Cool, I did not even think of trying to connect them 
Or you could say your conscious mind watching a dream together with you subconsciousness mind And one giving advises to another.
Was your mentor dream non-lucid?
@flowofmysoul: By the way, thanks for sharing this. Your insights are needed. Not many lucid dreamers speak of simultaneous dreams.
My “Mentor” dreams are usually non-lucid or sub-lucid. By “sub-lucid” I mean that I’m dimly aware of dreaming, but don’t take any action—I just watch and listen.
I didn’t see this before, but understanding the intelligence behind dreams is probably crucial to grasping their simultaneity.
…I’m reminded now of a lucid dream from many years ago in which a voice spoke to me in the middle of the dream, making me lucid. I had been, in the dream, climbing a mountain through fog and was getting anxious and worried, wondering if I’d ever reach the top. The voice said, “The mountain is more important than the peak.” The voice spoke right to me, explaining the dream itself, offering me a kind of advice.
Some people, like Robert Waggoner, call this voice the Awareness Behind the Dream; some simply call it the subconscious. Whatever you name it, in that case, it was an example of an intelligence working parallel to my dream ego. The intelligence behind the voice understood the dream more deeply than “I” did until it explained it to me. The explanation sparked lucidity, but whether or not the voice intended to make me lucid I can’t say.
I would say that my lucidity was a natural byproduct of me being led to think of the situation as meaningful imagery. So, if we assume that the voice was my own consciousness, then some part of me was lucid before my avatar in the dream was lucid. At least, some part of me knew that what I was experiencing was just mental imagery and not real (which I would call lucidity).
This corresponds with what you’re saying, flowofmysoul, that we can indeed be lucid on one level but not another within the dreaming process.
I understand you regarding sub-lucid, I had same kind of dreams when I wanted to quit LDing and I wanted to have non-lucid dreams. I never succeeded in having non-lucid, but I found a way to make it easier for me. I also observed dream like a movie, always knowing that I can control it, but would usually not intrude.
Here is my description of it - Observer Lucid Dreams.
[My Dream Types.)
I also had similar situation where voice was talking to me, I had them very often. In my LD’s, sometimes I would go to some distant place where I could relax, sometimes I was sitting and listening to that voice, he was telling me some interesting ideas. Absolutely random, voice talked about everything.
Also sometimes this voice commented my ongoing LD, giving some ideas on why some events are happening in this dream, like doing a brief introduction.
I think in this case we are reading our own subconscious mind.
I have also heard a voice giving me advice. In a FLD I heard my own voice telling me to calm down or I would wake up, in a ND I heard another voice, a deeper male voice, telling me to “Dive or you’ll die to those deadly spores”. It hasn’t made me lucid yet though.
Do some reality checks when you face strange situations in real life. Do them seriously , make you self question the reality.
Hopefully next time it will make you lucid
Done exactly that. And I have become lucid from DCs telling me cryptic stuff But I haven’t heard a guiding voice in a while.
Then work on making them all lucid
That just sounds rude to me. We were talking about multi-layered dreams and hearing guiding voices but you feel the need to order me to have more lucid dreams? Like I’m not good enough to talk with you about this subject until all my dreams are lucid dreams? You felt the need to tell me about reality checking. That almost felt like an insult too.
Wasn’t an insult, just meant not to stop on current level and improve.
Well it was still off-topic. And trust me, I never stop trying to improve. I know what’s the right way to RC. I have gotten RCILDs.
Cool
Ironically, I posted the other day regarding this… In a thread that is near to this one.
Estremely-long lucid dreams
Why I posted it there, I’m not entirely sure. I hadn’t seen this thread, which is why I find it ironic… It had just come to mind when reading that thread that I seem to have strange occurrences in my dreams that do not seem to add up to what people make mention of.
This is something that I don’t often talk about, but this multi-layering is something I experience consciously quite often.
I always identified them as “alternatives” or parallels.
Often when I’m dreaming, even when lucid, I witness more than one affect or result, by something I consider doing. In some of those alternatives, I carry out that action, wilst other’s, even sometimes the current “layer” i’m on, I don’t.
Multiple layer’s, i’ve never actually identified them as. Along with the examples of seperate experiences at the same time, I’ve also had fluid completely different dreams. I’ve always called these Parallel Dreams…
This is - as you mentioned, very rough on recall. My recall during sleep is exceptional in my view, and as posted in my response in that thread, this is one of the things I notice when I’m asleep.
As for “entering another layer” in regards to a lucid dream, my lucid dreams have the same behavior as explained above. I am still dedicated to one universal, but I still experience - deeper inside - the alternates/parallels.
This is the cause of my difficulty summoning objects, and sometimes other ability attempts when consciously aware of this. Sometimes it is manifested on a separate level, and exists on the dream parallel that I’m not focused on. Solidifying that object to the applicable presence is still rather difficult for me.
I’d always considered that explaining this would be rather difficult, as others may not understand what I’m talking about, so I’ve never really brought it up. I’m hard of words and explanations, but I imagine with what you’ve said - that it can now be understood.
