hey y'all, this is the lucid dreaming thread! here be discussion of all things of and related to lucid dreaming. if we already have a lucid dreaming thread, though I don't think we do, please let me know.
that sounds really interesting! I may look into that myself, but if you find out more information, please do share! yeahhhhhh, that urban legend used to scare me so bad as a kid :/ it was awful. it would bother me so much if my body was like that; I enjoy having a fixed identity so that I always know who I am, in a sense. hehehe. c: ahhhh, that's probably what it is then. I should learn that language, somehow. heh. my way is generally to try and be helpful while also picking the side I think is right in a particular situation; so I think I've got it figured out all right then. they can be very cool, but they can also be very sad, and they also scare me a bit ever since the ghost girl trapped me and almost drowned me in one of them. but I definitely think going to these worlds is important to me, so I'm going to explore that! also, if it's my SC giving me an info dump, it needs to get better about specifics. I so rarely am able to actually know what happened in a place, it makes it somewhat more unsettling. ahhhhh, that would make sense! yeah, the first kid's not as bad as I make him out to be; he's all right sometimes, he's just a general nuisance and he doesn't cause much harm. the other two were...not fun, and I sincerely hope they do not come back until I am well prepared to deal with them. for me there are seven that I know of; there could be more, but I am currently of the opinion that the ones I am aware of are the only ones I need to worry about. and none of the planes are strictly good or evil themselves, just kind of there and different, like you said. it's more the beings that live in them that I tend to class as either good or evil, even though they don't consider themselves good or evil; I guess a better way to put it would be benevolent and malicious? some are directly out to hurt people, malicious, while others are directly out to either help people or leave them alone, benevolent; and then there are those in the gray areas, who want what they want, and don't really care if they hurt people or not, and may end up hurting people at times. and they have their reasons for wanting these things, but my concern is always less with why they want it and more with what they want and how they aim to get it. are they going to hurt people? gotta stop 'em. and I know they're not other dreamers; they feel different from them. I don't believe they're actual mythological angels or demons, but I think that's what the majority of people call them, so that's what I refer to them as. the things made of "nothing" that want "something" sound very interesting. I've never encountered them, but I kind of want to now, it sounds like it might be an interesting experience. as for the shadow things, for the most part, they just want to exist physically; interestingly enough, they always tend to be more benevolent than anything else, although I've encountered a few that were going to hurt people in their aims. even more interesting, it seems to be the ones who people would consider angels who are more often likely to hurt people in their aims, either deliberately or unintentionally. which is fascinating to me because angels in mythology are always protectors and avengers, not so much like the ones I've encountered, while demons in mythology are usually out to corrupt or hurt people, unlike the ones I've encountered. that's part of why I'm more uncomfortable calling the energy beings angels and demons; while there are shadow classed beings and light classed beings, they've never struck me as similar to their mythological counterparts, and I think the only reason people might consider them angels or demons is because of how they appear physically. I appreciate the idea of believing there must be some good in everyone, but I also firmly believe that there are some people and beings who, at some point, just got so malicious in their intentions that there's not really any going back, and now I just gotta stop 'em, whatever it takes. that might just be my personal canon though, like you mentioned. those sound like more standard demons; the ones I've encountered IRL were similar to that, and I've had to get rid of demons IRL but never in dream. the ones I've encountered in my dream canon...they tend to exist on multiple planes at once, but they also tend to be benevolent, or even sometimes helpful, which is why I'm hesitant to class them as 'demons' per say, even though I think that's what a lot of people consider them. I prefer to call them shadow beings and light beings than angels and demons, and as a whole I am comfortable referring to the group as energy beings, because they're made up of quite a bit of energy. the light beings also tend to exist on multiple planes at one time, or one to two planes away from what I think you would call standard, and they generally try and do whatever they feel like doing with no regard for anyone else's safety, up to and including directly hurting people because they feel like it. o.o wow. I've never done anything that big; how'd it work out? was everyone all right? I shall practice with this skill! but also be careful with it while practicing! I don't think they're overly common....at least, I really hope not. I am also very glad I beat her; I don't know what would have happened otherwise and I honestly don't think I wanna know. yeahhhhhhh I'm gonna wait on that one until I'm suuuuuuuuuper confident that I could do that. last time it just gave her more power; I'd rather not go through that a second time.
