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I tried lucid dreaming and it was quite easy for me to control my dreams. But after I woke up, despite the fact that I had slept 8+ hours, I felt mentally exhau

I tried lucid dreaming and it was quite easy for me to control my dreams. But after I woke up, despite the fact that I had slept 8+ hours, I felt mentally exhausted. Physically I was fine, no yawning or anything, but mentally I felt like I hadn't slept. It was a weird disassociation of physical vs mental exhaustion. I've tried it a few times and it's the same every time. To me the slightly more fun lucid dreams are not worth the exhausted feeling in the morning.

tassl 14y ago
I tried lucid dreaming a few years ago. Initially, the main problem that I was having was to wake up as soon as I realized I was in the middle of a dream. It took me almost no time to go back to sleep but I "was missing" the dream every time I woke up. After a few days, I was able to control most of my dreams. I never had full control of those (there was a moment where something got out of control) but I liked the experience. I think the best experience I had dreaming was flying. In any case, I always woke up fully rested (which might have to do with not being able to control it 100%).
ralfd 14y ago
Fghh45sdfhr3, what did you dream lucidly? When I could control my dreams I would probably just stop whatever my brain is trying to figure out and start a sex dream.
- fghh45sdfhr3 14y ago
  Flying, building a great world - much like creative Minecraft 10 years before it was invented. And yeah sex too, but that kept waking me up.
  - nooneelse 14y ago
    Fellow lucid dreamer here. I've tried some explorations of the interface between sleep and waking from within dreams. In my experience/opinion, sex dreams might tend to break up because they use the tactile sense a lot and vision not so much. That can lead to inadvertently paying attention/letting-in one's real-body proprioceptive sense channel or attempting to give motor commands out to one's real muscles (rather than sticking with the dream-sense channels and the more expectation-based moment to moment control of one's dream).
altrego99 14y ago
Care to elaborate on what you mean by "mentally exhausted"?
- fghh45sdfhr3 14y ago
  Physically I felt great. Mentally it was like I had spent a long day memorizing pi numbers, or spent the day in an ice cream store while willfully resisting the temptation to eat any of it. Hard to put into words, basically like there was a part of me, specifically something like the part responsible for will and motivation that desperately needed rest.
  - jonnathanson 14y ago
    In theory, it should be pretty easy to lab test the effects of lucid dreaming on various parts of the brain. In your case, the regions associated with willpower, executive function, etc. (prefrontal cortex, primarily). You could do sleep studies and fMRI studies of brain regions, both after waking from normal sleep cycles and after waking from lucid dreaming. Call me highly skeptical that there are any neurological benefits to lucid dreaming. In fact, I'm inclined to believe that intentionally inducing lucid dreams, night after night, is going to have a serious net-detrimental effect on health by way of disrupting sleep cycles. Sleep serves a lot of very finely tuned purposes for the brain and the body, not the least of which is mental "garbage collection."
    - FlyingTryangle 14y ago
      Highly skeptical is not what I'd call you. Overly skeptical is what I'd call you. I've been LD'ing for 4+ years now. I feel more refreshed and less groggy after a fun lucid dream. Every time. I know several other veteran dreamers and they say the same thing. None of us do the WBTB, we just go lucid in the middle of the dream. Sleep is a finely tuned process but you dream every night whether you remember it or not so lucid dreaming is not disrupting anything. It just gives you an awesome amount of control over I swear, reading through these posts is super frustrating. It's like everyone who can't/hasn't lucid dreamt before is actively discouraging others from trying it because they're jealous/scared or something.

tassl 14y ago

I tried lucid dreaming a few years ago. Initially, the main problem that I was having was to wake up as soon as I realized I was in the middle of a dream. It took me almost no time to go back to sleep but I "was missing" the dream every time I woke up. After a few days, I was able to control most of my dreams. I never had full control of those (there was a moment where something got out of control) but I liked the experience. I think the best experience I had dreaming was flying. In any case, I always woke up fully rested (which might have to do with not being able to control it 100%).

ralfd 14y ago

Fghh45sdfhr3, what did you dream lucidly? When I could control my dreams I would probably just stop whatever my brain is trying to figure out and start a sex dream.

fghh45sdfhr3 14y ago
Flying, building a great world - much like creative Minecraft 10 years before it was invented. And yeah sex too, but that kept waking me up.
- nooneelse 14y ago
  Fellow lucid dreamer here. I've tried some explorations of the interface between sleep and waking from within dreams. In my experience/opinion, sex dreams might tend to break up because they use the tactile sense a lot and vision not so much. That can lead to inadvertently paying attention/letting-in one's real-body proprioceptive sense channel or attempting to give motor commands out to one's real muscles (rather than sticking with the dream-sense channels and the more expectation-based moment to moment control of one's dream).

altrego99 14y ago

Care to elaborate on what you mean by "mentally exhausted"?

fghh45sdfhr3 14y ago
Physically I felt great. Mentally it was like I had spent a long day memorizing pi numbers, or spent the day in an ice cream store while willfully resisting the temptation to eat any of it. Hard to put into words, basically like there was a part of me, specifically something like the part responsible for will and motivation that desperately needed rest.
- jonnathanson 14y ago
  In theory, it should be pretty easy to lab test the effects of lucid dreaming on various parts of the brain. In your case, the regions associated with willpower, executive function, etc. (prefrontal cortex, primarily). You could do sleep studies and fMRI studies of brain regions, both after waking from normal sleep cycles and after waking from lucid dreaming. Call me highly skeptical that there are any neurological benefits to lucid dreaming. In fact, I'm inclined to believe that intentionally inducing lucid dreams, night after night, is going to have a serious net-detrimental effect on health by way of disrupting sleep cycles. Sleep serves a lot of very finely tuned purposes for the brain and the body, not the least of which is mental "garbage collection."
  - FlyingTryangle 14y ago
    Highly skeptical is not what I'd call you. Overly skeptical is what I'd call you. I've been LD'ing for 4+ years now. I feel more refreshed and less groggy after a fun lucid dream. Every time. I know several other veteran dreamers and they say the same thing. None of us do the WBTB, we just go lucid in the middle of the dream. Sleep is a finely tuned process but you dream every night whether you remember it or not so lucid dreaming is not disrupting anything. It just gives you an awesome amount of control over I swear, reading through these posts is super frustrating. It's like everyone who can't/hasn't lucid dreamt before is actively discouraging others from trying it because they're jealous/scared or something.