I dreamt I had a lucid dream

[Luciapath]

So, this is the first lucid dream I can remember having in years. Mostly because I had a phase where I'd suffer sleep paralysis and I really didn't like it, so I guess I always went in with the wrong intentions. However, unlike previous times where I just suddenly found myself in a lucid dream this one was a bit special - if you can help interpret it or have some stories of your own or advice I'd like to hear it!

I dreamt I was near one of my university halls (of course, in the dream, I wasn't actually, I just knew I was). It was cloudy/grey outside. I was on the roof/terrace of some building and there was a lucid dreaming machine. It looked like a small metal box with two long plastic wires that I had to connect to my nipples, if I remember correctly. I knew I was going to be lucid dreaming and connected myself, it went black for a second or so.

Suddenly I found myself flying over a beautiful landscape. It looked like a meadow with lots of flowers that someone had put a photo filter on, so that there was a red/blue glow on the grass (difficult to explain). It was slightly hilly. What made it different from a normal dream was that I had a higher level of awareness, and I was astonished and elated, and I actually remembered some advice I read on the Nexus about how to act. One other thing I noticed that I never do while dreaming is my breathing, and I tried to regulate it so that I wouldn't wake up from being too excited. Then I decided to make some stuff up, so I made up these white horses grazing in the meadow, but as I got closer to them, they turned into white rabbits. Then I made up that I was flying towards a festival, and I knew it was the burning man playa (this time held in a meadow apparently). I saw people walking towards the main bit, but for some reason I decided I'd had enough and asked to be returned.

My normal dream then continued. I remember waking up in front of the lucid dreaming machine and calling my friend and telling him something or other about it. Then I went into the conference venue (see, it's starting to make less sense now), walked around with someone, bumped into a guy I haven't seen for a while, before returning to the hotel I was staying in with my parents. The next morning I went to the market to buy chocolate croissants, which to my dismay only came in packs of sixes, and avocados, of which there was a huge variety. I saw the ones I wanted but I kept forgetting where they were so I kept looking around for them and in the middle went to a nearby music store and listened to some trance on the ipod I'd plugged in. And somewhere in between I met some German person, and I remember talking to them in perfect German and being surprised, since now I take a while to be able to speak it properly because I haven't for so long. I remember thinking: Wow, so dreaming may help me access my German better!


So: What makes me think this was a lucid dream is because it made much more sense than the rest, where I just assumed unquestioningly some of the things that were going on - I was just going along with the storyline rather than creating it. I also felt differently during my lucid dream, kind of liberated, and I remembered things from my real life that I had been told about lucid dreaming. What is strange is that I remember the rest of the dream so well, even though usually I don't, and that there was still an element of self-reflection left, ie with the German speaking. Also I think it's strange the perfect way in which I hooked myself up to the lucid dreaming machine and went in there.

However, I feel as though I didn't get the best I could out of the experience. The reason I probably decided to go back to the normal dream was because I couldn't make up everything I wanted to in the dream, and didn't really know how to use my time there properly. What do you guys do when you find yourself in a lucid dream? Do you try to interpret what happens afterwards using some kind of dream dictionary? Any advice for future voyages?

 

[Luciapath]

Woops doublepost

 

[delta-9]

Your experience sounds very intriguing and complex! I have only lucid dreamed a few times and all of these were when I was quite interested in the subject and was reading Stephen LaBerge's Lucid Dreaming.

A very odd situation I found myself in whilst dreaming was lying down on a mattress as if I wanted to go to sleep (I was already asleep at this point and everything I describe take place whilst dreaming) my body then freed itself and I became a ghost like entity of myself I looked at my sleeping body and said to myself "I am dreaming!" At this point everything became incredibly clear and the dream took on a first person perspective. I could look around, focus on objects with such clarity but there was a strange gold slightly kaleidoscopic veil across my vision. I went downstairs to a where a group of my friends were and I tried to explain what I was experiencing. I walked around the house for a bit, held a face to face conversation with a dream character (which is something I have never done before)and in the end I said "follow me, I will show you my sleeping body to prove to you I am asleep." This time however when I returned to the room where I had left my body I was no longer there and I immediately started to wake up. I tried fighting it but I woke up, in the real world, completely amazed at what I had just experienced.

No lucid dream I have had has last more than about 5-10 mins and I find it is very difficult to stay asleep after I know I am dreaming. I can see some strong similarities between both of our "dreams within dreams" especially the photo-filter effect and trying to explain to friends what we had experienced.

Lucid dreaming is something that probably takes a lot of experience and focus to master but it is something which very much enjoyed doing.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts about the remarkable similarities between our experiences.