Please enjoy one of the entries from my Dream Log. The people who show up were my close online friends at the time, except for that guy. Spoiler Riding around in trams and a car segued into arriving at a small cottage somewhere in a rural area. The driver and passenger got out and learned some kind of conference was taking place here. And my name is on the list, along with Phydeaux and a few other people I know online! After a bit of wrangling, the two people sign a NDA and head inside... I'm looking around the modern convention center, and suddenly notice two girls - one of them is a classmate of mine from the Uni - talking to a kindly old Asian man in, of all things, *French*. "Sheldon?!" I ask. It is, indeed, the man behind the good doctor Lightsider. We chat a bit, and I wonder about the large number of people who I know from online. A woman who seems to be in charge here shows up and tells us to get to our seats. We sit in rows of chairs as a large TV screen lowers from the ceiling and plays a commercial entitled "Why I should be President" featuring our host. Somehow dissapointed that this is all there is to the big mystery, I lean towards the guy in the seat next to mine and chat him up. He's Polish like me, and quite cute. His name is Tomek. He tells me he's been here before and also met a lot of his online aquaintances. Next on the list appears to be a tour of the building. As everyone follows the woman, I notice an open door leading to a small auditorium with a raised stage. Curious, I slip inside. The woman notices, but apparently mistakes me for someone else, as I hear her calling out that I'll have plenty of time to inspect the instruments later. I notice another door and go through, finding myself in a small office. The woman catches up and asks to stay with the tour group. I ask her what sorts of terrible secrets she keeps in here, and she pulls out a thick binder from a drawer. "Several of my co-workers have been brutally murdered", she tells me matter-of-factly, "and I have evidence that something shady is going on. If you go snooping around here, your life may be in danger." I don't believe her, but at that moment Tomek comes in from the auditorium and kills her - forcing a capsule of poison down her throat. I back up against the wall, too shocked and frightened to scream, but he doesn't seem to notice me. He leaves, and I slip out the front door into the coridoor where some men in suits are telling the rest of the visitors to follow them. As they lead us down some stairs and through a wood, I catch up to Sheldon and explain to him in a hushed whisper everything that just happenend, and that I'm really scared I might be killed any moment. He listens thoughtfully, then says "I may need to work on some unofficial channels. Don't worry, I promise you'll be safe." Then he slips off into the bushes on the side of the road. Tomek catches up to me and asks me some questions about Sheldon, as if nothing happened. I quickly go off on a tangent, and blabble about unimportant things, at the same time noting with alarm that I've lost sight of the rest of the visitors and I'm currently all alone in the woods with a cold-blooded assasin. I try to get away, but Tomek catches up to me, and then oddly eough tells me "It's not worth killing you". I'd rather get out of there before he changes his mind. I stalk off into the tall grass, make myself scarce... ...and then I'm a tiger, stalking through tall grass, not a care in the world. I'm a predator, I'm on top of the food-chain, and I'm also hyper-intelligent and able to play online games. People never believe me when I tell them I'm a tiger in RL, but it's true... I'm running around happily when suddenly, I step into a summoning circle of sorts. The sky goes dark, and figures in white and black robes appear around me. (The narrator compares the feeling to "watching several seasons of the A-Team all at once".) They tell me they used to be all my online friends, and we're all dead, except I reincarnated as a tiger while they ascended to energy form. I think that my current situation is pretty good, but I still ask them what I can do to ascend like they did. But their speech turns to gibberish, and suddenly the scientist who takes care of me shows up and everything returns to normal. The robed figures are gone and the sky is normal again. The scientist lady takes me to a hospital, where a nurse gives me an injection. For a moment, I notice the nurse is kinda cute, but then I realise I'm a tiger now so humans shouldn't appeal to me. Then the drugs kick in and I pass out. I awaken again after what seems just a moment, but considering the nurse is gone and my head feels clear, it has to be a while later. I suddenly notice I'm human again. "How did this happen? Was being a tiger just a dream?", I briefly wonder, then pull on a bathrobe and head to the small bathroom next to my bed. I suddenly notice him in the corner - sitting on the dirty clothes basket, making a hiss of pain. About half of his right ear is covered in gooey white spray-on-plaster. "Close the door", he says when he notices me. I do so, then rush over to his side. "What happened?" "I had a run-in with our mutual friend", he explains. "He's left me this to remember him by. He won't be bothering you anymore... We both died today." I take this to mean that he killed Tomek and faked his own death, probably with some help from whoever he works for. "I'm still confused", I admit. "Who am I? I think I'm Meagen, but..." "You're Meagen, you always have been. You've been a test subject in their experiment for quite some time, and it's a testament to your mental strenght that you can still remember your original identity." "And you...?" "Well... obviously, most of what I told you about myself was a cover story... about the only thing that's true is that I really was a Mormon missionary at one point." The man I've known as Sheldon Marumoto grins. "You can call me 'Dr. Lightsider'."
