lucid dreaming

[MAXIMUS MISCHIEF]

research 'wake initiated lucid dream' ;)

[chim]

research 'wake initiated lucid dream' ;)

 

believe me I know what WILD is and it's mostly a question of semantics, but the term astral projection generally approves more of the reality of the experience rather than "just a dream", which is more true and very difficult to refute if you're experienced with the phenomenon, because you can verify the shit out of things..

[awepittance]

It's very confusing that so many people actually equate WILD's with astral projection or remote viewing. Lucid Dreaming is an ancient practice and shouldn't be confused with new age trends from the 1970s imo.

 

I haven't had a WILD in years, it's about i do again.

[chenGOD]

a little trick i used to do back in my youth was take a hit of acid before falling asleep, and set the alarm for like 1.5 - 2 hours later.

Wake up in the peak of trip...you'll thank yourself.

[karmakramer]

why is that a good idea?

[YEK]

my most lucid dream probably (besides night terrors as a child) happened a while back, i broke off a piece of land and levitated it, akira style , then i levitated up to it and was standing on it and it was so real i forced myself to get up cause it was too much for me, i couldn't wake up immediately and when i finally did i woke up in panic.

 

 

a weird reoccurring dream for me lately i'm riding down a hill, on a skateboard or whatnot and unlike a falling dream where i fall into an abyss i can see where i'm going to crash and it gets faster an faster.

 

nowadays i'm not quite as lucid becuase i kinda told my mind to stop the lucid stuff cause i got all caught up in it where i'd rather dream than be awake, silly maybe for some people

[Guest Blanket Fort Collapse]

a little trick i used to do back in my youth was take a hit of acid before falling asleep, and set the alarm for like 1.5 - 2 hours later.

Wake up in the peak of trip...you'll thank yourself.

 

lol... I would assume your joking as I don't see the point in doing this either, I love that with acid the trip eases in and can have a conscious understanding of the fact that the LSD is what is distorting your perception no matter how crazy it gets. lol If I just woke up and was tripping balls I can imagine that pillow of comprehension would be gone and I would do something stupid.

[awepittance]

why is that a good idea?

 

it's interesting for sure, but i don't know if it's a *great* idea. I think i've only done it on mushrooms. It's quite an absurd feeling to wake up in the middle of a psychedelic experience

[joshuatxuk]

I used to have two composition books full of dreams I had from about age 15-20 but i destroyed them last year in an attempt to move forward in life and not "live in the past", but I sorta regret it now as I could've written some good stories from those dreams.

 

Try to write down the ones you remember anyway. I've actually recorded my dreams fairly regularly for almost 10 years, up until today. Most are in journals, a lot are on random scraps of paper. Few month or longer gaps, but otherwise I keep track of it about every other day. There are a handful a dreams I remember as a kid. Not all are memorable or exact repeats, but a lot of dream "places," events, and motifs are now familiar, and some can be quite detailed, emotional, and trippy.

 

I don't have a regular enough schedule to try LD, just get an average of 6 hours during the week and sleep in on the weekends.

 

sometimes i'm half awake and half asleep. Once in this state, in the morning, i saw a greyish figure move really quick towards me then sort of attack me, i woke up and thought 'that was pretty scary'. true story.

Hypnagogic state (I have no idea if I spelled that right or not) can produce these kinds of hallucinations.Kevin Shields of MBV (one of my favourite musicians) has talked about using hypnagogic states as musical inspiration.

 

I've had one like that, a blackish figure flew past me when i woke up. The worst are when I become conscious, wake up but stay paralysed, and tried screaming and moving to no avail (I was trying to wake up my fiance next to me). There were two times in which I actually watched myself squirming and stuggling in bed for awhile before finally waking up. Very nerve-racking.

[chenGOD]

why is that a good idea?

 

 

a little trick i used to do back in my youth was take a hit of acid before falling asleep, and set the alarm for like 1.5 - 2 hours later.

Wake up in the peak of trip...you'll thank yourself.

 

lol... I would assume your joking as I don't see the point in doing this either, I love that with acid the trip eases in and can have a conscious understanding of the fact that the LSD is what is distorting your perception no matter how crazy it gets. lol If I just woke up and was tripping balls I can imagine that pillow of comprehension would be gone and I would do something stupid.

 

I am most assuredly not joking. It's a good idea because it offers you as an individual a new way to experience reality. I did it 4 or 5 times and it was astounding how differently you view the world when you wake up with "the doors of perception" blown wide open as opposed to easing into it.

Life is meant to be experienced, and if you want to just live a safe boring life then of course that is your prerogative. I like to challenge and be challenged.

