Lucid dreaming

[eyeteach]

Anyone here ever had a lucid dream? Are you a practitioner of lucid dreaming and if so how do you do it?

 

[AmberCutie]

I hate them. It sucks to be able to tell yourself you’re dreaming but not snap out of it. Most of mine are anxiety enducing and scary.

 

[Bocefish]

I hate them. It sucks to be able to tell yourself you’re dreaming but not snap out of it.

Ditto!

When it gets really bad somehow I'll force myself to sit up to realize my surroundings.

Then I usually light a cig, turn on the idiot box to a news station and set the timer for 15 minutes for a mental distraction.

 

[Slapstick]

I've done it once, and it was fucking awesome. However, I would say that if you are not able to "snap out of it" then it is not really a lucid dream as being able to control the dream is what makes it "lucid". Unfortunately I've never been able to do it again after that first time.

 

[Ambers Troll]

I have heard of some techniques to cue them... If I see or hear this I must be dreaming; keep implanting that thing into your thoughts near sleep and wait for it to work.
Never tried it personally, I don't like the idea of controlling my own dreams. That period between sleep where you fantasize and take some control over I do enjoy though; close to lucid dreaming, but not strictly the same.

 

[AmberCutie]

I've done it once, and it was fucking awesome. However, I would say that if you are not able to "snap out of it" then it is not really a lucid dream as being able to control the dream is what makes it "lucid". Unfortunately I've never been able to do it again after that first time.

I can control some things that happen in them, but I cannot force myself into a completely awake state to stop the dream.

If what I describe is not a lucid dream, what is it? My experience fits the description.

 

[Anatomica Doll]

never had a lucid dream, but i am willing to dwell amongst that realm, should the universe allow an opportunity for it to be timed correctly. some of my friends have described it as a surreal experience; some stories are packed with fear, others are just bizarre.

 

[Slapstick]

I can control some things that happen in them, but I cannot force myself into a completely awake state to stop the dream.

If what I describe is not a lucid dream, what is it? My experience fits the description.

Yep it does fit the description; I misunderstood you. If you are able to control the dream then it is a lucid dream. It is odd that you can control some parts, but not stop the dream. Apparently one's control is supposed to get better with practice, but it has only happened once to me a long long time ago. I have been able to force myself awake a few times during a bad dream, but never take control of the dream like that first time.

 

[Goblin]

I used to do it a lot in my teens, wasn't a conscious effort to have them or anything practiced

Something would happen in the dream that didn't make sense and I would realise I was dreaming, then I would find someone to have sex with lol

The problem was once I realised it was a dream the edges of the dream would start to go dark and blurred and close in so it would only last a short time

I don't have dreams like the above anymore, not ones where I can explore, but sometimes if I have a scary dream I will realise I'm dreaming and be able to wake myself up or at least end the dream I'm in

Interesting you guys say they've been anxiety inducing, I've suffered from anxiety quite badly in my time but lucid dreams have always been quite good.

 

[eyeteach]

I can remember twice when I had the dreams, 100% able to control them and it was an awesome experience. I very vaguely recall a third. I've heard of some who have practiced how to have them all the time, but I'm not sure exactly how they can do it.

 

[dilligaf0]

I'll just leave this here.

 

[EmptyKins]

I frequently experience sleep paralysis. It's terrifying because I'm trapped in my body unable to move or scream.

But I also have dreams in which I "fly" and once I realize I'm doing it I can control it! It's not like actual flying, it's more like taking a few steps, then hovering over the ground and skating a few inches above the earth beneath me. Its exhilarating to glide across long trails and roads and sidewalks but I cannot ever stop with out crashing! I can control the speed, the height, even spin or twirl but once I have to stop I either slam into dream people or fall on my face!

Usually my dream people are chill about it, and they accept my crashing into them without comment. But if it's a bad dream I can't control it and I'm typically in a faux work environment so the restaurant customers get upset when I slam into their booth with a full tray! Or if it's a nightmare I glide quickly away from my brain villain only to crash into a trap door and be eaten alive.