–Additonally
As for voices, and guidance, sometimes I say “Something is telling me”, I’m referring to a deeper feeling, or intuition.
I do occasionally hear a vocalized voice, but it is usually an observational commentary, rather than suggestions. Sometimes I vocallize a response towards that voice, but it is usually a clarification, or another comment on theirs.
When I wake up after this occurrs, I find it fascinating, and try to make it a goal to look more into this, simply because while I’m inside the dream, it just seems completely normal and nothing seems out of place. This typically only hear this voice when I’m lucid though. And it is very rare.
–
After considering this mention, I decided to give an example and write it in my DJ for last night’s dream. here.
Dreamers Unite
Had a LD where I appeared doing the same thing I did just before I went to sleep, realized that it came from one of my memories and switched to a new dream that was ongoing already. I tried to experience both dreams at the same time. I felt from one dream to another, after some time I managed to stay in between. I would be glad to describe how that felt and looked like, but it is really hard to put in words. This would sound odd, it looked like I was there and wasn’t there at the same time. I had a pretty good recall of both dreams, also I had recall of 3rd dream that was there, but I did not play much attention to it. And it felt pretty tiring, had to comprehend both dreams at once.
When I was just in between those two dreams I opened my eyes, I did not have have intention to wake up, but I opened my eyes because I could not hold between two dreams anymore. It was unintentional wake up. I opened my eyes, but I was still there dreaming in my mind, I tried to move but I could not. I realized that something went wrong and I got into SP. The same moment I decided not to wait until SP goes off and I forced my self to move. I tried really hard, it felt like I was stuck in my bed and it took lots of effort to move my head up.
When I started to move, I had a very strange feeling like I am inside a centrifuge, not my body, but my mind and my head is inside a centrifuge. A Centrifuge and a pendulum working at the same time, I felt like something is rotating really fast and from time to time I had those short pushes to random side. If you ever hold a working hard drive from a computer in your hand and then you would move it and feel like it is rotating inside and you feel like it jumps to right and left when you move it. The more effort I made to move the faster it started to spin, finally I gathered all my efforts together and used my hands(elbows) to pull my self up and at the same time I pull my head with my body. I came to a sitting position but that felt like a long journey, I was shaking from right to left and went back to my bed because I thought I will loose my conscious, I felt very dizzy.
Went back to lying position and was thinking about it for some time, was a pretty fun experience. Never forced my self out of SP before 
I would like to know if anyone had similar experience when woke up or tried to move during SP.
I must be different because I only have 1 dream running at a time, conscious or not. There is no need for more than 1 dream because it can chop and change however it likes, if it fades then a new one begins. What you said makes sense I just don’t feel like it applies to me.
This is an awesome observation and a great insight at the subconcious workings of our mind. Just wow! Even in our waking moments we have multiple thoughts on our mind, memories, situations we are re-playing; it only makes sense that are dreams are doing the same.
I experience this all the time in my dreams just by switching from place to place and situation to situation. It all kind of happens without me noticing, it would be crazy to be aware of the switch as it’s happening and be able to control the switch.
On a different note, you seriously only have lucid dreams? Or you only recall lucid ones? It seems like psyche wouldn’t be able to take that constant conciousness. I’m no science expert, don’t get me wrong, I’m just throwing together a personal theory here because I’ve never heard of someone who only lucid dreams. I just know that when I am lucid dreaming, it takes some mental effort, a constant awareness. I definitely don’t feel as relaxed during or upon waking, but that’s just me. I feel almost edge-y and halfway between asleep and awake, not the deep relaxing sleep of stupid dreams where I’m buying a vacuum cleaner that’s actually a banana and floating around in pointless colors. If you never just let your brain relax I can imagine some exhaustion eventually!
It’s pretty remarkable isn’t it? flowofmysoul is like a lucid dreaming savant lol. On another note, I have come across one other person who only LDs, many years ago in highschool. According to him, every night he started out in a completley black void space, and then consciously created the dream from there.
To be honest, even though I’d love to have more LDs, I didn’t envy his constant god-mode. Half of the fun for me is the surprise and delight of new and wonderful environments that I haven’t come up with consciously, and interfacing with those. I wouldn’t want to always have total control over the Dreaming. I still want to have better Lucid Dreams though.
Something I’ve noticed recently, and it may or may not be related to the heavy dreaming, but I’ve been waking up with a lot more headaches after lots of dreaming. Does anyone else have that issue? It may just be stress related.
I’ve never come across anything like this before, but after reading this thread, I can see how it could be true. Especially given this –
…
I’m not sure I’ve ever experienced layered dreams with such clarity that you’ve described. However, there does seem to be some similarity in the In-Between space – that space when you’re not quite asleep and not quite awake. Sometimes I just slip in and then slightly slip out. When I slightly slip out, I suddenly become aware that I had been sort of having an auto-pilot dream or thought process, while neither being fully asleep or fully awake. Usually by the time I realize this, the contents of what was just happening begin to rapidly fade. (Which is sometimes super annoying if the contents happened to be something really amazing.)
I’m wondering if there is a thread on here that addresses the mechanisms of forgetting when waking?
