Lucid Dreaming

[Obi Two Kenobi]

This is really interesting. I have a question though.
How would I know if I'm really Lucid Dreaming? Often times it has happened that while I'm dreaming I feel very awake, I knew I was lying in bed for example, but still dreaming (this happens mostly early in the morning before waking up). I cannot recall if I was able to control actions in my dreams though. Was this it?

[gordanfreeman50]

I Love Lucid dreaming, except that it wears me out mentally. the next day I will be tired as hell and can't concentrate. Will start doing it again after the exams. My dreams are usually about my day, and almost rewriting it with super powers skills etc.

Sometimes my teenage hormones take over and I lucid dream about girls I like but can't be with in real life becuase they have boyfriends. Sad I know but satisfying.

[B4warn3d]

I have had various lucid dreaming experiences in my time, all of which were entirely unplanned and accidental. Also all on various "levels".

My most intense lucid experiences were when I was younger, I usually woke up in the mornings and almost immediately fell asleep again, and it was during this sleeping period where I had my lucid dreams. I was fully aware and conscious in my dream and had full control of the dream's events ect. I remember giving myself Sub Zero powers and freezing our neighbors, was AWESOME.

I haven't been having lucid dreams lately, I blame stress. But I still do get lucid dreams now and then, but without being able to control the dream, I will suddenly become aware that I'm dreaming but as soon as I try to take control of the dream, I just wake up.

[Chippit]

I've personally tried to achieve this many many times over many years, and I've never even managed to get that 'Oh, I'm dreaming' realisation before waking up. In fact, I inevitably wake up without remembering my dreams at all; I can only recall two mornings in the past 6 years or so where I've awoken and remembered what I was dreaming about.

That aside, I've also had two terrifying encounters with sleep paralysis in that time, which has kinda since put me off the idea of trying again.

[nukehead]

I have had quite a few lucid dreams but I have never really tried to pursue them on a conscious level, they have always just kind of occurred. By the same token I have also had some completely absurd dreams that have never become lucid.

The second I am aware of the fact that I am dreaming I just make things appear. Motorbike? Tada! Then I'll toy around on it etc. What often happens though is that the dream will become, for lack of a better description, less lucid and in my attempt to control it again I will wake up. Usually my last thought before I wake up from lucid dreams is something like, 'I shouldn't be concentrating so hard else I might wake...'

That whole seeing the future thing sounds a little far fetched but I did have a similar experience. In 2008 I went with my girl to Monte Carlo whereby we caught a helicopter in from Nice. Once we got to the place we were staying we decided to have a quick nap. Within this nap I had one of the most epic lucid experiences that I can recall. I was flying around Monte Carlo and experiencing a level of detail unprecedented in any of my lucid encounters before. I also thought about waking up on a few occasions without actually waking. When I did wake up and went for a walk around town it was scary how accurate my dream was to the actual layout of the place. I had just attributed this to the fact that the Helicopter ride in had allowed for a greater perception of the place which was just elaborated on in my dream but who knows.

Never thought about having a tell that I am dreaming. I often have naked dreams, in fact I had one last night, so that should be my tell.

[SC(+)PE]

I used to have a lot of nightmares when I was little, sometimes the same one repeated for weeks, until I learnt about lucid dreaming in general. Once I knew it was possible I was able, eventually, to take control and turn the nightmare into something calm. I have, on the rare occasion, managed to take control of a regular dream and have fun with it. Lots of flying, lots of summoning things into existence, but as others have said, you tend to wake up tired. Most the time if I realise it's a dream, I also realise that I don't want to know it's a dream, I just want to let it play out and experience it.

Then when it comes to dreaming of the future or of details you shouldn't know about, most of my family gets infrequent d?j? vu and it's led to some interesting sealed envelopes. The idea being that you write down what you dream of, seal it in an envelope and then get someone else to only open the envelope once the event takes place, hopefully just to blow everyone's minds. So because of that I've always been interested in the topic, trying to focus on those dreams that seem real, that feel significant to try and get enough detail to make use of it someday. Until I dreamt of a death in the family, said nothing and it happened. Left me with a very hopeless feeling, haven't dreamt, or remembered dreaming since. Will post details if anyone wants.

[B4warn3d]

Please do post more Scope, I have heard of various people who use lucid dreaming to "peek" into events that will happen in the future ect.

and for the rest of you who are interested in lucid dreaming.

I used this website to help me become a more adept lucid dreamer.

