Hello everyone,
I searched through the forum and I was surprised not to find any topic discussing lucid dreaming! Some of you may not know but lucid dreaming is when someone is dreaming while he is consciously aware that he is dreaming.
If anyone has experienced a lucid dream, I am sure that you will agree that nothing is more magical than that. This is the closest way to real magic. Of course there are different levels of lucid dreaming and with experience, practice and more importantly patience, more control over your dreams will be achieve. You can fly like superman, make laser beams come out of your eyes , you can virtually do WHATEVER you like , the only limit is your imagination.

There are different methods to attaining lucidity, and there are even several lucid aids that can help you achieve lucidity ( such as vitamins , different softwares etc...), for example , if any of you smoke, I am sure some of you may have experienced extremely vivid dreams caused by the intake of nicotine.

Please , if any of you would like to share experiences , discuss about methods of induction, It would be interesting to share ideas and views about this topic.

I didn't know where to put this thread , I thought that it falls closest under the Hypnosis category. Moderators, If you find this thread inappropriate or in the wrong section please delete it/ redirect it to the correct section.

Thanks

Excellent topic. They talk about this all the time on Coast to Coast late night talk radio program. I just had one earlier, in and out everytime I closed my eyes.

Candin

Actually F.ambro, you've either come to the right room OR the last one you needed to enter. I say that because everyone in here, I should imagine, finds lucid dreaming fairly normal. BUT we have a strange quite lonely lad in here called mindpunisher (he's on his way as we speak) and he shall inform you of any new advances in this phenomenon.

welcome,
bobser

Thanks for the replies!
Bobser, you are correct when you say that "everyone" may find lucid dreaming fairly normal as most of us has involuntarily experienced it in some stage of our life. However, very few actually try to voluntarily induce lucid dreams and gain higher control.
I would love to hear mindpunisher's knowledge and views about this

I have a page about this on my website, that seems to attract comments from teenage girls.

One summer I studied lucid dreaming, reading a book by Celia Green (called Lucid Dreaming) and others from Keele library. I had a few that summer - because I had been thinking about it more during the day. There's a big clue right there about lucid dreams, I think.

You see, the problem is, and I want you all to write an essay for first thing tomorrow on the matter, are you conscious that you are dreaming, or simply dreaming that you are conscious? You see, it might just be a 'feeling' of consciousness, and whilst it feels like free will, perhaps it isn't, it just feels that way, which throws up all sorts of philosophical mess about whether everyday consciousness is also just an illusion.

Celia Green's book is very good, and was my first introduction to the wonderful world of lucid dreaming. Stephen La Berge also has some very useful resources on the subject. If you have not read up on lucid dreams and have not experienced the great liberation they offer, then check out the subject. Its great fun. What else would you be doing while you're asleep.

I'm sure I'm not the only one but can anyone else here go in and out of a lucid dream at will? I mean, you wake up briefly and then go back to sleep and sort of "will" your way back into the dream close or right where you left off.

Sometimes I feel like an actor in a movie and just go in and out. I don't necessarily wake up, but just come up to a light trance-like state then back down to the dream or REM.

If I need thearpy, Id rather just do the self hypno stuff.

Candin

Candin , I think that the process of going in and out of your dream is referred as Dream Exit Induced Lucid Dream ( DEILD ). I have experienced it several times but you have to make you that you don't move or open your eyes. I found this method to be the easiest way to induce lucid dreams as, if done correctly, you can repeat it and have a sequence of lucid dreams

I can slip in and out of the lucid dream, but only after a good nights sleep when I am relaxing in bed in the morning. What I tend to do is set the alarm clock (a low one) for an hour or more before I plan on getting up. So I wake up, then drift off, then the dreaming can begin.

Bang, that's it. That is what I remember most, the early morning or just before waking states.


Thanks for that info F. Ambro!

Candin

Hey F.ambro, have you noticed how mindpunisher has read this thread yet taken a concious decision NOT to join in because I said he was on his way? Didn't I say he was strange?
Don't worry, you'll meet him. He'es smiling as he reads this and toying with me.
Anyway, we've all had THE dream where we're flying. But are any of you like me, in so much as I get these dreams in batches? Over a week or so ago I have them most nights (say 6 out of 7) then they leave me for a while. I was telling my wife that at one point I knew I had this silly grin on my face because I knew I was touching the bedsheets and that I was lying there in my bedroom whilst at the same time I was hovering over a meadow in a lucid dream. When I fly by the way I don't so much fly but rather 'move through the air at will'. I think it... and it happens. This is a common method for many fliers I've talked to. And ALL seem to agree that it is the most natural thing in the world. By the way when I fly in a normal dream I always feel incredibly sad and dissappointed when I awake, whilst at the same time strangely believing that somehow it actually was real, always!

Flying schmying. Ok I'll say what you're all too afraid to - grabbing the nearest hottie for a bonk, right? It's what lucid dreams were made for, surely.

Wow, now that's uncanny!

I haven't posted because I didn't really think I had that much to contribute.

If a lucid dream is one where you are aware of the dream before during or after then I probably just see it as normal and never really seen it as special .

However there is an overlap with dreams and parts therapy. I did some training on Gestalt dream work. And the theory is that everying in a dream is a "part".