I always associate lucidity in my dreams with an entire lack of control over the situation. The only times I've ever known I was dreaming I was stuck in dreams that I couldn't wake up from. What's worse they were the sorts of dreams where I woke up into other dreams. So when I finally woke up I felt incredibly fucked up and was paranoid for a good hour or more. I never really run into anyone else who has experiences like that...People normally have fun with knowing they are dreaming.
yay someone else who has had the terrible thing happen to them It is sadly the only way I ever lucid dream.
awww, I'm sorry. it doesn't often happen with me, and it mostly happened when I first started to lucid dream; it hasn't happened much since the early days.
I'm not quite sure which of the dreams I've posted in the Dreams thread count as LD (maybe all of them. maybe only one of them. been a while) I have a feeling it was the one I posted about most recently. And the zombie dreams of course. which I haven't posted but will probably put here, since I'm almost certain they were all lucid. I remember those dreams the best anyway. Spoiler: this one was fun Another thing that happened once was that I was in this place with a lot of stuff built into cliffs and underground rooms and stuff. The beginning reminded me of minecraft, at least some parts, very cubelike and I remember seeing planks and cobblestone. I was first in a castle of sorts? It was very nice looking. That part wasn't mine crafty, just pretty. I was in a bathroom and then I went through a bedroom and down a hall and ended up in the exit (this was all built into a mountain). Walked across a wooden bridge to where I could see a village (not like a minecraft village, more like a normal looking one) but then I miss-stepped or something and fell into a cave :/ There were some skeletonsss...kind of? they pinged me as a mix of skelly and zombie but I feel like that wasn't right either *shrugs* so they were shooting at me with actual guns and I was like 'fuck no' and grabbed a few dirt blocks and then ran to a side passage and blocked them off. But the guns could break blocks so immediately after i slapped down the dirt to slow them down I hauled ass. I ran for a while till I felt like i outran them and then dream-panic wore off and I noodled around in dream-curious mode (I really like exploring in dreams when i can). I started seeing these shapes in the walls, like indents of swords mostly? I can't remember super well. Then I bumped into this guy who was super nice and gave me good vibes and he wore bluish robes and had a long white beard and I refer to him as Gandalf tho that probably wasn't his name, but its my dream, so I get to name him. Ahem. So he chats to me about these swords and kind of implies that it'd be a good idea for me to make one myself. So I'm like 'ok' and we say adeiu and part ways and off I trot. I'd like to point out that the stone in this part was a warm beige or a grayish tone. There were pillars and bridges and passageways but I never felt confined. And I remember warm, sunlight'ish light in parts so perhaps part of it was outside. *shrugs again* Anywayyyyys i come across a sword that almost looks finished and I'm like 'yo, this one looks well made, think I'll finish it' and I reach out and touch it and that's where shit got a lil creepy. (I should mention that the markings that looked like sword indents were the 'finished' swords, but this one was more like an outline and some details had been carved into the stone. It wasn't 'empty'.) The sword talked to me. In my head. It started out friendly, like 'hey, thanks for grabbing me, we're gonna have a blast, you seem cool and I know I'm cool so let's do this' but I was like hmmmmmmm because I wasn't sure about his vibe, it was mega off, and he started (yes the sword had a sex, shush) to get desperate and kinda fussed at me like 'nonononono i'm cool, stop thinking that, it's fine, don't leave me here, no don't leave me, don't you dare, you'll regret this' and yeah, creepy, so I was like 'ehhhhhhhh see ya never' and took my hand off and waltzed away like a smart little cookie. That sword was bad news. i dunno what he was planning but I was having none of it. So shortly after that I go into this little roomlike alcove and the walls are all blank and I remember kind of following my instincts at that point. I just Knew What to Do. It was cool. I stood in front of a wall and raised my hand. Then I focused my mind a bit and my hand gained this neat blue aura. I reached out and began to stroke the wall with my fingers, a simple shape, starting with the blade. I spread my fingers and thumb and pressed them onto the wall, then smoothed up to a point where I brought all my fingers together. Then I went down, retracing the lines and then formed the hilt. I remember retracing the shape a few times, kind of in a happy, calm, focused daze. I smoothed away all the bits that seemed unnecessary. Then when it looked Right I just reached for the hilt and...pulled it out. The sword was really just a longish dagger. Maybe seven inches or so not including the hilt? The blade itself was this gorgeous sparkly blue crystal, not the clear kind of crystal though. Then the hilt was simple as well, and looked like gold that's old? It had a warm patina, even though gold never oxidizes or something but eh. Super cool dagger, I was proud. I woke up shortly after and remember feeling accomplished and pleased. And then I gave it to my favorite OC. I'm not one to waste a cool weapon. Gonna post some other time with a few nightmares that stood out to me. Get ready for zombies. Freaking zombies. You guys. Have no idea. How tired I am of those things. They can suck it. Also, scanning kind of confuses me? For me right now its more of a gut instinct. 'I can trust you, but you I will keep an eye on, and you I'll straight up kill/beat up right now. Don't care if people see. You give me the willies for some reason.' People only rarely try to stop me physically. Its more that they'd look unhappy or try to talk me ut of it but I am generally in action-mode and do not care. I'm the dreamer. Ya'll shut up. Kinda rude now that I think about it XD And the 'don't know the language yet so here's the info' thing makes sense. I've never felt like they were trying to 'talk' to me though. How do I begin to learn the language? More paying attention?
