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Just throwing this out there. I've had hundreds of lucid dreams and it's the most amazing experiences I've have in my life. It takes practice to 1) figure out

Just throwing this out there. I've had hundreds of lucid dreams and it's the most amazing experiences I've have in my life. It takes practice to 1) figure out you're dreaming with some level of reliability 2) learn to take control 3) train yourself not to get too excited so you don't wake yourself almost immediately. I believe the first step is to train yourself to recognize a dream. It becomes easier once you've done it, so I assume a few lucid dreams can lead to many more. There are devices that supposedly trigger lucid dreams in many that have never had one, I highly recommend trying it. Example of one of these products: http://sleepwithremee.com/ http://sleepwithremee.com/ . They detect REM cycles and signal you in-dream with light through your closed eyelids, since vision isn't actually suppressed during REM. I've hit the point where I've had lucid dreams the seem to last over an hour. Its insane, not even something I can describe to someone that hasn't lived it. Like closing your eyes and thinking about flying, but with the same level of detail as the real world. The sound, sights, feeling of the sun and wind, even pain. To be a little inappropriate, sexual experiences also feel just the same as the real version. I've had hyper real dreams too, especially with vision. Colors that are impossibly bright and saturated, or impossible acuity.

modzu 8y ago
in one of my first lucid dreams i started reading a book and then thought to myself, "hang on, no way this is a dream if i can read a book!", and then fell back into regular dream state haha
- TuringNYC 8y ago
  Could you explain further? Are there phases of dream where one can or cannot read? I heard an old tale (pre-internet days) where dreaming happens in a different part of the brain than reading, so supposedly it isnt possible to read in a dream and thus being able to read is a litmus test of whether you're dreaming or not....but i often read during dreams so I couldnt figure it out. Searching the internet (present day) reveals a spectrum of opinions on whether one can or cannot read during dreams (and thus whether it can be used as a litmus test for reality.) Do you know if there is a definitive opinion on this? I suppose I can always use a totem.
  - modzu 8y ago
    yes i'd heard the same thing -- that's actually what went through my head (in my lucid state) and convinced my dreaming brain that i was not dreaming (even though i was)! its interesting, the experience itself seemed utterly normal and convincing.
  - modzu 8y ago
    i'll also add that just "attempting" a litmus test can be a sufficient trigger for a lucid state. i'd heard about "flipping the light switch" from the film waking life. i tried it in a dream and the switch worked fine, but it was the fact that i was questioning whether i was in a dream in the first place that lead me to realize i was dreaming nevertheless (i think thats what the top comment is getting at -- strengthening these habits so that you do things like check light switches not because if they fail you know you're in a dream, but to put your mind into a state where you're always questioning whether you are awake. then you can spot the clues
    - newman8r 8y ago
      I usually realize I'm dreaming when I can 'breathe underwater'
  - Sharlin 8y ago
    IME, often the text is gibberish, or at least nonsense semantically, and/or changes as you move your eyes, especially if you look away for a moment. The same applies to eg. clocks. Details never seem to be very stable in the dream world.
    - modzu 8y ago
      i've found that to be the case for anything (not just text) in normal dreams; but one of the most surprising characteristics of lucid dreaming ive experienced is the stability -- for example in one dream i looked at a persian rug up close and could see the different colored fibres of the fabric. that said, things can certainly change dramatically and rapidly (...and now im flying!)
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modzu 8y ago
you should read hackernews during your next lucid dream and bring us back some of the topics
- GW150914 8y ago
  Reading is weird during dreams, lucid or otherwise. I recently had a very odd dream in which I thought I was awake, but lying in bed with my eyes closed. I was amazed that I could still see! I picked up a piece of clear plastic package and opened my eyes, and it was totally blank. Then, I closed my eyes, still able to see, and suddenly the packaging was covered with writing in all kinds of fonts, points, and colors. Total... gibberish. I thought some of it was sort of funny, so I reached out for my dictaphone (nowhere close in reality, but right there in a dream) and was going to record some of these whacky lines. The problem was that I could hear my radio, and I knew I’d be recording that too, so I reached out to turn it off. Nothing, still on. I kept doing that until I woke up, realized my radio was on as an alarm, there was no dictaphone, no plastic, nothing. Very odd experience, but it fits with my memories of trying to read in dreams. The words are either nonsense, mad-libs, or they make sense, but change the moment your attention shifts.
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  - perl4ever 8y ago
    I've had the experience of dreaming of a book or even a movie that I'd seemingly created, with an agonizing desire to somehow copy it to retain it before I wake up. Such things made me think about the difference between actually reading or watching something in a dream, and merely having the feeling that I did. Did the writing I thought I read/wrote really exist in my mind such that I lost something on waking up?
deskamess 8y ago
More of a pre-lucid dream question... can you dictate the content/topic of your dreams? That would be some powerful stuff - virtual reality of another kind.
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- bloomthrowaway 8y ago