What stupid thing are you gonna do in your bedroom? Bash your head in with a book?

[perunamuusi]

....that weird electrical 'zap' that sometimes happens just as you're nodding off ...

 

 

 

 

hmmmm.... the zap thing... does it coincide with a feeling that your respiratory system and/or heart is shutting down sometimes, and it's like suddenly becoming conscious of the point where you become unconscious, which sounds like the beginning of sleep paralysis but isn't? dunno if that makes any sense.

 

it feels like how i imagine dying might feel, though sometimes i think that might feel like waking up.

 

one of my last lucid dreams, i concluded that i was dead (again) ... (i have a strong mental connection with lucid dreaming and death ever since my first one happened about 15 yrs ago - before i had ever heard of lucid dreaming - and the implications of that unprecedented experience, combined with an inability to wake up on command and an increasing fear / decreasing grip on the events in the dream suggested i was possibly in a coma or dead... having full blown panic attacks in dreams is not good.) anyway, this recent one, 2 people came into my room (by which point i was fully aware i was dreaming and i tend to not let on to people in dreams that i know they're dream characters as this can have the effect of making them become unstable / behave weird as if they are malfunctioning) fearing suddenly that this was death again, i asked one of the people how long this lasted and she replied "a billion years" which filled me with absolute dread. like this is what death is... just total immersion in this flimsy realm that feels like forever and i thought God... life is like a sanctuary form this where there is stabilty and permanence and regularity and contiguous memory etc whereas death is just aimless meandering on the edge of nothing without any meaning ... like yeah dreaming can be great and everything (its one of my favourite things sometimes) but sometimes it isn't and anyway would you rather do it for what seems like eternity. being born the next time round must be such a confusing relief and headfuck at the same time. everything that has gone before getting instantaneously wiped out with your first breath and all that bright light... what we think of as dying or near death experiences are probably just fleeting half memories of being born... there's DMT at either end of the tunnel....

 

end drunk ramble

[karmakramer]

being born the next time round must be such a confusing relief and headfuck at the same time. everything that has gone before getting instantaneously wiped out with your first breath and all that bright light... what we think of as dying or near death experiences are probably just fleeting half memories of being born... there's DMT at either end of the tunnel....

 

get out of my my head

[Guest Blanket Fort Collapse]

why is that a good idea?

 

 

a little trick i used to do back in my youth was take a hit of acid before falling asleep, and set the alarm for like 1.5 - 2 hours later.

Wake up in the peak of trip...you'll thank yourself.

 

lol... I would assume your joking as I don't see the point in doing this either, I love that with acid the trip eases in and can have a conscious understanding of the fact that the LSD is what is distorting your perception no matter how crazy it gets. lol If I just woke up and was tripping balls I can imagine that pillow of comprehension would be gone and I would do something stupid.

 

I am most assuredly not joking. It's a good idea because it offers you as an individual a new way to experience reality. I did it 4 or 5 times and it was astounding how differently you view the world when you wake up with "the doors of perception" blown wide open as opposed to easing into it.

Life is meant to be experienced, and if you want to just live a safe boring life then of course that is your prerogative. I like to challenge and be challenged.

What stupid thing are you gonna do in your bedroom? Bash your head in with a book?

 

I agree with your points to an extent but at the same time I wouldn't be so confident with them.

 

IMHO 90% of those who enjoy LSD a few times in any regard no longer has the capacity to merely exist a safe and boring "life" no matter what they do physically their perception will at least be slightly expanded enough to experience life more dynamically than everyday zombie robot tools.

 

Sure if you lock yourself in an empty room without means of outside communication you wouldn't the ability to do something stupid that would be negatively impacting. (im not gonna list how many different ways someone could make a fool of themselves and beyond)

I have seen a lot of people freak the fuck out because of mushroom's but not really as much for acid. So I can see your recommendation working out more consistently for LSD but with da shrooms I would never suggest that to someone I didn't know pretty well lol.

[awepittance]

....that weird electrical 'zap' that sometimes happens just as you're nodding off ...

 

 

 

 

hmmmm.... the zap thing... does it coincide with a feeling that your respiratory system and/or heart is shutting down sometimes, and it's like suddenly becoming conscious of the point where you become unconscious, which sounds like the beginning of sleep paralysis but isn't? dunno if that makes any sense.

 

it feels like how i imagine dying might feel, though sometimes i think that might feel like waking up.