The technique involves two seats. You list each element of the dream. So for example the location might be in an old house you were brought up. It may contain people you haven't seen in years, it may have sexual elements. It might have a shock or a loud noise or some kind of weird behaviour. You might be flying running away from a monster or losing your teeth. Or their might be other things.

The theory goes on that it's your unconscious mind trying make you aware of something youve been ingoring or need to pay attention. There are lots of dream bookswith intepretations of symbols. But in realiy these symbols have uniqe meanings and messages only to you. You do the following in order to get the message.


You have the two seats facing each other. You imagine the first element from the dream is sitting on the other seat. Its easier at first with someone's help. You or them speak to the part. Ask it what message it has for (your name). You then sit on the seat and pretend you are the part and imagine yourself on the other seat.

You talk back to yourself as the part and see what comes back. This goes back and forth if you don't get put in a looney bin. You do this with each element until you get the full message. You sort of go into trance while doing it and things start to flow. Its actually quite surprising what comes up and is usually dead on accurate about what is happening in your life. The meanings you get sometimes are nothing near what the obvious symbols seem to be.

For example many years ago while on a three wek residential course. The training was designed to kick off a process where "stuff" would start to come up. The trainer at this point said "you might have some dreams tonight". I woke up through the night in a cold sweat. I had very realstic dream where I was very big and had my father by the ankles and like a baseball bat cracked his head of a brick wall. The noise of the cracked skull woke me up startled.

Next day we did some work on the dream. And it turned out the brick wall was my mother who always was the one who kept the family together and was the constant. I never got on with my father and had some longterm issues that I hadn't resolved. My mother wanted me to sort them out with my father. The message from the loud crack said that I had been ignoring these issues and it was there to make me listen and there were things I needed to sort out for my own good with regards to my father. My large size was a message to me to be bigger than him because he couldn't help being who he was.

"You might have some dreams tonight" was all that was needed to induce this.

I do this occasionally without thinking. I'll wake up in the morning remembering a strange dream and ask each part what the message was get the answer and go back to sleep.

You can experiment with lucid dreaming by hypnotising yourself giving yourself a suggestion that when you put on a piece of music it will take you somewhere unusual and you will experience the feelings smells etc and it will be a very intense and pleasant experience. then switch on the music and see where it takes you. Or get someone to do this for you.

Thing is with lucid dreaming Ive always considered it to be a normal part of everyday life. When younger I was a keen illustrator and graphic artist. he creative process is probably controlled lucid dreaming.

I am sure most people experience something along these lines every day. I think the term Lucid dreaming makes it sound something more than it isn't?

Unfortunately it does not work out that way. Lucid dreams, from all the research on them I have read, tend to be incompatable with strong emotion. You either drift into a normal dream or wake up if you become too "excited" in the lucid state. With some training you can overcome this limitation, but it needs work. I'll leave it up to you whether it is worth the work.

I have never had a lucid dream before. Is it easy to make yourself have one?

If you remember a dream or half awake and were aware you were dreaming then you have had a lucid dream.

A lot of information and cool stuff on this subject can be found at dreamviews.com message boards GO THERE
A lucid dream hapens while your dreaming and is not catagorized by a dream you remember. Its when you realize you are asleep and can control everything like a god. really anthing. kill somebody you hate. see pompeii, meet the pope, visit the moon in 1969 without a space suit. it's only limited by your imagiation

Licid dreaming is very easyto do. No Practice at all for certain ways, it's like when you dream but you think your walking down the street,but suddenly you see a woman floating, your creative part of the mind is in control so you couldn't care less and don't take it as weird , but you have a sudden moment of clarity that a women can't float and you are dreaming. Your front part of the brain starts up , that control the logic ,and you are able to funnel your creativity into the situation in the surroundings. the easiest way is to keep a dream journal. Every morning when you get up open the notebook up write the date and write, scribble, or anything about your dream. You'll find within a week or two of doing this your dreams seem to take hours you can remember so much. you don't need to try and have a lucid dream because they happen automatically. no practice or anything. You can also try reality checks throughout the day. but you won't succeed easily without the dream journal. Lucid dreaming is planted in science there is nothing mystical about it at all and is tons of fun.

I can stress this this enough. Go to the message boards on http://www.dreamviews.com/ if you want to get into lucid dreaming.

>>>>A lucid dream hapens while your dreaming and is not catagorized by a dream you remember. Its when you realize you are asleep and can control everything like a god. really anthing. kill somebody you hate. see pompeii, meet the pope, visit the moon in 1969 without a space suit. it's only limited by your imagiation<<<<

If you don't remember it or are not aware of having it how can it be 'Lucid?'

>>>find within a week or two of doing this your dreams seem to take hours you can remember so much<<<<

that's what I said dreams you can remember or be aware of whilst dreaming.

it's something I have never really studied in depth because it was one of those things that didn't interest me.

But we have Lucid Dreams anyway. I don't see them as being special. But that's just me.

There are several techniques which will allow you to become lucid in your dreams, and increase the frequency of your lucid dreams. Going on the message boards already recommended is a good starting place. Creative Dreaming by Patricia Garfield, Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming by Stephen LaBerge, and Lucid Dreaming in 30 Days: The Creative Sleep Programme by Keith Harary and Pamula Weintraub are the best books I have encountered. We spend a third of our life asleep. Through lucid dreaming you can unlock those missing hours of your life. If you have any interest at all, get the three books and give it a try. Well worth the small investment.