[pArkEr]

The d?j? vu thing is actually really amazing. Science will, of course, brush it aside as you deluding yourself, or the place or situation you are in strongly resembling a dream, but I don't buy that. There were times were I'd get that d?j? vu feeling, and sometimes I'd predict in my mind what would happen next. Might have been coincidences, hard to say, but there's no denying the fact that there's something almost otherwordly about the dreams we have. My religion categorizes dreams as 'external knowledge', and my spiritual side finds that hard to disagree with.

This is really interesting. I have a question though.
How would I know if I'm really Lucid Dreaming? Often times it has happened that while I'm dreaming I feel very awake, I knew I was lying in bed for example, but still dreaming (this happens mostly early in the morning before waking up). I cannot recall if I was able to control actions in my dreams though. Was this it?

Yeah, I'd say you were lucid. Realizing that you were dreaming is enough, but to take it to the next level requires a bit more practice, patience and determination.

Sometimes my teenage hormones take over and I lucid dream about girls I like but can't be with in real life becuase they have boyfriends. Sad I know but satisfying.

We've all been there man... Worst dreams are when you've just won the lottery or finally got that girl you wanted, only to wake up and be like FFFFFUUUUUUU. Heartbreaking :'(

However, I really want to learn how to do this. I just changed my phone's background to "Are you dreaming?" to remind me to do my reality checks. And everytime I woke up last night, my first thought was "What did I dream?", and I actually managed to remember two dreams. Now I just need a dream journal.

Haha, I had this same idea. I want to use one of the programs that constantly remind you to do the checks, but that's a bit hard when you're in class all day, or writing.

[Grimnebulin]

Please do post more Scope, I have heard of various people who use lucid dreaming to "peek" into events that will happen in the future ect.

The topic of lucid dreaming is a fascinating one, but forgive me for being the potential wet blanket and asking how an exercise in self-awareness suddenly became a supernatural ability?

I'm genuinely not trying to be objectionable for the sake of it, but the little sceptic in me (who never seems to know when to shut his mouth) can't let a comment like that slide without at least highlighting it as questionable. I'm not saying that you believe it, just that the leap from 'I can control my sleep-state' to 'I can see the future' is like flying across the Grand Canyon. I've seen Copperfield do it, and it wasn't that impressive......

[SC(+)PE]

I'll put it down as best I can remember. Tried telling people I know who would believe me, but their replies, while supportive, were pretty dismissive, so I've never actually told anyone details.

About 3 weeks before it happened I woke up sweating, horribly sad and feeling a very strong sense of loss. The feeling that whatever just happened has changed things and life cannot go back to how it was. I tried to recall the dream that had caused the feeling, but only pieces came back. I remember vaguely drifting through a house, it was familiar, but had changed since I last was there, and the atmosphere was nothing like the happy place I knew it as. I couldn't place the house it until I saw a picture, clearly, hanging on a wall in a thin gold frame. Made from cloth; pastel green felt fabrics sewn together in relief to form a scene of female figures in the clearing of a forest. I never liked the image, but now it was as if the feeling of loss, the torture of the whole house was thanks entirely to that picture. I rejected whatever memory came after that. I knew it to be my Mother's sisters house, the picture hung in her living room across from the uncomfortable couch I always found myself in when visiting years before.

I spent the whole day following worrying that one of my cousins was either about to die or was already dead. I convinced myself that I couldn't do anything about it. There was no reality where phoning someone predicting death in their house would go down well. I pushed it from my mind, with moderate success.

To be clear, the family member who died, I never knew him personally. He was fairly old, very wealthy and very close to my one aunt, although I'm still not clear on their relation. He was brutally murdered in his home by someone he trusted. I wont go further into the details of the murder because it made more news than most and would be easy to find.

When I heard the news I was morbidly relieved. It was someone I never knew. The details came slowly, my aunt was very close to him, as were her immediate family. I was sad for her, but I still didn't know if it had anything to do with what I had dreamt, so, hoping not to reveal too much, I asked my mom where my aunt had gotten the cloth picture in her living room from. She stared at me, shocked, but didn't answer. It was a gift from him.

I tried to explain, but while strange dreams and d?j? vu are accepted by my parents, embraced by my dad, nobody wanted to hear. I was told that the information gleamed off dreams is sometimes useful, sometimes avoidable, but never something to feel bad about knowing. With that piece of advice the topic was closed.

As I said earlier, I haven't had or remembered any dreams like that since and I don't think I will so long as I'd rather not know things in advance that should blind-side you.

I don't believe in the supernatural. I don't believe in being able to divine the future, but sometimes the mind ends up with information that it shouldn't logically have and I'd urge you not to believe that until its your mind.

The topic of lucid dreaming is a fascinating one, but forgive me for being the potential wet blanket and asking how an exercise in self-awareness suddenly became a supernatural ability?

