4 Questions about Lucid Dreaming

Quest for Lucidity General Lucidness
1

I have read a lot about lucid dreaming, lot of books and researches, still, I haven’t found the answer to 4 questions.
I think I had a lucid dream yesterday, but I’m not sure it is really one.

Question 1:
Using the WILD technique, we can go directly to the dreamworld without having to loose consciousness and get it back later once in a dream. what I don’t understand is this: the first stage of sleep is NREM1, while the dream (lucid dream) is supposed to happen in the REM period, which is the last one; so how do we skip all those phases to go directly to REM when initiating a dream from our waking state?

Question 2:
The WILD technique is quite similar to the OBE technique. (vibrations, sleep paralysis, etc…). What if someone tries to have a lucid dream using WILD and gets an OBE instead. Or the opposite. How to distinguich between the two techniques, two paths…?

Question 3:
In a lucid dream, can we remember what we did during the day before we went to bed? what we did during the week? what we’re planing to do the next day after we wake up from the lucid dream? are these things clear in mind during the lucid dream. can you for exemple say during your LD “shit! … I forgot to call J.P… 'should do that as soon as I wake up…” ?

Question 4:
How to be sure that we had a lucid dream and not a dream in which we’re having a lucid dream. I mean what if the whole Lucid Dreams thing was just dreams in which we have the illusion of knowing we’re dreaming, doing reality checks, and doing afterwards what we want to do in the dream? Illusions are a powerful thing and it might be able to create the whole phenomenon. I’m not supporting this theory, I’m just allowing myself to doubt. After all, Isn’t the doubt the door to Lucid dreaming…

Please answer as many questions as you can.

2

Hi there.

There’s a thing called a FLD, where you dream you are having a LD, or something like that. You are not in fact lucid. These are tricky. I’ve had lots of dreams where I thought I was lucid but then realized later I wasn’t actually. LD’s just feel different, it’s hard to explain… You can actually think and choose your actions, where in a FLD things might seem a bit mechanical.

I haven’t had an OBE yet, and am not sure what I believe in, but some people believe WILD’s and OBE’s are basicly the same thing (I think).

The first question I’m not sure, I wonder it myself. I’ve read people say you can’t be conscious during deep sleep, but I think you go through it even in the morning, where the NREM stages are shorter and the REM stages are longer, although quickly…

hope I could help… and welcome to the forums. :wink:

3

Well, things seem to work in different ways for different people; but from my own perspective, it’s best not to try WILD when you first hit the pillow. Because of the problems you’ve mentioned; I believe it is possible, but it would involve lying around for a very long time in partial SP until REM occurs. A WILD is best attempted while falling back to sleep after waking up from a vivid dream, usually after about 5-6 hours of sleep I find is best. At this point, either do a WBTB technique, then WILD; or simply put your head back down, relax, and attempt WILD straight away. You should be able to enter REM sleep fairly quickly at this point, in order to pass back into your dreams, as you are in the middle of a sleep cycle, and not at the beginning of one.

IMO, not really. Usually the only thing that is clear in your mind from an opening perspective is that you are safely sleeping in your bed having a dream. Generally, the excitement of lucidity would be at the forefront of your initial thought processes, and not what the events of your day might be. I tend to immerse myself within the dream realm, and not the waking realm (in terms of thoughts, etc); keeping the two seperate somewhat is important in having prolonged lucid experiences. In fact, thinking about waking life activities, memories, and things you need to be doing (especially pondering intensely on them) will more than likely cause you to awaken from the lucid dream. Even thinking too much about the fact you are in your bed or that you are dreaming, can cause an awakening. It’s about knowing you are dreaming, without having to constantly repeat the thought to yourself. And, the same applies with other elements of waking life; considering anything outside of the dream realm for too long a period will ultimately result in the dream fading away. Because you will begin to sense the waking world again, and thus will enter the waking world. Focus on what you intend to do in your lucid dream, rather than what you intend to do when waking from it. That can worry you later. Personally, I don’t see why you would want to focus on the waking life in a lucid dream anyway; isn’t the purpose of having one to focus on the dream instead? Relax, go with it, and enjoy it.

A dream in which you’re having a lucid dream? I have doubts over the possibilities of that ever being able to happen; and even if it did, if the experience is exactly identical to a lucid dream, and you are in full control, then really, what’s the worry? Technically, it would still be a lucid dream. Do not doubt your own abilities. Patience, but also confidence is key. The brain responds well to a confident mind. Know yourself, and know you can lucid dream. Remind yourself on a regular basis that it is easy to lucid dream. Doubting your ability to lucid dream or the reality of lucid dreams will probably impede rather than aid your dreaming. Everyone has doubts when starting off, the trick is to cast aside these inhibitive thought barriers and rock and roll. Be positive. Don’t think you can have a lucid dream. Know you WILL.

