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Quest for Lucidity General Lucidness
1

I’ve been combing the web looking for an answer and finally ended up here… didn’t know where to ask anything though.

I understand that a lot of you are looking to have these dreams, but does anyone have any useful information on how to stop them?

I’ve been having these since I was little; so for more than 11 years now. I didn’t even know what they were until a couple years ago; I had thought everyone had a certain degree of control over their dreams (until I mentioned it and got looked at like I was crazy… luckily someone knew the term and I looked it up and found out).

I think I know when they started, too, if it’s any help. I think they started when I was little; couldn’t have been older than 6 or 7. Maybe even 5. I had been having a recurring nightmare, which I still remember very well to this day over 10 years later.

I think they started then because that’s the first time I remember knowing I was in a dream when I was in a dream. It’s also the first time I remember trying to will something to stop or something to happen while in a dream. At first, control came very small… a word here, a movement there - it felt constricted, like I wanted to move and speak but I couldn’t - like something was keeping me from doing it. Pretty soon these recurring dreams stopped (after I was finally able to act a bit in one of them), but others came that I would have consciousness during as well. Long story short, until about a year or two ago, they had been increasing in frequency, and the amount of control I had during them increased as well. I’ve even seemed to develop a method of inducing them just by telling myself I’d have one before I went to sleep. However, I only did that a couple times, when trying to force them was fresh and fun. Then, a year or two ago, at what seemed like their peak, they starting going away; eventually, they became rare again.

But, as my luck would have it, they’ve recently come back again - in higher frequency and with more control than before. Before the started to fade I could have a good handle on the environment and on objects and speech/movement, etcetera, just by willing something to happen hard enough. That’s become even easier recently, and I don’t even have to really try hard anymore like I did when I was little. There does seem to be another side to it though; I can’t control everything. Sometimes it seems like there’s another entity; one that controls everything I’m not controlling - suppose that’d be my subconscious? I can talk, move, change the environment, force objects into existance (or nonexistance), and in most cases have a sense of smell, touch, hearing, etcetera. There have also been cases, though more rare, where I can hear things going on in the real world while I dream. Like, I can hear my sister talking, dishes being washed - anything going on in the real world, separately from what’s going on in my dream.

In any case, they’ve become more of a bother and annoyance than anything; in fact I just woke up from the middle of one when I went looking for this. I want to try and get rid of them, or at the very least suppress them. Roughly 8 or 9 out of every 10 dreams I have now that I can recall are what I suppose you all would call ‘lucid dreams’, and it’s getting annoying.

Sorry for any vague explanations - I’m really tired and I don’t know how to explain some of this really well…

If anyone can offer advice on how to stop these, please do.

Thanks.

~Anonymous

2

There’s another member around here with a problem similar to your problem. He wrote every day “I will have a lucid dream tonight” 50 times, and he had a lucid dream every single night. The point is, if people can write “I will have a lucid dream tonight”, why won’t you write: “I won’t have a lucid dream tonight”, or “I won’t have one of those dreams tonight”
Hope I was understandable and helpful.

3

I’ve tried that sort of thing before; it didn’t really help. I find that if I think about my dreams I usually have a higher chance to have one - whether I think about having one or not having one. Thanks for the suggestion, though.

PS: Going back to sleep now; hopefully I won’t break my sleep again this time. I’ll check back in here when I wake up or something.

4

Why won’t you keep your mind busy in other stuff? Hobbies, TV - stuff like that. :content:

5

well, do you have to control everything when you realize you are dreaming? Couldn’t you just go off into something nice? Something you would dream about of being able to do, or dream about being somewhere? Now you can do that, go there. You don’t need to stay inside your dream and control things around you, you can go anywhere you want. And have you tried to just “give yourself over” on the dream? Like being a passenger in your car instead of having to drive yourself?

