Lucid Dreaming

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Re: Lucid Dreaming

Postby BrandonD » Fri Dec 09, 2011 3:35 am

MacCruiskeen wrote:And in retrospect all I have is fragments, anyway; ashes of the dream, you could say. Why is that? Why do they vanish so quickly? Does that have something to do with age? Or does it mean that we have no culture of dreaming, i.e. that no one's encouraged to develop the habit of remembering dreams? (Maybe most of life is habit. Addiction is habit. Work is habit. Culture, any culture, is habit.)


I'll address this one for now, just from my personal experience:

I think that the reason we cannot retrieve everything from a dream is that our waking self operates and is immersed within language in such an absolute way that we are not even aware of it, and yet there are real "things" and experiences out there which are completely outside the boundaries of our language.

Those things that are outside the boundaries of the language of our waking self are not retrieved into waking life, because we have no context with which to make sense of them (and we MUST make sense of them).
"One measures a circle, beginning anywhere." -Charles Fort
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Re: Lucid Dreaming

Postby sw » Fri Dec 09, 2011 1:50 pm

Life is a lucid dream.

My dreams did not hit my radar until I entered therapy. I had flashbacks during the day and nightmares during the night that were packed full of information. I was thankful for the dreams but after awhile it was like I could not find an "off" switch and began to get flooded.

When I was dreaming, I often knew I was in a dream. Some dreams were literal dreams about abuse. Many dreams were symbolic about abuse. Some dreams were what I think were memories belonging to the abusers.

Specific parts would often dream. I could distinguish "space's" dreams because they were tremendously symbolic and in my face. It was very much like "this is what could be" like when Frodo looked into the elf water that showed things that "could" be. Sometimes these dreams would be fulfilled and others times they would not be fulfilled.

I gave up a long time ago trying to appear normal or sane. The dreams were crazy. The detail was disturbing. I have felt totally crazy most of my life and try to hide that so that I can function in this world at least a little bit.

I was deeply conflicted about some of the premonition dreams which I wrote about alot here but deleted in mass. Many people at work already considered me a freak and I didn't want to add to that felt I owed it to innocent victims to go forward with some of Space's dreams. They began to break through the dream world and I'd see flash forwards of events taking place in the building when I walked to work.

I ended up telling and a few people contacted me and asked for the details. Then, I contacted the Dept of State on line and decided to give them my background, who Space was, who created him and what he was seeing. I gave them step by step extreme detail of events that he knew were going to happen. It involved the bombing of the Federal Buildings in Dallas. Space could tell how the bombs were placed. When they were placed. The huge bombs were placed in something that looked like a dumpster in the tunnels beneath the federal buildlings. The building I work in is called the Sante Fe Federal Building because it used to have the trains run beneath it. It was in those tunnels that the bombs were placed. They were placed when the City of Dallas had an "accidental" break in a major pipe line. It flooded the entire area around downtown and closed the federal buildings while they pumped the water out of the tunnels. that is when the bombs were placed. the break in that line was not an accident.

I could see the time of day, the weather, everything.

I decided that I could not live with myself if these events came true. They filled my days and nights with flashbacks and nightmares. Always the same.

so, I sent an online computer tip to the Dept of State, the one where you report attacks. I gave them everything. Then I waited. I guessed they would contact me for more info or just fire me.

to me, it is very telling that they never contacted me. That is the most telling part of this whole saga.

In the weeks to follow, I saw major construction set up on jackson St. right next to the federal buildings.

About a month after I told the State Dept about the flash fowards and the dreams, it all just stopped. The flash forwards and the nightmares of this event stopped and I never had any other issues. It was totally resolved. I don't think it was in the telling that caused my resolution. In my crazy world, with my crazy background, I believe that something was going to happen and it was stopped.

I also believe that because it was in "inside job" that it was never made public.

My life got much better after that was lifted from my life.

I've had more dreams, but none of them like that one.

To me, I feel like a storefront. Maybe a lucid dreamer dreaming of being a store front.

I try to live in the moment because flashbacks from the past and flash forward stuff all coming at me in a moment make moment kind of hard to live in feeling peaceful.
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Re: Lucid Dreaming

Postby 82_28 » Fri Dec 09, 2011 2:10 pm

Wow. That's certainly fascinating, sw. A few weeks ago I had a dream in which I woke up from it only to find myself still dreaming in which it disturbed my conscious mind enough to actually "wake me up". I don't remember at all what the dream was. Just that it was a nested dream within a dream.

