Ive kind of seen a common concept that is being mentioned more and more by LDers on these forums. That concept would be that of becoming lucid not through RC, not through some sort of method, but just becoming lucid because you can just ‘tell’ that it is a dream.
To rehash elaborate it is like the feel between real life and a dream. Like you can just ‘tell’ that it is a dream. Hard to describe. For me it either occurrs after a moment of awkwardness or inspiration, or something that just causes my awareness to waver, a bit of normal waking consciousness seeps through and then my awareness wanders over the dream feeling that is currently present and i know it is a dream. Other times its just spontaneous, like totally into a ND and then spontaneous boom you can feel that it is not a dream and you are lucid before the thought even occurs in your head.
Okay that above description is probably the best i can. I dont know if others feel it is accurrate but if not at least it is for me
Okay so lets speculate about this skill/event/whatever. I personally think that it is an attained skill, and that there are maybe, two ways to attain it:
The first way is through the normal keeping of a DJ. Personally i became aware of the dream awareness through my keeping of a DJ back in the days when i NEVER had LD’s.
The other, probably more effective and gradual way would be to have LD’s through other means and then realizing “dream feeling” while in an LD or through reflection of the LD. Here through recognition and habit you will eventually have more LD’s just because you are so used to the subconscious knowledge that you are dreaming while you are dreaming. So youre more likely to notice the feeling while non-lucid is basically what im saying.
So i guess you could call it an advanced technique though its more like an attained skill. A skill that is attained not consciously but through simple experience most like. Another could argue that it is simply increased spontaneous LD’s, though i point out that one spontaneous LD i had was very different than this, i just knew that i was dreaming, versus other LDs where there is that distinct awareness of the ‘dream feeling’ at the same time of lucidity onset.
I think that this ‘dream feeling’ you are mentioning, is the BIG think you have to learn to recognize, if you want to become a really good LD’er. You will need all the other techniques to slowly learn how to recognize this feeling, but after some time, you know what the feeling feels like, and then you can become lucid without using any tech.
I have become lucid by this feeling a few times, and this only happens in the periods in which I am really having many LD’s (for me, like 2 in a week hehe…), and when I really try to be lucid as often as possible.
After some time of thinking about lucidity less, for example when you are having a busy time IRL, you forget the ‘dream feeling’, and you will have to re-learn it.
I had a LD recently where I could feel the dream somehow. But everything else was very blurry. I could only see the object that I was looking at.
Sometimes IRL I get the same feeling that I get in dreams, but it’s a very undefined feeling. It sort of like a feeling that something isn’t right.
I think when I get this feeling in dreams it’s because my dreams somehow look a little different that RL.
I know exactly what you mean. It is hard to explain.
I do disagree on one point though. I don’t think it is some advanced level that you have to attain. I know I picked up on it right away. In all my DILD or MILD type of LD’s I never became lucid do to a dream sign or anything weird happening. They were there. They just did not cause me to become lucid. I would just suddenly realize that I am dreaming.
I believe that by keeping a DJ and doing RC you eventually develop and awareness of the 2 states and when you are dreaming something just clicks and you realize where you are. You are in the dream.
I think you are right milod, i realize i was totally generalizing my own experience and projecting that process onto others. I now believe that it differs from person to person how easily they will pick up on it.
For me its not dreamsign, but i can just tell. I think i have had 2 types of this LD, the first is just my becoming lucid (spontaneous LD i categorize it), while the second type is my becoming lucid because i can just ‘tell’ it is a dream. I know its hard to describe but there is a definite difference between the two. With the first its like ‘im dreaming’ but its not an actual linear thought but instantaneous. While with the second it is more like ‘i am dreaming, i can feel it’ with becoming aware of the feel. With the first, there is less awareness of the ‘dream feeling’, though that does not necessarily constitute lower lucidity level, i have an idea and slight belief in that with awareness on the ‘dream feeling’ I can hold lucidity for longer.
To describe the keeping of awareness on it…right now as your sitting look past your computer at your wall as you type, notice and feel the chair you sit in, just become aware of all your surroundings and how it all feels, thats what im talking about. In dreams when i do this with my perception of surroundings it seems to be similar except that there is something added in the background which i dub ‘dream feeling’.
