Is this lucid dreaming?

Factual Questions
1

This has happened to me twice in the last week.

Tonight I came home and had some soup ~7:00. It made me sleepy, as a feed often does, so I lay down on my bed ~7:30. Before long I slipped away, as the lights and shadows assumed shapes, moved and perspective was gained.

My first clear impression was a view of a curtain of beads draped over my face in a dimly candle-lit hippy pad that soon transmogrified into a hallway at my brother’s previous home, where he wrestled with me on the floor. We talked a little bit before I was back in my apartment and a festival arrived outside. They were all down in the driveway doin’ their thing, but one of the performers had made it up to my porch and was knocking on my door, beseeching me to come out and join them. He had some deal goin’ where a flash of light appeared on my side of the door or wall wherever he knocked.

The thing is that the whole time I knew I was in my bed and that I was dreaming. I could feel the covers, and I could estimate time. I thought, “Yippee! I’m dreamin’! Free movies tonight!”

I wanted to be back up by 8:30 - I was ~10 minutes off.

So, is that what is meant by lucid dreaming?

2

Couldn’t resist the urge to refrain from posting until my new user name was OKed.
Yup. you had a Lucid dream. The basic definition of a lucid dream is - a dream in which you know you are dreaming.

But the reality is very very far from basic. The realization that you are dreaming, [when it’s a new experience and this is a ‘good’ level of lucidity] is a very sudden euphoric shock. It’s probably as good as being blind for your first 20 years of life then very suddenly having perfect eyesight.

I am an apprentice lucid dreamer. I have very few, but when I do have them they are amazing. if you look at newsgroups go to alt.dreams.lucid.

3

**Couldn’t resist the urge to refrain from posting until my new user name was OKed. **

whoops. slightly messed up in that sentence. it should be - ‘couldn’t resist the urge to post before my new username was OKed’.

4

The best thing about Lucid dreaming is affecting nightmares; getting attacked by a monster, then pulling out a gun and shooting it dead.

5

The trouble I have with lucid dreaming is that I can only interact with objects that are already in my dream… I can not “imagine” new objects in to the scene.

6

Ringo I’ll agree with Lobley that what you describe is indeed a lucid dream, but in my very limited experience I am never aware of where my body actually is. I don’t remember any time when I had any sense of the external world like feeling the covers of my bed.

7

I have had a few lucid dreams, none with particulary inspiring contents, nor any that went on for long after I realized I was dreaming. I have also succesfully re-entered a dream after being woken up a few times.

However, a few years back, I tried as hard as I could to have a lucid dream. In the end I did have a dream in which I kept saying “I know I’m dreaming.”. But I had no recollection of the real world, so I didn’t actually know it. My ‘character’ was just reciting that phrase.

I gave up trying after that.

8

Yeah, you definitely had a lucid dream - although, as other posters have been hinting at, there are different levels of lucid dreaming. The commonality is that you are aware that you are dreaming. I myself have experienced a few levels-

“God Mode” - You can do anything, and the thought is enough to make it happen. You want to fly above a building, you can fly above a building. You have complete, perfect control of the dream.
For me, at least, this sort of dream is very, very rare, and I usually can not completely alter the dreamscape - for example, I can’t turn a dream about studying for algebra into a dream about effortlessly flying above beaches of white sand on a beautiful spring day, but I can make the algebra book burst into flame.

“Movie Mode” - I just had this happen for the first time about a week ago - I realized I was dreaming, and I thought, “I want to see my grandparents house.” So I closed my “dream eyes” and pictured their house “inside my head”, and then when I opened my “dream eyes” the image was there perfectly. This IS a very euphoric feeling.

“Imperfect God Mode” - For me, this covers the majority of my lucid dreams. I want to fly, but I can only fly a few feet off the ground. I can change things (e.g., making something disappear or fly through the air), but I have to try really hard, and the result is imperfect. Often, my ‘powers’ won’t work when there are other people in the dream that can see me, or that I’m trying to affect or demonstrate my powers to.

Learning to dream lucidly does have advantages beyond the joys of controling everything; the main one is getting out of nightmares. For example, in the past month, I’ve had two dreams where I was at work either naked or wearing a bathrobe that kept coming open. Both times, I realized within a few minutes that this was an impossible and I had to be dreaming, and I was able to redirect the dream into something more pleasant.

The easiest way to learn to dream lucidly, or at least the way that worked for me (I am by NO means an expert; lucid dreaming/hypnotism was simlpy an interest when I was younger) is to practice asking yourself “does this make sense?” - even when you’re awake. Just look around and say, “does this make sense? Yes, I’m in my car, I’m on my way home, this is my routine.” Eventually, you will find yourself dreaming, and you’ll ask youself “Does this make sense?” and realize it doesn’t. It is very hard to learn not to wake up at this point; that is your natural impulse. Once you learn to recognize that you’re dreaming and then also to not wake yourself up, you can have quite an experience.
(and yes, the lucidity- is a reference to my interest in lucid dreaming; also to the fact that I live in a state somewhat beneath lucidity. It is not a reference to the song “Silent Lucidity”)

9

I have lucid dreams frequently and I don’t have to try, that’s just mostly how I dream. Most of mine fall into one of lucidity-'s God Mode categories. I can usually make changes without much effort. I can repeat events until they work out like I want them to (ie I shoot the bad guy instead of him shooting me) or sleep with any babe that happens to be in my dream. Hey, when I know I’m dreaming, I take advantage of it. :smiley: I can generally fly if I want to. The only thing I almost can never make happen is have my guns shoot real bullets. Most of the time they spit out these rubber bb’s like the toy gun you had as a kid. I have to beat monsters with my fists or a stick. Most annoying.
I don’t consider any dream a nightmare though so I’m often content to just watch things play out. Even the time I was eaten by a T-rex. (watched too much Land of the Lost as a kid.)