6

Like pasQuale said, try not controlling everything in your dream, but just let your dream take over and kind of follow along. If you get used to not controlling them, maybe you can ease off becoming lucid. Or maybe just have some fun, like fight in the Battle of Minas Tirith :content:

However, it sounds like you may have something else on your hands. You described hearing sounds outside of your dreams. This could be the phenomena what some people call OBE. Do you feel like you are “leaving your body?” I’m no expert on this, but I’m sure other people could give you more information. When people I know had an OBE, they described being sensitive to sound and hearing things in other places.

I wish you the best of luck,

Slinger

7

First off, thanks everyone for your replies.

I’ve tried not doing anything in the dreams, i.e. maintaining no control whatsoever. I just end up staying what you guys call lucid in the dream, and it often becomes almost hard not to control something. Sometimes even simply passively suggesting something to the mind seems to change the outcome or what’s actively happening in the dream - it’s become very easy to control plotlines, I oft don’t even need to think about it, it’s done subconsciously.

As far as keeping my mind busy with other things, I usually am not thinking about dreams or anything before I go to sleep anyway. It’s just I’ve tried thinking that I wouldn’t have one when they’ve gotten too frequent.

pasQuale - Yes, I usually have control over almost everything. As I’ve mentioned though; it feels often like there is another entity controlling what I’m not controlling, which I can probably label as my subconscious. So if I’m not actively controlling something or making sure something doesn’t change, it’s subject to change. I usually can control everything in the dream, but only actively, not passively. E.g., if I give it a little concentration I can control every aspect, but if I just go with the flow or only think about controlling certain aspects of it, what I leave uncontrolled is generally open to the other entity. Whether or not it chooses to control these other aspects is entirely up to it.

Slinger - It’s rare that I’ll hear or feel anything outside of my normal body; but I really don’t know. I’ve never felt that I’ve left my body when I can do this, and I’ve never, as some people have reported that I’ve read before, ‘seen’ my body in the bed. It’s just I can sometimes hear sounds outside of it (conversations etc that I’ve confirmed happened while I was asleep), and sometimes can feel my body being in the bed (I can feel the mattress, whether or not I need to use the restroom, etcetera).

It should be noted I can usually will myself awake during these dreams, but it really sucks having to keep waking up and going back to sleep to get rid of them (especially since they often continue where they left off); it really ruins sleep if I do that.

Anyhow, thanks for your replies; I’ll check back here in a little while.

8

How about instead of trying to lose your ability, get some inspiration to do something in a lucid dream. You have an ability that not many people have, instead of trying to lose it take advantage of your ability that everyone wants.

You could try pointing a gun at your head and say “When I die, I will lose all of my powers of lucid dreaming forever” and shoot yourself.

9

That sounds a bit dramatic. Why not eat an anti-LD truit pie?

10

Mhm…I have a few ideas…

For one…you say there’s an “entity” controlling your dreams? Why not confront it? Summon it, and ask what’s the dillio. Hahaha.

Or, You could do what (I think it was Pedro) was talking about. Find your subconscious, and program it to NOT be lucid, or at least ask you if you wanna be before the dream starts.

Also, here’s a simple Idea I think may not fix your problem, but at least improve it. Just and idea. Spin. But when you spin, instead of reminding yourself its gonna be a dream wherever you end up, remind yourself you’ll be awake. That the bed you touch will be real, because you woke up. Then you’ll have a false awakening, while still sleeping. And that way, You won’t have to wake up, but you’ll lose lucidity.

Mhm! I hope that helps. I personally think that you have a gift and that you should not discard it because its “annoying” but rather explore the possibilities. I’m sure you have good reason to want to stop tho. Hahahaha. Mhm!

Bai bai Anonymous.

11

It’s an ability I’ve had for over ten years, though. It was fun at first of course, because it was new and interesting. I’ve had it for a long time, and I’ve done an innumerable amount of things in my dreams as it hasn’t been uncommon for me to have two or three lucid dreams in a night (usually with one ending cut off with me waking up in the real world).

Erhu - no idea what you’re talking about.

Trung - Yeah; it’s what I’d believe would be my subconscious. I don’t think trying to summon it, as you put it, would do much good, either… it itself is the one thing I can never seem to have control over. It’s just a matter of how much it’s able to take its own control of during the dream.