4

On question 3 i have to answer, sure why not? We can remember to do specific things in our LDs so why not unrelated things? Surely we have access to our own mind even when sleeping, though some who have experimented with this have said there are some difficulties in recalling details such as adresses and phone numbers. But it is possible, sure.

Question 4: We love to defend Lucid Dreams against this type of reasoning. It is true that we cannot prove once and for all that our minds are really awake in lucid dreams. This is because that particular quality is impossible to detect from the outside of the consciousness itself. And that is true for waking life as well. You cannot prove that anyone else is conscious, they might as well be zombies. So what chance do we have of proving that we are conscious when we are dreaming?
What we usually do in this situation is to say that it is just prejudice. For some reason, some people don’t want to believe that we can be conscious while dreaming. They put the burden of proof on US. There is no reason whatsoever, that it should be impossible to be conscious while dreaming. There is nothing that suggests that. So why doubt it, when you don’t doubt your consciousness when awake? You use your own consciousness to determine wether you are aware.

Question 2: Depends on what you believe. I do not believe in out of body travel myself. Some believe that dreams are out of body experiences, so there is no difference for them. Some will say, you will know the difference, but offer no further help. I feel that such an answer sort of just tells people, “I have done it so I know, you don’t.” But there is a problem with that. I have never had an experience which I have interpreted as an out of body experience, where all other possible explanations in terms of dreaming or hallucinations are out of the question. Now some may say, “you have never had an OBE”. So would I for that matter. But I may still have had an OBE but not recognized it. If such things exist at all. So, I was not able to tell, as I was supposed to.
How convenient for they who say they have, and that you must be able to tell. Because they automatically become the only authorities on the subject. They can always say, when someone says, “I have experienced wuch things, but they did not convince me”, that: “no, you had a different sort of experience”. This way, they can pick and choose from all statements, only the ones that fit into their beliefs. And not accept that it is rational to go with the least outrageous explanation. But then again, I am just some fool who “has never had an OBE”. I know, I’m not very helpful.

5

Thanks for your answers, but I’m still unsatisfied…
As I said before, I’ve read a lot about LDs, I’m not considering myself as an expert, far from that, and maybe I still haven’t had any LD, but I do know what you said, I already know these things, but…

About Question 1:
It is possible to initiate a dream from the waking state, without having to do it in the middle of the night, or in the early morning, I know that, I’m sure of that, at least that’s what they say… it’s said that many people can do it with practise, especially Tibetan yogis, and it’s said that being able to do WILDs is the condition and ultimate proof that one can initiate lucid dreams at will.

About Question 2:
There are too many reproted cases of OBEs to ignore the phenomenon. Even great researchers in the dreams domain talk about Lucid Dreams and OBEs separately, as two different experiences, even though they can be close to each other… the ultimate proof of that is that it’s said that it is possible to trigger and OBE from a Lucid Dream. if lucid dreams and obes were the same, the last statement would have no meaning…
WILDs are not OBEs, according to my readings, so my question is still unanswered…

About Question 3:
of course it’s more interesting to enjoy the dream rather than think about daily life stuff, but being able to refer to normal life things druring the dream can make the experience more realistic and hence more enjoyable. you can think about what you need to do the next day when you wake up, and try it in the LD in a special way, or just mock the thing. (without having to prepapre the whole thing before you sleep). I have read an OBE report in which the person (second body) could exchange a phone number with someone else, which means he could remember his phone number, and could remember the other person’s phone number and get back with it to the “phisical plane”. I wonder if such consciousness abilities are possible in Lucid Dreams.

About Question 4:
when I just woke up from my dream, I was convinced that it was an LD. so convinced that I immedialty starting writing the dream after I tagged it “LD”. but later I noticed that what I did in the lucid dream wasn’t the most important thing I’d like to do, and the person I wanted to see in the dream wasn’t the most iimportant person I’d like to see in an LD, so I’m really doubting it was an LD, since I’m now in disagreement with with I was in the dream. as if you did something in the morning and started wondering why you did it, later in the afternoon…
yea it is probably a FLD.

6

Don’t roll over, and try to keep your eyes open. If you roll over you have failed and will need to get up and walk around instead of going back to bed.

