Lucid Dreaming

[Guest]

6 hours ago, Ayla said:

... Are you present in your dreams

If one looks at it very closely a dream is "you" in totality.   Every character in the dream is "you".  Various situations, problems, etc.,  that failed to work themselves out during the day have left a certain subtle or not so subtle tension within the body and mind and in the dream state certain scenarios or characters appear -  they take on characteristics of particular problems and stresses and so on.   It is a grand theatre where "you" play out the script of the subconscious storehouse of unresolved or soon to be resolved issues, often in distorted or unpleasant forms, and sometimes in very pleasant forms.

Lucid dreaming - as a young person - many times.

Now, even ordinary dreaming is often just a vague, momentary mist of movement.  Lucid dreaming - no more.

As J. Krishnamurti put it -  if the mind maintains order during the day, bringing unfinished things to an end then there is no need for dreaming at all.  Krishnamurti said that he never dreamed in his later years.

joy

 

 

Edited February 10, 2016 by walt

[Hunter Arrington]

Lucid dreaming sounds wild. I'm not sure what it's actually meant to do though. What exactly does it help with? 

[Amir]

Lucid dreams are an amazing experience, did you know it is possible to overcome fears?

 

You ware probably conscious in the dream! Good job!

[Huz]

Ok this has totally got me hooked, anyone know any good references for how to create and control lucid dreams?

@Leo Gura

[NariusV]

A good place to start is with Stephan LaBerge's books. He has several.  Having researched and practiced the topic I kept his material as a reference as it seems the most in-depth as well as easy to understand with step by step instructions, as well as coving what to expect.

Edited February 10, 2016 by NariusV

[Galyna]

8 hours ago, Ayla said:

@Leo Gura

Maybe not directly related to this but out of curiosity and because this is something I'm personally trying to understand the last few days... Are you present in your dreams also? 

I seem to be also watching the dream, knowing it is a dream and enjoying the dream, while I'm dreaming  

 

Ayla,

I saw lucid dreams 6-8 times in my life, how often do you see them? 

Thank you  .

[Ayla]

@Galyna , 

I don't know if Lucid Dreaming is what I am experiencing as I didn't yet have time to look into this topic aside what has been discussed here. 

To answer your question, I am experiencing this for +-3 weeks every night I dream ( +/- 3-4 nights a week). 

The sensation is, as @walt was saying a bit earlier, is that every single person/animal/object/phenomena in my dream, is a manifestation of me that I am perceiving.

As a note, I'm going through a period of serious collapsing of the old paradigm. To understand more about this, read my journal: 

 

 

[Black Flag]

A couple of days before the forum started actually I also began to get into Lucid dreaming. I've been doing the affirmation "I want to Lucid dream tonight" before I go to sleep. Haven't noticed anything much yet although dreams have been easier to recall in the morning in this past week or so. I'm going to get a little notebook tomorrow so that I can start a dream journal.

It would be cool if there was a thread dedicated to journal-ing peoples dreams. Like the self-actualization journals people have on the forum but for Lucid Dreaming. It would make for interesting reading I think!  

[Alen]

Ever since i heard of lucid dreaming for the first time it started happening to me, since then i have had many lucid dreaming experiences, almost consistently.  A lot of the lucid dreaming experiences lasting for hours (or at least that's how it felt to me ) jumping from one dream to the next, multiple times in one night, without loosing consciousness. But also a lot of vague ones, ones that lasted for only a few seconds, and scary ones as well.

Lucid Dreaming for me is a really great experience, and I don't think that it is far fetched to say that it can be an "eye opening" experience. Although they can also be very frightening sometimes. Fear is definitely a very important subtopic of lucid dreaming and should not be dismissed.  Still I believe that it is very much worth pursuing it and I can just encourage people who want this to be part of their lives to do that.  But just like anything in life, attention and care will be required. 
 

It is a little unfortunate that that Leo isn't into this topic ( for now at least ) because I'am sure that he, as smart as he is, could have a lot of fun and really benefit from Lucid dreaming . Anyway, I would really enjoy him sharing his own experiences and thoughts on it. 

I'am also looking forward to sharing and receiving experiences from this forum. This is totally my topic and I'am open for any questions or thoughts  

 

P.S.: I don't mind but I'am not sure if "Alternative Healing" is the right place for this topic 

Edited February 10, 2016 by Alen
the P.S.

[Phrae]

Whenever I lucid dream it's always hard to move, hard to jump. I don't know why this happens it feels suffocating. I don't feel fear but I feel my self pushing pretty hard and unable to do so. I just had one a couple hours ago. I also have ones that I can control stuff but I think whenever it gets to "speed" I seem to slow down.

I can feel my hands on the floor very vividly.

Edited February 11, 2016 by Phrae
more ifno

[Soulbass]

Lucid dreaming is one of my favorite topic !

I'm not regular lucid dreamer but I did few. It is a profound experience to realize you are dreaming, and it can occur to your waking life too.

The book "Are you dreaming" by Daniel Love is perfect for beginning, while "EWOLD" by Laberge is a little bit more advanced.

Check out dreamviews.com, it's a living community

 

[Leo Gura]

15 hours ago, Huz88 said:

Are you planning to make a video on lucid dreaming @Leo Gura. If so let me know so I can get the popcorn ready 

I will at some point, when I get time to experiment more with it.

[Time Traveler]

On 2/7/2016 at 9:52 PM, Clayman said:

... It can be useful, but in my experience I would recommend meditation over it...

maybe one can meditate in a lucid dream and save daytime  

[JustTom]

It's an amazing phenomenon. I've fallen out of it recently because I'm going through a bad period with lower consciousness - which is important for lucid dreaming. In fact the most important one. There are tons of techniques how to do this, but the bottom line is be aware. If in waking life you notice just how things feel, details on objects look and so on, you will notice that in dreams too and that's when sometimes you realize something is out of place.