i've been lucid dreaming since i was around five years old. i taught myself how to lucid dream in order to will away my recurring sleep paralysis, although i didn't know it was called lucid dreaming at the time. i had discovered willing myself awake was impossible in that state of dreaming, so i instead willed myself into a more dreamlike, surreal sleep where i could move. once i mastered this, i then beat the shit out of my hallucination. i currently can have extremely high control over my dreams when i feel like exerting the willpower; i can even write my dreams' narratives if i wish. i cannot be killed since i don't care about injury, and can will myself any abilities i wish, so i am essentially the goddess of my own little world
I don't remember ever getting injured o.o even when fighting. It's like nothing happened and I certainly don't remember feeling pain during those times.
Yay! Thanks! :D Will do. I think I might have a book that mentions it, but I haven't read it yet. My friends recommended it to me the last time I went to a LDing conference with them. The conference was an intimidating experience, mostly because one of my LD famous friends was a bit more famous than I expected. All the scientists knew her, a movie producer took her and all her friends out to dinner and begged her to use her LDing to write a movie script for him based on certain themes (we weren't sure how to tell him that 1) she wasn't a writer and 2)LDs might not work the way he thought they do). He turned out to be kind of a weird producer--the only other movie he'd made had terrible reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. It was supposed to "make the audience feel like they were dying." .__.; He also offered to pay for her to stay in the US an extra week so her scientist friends could finally get a brain scan from her, but that didn't end up being doable. They just did it in Europe later on, I think. That was my first dream-focused conference. I'm not good with crowds or cameras (a news station filmed the LDing panel and later never aired it since their goal turned out to be an attempt to make fun of LDing and calling it fake and we were talking too much science because there were freaking scientists in the room and one of the panelists who, I think, was a participant in the first study that proved that LDing was real), so it was a bit much for me. That friends and the one in the dream sharing study are both inviting me to go back, but IDK if I wanna. I do want to hang out with them again, but IDK. It also turned out to not have much about LDing even though they invited famous LDers. There was also a lot more spiritual dream stuff than I was comfortable with. I think I would have been fine with that if there were more panels that focused on the science of dreams and studies and stuff. Man, one lady even made fun of LDers and called them fake. I'd seen that in forums when people hadn't done research yet, but it was not fun to hear someone saying stuff like that at a conference where you could cite these things by walking down the hall and asking people who were actually part of the scientific history of LD study. Sorry, anxious rambling my way so far off topic. I have a long time to make this decision, but it's already troubling me. D| It didn't trouble me very long. My first dream death was when I was about eight. |D; Makes sense. I'm not sure what advice to give on how to do so since I only know one other person who might know it. My sample size isn't very large for this. >.o I do know that learning and mastering scan was the first step for both of us. Yes c: Drowning dreams are scary. :c I've had a couple lucids where I was drowning in dreams and reached out to my real body to reassure myself that it was fine and the not being able to breathe thing was in my head, but then found that my body wasn't breathing either because it was dumb and thought it needed to hold its breath. -__- Maybe try asking the universe (AKA your SC) out loud for the info you want and see if it gives it to you. I like that more, even though they mean pretty much the same thing, because those descriptors sound more associated with past actions rather than being about classifying something as a whole. Either way probably works fine. I just get picky about minor details that don't matter as much as I feel that they do. >.< This way of describing them makes a lot more sense to me. The "why" is usually an important thing to me. I can use that info to find another solution to the problem since I prefer non-confrontational methods. I know what you mean! This is also a scan thing. People who might maybe be other dreamers feel completely different. Gods also feel different. So do DCs of varying skill levels and etc. Everything has a different feel to it. Ahhh, okay. You might not want to. They can't be reasoned with, they're fast, they're dogged in their pursuit of "somethingness," and the only method that I've found works on them is to purify multiple layers of a place. .