Lucid Dream discussion thread

[Brian]

I thought, given the discussion that came up on the fic Hal and I were working on, some people might be interested in a discussion thread on this that didn't run the risk of overshadowing the narrative.  Certainly, I got the impression that Arakara had more he wished to share.  I didn't want to stomp on that discussion, so throwing this thread up as a place for it to continue, should folk be interested.

Maybe I'll even relate my own incredibly limited experience in this field later. :)

[Arakawa]

That would be interesting to hear, since I'm curious as to what made you doubt whether or not the given dream you experienced was lucid.

That said... hmm... I'm not sure what to share at this exact point. Later I might think of something.

The experience I've been sharing so far has been condensed from utterly sporadic dreams scattered over a very long period of time. One obvious reason, to echo something mentioned by sarsaparilla, is that I don't really have a good reason to be stubborn about it (the motivation issue). I think the other reason has to do with my relatively low mindfulness (which is probably the reason why Aunt Rika's throwaway comment about mindfulness in the story struck me as relevant to Kyon's situation). If, so to speak, I'm hardly ever lucid when I'm awake, how do I have a chance of staying lucid when I'm asleep?

But, in the end, the core reason is that I'm extremely stubborn about certain things, and achieving lucid dreaming is not one of them.

The only reliable way for me to enter a lucid dream is merely to sleep in until a ridiculously late hour (11am, anyone?) which, obviously, I hardly ever have the luxury of doing.

[sarsaparilla]

The only reliable way for me to enter a lucid dream is merely to sleep in until a ridiculously late hour (11am, anyone?) which, obviously, I hardly ever have the luxury of doing.

That is indeed the easiest way to achieve a lucid state, and you can boost it further by first staying up late, so that you keep drifting between dream and awakened states during the morning hours.

I've been thinking about the issue and realized that nowadays pretty much all my dreams are lucid on a basic level, i.e., I always know when I'm dreaming, and one of the consequences of that is that I'm never having nightmares.

Taking an example from last night, I found myself back at middle school, but instead of acting like the model student I used to be, I had some mischievous fun with my old teacher and messed up his mind by talking about things that hadn't yet happened by that time, and which neither of us should have known (that I still knew because I had access to my real world memories). After the school I went home and found out that my family had been massacred (I was unimpressed as it was just a dream). When I opened the bathroom door I was attacked by five or six armed men and one jaguar (I wonder where that came from) so I pushed them away (as I cannot be threatened in my own dream) and walked out of the house, where some stranger mocked me for walking with a limp. I noticed that one of the assailants had managed to hit me on the head with an axe, making a hole in my skull, so apparently the limp was caused by brain damage. I was again completely unimpressed, and told the man that it was just a dream and therefore it didn't matter this way or that.

So, while I couldn't bother doing any fancy stuff like picking up the dream I wanted to see, I was still constantly aware that I was dreaming, and behaved accordingly, turning a potential nightmare into a surrealist play.

[Brian]

Fascinating.

I have had a small handful dreams which I believe may have been lucid to varying degrees -- personally.

The first is something that happened to me when I was six or so, and was only partially lucid, but addresses the issue of the sleep-paralysis-scale that Arakawa mentioned.  Specifically, I had a dream that 'the giants' (I don't feel this is a parable to Haruhi; when you're small, everyone else is 'giant') took away my voice.  I woke up in terrified realization that I could no longer speak, and even though I quickly regained control of the rest of my body, I could not speak except to wheeze/rasp for about ten minutes -- and was too shaken to try and run for help.

Once my voice came back abruptly, I was reassured and able to tell myself it was all a dream, and go back to sleep.  Now I somewhat feel able to compare this to the process of waking from a lucid dream unprepared, as I understand it; evidently in my panic I kept myself from properly controlling some muscles until I finished waking later.  Since this is only peripherally connected to lucid dreaming, it ties in to later experiences (and possibly my issues with lucid dreaming/my difficulties with it).

I have had one recurring dream every few years.  The details I can share are that it involves a closed circle mystery (a concept I didn't really even have when I first had the dream) where I and others are in a mansion/resort, and there is an arbitrary time limit before the world ends.  My goal was to solve a mystery (the details of which I could never recall/changed slightly every time).  The last time I had that dream, it was lucid, and I was able to 'force back' the 'world ending' effect (in this case, a flood) with the realization that I was in a dream.  I managed to hold things together until I could finish hearing the final words from the last figure, which had always been lost in the inevitable flood.

