Lucid Dreaming

[dyresand]

i like to lucid dream but when i wake up in the morning i feel like crap

[Norman Humann]

i like to lucid dream but when i wake up in the morning i feel like crap

You can do that? How'd you train yourself?

Are we talking about the same thing?

[IATIA]

When I was a kid, I had the occasional nightmares and one day decided that was enough. I convinced myself that the next time I had a nightmare, I would sleep through it. The next nightmare I had was a bunch of skinny tornadoes all headed toward the house I was in. I remembered that I was not going to wake up in a fright and just stood there and watched the tornadoes. They wandered around and finally dissipated. I have not had a nightmare since.

Years later I heard about lucid dreaming and thought that I would try it out. The way I did it, was to think of something I wanted to dream about and create' my dream as I was falling asleep. It took a LOT of tries, but eventually I was able to direct the start of my dreams.

As I said earlier, to control the dreams, you have to reach that point of starting to wake, realize it is a dream, and do not open your eyes or move. I repeat, Do Not Open Your Eyes or Move!

Now, You know you are dreaming and the dream is still going on, so start walking someplace. I got pretty good at this part after a while.

Now for the coup de grâce. Pick something up and examine it. Anything will do. This is the tricky part because you may actually move your physical body and lose the connection. I am still working on this part, but it is really cool. I hope that soon I can gain complete control within my dreams. I have a ways to go, but I know now, that it can be done.

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Taking a load of drugs probably helps too.

Actually, no. Alcohol is the worst. The problem with drugs, is the lack of control. Especially any precision.

[Norman Humann]

Woah. That sounds awesome.

I've had a couple of instances when the things I was thinking about before falling asleep dictated the way my dreams started off, or similarly towards the end of the dream when I was almost waking up I could steer the dream with my thoughts. It's funny since lately I often post on here just before falling asleep and then start dreaming about it.

The problem is, recently I don't realise when I'm falling asleep. Most of the time I don't remember how or when it happened or that it happened at all.

[IATIA]

Did anybody else start reflexively humming Row, Row, Row Your Boat?

I did now, damn it! I hope "La Bamba" gets stuck in your head!

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Is lucid dreaming dangerous?

No.

I'm intrigued by the idea, but I've heard horror stories about people who have brought on their own death by lucid dreaming, which obviously scares me away from it.

Urban legend at best.

Also, I don't think I've ever had a lucid dream, so it this something that can't happen by accident?

I guess it could. As I have tried to dream lucidly, I do not have the perspective of accidental lucidity.

[robvalue]

What happens to me a lot is when I kind of drift in and out of sleep, anything that's going on around me gets sucked into the dream. Like if I'm listening to a podcast, the words get twisted up and represented in weird scenarios in my head. Then I wake and hear the words continue but make sense again, then drift back into weird land. The distorted words I hear appear to make sense in my dream world, but when I wake and reflect on them they sound ridiculous.

[The Valkyrie]

Lucid dreaming?

I have enough problems being lucid while awake.

[TheRealJoeFish]

I lucid dream about once a week, sometimes more.

It's definitely something you can cultivate: to do so, think about lucid dreaming (while you're awake), talk about it, research it... basically, get your brain thinking about it. Seriously. I read this thread earlier today, and had a lucid dream two hours later when I took a nap (what my sleep doctor has to say about me being able to dream at all during naps is another story). The way I see it, when you're dreaming, your brain brings up a bunch of stuff that's on your mind. If the thought "hey, I might be able to control my dreams" pops up, well, that's the first step.

If you suspect you're dreaming, here are a few tricks you can do to confirm it (I've done all of these multiple times):

1. Look at a clock and see what it says. Look away for a few seconds. Then look at the clock again. A lot of times, in dreams, the same clock will have a wildly different reading the second time you look at it.
2. Flip a light switch. Light switches tend not to work in dreams.
3. If you're running, try to turn your strides into leaps. Then see if you can sort of float in the air a little longer. Then try to glide.

If you're thinking about it even a little, you can sometimes catch something that doesn't make sense and, more importantly, doesn't make sense in the kind of way that dreams don't make sense. For instance, this afternoon, I was walking through the college in my hometown, though I just got back from work 2 hours away. Wait. That doesn't make sense, and the way in which it doesn't make sense - I seem to be suddenly transported to my hometown - is exactly the kind of thing that happens in dreams. So, I thought, "mmkay, I'm dreaming. I'll try to run up that snow-covered hill." When it comes to consciously directing your dreams, start small, and then build. By the end of the dream I had jumped onto the roof of a house, climbed in through the attic, and fought the guy who lived there in an attempt to steal a painting. Seriously.

[dyresand]

i like to lucid dream but when i wake up in the morning i feel like crap

You can do that? How'd you train yourself?

Are we talking about the same thing?

Well its easy the one night i was having a nightmare pretty much agent smith from the matrix was chasing me in a grocery store and i was like wait a minute and it clicked to me it was just a dream i was like i don't want to be here anymore and after that i ended up in space then i freaked out and went back to the store and started to fight him. It clicks to me when i sleep but now and then ill do it otherwise i just go on and enjoy my dreams.

The best advice i can say is when you are dreaming try to realize its a dream and you can control everything and then you can.

Tutorial from reddit.


1. Begin keeping a dream journal. Any time you wake up, at night or in the morning, write down what you remember. At night a sentence often stimulates enough memory to remember more in the morning. Record things that occur often. These will be your dream signs. Goal: Remember 1 or 2 dreams each night.

2. Begin doing reality checks. Do these 24 hours a day. (Yes. Especially while you are sleeping.) 30 or more should be enough. Really, really question your state.

3. Begin practicing MILD. Before you go to bed, tell yourself that you intend to remember that you are dreaming while in your dream. Every time you wake up at night, remember a dream you have had or just had. Pick one in which a dream-sign appears. (This is one of the reasons your use a dream journal.) Remind yourself again that you intend to remember that are dreaming while in your dream. In the visualization, see yourself in the dream you picked noticing the dream-sign. Upon noticing the dream sign, do a reality check. See yourself becoming lucid. Then continue visualizing what you plan to do once you become lucid. Condition yourself this way so that you expect it to happen and the training kicks in as automatically as catching a line drive and throwing it to second base when there is a guy on first, 'cause you don't want to miss a double play like last time. And the pitcher is Jeff from fourth grade but he is still 10 years old. That's weird. Note: This is best done in the early morning when you wake up.

4. Continue to do the above things until you have success--this is the method in which most beginners have success.

You can always do the inception thing they did.

[IATIA]

And I forgot to mention. I was able to feel the Kit-kats. In general, there is sight and emotion in my dreams and controlling those seem rather easy now. However, actually feeling what I am touching is rare, at best. I have never tasted anything or felt any weather. Even the tornado nightmare swamped me sight and emotion, but there was no wind. Of course the lack of wind was not unusual, as it was a dream and there is nothing 'unusual' in a dream.