It's a weird, wonderful dream power.

 

[Rumi_Bloom]

If I start to feel like I may be dreaming it just happens in a dream and I bite a finger, if theres no pain I'm surely asleep and then I love messing with things! I tend to go for a broomride or grow wings to fly, or maybe I'll become a superhero and spend 80% of the dream working on my costume and regret it when I wake up... xD

 

[Daphne]

It happened to me many times.

 

[xDollPartsx]

I just recently realized that this wasn't something that everyone does. For as long as I can remember I have been able to wake myself up while dreaming or even change the dream/get back into the same one after waking up... Apparently my daughter can do this too but when I mentioned it to a friend who was having bad dreams, I said something along the lines of "why don't you just wake yourself up?" She looked at me like I was insane to think it was normal or possible.

 

[Lucid1]

As my nick suggests, I studied this topic greatly when I was much younger. I spent many hours at the A.R.E. Foundation(Edgar Cayce Foundation) in Va. Beach in the 80's studying Lucid dreaming. Basically, Lucid Dreaming is becoming aware that you are dreaming while in the dream. A lot of people get caught up into thinking that because they are aware they are dreaming, they must also be able to control the script, or outcome of the dream....which isn't true and induces anxiety and fear when it doesn't work. I gave up on trying to control my lucid dreams after having a really bad experience. Now, whenever I go lucid in a dream, I just let it happen and go along for the ride. As I have gotten older, the frequency of occurrence has been greatly reduced, although the ones I have, I am able to remember in much more detail than when I was younger.

 

[Opal420]

Yes! I've had some semi-lucid and one or two times I've been fully lucid, but only for a short period of time. The semi-lucid dreams I can think of - I remember one in particular although I feel like I've had others similar, and I remember being in a shop with all these cool items and thinking "I know I'm dreaming so I can just steal everything!" (says a lot about me as a person... worrying??). But I say semi-lucid because I had some sort of fear of getting in trouble afterwards, maybe after I woke up? One of the rare fully-lucid moments I had, I knew I was dreaming, wanted to try flying which is apparently one of the hardest things in lucid dreaming, I saw a slope, ran up it, launched myself off, and was flying. But maybe it still wasn't fully lucid as I was kind of stuck "swimming" on my back in the sky and found it hard to get on my front... maybe because I'm better at swimming on my back IRL and it was the closest thing my brain knew?

I tried training myself a while back but didn't really put enough time or effort in. It seemed to have some short-term results at the time though. A few things I remember are that keeping a dream journal can help you with lucid dreaming, also try looking up "dream signs" and about how to check if you're awake and dreaming. I read loads of helpful stuff online but this was a few years ago now!

 

[CurvyJ]

ive had them but can never control them beyond telling myself im dreaming...then im stuck knowing im having terrible emotions and am still powerless to stop them

 

[DFT]

Now and then, but too rarely and now when I notice I'm in a dream the spell is broken.

Had a lot while trying nicotine patches, and those I could control better without waking, which isn't surprising because I was exhausted. Nothing but dreams and light sleep. It was like the "gift" of endless orgasms. Sounds nice on paper, turned out to be torture. I just wanted to sleep.

 

[IsabellaSnow]

I think there is some confusion over what lucid dreaming actually means. While control can often be exerted, the definition is being aware that you are dreaming. Any dream you are aware you are in a dream is a lucid one. The control part is often a result of lucid dreaming, not a symptom.