  Yes. Once you're fully lucid you can do anything. I've flown across the US, into space, banged movie stars in the white house, drove Ferraris off cliffs, etc... Since your thought process is a bit disorganized the hardest part is deciding what to do on the spot, knowing you've only got a few minutes to an or so hour max
  - Al-Khwarizmi 8y ago
    I don't have that much power. For example, I can indeed fly, or jump as high as I want, but I have problems creating objects or people out of thin air. It seems easier for me to imagine that the object is behind me, and then turning around, then it mostly works (not always). And people in my lucid dreams sometimes have their own will, so I can try to bang anywhere (knowing that I won't hurt real people and there will be no police) but I get rejected sometimes :) I suppose it's all a matter of practice or of becoming more lucid, though.
    - bloomthrowaway 8y ago
      Sometimes things don't end up like I wanted either, but I've gotten pretty good at "ejecting" those situations rapidly, a few seconds, in favor of what I'm looking for. Not absolute God Mode, more like browsing an unlimited movie collection for what you want
- zamalek 8y ago
  I've had quasi-lucid dreams. I have free will in them (and certain "learned processes" such as flying), but I am not aware that it is a dream until I wake up. So far as those go, I can "physically" escape settings that I don't like but I can't decide what settings I end up in. I'm generally stuck with the people the dream starts with and they always have their own free will.
JimboOmega 8y ago
> even pain Lucid or not, I realized a while ago that I don't experience physical pain in my dreams. I have started to wonder if this was a general experience. Experiences I'd expect to be painful (like getting shot or carried away by a wall of fire) simply startle me awake. It's interesting to hear you do feel that. I've experienced all kinds of things emotionally - embarrassment, fear, anxiety. But never physical pain.
- bloomthrowaway 8y ago
  It's not pleasant. Sometimes intense enough that I'm in a state of shock through much of the next day. Most of the pain I remember has been in the form of lucid nightmares. Usually snake bites, gun shots, knives, etc. Almost never from environmental realities like hot surfaces, crashes, or falls. Self-aware nightmares are way more terrifying than the regular variety, a lucid dream where I sometimes can't take control. I usually try to wake myself immediately, but sometimes this leads to repeated false awakenings. The worst I remember is 5 false awakenings before waking up for real.
  - fossuser 8y ago
    I’ve had the false awakenings bit - that realization in dream can be frightening, mostly because it makes me panic that I’m dying - when I can’t seem to shake myself out of it.
    - godshatter 8y ago
      I've only experienced false awakenings a few times, but I like them. I do a reality check every time I wake up (made it a habit) so it's a free lucid dream.
  - scrollaway 8y ago
    Yeesh, yeah, now you mention it I've had those exact same symptoms when trying to awaken from a negative lucid dream: A bunch of false awakenings in a row. I wonder how linked those things are... I rarely have false awakenings without having been lucid before.
jorvi 8y ago
You forgot the most important step: keep a dream log so you actually start to remember your dreams! Otherwise you might have a lucid one but either forget it during the remainder of your sleep, or forget it within a few minutes of waking up.
- bloomthrowaway 8y ago
  yes, or get in the habit of ruminating on the dream for a while still in bed. Whenever I have a nice lucid dream I lay in bed and run it through my memory over and over for a couple minutes. Otherwise some mysterious process will clear any figment of the dream from your memory within an hour or so
scrollaway 8y ago
I used to lucid dream pretty naturally, then stopped because I started getting very regular sleep paralysis. Nowadays when I do end up lucid dreaming (most often by accident) I notice a fairly significant drop in sleep quality. Even worse, I sometimes lucid dream, then "awaken" into another dream where I'm not lucid and those experiences really fuck with me. On a different note I'd love to get a high quality sleep-tracking night mask. Most of the "smart" ones I know of have awful battery life. I don't want another device to charge every few days.
- ModernMech 8y ago
  > I started getting very regular sleep paralysis. I do not blame you. I've experienced sleep paralysis more than once, and it is not pleasant at all. I remember trying to scream at the top of my lungs in my head for... I don't know how long but my perception of it was that it was for hours on end. Then all of a sudden something broke through, and I woke my wife up with the loudest scream she's ever heard out of anyone. Took a while for me to sleep again after that.
  - knicholes 8y ago
    Coming from a religious background, I believed that I was being possessed to explain the lack of control over my body. I even hallucinated an "evil" "form" coming towards me before my body locked up and I felt tingles. So ~weird~ terrifying being able to scream without your body doing anything.
    - scrollaway 8y ago
      Sleep paralysis is mortifying if you don't know what you're dealing with. I can completely understand how that's been the source of many people believing in possessions over the centuries. Most of my paralysis episodes didn't involve the "evil presence" people often talk about. That is, until a recent one less than a year ago, where I woke up with a giant "invisible" spider on my chest It's terrifying to be in this state of mind where you know what's happening, but you also really, really feel that presence. I wonder if this is similar to what schizophrenic patients feel.
criddell 8y ago
Ever do one of the tests to see if you are in a dream and find out that you are awake? I've always been a little scared that I would be awake, think I'm in a dream, and then do something stupid, like try to fly.
