I am very new to this forum and I have only been practicing the methods to have LDs for about a week. I have been working on making RCs a habit and I have been keeping a dream journal. I am a very light sleeper and have always recalled dreams easily.
I had my first lucid dream last week. The thing that triggered lucidity for me was, my girlfriend walked into my work place topless and no one noticed but me. Suddenly I thought…“wait a minute…I’m dreaming.” I woke up a few seconds later.
My question/comment/observation is this. How is it possible that we don’t recognize when we are dreaming. I have been keeping a detailed dream journal for the past 6 days and some of the things that happen are just ridiculous.
For instance; I pull 2 9mm hand guns out of thin air and start shooting people, Pumpkin headed aliens have taken over the world, Cheech, from Cheech and Chong, is coming to my parent’s house for x-mas dinner…this silly list could go on and on.
What amazes me is that I don’t recognize any of these strange occurrences as anything out of the ordinary. I have yet to do a RC in any of these dreams. I usually wake up after these dreams and wonder…WHY THE HECK DIDN’T I DO AND RC???
Well, the conscious mind does not go to sleep totally, but during sleep parts of the brain important for critical thinking and rationality are less active. Some neurotransmitters necessary for critical thinking are almost totally blocked during REM-sleep, while others are enhanced. Also don’t overestimate our critical faculties during waking life, a lot of stuff we just accept as reality because we’re used to accepting everything we perceive as reality, even if it’s strange stuff.
In dreams your mind is more adept for “logical” reasons that fool it. For example last night i saw that it was spring and people where planting potatoes into the field. The strange thing was that those potatoes where within the field during all the last winter. So i thought in ND: “How is it possible that you can plant the potatoes that have been in the ground for whole winter (snowy, and cold) and expect them to give more potatoes in autumn?”. And as i asked this question, my mind replied: “It’s just a new method of planting the potatoes”.
Great question !
Why are we so sure, when we’re dreaming, that all is real ? How is it possible that we sometimes can wonder if we dream or not ? IRL, this question would be stupid. How can’t we realize that, when we ask ourthelves if we are dreaming, it’s sure we are dreaming ?
One answer could be : it’s because we never doubt about the reality of real life. We keep this habit in our dreams.
Interesting isn’t it. Sometimes I know I’m dreaming with normal things going on yet at other times the strangest things can happen and I think it’s real.
This is a very big problem if you want to have lucid dreams. For me, I question reality alot IRL and in dreams. Unfourtunately I’m too used to having lucid dreams. Now most of my LD’s are semi-LD’s, I realize I’m dreaming almost whenever I’m dreaming but I fail to realize the implications of it. I still accept dream logic and function as if it was reality (for the most part). But I still say to myself “Hey this won’t matter, I’m just dreaming.” or “Hey, I can do that, I’m just dreaming” but I never actually consciously acknowledge the fact that “I’m dreaming, none of this is real, I’m having a lucid dream” but as a result my dreams are much more stable. Anyone else have a similar problem?
All the replies to this post have been great answers,
I would like to add that the more awake we are, the more aware we are of what is going on in IRL, the more we will be in our dreams too.
There are so many things we don’t know, can’t imagine, that are possible with our minds, all it takes is practise on being aware, awake, open minded, concsious.
Meditation is an important step to take,
it will give more meaning as to who you are, and help you achieve your goals easier,
A fully enlightened person will be awake in every notion of life, while awake IRL, and while asleep, they are still awake. They know when they are dreaming 100% of the time,
Well the prefrontal lobes of the brain are shut off. The prefrontal lobes are responsible for logic and logical operations. Therefore we don’t retionalize making it nearly impossible for some people to recognise weird things. We simply accept everything.
Second of all only a little bit of our conscious remains while our sub-conscious takes over.
Also, something I would like to add is that most of us don’t bother trying to figure out ifwe are in a dream, so we train ourselves to go through sleep without checking to see if its a dream. Thus it becomes a habit to go through sleep without testing to check if you are dreaming.