If you stay just on your back, it will tell your mind “I am going to dream” and then you will go through your NREM, and then you wil wake up from NREM, the body will want you to move and roll over, so it can trick you into going into REM without you noticing,

this is unacceptable, either refuse to roll over and wait, or get up and meditate for a few minutes until you feel pretty awake, then go back and lie on your back or ONE position.

this is very rigid discipline but its very tricky to cross from NREM / REM consciously unless you do something like this.

keeping the eyes open also increases wakefulness, and so does taking green tea or green tea extract due to l-theanine,
ultimately the beginning of the night is very hard to WILD into, it is easier in the morning.

it doesn’t matter they are just different languages.

sometimes but you will be thinking about the dream and not about your waking self very much, that clarity, yes, sometimes.

HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT YOU ARE HERE RIGHT NOW HAVING THIS EXPERIENCE?

7

You mention that dream researchers talk about launching OBEs from lucid dreams. Ofcourse you will have your share of dream researchers who believe in OBEs or are open minded towards them. But there is also this: An OBE is an EXPERIENCE. The expression says Out of Body EXPERIENCE, it does not say astral travel or anything like it. The experience is the same, no matter if it is a dream, or a waking hallucination or the soul actually leaving the body. So an OBE is defined by what the person EXPERIENCED, that is to say, what it SEEMED to be. The subjective interpretation by the individual. OBE’s are REAL, but there are different opinions about what ACTUALLY HAPPENED. I wouldn’t be so bold as to alltogether rule out the possibility that astral travel is real, but I have yet to find any convincing proof of it’s existance.
A lucid dream is defined by KNOWING that you are dreaming. So you cannot have a lucid dream without knowing that you are dreaming. And you cannot have an OBE without experiencing it as an OBE, or it defies the definition. I can certainly have an OBE and later on not believe that I had left my body. It is still an OBE and I believe that is why even serious scientists give it the time of day. Because it is a part of human experience.
Now, the question of how to tell whether you really left your body or not, I don’t think anyone can answer.

And for your last thing there. You doubted that you had a lucid dream because you had not completely fulfilled your goals in it? You must remember that lucidity is not black or white. It’s not either a normal dream or full lucidity. You will experiene different levels of clarity. In some dreams you are only sort of half awake, and in others you feel more awake than you have ever been. So you may have a lucid dream, but not think at all about what you intended to do. Remember, the definition is that you know you are dreaming while you are dreaming. That is the one thing you need to identify to tell if you had a lucid dream. You don’t need to think about what you did at all, the important thing is your consciousness. Was it a real AWARENESS of the fact that you were dreaming?

8

I’d guess that too, as I said above, I believe. :wink:

BUT be careful. I find LD’s and FLD’s can really be hard to tell appart. Just because you did something “weird” or that isn’t the coolest thing to do, that doesn’t necessarily mean it was a FLD. Sometimes in LD’s, as we’re in an altered state, we can feel weird things and have weird ideas and not be exacly sure where they came from (the same way unexpected sights or sounds can appear).

The other night, for example, I had a LD (and I’m sure I was lucid :content: ) where I didn’t find anything to do so I jumped out of the window (12th floor!). The thing is that I’m not very good at flying and had a scary experience the last time I tried :rofl: (got “thrown around” in the air, as if an invisible hand has holding me by the shirt). So, when I woke up I was like “Why did I try to fly!? I should have done anything else!” :shy:

9

mattiasdavis when you talked about unexpected sounds you reminded me of something…
during that same LD, as I jumped from a high building, a song started palying at a very high volume, and I really loved the sensation of falling with that song played from nowhere. I didn’t chose to have music, the song isn’t one I frequently listen to, but it started playing, like that. that song incredibely fit the exhilerating sensation I felt, so maybe my mind just went looking for the song that would fit best.

I’d like to add that it was my first experience with flying, and I was quite succesful with it. I couldn’t really fly, but I could slow down my fall at will, and accelerate it if I wanted to. I even landed on a boulevard without the slightest difficulty, landed on my feet at the speed of a normal fall, and went on doing others things as if I’ve been doing such jumps since I was born…

when I became lucid, the scenery changed abruptly, without any transition. I got teleported to the top of a building.
I coudn’t remember the title of the song during the LD, but I woke up with it still playing in my ears, then checked its title.

10

very cool. :grin:
I’ve heard loud music out of nowhere in a LD too. It was my first WILD and things were blurry and unstable. I was completely exhilerated, then I noticed the music and… I felt like crying, that’s how incredible it was. :bored: