Questions about Lucid dreams and your stories

Cafe Society
1

For whatever reason, I decided to look at Youtube vids on lucid dreaming, out of curiosity on how it works, I have heard about it a bunch of times, but never really understood them or how “strong” they are, I just knew that you have more control there in comparison to regular dreams where you don’t have control.

I can’t remember where, but I read somewhere that lucid dreaming is risky due to a possibility of sleep paralysis, the thing where you are semi-awake, but can’t move any muscles, while you have nightmarish hallucinations which last for 20, 30 seconds or more, I can’t say for certain, but I am 99% sure that I experienced this several years ago, either that or an extreme nightmare that resembled it, so due to fear of that I avoided the whole lucid dreaming topic.

Now however I decided to not just watch videos, but also to read comments and many people say that it’s one of the best things they experienced ever, most people of course talk about triple x stuff, but some mentioned that they could feel various senses like drinking soda, that they could have meaningful conversations with friends, that people they talked to in dreams had real emotions,etc. and out of dozens and dozens of comments I read, no one mentioned sleep paralysis, except just one person who didn’t try it, so perhaps I was wrong the entire time and didn’t have what to fear about and now I am thinking about trying to achieve lucid dreaming.

My main concern now is how exactly would I know that I am lucid dreaming and not just having a regular ol’ dream that’s just more vivid than average? Recently I had a dream where I was in a high school, but students around me were mostly my classmates from middle school and some from the high school, I don’t think I had any control whatsoever, but it was pretty vivid and I could recognize many of my friends, let’s say that that was just a regular dream which it probably was, how would I know if it was a lucid one, would I feel like I am awake and that I have full control or what?

Another question, since people keep saying that you can dream about whatever you want, let’s say that you want to go to Hawaii with your friends and you somehow achieve that, could you then transfer to a different setting like Alaska where you are alone, would it be instantaneous and what would happen with the friends you were with in Hawaii? Do they just “despawn” like in a videogame? If you don’t want to change the entire setting, but only want to change a detail in the present location, to have a more expensive car, a swimming pool in your house,etc, how would that work, does it just appear out of nowhere…? Also, can you somehow feel all these things or do you just see them visually like in a average dream?

If you have any personal stories, I’d be more than interested to hear about them, with as much detail as you can remember.

2

You’ll know you’re having a lucid dream when you know that you’re dreaming. It’s the difference between “I know I’m dreaming” and waking up thinking “I had a dream”. Being able to control all the aspects of the dream is part of it, what makes it lucid is that you know it’s happening while it’s happening.

3

That’s right. It’s like waking up within a dream, realizing that you’re dreaming and realizing that you can do anything without actually waking up. That’s what’s meant by controlling the dream. If you want to fly, then fly. Most of the time we wake up as soon as we realize we’re dreaming. Holding on to that dream consciousness is the trick.

4

The master speaks: How do you have lucid dreams? - The Straight Dope

From time to time we have threads on this subject.

https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/archive/index.php/t-122621.html

https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/archive/index.php/t-592218.html

https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/archive/index.php/t-165452.html

https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/archive/index.php/t-372325.html

https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/archive/index.php/t-209535.html

https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/archive/index.php/t-275745.html

https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/archive/index.php/t-553561.html

5

It works like this. You are dreaming. You realize you are dreaming. You try to dream about something you want to dream about. The dream pushes back. But you get partial success.

As a kid, I had nightmares (like most do from time to time). I thought it was nuts that people could essentially torture themselves like that, so I resolved to find a workaround. My eventual standard method was to fly away from whatever threatened me. I never attained high speeds during my nocturnal flights, but at least I was fast enough to elude my manufactured attackers.

Dreams generally are episodic, so segues from one scene to another aren’t unusual and only seem odd after you wake up. I understand that our memory ability is compromised when we sleep.

6

Who is this “Master”, a slave owner, “The Master” from Doctor Who, who is also a bad person,?

Why should we be taking advice from someone who demands they be Titled as a “Master?”

7

Cecil is not simply the master but The Perfect Master.

8

Ahhh, I see. I recall these dream scenarios: would these be lucid dreams?

  • Being very thirsty and wanting a drink, but I can’t because I ( know? ) I’m sleeping. ( similar for the need to urinate )

  • Had this as a school-age kid: On sunday night-to monday morning, “dreamed” I went through a school day, thought, “this is great…monday’s out of the way…just 4 days to go” then abruptly realized the unpleasant and disappointing truth that it was all a dream. All this, within a dream.

9

Well, it would probably depend on the level of, uh, lucidity you experienced while dreaming.

10

I’ve had them since I was kid. Probably a couple times a year. When I was younger I freaked out, as if I couldn’t breathe, and grab the nearest object and yanked on it violently until I woke up.

