was jsut wondering if people can learn how to lucid dream.

lucid dreaming in my definition is dreams where you can manipulate its outcomes. kind of like "what dreams may come" (movie with robin williams).

the only research ive done is google and stuff but was wondering if any psych majors knew. This really interests me, even thouhg im a bio major.

10/29/2006 1:55:26 AM

yes this is something you can train yourself to do. some people on here have done it and written about it. some of the techniques people practice to get started are:

1) make a habit of asking yourself in the middle of the day "am i dreaming" -- this trains you to ask this habitually so you might be more likely to do it in a dream
2) leave a notebook by your bed and make a habit of writing down all you can remember about your dream(s) as soon as you wake up. you will get better and better with practice at remembering details from your dreams, and this will ease you into being more aware while you're in your dreams of whats happening over time.
3) set your alarm for weird hours of the night (some people set targets for when they know they will be in the REM cycle), and wake up and do the same thing as #2.

there are other things you can do to work on this, that's just a few.

10/29/2006 1:04:23 AM

yeah its really cool

the first time you get really lucid its really freaky/scary/awesome so youll probably wake up from adrenaline

i did reality checks and kept a log for a while and got to where i could get lucid a few nights a week

the main thing i had trouble doing was staying asleep


its really mindblowing how much more realistic/vivid the dream becomes once you get lucid

10/29/2006 1:33:02 AM

The first step is to work on dream recollection, that is, remember when you wake up what you were dreaming about. This will help you to be more cognisant of dreaming.

10/29/2006 1:38:40 AM

flacid dreams are cool too

10/29/2006 2:11:34 AM

the two best methods to obtaining lucidity have already been mentioned, but i'll summarize:


1) make a habit of remembering and recording all your dreams IMMEDIATELY after you wake up.
2) make a habit of asking yourself several times a day if you're dreaming or awake...and think about it. don't just dismiss the question by saying "of course i'm awake," but really contemplate the idea. the best way to go about this is to draw a symbol, let's use the letter "C" as an example, on the back of your hand. every time you see the C on the back of your hand throughout the day, stop and ask yourself if you're dreaming. after a while, it'll happen in your dreams and if you are in the habit of actually taking the time to think about whether you're dreaming, you'll become lucid.

10/29/2006 4:35:00 AM

Quote :

"the main thing i had trouble doing was staying asleep "

Same thing here... I used to have lucid dreams and there were very few that I could actually stay in after I realized I was dreaming...

Good luck though!

10/30/2006 9:09:25 AM

You sold me the lucid dream?

10/30/2006 3:22:02 PM

is it bad i immediately thought of the star trek episode about lucid dreaming?

10/30/2006 3:26:17 PM

I used to be able to do it without ever practicing or anything. I rarely do it now though. I always really enjoyed making myself float or fly.

I have noticed that I can make myself dream about something fairly often by thinking about it for a while before I go to sleep. Those dreams are the ones that are very likely to turn lucid.

[Edited on October 30, 2006 at 3:29 PM. Reason : s]

10/30/2006 3:28:10 PM

experienced this the other night

pretty cool

10/30/2006 3:40:26 PM

i had a dream the other night where somebody walked in and shot me in the face as i was laying on the couch

i could feel the back of my head get blown out and was laying there feeling my brains and blood pour out of the back of my head as i lay there paralyzed with my eyelid twitching

definitely one of the more fucked up dreams i can remember having

10/30/2006 3:47:22 PM

with all due respect to everyone in the thread



WHAT THE FUCK?


(add to my topics)

10/30/2006 4:23:19 PM

this is such a wolfweb topic


I guess search feature doesn't work

10/30/2006 4:24:51 PM

im just curious, the past 10 min ive been looking at wikipedia about the stuff, and im reading about Hypnagogia, and i am wondering if this is related to what i do sometimes when i am almost asleep.

ill, for a split second, be walking rapidly in a field and ill step in a hole or something and i wake up with a leg jerk




and i read a little further and see this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnic_jerk

Quote :

"A hypnic or hypnagogic jerk is an involuntary muscle twitch (more generally known as myoclonus or a myoclonic twitch) which often occurs during the transition from wakefulness to sleep (see hypnagogia). It is often described as an electric shock or falling sensation, and can cause movement of the body in bed. Hypnic jerks are completely normal, and are experienced by most people, especially when over-tired or sleeping uncomfortably. The exact cause of the sudden jerks is not clear, but there are hypotheses: 1. That it is a naturally occurring part of the sleep process, as is slower breathing, and reduced body temperature. 2. That the feelings associated with relaxation before sleep are misinterpreted by the brain as falling or toppling over, and by reflex the body jerks out the limbs to stay upright. 3. That in the same way a body will often twitch as a person dies (as a reflex to attempt to keep the body functioning) it is thought the body might misinterpret falling asleep as a situation in which the body needs to be stimulated. Hypnic jerks are usually felt just once or twice per night. More regular (and usually less dramatic) muscle twitches often occur during normal sleep (perhaps as often as one every thirty seconds). In extreme cases, this may be classified as a disorder called periodic limb movement. The person with the disorder will usually sleep through the events. When a subject is deprived of sleep and is trying to fight sleep, hypnic jerks can occur more often. This normally happens to subjects who have successfully deprived themselves of sleep for longer than 24 hours."