I may have asked this before, but to any "gamers" that are on here, do you dream you're IN a video game or do you dream you're PLAYING the video game like in your living room and shit?

I had a dream like a month ago where a web address I didn't recognize was given to me. FUCK, do I wish I would have written that one down. I made a mental note to check the site out, but promptly fell back asleep.

I've also taken to imagining what other people's dreams must be. Like football players especially. I used to dream that I was playing Super Mario Bros and I couldn't jump over a certain pipe. I would just jump and jump and jump but I couldn't jump high enough and I couldn't back out because the scroll was too narrow that I couldn't fast jump. I wonder if quarterbacks say, dream they can never escape the pass rush and for some reason can't throw the ball so they just run and run forever in some surreal stadium.

Last one and those are what we call in the industry, "waitmares". Customers, customers, customers, details, details, details and all you're doing is running and stressed and there is never any resolution -- then you wake up and go do it.
There is no me. There is no you. There is all. There is no you. There is no me. And that is all. A profound acceptance of an enormous pageantry. A haunting certainty that the unifying principle of this universe is love. -- Propagandhi
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Re: Lucid Dreaming

Postby slimmouse » Fri Dec 09, 2011 5:10 pm

sw wrote:Life is a lucid dream.


Im actually with you on that one sw.

Which, I suppose makes lucid dreaming an instance of a lucid dream within a dream of a lucid dream itself.

I hope thats the reason I cant do it.

Not that Im not fascinated by the subject nonetheless
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Re: Lucid Dreaming

Postby 12#4 » Sun Dec 11, 2011 2:54 pm

Immensely enjoyed this and very helpful with my own current dream issues. Thanks!

justdrew wrote:
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Re: Lucid Dreaming

Postby Gnomad » Mon Dec 12, 2011 6:54 am

Didn't read all of the thread yet, thought I would just post about the method that seemed to work for me. Have not utilized it in several years now, though, and nowadays I rarely dream lucid.

This method was prescribed in some site I have saved somewhere, Ill see if I find it later.

One should make the bedroom completely pitch-black-dark, like real good blinds in the windows, thick and black, so it really is so dark you cannot see at all in there. Also, set an alarm clock to go off sometime in the wee hours, a few hours from the moment you go to sleep (some 3-4 hrs, so you might likely be in REM sleep when it goes off). Also, every night, make the time a little different or soon you will wake yourself without the alarm at the same time, and it defeats the purpose of it.

Then when going to bed, lay awake in your bed for at least half an hour, preferably closer to an hour, and stare in the blackness with your eyes open. Start trying to visualize things, either objects if you can, say, a flower, a football, a cat, a tree, and try to visualize them so strongly that you actually see them floating in the dark. If you can't do objects, just do abstract, like colours, clouds ... I am not good at objects, but I quickly start to see floating masses of changing colors and mists.

While doing this, also try to pay very close attention to the border between "sleep" and "awake" as you drift closer to it. Try to pay attention to falling asleep, how it feels, and try to keep a thread of the awake attention as you slip over.

When the alarm goes off at night, set the clock for your actual getup time, and repeat the staring in the dark and visualizing. Doing this, it took me just a couple of weeks to start getting lucid dreams. The important part is the visualizing and paying attention to the transition to dream state, in the total darkness. Eventually, this will blend the border in your consciousness too, until you suddenly notice you retain part of usual awareness within the dream state.

Other things one might attempt are taking some valerian root, a B vitamin complex, and melatonin when you go to bed. This enhances dreams and deepens REM sleep phase, making dreams more vivid. Also, smoking / chewing - the best option / vaporizing Salvia divinorum before sleep helps, combined with the above practice. Salvia specifically because it helps or forces your mind to shut up and experience in wordless understanding, which aids in this.

Here was an account of one powerful instance of a real lucid "dream" that was actually real, that happened some years ago -
viewtopic.php?p=133870#p133870

Couple of years back I had a very vivid dream about my grandmother. I was doing my summer studies, several hundred kilometers away from where my grandparents lived. I hadnt spoken to them in maybe couple of weeks at the time.

In the dream I was in their bedroom, it was dark and my grandpa was praying on his knees in the background (theyre very religious), and my grandma was near to me - telling me that shes afraid that shes gonna have a heart attack and die any time now - that she is having arrhythmia. I took her hands and repeatedly told her that its okay, its not your time to die yet, dont worry, youre not dying tonight.

