dream thread

[jayrock]

The last lucid dream that I had was last summer. I was in Europe and I hadn't smoked ganja for nearly two weeks (longest sober streak in the last four years). With all the new experiences of international travel for the first time, combined with the fact that I wasn't smoking I had some crazy dreams.

[palabok]

Haha I used to lucid dream all summer last year. Pretty epic dreams. I still lucid dream from time to time though (whenever I sleep more than 8 hours a night.)

[e2a]

a couple years ago i was into lucid dreaming, kept a dream journal and all that- i found that if i questioned whether or not i was dreaming at various times during the day, and made this a habit, it was way more effective than any of the pre-sleep rituals

i miss going lucid and flying around, thats the shit right there

[denimdestroyedmylife]

^ dude, you sure you aren't astral projecting?

i've got all these astral projection cds i don't know what to do with

i used to lucid dream. the trick i used to do is imagine a blackboard with "100" written on it. erase the 100, put a mark next to it, then write 99. then erase 99, put a mark next to the other one, then write 98. erase 98, make another mark next to the two you just made and write 97. erase 97...

[cuddlysheep]

i tried to fuck around wiht lucid dreaming. got to be careful when youre doing this. you can get some very vivid nightmares if youre mind is else where.

[C0C0]

haven't done much research on either lucid dreaming or astral projection but now as i'm reading about them...i think these things occur to me pretty frequently, and have had an out of body experience also =x ... maybe i should be reading about these things

[mizanation]

i tried and tried to go lucid but i've never gone lucid on purpose. one time i dreamt that i was going down a wooden corridor in japan and i was lucid. each step i took down the corridor became more difficult and painful, but i knew if i just made it to the end, i could maintain lucidity. i woke up before i could make it.

i will try e2a's suggestion of questioning whether i'm dreaming or not.

here's the question. can you control what you decide to do?

when i go lucid, i don't have much control. i know that i'm dreaming, but i'm kinda just in for the ride. maybe this isn't complete lucidity.

[skeetinmynose]

When you're lucid, you can control the scenario. I'm not sure if it's considered lucid if you're simply aware that you're dreaming and just going along.

[onemancult]

all my dreams are lucid. you can get so much shit going in dreamworld.

i want to work on some astral projection... ive been able to sort of extricate

my consciousness from my physical body, but i always feel like im hitting

a wall when it comes to moving beyond the confines of the flesh... like my

conscious is in my body, but no longer connected to it

[mike lowrey]

I've had pretty much the same experience as miz, more like knowing its a dream and only slightly reacting to it. could never do better then that, and nowadays its probably impossible for me because I sleep like shit. I dont fall asleep easily, so when I do, I don't wake up just for a sec in the morning and then fall asleep again, which I've found to be what triggers it for me.

on a side note, I got shot a couple of nights ago. I've had this dream now two times in my life, before when I was about 4-5 years old and its an insanely clear memory for me. this time the story was slightly different but I felt the same, when I was shot I felt this crazy paralyzing feeling while slowly waking up at the same time. I was pretty shook up for a while.

[Guest thesnow]

Sometimes I know Im dreaming and just go along with it but when Im lucid I can control everything.. ie. last night I smashed this girl for hours and hours and I was changing her body up to my liking

I dont usually do "reality tests" during the day but I know a couple you can try.. call yourself gay in public, see how people react.. or try sacking yourself and see if it hurts

really though if you do this stuff try checking your watch/ipod/clock for the time, look away and look again, if the time/numbers arent the same youre likely dreaming

[e2a]

^ dude, you sure you aren't astral projecting?

i've just read up on astral projection, and it sounds like that's what was happening.. when does lucidity become astral projection? is it defined by the absence of regular physical laws?

you can get some very vivid nightmares if youre mind is else where.

for a 6 month period a couple years ago, i would have episodes of sleep paralysis with these vivid apparitions right in my face.. one was an old woman's face, another was a long neck and face (think the abyss), once it was a cop(?) hovering there..

that was some fucked up shit. they were definitely still dreams, but imposed on me, in my bed, in reality. not sure if it had anything to do with forays into lucid dreaming though

[mizanation]

i wonder if anyone gets to a point where they are completely lucid in their dreams so that dreamworld is more normal/comfortable than real world.

there was a researcher on lucid dreaming that could go lucid at will.

can, you do stuff like practice guitar in your sleep? you could get a good 5-6 hours of practice time in.

[onemancult]

i dunno about practicing things in your sleep, physical actions, but you can definitely rehearse mental things. i used to go lucid before big tests and hammer shit into my brain.

i would study the night before a test, never any earlier, and lucidly and calmly while my body was sleeping make sure that i knew what i needed to know.

for me, it all comes down to simple meditation, breathing exercises, and focus.

[onemancult]

thesnow, are you a fan of Coil?

[e2a]

on a side note, I got shot a couple of nights ago.

whoa, the same thing happened to me tuesday night.