__.;; Interesting. My SO knows a lot about biblical lore. One thing he's mentioned a lot is that angels don't look or act the way they're usually represented in popular media. He said the angel in the second Hellboy movie was actually one of the most accurate representations he's seen in media so far. He's drawn a lot of angel art (creepy stuff--the pieces I best remember have lots of wings and eyes), but IDK where it is right now. I can ask him if he'd like to share or nerd about this if you'd like him to. I think he knows a lot about demon stuff too, but maybe not as much. I need to ask. Biblical lore has never been my favorite out of all the mythologies. It just hasn't caught my interest as much for whatever reason. That's fair. There are times when I'm not skilled enough to settle something peacefully (Ex: First encounter with the jerk), so I've had to resort to that at times. I've also spent so much time on honing a pacifist style that I guess it's hard for me to think about handling things in other ways. >.<; Interesting. Yeah, this sounds like a difference in cannon. It's cool how there are similarities (layers of planes) but also big differences based on our different styles (different things on/in those layers). Unless the inhabitants o the other layers turn out to be what my cannon calls "gods." It'd be interesting to see if they could the same thing, and our cannons just have different terms for them. :D Also, IRL demons? <:c Everything turned out fine and I got to teach one of the worrywarts how to heal idiots who used their bodies as fuel. |D First barrier was to prevent a zombifying plague from ever reoccurring. Second barrier was to keep the demoness from ever being able to return to that world. Third barrier was general protection because why not? I'd be interested to hear how that goes! I'd love more data on how people learn and use scan. :D Good. o_o; Good plan! That sounds really scary. It also reminds me of a more recent Doctor Who episode that I wasn't a big fan of. :c Lucids are just dreams where you know you're dreaming. There are no other requirements for a dream to gain classification as a lucid. I do know people who classify semi-lucids as dreams where you know you're dreaming, but are still able to be convinced that weird dream things aren't weird. Dream control doesn't actually fit into any measure of lucidity--it can be done with lucidity or without it. I know some people who go out of their way to say, "I'm dreaming," out loud in dreams when they become lucid so they know where to mark it in their logs when they wake up. I tried that once, but it made me feel silly since I'm pretty much always lucid and it didn't make sense to me for me to say that at the start of every dream. I probably should try to, though. It might have benefits to it. Hm. IDK if that would be scan or not. I classify scan as intentionally sensing info about your surroundings by basically "reading" its data. This will go into the land of confusing theories and metaphors if I try to talk about it in more depth since I don't know any better ways to explain it. >__<; I'm really not sure since I only know one other person aside from myself who might know it. I know I started off by learning scan and mastering that until I started to notice the dream language by accident. A lot of DCs use it. It's a language of feelings, intent, and other non-verbal things. I first tried to visually translate what was said literally into speech bubbles, but none of that made any sense or matched what was actually being said. It's not something that translates well into verbal or written languages. Hardest things to translate are names. If I come across a DC with a dream language name, I usually mark it as "__" in my dream journal. I'll try to write something up on it at some point. It touches on a lot of more complex control things, so I should probably try to cover all of that together if I want to cover any piece of it. Awesome! Are you a nat, then? :D I started being able to LD regularly at five too! My first LDs were a lot earlier, but they didn't happen with any kind of regularity and I usually only had them when I had nightmares. That answers my nat question. This is how most naturals end up becoming naturals. I didn't know lucid dreaming was lucid dreaming either until my first year of college. I thought everyone did it all the time like I did until high school. My friends and I were talking about our dreams at lunch. I mentioned using dream control to change something in mine and one of my friends literally yelled at me and called me a liar. It really scared me and I started to think that there might have been something wrong with me. I'd been drugged by my mom from the ages of seven or eight ot fourteen and I'd only been recovered from that for a year or two, so I started to become terrified that maybe that had caused some kind of permanent damage. Then I remembered that I'd been doing that stuff long before I was drugged and became worried that I might have just always had something wrong with my head. In college I tried looking "dream control" up online, found tons of info on it, learned the science, made friends who knew a lot about it, and I received proof that it was a totally normal thing that pretty much everyone does frequently or infrequently. You can will away sleep paralysis? I haven't had it, so I don't know much about it. I know a lot of people who do deal with that, though, and they've mostly told me that they just need to wait it out. I'd love to hear about how you will it away. Same, but I like letting my SC tell me stories. I prefer to experience what it wants to show me since it likes to hide life advice and self-exploration stuff in there that I might not come across otherwise. I've found and heard that SCs looooove symbolism, but pretty much everyone has symbolism that's unique to them and can't be interpreted accurately by other people. Some things overlap, but a lot of things don't. I think that's really cool. I've only ever felt pain in a handful of dreams (usually when I'm being impaled by metal things), but I know some people who experience it more often. I think this is a thing that varies from person to person, but I do think that the SC is able to effect the pain center of your brain. I need to ask around and see if that's correct. Buh. None of my science-y LDing friends are on Skype right now. I'll ask them later if I can remember to. They can probably direct me to a source of info on the subject. I know we talked about this within the past year.[/QUOTE]