 

[UniverseXP]

try pulling yourself out of body. it's very cool happend several times for me. or just stay lucid

 

[Luciapath]

try pulling yourself out of body. it's very cool happend several times for me. or just stay lucid

Do you mean dreaming about being in my room and then walking around or something?

 

[Luciapath]

Your experience sounds very intriguing and complex! I have only lucid dreamed a few times and all of these were when I was quite interested in the subject and was reading Stephen LaBerge's Lucid Dreaming.

A very odd situation I found myself in whilst dreaming was lying down on a mattress as if I wanted to go to sleep (I was already asleep at this point and everything I describe take place whilst dreaming) my body then freed itself and I became a ghost like entity of myself I looked at my sleeping body and said to myself "I am dreaming!" At this point everything became incredibly clear and the dream took on a first person perspective. I could look around, focus on objects with such clarity but there was a strange gold slightly kaleidoscopic veil across my vision. I went downstairs to a where a group of my friends were and I tried to explain what I was experiencing. I walked around the house for a bit, held a face to face conversation with a dream character (which is something I have never done before)and in the end I said "follow me, I will show you my sleeping body to prove to you I am asleep." This time however when I returned to the room where I had left my body I was no longer there and I immediately started to wake up. I tried fighting it but I woke up, in the real world, completely amazed at what I had just experienced.

No lucid dream I have had has last more than about 5-10 mins and I find it is very difficult to stay asleep after I know I am dreaming. I can see some strong similarities between both of our "dreams within dreams" especially the photo-filter effect and trying to explain to friends what we had experienced.

Lucid dreaming is something that probably takes a lot of experience and focus to master but it is something which very much enjoyed doing.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts about the remarkable similarities between our experiences.

Did you ask your friends afterwards whether they thought/dreamt about you that night? I'm going to ask the friend I phoned on skype now!

What I found remarkable about both of our dreams was as you said the dream within a dream effect. I wonder whether that's a common thing or not. Imagine, when we sleep we might be dreaming, but what if our dream person sleeps and dreams? That might be a whole other level of consciousness, and it makes me think about my perspective on lucid dreaming. I had always imagined it to be between dreaming and waking, but now it seems to be even deeper dreaming!

When I was younger I sometimes got these nightmares that I went to school and I was naked, and so I started going to bed by telling myself "it's just a dream", and then once it happened, I could hear myself say it's just a dream... but almost as soon as I realised it was, I was kind of sucked out of it and had to wake up. Last night's experience felt different to that.

In the book that you read, what was written about the uses of lucid dreaming?

 

[UniverseXP]

try pulling yourself out of body. it's very cool happend several times for me. or just stay lucid

Do you mean dreaming about being in my room and then walking around or something?

sorry i just found this again, some people do report that as the way it happens for them.

for me i had an OBE before i ever lucid dreamed. it was shocking, slept in a steaming cabin that night maybe that provoked it but since that if im conscious during a dream thus lucid dream i can manually pull my self out but i remain in my dream.

for you, next time your lucid, try gaining conscious of your body as well then see where it goes from there.

 

[Luciapath]

I had another experience while trying to fall asleep last night.

Surprisingly, I was lying on my stomach - usually I only have sleep paralysis while lying on my back. I think this put me at ease more because I didn't feel the pressure and unease I usually did. I kept telling myself to relax into it, and it felt as though I was relaxing downward into my bed.. then I started to see some flashing lights, and I kept my breath steady but suddenly there was a loud bang, and I could feel myself waking up. My heartrate was going quite fast.

How would you recommend I try to stand up? Should I do it with my body as if I was awake? Or try to direct myself with my mind? Is there any inner dialogue I should have to accompany it or try to keep all thoughts away?

 

[ocelot]

Apparently Guayusa (a common ad-mixture in Ayahuasca which can also be drunk as a tea on it's own) helps to stimulate lucid-dreaming. I've been drinking a lot of Guayusa recently since it also tastes delicious

And had a kind of lucid dream....

Which was quite influenced by a book on consciousness containing a chapter in which the author discusses dreaming and his own experiments with lucid-dreaming at a workshop devoted to the subject in Hawaii (Head Trip by Jeff Warren).

So I was in bed when I suddenly realised I was actually asleep d), although everything looked entirely normal. Remembering one of the exercises from the book to check if you're actually dreaming, I jumped out of bed and hit the light switch (if it doesn't work in the normal way, then you must be dreaming). The switch gave a loud click as light-switches do (although in retrospect it sounded a little too loud and perfect) and I sank back to sleep convinced that I had actually been awake...only the light didn't come on and I hadn't got out of bed.

Funny things minds :d

One point that Jeff Warren makes in his book, is that it's a good idea to keep moving when you realise you're in a dream. If you stay still then the dream is much more likely to dissolve.

