I frequently have lucid dreams, in that I'm entirely aware of that fact that I'm dreaming while in the dream.
What I find interesting, however, is that if I have a dream I forgot to study for my test, or I'm naked at school because I left my clothes somewhere else, or the school play starts tonight and I haven't memorized a single line... the fact that I know I'm dreaming doesn't help at all.
Because the problem is that, while lucid dreaming, I have no access to any real-life knowledge or memories. I figure that I'm having the dream because I actually am in school in real life, with an exam I forgot about in the morning. I simply have no access to the fact that I left school many years ago. And if there's a monster behind the door in my dream, it seems entirely plausible in my dream that that's simply because there are monsters in the real world too.
And quite often my dreams are related to real-life situations that happened yesterday or are happening tomorrow or this week -- so it's not like I can try to convince myself of some "rule" that dream anxieties are never anything to worry about.
So my whole anxious lucid dream I'm just thinking, "boy I really hope that I'm not actually in a play that opens tomorrow night..." And then I wake up and it is suddenly crystal-clear that I haven't been in a high school play in decades.
But during my lucid dream, there's absolutely no way of knowing. Curious if this is universal or if other people who lucid dream do always know the details of their actual true reality -- their age, what city and home they live in, current job, etc.
I’ve explored it in my 30s and it wasn’t like you described. Once I’m aware, I can change the plot by soft transition, remove the eerie elements, somewhat control flights, etc. But not too much because something monitors “glitches the matrix” and disconnects me for cheating. Not that I didn’t know who I am or what is or isn’t absurd, but thinking about it long enough wakes me up. I believe your lucidness is not too deep or something. Maybe you just found a way to see dreams in which you believe it’s lucid but it’s really not? Maybe this whole lucid dreaming thing is just a coincidence - we remember being aware, but it’s just a dream of us being aware, and mine for some reason has this “not too much” rule.
This completely. I learned early on to not get excited, and to not immediately do the things I want to do, e.g. fly at breakneak speed into space, but gently learn to hover and then build speed and to undetail my surroundings so that a change in speed won't be too jarring that I wake up.
I think that depends upon the dream space you find yourself in. If it is an internal dream space for yourself, you tend to have more control (if you do have control).
However, I've been in many shared spaces that have varying rules on how much things can be changed. Many of them are what I describe as "sim" spaces. There are also spaces where it is procedurally-generated -- for example, deliberately taking a path you know has not been used, and the whole space pauses, as things are procedurally generated to create that new area on the fly.
Finally, it's a two way street. Connection to a space has as much to do with how your consciousness is attuned to that space; trying to change the environment too much is as much as your consciousness shifting out of alignment with that space, and disconnecting as it is the space resisting changes.
As an example, I remember one interesting experience where I was talking to someone. Three people entered the space, with their own (subconcious) idea of things, which created changes in the environment to fit their consciousness state. It's similar to how Will Wight described things in his Traveler's Gate series, when someone from one realm goes into another, and that other realm starts morphing towards the first realm. I don't think those three knew what they were doing, and it was kinda rude.
> But during my lucid dream, there's absolutely no way of knowing. Curious if this is universal or if other people who lucid dream do always know the details of their actual true reality -- their age, what city and home they live in, current job, etc.
This is referred to as different levels of lucidity. While lucidity is technically a binary state (know or don't know), it can sometimes be better described as a spectrum where you can "know" but not fully understand what it means.
Some levels you might think of are: Thinking it's 100% real. Having a "feeling" something is off. "Feeling" its a dream. Consciously expressing its a dream. Understanding its a dream. And then actually understanding the full consequences that its a dream.
Usually this comes down to a matter of thought clarity, not memories. If you understand its a dream, then it has no consequences period. Even if you think the worry is real, you still can't affect the physical world in a dream. Perhaps you could try practicing/studying in your dream, and writing stuff down when you awake, or just forcing yourself awake in order to study/practice more. However, outside of that, nothing you do affects the real world, so there's no logical reason to worry about it, even if you don't have the memories to understand "oh its entirely fabricated".