I pretty much always dream lucidly, ever since I was a little girl. The first time I was made aware of it was because all my friends at school kept saying how you could not be in a dream and aware of it. They said that was how you could tell if you were in a dream or reality because if you thought "I am dreaming" it would be reality. I remember distinctly having the most amazing dream and yet being very blase saying "shame this is a dream, it's so great!" while this thought process was not out of the ordinary for me during dreams, I remembered the conversation I had with my friends, and suddenly my logic went "but... if it's impossible for me to be thinking this while in a dream... does this mean all of this is real?". This was a very exciting yet also confusing moment for me, as you can imagine being a little girl stood in the most incredible fantasy land and having heard from friends and adults that there is no way that you could be this aware during a dream, but also being very aware that it would be impossible for it to be anything but... As any small child would I chose to jump for joy and enjoy my dream life for a bit longer and see how it played out. In the morning I sadly accepted that my friends were wrong. It was not until about a year ago that I went to a psychology talk on lucid dreaming that I realised that it was lucid dreaming. I had always thought lucid dreaming was something different and more about control, I guess I thought it might be more... cool?

I absolutely love dreaming, most of my dreams are very vivid and often have long stories in them. I also tend to remember a lot of them, though this is becoming much less true as I'm getting older. Back when I was 20 I would often remember huge portions of dreams, enough that I sometimes found it hard to get back into reality.
I can also link up my dreams, so if I had a dream earlier in the night (or even another night) I can link it up to the backstory of a later dream. I very rarely have "nightmares", in the sense that I tend to always love my dreams, though some of them can be very action packed and even have scary moments. I know that I have altered the courses of my dreams if I didn't want to go one way or I didn't like the storyline of one. This happens fairly often, though I often just play them out. I can sometimes also put myself back into a dream if I wake up having had an amazing one earlier in the night or the night before. I can also sometimes go back and change events, or even "relive" a particularly good part of a dream. Whatever it is I am doing in there, while I am aware it's not something I've ever consciously tried to do, as in I would have no idea how someone else could do it. The control I do exert is minimal though, most of the time I just enjoy going with the flow.
I don't think all night through I dream lucidly, or even every dream, it comes and goes depending on what's happening in the dream. I believe I do it less the older I get, but that might also be just my memories of the dreams are less. I think one of my issues with lucid dreaming has been that because you're aware during your dream, there is less differentiation between dreams and reality. And when you have such incredible dreams, reality kind of sucks in comparison.

 

[IsabellaSnow]

wanted to try flying which is apparently one of the hardest things in lucid dreaming,

Sorry DP, but I missed this the first time I went through the thread. Flying is meant to be hard in dreaming? I can fly most of the time in my dreams, there's a certain trick to it I learned as a child but yeah, basically most of the time I can fly if I have reason to. I was actually convinced for a period in my childhood that the only reason I couldn't fly in real life was because my mother forced me to wear wellies and a coat (such abusive parenting). I also tend to have a few cool magical powers in dreams I need them in, though these are harder to perform consistently. I had no idea this was not normal or even considered difficult, I just thought everyone had flying dreams.
For those who haven't, it's an incredible feeling. It's hard to explain how you do it, you kind of just imagine being weightless and remember that it's possible. Same as other abilities, you need to be aware that you're in control. I think once you start being able to do it and it happens frequently it just becomes an ability you're used to, it's easy to do because you know once you're in a dream you can do it.

 

[PagliA]

I was trying to cultivate this ability years ago. I found keeping a dream journal very helpful, as well as waking myself up and then returning to sleep throughout the night. Unfortunately once I realized I was dreaming the world seemed to take on a very sinister cast, like I wasn't supposed to have realized that it wasn't real. Kind of disturbing but very interesting. I just recently acquired a weighted blanket which has been amazing. I'm having very vivid dreams and getting amazing sleep. I feel like it might be a good tool for lucid dreaming because I'm now able to return to the same area again and again. I find dreams to be pretty fascinating.

 

[Opal420]

IsabellaSnow - The fact that flying is one of the hardest things to do in lucid dreaming is something I'd constantly come across when researching into it. That's pretty cool that's it's something that's come so naturally to you. I'm intrigued by the trick to it that you mention - if you're willing to elaborate, I'd love to hear