Funnily enough, first time I realized I was dreaming was because I had a black family (I’m white). I must have watched The Jerk recently (timing is right).

They are more pleasant nowadays, but they still don’t last long as soon as I become aware, maybe a couple minutes. And I can’t manage to do cool stuff like break the laws of physics, they still basically apply in my dreams.

11

Yes, BrickBat, those both sound lucid.

1 - lucid dreaming and sleep paralysis are two totally different things. You can have either or both, but neither one causes the other.

2 - You know it was lucid when you remember the dream and remember knowing it was a dream while you were dreaming.

3 - You don’t necessarily have control of the dream, but you might be able to make some changes.

4 - There are no set requirements for how a dream shifts from one scene to another. I’ve flown. I’ve teleported. I’ve had dreams that took a commercial break. I’ve rerun dreams so that I can stand in a different spot. I had one dream that was a cop show, with all the typical scene cuts. I wasn’t actually in that one.

I will say that dreams have a momentum. If you want to make changes, you’re working against that. Forcing a different location is one change. Whether keeping your friends with you is a second change or not, and therefore requires additional effort, depends on whether the dream associates the friends with the location or whether it associates them with you and what you’re doing.

The positive effect of dream momentum, for me, is always having a sense of where the dream is going before it gets there.

12

Taking melatonin will increase your chance of lucid dreaming.

13

Am I the only one who gets Queensryche’s “Silent Lucidity” stuck in their head everytime they hear about lucid dreaming?

Visualize your dream
Record it in the present tense
Put it into a permanent form
If you persist in your efforts
You can achieve dream control

14

I’m not crazy about the term “lucid dream” because in ordinary language, the same term is used to mean merely a vivid dream. I’ve had lucid dreams (in the technical sense, where I became aware that I was dreaming). Most occurred in a period when I was doing exercises to attempt to have them, mainly by repeatedly asking myself during the (waking) day “Is this a dream?” If you do this so often that it becomes habitual, you may find yourself doing it while you’re actually dreaming. You may come to the wrong conclusion (“No, this isn’t a dream”) – that’s prelucid. If you achieve a lucid state, you can make some changes to the dream, but mostly (in my experience and from what I’ve read) you can only control your own behavior in the dream. You usually can’t just make any arbitrary thing happen, like make new characters appear, or change the setting or environment. I usually can fly when I’m lucid, but not always (sometimes I can only get a few feet off the ground and then come down again).

And yes, there is no relationship between lucid dreaming and hypnopompic paralysis. They are completely unrelated.

15

I made the effort to dream lucidly when I was much younger and with some success. One that still stands out: I was playing dodgeball in middle school and something tipped me off that it was a dream. At that moment, I decided to take flight and began flying around the gym.

More recently, I’ve had a few other lucid dreams which allowed me to escape nightmares. But I didn’t think consciously at the time just what I could do, being aware that I was dreaming.

16

I’m usually aware I’m dreaming when I’m dreaming. Sometimes I want to change the dream, sometimes I actually try to, sometimes I succeed. Sometimes though aware I’m dreaming I just drift along with whatever it’s doing.
Once in a while I start directing the dream and controlling it in detail. Not usually, but I can do it if it occurs to me to try to do it.
The first time I remember a lucid dream I was in 2nd or 3rd grade. In my dream I got up, walked around the corner of the basement from my room to the common room, and there was a carousel there. Very beautiful. I thought “this is very very cool, but I’m dreaming.” Then I got on a carousel horse and rode it off down the street. Conveniently, I could reach the street directly from the basement somehow… :slight_smile:
Several times after that while still in grade school, I would dream some nasty kid from my school was chasing me and would beat me up if they caught me. After running for a while full of anxiety, I would think, wait, this is a dream. Heck with running. And then I’d fly over their head and away. NOTE: I always wanted to fly above the tree tops, but I could only fly about 10 feet up. Probably because I couldn’t picture what the places would look like from tree top level? Not sure that’s the reason, it just sort of makes sense. But an odd thing, nonetheless.

17

Just recenly, I was walking through the doors of a school and found myself thinking: Wait a minute. I’ve never been to or even seen this school before. What am I doing here? Is this a dream? If it’s a dream, I should be able to fly!

And sure enough, I lifted off the ground, and soon found myself soaring through the air in the school’s gymnasium. But, even though I knew I was dreaming, I wasn’t in complete control. I kept drifting higher and couldn’t make myself come back down. I bumped into a wall and got tangled up in a banner hanging from the ceiling. Stuff like that usually happens when I find myself in a “lucid” dream.

The assumption is that you can simply do whatever you choose, and though there are probably differing levels of control one can achieve, I usually don’t direct the action very much even when I recognize it’s a dream.