What may be a gift to some is a plague to others. I’m not saying this is a plague, but I want some sound sleep for once, not one where I feel conscious. Even if it’s not getting rid of them, but keeping them at a less frequent rate so I can at least get a week or two at a time without them, I think I’ll be satisfied. And I don’t know why, but it almost feels wrong to have this much control over my dreams - I don’t really know how to explain it though…

Anyhow, off to what I hope is an uninterrupted, deep sleep.

See you all in the morning.

12

…so no spinning?

13

Here’s a couple of ideas I had from reading this, maybe one will help you.

Divide you mind.

When you find yourself lucid in a dream, let your body do what ever it wishes to do while you sing. In your conscious mind sing something, or think about something, Ignore your dream self and the dream completely. Take

Invent a Machine.

In your next lucid dream take control and invent a machine. Now this machine can look like anything you wish, you don’t even have to build it, you could order if from the ld4all lucid catalogue. :tongue: - on/in this machine will be buttons that control your lucidity, the options could be as simple as Lucidity On/Off or something more complex like a radial dial that says “No lucidity for X days”.

14

Hey Anonymous,

I think it´s a gift too but okay maybe you can try this here:

When I get lucid in a dream I try to get higher lucidity for more control. I try this with saying/yelling “Higher Lucidity” or “Increase Lucidity” sometimes it works sometimes not. But what if you say “Lower Lucidity” or “Stop Lucidity” maybe your dream begins to fade or you´re getting unconscious.

Or step through a door/mirror and say to yourself “I leave my lucidity in the other room/on the other side of the mirror” or “When I step through this mirror my Lucidity is gone”

Maybe you should simply close your eyes in the dream and wait that you getting unconscious or have a false awakening. I read the dream journal of Pithlit where he lost his lucidity in this way.

If nothing work you can try hypnosis. I´m not an expert but I know hypnosis have something to do with your sub-/conscious. There a techniques for self-hypnosis
( Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-hypnosis ) or go to a doctor for hypnosis. It should be a good doctor with a certificate or something like that.

I hope this will help you … good luck
:cheer:

15

Why don’t you just fly around? How could the thrill of flying, or exploring new places ever get old? I don’t really understand this. You could eat whatever you want in the dreams, you could moon a billion people from your dreams, you could be creative, painting the sky into a marvelous expanse of different colours, you could blow up the moon, go to a Beatles concert, ski any mountain you want, make love to that girl you dig, sling bottles at enemies from school, implode the Taj Mahal, play rock paper scissors for hours on end, play fantastic pieces of music, music unheard in waking life, explore your soul and the depths of your mind, smell the tang of oranges on a breezy night in Florida, wage a jihad against the original Muhammad, play horseshoes against old people (again in Florida), meet Winston Churchill (my hero), invent things, explore the unknown expanses of space, find those lost socks that seem to be eaten by the dryer, play Legend of Zelda in completion, mock Australian people because of their awesome accent, meditate for hours on end in a Buddhist shrine with other Buddhists, see what it feels like to die, attempt to have shared dreams, discuss philosophy with Plato and Socrates, go back in time and make fun of people for not knowing what television is, get into a sword fight with Charles the Lionhearted, go on a crusade!, meet God, Jesus, play out whole episodes of Seinfeld, learn how to juggle, play tackle football for hours on end, see what it feels like to be really really overweight, ask the subconcsious how the world will end (my money’s on Iran’s nuclear devolopment), become Harry Potter and explore Hogwarts, taste ripe fruit, go forward in time, become a jockey (become really short first), become a woman, relive your birth, play hours of poker, and finally achieve enlightenment.

I do not understand you sir, as there are so many possibilities, and unlike this list, the possibilities are endless, and by limiting your lucid dreaming, you are limiting your potential of spirituality and indeed limiting your own level of happiness, as a state of bliss is possible. We just haven’t discovered how yet. Good luck.

16

well said, Amused_himself_to_death.