Quite the opposite of Sarsaparilla's experiences, this person told me that they were a dream, and I shouldn't worry about it so much (which woke me up).

I have not had that dream since, and it's been about seven years now.


Another time, I can't recall what happened, but some external factor semi-roused me, and got into the dream, enough to alert my mind that I was dreaming.  I had no interest in participating in the part of the dream that was immediately around me, and so disregarded the 'people' on the scene and decided to fly away.

Since this seems a somewhat interesting detail, and I've done this in most of the dreams I considered lucid: Flight in my lucid dreams is always possible, when I think of it.  I don't need to put my arms out, just pull my feet up--  In my experience, it's exactly like swimming, except that when I want to go faster than a leisurely pace, I simply think about it, and it happens.  Related: When I 'fly' underwater, it works exactly the same way, except that I can breathe just fine underwater (and dark water/instances where the bottom cannot be seen (which I am phobic of) simply don't occur).


A few times (as in, 4-5), when I have had what I consider to be lucid dreams, I have 'pushed too hard' and woken myself up unexpectedly.  Usually just by overthinking the logic of me being in a dream and expecting to have abilities even my subconscious mind seems unwilling to accept.  Devices and machines always do exactly what I want/expect them to do, regardless of complexity, and I am able to pull characters from video games/books/etc. to use their abilities on my behalf with minimal effort (where doing it myself might break the dream).

Despite all of that, I always get a sense that in lucid dreams there's something critical I am supposed to be accomplishing, and except that one instance of the recurring dream, I've always woken myself up before being able to complete it.


But I suspect we all would view this differently.


Anyway, related to the first bit I related, and Arakawa's mention of sleep-paralysis, the most frequent thing to disrupt me when I am striving for lucidity is perfect awareness of the fact that my body is frozen.  Almost always, I experience mild panic, and try to move myself in the waking world just to prove that I can -- which ends my experience right there.  I wonder if I inflicted some trauma on myself with that first dream, and that's my main difficulty learning this exercise?


Edit: I forgot one critical element to that first dream.  I recall now that at that time (at the age of six) I had just that day found and eaten (not knowing what they were) my step-mother's supply of psychedelic mushrooms; the described episode was one of many formative memories I still retain from the incident.  So it's entirely possible that my experiences vary much further from the norm than is typically possible, and considering this influence, I'm not entirely positive any of my dreams are truly lucid -- or just very bizarre and strangely memorable on occasion.

[Halbarad]

The only dream I've ever had approaching lucidity (and I've visited the theme multiple times, although not usually with the same degree of control I can recall from the most vivid example) involves flight - but in a rather bizarre way. The dream I can remember best, I had the ability to fly, and I can distinctly remember the feeling of having control over what I was doing - but with something of a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy twist; I don't think I necessarily realized that I was in a dream, but I was at least aware of the fact that what I was doing was impossible on the surface, but that as long as I didn't pay too much attention to that fact it'd be fine.

For the dream itself, the method of flying is what was so odd (and why it sticks with me so much); I basically had to take a seated position on nothing, then just will myself into the air. Movement was entirely controlled by my mind; to move in a particular direction, I'd just think about going in that direction. Beyond that I don't recall a lot of specifics, just that I managed to fly high enough to reach the cloud layer, and some impressions of using it to get to the top of a huge tree for some reason (just big, not unrealistically so).

Since then, I've occasionally had dreams of using the same method of flight, although not with the same sensation of control that I can recall from the one instance. I'm not sure if this would count as a lucid dream (since I don't recall being aware that I was dreaming, just that the things I were doing were impossible but it didn't actually matter.)

[Arakawa]

Regarding the sleep-paralysis thing: I recall reading somewhere that people generally fall somewhere on a spectrum between tending to sleepwalk and tending to experience sleep paralysis. I definitely fall on the sleep paralysis end of the spectrum. Occasionally I wake up with absolutely no sensation or movement in my left (dominant) arm, and very rarely with an obviously perceptible "phantom limb" which can be moved completely independently from it. (The first time this happened, the perception was realistic enough that I assumed my hand -- which I thought I was holding in front of my face -- had somehow turned invisible... until I found my actual arm lying limp along the bed in an unnatural position.) It generally takes about twenty seconds for sensation to return to my real arm.

The most common failure modes for a lucid dream for me are:

• The dream is insufficiently vivid to hold my attention. This also includes such varying circumstances as being blind in one eye, being (strangely enough) tangled up in my bedsheets during a false awakening, and similar.
• I become lucid, exit the room, and it's like my dream hasn't loaded that portion of reality yet and my brain crashes.
• I am lucid, but somehow there's not enough room in my brain to make a proper decision about the right thing to do. Since I'm completely aware of everything that's happening, such experiences leave me depressed and doubting whether I have free will.