Of course all of that is my personal experience. I dont really think it applies to everyone else if not anyone at all. Maybe we all have personal concepts and dream… processes? that differ from person to person, like our brains dream in different ways. It is up to each of us to explore it and do with such knowledge what we will, be it LDing or mnemonic ND. (or waking into SP in my case =P)
So as far as information useful to others goes, then…yeah, keeping a DJ and actual conscious RC (the actual consideration and convincing yourself that this may in fact may not be reality versus trying to ‘disprove it’, like putting yourself in the ‘i dont know if this is a dream or reality’ and actually believing such, and then doing RC to figure it out). A DJ is what helped me to identify the ‘dream feeling’ while outside of an LD.
Yeah, JJJ i think youre onto something there. I just realized that whenever i have these they tend to group together in terms of time, with dry spells in between (in one right now lol, it ends tonight ).
Yeah, this is basically the only method I use to LD, other than just believing I’ll have them. I don’t think I ever used RCs, and I’m not usually tired enough to WILD anymore…
For me I think part of it comes from just feeling things when I’m awake too. For example, I’ll pay attention to abstract feeling like “this is the feeling of science fiction” or “this is how my house feels,” or “this person feels like this.” I think I eventually came to recognise, “dreams feel like this.”
I also think that I always know that I’m dreaming, but it’s like I’m playing with my mind and we’re pretending that it’s real. For example, some times I’ve gotten a bored feeling during a ND and then it felt like I was saying to myself “this is boring, let’s stop pretending. I know I’m just dreaming.”
LOL aydira i do that too all the time! Like recognizing the feel of stuff, wow ive never actually consciously noticed it till you mentioned it. Its like i would notice ‘this is how the school is, like the spirit of the school’ or basically its like looking at something or a concept as a whole, and seeing it as such and theres just a certain feel to it that fits and everything around it makes more sense.
I guess i havent realized the dream feeling as much as you have, because i have LD from the recognition/realizing of its present fairly rarely. lol try saying those two words 10 times fast. LOL laughing okay okay, anyways. Yeah, whenever i do become lucid from such its like i’ll just realize the feel but almost like ive known it all along. Next time it happens ima explore the feeling so i can recognize it easier when not lucid, etc.
“i have LD from the recognition/realizing of its present fairly rarely
i have LD from the recognition/realizing of its present fairly rarely
i have LD from the recognition/realizing of its present flairy rarey
i have…” darn.
Yeah I know what you mean by that “dream feeling”. I’ve become lucid quite a lot through instant recognition of the dream itself. Regular DILDs require some sort of a steppingstone (for instance, odd dream situations which create an association that makes you do a RC) in order to realize you’re dreaming. The mind still cannot make a clear distinction between waking life and dream life, without some perceptional aid.
However, after some time you don’t need visual dream objects or situations anymore to become lucid. The mind has adapted enough to the dream state to clearly recognize the differences between the feeling of waking life and the dream feeling. The gap between both perceptional systems has widened enough so you’re able to feel the difference very clearly. You don’t need to think about it anymore, as with DILD. The feeling says enough.
I think the only thing you can do to widen the mind gap between waking life feelings and dream feelings, is to keep experiencing LDs and to keep busy with them.
I prefer becoming lucid through the dream feeling, because in general this gives me a higher level of lucidity. During traditional DILDs, using RCs and dream oddities to become lucid, the mind gets trapped too easy by seemingly logical explanations of the given dream situation. There are too many booby traps here . In this sense, becoming lucid through the dream feeling is far more straightforward, without too many diversions and misinterpretations. Ofcourse I can only tell about my personal case… Others may feel it otherwise ofcourse
That is the what it is like for me. I would just feel like it is a dream. Only for me it was like that from the very beginning. My first LD ‘s were DILD where I just new it was a dream. Though I still train myself to try and recognize dream signs they have rarely made me lucid. I either become lucid with WILD or I just recognize the dream state DILD.
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