I have a fairly straightforward quest. In my dreams, I would like to dream through the eyes and actions of a bird.
However, it does not seem to be quite as simple as it sounds. While dreaming, lucid or otherwise, I will take on certain aspects of my bird of choice, but have not reached a point where I can say I was dreaming that I was something else entirely. I need to figure out how to abandon my current definition of self, and surrender to the idea that I am something else. Anytime I assert an aspect of a raven, my mind or subconscious rejects it, or sometimes produces an odd blend of man and beast.
I have dreamed myself to be a different person before, but never anything quite this drastically different.
Does anybody have any experience with the like, dreaming yourself to be something else entirely? Perhaps we can share a few ideas here all together?
I will bounce back here from time to time and share my progress and anything I think helps in my quest. I think I will start tonight by trying meditation and a bit of self hypnosis.
I can try to do this in my next lucid dream. I will either edit or post here again when I try it out. I always wanted to change into an animal. Changing into a falcon is what would seem cool to me.
Hmm… I would say that you should start with affirming to yourself that in a lucid dream you are in full control of what happens. You could start small: try to shape shift your arm or your hand into exactly what you want. Practice with one limb until you can do it easily and on command. Then, move to a full body shift.
I can’t recall any times I’ve intended to shape shift and successfully done so, however I know I have ended up in dreams as different people (entirely different, even different gender’s sometime), an animal once or twice, and as DO quite often.
I keep winding up a misshapen trolloc of a thing.
It seems to much for my mind to accept the change.
I think I will try a behavior approach…act like the bloody beast and eventually I will dream myself to be the beast.
Flying seems a natural starting point.
I am very interested in a description of this “trolloc”.
If you need help shapeshifting, I would recommend Wyverns guide.
I try transforming a lot myself, and I’ve found that focusing too hard on oneself tends to cause the dream to destabilize. Dream stabilization is a priority. Don’t ever frustratingly force a transformation. It probably won’t come out, and you’ll likely wake up.
Now, I’m mildly confused by your original post. Wyverns guide is primarily for physically shapeshifting, I don’t think it’s much for mental shifts. While you can probably inhabit a bird body pretty extremely accurately after practice, I don’t know about getting birdy thoughts in there while retaining lucidity.
Trolloc is a borrowed term, it is the only one I could see fitting to describe my result.
Trollocs are a creature in the wheel of time series, a creation wrought from man and beast, resulting in grotesque hybrids.
It’s not quite the right term…but this is the best I can come up with. Here is a scribbling.
As far as dreaming as a raven, I intend to surrender lucidity to become like the raven - it is a sort of spirit quest for me. To see perhaps, if it is possible to suspend my consciousness to introduce this new perspective.
Most of my frustration is upon waking. In the dream I will think, “how do I get down from this tree” and my instinct tells me to climb with my arms and legs, all the while I am trying to hold onto the image of a bird, resulting in bizarre winged arms extending the full length of my body and the like.
I figure it will take much practice, and it is a bit of fun along the way after all.
I will have to read the guide you have suggested come morning, going to attempt sleep again.
[color=olive]Closest thing to shape shifting I’ve done intentionally was regenerate my fingers when I did a hand RC. Other than that I was an eagle coasting on a low air current in the parking lot of my apartment.
Apparently focus alone isnt enough…I’ll have to stick around and report back with something… [/color]
It… wasn’t that hard. Probably because I’m not very attached to my physicality in general. By default, I identify much more with my nonphysical aspects, emotions, values, mental skills. If I can learn to get grounded, then getting flighty must be something others can learn to shift into whenever needed if they’re grounded by default.
It might also have helped that I was always copying animals as a child, trying to meet them where they were and learn their body language and copy their sounds and converse as equal intelligences with similar concerns in life… and part of that was tricking myself into thinking that my knee and heel were in a different place than they were, or that I traded my opposable thumbs and lack of arm/shoulder muscle strain for flight, or that my knee bends differently than it does. Luckily, this never caused me any injuries, but it was a natural and easy shift in mindstate that came from those sorts of exercises. Hope this helps!
Hey quiXote, cool that you want to try shapeshifting .
I have been animals a few times in my dreams, mostly wolves. Running through the forest on all four with the wind in your hair sure is amazing.
The tips I can give you: When you are lucid, don’t go look at yourself to see how you appear. Just know you’re a raven and take flight. As said before in this topic, if you go focus too much on what you want the dream will vanish. Also preparing before going to sleep helps. To picture yourself as a raven and fly through the air, looking down at the earth beneath you while you are awake and in bed. If you practise knowing how it feels, it comes more naturally in dreams or lucid dreams.
^^ this.
I’ve shifted a few times into a selkie/merman form, and every time it’s been by imagining the feeling of water rushing through my gills, and fins propelling me along, whilst in bed and awake. Incubation, and then starting the dream as the animal, is definitely the easiest method of shapeshifting.
Off topic: Hmm… maybe I could try becoming a truit some time
after reading the various insights everyone has provided I managed to muddle them all together somehow and I feel I was quite successful last night in achieving my goal - in that I was in the shape of a raven for a time that is. It seemed such a natural thing to do.
Soon after the shift I took on an unanticipated characteristic of ravens as given to them in myth. I found myself shifting from raven to another bird almost at random. Perhaps It is possible that this was another loss of control - but I feel it was something of my own doing. I have a notion of what the other bird was, but I have to be sure.
I flew through the rain.
It was joy.
After a time, I lost any control over the dream that I may of had and eventually wound up in some Sweeney Todd stage production of a world in a torrential cascade of really bizarre imagery and musical numbers.
I think it will be much easier in the future to do this, though I do want to try sometime being a mold of gelatin. Could make for an interesting evening.
Congratulations! I’m jealous. That’s further than I’ve gone :v
Did you feel as a raven, with the beak and feet and wings and feathers and tail feathers; totally different? Or was it more that you simply looked like one?
The rain is a constant reaffirmation of your body, so I think it helps prolong the dream and your shape. If it feels good too, that’s awesome. I can’t really help you about shifting into other birds unwittingly, but I know that Wyvern has told me before that shape stays stable by not worrying about it.
I don’t have any advice for a gelatin form. I think you just have to become it and let the dream manage how you experience it. Seems like one wouldn’t be able to do much as gelatin except get eaten though.
I felt them as you would feel your a part of your body you are not conscious of, such as your hands or feet when you are not using them, or your legs when you are walking. It was a fascinating contrast to the sharper sensations of the rain and flight.
I think I did the different birds myself without meaning to. Whenever I dream I am flying I am always some brownish bird, so I think my dream mind was trying to fix to that to the norm, if that makes sense.
Though I keep going back to the Native American legend, where the raven was so expert in mimicry that he could take the form of other birds, and men as well if I recall the old stories correctly. Seems almost ironic that I would try to shift into a shapeshifter.
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