As for others, it obviously depends on the dream, as each have their own level of lucidity, but I can personally say I know basic facts that don't require any specific memory, like my dad being alive is impossible, because he passed. I probably couldn't take a quiz though. I can also remember specific goals, though again, more as a natural feeling than a specific memory.
If you want to try to get out of the dream's story, you have to be willing to accept that if something is impossible, no story can explain it; it has to just not be real.
When I have lucid dream, I know that i'm sleeping in my bed (street location, city) and which day of week it is. So I have access to real life knowledge.
So I believe there is different level of lucidity, depending on each individuals.
Yes, I used to practice lucid dreaming and parent post's description is different than what I experienced. When entering the lucid state I was similarly fully (or nearly fully) context aware.
My problem was always maintaining the lucid state. Doing anything to change the dream risked awakening early and I never got great at maintaining the state for long.
I used to have lucid dreams regularly until I was 17, until I told a friend and never had a "real" one since. I am not sure if it is connected.
I mostly used it to avoid nightmares as a child, unfortunately after a while, I got psychological nightmares instead. Waking up multiple times within a dream (There is no Limbo from Inception for me) with something really stressful having happened (dead body under the bed and police knocking on the door, it's just a dream there are no police, but the body is there, type stuff).
I still have partially aware lucid-dreams occationally.
Same for the most part. I get the rare "super lucid" dream where it's almost 1:1 to being awake, but 99% of the time it's like how you describe.
I think this is because our brains will happily "predict the next token". We've never evolved to have to consider doing anything else. So when you're asleep and placed into a scenario with some context associated with yourself, the brain does the natural thing and performs prediction.
Mine are like yours in that I am never certain where and when I am in real life. But they don't last very long, I become too conscious and wakeup or just go with the flow and forget being lucid. They rarely last very long to think and experiment.
But in situations like yours, I am never sure where I am in my real life. I know that its a dream and I am sleep, but where and when are never certain.
I've had a handful of clear lucid dreams with different levels of awareness/control. In most of them I know that there's no real consequences but I rarely try things that would seem dangerous/extreme. One time I was flying and knew it was a dream, I could control how/where I was flying but for whatever reason I couldn't fly above a certain height like there was yet another unconscious limit to my lucid dream control. At least in that one I was trying and testing what I could do in the dream.
In most other cases after I wake up, I think to myself I knew I was dreaming why didn't I try more stuff?! Waking up from lucid dreaming can be very smooth fade-out/fade-in and sometimes I can extend the lucid dream state after partially waking up by reimagining the world I was leaving then on finally waking up I just wish I could have stayed longer but is no surprise at all.
> Curious if this is universal or if other people who lucid dream do always know the details of their actual true reality -- their age, what city and home they live in, current job, etc.
I have lucid dreams somewhat frequently since I was maybe 8 or 9 after I started getting prescribed medication to help me sleep (initially it had been almost nightly, but it reduced over the years to the point where it happens maybe a couple times a month now a couple decades later), and generally I do remember the details of my life in lucid dream, but I sometimes have trouble determining whether they're details of my life in the past or the present. If in my dream I'm back at school, it's usually not the case that I don't remember graduating, getting a job, and moving; often times I have a vague sense that all of that had happened, but then some issue was discovered with my records that forced me have to go back and retake a class or two. (This obviously is pretty implausible, but dream logic isn't always airtight!)
> What I find interesting, however, is that if I have a dream I forgot to study for my test, or I'm naked at school because I left my clothes somewhere else, or the school play starts tonight and I haven't memorized a single line... the fact that I know I'm dreaming doesn't help at all.
Having real world knowledge doesn't always mitigate the "issue" in the dream though; in my lucid dreams, I don't have any control over what happens beyond my own actions, so a teacher expecting me to hand in some assignment won't generally accept "it's a dream so I don't have to" as an excuse. There is a way that knowing that I'm dreaming helps though; I can just choose to wake up! I'm not sure whether being able to forcibly wake up is typical or not for people dreaming lucidly, but I've never had much trouble doing it. Sometimes I'll end up back in the same scenario if I fall back asleep again after though, so it might end up being worth it to suffer through the imaginary misfortune to get the real world benefit of sufficient sleep.