- bloomthrowaway 8y ago
  The only times I've had trouble telling the difference is immediately after waking up. Especially after the false awakening lucid nightmares mentioned below. Turning the lights on and walking around for a minute is enough to dispel any doubt. Dreams are a different reality, and being so familiar with this one its easy to figure out when you're "home"
- function_seven 8y ago
  When I've flown in my dreams, it always begins by zooming up from solid ground, not by leaping off a roof or out a window. So, no harm in accidentally trying to fly in reality. Except looking weird.
  - tunap 8y ago
    My parents took me to a dream/meditation therapist when I was 8 or so for nightmares. He taught me to lucid dream and it has been a benefit ever since. Except, I just haven't been able to fly like I used to in my teens & twenties. In my forties now, I am lucky if I can get some gliding lift from running on a slope anymore.I used to rise from earth all the way past LEO. Sigh. What has helped me stimulate higher consciousness is drinking a half cup of coffee right as I go to bed. Caffeine does not amp me out like most, but it does make the dreams more vivid & memorable.
    - drakonka 8y ago
      This is entirely hearsay but I've also heard that eating a banana before sleep can stimulate more vivid dreams. I'm going to do some reading tomorrow to see what exactly this is meant to be based on.
atom-morgan 8y ago
Have you ever done psychedelics? If so, how does it compare?
- bloomthrowaway 8y ago
  No, mental illness runs in my family so I consider it too risky. But I've been told by a friend that lucid dreams occasionally, that lucid dreams are different from LSD/mushrooms in that you have much more control over the experience and it seems more real. There's definitely other psychedelics that produce "real" seeming illusions but I'm not aware of any that give you direct control over them like lucid dreaming can.
- cowboysauce 8y ago
  They're completely different. Psychedelics change your perception and thought processes in a way that's completely different than a lucid dream.
- Broken_Hippo 8y ago
  Simple. They don't. My stream of thought during a lucid dream isn't much different from my stream of thought during normal, sober waking hours - it is just the stuff going on around me is weird and I have different constraints on what is possible. On psychedelics, I view the world and myself differently. I know I'm on drugs. My stream of thought is different I'm obviously still in my house, for example, and I know I can't fly or make things appear out of thin air. By the time any hallucinations would be dream-like (strong and heavy), I freaking know I'm hallucinating. Even with lighter things (much more common), I know it is a hallucination. I know that my painting doesn't really move like that, for example.
rebuilder 8y ago
I guess the experience is agreeable to you? I have lucid dreams sometimes, and something about it is very unsettling to me. I sometimes have non-lucid nightmares where I can feel myself losing my mind, with uncontrollable visual hallucinations and a sense of falling apart mentally. I also have nightmares where I wake up from a dream, only to realize I'm still dreaming, over and over again. Somehow the lucid dreams I have feel similar to this, there's a strong sense of being at risk of going mad. Maybe it's that I haven't trained for it, but I don't particularly feel like I want to learn to have more of those.
- bloomthrowaway 8y ago
  Almost always exceedingly wonderful, better than anything 'IRL'. Except for lucid nightmares which seem to start out as regular nightmares anyways. Sometimes I'm able to overpower the nightmare and go fully lucid, other times I can't and its horrible. Way worse than a regular nightmare because I'm fully aware of whats happening. Its definitely unsettling at first. I started lucid dreaming by chance at ~11 so I guess I'm used to it. I don't think much of it when I look away from the window and it turns into a flock of birds, just roll with it ya know :) I think the false awakenings are part of lucid dreaming. The awareness that you're not actually awake yet is a small step from control of your dreams.
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nautilus12 8y ago
Ive noticed that my lucid dreams correlate very heavily with sleep paralysis and while lucid dreaming is fun the risk of sleep paralysis, which is like my worst nightmare is almost too great. I have a technique for getting out of sleep paralysis where I kind of metnally think of jiggling my head on my neck very rapidly but sometimes i keep falling back into paralysis so the whole experience is really uncomfortable. As a result I think when i lucid dream i get kind of amped up and wake myself up or ill remain in the dream but the quality is really low, eventually I realize im just laying awake with my eyes closed for many hours and get horrible sleep. Any tips on not waking yourself up specifically? Am i lucid dreaming in the wrong stage of sleep or something?
- bloomthrowaway 8y ago
  I think staying asleep is just experience. I remember my lucid dreams when I was really young were rarely longer than a few minutes. Sometimes seconds. Its really all about staying calm from what I've learned. And trying not to focus too much. If you put too much effort into control it seems to increase awareness to a point where you wake. All conjecture of course because we know startling little about how dreams work :)
WA 8y ago
I had only a few lucid dreams. In that moment I was pretty sure to be lucid, but after waking up, it felt like a dream in which I just thought I was lucid. How do you differentiate between the two? Is it even possible?
- bloomthrowaway 8y ago
  Its pretty clear to me at least. I can sometimes remember the moment I figured out I was dreaming. With some great ones being jumping through a closed window and off a skyscraper.
  - allannienhuis 8y ago
    That seems terrifying. How do you separate that experience from the real world if you're say standing on the edge of a roof or bridge? How do you know _for sure_ you're dreaming and it's ok to jump?