[Guest thesnow]

Yea man im into coil

I need to get up on that studying while sleeping stuff, its cool what you can accomplish while lucid, ive gotta say some dreams are a lot cooler than real life hahah

[mizanation]

yo, i just remembered, i used to filtrate vicodin to extract the hydrocodone and would take that shit.

man, i had the worst nightmares ever. i mean the kind where you wake up in a cold sweat. i was completely conscious while dreaming but couldn't get out until i woke up. after that, i stopped overdosing on the hydrocodone....

btw, i read that lucid dreaming just means that you know you are dreaming. but, many people are able to control things while lucid dreaming...

gonna try out some things tonight.

[Guest thesnow]

I think while i was taking hydrocodone i had the exact same deals.. and ive had it other times randomly, i dont know what you mean being conscious but dreaming, but i know i was laying down so tired looking up at my ceiling and seeing moving images of faces superimposed over everything, like silver lines drawing themselves in the air, was fucked up and scary

Btw miz i recommend setting an alarm for like 4-6am depending on what time you usually get up... go to the bathroom and go back to sleep, you'll be more likely to go lucid if thats ur goal

[jayrock]

I had cases of sleepwalking as a child. I still talk in my sleep on the regular. I vividly remember being able to control my dreams when I was younger, so far up until a point where I would be consciously aware that I was dreaming and I would tell a person that I was conversing with in my dream that I need to wake up now. Then I could wake up on command and go back to sleep in the same manner. Fucking nuts.

I regularly have deja vu moments that are linked to previous dreams.

I have also had many out-of-body experiences in my dreams. Such as seeing my body and person doing stuff, while "watching" myself from a distance. Sometimes in cases such as when a spirit leaves the body when a cartoon character dies.

[super]

www.dreamviews.com

www.ld4all.com

Those are the like the sufu's of Lucid dreaming. But damn lucid dreaming is fucking hard to do I shit you not.

[transactionfee]

I don't quite understand lucid dreaming. Control your dreams? Doesn't apply to me.

Sometimes when I think back on a memory I cannot remember if it was a dream or it actually happend. I get that sometimes. Also I don't know if i dream in black and white or colour. When I recall my dreams they are color, but I don't know if I add the color as I remember or if my deams are black and white, maybe they are like pleasantville, black, white and colour. I don't know. I get sleep paralysis.

[skeetinmynose]

I've had pretty much the same experience as miz, more like knowing its a dream and only slightly reacting to it. could never do better then that, and nowadays its probably impossible for me because I sleep like shit. I dont fall asleep easily, so when I do, I don't wake up just for a sec in the morning and then fall asleep again, which I've found to be what triggers it for me.

on a side note, I got shot a couple of nights ago. I've had this dream now two times in my life, before when I was about 4-5 years old and its an insanely clear memory for me. this time the story was slightly different but I felt the same, when I was shot I felt this crazy paralyzing feeling while slowly waking up at the same time. I was pretty shook up for a while.

Is it just me, or is it impossible to die in a dream? In most dreams where I'm about to die or something, I end up waking up instantly. Similar to the dreams where you are constantly falling, but never hit ground (too bad, I've never experienced this).

Also, if there's a certain scenario you want to control in your dream, I've read that concentrating on what you want to dream about before you sleep helps you slip into lucidity. I think I've most been able to go lucid this way, or by doing shit with clocks in my dreams.

[Arkane]

On a related note, I wonder how accurate the brain simulates pain in dreams. I've broken bones and gotten shot in dreams, but have never had these happen to me in real life. And I have never read testimonials or anything that would give me a remote idea what getting shot would feel like.

Reading lowrey's post made me think even more. How could a 4-5 year old possibly imagine/replicate a feeling of getting shot? Could it be an indication of a past-life experience?

[billy dee williams]

i dont think ive ever had a lucid dream. but i have been having alot of nightmates lately. fucking sucks.

[mizanation]

great thread guys. dream on. dream hard. dream often.

[skeetinmynose]

Quick question - when you guys go lucid, do you ever wake up more exhausted than usual? That's the case for me, or either slight sleep paralysis, which always makes me shit bricks.

Arkane - I've wondered this also, the same for people, places, things that I'm not too familiar with. When I encounter something foreign things in dreams they start to distort, which makes sense, since my brain can't recall the exact detail if I'm not too well familiar.

[Guest thesnow]

Yes on the waking up exhausted

[rvlt.]

i'm really interested in lucid dreaming and have tried many different ways to induce them but none have worked. i figured it never worked in the school year because i went to bed too late and got about 5 hours of sleep every night, and i don't even think you reach REM sleep by then. however, in the beginning of the summer i started to concentrate more on doing it and i would take notes of things that happen in my dreams. after a couple weeks of this my dreams became a lot more vivid and detailed. if i kept that up, i probably would've started to have lucid dreams but i sort of got impatient. apparently some people have 'dream signs', which is just something that occurs frequently in their dreams to let them know they're dreaming. a lot of you seem to be able to lucid dream, so maybe you could touch on that a bit?

[skeetinmynose]

You need to establish those dream "signs" by constantly doing these things habitually so that they are more likely to appear in a dream. Most people usually just find a clock and observe if the time moves normally/stays constant or look at a text or a detail somewhere and see if it changes after looking away.