> I'm not sure whether being able to forcibly wake up is typical or not for people dreaming lucidly, but I've never had much trouble doing it.
REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep has paralysis on every part of your body except one part: Your eyes. As such, anyone can indeed force themselves away by attempting to open their eyes. Note though that you can "open" your eyes and it still be a dream, so you have to be sure open your eyes in real life, which requires actually physically moving the muscles.
There is of course also other ways of doing it, but this is probably the most universal and has an associated logic to it.
Similar to my experience. I also find my control of my body is still somewhat linked to my real body.
For example, one way of maintaining and strengthening the lucid experience is supposedly spinning around in place with your arms spread. When I do that, I find a dream sensation that feels a bit like my arms trying to move out from under my pillow or caught in the sheets. I then wake up shortly after that.
Other times I'll know I'm lucid and can do some tricks, but still feel a bit limited, whether by the dream or my beliefs of what I think I can do in the dream. I cannot manifest scenery or people. Mostly I can get a small hop glide for flying, sometimes I can shoot a magic projectile. This may be due to limited control and practice.
I hurt my hand once when I had a dream I was playing basketball and I woke up in the middle of throwing a 3-pointer - so I "jumped" and raised my hands in my bed and hit my hand against the wall.
> Mostly I can get a small hop glide for flying
I can do that very often in dreams, even when I don't realize I'm dreaming and the dream is about something completely different - somehow I often remember that it's a "superpower" I have. I have to run very fast and jump and then if I focus I can slow down the fall and eventually start to ascend. Feels very weird but also very "physical" - I have a lot of intertia and can't decide where I want to fly - just very slowly add some acceleration going up.
Did you ever try though? Did you try to initiate a lucid dream with the conscious intention of recalling your waking state?
A lot of limits in lucid dreams are entirely self-imposed and often broken through or bypassed with conscious intention.
I participated in lucid dream research years ago, and definitely could recall exactly where I was sleeping and more details about my waking state, while executing the experiment task inside the lucid dream.
Interesting. I lucid dream quite frequently, and not only am I perfectly aware of my waking reality, but I have full dual body control. Like if I’m flying around but I can tell that my real leg is uncomfortable I can make the adjustment without thinking twice about it.
This is fascinating. I had a period where I was really trying to be able to lucid dream but never could. It’s interesting that this sounds so much like my normal dreams, but just adding that you do realize it’s a dream. I didn’t think it would be so similar.
They aren't always. I got lucky one time, I read about lucid dreaming techniques and when I fell asleep was able to use one. The dream was otherwise a nightmare but when it became lucid that stopped being a consideration. What I remember is immediately trying to fly, succeeding somewhat, then finding that my attempts to exert control over the dream were waking me up (which I guess is a not uncommon experience).
As a kid, I detected it to be a dream when I was reading something in a dream. The text kept changing. That was the start. You will have to notice something in a dream which can not be real (for you in your dream, because its perfectly normal for a watch to become TV and people to change their faces)
The below is not specific to lucid dreaming but more about experiments regarding consciousness and perceived passage of time:
- Researchers wanted to see how the "time slows down under extreme events" worked
- They created a watch that blinked a message at a time too fast for humans to see under normal circumstances
- They then had people bungee jump and try to read the watch during the jump
Turns out that people could not perceive the message even though they reported the "time slows down" effect during the jump.
This has led researchers to believe that humans are not actually processing events more quickly and/or time is perceived to slow down but rather this is a coping mechanism for dealing with extreme events.
That experiment seems a bit silly. Is anyone expecting time perception to actually take the form of basic sensory/cognitive processes running as if “overclocked”?
I certainly wouldn’t expect basic stuff like perceiving blinking messages to change, since nothing is really changing optically (at least controlled for other things like pupil dilation).