I would love some sources if that's okay, I like gaining knowledge when I can, and what you said about the dream language makes a lot of sense. I was thinking something along the lines of a spoken language, like learning spanish again, and that sounded daunting XD I'm probably halfway to learning it if it's more like what you described. As for scan, um...I don't know if it's intentional? More instinctual. I think more often than not it's intentional though, and i've just taught myself to do it semi-automatically because I'm ravenous for information, all of it, need. Especially when I don't know these people well so I just gain the info I can so I can then work with more than what they gave me. I need to remember to ask my SC stuff too. I never thought that was an option before, though I wished it was many a time! Another thing, when I am dreaming, even lucid dreaming I sometimes find it hard to move at all/very fast or to speak out loud and that is also a hindrance. But, I think it has to do with the fact that those are the dreams in which I can feel my body more, and the lines are getting crossed so I can't move one body without trying to move the other and it does not work very well XD sometimes trying harder makes what I'm trying to do a bit more effective, but yeah, I am still a bit of a noob at this. I think what I need right now is maybe learn how to lucid dream more often and notice when I am. I have varying levels of being able to think past 'go here, do this, muck around, wheeee!' when I am LD-ing. So being able to perhaps focus on things going on instead of going along for the ride would be good.
I love lucid dreaming! I've always been pretty interested in it, probably at least partially due to my fascination with dreams in general (I've been keeping a dream journal since I was like 7, off and on - I managed to get back into the habit this semester, and it's great being able to regularly remember my dreams again). We don't have another lucid dreaming thread, but we did have a small discussion about it in one of the dream threads, and my contribution seems relevant here: Really though I have SO MANY things to say about lucid dreaming, this whole thing is probably going to be TL;DR but that's okay. I don't always remember the reasons I've realized I was in a dream, but here are three I actually remember: -one time I dreamed I was at school, but realized I was dreaming because I suddenly remembered school had been out for over a week and I was at my uncle's house in New Mexico. -I dreamed I was at summer camp, but I started getting confused because I remembered being too old to go to that summer camp; soon after, I realized I was dreaming. -In my dreams, whenever I try to breathe in water (for instance, if I am drowning) it simply feels like breathing in air. In one of my dreams, I had the superpower of breathing underwater; in at least one or two others, this has actually made me realize I was dreaming: Spoiler 4/14/12 (...) I'm plunged deep into the water. I swim upwards, being fairly sure that I'll get there. I can just imagine bursting out of the water and taking a deep breath. But I don't get there, and I inhale water - only it feels like inhaling air. I'm sure the pain that comes from filling your lungs with water will come, but it doesn't. I just breathe the water like it's regular air, and it clicks: this is a dream. Just after that, though, I either wake up or am woken up. Another thing I've been noticing lately in my dreams may or may not be related to lucid dreaming. Sometimes, without actively realizing that I'm in a dream, I will conclude that certain "rules" of my dreams apply to my current situation, almost like I'm remembering other dreams. For instance, in my dreams whenever I fall from something, I always reach the ground unharmed. Either I land on my feet unharmed, or I grab onto something before I hit the ground - no matter what, when I fall it never hurts me. (My pet theory is that this is because I am not even remotely afraid of heights.) Lately I've noticed that sometimes in dreams I will fall and not be afraid because somewhere inside I know that it won't hurt. So... knowing the rules of my dreams apply, without really realizing that this is a dream. Another example of this is that I have dreamed more than a few times that I have gone swimming with my phone in my pocket, but my phone generally ends up okay even though it's been soaked. This is from last week: Spoiler 9/19/15 I dreamt I jumped into a river (or other body of water) because... well, I think I thought I had to save [my roommate], because I jumped in with my backpack still on and it turned out my black laptop was in there! (This