I usually remember my dreams very well, and most of them are really weird and cool. I really enjoy dreaming and waking up in the morning (I usually write my dreams down, hence the remembering, and they make good reading a few months later). Often I´ll just shake my head or giggle helplessly, there´s some pretty weird stuff going on in my subconscious. Never, ever could I make that up “myself” (i.e. consciously).
So Trigonal Planar, my question is, if you do lucid dreaming, do mostly things happen that you think of, or does the weird stuff happen anyway? I mean, sometimes I wouldn´t mind looking at something more in detail, and if I had a nightmare (which I rarely have/remember) it would be nice to get out of it, but most things that happen are so cool I just like to go with the flow.
I´m afraid if I noticed I was dreaming and could control the dream, a) it would seem less real, and b) I´d become too rational and have to make up the rest of my dream “myself”.
(And I could never ever have made up that dream where incredibly coloured northern lights first turned into a message from the great beyond, complete with symbol writing and everything, and then into a rain of silvery fish… flying or sex dreams are nothing compared to it…)
On the other hand, there are some recurring locations in my dreams that I´d like to get to know better, walk around, open doors, look where the stairways lead, without them suddenly morphing into another place.
So is lucid dreaming a way of walking around in your subconscious (for lack of a better expression), with all the dream things happening around you but being able to look at them more closely, or is it a private film in your mind where you can choose what happens, but only dream what you can imagine?
Your techniques work as they are all variations of the same premise. Dreaming, and hence lucid dreaming, only occurrs when one is “close to awake”. Therefore things like sleeping with a full bladder, sleeping in a different location, etc. are all distractions that keep you from falling too deeply asleep.
Your cow technique is actually the basis for a more powerful method called MILD - Mneumonic Induction of Lucid Dreams. What you do is reflect on your dreams and find a recurring theme/object (this is why dream recall is so important). Then, when this object shows up in waking life, you train yourself to notice it and then perform a reality test*. This way, whenever the object appears in your dreams - which it often will - you’ll be able to determine if it is indeed a dream or not.
As for astral projection (and lets be careful here - I DO NOT believe in anything supernatural - the sensation of astral projection is nothing more than a less-intense dream which one has entered directly from the wake state), I can easily become “floaty” (or disengaged, as I call it) and drift around my house or wherever. However, I usually fall asleep or wake up before visuals appear.
universe.zip:
Think of what the real world would be like if you could use your mind to make things happen - would the world suddenly stop, waiting for your input? Of course not. Its the same with the dream world. When you become lucid, the dream world doesn’t suddenly “freeze”. Its just that instead of your dream-self being unconsciously “pushed through” the dream, it is now taken over by your conscious self wherein YOU can decide what to do instead of that mysterious dream-force. If you don’t want to interact in any way, you don’t have to.
So addressing your (b) part, YOU would have your full rational faculties that you would during the wake state but that doesn’t alter the dream in anyway. Surely you have an imagination?
As for part (a), I guarantee it will not seem less real - far from. In fact, if you achieve high-level lucidity it will be the most incredibly textural “real” feeling you could possibly imagine. Colours become MORE intense and luxurious. Seeing the Northern Lights in a HLL state would likely be incredible. Again, things become MORE REAL in lucid dreams.
The reality check method - while this is not considered the most effective technique, I find it works best for me. It is well known that reading is impossible in dreams and as such this can be used as a dreaming indicator. Throughout the day, make it a point to regularly check your watch (digital is best for this). Observe how the seconds increase. Ask yourself, “am I dreaming?” - do it, literally! And have serious sense of unsuredness about it. Proceed to investigate whether or not the numbers are behaving normally. Are they jumping around? Are they shaped normally? Always complete the reality check: “The numbers are not jumping around or weirdly shaped, therefore I’m not dreaming”. If they ARE behaving weirdly, obviously, you can conclude you are dreaming! BOOM - lucidity.
Note that if you don’t have a watch, any kind of writting will do. Look at a sign or something, look away, then look back. If you’re awake, it will be the same (duh). If you’re dreaming, it won’t be.
It is very important you completely follow through on the RC. Actually ask, “am I dreaming?” Then do your investigation. Then actually conclude using a complete logic statement.
You have to do this enough times during the day, spontaneously, that it becomes second nature. This way it will be incorporated into your dreams. This is probably the hardest part. You have to naturally “know” to do it every say, hour. This comes only with practice.
The very first day I tried this technique, I had a lucid dream that night.
Some people can do it, but is pretty rare. I’ve been able to read once or twice but upon reflection, it always turned out to not make any sense. I doub it would’ve said the same thing had you looked away and then looked back.
Can you wish for objects so that they appear? Because while I’ve realized I’m in a dream couple of times (mostly in sex dreams, where I always remember I’m in a dream and awaken when the going starts to get good) I’ve tried to wish for things and they don’t come. Most I’ve got was in a monster-escape dream when I wished for a car with all my might and got a little toy car that looked like a crap.
Yes, but I woudln’t call it wishing. The lucid dream world “behaves” exactly the same way an imagined world would behave if you were awake. That is to say, you IMAGINE things appearing rather than wishing. Even more precisely, you expect something to appear.
You might as well ask the question “Would you plug yourself permenantly into a machine that created an alternative world which you had direct control over?” or “If the afterlife was going to be perfect, would you kill yourself?”
Ok, there is more morality attached to the suicide example, but if you’re going to be spending the rest of your life in a dream and unable to interact at all with the real world, I don’t see that there’s an awful lot of difference. YMMV
As for the reading in dreams, I frequently read and write and type in dreams. I’ve heard people suggest that you only dream in black and white, I dream in full colour. shrugs
Colour is individual. My dreams are in full colour. And when I’m lucid, the colour is far more vivid and intense than any colour in real-life
As for reading, I still maintain that its probably not at all what it feels like. I “read” in dreams too - but I’d bet its more an interpretive/understanding than actual reading of characters. I’ve written in dreams too, but again, upon reflection, it usually isn’t very coherent in waking-life.
As for your question, I’d take the virtual reality approach. Why go through the pain of killing yourself when you have an equally effective alternative?
Definately, I’ve seen colours in dreams that I cannot find anywhere but in my dreams.
I remember once noting from a visit to the Natural History Museum that butterflies are supposed to be able to see more colours than humans can, and there’s the following quote by Chang Tzu…
Ha! so that’s it! I worked it all out, when we go to sleep we all turn into butterflies, pretty much at the same time as all the toys in the cupboard wake up… Cool!
I have on several occasions had dreams in which I was reading events as they were happening-I was definitly having the experiences, but also sort of superimposed were the words-also I remember that there were a couple of words I didn’t know, and when I looked them up they had been used correctly or semi-correctly in the dream. I think it may have to do with the fact that I learned to read very early in life. Has this every happened to anyone else?
So. First results are in. No lucid dreaming yet, but at least last night I noticed in the dream that things weren´t behaving normally - the stock on the shop shelf kept changing every time I looked at it. I realized that, but didn´t realize I was dreaming, so I didn´t do anything about it.
But I guess it´s a start.
Any other methods, Trigonal Planar? Some good links, perhaps?
And could you tell me more about astral projection?