 

one of my last lucid dreams, i concluded that i was dead (again) ... (i have a strong mental connection with lucid dreaming and death ever since my first one happened about 15 yrs ago - before i had ever heard of lucid dreaming - and the implications of that unprecedented experience, combined with an inability to wake up on command and an increasing fear / decreasing grip on the events in the dream suggested i was possibly in a coma or dead... having full blown panic attacks in dreams is not good.) anyway, this recent one, 2 people came into my room (by which point i was fully aware i was dreaming and i tend to not let on to people in dreams that i know they're dream characters as this can have the effect of making them become unstable / behave weird as if they are malfunctioning) fearing suddenly that this was death again, i asked one of the people how long this lasted and she replied "a billion years" which filled me with absolute dread. like this is what death is... just total immersion in this flimsy realm that feels like forever and i thought God... life is like a sanctuary form this where there is stabilty and permanence and regularity and contiguous memory etc whereas death is just aimless meandering on the edge of nothing without any meaning ... like yeah dreaming can be great and everything (its one of my favourite things sometimes) but sometimes it isn't and anyway would you rather do it for what seems like eternity. being born the next time round must be such a confusing relief and headfuck at the same time. everything that has gone before getting instantaneously wiped out with your first breath and all that bright light... what we think of as dying or near death experiences are probably just fleeting half memories of being born... there's DMT at either end of the tunnel....

 

end drunk ramble

 

i found your story really interesting, i would consider that more of a lucid nightmare than a normal dream. I've only had a couple of lucid dreams that turned absolutely terrifying where for some reason or another was sure i was either dead or would not be able to wake up. Some of them would be comparable to having a bad lsd trip, but in some ways worse because you can't talk yourself down by telling yourself it's only a drug and it will wear off soon. Its very easy to convince yourself in a lucid dream that somehow you have opened up doors to other worlds that can seriously fuck your shit up.

 

it's funny you mention the technique of not telling dream characters they are, well fake figments of your imagination in order to maintain stability. Very common for me during a lucid dream was to get into a discussion with a dream character about how it was a dream, and probably 100% of the time the dream character would try to talk me out of it and call me crazy, but interestedly these conversations usually lead to me being distracted and loosing my lucidity, basically getting sucked into a paradoxical puzzle like conversation with this fake person. So you're absolutely right about that being a way for the dream to fall apart, i should try that next time i have one. Its very hard to hold back the excitement though, the first thing i want to do is punch a bunch of people around me and tell them they are fake. its very pleasurable to do that

[karmakramer]

man I feel like I got pretty visual dreams, but never to the point I can just do whatever I want and control what happens... i'll give this a try sometime

[Guest Masonic Boom]

I have never, ever, ever been able to sleep while on acid. Lord knows I've been desperate to, when you've been up for several days and you are desperate for a nap but you just can't sleep with the retinal circus going DOO DOOO DOOOO DOO DOO round your eyeballs.

 

But perhaps that was just the shitty acid we used to get when we were kids, cut with speed.

 

Don't really think it's particularly relevant, though, as the drug experience and the dream experience are quite different things.

 

You want to try having some awful hallucinations, though, you should try having an ophthalmic migraine some time. That will make you think you're losing your mind.

 

ANYWAY. Yeah. Lucid dreaming. Buddhist monks. Sleep yoga. Back on topic.

[Guest Blanket Fort Collapse]

It really doesn't seem right that lucid dreaming isn't more widely discussed and appreciated. Its level of ambiguity for most people is almost at a point where it kinda seems suspicious on some level... I mean we are talking about the ultimate video game, the ultimate experience, to do whatever the fuck you want. Yet it always seems like my brain is programmed to not remember that lucid dreaming is in the top 5 greatest things I have ever done and I should do anything I can to make it happen liek teh capn.

[awepittance]

they should teach lucid dreaming in prison , but they probably don't want to give out pleasurable out of body techniques like that for people in solitary confinement

 

it would be awesome if they taut lucid dreaming in elementary school so that by the time you reach age 15 you are a master of your dream word.

 

and to answer your earlier question about why Lucid dreaming isn't more widespread is because in western culture in general there seems to be very little importance to dreaming in general

I am a strong believer that actions or emotions, especially traumatic ones that happen in normal (non lucid) dreams can greatly effect ones waking reality.edit: if you don't remember this traumatic experience in a dream you may be still experiencing residual emotional after effects from it when you awake and have no idea why. you just may feel like you have 'woken up on the wrong side of the bed' I don't believe in those new age dream symbol dictionaries, but i do believe there is great value in remembering your dreams at the very least. Writing them down is key. something i've neglected to do for the past 5 years :(

I think the internet is helping lucid dreaming gain a lot in popularity. when i first on the internet there was no information at all besides people paraphrasing from Stephen Laberge books, now there is so much shit about it and wiki articles detailing all different techniques i've lost track.