made sense, as last night I went to a game night with said laptop in my backpack.) At first I was concerned for my laptop's well-being, but then I half-remembered all the times I had dreamt about jumping into water with my phone and how it was always fine afterwards. After that I was less concerned and more embarrassed. (...) My laptop did seem to be glitching afterwards, but my dream self theorized that a good reboot would've fixed it. So... once again, remembering past dreams without quite realizing that they were dreams and that this is a dream too. I went looking through my dream logs for more recorded lucid dreams, but it looks like many of my lucid dreams were either not written down at all or written in a journal but not typed up. I did find one from a few years ago, though: Spoiler 1/14/12 Damn. I didn't have time to write up my dreams in the morning, and then I forgot about them until now. Well, actually, there's only one that I remember; I think there were others, but they're gone now. The one I remember is the lucid dreaming one. You see, I had woken up at 9, checked my email and webcomics, and then laid back down to daydream about Sherlock. From there, I slipped into sleep... and to me, it seemed like I immediately was in the dream-world. I knew I was lucid dreaming instantly. So I started to move, and it was like moving through molasses - at least for a few moments, and then I ignored it and the feeling went away. I didn't quite know where I was, but there were people around. I decided to "summon" Delaney [one of my friends], and did so; but the Delaney I found was not much like her, and when I moved towards her to try to kiss her (note: my dream self often tries to kiss people, uncaring if I have any real-life interest or not), she moved away and it clearly wasn't her. [After that, I didn't try to influence the dream, and simply rolled with it, going to someplace that resembled Disney World. Not sure if the dream became any less lucid or if I just didn't bother trying to influence the dream.]
a natural lucid dreamer? i suppose i am, yes yeah, it had seemed like struggling to wake up before cathulhu reached me just made things even more terrifying and uncomfortable instead, i'm pretty sure i made myself fall completely asleep, as my room became less detailed and more surreal as i willed away the sleep paralysis. it's weird that i never noticed when i crossed the threshold from sleep paralysis to lucid dream tho i don't like my subconscious' stories very much. they usually either end with the narrative running off without me because i don't follow it fast enough, or the narrative leading to me feeling very lonely
Yep, not spoken. I'd like to hear about it if you do learn it. :D Yeah, I'm the same way. That's how it started out for me too. XD It can be weird to realize that, in dreams, asking the universe a question can result in it giving you an answer. My SC never replies verbally, though. Usually it answers with the dream language or by making things happen. I know some people whose SC replies through DCs. Hm. It sounds like your body isn't going into sleep paralysis--that's what keeps you from moving your waking body during REM sleep. I have had it happen to me a few times where I moved my waking body too when I moved my dream body (once it happened when I tried casting a spell with my hands and I woke up to find them tangled in the sheets) or have done that intentionally (Ex: controlled my body so it could hit "snooze" on my alarm without my having to wake up), but that's never been a hindrance to my ability to move in dreams. Usually people have trouble being able to feel their waking bodies at all when they're in REM, though it's easier for them to do so in stage 4 sleep. When I reach for my waking body it usually grounds me better because it reassures me that, yep, this is 100% for sure a dream and here's another bit of proof that it is. Let me know if you figure out a way to work through it! Maybe the method of saying, "I'm dreaming," when you're lucid would work for you, then. If you're lucid enough to say you're lucid, then you're lucid. :d That's awesome! I've never had the patience to keep up with dream journals. I only post in my LDing forum one sporadically, usually when I have an encounter with a god. I think it's really impressive that you have the discipline to keep up with one. They've been proven to help with dream recall, so I bet yours is pretty great. :D Tbh, based on the LDers I've been exposed to over the years; I think most LDers seem to go for one of those two. |D I have these most of the time. Also, yes; it is much easier to go into lucids if you're woken up by an alarm during REM and then go back to sleep. It's actually a known method called "Wake Back to Bed" or WBTB, and it's usually regarded as the most effective way to become lucid. Becoming lucid in a dream is usually called "Waking Into a Lucid Dream" or "WILD." I've heard about this! Going to add that article to my list of things to read later. :D Same! How, exactly, did you will it away? What was your method? What did you think of to do it? I've heard this a lot from people who have sleep paralysis. I'm pretty sure falling to sleep this way means you're cognitive through all the stages of sleep and are aware of them happening. Sounds like a wild ride. o.o Aw. :c I'm sorry your SC doesn't work with you in that regard. Sounds like it's being a butt.