Anyway, that is an experience that sort of reaches towards what you are getting at, because one is still awake, while also having this auto-pilot experience just slightly underneath the conscious level. It doesn’t then seem far-fetched to suggest that this is always happening and we may or may not be aware of it.
Another experience that could be relevant is a dream I had after I had been contemplating the idea of bi-location in waking life. I received all sorts of insights about that, during that time. The most potent source of insight being a dream in which I was dreaming two dreams at once. But it was entirely chaotic for me. And in the one dream, I started to become distressed, being unable to really hold to that dream reality. It was a little like losing my mind. The two started to warp and blend and I just couldn’t keep it together. In the dream I ended up just holding on to my partner’s arm to try to ground some point of reference.
If anyone is interested, I’ll make a separate post about that dream and what I learned about bi-locating.
One of the take-aways was that, my mind needs to be prepared and strengthened to be able to hold multiple frames of reference like that, at once, otherwise I risk damaging it. I’m not saying its not possible for others, though. Just, my guidance was like, hey slow down there Tiger, try crawling before running. LOL.
so maybe, in regards to layered dreaming, I’m just not well practiced enough to stretch my awareness in that way, even if the dreams are actually already happening.
the coolest thing that strikes me about this is, it really reminds me of the ideas of “higher self/inner self/oversoul.” In some schools of thought, the Oversoul is the part of us that holds (maybe you can even say, dreams) all the potential iterations of the reality and timelines of the Self/Selves. So, flowofmysoul, (your name is ironically suited to this), it is like you are tuning into this greater awareness.
(( If you want a book recommendation, I think you’d really enjoy the book called The Education of Oversoul Seven, by Jane Roberts))
Voices,
I’m certain that some of the occurrences of a guiding voice come from this larger self. However, I’ve also had strange occurrences of voices that were just weird and threw me off, that occurred like someone was flipping the dial of a radio to different channels. sometimes the voices are aware of me and talking directly to me, other times they are just going on about something random not related to me.
Sometimes I have this experience, and I’ve heard it is a common one, of hearing these random voices saying arbitrary things, while falling into sleep. Apparently that kind of voice-hearing is also a symptom of sleep deprivation in it’s more advanced stages, but hearing them doesn’t necessarily mean you’re suffering from sleep deprivation. It can also just happen.
I figure out a way to have several LD at the same time and hold other dreams in the background. It shares similarities to the layers described, but there is full control and awareness the entire time. It does require a lot of control and recall. It took me a week of LD to develop this method. Hopefully once walked through it you can do it faster.
The best way to explain it is for me to walk you through how I did it the first time
I would often be faced with a decision that would have two very different effects on the LD I was currently having. I got annoyed I had to choose one and miss out on the other unique storyline. I wanted them both.
One time I changed my mind and tried to backtrack the dream, but that made the dream too unstable and I woke. The next time I decided to ‘jump’ back to the decision moment and advance forward with Dream B. Dream A quickly was quickly being forgotten but I still wanted to explore its story, so I jumped back to it, Dream B consequently began fading.
I go better and better at jumping back and forth between two similar dreams with different stories. Soon I could jump between more than two dreams with completely different plots, and leave the other dream in a limbo state for longer periods of time. However I would still only experience one dream at a time.
This wasn’t good enough for me, I got impatient and began jumping rapidly back and forth between two dreams. I can best describe the effect like the two dreams were on opposite sides of my mind, and they began to physically draw closer together towards the center of my head. The intervals between jumps became faster and faster with less time occurring in each dream to the point nothing occurred. As the dreams converged at the center I realized I was no longer jumping between them but rather experiencing them both at once with full control and attention on both. I was in both dreams as if I were only in one.
I kept working at this and can now have 3 LD simultaneously and hold 7 more in limbo to swap in, however there is a trade off as the more dreams I experience and contain the more stretched thin my mind is so the vividness decreases. More simultaneous dreams is far more taxing than dreams in limbo. I can hold 16 dreams in limbo when I am not split dreaming, but I rarely find that practical. Ending one of the dreams is as simple as relaxing it into limbo and allowing my mind to forget it.
This showed me how to fully be in one dream and let my mind wonder and work on something else. I would think up a new dream or think of a previous dream developing it to either store in limbo for later use, or start dreaming it with another. This is also how I learned to visit past dreams and develop dream worlds
I use this skill to experience a multiverse of a dream, Or in one dream I study or develop dream skills while in the other I have fun.
Because there is a trade off on quantity vs quality I typically stick to 2 dreams and up to 4 in limbo, as I can maintain a very vivid experience.
When having two dreams something disrupting in dream A that would normally cause you to wake now only suddenly ends dream A leaving you in the unaffected dream B. Dream A can easily and quickly be recalled a few moments before the disruption for an alternative choice or repeat of the disruption if your learning more control or overcoming an obstacle. Overall simultaneous dreaming creates a very stable dream environment
dream time is limited, simultaneous dreaming is very efficient with that time, and that’s why I almost always choose to use it.
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Yes I just recently had the same conclusion. I think it must have something to do with how deep I am sleeping .The most layers I have had to wake in was just a week ago and it was five!
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