[Guest Masonic Boom]

Because discussing your dreams is generally (and quite rightly) seen a really naff thing to do. Think it was William S Burroughs who said that listening to someone else describe their dream was like seeing a child's toy lying on the floor of a bank, stripped of its context it makes no sense.

 

Other people's dreams are as dull as other people's drug experiences. The thrill is in doing, not reading about it.

 

Dreams only make sense to the dreamer.

 

That said, I do really enjoy discussion about dreams and dreaming, dream imagery (Jungian that I am, royal road to the unconscious and all), techniques for controlling dreams, ways that artists have used dreams as inspiration for their work...

 

But that's all about what you do with the dream, not the dream itself. I mean, to me, anyone who uses a dream as like "the ultimate gaming experience" (no offense intended) or some kind of virtual reality is wasting a beautiful opportunity because dreams to me have a spiritual or creative dimension that would probably bore the pants off you.

 

I mean, it all comes down to personality, doesn't it? That a lot of people would use a lucid dreaming experience and the first thing they think to do is fuck people or break shit when I'd be all "wow, I could talk to God, or see the Higgs Boson, or re-live my birth, or experience a calabai-yau space!!!!" I find the former boring, they'd probably find the latter boring.

[awepittance]

my dilemma when i've lucid dreamed is i always aspire to do more interesting stuff like fly out of the atmosphere and to an alien planet, but it's hard for me not to want to do really immature stuff right off the bat. basically what masonic boom said. I'm not pleased with myself for doing this type of stuff it's just inevitably i will have the urge to before i go off to do the higher brow stuff.

[MAXIMUS MISCHIEF]

research 'wake initiated lucid dream' ;)

 

believe me I know what WILD is and it's mostly a question of semantics, but the term astral projection generally approves more of the reality of the experience rather than "just a dream", which is more true and very difficult to refute if you're experienced with the phenomenon, because you can verify the shit out of things..

 

 

i have had very vivid lucid dreams.. more vivid than reality. theres no difference between WILD and astral projection. the only difference is that people who astral project arent actually lucid because they believe theyre in 'another plane' or what ever.

[Blir]

....that weird electrical 'zap' that sometimes happens just as you're nodding off ...

 

 

 

 

hmmmm.... the zap thing... does it coincide with a feeling that your respiratory system and/or heart is shutting down sometimes, and it's like suddenly becoming conscious of the point where you become unconscious, which sounds like the beginning of sleep paralysis but isn't? dunno if that makes any sense.

 

I am so familiar with that feeling.

 

I'm a big fan of sleep, I've turned sleeping on a train into an art. Had some incredibly real dreams in the short space of time I ride the train each day, usually wake up a stop before mine with the zap thing. Usually accompanied by a sharp intake of breath, like I'm sucking the awakeness back in and suddenly I'm wide awake.

 

It's pretty much a hardcore power nap.

[awepittance]

i have had very vivid lucid dreams.. more vivid than reality. theres no difference between WILD and astral projection. the only difference is that people who astral project arent actually lucid because they believe theyre in 'another plane' or what ever.

 

good point, full lucidity basically requires you to be using a logical thought process. nothing wrong with castenada don juan style quasi lucid dreaming though.

[Guest Masonic Boom]

and yeah, dreams without the context just turn to shit... but often i like reading peoples dreams when its less about details and more about certain behind-the-curtain type things. like reading ludd's post above i was suddenly struck with deja vu even though i can't remember the specifics.

 

Yeah, this is what interests me most - is seeing the common threads in dreams, no matter what the person or the culture.

 

But that could just be the Jungian in me speaking, because comparing dreams, myths, stories etc. is a really good way of getting at universal Archetypes (as opposed to just just culturally influenced trends)

[Blir]

I wish I could lucid dream. My dreams are incredibly vivid but I'm usually so woven into the 'plot' or just an observer that I don't realise how outlandish some of it is. If I could be bothered I would write on here a description of the dreams I remember, but it'd be several long paragraphs and nobody would read it anyway.

 

Anyone else get recurring themes or objects in their dreams? Docks always seem to appear in some way (docking ), no matter where I am in the dream a dock or just a general 'waters-edge' thing will turn up. I'm also usually accompanied by somebody who I never end up seeing, except in one dream where I finally turned to look and it was my doppelganger (or possibly it was me and my perception was somebody elses) and my initial reaction was great unease and I ended up attacking him/me.