    - bloomthrowaway 8y ago
      Hahaha you can't be 100% sure :) .
    - codetrotter 8y ago
      I’ve had a few lucid dreams. The first couple of times were after making a habit of counting my fingers. In real life you always have the correct number. When dreaming it might be an incorrect or seemingly indeterminate amount of fingers. So at that moment I would realize I was dreaming. But I don’t see why you’d just jump off of a bridge neither in a dream nor IRL. Personally what I chose to do was to attempt to fly by imagining jet motors on my legs. And it worked! And then I got excited and woke up :P Anyway, when you become lucid it is because of things that are not like reality, so it will be obvious that it really is a dream. I see your concern but I could never imagine anyone thinking they were dreaming when they were not. Another couple of times I’ve realized I was dreaming because the text in books or in papers were a jumbled floating mess rather than the static arrangement of letters that one would expect, and no information was conveyed as opposed to real life where most books and magazines are written to present some form of information in writing. And one time I had a nightmare where my fingers and hands got holes in them and something was coming for me and I said “this is not possible”, and I realized then that I was dreaming and I took control and turned the nightmare into a pleasant dream by projecting the disease over on my assailant and escaping from it :)
woolvalley 8y ago
Are you sure it's really the same level of detail, or do you just think it's the same level of detail?
- buboard 8y ago
  how could one tell?
  - arthurcolle 8y ago
    Probably just focused self-reflection
drakonka 8y ago
This sounds wonderful. I've only had a couple of lucid dreams and am currently trying again to be able to invoke them. I am starting by keeping a dream journal again, which I did consistently during the time I had my few lucid dream experiences. At the same time I have to fight the urge to record every single dream throughout the night because I don't want to break up my sleep. I only record what I remember upon wakeup time in the morning, which is often just a fraction of the night's dreams. How did you train yourself to recognise a dream; was it a particular kind of reality check? Do you find you also have great dream recall in general?
- bloomthrowaway 8y ago
  If I think about the dream right after waking up I can generally recall most of it. Working 9-5 these days I sometimes just don't have time to make sure I commit it to memory though :( . I don't do a certain reality check, but I've been lucid dreaming on and off since early teens so I just notice sometimes. Most often when I remember noticing its because I look away and things are different when I look back
sizzle 8y ago
Are you still getting all the benefits of REM sleep if you are kick-starting some other parts of the brain to become conscious? Have they done any fMRI studies on this phenomena?
- bloomthrowaway 8y ago
  Many REM sleep studies are done on lucid dreamers because they can signal the researchers by moving their eyes during sleep. Most muscles are paralyzed, but its been found that eye movements match the dreamscape. They've used this to determine that "dream time" matches real time for instance, by having lucid dreamers count with their eyes. Two way communication is theoretically possible by measuring eye movements and signaling back with light flashes, but not sure its been done. And yeah I have a feeling it affects sleep in some way, especially because being lucid for long periods of time tends to wake you up randomly at night
themodelplumber 8y ago
That sounds awesome! Thank you for sharing the experience, I really want to try that myself. Asking because it's related to my field of interest--do you mind sharing your IPIP-NEO result? http://www.personal.psu.edu/~j5j/IPIP/ipipneo120.htm http://www.personal.psu.edu/~j5j/IPIP/ipipneo120.htm
- bloomthrowaway 8y ago
  sure why not https://postimg.cc/gallery/1r7sd2iwo/ https://postimg.cc/gallery/1r7sd2iwo/ hit zoom button to undo the horrible default zoom
  - themodelplumber 8y ago
    Thanks! I like to ask people with those kind of Adventurous and Immoderate results--did you ever try Ayahuasca? Other psychonaut-type experiments? Forms of yoga? What seems interesting next?
    - bloomthrowaway 8y ago
      No psychedelics, too much family history of mental illness. I've always been a YOLO type person in and outside of work. Risks are often greatly overestimated, and appealing to the corporate mindset disgusts me. I'm the type that loves risk and doesn't hesitate to call bullshit as long as it wont get me canned. Figuring out if you're in a dream is superficially similar to realizing someone is screwing with you lol. Could be related to lucid dreaming but who knows.
topmonk 8y ago
To contrast with the parent poster,I've had lucid dreaming before and it was a quite boring actually. Everything was muddled and blurry, nothing comparable with the real world. It felt like I was telling myself a story and my unconscious mind would go along with it and the dream would follow it.
SpecialistEMT 8y ago
Ive read that Remee doesnt detect REM phase, just acts as a glorified alarmed clock. Is it actually useful? Sometimes it takes me a long time to fall asleep.
jnurmine 8y ago
At 65 USD I thought it was interesting, checked it, but... the Remee does not actually detect REM cycles. It flashes the lights at a predetermined time. There are devices which detect REM, then flash, but the Remee is not one of them. Do you use some device yourself? Which one do you recommend?
a_lieb 8y ago
I've heard that in recent years there's an increasing understanding that while achieving lucid dreams is very doable, full dream control is rare even with years of practice. (I'm pretty sure there's at least one journal article on this, but I can't find it now.) Do you find that you have pretty much full control, or are you just along for the ride a lot of the time?