 

[ocelot]

Another lucid dream check is to look at your watch - which is a small action to establish that you are in control of the dream.

I tried this once and suddenly remembered that I don't wear a watch (in real-life). As I looked at my wrist however I was wearing a watch. The face was made of slate and without any marks or numbers and as I glanced at it both the hands fell off...

Apparently people who become adept at lucid dreaming can use it to practice skills they're learning (German sounds like a great one!) or simply to experience things such as flying/sex with aliens/anything that you can't do in the day-world.

It's fascinating to hear about other peoples' experiments and experiences in the dream world!

 

[UniverseXP]

How would you recommend I try to stand up? Should I do it with my body as if I was awake? Or try to direct myself with my mind? Is there any inner dialogue I should have to accompany it or try to keep all thoughts away?

it happens in my dreams for me so far. im not sure how it would work in cases with out dreams but in my cases i just float up higher and higher, no walking. eventually i get startled by how far i get so i wake up but next time i intend to just keep going.

 

[delta-9]

Another lucid dream check is to look at your watch - which is a small action to establish that you are in control of the dream.

This was the 'reality check' I used most often to realise I was dreaming. In dreams you will find that if you look at a clock, a watch, a sign or anything which can be read and then look away, very rarely will it read the same when you look back at it. For example if you check your watch and it reads 12:34 and look away and when you look back it reads 06:52 or an impossible time like 05:84 you know you are dreaming and will very quickly become lucid.

If you perform this kind of watch check frequently in waking life after a few days or a few weeks surely enough it will happen whilst you are dreaming, however this time you will notice that you are dreaming due to the incoherent result. Sometimes you will try to reason with yourself as to why it has happened thinking things like "my watch must be broken" or "this isn't my watch" and you will fail to notice the dream marker and will not become lucid, however with practice you will learn to notice these things almost every time.

May I also add this is just one of literally hundreds of techniques to become lucid, and by no means am I saying this is the best or only way to lucid dream, what works for some may never work for others.

One other point of interest is that, from my personal experience, dreams seem to have sort of built in defence mechanism which I do not know why exists. If you have ever told someone in you dream that you are dreaming, more likely than not they will try to convince you otherwise. And in nearly every dream we encounter weird scenarios which we would no doubt question in waking life but in dreams these seem perfectly rational. Perhaps these barriers are put in place by the subconscious to prevent the dreamer waking up at every weird occurrence. What does everyone else think?

 

[ocelot]

One other point of interest is that, from my personal experience, dreams seem to have sort of built in defence mechanism which I do not know why exists. If you have ever told someone in you dream that you are dreaming, more likely than not they will try to convince you otherwise. And in nearly every dream we encounter weird scenarios which we would no doubt question in waking life but in dreams these seem perfectly rational. Perhaps these barriers are put in place by the subconscious to prevent the dreamer waking up at every weird occurrence. What does everyone else think?

Haha! Yes, that hadn't occurred to me, but I think you may be right...

I commonly wake up by slowly surfacing into waking consciousness through a dream. At a certain point, I become aware of my dreams, and then shortly afterwards, I wake up - and instantly forget whatever I was dreaming about. The trick is, I guess, to be able to maintain your aware consciousness without losing the dream. I think this was an ability that Rudolph Steiner developed.

Dreaming has very clear parallels with my experiences in the realms of Spice dreams.

The Spice dream fades very very quickly (it has a profoundly amnesiac quality for me), and unless I make some kind of report straightaway, most of it is forgotten.

I also have a tendency to fall for the "wow!!!" right in the middle of a spice dream, and feel that this blocks aspects of the Spice dream...a friend told me that the spirits had warned him not to fall for amazement or astonishment whilst dreaming.

Any suggestions for remembering dreams would be much appreciated!

 

[Floz]

I believe that dreams are answers to questions we don't know how to ask yet. I used to enjoy lucid dreaming, but then I got bored with it. When I control my dreams I lose access to all the wisdom they provide.

It's like this(for me): Dreaming is photoshop, I'm a noob. I can screw around in photoshop and have fun, or I can hand the controls over to an expert and see him create something amazing.

I used to keep a dream journal, I got about 5 dreams down and then I stopped dreaming for about a month. A dream dictionary? What? I just try to interpret them the best I can. If I can't figure out the meaning at the time then I decide I am not supposed to. It is MY body, after all, that is doing all of this.

When I am dreaming and I become lucid, I find it helps keep me dreaming if I start rubbing my body. The sensation distracts me from the feeling of my bed. Also, if you are not sure weather or not you are dreaming, try stretching your skin.

 

[pau]

some recent research into the lucid dreamworld....without the references to pineal/DMT we sometimes see:
Want to find your mind? Learn to direct your dreams