That’s just as silly as expecting someone to be able lift heavier weights when they’re perceiving time more slowly, since their muscles would exert the same energy in a shorter period of time (again, controlled for things like adrenaline).
It is not silly at all, although the experiment may be flawed.
Pro baseball players report that they can see 90+ MPH fastballs clearly, down to details like the stitches on the ball. Zen martial artists also have claims of being able to react as if time has slowed down.
My own experience with edibles (of various ratios of the desired chemicals) is that, the only way I can describe it, the sample rate of my senses change and my brain isn't processing all the sensory input at the same rate—a different rate than when I'm sober and a different rate from each other. Time slows down as the sample rate for my perception of time passing increases. Meanwhile, the sample rate of my hearing decreases and I perceive music differently, low frequency tones (and background music) are significantly more prominent I my perception.
It's possible, but completely anecdotally I was in a six car pileup and watched the stuff move from my backseat to the window to smash against it in what felt like 20-30 seconds.
I remember clearly having several thoughts in what could not have been more than 1 second between getting hit and my entire car smashing into another at 60 mph.
"Oh, that's my kleenex box, dang that's just hanging there huh?"
"What's that noise? Oh, its me screaming."
"I better hold my self against the steering wheel for the airbag... wait, if I am thinking this that means there's no airbag"
I remember watching my seatbelt break and snap across my chest, moving like a languid snake, barely motivated to snap back to the wall.
However, many other times in my life in extreme situations nothing like that happened, so I don't know if just jumping off a cliff is enough trauma or fear of death to cause it reliably.
Richard Feynman reports in his biography on his own experiments with lucid dreaming. He found sleep to not be restful enough anymore, found it impossible to switch the lucid part of dreaming off and eventually had a negative experience that caused him to stop.
That's funny, I stopped lucid dreaming, exactly for the same reasons : I waked up not rested and stressed, because often I had false awakening happening in series.
Everything is best enjoyed in moderation. The current consensus among the LD community is the same: Lucid dreams aren't as charging as normal ones. There's no scientific definitive answer but many think it's because the prefrontal cortex is 'turned on' in LD while it remains off in normal dreams.
The question is though, will there be a way to "enforce" lucid dreams? Would be nice to have the option, but as far as I understand it is not really achievable without training and thus getting into degrading sleep quality.
After I learned to lucid dream real life became much less interesting in comparison. It felt like I came alive at night in my sleep, everything in the dream world was so vivid. I learned I could create any environment I wanted, like when Neo trains in the matrix. I would practice things (like tai chi) but it is a bit boring when the other characters don't have free will, so it was like interacting with robots.
The end game for me was going behind the curtain - into the dream control room. It was a room filled with screens each showing a dream I had experienced, even abstract dreams from the age of 3 or 4. From here I could enter any of the dreams through the screen. In the room was a man, like Morgan Freeman (it was like in the film The Dark Knight where he tracks everyones phone), he was the only person I ever met while lucid dreaming who seemed like a real person.
After some visits to this dream control room, I overcame my addiction to lucid dreaming, I stopped being active in my dreams and watched them like someone would watch a film. I knew it was a dream but I chose not to participate.
At this time I was also experimenting with astral projection. I really wanted to have a shared out-of-body experience which could be validated. I got my flatmate to place things in certain areas around our flat to see if I could find them while meditating, but I couldn't.
Being deeply involved in spirituality really distances you from most people in our society. I gave up meditating to better connect with the kind of people I am surrounded by.
The way I lucid dream is to 'stay awake' through the process of falling asleep.
There are a few tricks I use... but I don't recommend the experience (It can be... uncomfortable {there is a reason you don't remember the point you loose consciousness}).
I don't know if these are universally applicable tricks either. But focusing on a point (visualizing it as actively as you can) seems to be important to staying awake through the process of falling asleep...