modzu 8y ago

in one of my first lucid dreams i started reading a book and then thought to myself, "hang on, no way this is a dream if i can read a book!", and then fell back into regular dream state haha

TuringNYC 8y ago
Could you explain further? Are there phases of dream where one can or cannot read? I heard an old tale (pre-internet days) where dreaming happens in a different part of the brain than reading, so supposedly it isnt possible to read in a dream and thus being able to read is a litmus test of whether you're dreaming or not....but i often read during dreams so I couldnt figure it out. Searching the internet (present day) reveals a spectrum of opinions on whether one can or cannot read during dreams (and thus whether it can be used as a litmus test for reality.) Do you know if there is a definitive opinion on this? I suppose I can always use a totem.
- modzu 8y ago
  yes i'd heard the same thing -- that's actually what went through my head (in my lucid state) and convinced my dreaming brain that i was not dreaming (even though i was)! its interesting, the experience itself seemed utterly normal and convincing.
- modzu 8y ago
  i'll also add that just "attempting" a litmus test can be a sufficient trigger for a lucid state. i'd heard about "flipping the light switch" from the film waking life. i tried it in a dream and the switch worked fine, but it was the fact that i was questioning whether i was in a dream in the first place that lead me to realize i was dreaming nevertheless (i think thats what the top comment is getting at -- strengthening these habits so that you do things like check light switches not because if they fail you know you're in a dream, but to put your mind into a state where you're always questioning whether you are awake. then you can spot the clues
  - newman8r 8y ago
    I usually realize I'm dreaming when I can 'breathe underwater'
- Sharlin 8y ago
  IME, often the text is gibberish, or at least nonsense semantically, and/or changes as you move your eyes, especially if you look away for a moment. The same applies to eg. clocks. Details never seem to be very stable in the dream world.
  - modzu 8y ago
    i've found that to be the case for anything (not just text) in normal dreams; but one of the most surprising characteristics of lucid dreaming ive experienced is the stability -- for example in one dream i looked at a persian rug up close and could see the different colored fibres of the fabric. that said, things can certainly change dramatically and rapidly (...and now im flying!)
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modzu 8y ago

you should read hackernews during your next lucid dream and bring us back some of the topics

GW150914 8y ago
Reading is weird during dreams, lucid or otherwise. I recently had a very odd dream in which I thought I was awake, but lying in bed with my eyes closed. I was amazed that I could still see! I picked up a piece of clear plastic package and opened my eyes, and it was totally blank. Then, I closed my eyes, still able to see, and suddenly the packaging was covered with writing in all kinds of fonts, points, and colors. Total... gibberish. I thought some of it was sort of funny, so I reached out for my dictaphone (nowhere close in reality, but right there in a dream) and was going to record some of these whacky lines. The problem was that I could hear my radio, and I knew I’d be recording that too, so I reached out to turn it off. Nothing, still on. I kept doing that until I woke up, realized my radio was on as an alarm, there was no dictaphone, no plastic, nothing. Very odd experience, but it fits with my memories of trying to read in dreams. The words are either nonsense, mad-libs, or they make sense, but change the moment your attention shifts.
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- perl4ever 8y ago
  I've had the experience of dreaming of a book or even a movie that I'd seemingly created, with an agonizing desire to somehow copy it to retain it before I wake up. Such things made me think about the difference between actually reading or watching something in a dream, and merely having the feeling that I did. Did the writing I thought I read/wrote really exist in my mind such that I lost something on waking up?

deskamess 8y ago

More of a pre-lucid dream question... can you dictate the content/topic of your dreams? That would be some powerful stuff - virtual reality of another kind.