wow. an LDing conference, that sounds cool, I kind of want to go to one of those! even though I am really bad with crowds and cameras as well >.<" I wish there was a super scientific one I could go to learn all about LDing and stuff....and what it's like for other people and everything! I want to learn all the things about LDing, ALL THE THINGS I believe my first dream death was also when I was eight or so; I got hit by a car after pushing someone else out of the way, and then I woke up in a panic expecting to be dead. and I wasn't, but it still freaked me out so much after that.... hmmmm. then I should definitely practice more with my scan skills, and see what I can do. yeahhhhh, I'm not a big fan of drowning dreams, and I've only ever had two, one that I believe was a....sort of past-life-y type thing (yes I believe in past lives and reincarnation and all that) and the other was with her. I will try this! I get that; I understand getting picky about minor details, I do that all the time. but yeah, I class them as, like, actively benevolent versus actively mischievous versus actively malicious, based on what they have done and what they intend to do. the why can sometimes be important to me if there's something I can help them with that will stop them in a peaceful manner, but for the most part the why tends not to be my focus; it's more the 'what' that matters to me, and if the what is not something I can condone them doing, like hurting people, then I go right into my mode of 'gotta stop 'em'. which is not a mode I want people to see me in. interesting. apparently I'm doing more scan stuff than I thought. interestingly, I'd like to note that the scan stuff also tracks over to real life somewhat for me; if there's a ghost or demon around, I can essentially scan them to get information on what they want, although IRL I also cannot protect myself from them gleaning information about me, and so I do not do that much, especially if I don't know -what- I'm dealing with, because that can be very dangerous. I'm honestly not a huge fan of Biblical lore, just because of the fact that it's not come up much for me, but I'd like to hear more about this from your SO if he wouldn't mind! I want to discuss with him how angels typically look and act in Biblical lore versus how popular media portrays them and how I've experienced light beings. and also shadow beings and demons, that would be a good discussion too. ...so yes, I would like to nerd over this with your SO. yeah, it probably is a difference in canon. it would be interesting if they were the same thing, but I'm curious, do the "gods" tend to be other dreamers, and do they have individual appearances? the only reason I ask is because of the aforementioned energy-beings-aren't-dreamers thing and also because energy beings tend to all look alike, they sort of....lack faces except for eyes, and occasionally mouths, and they tend not to have much shape unless they choose to create limbs, and they can shape their energy bodies into all sorts of limbs, hands, arms, legs, feet, wings....which is always a little creepy when an arm comes out of nowhere. and ehehe, yeah....IRL demons. I've dealt with some stuff in friends' houses before, and one of them stupidly opened a portal in their basement to another plane that allowed IRL demons to show up in their house. as a result, their brother died and their mom got really, really sick, and a demon latched on to the friend in question and told them horrible things and sucked off their energy for about three years and ended up giving my friend PTSD. and then after three years I finally managed to close the portal and banish their attached demon, along with the other demons/more malevolent spirits that had come into the house. so. don't mess around with portals and demons, kids, 'cause I can't guarantee that I'll always know how to banish them.... nice. that's fair. I appreciate that sentiment, just, why not? good idea. best idea. I will be sure to let you know how it goes!!
Yeah, I got into it when I was a kid. For whatever reason, I got really interested in dreams around 7, but would usually not remember them. I started going to sleep determined to remember my dream when I woke up, and one day I actually did; that dream was the first one I ever recorded. Unfortunately, there have been long spans of time where I didn't write down my dreams, and other spans of time where I did write them down, but they were scattered among other stories in my writing journals. I have yet to actually browse through my various writing journals to find dreams, but I'm sure I will be well-rewarded when I do so. Around 2012 I got really into writing down dreams in one place, and as a result I have a good record of my dreams in 2012 and 2013 - during 2014, though, I dropped out of the habit, probably because I got super stressed and depressed that year. Writing down dreams became a Thing which I Had to Do, but my brain automatically shies away from things I Have To Do. Luckily this semester I got back into the habit, and I can definitely confirm that when you write down your dreams, you start remembering them more. Huh! You know, despite my enthusiasm for dreaming and lucid dreaming ("lucid dreamer" has even been my custom title for as long as I've been on Kintsugi) I am not super knowledgeable about terminology or anything like that. That's pretty interesting.
hmmm. @Ipuntya and Parsley, I find it interesting you both started LD'ing regularly at five, that's pretty cool. I didn't start LD'ing regularly until I was about eight or nine.