All the time I had the strangest feeling that this is NOT a dream, that this is absolutely real. Also the room was exactly like I knew it to be, and dark, like at night. When I woke up I instantly "knew" that this was no ordinary dream, but was true. I explained the dream to my roommate (so as to have a way to verify to myself Im not making things up), and then called my grandmother. First thing she does is she tells me that shes been awake all night, having arrhythmia and fearing shes going to die. And that grandpa had been praying all night for her. I proceeded matter of factly to tell her about my dream, and just as matter-of-factly she thanked me for helping her.

This was the first time I had irrefutable proof that the world and our being is much stranger than fiction. The whole experience was real, down to details, and theres no way I could have imagined any of it.
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Re: Lucid Dreaming

Postby justdrew » Mon Dec 12, 2011 7:28 am

stupid question: when people say "visualize" does it really mean something different than "imagine" ? I've assumed (and probably read) that it's about superimposing the imagined over the active field of vision. In a totally black room, I'm not sure how that would be different than imagination.

but then, visualizing a complex scene, like say, looking down on a village from a nearby hillside, and noting what's going on in each backyard, all the details, it would get to be somewhat like an exercise for training to do memory feats.
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Re: Lucid Dreaming

Postby Gnomad » Mon Dec 12, 2011 7:43 am

"I've assumed (and probably read) that it's about superimposing the imagined over the active field of vision.", yes.

Visualize, as in imagine, but try to make the image really appear in your field of vision, like it would in a dream. Make it as real as you can. I hear some people are better at this than others...Some can easily conjure realistic images of objects, for others like myself, not that easy. Also when I hallucinate, I very very rarely see realistic objects - mostly its abstract. Some people see realistic landscapes, objects, things instead.

I forgot one thing from the above post, that is reality checks. Do them during waking, you can for example say aloud a few times per day, "Is this real or am I in a dream?" Look around for clues to whether you are in a dream - this can be your hands per Castaneda, or details in the surroundings, or you can for example pinch your arm while saying "Is this awake, or am I dreaming?" When done long enough, you will probably also do that in a dream at some time, and have a chance to go lucid. Haven't tried this one myself.

Here are some net resources (caveat emptor, haven't looked so much into these, but some I found saved on my harddrive, which probably means I have at some time read them ;) )

http://www.lucidity.com/
http://www.lucidity.com/SleepAndCognition.html Lucid Dreaming: Psychophysiological Studies of Consciousness during REM Sleep by Stephen LaBerge, Ph.D.

The "Suneye Methods" can be found as pdf's too with a quick search...
http://www.scribd.com/doc/19282069/Astr ... ing-Method

http://mountzion144.ning.com/group/astr ... -iii-sleep (sleep deprivation)

http://spellsandritualsbook.synthasite. ... eaming.pdf SUNEYE Method IV - Sit Up

I also have a pdf of Stephen LaBerge's book "Exploring the world of lucid dreaming", if you require it, PM me with an email address able to receive 2mb file.

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT...

Bedar, the Watchman, caught Nasrudin prising open the window of his own bedroom from the outside, in the depths of night.

“What are you doing, Mulla? Locked out?”

“Hush! They say I walk in my sleep. I am trying to surprise myself and find out.”
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Re: Lucid Dreaming

Postby JackRiddler » Thu Feb 09, 2012 5:57 pm

.

From another thread, brought here:

elfismiles wrote:If you think you might be dreaming, try raising both legs off the ground simultaneously ... if you float (defying gravity) you are probably dreaming.



bks wrote:I would say if you can tell yourself to "try" anything in order to determine whether you're dreaming, then you're not dreaming. Dreaming happens to you, kinda like gravity. It's precondition is its seeming reality at the time its occurring. Any awareness one has that one might be dreaming signals a state other than a dream state. Maybe you're lucid dreaming, but I think lucid dreaming is a misnomer. "Lucid dreaming" is a form of being awake [even though it is not defined as such]; dreaming is not.



JackRiddler wrote:I've been thinking about this because I had the alarm clock dream again the other day.

I've had this dream at least 20 times and probably more like 50. In the alarm clock dream, an alarm clock goes off. I hit snooze. This doesn't work. The alarm keeps ringing, and it's killing me. So I unplug it. I fumble with opening the battery case and finally remove the batteries. I am astonished that it is still ringing. Sometimes, like the other day, I engage in speculation about why this is happening: Does the clock have a transformer that must discharge fully before it stops? Is someone playing a trick on me? Are laws of physics being violated? At times I have submerged the alarm clock in water, hidden it in airtight containers, smashed it, thrown it around the room, asked others to help me, and so on. In all cases it continues to ring.