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bloomthrowaway 8y ago
Yes. Once you're fully lucid you can do anything. I've flown across the US, into space, banged movie stars in the white house, drove Ferraris off cliffs, etc... Since your thought process is a bit disorganized the hardest part is deciding what to do on the spot, knowing you've only got a few minutes to an or so hour max
- Al-Khwarizmi 8y ago
  I don't have that much power. For example, I can indeed fly, or jump as high as I want, but I have problems creating objects or people out of thin air. It seems easier for me to imagine that the object is behind me, and then turning around, then it mostly works (not always). And people in my lucid dreams sometimes have their own will, so I can try to bang anywhere (knowing that I won't hurt real people and there will be no police) but I get rejected sometimes :) I suppose it's all a matter of practice or of becoming more lucid, though.
  - bloomthrowaway 8y ago
    Sometimes things don't end up like I wanted either, but I've gotten pretty good at "ejecting" those situations rapidly, a few seconds, in favor of what I'm looking for. Not absolute God Mode, more like browsing an unlimited movie collection for what you want
zamalek 8y ago
I've had quasi-lucid dreams. I have free will in them (and certain "learned processes" such as flying), but I am not aware that it is a dream until I wake up. So far as those go, I can "physically" escape settings that I don't like but I can't decide what settings I end up in. I'm generally stuck with the people the dream starts with and they always have their own free will.

JimboOmega 8y ago

> even pain Lucid or not, I realized a while ago that I don't experience physical pain in my dreams. I have started to wonder if this was a general experience. Experiences I'd expect to be painful (like getting shot or carried away by a wall of fire) simply startle me awake. It's interesting to hear you do feel that. I've experienced all kinds of things emotionally - embarrassment, fear, anxiety. But never physical pain.

bloomthrowaway 8y ago
It's not pleasant. Sometimes intense enough that I'm in a state of shock through much of the next day. Most of the pain I remember has been in the form of lucid nightmares. Usually snake bites, gun shots, knives, etc. Almost never from environmental realities like hot surfaces, crashes, or falls. Self-aware nightmares are way more terrifying than the regular variety, a lucid dream where I sometimes can't take control. I usually try to wake myself immediately, but sometimes this leads to repeated false awakenings. The worst I remember is 5 false awakenings before waking up for real.
- fossuser 8y ago
  I’ve had the false awakenings bit - that realization in dream can be frightening, mostly because it makes me panic that I’m dying - when I can’t seem to shake myself out of it.
  - godshatter 8y ago
    I've only experienced false awakenings a few times, but I like them. I do a reality check every time I wake up (made it a habit) so it's a free lucid dream.
- scrollaway 8y ago
  Yeesh, yeah, now you mention it I've had those exact same symptoms when trying to awaken from a negative lucid dream: A bunch of false awakenings in a row. I wonder how linked those things are... I rarely have false awakenings without having been lucid before.

jorvi 8y ago

You forgot the most important step: keep a dream log so you actually start to remember your dreams! Otherwise you might have a lucid one but either forget it during the remainder of your sleep, or forget it within a few minutes of waking up.

bloomthrowaway 8y ago
yes, or get in the habit of ruminating on the dream for a while still in bed. Whenever I have a nice lucid dream I lay in bed and run it through my memory over and over for a couple minutes. Otherwise some mysterious process will clear any figment of the dream from your memory within an hour or so

scrollaway 8y ago

I used to lucid dream pretty naturally, then stopped because I started getting very regular sleep paralysis. Nowadays when I do end up lucid dreaming (most often by accident) I notice a fairly significant drop in sleep quality. Even worse, I sometimes lucid dream, then "awaken" into another dream where I'm not lucid and those experiences really fuck with me. On a different note I'd love to get a high quality sleep-tracking night mask. Most of the "smart" ones I know of have awful battery life. I don't want another device to charge every few days.

ModernMech 8y ago
> I started getting very regular sleep paralysis. I do not blame you. I've experienced sleep paralysis more than once, and it is not pleasant at all. I remember trying to scream at the top of my lungs in my head for... I don't know how long but my perception of it was that it was for hours on end. Then all of a sudden something broke through, and I woke my wife up with the loudest scream she's ever heard out of anyone. Took a while for me to sleep again after that.
- knicholes 8y ago
  Coming from a religious background, I believed that I was being possessed to explain the lack of control over my body. I even hallucinated an "evil" "form" coming towards me before my body locked up and I felt tingles. So ~weird~ terrifying being able to scream without your body doing anything.
  - scrollaway 8y ago
    Sleep paralysis is mortifying if you don't know what you're dealing with. I can completely understand how that's been the source of many people believing in possessions over the centuries. Most of my paralysis episodes didn't involve the "evil presence" people often talk about. That is, until a recent one less than a year ago, where I woke up with a giant "invisible" spider on my chest It's terrifying to be in this state of mind where you know what's happening, but you also really, really feel that presence. I wonder if this is similar to what schizophrenic patients feel.

criddell 8y ago

Ever do one of the tests to see if you are in a dream and find out that you are awake? I've always been a little scared that I would be awake, think I'm in a dream, and then do something stupid, like try to fly.