I'm starting to suspect that I'm better at incubating dreams (intentionally or unintentionally) than I am at becoming lucid in them. (Doctor Who monsters I've intentionally had nightmares about so far: Weeping Angels; The Silence. As you'd expect, the latter in particular was gloriously confusing. If I don't consciously incubate, my dreams are often extremely apropos to what I was doing the previous day. For instance, after posting fanfiction on SR, I nearly always wind up receiving dream C&C for it on my phone; the content of the C&C is mostly too bizarre for words. Not to mention that immediately after lucid dreaming was first brought up on the forum, I had a decidedly non-lucid dream in which I saw a post by sarsaparilla explaining the key to attaining lucidity in two sentences, which is just too ironic for words.)

In fact, since I wasn't taking stock of the fact, incubation may be working against lucidity since I end up incubating the same failure experiences over and over again by worrying about them.

[sarsaparilla]

Occasionally I wake up with absolutely no sensation or movement in my left (dominant) arm, and very rarely with an obviously perceptible "phantom limb" which can be moved completely independently from it. (The first time this happened, the perception was realistic enough that I assumed my hand -- which I thought I was holding in front of my face -- had somehow turned invisible... until I found my actual arm lying limp along the bed in an unnatural position.) It generally takes about twenty seconds for sensation to return to my real arm.

I think that the above is a textbook example of body image confusion. It's even worse when you return from a form that is not isomorphic with the human body. The body image is a completely malleable thing; there's an interesting psychological experiment showing how a person can be manipulated into perceiving that arbitrary inanimate objects are part of his/her body.

I become lucid, exit the room, and it's like my dream hasn't loaded that portion of reality yet and my brain crashes.

'Walking out of the stage' happens to me as well on occasion, especially in places that I haven't seen before, or when taking an 'unintended' shortcut through a wall. The nothingness on the other side doesn't bother me, though, as I can just turn around and return to the existing set. About the only thing that forces me to wake up is getting disembodied through death, as the resulting total sensory deprivation doesn't leave anything to work on.

[Arakawa]

About the only thing that forces me to wake up is getting disembodied through death, as the resulting total sensory deprivation doesn't leave anything to work on.

This just begs an "I don't want to know what you do Saturday nights..." type of joke.

So, after a truly stressful and hectic week, my brain saw fit to grant me with the first lucid dream since I saw the topic discussed on SR, probably as some kind of last-ditch escape mechanism in the absence of ready access to fanfiction. None of my usual above complaints applied. (I became lucid outdoors while in a part of the city I have a good mental model of. Interestingly, lucidity was triggered because I heard the electronic bells sounding on a commuter train:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m041UoWWv9g

It occurred to me that it was an awfully convenient coincidence that the train came at the exact moment that I was thinking about it.)

A major factor in helping to stabilize the dream was remembering that I just recently was participating in a Soulriders discussion on the topic. (It was a much more relevant anchoring point in terms of reminding me that a reality exists outside the dream, than the usual stuff of "it's the middle of the night and I am in bed in such-and-such position and in an hour I have to get up and go to work".)

An interesting divergence from sarsaparilla's experience, is that once I was lucid the dream characters had no problem with acknowledging the fact that this was a dream, and even pointing out various interpretations of what I was seeing that I didn't want to consider.

Turns out my dream recall isn't that great (although the dream wound up throwing so many recognizable elements at me that I got the idea it was trying to be deliberately un-journalable). Eventually there was a table with hieroglyphic representations of various states of mind I could attempt to achieve. (There was a person on the other side of the table laying out the tokens, who, when I combed through the table and went towards the state of mind corresponding to vague, generalized genkiness (as a reasonable starting point) stopped me and pointed out I was already in that state.) I'm pretty sure my lucidity ended when a character picked one of the hieroglyphic representations (something to do with pride and/or humility) off the table and stuffed it into my mouth, like a medication. Hm. After that point I became too engaged with the (unrelated to the above) story that had been constructed to bother remembering that it was a dream.

