Hey everyone. It has been almost exactly three years since I’ve heard of this forum and started keeping records of dreams, and in general exploring the deep nocturnal realms of the unconcious imagination. I had signed up then, but I barely posted anything since because I am an unsocial person who doesn’t communicate with others very well. But I watched, kept up, explored my inner self.
During that time I began to have very weird, vivid, and almost spiritualistic dreams, the contents of which are complex and interesting for me but bear little relevance to the current topic.
I’ve come very close – at least I feel like I have – to experiencing lucidity. From what I read the main key to lucidity is the realization of the nature of the unreality of the dream, and that is something that has always eluded me entirely.
You see, I am a very skeptical person. Seems that I’m am also a skeptical person in the dream world as well. As much as that may seem like it would aid in my endeavoring, it in fact hinders and frustrates me. Every time something unsual happens in a dream that my mind doesn’t accept, I explain the events in a more rational way.
Say for example that I’m dreaming about traveling in a spacecraft destined for mars. As soon as I realize something is weird I leave whatever body I may have and the dream becomes me experiencing a movie or a video game that was the dream. I never realize that it is in fact a dream. I simply keep doing this, entering many different layers of media disconnect from the reality of the dream, because I’m trying to explain what I’m seeing and hearing. Much of the time I don’t have a body. I’m more like this floating thing that experiences what the media is delievering to me. If I realize this, I jump into another level of media-based unreality. I don’t particularly enjoy this because I have no body to feel or smell anything. Just sight and sound, and a sense of disconnection from events.
I haven’t really given up, as the pursuit itself has fulfilled me in other ways, but I am discouraged. Has this happened to any of you? What can be done about this bizarre disconnect that most of my dreams have anyway? How can one perform a reality check if you don’t even have a body and you don’t believe in the reality of what you’re experiencing already?
I don’t have that problem, but my suggestion is to not watch television or movies or anything like that. So if you experience a “media disconnect”, you’ll be able to say to yourself “hey, wait a minute – I don’t watch television, I must be dreaming”…
Another option would be to use a different technique entirely, like WILD or chaining – where you’re not reliant on dream signs to become lucid. There’s a list of techniques on here somewhere that you could go through…
That type of thing is ofcourse an explanation for the events that are taking place, you wouldn’t need one if you weren’t close. Besides, it’s a dreamsign. It appears alot so, I would suggest you add the intention to be more aware and focused when watching TV and such IRL. I’d say you should do reality checks when you are around multimedia.
As for dull senses, that’s normal in dreams. If you don’t pay any attention to smells there is not much reason to create a smell.
Disembodiment does not mean you can do reality checks, they don’t all require a body. If there is any text it can still get strange. People and events may be controlled by thoughts or disappear or appear at inapropriate times. And if you really want to do a reality check… See if you have a body at all, if not, you know you’re dreaming. The trick is to remember to do reality checks.
What’s weird about that is that just last night I had the disconnect based on a video game idea; and I haven’t played any video games for years. Television is a bad habit that ought to be quit for reasons beyond just Lucid Dreaming. And the dreams I have are like a million times more fantastic than any TV show; that should be a sign right there.
I sometimes write before going to bed, or I read a book. Then the dreams take on a more narrative quality, sometimes telling a story that happens over months.
Alright, but you have to admit that it’s at least harder to do if I have no eyeball muscles to direct my vision to something like a work of text. What I try to do is always have a skeptical attitude towards all the see and hear all throughout the day, as I’m terrible at remembering to do reality checks. However, if I’m always analyzing what I see and hear and feel, wouldn’t be more like a constant reality check? If I can just change the way I perceive, that’ll be easier for an absent-minded person such as myself to do.
I might be at fault for the whole out-of-body sensation though, as I don’t really engage myself in life. Most of the time I just sort of space out, don’t talk to anyone, read and work in papers and listen to music. Maybe if I got out and touched and felt and smelt some actual things. Talked to actual people. Then, maybe, I’d get past this stage. Hmm…
.