Practicing more daily awareness means more lucid dreaming?

[Frylock]

Hi all. I practiced meditation/awareness a couole years ago, and noticed my dreams every night were becoming more vivid. I stopped meditating, probably out of complacency and laziness. However, I've been back on the daily mindfulness/awareness thing, and I've once again noticed that my dreams are becoming more vivid, and I'm able to take a clear message from them after I wake up.

Does anyone else have this experience? Why is it that becoming more aware of sensations in our body creates a less clouded subconscious, to where I'm able to remember my dreams better? I guess it should be obvious.. but the fact that becoming more aware in our conscious body has a direct impact of what's happening underneath the conscious level is interesting.

[Joseph Maynor]

I've had some interesting dreams myself lately.  When I wake up sometimes I'll take a few minutes and try to recollect a particularly strong dream.  And sometimes I can recall bits of it.  But a lot of it is usually lost too.  I've also noticed that dreams usually relate to whatever I'm dealing with in reality.  So, thematically, the dream might track something that you've been dealing with -- or maybe certain characters will be there because you've been thinking about them, perhaps subconsciously. 

Edited December 22, 2017 by Joseph Maynor

[Jamie Universe]

I used to practice towards being in lucid dreams, and the techniques were to be aware and ask the question "Is this a dream?" Because in reality you don't know that your not dreaming right now, and you figure it out by pushing your finger through your hand. Also meditation was recommended for lucid dreaming, so this makes sense. 

 

You might want to consider trying/pursuing lucid dreaming. You probably know, but just incase. A lucid dream is where you have control over your current dream, it will feel as real as you looking around right now. You have all the senses (except pain, some people experience pain though, very rare don't worry). And you can do all sorts of crazy shit. You can shapeshift, summon objects, people, places. And even have a dream in 2d. Pretty much anything imaginable.

 

I stopped recently mostly because I realized I was pursuing all these materialist things. But a really cool aspect about it, is that it can be used for personal development to. I've heard stories of people who've asked their subconscious their dream job, or greatest fear. And then later on realized that was true. 

This one guy laughed when he was told his greatest fear was dying alone. But later he was talking to some girl and started crying in front of her because he had a sudden realization of his fear.

 

Also what is this awareness meditation? I'm sort of curious now lol

[Jamie Universe]

1 minute ago, see_on_see said:

Yes, in my experience your level of mindfulness is directly related to how vivid your dreams are. You can see this if you become lucid and try to become mindful of your surroundings in the dream: everything becomes more vivid, and it can get to staggering levels, where the dream visuals are x10 more vivid than normal waking consciousness. You can also become more mindful of dream sounds and sense of touch, which usually doesn't even register in the regular person's dreams.

It can get incredibly rich and beautiful. Sometimes I have lucid dreams where I just end up saying to myself "Holy fuck, this is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen", for example a couple weeks ago I dreamed of incredibly vivid scenery and landscapes that I could have never imagined myself, beautiful and bizarre at the same time, like they were from a different reality. And the greatest thing is that you're there, you know you are in a dream but you are there, you can walk around, move your head closer to objects and things, examine stuff etc. I think dreams come directly from absolute infinity, there's clearly a deep artistic intelligence at work creating some stuff I've seen, as if it was coming straight from the minds of a thousand concept artists combined.

Anyway, being more mindful doesn't necessarily increase the probability of you getting lucid, altho it helps, but there are other techniques to practice for that.

I'm so jealous. Yea I read a reply from Leo the other day on some random post. And everything clicked.

The conversation was about people having moments of being in the zone and having some really great idea for a music album or something. And Leo commented saying something like "Oh yea, that's infinite intelligence at work." and also mentioned how your ego gets in the way of that.

Then I also remembered hearing somewhere, someone saying that creativity was greatly increased during dreams. Then I made the connection.

 

I mean I'm still not 100% sure its the situation but it makes sense from all the stuff I hear about doing nothing vs. monkey mind craziness. 

 

Also I doubt it, but I wonder if enlightenment is somehow possible through lucid dreams. Maybe doing self-inquiry in your dreams is a lot better or something.

[Frylock]

@see_on_see I agree with what you've said! The most intense levels of emotion I feel seem to be in my dreams, particularly when it comes to awe, fear, and joy.

Last week I had a dream where I was in a dark room looking at my hand. It felt so vivid and intense, that I was in a blissful state of awe just looking at my palm. Suddenly, I realized I was dreaming, and I had an intense feeling of fear.

I've had lucid dreams plenty of times, but they usually end with me waking up in a panic state due to sleep paralysis. It's like my sleeping body wants to move like I am in my dream, but activates the paralysis so that I don't wander.

Dreams are wonderful things that connect you to your deepest emotions, sometimes suppressed feelings that we've buried away in our waking life. We get so caught up in our minds, that we lose the feeling of sensations and being alive. I think dreams can help reinvigorate that.

[Jamie Universe]

19 minutes ago, see_on_see said:

It's not that hard to have lucid dreams.

From experience its been hard. I've taken courses/researched stuff, and have tried it for months, quitting and restarting a lot. If there's some secret technique or knowledge, that would be great. I understand for some people it comes easily, but not me.

But in truth I don't know if I will pursue it again. I might later in my life, but for now, I don't really need lucid dreaming for my life's satisfaction.