[Edited on October 30, 2006 at 4:40 PM. Reason : vfgdfgdfgdfg]

10/30/2006 4:38:49 PM

^yeah, that shit happens to me - feels like I'm falling out of bed then suddenly I'll be awake...but then pass right out after it

10/30/2006 5:38:42 PM

ive had quite a few lucid dreams, theyre pretty awesome


ive had some lucid nightmares too where im trying to wake myself up-those suck (for some reason i can't control what's going on)

[Edited on October 30, 2006 at 8:11 PM. Reason : ....]

10/30/2006 8:11:13 PM

ive had some where ive been like "oh ok, im dreaming" but i cant control them or anything. I seem to remember trying to make something happen, but something completely different and seemingly random would occur

10/30/2006 8:43:40 PM

I had my first semilucid dream the other night. I was plowing a chick thats a friend of mine and suddenly remembered mid dream that I was married and this couldn't be happening and had to be a dream. Next thing I knew I'd conjured up a coworker and was having a 3-way. So far as I can remember, thats the closest I have come to actually realizing/controlling a dream.

10/30/2006 8:45:55 PM

I've had 2-3 lucid dreams before. I've never really had the discipline to work at it though. I'd like to get back into it; it's like being God in your own little world.

10/30/2006 9:40:11 PM

mescaline

10/30/2006 9:45:03 PM

I used to have lucid dreams a lot. Since I'm on a normal sleep schedule now a days, the occorrence is infrequent at best. The best driver for lucid dreaming for me is to stay up really really late and then go to sleep. Instead of sleeping all the way through the morning/day, wake up periodically. Eventually I'll wake up during a dream and then fall back to sleep shortly after, continuing into the dream. Coming back into the dream I'll realize I'm dreaming and then have lucidity.

I really want to try recording my dreams in a journal and see where that takes me. And I haven't tried the trick of questioning my state of awakening during the day. Perhaps something to do. Will have to get a nightstand for the journal though. As far as the hypnic jerks, I have then a few times a week. Makes me angry cause I know I'm just about to fallsleep and then I feel like I'm falling out of the bed and then I'm awake again.

10/30/2006 9:58:11 PM

i dont think the hypnagogic thing is the same

but it happens to me

sometimes you can realize your dreaming but dont have the level of control you want(if any)


but when you do have a good amount of control you can do anything you want, and thats pretty awesome considering the possibilities of different things you can do


i guess flying is the best thing to do but also the hardest

this has gotten me motivated to start up a dream log again

ill post if i get lucid

10/30/2006 11:30:38 PM

I've tried this lucid dreaming thing too, but not really because I wanted to. This thing happens to me right before I fall asleep called "sleep paralysis", and it's pretty much terrifying. Imagine being completely awake but your body has fallen asleep and you can't move a single muscle, then you realize you can't move and start to hyperventilate because you feel vulnerable or something. Then you try your hardest to move, and finally you might be able to move your fingers a little bit, and then your head or neck, and finally you "snap" out of it. And once you can move again it's almost impossible to stay awake enough to come completely out of it, so you start to fall right back asleep and the same thing happens all over again, and again, and again. Or you snap out of it and your heart is beating so fast from panicing that you can't fall asleep again for hours. Yeah, I know it's random.

I think this happens to lots of people every once in awhile, but it used to happen to me several times a night and was really scary. So I was researching online how to make it stop and one of the suggestions was to try and force yourself into a lucid dream. That is, instead of trying move, lay still and try to continue falling asleep and eventually you would be in a lucid dream. There was this whole "separating yourself from your body" talk and it all seemed a little crazy to me, I tried a few times and I could always get the "upper half" of my body out (speaking strictly in dreams now) but my legs were always stuck, so I gave up. Luckily the sleep paralysis thing hasn't happened in a few months, but when I was reading online about it I realized that people actually try to get to this point, I have no idea why, I think its scary as shit.

10/31/2006 3:35:30 AM

Quote :

"I was plowing a chick thats a friend of mine and suddenly remembered mid dream that I was married and this couldn't be happening and had to be a dream. Next thing I knew I'd conjured up a coworker and was having a 3-way."

LOL. Dream cheating doesn't count.

Quote :

"ive had some where ive been like "oh ok, im dreaming" but i cant control them or anything. I seem to remember trying to make something happen, but something completely different and seemingly random would occur"

Try again. And take an active roll, instead of just trying to "make something happen". Walk through a wall, try to fly, grab a bitch and fuck her, etc.

10/31/2006 9:30:07 AM

^^ your body will do that on purpose while you are asleep to keep you from failing a bit too much while dreaming.... however it sometimes short circuits and kicks in while you are still conscious...

10/31/2006 9:34:54 AM