Uses:
Besides LITERALLY feeling like a wizard the first time you pull this off and being extremely fun, there are therapeutic applications. I have a panic fear of deep water(newborn childhood trauma) and a couple times in my lucid dreams I did try to swim in an ocean. I did feel fear, but I didn't care because I knew I couldn't get hurt. And when I did it I felt so fucking amazing I actually started laughing from happiness in my dream so hard I woke up still laughing. Next time I was near deep water I felt much less fear.

Another use is to revise or practice. You can't learn anything new in a lucid dream because you have no new information coming to your body, but you can combine and revise old information. Doesn't work with text most of the time(super hard to read), but playing a guitar? Absolutely. Practice speaking before an audience? Talking to girls? Martial arts, painting? All of these can be practiced in dreams with significant improvements in waking life. Stephen LaBerge's book has these experiments included.

EDIT: Also, music imagination flows like a river, I can imagine full-blown symphonies with a hundred instruments and compose with my mind. If your dream recall is really spot on, you can remember the compositions and write them down in the morning. This is mind-blowing to me.

 

For anyone that wants to try this: just keep a dream journal and record your dreams everytime you wake up. Literally the first thing, if you can't remember any, just sit on the bed for a couple seconds and try to remember, then write "I don't remember any dreams" and try again next morning. This way you build dream recall, which is crucial. Then you might look into techniques like MILD, WILD and WBTB.

 

Edited February 11, 2016 by JustTom

[Huz]

21 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

As your awareness rises, lucid dreaming becomes more likely from what I understand. So consider it a byproduct of your heavy consciousness work.

So have you had many lucid dreaming experiences?

[TimStr]

3 hours ago, Time Traveler said:

maybe one can meditate in a lucid dream and save daytime  

I heard about people, that accidentally entered a lucid dream state during meditation, because they were too sleepy. But doing it the other way round would be more convenient.

[JustTom]

I'm going to copy what I wrote in a different thread: 
 

Besides LITERALLY feeling like a wizard the first time you pull this off and being extremely fun, there are therapeutic applications. I have a panic fear of deep water(newborn childhood trauma) and a couple times in my lucid dreams I did try to swim in an ocean. I did feel fear, but I didn't care because I knew I couldn't get hurt. And when I did it I felt so fucking amazing I actually started laughing from happiness in my dream so hard I woke up still laughing. Next time I was near deep water I felt much less fear.

Another use is to revise or practice. You can't learn anything new in a lucid dream because you have no new information coming to your body, but you can combine and revise old information. Doesn't work with text most of the time(super hard to read), but playing a guitar? Absolutely. Practice speaking before an audience? Talking to girls? Martial arts, painting? All of these can be practiced in dreams with significant improvements in waking life. Stephen LaBerge's book has these experiments included.

Also, music imagination flows like a river, I can imagine full-blown symphonies with a hundred instruments and compose with my mind. If your dream recall is really spot on, you can remember the compositions and write them down in the morning. This is mind-blowing to me.

As for consciousness work, I don't know. The concept of spirituality is very new to me and I haven't really talked to my subconscious yet. But if you are imagining having a conversation with your hidden self, you might be disappointed - from all the stories I've read it's mostly random storylines(as in the dream "plot") and sentences.

EDIT: the two threads got merged by mods, huh.

Edited February 17, 2016 by JustTom

[Soulbass]

Some people describe very transcendent experiences while meditating in a lucid dream, it's like the brain applify the experience like an accelerating wheel with no friction (it's why nightmares tends to generate more nightmares). If you'r used to meditate eyes closed, keep them open while meditating in a dream, because you could accidentaly wake up yourself by re-openning them in waking life. Once I felt into the "void", I think it was REM stage but witout imageries, I was like conscioussness floating in the middle of nowhere. Some people/yogis can fall asleep and keep lucidity even in deep sleep, that's awesome

Digging deep in subconscious, and creative purposes is why I'm interrested in lucid dreams. I'm not experienced nough to do that, but it's possible to invoke characters that represent parts of your subconscious, and talk with them. Also the brain in slow waves makes connections more easily, between aquired knowledges, so it's cool to find original ideas.

Edited February 11, 2016 by Soulbass

[Anicko]

Lucid dreaming is something I've been able to do since I was a child. However, it's always been unintentional. When I've tried to do it on purpose, I always fall asleep normally. I have accidentally fallen into a lucid dream while meditating, but can't do it intentionally (so far, anyways). 

That said, I am off the opinion that dreams are fun and interesting and can give you insight into unconscious fears and emotions. You can use that information while you are awake to dig into core beliefs and solve problems. I don't believe that you can fix anything by lucid dreaming. You take the information the dream gives you and put it to use awake or you won't see any change. 

[JustTom]

2 hours ago, Anicko said:

That said, I am off the opinion that dreams are fun and interesting and can give you insight into unconscious fears and emotions. You can use that information while you are awake to dig into core beliefs and solve problems. I don't believe that you can fix anything by lucid dreaming. You take the information the dream gives you and put it to use awake or you won't see any change. 

Research suggests otherwise. Read chapter 8 or 9 in the book World of Lucid Dreaming by Stephen LaBerge. He is the head of the Lucidity Institute and the first one to officially scientifically prove lucid dreaming. Research from other psychologists and neuroscientists points to the same findings. Thoughts are much stronger than they seem. I can't think of any research papers right now, but if you still disagree I could look into it.