Or did it just happen to take place?

Awhile back I learned to become self aware in my dreams, and most of my dreams, I become so, but sometimes I remain unaware.

My dram thoug doesnt seem to like the fact that I gain some control over it, and becomes EXTREMELY hostile.

Examples includes a black van coming and trying to hit me, the Grim Reaper trying to slam his sythe through my skull, etc etc. It wasn't till the Sythe dram that i stopped trying to become self aware, and have yet to recall a dream since that I was ; ;

Though by far the most (even if not scary because it eventually got boring) one, I kept "waking up" in the dreams in my bed, then a figure or an unexplainable force would come and cause extreme pain to me.

My advice: Don't f' with the Dreamer and try to control the dreams he gives you, or he'll F with you back, if not now, eventually.

[quote=Angelwing]
Klarth, have you been trying to have lucid dreams? Or did it just happen to take place?
Accidentally induced it, I think. Got woken up by a banging door, slammed it shut, and went back to bed. I'm pretty sure I must have still been self-aware when I fell asleep.

I have these fairly constantly, in fact. Most of the time my action that's controllable by myself that I take is flight to avoid a situation, or just to have fun. It's quite nice