[sarsaparilla]

Just last night I noticed that after we started the discussion on lucid dreaming here I've come across a new trick that is rapidly replacing an attempt to fly as my preferred reality check: turning off gravity. When flying in a dream I must exert conscious effort to stay airborne for extended times, and that becomes tiresome after a while. On the contrary, floating in weightlessness is effortless and relaxing, and there's the added bonus of hilarity that ensues when other people try to cope with the situation. A couple of nights ago I lifted a flight over the Atlantic on the wing of an airplane and when the plane landed at some airport on the east coast of US there was an armed un-welcome committee of security personnel waiting for me; however, once I turned off gravity, making everything float around uncontrollably, they pretty much lost interest in me. ^_^

As with other such tricks, I've tied it to a particular gesture which makes it easier to effectuate the change in the dreamscape. I extend both arms forward, palms up, and then raise the arms like 'lifting off' gravity, and once it gets negated it tends to stay away for the rest of the particular dream sequence. Overall, I've found it most helpful to invent such 'magic' gestures for modifying a lucid dream.

It was only last night when I realized how much I had learned to rely on this new trick to check whether I'm dreaming or not, when I was in some unfamiliar office and recognized a person walking past me as a character from a TV series (the 'office' might have been a hospital, as the character was Dr. Wilson from the series House). I made my 'turn off gravity' gesture, but it didn't work immediately; for a moment I thought that I wasn't dreaming after all (goes to show that 'rational' thoughts cannot be trusted while dreaming, as they can be anything but), but then I saw from the corner of my eye how another person on the other side of the room lost his foothold and tumbled helplessly in the air, spreading the pile of paper he'd been carrying into a cloud of chaff. After that the whole office was thrown into total chaos as the people, pieces of furniture and other office equipment started to float around. I actually tried to tell the people how one should move in zero-G but they wouldn't listen to me, so I just floated serenely in a fetal position and watched the show in amusement. I'm quite the mischievous little imp in my dreams! >_>

[Brian]

Interesting.

Someone recently gave me a tip on how to induce sleep paralysis intentionally to evoke lucid dreaming.

Despite my phobia, I'll give that a try tonight, since I haven't had any success even remembering dreams since the last time I posted.

[Arakawa]

Someone recently gave me a tip on how to induce sleep paralysis intentionally to evoke lucid dreaming.

Speaking of sleep paralysis and phobias, my oddest experience by far with regards to sleep and dreaming involves my eyes falling asleep while still open. Thus, if I lie down in a dark room with my eyes open and I'm feeling sleepy, more often than not the first thing that happens is that my vision shuts off entirely. (Moving my head is sufficient to restore it.) Theoretically, this means that I'm capable of sleeping with my eyes open, but I make very sure I close my eyes when going to bed because of this.

*shudder*

I don't know, maybe it's completely safe, and my ability to temporarily go blind (*shudder*) is actually a workable first step to wake-inducing a lucid dream? Still, phobias seem very reasonable when you're the one who has them.

(Note: logically I experience the exact same thing everyone else experiences when falling asleep, just in a different order. Still, temporarily going blind = not pleasant and causes worry.)

[Brian]

Well, I've run into a different problem in the same area; I don't seem to have the ability to keep from moving my eyes while they're closed.  Since that was a dead-end for me, I'm putting all of my focus into just remembering the dreams I should be having.

Closest I got was waking up and immediately realizing I remembered nothing at all.  Except that I had to write it down, of course. :\

[Arakawa]

From my experience with a dream diary, I tend to remember my dreams more reliably if I make an empty note on my smartphone titled "Dream Diary for <tomorrow's date>" before going to bed. Then when I wake up I reach for the smartphone and fill in the note.

I don't always bother doing it, though. Remembering dreams does seem to be a motivation/habit issue more than anything else. (i.e. if I'm motivated to start the note, then perhaps I would be motivated enough to remember the dream anyways even without the note.)

EDIT: dream journaling is then some kind of 'fake it till you make it' strategy? You act like it's important stuff worth remembering for long enough that it becomes important stuff worth remembering? I dunno.

[Brian]

It's more establishing a habit and getting it to happen regularly, I think.  Considering I remember around 20 dreams total for my entire life....

Well, hopefully I'll have luck with this in the next three months.  Maybe remembering my dreams will be interesting anyway.

And maybe I have lucid dreams all the time, and just never remember them. >_>

[Arakawa]

Well, hopefully I'll have luck with this in the next three months.  Maybe remembering my dreams will be interesting anyway.

I am inordinately fond of having nightmares based on the Silence monsters in Doctor Who (yes, I am indeed referring to the alien in business suit thingies who erase your memory when you look away). Of course, journaling about them is a pain.

... just now I remembered yet another fragment I dreamt last week, and even with a journal I can't remember what day of the week it belongs in, let alone how it ties narratively into the other stuff that was happening.