I'm genuinely not trying to be objectionable for the sake of it, but the little sceptic in me (who never seems to know when to shut his mouth) can't let a comment like that slide without at least highlighting it as questionable. I'm not saying that you believe it, just that the leap from 'I can control my sleep-state' to 'I can see the future' is like flying across the Grand Canyon. I've seen Copperfield do it, and it wasn't that impressive......

It's off topic, I'll agree, which is why I wasn't going to post details at all, but you can't talk about weird dream-related stuff and not bring up d?j? vu at some point.

On the topic of belief: I've written here things as I remember them, nothing more. If you can find a good logical reason to brush such things aside (questionable human memory is as good a reason as any) feel free. I wouldn't be as altered by the events I described if I had some way of reasoning them.

[Grimnebulin]

Just to be clear, my comment wasn't aimed at SC(+)PE. I can imagine the experience as having been greatly disconcerting and is the kind of experience that can colour one's outlook for many years to come.

My only issue is when 'seeing the future' through dreaming is discussed as if it were the most natural thing on earth, with no acknowledgement of the fact that to reach that particular conclusion, one must dismiss a vast quantity of plausible answers.

[Goraan]

I once had a dream that I was having a dream but I couldn't really make out all the details, I think I had poor reception.

Joking aside though I think the the true attraction that dreaming has for us as human beings is that we don't truly understand it.
Why do we dream? What do our dreams mean?
These are attractive questions to creatures that are driven to learn more about themselves.

As for the idea of precognition in dreams, there are many scientific theories that claim to explain this.

Dreams which appear to be precognitive may in fact be the result of the "Law of Large Numbers". Robert Todd Carroll, author of "The Skeptic's Dictionary" put it this way: "Say the odds are a million to one that when a person has a dream of an airplane crash, there is an airplane crash the next day. With 6 billion people having an average of 250 dream themes each per night, there should be about 1.5 million people a day who have dreams that seem clairvoyant."

via Wiki on Precognition In Dreams

I don't say out right that the idea of having a supernatural ability to predict the future in dreams is hogwash but my pot bellied pig was slightly cleaner after I told him about it.

[Obi Two Kenobi]

Everyone interested in lucid dreaming should know about 'Higher' from Creed. It's an incredible song. To quote Wikipedia:

The song was written after [Scott] Stapp used Lucid Dreaming to stop a recurring nightmare he had been experiencing in which he was pursued and killed by a gunman. In the dream, he would turn left at the end of a highway and hide under a bridge, only to be found by his assailant and shot. When he had studied Lucid Dreaming and tried the technique, he was able to turn right and escape the gunman. Stapp stated that after he wrote the lyrics, he never had the dream again.

[gordanfreeman50]

It is a really amazing ability, being able to lucid dream makes me, as a sufferer of depression feel completely in control of my life. Because for a few minutes everyday I am in charge I can live in the worlds that my imagination creates during the day.

Don't get me wrong I am not a social outcast, but sometimes my peers bore me with endless materialistic discussions, and my mind wanders away, creating characters and alternative worlds, when I dream I can visit these worlds.

But yes @pArkEr it is extremely frustrating when my crush who already rejected me and put me in the friend zone accepts me and then I wake up.

Also is it just me or is it "painful" to be awakened by someone when you are in the middle of lucid dreaming? I feel incredibly tired then, as if the dream is continuing in my mind and I have to be in two worlds at once. But when I actively decide to wake up I am fine.

And sometimes I am not completely in control, and I replay endless rejection from the girl over and over again. Maybe I need more practice and focus.

[B4warn3d]

My only issue is when 'seeing the future' through dreaming is discussed as if it were the most natural thing on earth, with no acknowledgment of the fact that to reach that particular conclusion, one must dismiss a vast quantity of plausible answers.

When I read Scope's post, It doesn't sound like lucid dreaming at all. Rather a precognition.

I haven't discussed "seeing the future" as if it were a natural thing at all. In fact, if you read my post, I stated that I heard/read about various people using lucid dreaming in order to enhance their so called "psychic" abilities and wanted to hear Scope's story. That is about it.

Thanks Scope for sharing your story.

I find the supernatural a very interesting phenomenon. Even though there are people who have written various theories on dream precognitions as quoted by Goraan, Some dreams or visions just cannot be explained. Using scope's experience, the emotions felt and the fact he dreamed about that very specific green pastel picture and it leading to predict the death of a person he never knew but was still close to the family is extremely intriguing to me.

[Grimnebulin]

I haven't discussed "seeing the future" as if it were a natural thing at all. In fact, if you read my post, I stated that I heard/read about various people using lucid dreaming in order to enhance their so called "psychic" abilities and wanted to hear Scope's story. That is about it.