I’ve been taking magnesium for a couple months now and one thing a I’ve noticed is that the line between wakefulness and asleep has blurred. I will sometimes watch some TV and I’ll be sitting there watching an episode and don’t realize I’ve fallen asleep and this is a dream until weird things start happening in the show. I often imagine floating outside my house (similar to what the article describes) as a method to fall asleep and since starting magnesium my thoughts softly blend into full blown dreams. My dreams in general have been far more lucid.
I’ve only noticed one other side effect. I normally experience hypnogogic jerk and since starting magnesium, a few times the jerk itself has pulled me out of the descent into sleep.
Yesterday I was a having a very visual trip down the memory lane (2 decade old) while in the process of sleeping. And this memory was triggered by a smell. I was enjoying the memory (an old house and streets I was trying to remember in detail). This didn't make me lucid though, wasn't even trying to be anyway.
But having actually followed the process, I can now understand how it can help with lucidity.
Yep. During the first parts of sleep your body locks to prevent you from acting out your dreams.
Here are a few:
When your body locks up, test it. try to use as much force as you can without 'breaking' that lock... it keeps you in the present moment and 'close to being able to move'...
The standard: focus on your breathing is also applicable.
What has helped the most is imagining a dot, and moving that dot around, changing its color, moving it along the z-direction (closer). Focusing your mind on that keeps it active.
I mean, yes... Everything I've read about sleep paralysis says it happens on waking (and is caused more often by sleeping on your back). Before you fall asleep the dark entity people sometimes feel/see isn't there (yet...).
When I lucid dream, usually I also have the ability to "fly" and in time I learned one thing. As much as I love to use the "fly" ability to explore, I must not steer too far away from the point I am currently. Otherwise I can examine in quite vivid details the stuff around but if I leap too far it's like my mind says "sorry dude, you've reached end of simulation area, here's where you wake up".
Did you try moving & touching stuff while flying far away?
The thing about flying very far is that you're probably in the same fixed Superman position, not really moving your dream body anymore. If you don't move, your consciousness shifts awareness towards your physical body and you wake up. Try it next time: just stop & don't move, don't do anything, you're likely to wake up.
So doing the opposite, moving your dream body a lot & touching dream stuffs, tends to prolong your dream. That's why teleportation works better for moving to different areas.
Funny enough, not moving your body is also how your consciousness shifts and enters the dream state when awake.
I've had a handful of lucid dreams and I always try to fly. It works great for a little while but you're right, once you get too far away, it usually wakes you up or sometimes for me the flying just stops working and I come back down.
I learned to look closely at something nearby for a short while before looking around and doing things, this seems to give the simulation more time to load. Maybe because I was new to it.
I have been lucid dreaming for many years and about five years ago, I started keeping my tablet on the nightstand and when I wake up, if I remember it, which I generally do, I use speech to text to record it. If I don't do that I often forget them. I have categories, the movie type are like 3rd person and it plays out like I am watching a movie. A ride along dream is like first person, I feel like I am riding along with someone else, but I know it's not me, but I know their thoughts. The me dream is when I am me in the dream. Some of them repeat multiple times over several nights In all cases I know I am dreaming. I started turning some of them into short stories. No idea where some of them come from. Often it seems like I just tuned into someone's story, but the subconscious is a funny thing.
I have a very similar experience. A worthy distinction is that in my dreams I'm either a) fully aware it's a dream but have no control or b) fully in control of myself without realising it's a dream.
Only once I was both aware and in control, but it didn't last long.
Yeah. You can practice lucid dreaming. I was a (not born, learned) lucid dreamer a few years ago, then I got into college and my sleep schedule got messed up, so I don't do it anymore. Had I learned DILD (dream-induced lucid dreaming) techniques I could continue but those require constant daytime effort no matter how little. I was lazy and went with WILD methods, and they work wonders when you have a consistent sleep schedule.
Can attest that lucid dreams are as detailed and real as real life. Can't tell the difference. In one of my first attempts, I had a 30 minutes long lucid dream (I was able to precisely measure.). You know the feeling of wonder and awe? You feel it for at most a few minutes at a time usually. I was in constant amazement all through the whole half an hour. Because against my expectations, everything was as real as the real world. The texture of the ground beneath your feet, the feeling of air when you move fast, the taste when you eat. The weight and texture of stuff when you touch, the feeling of your own weight on your feet when you stand. The sun shining, reflections, brightness. Human eye level perfect quality and detail when you look. This feeling of awe didn't went away for me, I still get it when I LD.