10

I couldn’t either, until I figured out how to make them appear. Pull them out from behind your back, or in your pocket, or your shoe.

For example: Recently, I was dreaming and had these bad people slam a big oak door in front of me. So, I reached behind my back to pull out my trusty chain saw, and went to town. (It just made a mess, though. Eventually I gave up and determined that there was no wall around the door, so I just walked around it instead.)

11

I noticed I was dreaming in a few
dreams and I said O cool.

I love it when I have a dream that
is like going to the pictures,
I write the story as I go along.

I even dream in 3D, colour, and Stereo
surround, and to boot, credits
roll at the end.

Anyone ever dream like that?

12

I’m with ya’ up until the credits(?). It was your dream.

13

This happens more often than not to me, probably because I often use dreaming-awareness to wake up from a nightmare. After a while you start to recognise that “Oh, this is a chased-by-something-no-matter-how-good-the-hiding-place dream” and pop, you wake up.

A trick that I learned from some web browsing on the subject is to spin around. Literally put your arms out and twirl whenever you feel the dream fading. Apparently the combination of sight, movement, and balance engages enough senses to get you mind back into the dream. First time I remembered to do this in a dream, I had a good half hour romp around my dream world.

The funny thing was the colors and the textures, especially in the sky. It really reminded me of a mushroom trip.

14

complete hijack (w/ apologies)

Personal Experience on Mushrooms -

I would NOT recommend them as an option to people looking for ways to “play with reality.” A mushroom trip is similar to lucid dreaming, except for two very important differences: 1) With lucid dreaming, you control the dream, and in using mushrooms the trip controls you and 2) You can wake up from a dream - you can NOT wake up from a mushroom trip - you are in for the ride.

I had a few positive experiences, and a few bad experiences, and one REALLY HORRIBLE experience. I had total ego loss, I felt my body melting, I thought I had to be at work and I was going to get fired, and I deicded if I just opened the door my environment would turn into work, and I was horribly confused. I couldn’t remember that I had taken a drug and choose to feel that way; I was compeltely panicked. Was I being poisned? Was it the end of the world? Was the FBI outside? Were my parents alive or had they been nuked by the russians? Or did Saddam posion everyone? Was I 21 years old or 121 years old? This degenrated into me on a couch mumbling things like “I’m 6000 years old” “You must be God, because you told me that 3000 years ago!” “Have we met God yet? (Oddly enough, I was convinved God was a female presence, and I’ve never felt that way otherwise.)” To everyone around me, I kept asking the same questions over and over. To me, every time I asked was the first time and I was stuck in a horrible, horrible sense of deja vu that lasted for hours and I thought would never end.

Another time, me and several friends all took identical doses from one batch, and everyone was fine except one friend, whom we almost had to take to the hospital. Kept sweating and then shivering, saying he thought he was going insane, bad stuff like that.

Always be educated - visit a site like erowid.org

Sorry for the complete hijack, but I just wanted to throw that in. Back to lucid dreamind =)

15

:smack: never post before caffeine

sorry for the spelling above

16

Never wanted to really control my dreams, so not sure on that part, but I have woken myself up before. I usually know I am dreaming when I am, but never think to change anything. I just sort of watch me do things. If it gets to the point I don’t like it, I wake myself up. I think I don’t realize I am dreaming untill I want to wake up. I don’t ever have nightmares though, just dreams that bore me or I am not really happy with.

17

I think the definition of lucid dreaming is bad. I often ‘know’ I am dreaming in the same way that I know I am wearing my underpants. But ‘proper’ lucid dreams are closer to the consciousness of suddenly realizing you are not wearing underpants.

In other words, I am sure the majority of people are loosely aware that they are dreaming while not actually having a ‘proper’ lucid dream. Some in this thread have mentioned it. But a real lucid dream is a LOT more than that, it is completely different/better in style, level of consciousness, and quality from a normal dream.

Please - if you say you ‘know’ you are dreaming, but it feels like any other dream - don’t think you are having a lucid dream. you are not.

a better definition of a lucid dream would be - a dream in which you ‘wake up’ but don’t lose the dream imagery and don’t move your body or open your eyes. you wake up in your dream.

18

When I first read an article on lucid dreaming my first reaction was: “you mean there are people who can’t tell that they are dreaming?” I can only remember two dreams where I didn’t know I was dreaming. So I’m afraid I can’t agree with the definition of ‘waking up’ in a dream because I’m never asleep in them.

It’s cool. You can kind of feel what’s going to happen next. And if you can’t avoid it happening (dream direction has a kind of viscosity to it) then you can rerun it as many times as it takes to get the ending you want. Or if you can’t get the right ending, hey, you don’t really NEED those lungs, they’re only dream lungs anyway.

Flying to get away from things is an option, as is teleportation, which feels like the entire world folds into your belly and then unfolds with you in a different location in it.

I usually just let the dreams do what they’re going to do because that lets the dreams hand me whatever information they (I) think I need to have.