At this point you probably need not be told that every time I had this dream, a real alarm clock was actually going off, and of course nothing I'd do could stop it short of my actually waking up and stopping it. You've also possibly guessed that I keep alarm clocks on the other side of the room, because anything within arm's reach will never achieve the intended aim of waking me up.

Am I dreaming is the one obvious question that I've never asked during the alarm clock dream. Which, given how often this has happened, you would think by now would have also happened. I never know it's a dream until it's over. So I have yet to turn this into a lucid dreaming experience, as Mr. Robert Anton Wilson once recommended to me (in a book, not a person) as the thing to do whenever you realize you're dreaming.

In the dream I hear the real alarm clock noise, which functions as a metronome in allowing me to judge afterward how long the dream lasted. My alarm clock dreams have definitely exceeded the supposed maximum 10 seconds of dream activity, and have run up to 20 or 30 seconds. Which is a lot of opportunity to create the universe as you would have it, if you can take command of the dream - assuming you can also decide that the alarm clock noise is a beautiful necessity.

I think bks is right, however. What is called lucid dreaming is a still-waking state of colorful imagining you achieve (in my case, generally by surprise) while drifting off, or in meditation, and is not the same as dreaming while asleep.


elfismiles wrote:Thanks for the comments bks and JR. However, I must respectfully disagree.

While I get the ideas you are both suggesting, all the research I've read points to lucid dreaming as occuring during times when brain function exhibits all the signs of sleeping / dreaming:

http://www.google.com/search?q=eeg+lucid+dream

Anyways, I don't want to derail the gravity of this thread so would suggest continued discussion move here:

Lucid Dreaming
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=33640



SMiles, have you had occasion to test your idea of taking flight during a dream?

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We meet at the borders of our being, we dream something of each others reality. - Harvey of R.I.

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Re: Lucid Dreaming

Postby Aurataur » Thu Feb 09, 2012 9:18 pm

Three years ago, on the day before Valentine's, my dearest friend died after a long and painful bout with cancer. It was a terrible tragedy, as he was loved, the world over, by all who had the fortune of knowing him. He is loved even by people who never met him, but who were connected to him via the amazing bonds of friendship he created in his devastatingly short life. As I write this, I feel the waves of grief coursing through me once again. I still can't believe he's gone.

About a year after his death, within a few days of each other, my brother and a friend both reported similar dreams of our dear friend. They both remarked at how it felt like they were really with him, that it wasn't just a version of him conjured up by their subconscious, but it was actually him visiting them in their dreams. I thought to myself, why not test this theory? If he visits me in my dreams, well, I'll ask him a question for which there is no way I could know the answer. "Who was your 2nd grade teacher?"

A few months later, he visited me in my dreams. As we were talking, I suddenly remembered to ask him the question I had chosen months ago. "Who was your 2nd grade teacher?" I'll never forget his reaction. He looked at me, with a devious smile and a light chuckle, as if to say, "I know what you're trying to do!" Suddenly, the dream disintegrated and I awoke. He hasn't visited me since.
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Re: Lucid Dreaming

Postby Simulist » Thu Feb 09, 2012 9:34 pm

This is an RI first for me, I think, Aurataur: I just felt literal chills up and down my spine.
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Re: Lucid Dreaming

Postby elfismiles » Sat Feb 11, 2012 9:54 am

JackRiddler wrote:.

From another thread, brought here:

elfismiles wrote:If you think you might be dreaming, try raising both legs off the ground simultaneously ... if you float (defying gravity) you are probably dreaming.


SMiles, have you had occasion to test your idea of taking flight during a dream?

.


Hi Jack - thanks for transplanting the conversation to this thread.

The idea I expressed about raising my legs and seeing if I float ... I had a dream like that fairly recently, however it did not lead to lucidity. As I think BKS or someone else commented, that leg-raising theme is one I'd not experienced since childhood in my dreams but having experienced it recently it struck me as a potential lucidity inducer.

I tend to think of lucidity in levels or as a spectrum within the dream state. Typically, I may experience lucidity briefly but most times it is short lived and I lapse back into dream-logic. I have had some extremely powerful lucid dreams that have lasted "considerable" amounts of time. Though I still hear of other people's success and then even my most profound and lasting lucid dreams pale by comparison. I'd say I've had about 8-10 "profound" extended lucid dreams in my 40 years of life.

