on the main website, i was looking through the “lucidity” section in the “what” dropbox. i saw this:
“Having a lucid dream doesn’t mean you can control everything you want, or have some kind of double life in the dreamworld.”
what confuses me is that, all over the forum, i see people saying (or implying) that you have complete control over everything you do, whether it is in what you see or what you do or say. so my questions are what’s it REALLY like? are there certain restrictions? and one completely out of this context: do you actually feel and smell and taste things (and why)?
You don’t always have full control, sometimes you can only observe the dream as it passes on, sometimes you can do almost anything.
Take flying for an example, I could do it on my first try, but I wasn’t able to fly perfectly; I could only float around and fall down. That’s probably because I had no idea how it would feel.
I think that the only thing that keeps you from having full control is yourself. If you really believe that you can do everything thing, then you can!
It’s hard to have total control. I’ve tried so many times to summon characters into my dream and when I do, they either disappear or do something completely different than what I wanted them to. Sometimes they don’t even appear. I can hardly even keep control over my mind sometimes in (lucid) dreams.
Lucid Dreaming means that you are consciously aware that you are in a dream. But being aware and having control are two different things.
But with that conscious knowledge, you can then try and take control which sometimes takes a lot of effort.
In a low lucid state you are aware you are dreaming
Slightly more lucidity brings the control to go where you want and do what you want.
higher lucidity gives the ability to make things appear, change your appearance, speicies, sex etc to changing your entire dreamscape into whatever you like.
The more aware you are the more control you have, this is what was being said in the ‘what’ section. It was explaining the levels and that sometimes lucidity just means that you are aware or feel that something isn’t quite right.
would you care to explain to me what it means and feels like have different “levels” of awareness? i thought awareness was just you either are or you aren’t. cheers.
[Darkness Myth] pretty much sums up the answer to this thread.
satty, sometimes a lucid dream feels as though it’s fuzzy or that you are vaguely aware you are dreaming but don’t act on it. Other times you feel as though your waking state of consciousness has been ‘injected’ into your dream and you are completely aware of everything that is happening to you.
Total control is definatly a goal to work towards, and it is possible to obtain. It takes a while though. I’v been LDing for a few years, I can manifest almost anything I want, change scenery by imagining something behind a door and open it, fly, fly through solid objects and more.
I still cant instantly teleport myself to a place, I havnt met a real spirit guide yet and I’m sure theres lots of stuff I cant do.
i’ve never looked at LDing as a sort of hobby that you practice to perfect. i viewed it as just something you’d do in your spare time (sleeping is spare time, surely!). hmm… that has completely altered my view on LDing. i’m going to keep at it for sure!
do you (or anyone who cares to answer) stick to just one method (WILD/MILD/WBTB, etc.), or do you alternate every few nights?
cheers.