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What I find interesting, however, is that if I have a dream I forgot to study for my test, or I'm naked at school because I left my clothes somewhere else, or the school play starts tonight and I haven't memorized a single line... the fact that I know I'm dreaming doesn't help at all.
Because the problem is that, while lucid dreaming, I have no access to any real-life knowledge or memories. I figure that I'm having the dream because I actually am in school in real life, with an exam I forgot about in the morning. I simply have no access to the fact that I left school many years ago. And if there's a monster behind the door in my dream, it seems entirely plausible in my dream that that's simply because there are monsters in the real world too.
And quite often my dreams are related to real-life situations that happened yesterday or are happening tomorrow or this week -- so it's not like I can try to convince myself of some "rule" that dream anxieties are never anything to worry about.
So my whole anxious lucid dream I'm just thinking, "boy I really hope that I'm not actually in a play that opens tomorrow night..." And then I wake up and it is suddenly crystal-clear that I haven't been in a high school play in decades.
But during my lucid dream, there's absolutely no way of knowing. Curious if this is universal or if other people who lucid dream do always know the details of their actual true reality -- their age, what city and home they live in, current job, etc.
This completely. I learned early on to not get excited, and to not immediately do the things I want to do, e.g. fly at breakneak speed into space, but gently learn to hover and then build speed and to undetail my surroundings so that a change in speed won't be too jarring that I wake up.
However, I've been in many shared spaces that have varying rules on how much things can be changed. Many of them are what I describe as "sim" spaces. There are also spaces where it is procedurally-generated -- for example, deliberately taking a path you know has not been used, and the whole space pauses, as things are procedurally generated to create that new area on the fly.
Finally, it's a two way street. Connection to a space has as much to do with how your consciousness is attuned to that space; trying to change the environment too much is as much as your consciousness shifting out of alignment with that space, and disconnecting as it is the space resisting changes.
As an example, I remember one interesting experience where I was talking to someone. Three people entered the space, with their own (subconcious) idea of things, which created changes in the environment to fit their consciousness state. It's similar to how Will Wight described things in his Traveler's Gate series, when someone from one realm goes into another, and that other realm starts morphing towards the first realm. I don't think those three knew what they were doing, and it was kinda rude.
This is referred to as different levels of lucidity. While lucidity is technically a binary state (know or don't know), it can sometimes be better described as a spectrum where you can "know" but not fully understand what it means.
Some levels you might think of are: Thinking it's 100% real. Having a "feeling" something is off. "Feeling" its a dream. Consciously expressing its a dream. Understanding its a dream. And then actually understanding the full consequences that its a dream.
Usually this comes down to a matter of thought clarity, not memories. If you understand its a dream, then it has no consequences period. Even if you think the worry is real, you still can't affect the physical world in a dream. Perhaps you could try practicing/studying in your dream, and writing stuff down when you awake, or just forcing yourself awake in order to study/practice more. However, outside of that, nothing you do affects the real world, so there's no logical reason to worry about it, even if you don't have the memories to understand "oh its entirely fabricated".
As for others, it obviously depends on the dream, as each have their own level of lucidity, but I can personally say I know basic facts that don't require any specific memory, like my dad being alive is impossible, because he passed. I probably couldn't take a quiz though. I can also remember specific goals, though again, more as a natural feeling than a specific memory.
If you want to try to get out of the dream's story, you have to be willing to accept that if something is impossible, no story can explain it; it has to just not be real.
So I believe there is different level of lucidity, depending on each individuals.
My problem was always maintaining the lucid state. Doing anything to change the dream risked awakening early and I never got great at maintaining the state for long.
I think this is because our brains will happily "predict the next token". We've never evolved to have to consider doing anything else. So when you're asleep and placed into a scenario with some context associated with yourself, the brain does the natural thing and performs prediction.
But in situations like yours, I am never sure where I am in my real life. I know that its a dream and I am sleep, but where and when are never certain.
In most other cases after I wake up, I think to myself I knew I was dreaming why didn't I try more stuff?! Waking up from lucid dreaming can be very smooth fade-out/fade-in and sometimes I can extend the lucid dream state after partially waking up by reimagining the world I was leaving then on finally waking up I just wish I could have stayed longer but is no surprise at all.
I have lucid dreams somewhat frequently since I was maybe 8 or 9 after I started getting prescribed medication to help me sleep (initially it had been almost nightly, but it reduced over the years to the point where it happens maybe a couple times a month now a couple decades later), and generally I do remember the details of my life in lucid dream, but I sometimes have trouble determining whether they're details of my life in the past or the present. If in my dream I'm back at school, it's usually not the case that I don't remember graduating, getting a job, and moving; often times I have a vague sense that all of that had happened, but then some issue was discovered with my records that forced me have to go back and retake a class or two. (This obviously is pretty implausible, but dream logic isn't always airtight!)
> What I find interesting, however, is that if I have a dream I forgot to study for my test, or I'm naked at school because I left my clothes somewhere else, or the school play starts tonight and I haven't memorized a single line... the fact that I know I'm dreaming doesn't help at all.
Having real world knowledge doesn't always mitigate the "issue" in the dream though; in my lucid dreams, I don't have any control over what happens beyond my own actions, so a teacher expecting me to hand in some assignment won't generally accept "it's a dream so I don't have to" as an excuse. There is a way that knowing that I'm dreaming helps though; I can just choose to wake up! I'm not sure whether being able to forcibly wake up is typical or not for people dreaming lucidly, but I've never had much trouble doing it. Sometimes I'll end up back in the same scenario if I fall back asleep again after though, so it might end up being worth it to suffer through the imaginary misfortune to get the real world benefit of sufficient sleep.
REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep has paralysis on every part of your body except one part: Your eyes. As such, anyone can indeed force themselves away by attempting to open their eyes. Note though that you can "open" your eyes and it still be a dream, so you have to be sure open your eyes in real life, which requires actually physically moving the muscles.
There is of course also other ways of doing it, but this is probably the most universal and has an associated logic to it.
For example, one way of maintaining and strengthening the lucid experience is supposedly spinning around in place with your arms spread. When I do that, I find a dream sensation that feels a bit like my arms trying to move out from under my pillow or caught in the sheets. I then wake up shortly after that.
Other times I'll know I'm lucid and can do some tricks, but still feel a bit limited, whether by the dream or my beliefs of what I think I can do in the dream. I cannot manifest scenery or people. Mostly I can get a small hop glide for flying, sometimes I can shoot a magic projectile. This may be due to limited control and practice.
> Mostly I can get a small hop glide for flying
I can do that very often in dreams, even when I don't realize I'm dreaming and the dream is about something completely different - somehow I often remember that it's a "superpower" I have. I have to run very fast and jump and then if I focus I can slow down the fall and eventually start to ascend. Feels very weird but also very "physical" - I have a lot of intertia and can't decide where I want to fly - just very slowly add some acceleration going up.
A lot of limits in lucid dreams are entirely self-imposed and often broken through or bypassed with conscious intention.
I participated in lucid dream research years ago, and definitely could recall exactly where I was sleeping and more details about my waking state, while executing the experiment task inside the lucid dream.
- Researchers wanted to see how the "time slows down under extreme events" worked
- They created a watch that blinked a message at a time too fast for humans to see under normal circumstances
- They then had people bungee jump and try to read the watch during the jump
Turns out that people could not perceive the message even though they reported the "time slows down" effect during the jump.
This has led researchers to believe that humans are not actually processing events more quickly and/or time is perceived to slow down but rather this is a coping mechanism for dealing with extreme events.
I certainly wouldn’t expect basic stuff like perceiving blinking messages to change, since nothing is really changing optically (at least controlled for other things like pupil dilation).
That’s just as silly as expecting someone to be able lift heavier weights when they’re perceiving time more slowly, since their muscles would exert the same energy in a shorter period of time (again, controlled for things like adrenaline).
Pro baseball players report that they can see 90+ MPH fastballs clearly, down to details like the stitches on the ball. Zen martial artists also have claims of being able to react as if time has slowed down.
> It's not testing the perception of time
It's literally testing the perception of time?
I remember clearly having several thoughts in what could not have been more than 1 second between getting hit and my entire car smashing into another at 60 mph.
I remember watching my seatbelt break and snap across my chest, moving like a languid snake, barely motivated to snap back to the wall.However, many other times in my life in extreme situations nothing like that happened, so I don't know if just jumping off a cliff is enough trauma or fear of death to cause it reliably.
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The end game for me was going behind the curtain - into the dream control room. It was a room filled with screens each showing a dream I had experienced, even abstract dreams from the age of 3 or 4. From here I could enter any of the dreams through the screen. In the room was a man, like Morgan Freeman (it was like in the film The Dark Knight where he tracks everyones phone), he was the only person I ever met while lucid dreaming who seemed like a real person.
After some visits to this dream control room, I overcame my addiction to lucid dreaming, I stopped being active in my dreams and watched them like someone would watch a film. I knew it was a dream but I chose not to participate.
At this time I was also experimenting with astral projection. I really wanted to have a shared out-of-body experience which could be validated. I got my flatmate to place things in certain areas around our flat to see if I could find them while meditating, but I couldn't.
Being deeply involved in spirituality really distances you from most people in our society. I gave up meditating to better connect with the kind of people I am surrounded by.
There are a few tricks I use... but I don't recommend the experience (It can be... uncomfortable {there is a reason you don't remember the point you loose consciousness}).
I don't know if these are universally applicable tricks either. But focusing on a point (visualizing it as actively as you can) seems to be important to staying awake through the process of falling asleep...
I’ve only noticed one other side effect. I normally experience hypnogogic jerk and since starting magnesium, a few times the jerk itself has pulled me out of the descent into sleep.
But having actually followed the process, I can now understand how it can help with lucidity.
Usually Wake-Initiated Lucid Dream involves remaining completely static, to make your body believe it's sleeping. Never worked for me.
When your body locks up, test it. try to use as much force as you can without 'breaking' that lock... it keeps you in the present moment and 'close to being able to move'...
The standard: focus on your breathing is also applicable.
What has helped the most is imagining a dot, and moving that dot around, changing its color, moving it along the z-direction (closer). Focusing your mind on that keeps it active.
The thing about flying very far is that you're probably in the same fixed Superman position, not really moving your dream body anymore. If you don't move, your consciousness shifts awareness towards your physical body and you wake up. Try it next time: just stop & don't move, don't do anything, you're likely to wake up.
So doing the opposite, moving your dream body a lot & touching dream stuffs, tends to prolong your dream. That's why teleportation works better for moving to different areas.
Funny enough, not moving your body is also how your consciousness shifts and enters the dream state when awake.
That's hilarious. I always come back down slowly unless I make an effort to fly up again.
Only once I was both aware and in control, but it didn't last long.
Can attest that lucid dreams are as detailed and real as real life. Can't tell the difference. In one of my first attempts, I had a 30 minutes long lucid dream (I was able to precisely measure.). You know the feeling of wonder and awe? You feel it for at most a few minutes at a time usually. I was in constant amazement all through the whole half an hour. Because against my expectations, everything was as real as the real world. The texture of the ground beneath your feet, the feeling of air when you move fast, the taste when you eat. The weight and texture of stuff when you touch, the feeling of your own weight on your feet when you stand. The sun shining, reflections, brightness. Human eye level perfect quality and detail when you look. This feeling of awe didn't went away for me, I still get it when I LD.
There was a thread about it recently, I wrote there some more: About learning resources too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38399548