bloomthrowaway 8y ago
The only times I've had trouble telling the difference is immediately after waking up. Especially after the false awakening lucid nightmares mentioned below. Turning the lights on and walking around for a minute is enough to dispel any doubt. Dreams are a different reality, and being so familiar with this one its easy to figure out when you're "home"
function_seven 8y ago
When I've flown in my dreams, it always begins by zooming up from solid ground, not by leaping off a roof or out a window. So, no harm in accidentally trying to fly in reality. Except looking weird.
- tunap 8y ago
  My parents took me to a dream/meditation therapist when I was 8 or so for nightmares. He taught me to lucid dream and it has been a benefit ever since. Except, I just haven't been able to fly like I used to in my teens & twenties. In my forties now, I am lucky if I can get some gliding lift from running on a slope anymore.I used to rise from earth all the way past LEO. Sigh. What has helped me stimulate higher consciousness is drinking a half cup of coffee right as I go to bed. Caffeine does not amp me out like most, but it does make the dreams more vivid & memorable.
  - drakonka 8y ago
    This is entirely hearsay but I've also heard that eating a banana before sleep can stimulate more vivid dreams. I'm going to do some reading tomorrow to see what exactly this is meant to be based on.

atom-morgan 8y ago

Have you ever done psychedelics? If so, how does it compare?

bloomthrowaway 8y ago
No, mental illness runs in my family so I consider it too risky. But I've been told by a friend that lucid dreams occasionally, that lucid dreams are different from LSD/mushrooms in that you have much more control over the experience and it seems more real. There's definitely other psychedelics that produce "real" seeming illusions but I'm not aware of any that give you direct control over them like lucid dreaming can.
cowboysauce 8y ago
They're completely different. Psychedelics change your perception and thought processes in a way that's completely different than a lucid dream.
Broken_Hippo 8y ago
Simple. They don't. My stream of thought during a lucid dream isn't much different from my stream of thought during normal, sober waking hours - it is just the stuff going on around me is weird and I have different constraints on what is possible. On psychedelics, I view the world and myself differently. I know I'm on drugs. My stream of thought is different I'm obviously still in my house, for example, and I know I can't fly or make things appear out of thin air. By the time any hallucinations would be dream-like (strong and heavy), I freaking know I'm hallucinating. Even with lighter things (much more common), I know it is a hallucination. I know that my painting doesn't really move like that, for example.

rebuilder 8y ago

I guess the experience is agreeable to you? I have lucid dreams sometimes, and something about it is very unsettling to me. I sometimes have non-lucid nightmares where I can feel myself losing my mind, with uncontrollable visual hallucinations and a sense of falling apart mentally. I also have nightmares where I wake up from a dream, only to realize I'm still dreaming, over and over again. Somehow the lucid dreams I have feel similar to this, there's a strong sense of being at risk of going mad. Maybe it's that I haven't trained for it, but I don't particularly feel like I want to learn to have more of those.

bloomthrowaway 8y ago
Almost always exceedingly wonderful, better than anything 'IRL'. Except for lucid nightmares which seem to start out as regular nightmares anyways. Sometimes I'm able to overpower the nightmare and go fully lucid, other times I can't and its horrible. Way worse than a regular nightmare because I'm fully aware of whats happening. Its definitely unsettling at first. I started lucid dreaming by chance at ~11 so I guess I'm used to it. I don't think much of it when I look away from the window and it turns into a flock of birds, just roll with it ya know :) I think the false awakenings are part of lucid dreaming. The awareness that you're not actually awake yet is a small step from control of your dreams.
- deleted 8y ago
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nautilus12 8y ago

Ive noticed that my lucid dreams correlate very heavily with sleep paralysis and while lucid dreaming is fun the risk of sleep paralysis, which is like my worst nightmare is almost too great. I have a technique for getting out of sleep paralysis where I kind of metnally think of jiggling my head on my neck very rapidly but sometimes i keep falling back into paralysis so the whole experience is really uncomfortable. As a result I think when i lucid dream i get kind of amped up and wake myself up or ill remain in the dream but the quality is really low, eventually I realize im just laying awake with my eyes closed for many hours and get horrible sleep. Any tips on not waking yourself up specifically? Am i lucid dreaming in the wrong stage of sleep or something?

bloomthrowaway 8y ago
I think staying asleep is just experience. I remember my lucid dreams when I was really young were rarely longer than a few minutes. Sometimes seconds. Its really all about staying calm from what I've learned. And trying not to focus too much. If you put too much effort into control it seems to increase awareness to a point where you wake. All conjecture of course because we know startling little about how dreams work :)

WA 8y ago

I had only a few lucid dreams. In that moment I was pretty sure to be lucid, but after waking up, it felt like a dream in which I just thought I was lucid. How do you differentiate between the two? Is it even possible?

bloomthrowaway 8y ago
Its pretty clear to me at least. I can sometimes remember the moment I figured out I was dreaming. With some great ones being jumping through a closed window and off a skyscraper.
- allannienhuis 8y ago
  That seems terrifying. How do you separate that experience from the real world if you're say standing on the edge of a roof or bridge? How do you know _for sure_ you're dreaming and it's ok to jump?
  - bloomthrowaway 8y ago
    Hahaha you can't be 100% sure :) .
  - codetrotter 8y ago
    I’ve had a few lucid dreams. The first couple of times were after making a habit of counting my fingers. In real life you always have the correct number. When dreaming it might be an incorrect or seemingly indeterminate amount of fingers. So at that moment I would realize I was dreaming. But I don’t see why you’d just jump off of a bridge neither in a dream nor IRL. Personally what I chose to do was to attempt to fly by imagining jet motors on my legs. And it worked! And then I got excited and woke up :P Anyway, when you become lucid it is because of things that are not like reality, so it will be obvious that it really is a dream. I see your concern but I could never imagine anyone thinking they were dreaming when they were not. Another couple of times I’ve realized I was dreaming because the text in books or in papers were a jumbled floating mess rather than the static arrangement of letters that one would expect, and no information was conveyed as opposed to real life where most books and magazines are written to present some form of information in writing. And one time I had a nightmare where my fingers and hands got holes in them and something was coming for me and I said “this is not possible”, and I realized then that I was dreaming and I took control and turned the nightmare into a pleasant dream by projecting the disease over on my assailant and escaping from it :)

woolvalley 8y ago

Are you sure it's really the same level of detail, or do you just think it's the same level of detail?

buboard 8y ago
how could one tell?
- arthurcolle 8y ago
  Probably just focused self-reflection

drakonka 8y ago

This sounds wonderful. I've only had a couple of lucid dreams and am currently trying again to be able to invoke them. I am starting by keeping a dream journal again, which I did consistently during the time I had my few lucid dream experiences. At the same time I have to fight the urge to record every single dream throughout the night because I don't want to break up my sleep. I only record what I remember upon wakeup time in the morning, which is often just a fraction of the night's dreams. How did you train yourself to recognise a dream; was it a particular kind of reality check? Do you find you also have great dream recall in general?

bloomthrowaway 8y ago
If I think about the dream right after waking up I can generally recall most of it. Working 9-5 these days I sometimes just don't have time to make sure I commit it to memory though :( . I don't do a certain reality check, but I've been lucid dreaming on and off since early teens so I just notice sometimes. Most often when I remember noticing its because I look away and things are different when I look back

sizzle 8y ago

Are you still getting all the benefits of REM sleep if you are kick-starting some other parts of the brain to become conscious? Have they done any fMRI studies on this phenomena?

bloomthrowaway 8y ago
Many REM sleep studies are done on lucid dreamers because they can signal the researchers by moving their eyes during sleep. Most muscles are paralyzed, but its been found that eye movements match the dreamscape. They've used this to determine that "dream time" matches real time for instance, by having lucid dreamers count with their eyes. Two way communication is theoretically possible by measuring eye movements and signaling back with light flashes, but not sure its been done. And yeah I have a feeling it affects sleep in some way, especially because being lucid for long periods of time tends to wake you up randomly at night

themodelplumber 8y ago

That sounds awesome! Thank you for sharing the experience, I really want to try that myself. Asking because it's related to my field of interest--do you mind sharing your IPIP-NEO result? http://www.personal.psu.edu/~j5j/IPIP/ipipneo120.htm http://www.personal.psu.edu/~j5j/IPIP/ipipneo120.htm

bloomthrowaway 8y ago
sure why not https://postimg.cc/gallery/1r7sd2iwo/ https://postimg.cc/gallery/1r7sd2iwo/ hit zoom button to undo the horrible default zoom
- themodelplumber 8y ago
  Thanks! I like to ask people with those kind of Adventurous and Immoderate results--did you ever try Ayahuasca? Other psychonaut-type experiments? Forms of yoga? What seems interesting next?
  - bloomthrowaway 8y ago
    No psychedelics, too much family history of mental illness. I've always been a YOLO type person in and outside of work. Risks are often greatly overestimated, and appealing to the corporate mindset disgusts me. I'm the type that loves risk and doesn't hesitate to call bullshit as long as it wont get me canned. Figuring out if you're in a dream is superficially similar to realizing someone is screwing with you lol. Could be related to lucid dreaming but who knows.

topmonk 8y ago

To contrast with the parent poster,I've had lucid dreaming before and it was a quite boring actually. Everything was muddled and blurry, nothing comparable with the real world. It felt like I was telling myself a story and my unconscious mind would go along with it and the dream would follow it.

SpecialistEMT 8y ago

Ive read that Remee doesnt detect REM phase, just acts as a glorified alarmed clock. Is it actually useful? Sometimes it takes me a long time to fall asleep.

jnurmine 8y ago

At 65 USD I thought it was interesting, checked it, but... the Remee does not actually detect REM cycles. It flashes the lights at a predetermined time. There are devices which detect REM, then flash, but the Remee is not one of them. Do you use some device yourself? Which one do you recommend?

a_lieb 8y ago

I've heard that in recent years there's an increasing understanding that while achieving lucid dreams is very doable, full dream control is rare even with years of practice. (I'm pretty sure there's at least one journal article on this, but I can't find it now.) Do you find that you have pretty much full control, or are you just along for the ride a lot of the time?