Thread: Asperger Syndrome And Lucid Dreaming

Originally Posted by IceMan

Hello, I'm IceMan, but everyone calls me Josh, and I'm from Britain, and I was thinking that, if having Asperger's can affect your everyday life (for those who know about it or have it, which I do) can it affect your dreams?[/b]

Hi iceman -- Josh.

I know little about Asperger's. Isn't it a form of autism? Pardon me if I am wrong.

How is your dream recall?
tell us a little about your dreaming habits.

I don't know, you would think that the vividness of it would be higher sense people with aspergers like me and you have better visualization skills then the rest.

Also a person with aspergers is probably more likely to get good at lucid dreaming, hence my lucid count, just because they tend to be attracted to certain things like this.

but yeah I've been lucid dreaming throught my childhood, although not much lucidity before 14 years old and after 8 or so

well, usually I will remember my dreams the moment I wake up, and I'll forget them about 10 minutes later. I also had VERY realistic dreams about falling, which can be really freaky. Thankfully I wake up before I land.

Yeah I also remember dreams very easily, I've had dreams of falling, it usualy hurts my stumach

I can feel the wind passing thorugh my legs, and when I wake up, I always feel as though I have just fallen a few inches above my bed and have landed on the moment of waking, if that makes any sense.

Sorry if this is off-topic here, i only feel like recommending everyone to read this novel: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon. It's about a brilliant, young boy with Asperger's. Beautiful and intense.

Originally Posted by IceMan

well, usually I will remember my dreams the moment I wake up, and I'll forget them about 10 minutes later. I also had VERY realistic dreams about falling, which can be really freaky. Thankfully I wake up before I land.[/b]

The good point is that you DO remember your dreams.
It is normal to forget them very quickly. This is why a dream journal is recommended. Now provided that your situation does not harm your long term memory it seems that you have the skills that would be helpful in lucid dreaming. :yumdumdoodledum:

Originally Posted by sognoacolori

Sorry if this is off-topic here, i only feel like recommending everyone to read this novel: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon. It's about a brilliant, young boy with Asperger's. Beautiful and intense.
[/b]

I happen to have read that book, very good.

Originally Posted by sognoacolori

Sorry if this is off-topic here, i only feel like recommending everyone to read this novel: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon. It's about a brilliant, young boy with Asperger's. Beautiful and intense.
[/b]

Yeah, I read that book too.

Man, I was gonna post on aspergers and dreaming just yesterday.
haha i've also read it, actually only a few weeks ago. I was just thinking, IceMan, you said that you forget you're dreams very quickly, but people with aspergers sometimes have a very good memory. So this leads me to believe your dreams may be different to you're waking. If not, you should be very observant in your dream, as people with aspergers usually are also very observant in real life. This will help you with realising that you are in a dream. because you will realise that things are wrong or strange.

I actually believe that 'disorders' like this travel into your dream state aswell, because they are subconcious things. I have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and sometimes in dreams I will find myself worried that I touched something or someone has purposely tried to make me dirty and I get really scared and have to force myself to wake up by just wishing that I could get out of the situation so that I don't have to get a panic attack. But other times I just totally forget about germs and all that crap and my mind pays no attention to my 'disorder', I could jump into sewerage and not care at all.
But in real life it is always constant. I can't really explain this, but if its the same with Aspergers you could sometimes be very alert and observant in your dreams and you would find it much easier to become lucid then the average non-observant person would.

well, as you mention it, I had a dream last night with this weird old-style computer animated person talking to me (as in his face was made up of loads of squares). I when he faced me, he looked like Abraham Lincoln, which makes me thing, hey, isn't he dead! However, before I go lucid he turns around and the back of his head looks like the back of someone I recognises head, and so I do not retain awareness.
When I wake up I completely forgot the dream until 10 minustes later I remembered it IN FULL, and it's 10 O'Clock and I still remember every detail.
I think it's those dream recall exercises that help. Mind you I do seem to have a knack for remembering my wierdest dreams.
(reminisces about a dream he had when he was 6 in which he was chased by 3 giant lobsters in gangster outfits).

reminisces about a dream he had when he was 6 in which he was chased by 3 giant lobsters in gangster outfits[/b]

LMAO!!!!!!!!

See, you do have good recall, and you question things in your dream, just make a habit of it and make a habit of questioning things in real life aswell.
Also you may have remembered this dream because, sometimes something triggers a memory about what you dreamed about, even something like moving the same way you did in the dream can remind you and it all comes rushing in and you remember every little detail. Just like when for example: you dont know the capital for a country and cant remember what the country is and someone mentions the country during normal conversation during the day or even something as obscure as the country next to the country you can't remember, and suddenly everything will come rushing back to you. You will remember the country and the capital city. This is a shithouse analogy but you get what i mean?

I still remeber the lobster dream:

Starts off a normal day at primary school. I have to go to lessons and my mum takes the car, and when we get there the inside of the building suddenly seems like home.
I go in and we have to make cakes, and I remember seeing some cakes ready and they made me think of soap. Then I suddenly have this feeling, which I can only describe as the feeling you get when you are late, and I ran down the road and under a 3-wheeled car and past my mother and sisters and some friends doing the washing up WITH CAKES.
Then I feel like I am in danger, and for some reason the thought LOBSTER comes into my head and within a few seconds of that thought 3 red shapes come over the hill.
I run back home and then realise my mistake and try to leave.
I walk in the front porch and try to open the door, then I turn around, and 3 lobsters look at me.
They are about my height and are red all over except for those funny wollen caps you see burglars wear. (NOT BALACLAVAS) and I turn towards the door, then I feel a wollen cloth pulled over my head.
I sink into darkness...and wake up in the safety of my bedroom.

One of the weirdest dreams that I remember.

I was just about to start a new thread on Asperger's and Lucid Dreaming when the helpful interface pointed out this one, so while it's really rather old (over 8 years!) I thought it'd be more fun to resurrect an old thread than start a new one!

The observation I've had as somebody diagnosed with Aspergers (aka High Functioning Autism) is that almost all of my DCs don't really have individual identities or clear faces, and the thought crossed my mind that perhaps this is linked with my tendency to avoid eye contact in many situations - especially with people I'm not familiar with.

Other than that, I've never really felt my AS makes my LDing significantly different than it would be if I weren't an Aspie. Certainly, I can't really wholeheartedly agree with any of the above based on my personal experience, except perhaps that Aspies do tend to be a little obsessive, which would of course apply as much to Lucid Dreaming as to anything else in life...

If anyone else with Aspergers or anythingn similar could share their experiences and thoughts on how it interacts with Lucid Dreaming, I'd love to hear it :-)

SammyTheSnake

I have something similar to AS and I'm with you on the faceless part. I have a very hard time looking at people in the eyes, and most of my DC doesn't have very defined facial features until I'm up close. I tend to use it to call the people I want in my lucid! And the obsessive part. Dear god. I read up so much about lucid dreaming when I found out about it, it's not even funny :p I never wondered if it can interact with lucid dreaming, but I will be on the lookout now, that's a very interesting idea.