Lucid Dreaming

Lucid dreaming is probably the best thing ever. You get to take control of your subconcious and manipulate the dream world into whatever you want.

Basically, lucid dreaming is being able to realize that you are dreaming then proceeding to take control of the dream and do anything.

No, I don't believe it leads to sleep paralysis, that has to do with your mind waking up or sleeping before your body realizes it's awake/sleeping. What happens is that your subconcious mind takes over while you are still in a transitional stage of waking or sleeping so you can't move, and often (because your subconcious mind has a weird sense of humour) you see images that seem real like monsters or something. It's not permanent, just disconcerting if you have frightening images like that.

Some people can lucid dream without trying, but most often it needs some sort of mental training of some sort. First thing to start off with is remembering as much about your dreams as you possibly can, the memory recall is important. The next step is focusing on an anchoring part in your dream that will trigger your mind into realizing it's dreaming and allows you to take over. Sometimes it's something like the moon, or something as simple as your hands. You normally don't see your hands when you dream so when you dream, look down at your hands and you may realize that you are dreaming.

I've come close to lucid dreaming, the best I can do is rewind dreams if something happens that I don't like in them. I haven't completely managed but then again I haven't really been trying. I think it sounds really interesting, like living a double life, except you can do whatever your heart desires. In fact, I think I'll go try lucid dreaming right now.

 

I have a form of this, and I hate it!! :tears: It's so scary!! I've had it since I was little where if I wake up in the middle of the night or am tired enough I'll be in a state where I hear/see things that aren't really there! It feels like I'm awake, but I've had conversations that don't really exist, or I'll be looking at something/someone as hard as I can and it looks real, but it isn't. It's freaky!!

Does anyone have any good experiences they could share?

 

I have suffered from sleep paralysis a few times when going to bed, however I never suffered from sleep paralysis while I was training myself to lucid dream. In my case, the only thing I did to lucid dream was keeping a dream journal and doing reality checks constantly. I used the digital watch reality check. If the time changes suddenly or you can't read the time, that means you're dreaming.

As for the experience, it is a very cool experience. The first time I had a lucid dream I used it to meet a crush I had on a classmate at that time. So the first cool thing was realizing that you had some control over your dream. The next amazing thing was realizing how real the dream felt. I remember that at some point I was just staring at my crush's face and thinking to myself, "wow, his face looks so real". In fact a little bit later I had to do another reality check because the dream looked so real that I thought I could have mistaken reality with a dream.

 

The idea of dream recall isn't meant to find common themes, it's just to get your brain used to keeping a memory of dreams in the real world so it will help you focus while you sleep. That is probably the best way to start.

To do something like look down on your hands or see something that might trigger your realization that you're in a dream comes down to subconcious hints that you give yourself to help you. This is the part I'm stuck at.

I'm not sure what that was about, but I've had that happen to me a few times.

@Noir: My younger brother used to do something like this. He'd get up and have conversations with us when he was still sleeping or even go to the washroom. My parents called that a form of night terror but I'm not 100% certain that's what it was.

 

Idk if this is true, but I'd be cautious with Lucid Dreaming. I heard somewhere that some people get so good at lucid dreaming (and their dreams are so much better than reality, but it feels like reality to them), that they purposely sleep more so they can be in their dream world and not have to face reality. I think it has links with depression or something. So don't get caught up in the fact that the dreams start to feel so much like reality, or you may wish you lived in your dreams.

 

I've always wanted to try this

 

As someone who has a brother who's lucid dreaming as I type this, it's true...

 

The whole time I was reading this I was thinking about "Inception". I Lucid dream every now and then. I haven't mastered it yet, but I am getting used to it.

 

Something that really causes some wicked dreams is ZMA:

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Bananas work as well.

 

I wish I could, but with how weird my sleep habits work, nothing I've tried has worked so far...it sucks too.

 

I used to lucid dream all the time and I pretty much do still every now and then (every few nights). My trick is that when I first lay down and close my eyes, I'll start counting in my head, "1 I am dreaming, 2 I am dreaming, 3 I am dreaming" and so on. The trick is that when you fall asleep you're still counting, so say you'll count in your head, "73 I am dreaming" and then realize you're dreaming.

It's a really cool thing to experience once in a while when you just feel like doing whatever you want. I've never had a bad experience happen with it and I really enjoy it. :3

Yeahh I know that was a bit irrelevant. Just thought I'd share my story. ^^

 

Hmmm maybe something I'll think about trying Crystal though wouldn't it make it harder to fall asleep because when you're falling asleep it's better for your mind to not be actively thinking because then it's still going? :S

 

Similar topic, has anyone tried astral projection?? or OBE? ( Outer body Exprience )

I'd think they have some sort of connection.

 

Ive had a Lucid dream once, which was a nightmare but during it I realized I was dreaming when illogical/strange things were happening (ppl being killed and then coming back to life) and all I wanted was to wake up, which I did by killing myself in the dream. This was way before Inception came out, and it made me laugh when they were talking about dying in the dream will cause you to wake up. Lol I tried a dream diary after reading up about Lucid dreaming but it's never happened again.

 

Come to think of it, I had lucid dreams when i was a kid, where I killed myself to wake up, but I ended up waking up in a dream!!, it was crazy!!

But now my dreams are plain boring, and I always forget them.

 

Lucid dreaming is amazing but it's hard as shit to do. You need to be a stubborn bastard with trying, and diligently record all your dreams first thing when you wake up (to build your recall). I fall in cycles where I do it, and don't do it.

 

Take NyQuil before bed?
Kidding, I actually don't know, after a while I was sort of subconciously counting if that makes a difference, I just kinda forgot I was counting but I still was. I never really thought of the possibility that it'd make me have trouble sleeping because I haven't had trouble sleeping doing it before, lol. It's still worth a try, and if it doesn't work, maybe you could do a bit of research on it?