But back to Jack's question about "occasion to test your idea of taking flight during a dream" ... one of the most common experiencings of lucidity for folks is a nightmare in which the dreamer suddenly realizes they are in a dream - but then they wake themselves up upon realizing it is a dream. I'd say this is by far the most common lucid dream moment experienced by just about everyone. A typical variation I've heard a lot from people is that they will suddenly "take off" flying or begin floating upwards, out of harms way of whatever is after them in the nightmare. But then seconds later they still wake up.

Maintaining lucidity for any length of time is incredibly difficult. The people who seem to be best at doing that have approached lucid dreaming from a direction perhaps more akin to what BKS was suggesting ... that one tries to go from waking to sleeping and to maintain lucidity while that transition occurs and then to use the liminal hypnagogic state as a launching pad for lucid dreaming and/or astral-OBE experiences (see also Celia Green's books on OBE, False Awakenings, Lucid Dreams, and Apparitions).

Alan Worsley, who helped scientists first prove the reality of lucid dreaming by communicating to the lab techs while he was lucid inside a dream, has developed this technique and I know of at least a handful of others who can do it - IT being laying still for sometimes hours as they slowly move from waking to dreaming while maintaining lucidity.

Oh yeah, again, back to Jack's question about "occasion to test your idea of taking flight during a dream" ... just this past week I _DID_ become lucid in a dream and DID begin to fly by choice - this after having watched video earlier that evening of a stand-up comic who asked the question "how does Superman fly FASTER?" That was all it took for me to get a slight boost towards (temporary) lucidity in my dream that night. It was VERY short-lived, and as soon as I started flying dream-logic took over and I started superimposing maps / aerial views over my POV so that I could plot/track my flight to better reach my destination - while thinking to myself that this map technique might also enable me to calculate my speed (further callback to the stand up comic's question).

Anyway, I've not posted there in years but I did start a dream journal at this dream forum back in 2005:

http://www.dreamviews.com/members/elfis/
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Re: Lucid Dreaming

Postby Spiro C. Thiery » Sat Feb 11, 2012 5:20 pm

Anyone here with Narcolepsy?
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Re: Lucid Dreaming

Postby JackRiddler » Sat Feb 11, 2012 5:30 pm

.

I've taken flight in dreams many times, without knowing of them as dreams. These felt more real and conscious and memorable than most. Flying is akin to ideas of astral projection. I'm not Superman and there is no powerful thrust. It's more like swimming in the air and always feels delicate. I stay close to the ground because it's easy to crash and you can get vertigo. It's the greatest feeling. Sometimes my dream-self is astonished that I didn't think of doing it before, because it's so easy. Indoors is hazardous, you need to visualize the arc you will take. I can gradually build up speed by weaving up and down. I might be transported to different places without traversing an intervening area, but it feels natural.

Another dream quality that suggests lucidity is the tendency to think of things before they happen. I tell myself what I hope will happen, and then it happens as visualized. This often occurs in situations of danger or fear, so I am able to save myself or others, turn back attacks, fly over hazards. Mostly I just advance the story plot. But as with the alarm clock dream, I never realize it's a dream and that I'm writing it until waking.

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We meet at the borders of our being, we dream something of each others reality. - Harvey of R.I.

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Re: Lucid Dreaming

Postby JackRiddler » Sat Feb 11, 2012 5:44 pm

82_28 wrote:Wow. That's certainly fascinating, sw. A few weeks ago I had a dream in which I woke up from it only to find myself still dreaming in which it disturbed my conscious mind enough to actually "wake me up". I don't remember at all what the dream was. Just that it was a nested dream within a dream.


Related to the alarm clock dream: I sometimes have "getting up to piss" dreams. Other people have told me the same. I'll suddenly feel the bed and be startled awake, terrified that I'm actually pissing. (Hasn't happened, insha allah.)

Last one and those are what we call in the industry, "waitmares". Customers, customers, customers, details, details, details and all you're doing is running and stressed and there is never any resolution -- then you wake up and go do it.


Oh yeah, this kind of thing must be incredibly common. I remember once I was scraping wallpaper in an apartment for literally two weeks, I'd hear the scrape scrape scrape in dreams.

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We meet at the borders of our being, we dream something of each others reality. - Harvey of R.I.

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