I find the supernatural a very interesting phenomenon. Even though there are people who have written various theories on dream precognitions as quoted by Goraan, Some dreams or visions just cannot be explained. Using scope's experience, the emotions felt and the fact he dreamed about that very specific green pastel picture and it leading to predict the death of a person he never knew but was still close to the family is extremely intriguing to me.

You misunderstand me, but that's probably because I could have been clearer. I wasn't alluding to you or Scope talking about 'seeing the future', but rather the various people you referenced. I was simply chiming in, as the discussion was moving toward a highly unsubstantiated topic.

Scope's story is an intensely personal one, and despite what my own theories would be, it's not really my place to comment. The supernatural will always be a fascinating and divisive issue, but without hijacking the thread, I'm just saying Occam's.

[nukehead]

I don't believe in the supernatural. I don't believe in being able to divine the future, but sometimes the mind ends up with information that it shouldn't logically have and I'd urge you not to believe that until its your mind.

I find occurrences like this fascinating as it stirs the skeptic in me to no end.

Now I am not saying that this is the case in your dream but I find that the context within which the dream takes place, as in the waking life time and place, leads us to ascribe more or less meaning to the dream. As an example, I once had a dream where my mother and myself were driving in her car and we were talking away when all of a sudden we went crashing straight into a green Palisade fence, waking me up instantly. I managed to look at the time and it was around 3:00am.

Not really a significant dream until later on that day when my mother called me and told me that my brother had had an accident at about 3:00am that day. He had lost control and driven through a green Palisade fence. Now that dream has intense meaning for me as the timing and subject matter of the dream are so close to the actual events that transpired. I can't explain the coincidences and again the skeptic in me says there has to be a logical explanation but it is difficult to not say there is something supernatural about this occurrence.

Although my brother was in quite a few accidents when I was younger, more than five, and I have had many dreams whereby I am in a car accident, although it usually is a case of the car doing its own thing and I am usually not the passenger, so it can very easily be attributed to the me giving the dream more meaning because of the context.

[SC(+)PE]

Scope's story is an intensely personal one, and despite what my own theories would be, it's not really my place to comment.

Intensely personal, perhaps. It did mess my logical world up a little, but I'm on a forum, you're on a forum, of course it's your place to comment, I'd be keen for the discussion, wouldn't be offended. Unless we'd rather keep this strictly on lucid dreaming. After all, lucid dreaming is very much a real skill we can all develop, precognition in any serious scientific discussion is fiction at best.

Although my brother was in quite a few accidents when I was younger, more than five, and I have had many dreams whereby I am in a car accident, although it usually is a case of the car doing its own thing and I am usually not the passenger, so it can very easily be attributed to the me giving the dream more meaning because of the context.

I'd like to think this is most often the case. Drawing connections and patterns where there aren't any is pretty standard human behaviour. Just ask astrologers.

Edit:

I stated that I heard/read about various people using lucid dreaming in order to enhance their so called "psychic" abilities

I missed that. It irks me when people claim to be psychic, mostly because of my own experiences, but when they claim to be psychic at will, that's just silly. Until psychics start winning the lotto I refuse to believe they have any control over their "ability", through lucid dreaming or otherwise. Although this at least brings my post on topic.

I have heard, and am more likely to believe, that people can use lucid dreams to think more clearly in order to solve problems and make decisions, much like meditation I suppose. Would be a very useful skill indeed if you could put dream time to problem solving use.

[Grimnebulin]

Intensely personal, perhaps. It did mess my logical world up a little, but I'm on a forum, you're on a forum, of course it's your place to comment, I'd be keen for the discussion, wouldn't be offended. Unless we'd rather keep this strictly on lucid dreaming. After all, lucid dreaming is very much a real skill we can all develop, precognition in any serious scientific discussion is fiction at best.

Well said. I think the thread would be best served by keeping it on topic, but I'd be happy to continue the discussion in PM, although by the sound of it, you've analysed your experience closely and toying with the idea of precognition was not the first port of call. As nuke and Goraan have both said, many of these experiences can be attributed to existing flaws in human perception, and when coupled with confabulation and the positivity effect, it becomes a potent recipe.

[Toxxyc]

For some reason whenever I realize I'm dreaming the dream escalates to such a point that I eventually kill myself and wake myself up just before dying. Then I wake up with w/e got hurt in the dream actually being sore in real life. It's excellent, I love it, the adrenaline when you wake up is something else.

Mind over matter at it's best, I say.

EDIT: "Kill myself" isn't meant in the depressing sense though. I just do crazy ****, like jump off a building or go on an extreme speeding spree and eventually it all end badly. Like you would do in a video game, do crazy **** just to respawn and retry.