The Nicotine Patch and Lucid Dreaming
A friend of mine told me that when he goes to sleep with a nicotine patch on and he says he has extreamly vivid and strange dreams. Now i dont know if he's telling the truth but if anyone has first hand experience could you tell me if its true or not?
personally i think he's lying but like i said, i dont know.
My Experience With the Nicotine Patch
I recently started using the nicotine patch to stop smoking. My brother had told me that when he used them to stop smoking he had very vivid dreams....but never lucid dreams. Throughout my life I have had very minimal lucidity in my dreams but there are a few occasions where I experienced lucidity for a very short amount of time and never controlled a dream. When I was a kid I used to have terrible nightmares and I became able to become lucid enough to wake myself up from a dream I didn't like but never attempted anything more than that. I have maybe on 2 0r 3 occasions as an adult become lucid but never able to control much of my dream.
2 nights ago was my first full day sleeping with a patch on. After about 6 hours asleep I remember being in a dream about high school that was vivid but I was not lucid. Slowly I awoke from this dream. I remember as I awoke it seemed like physics changed. Like I rolled backwards as my brain recognized gravity and was no longer creating it in the dream. I opened my eyes for maybe a second or two and I remember deciding that I wanted to go back to sleep. I also remember deciding that I was going to try to go back into a dream and control it as I was more lucid than groggy. I don't know why I was aware in this groggy state as I was not asleep or awake but I think the effect I felt of gravity changing cued to me the difference between my dream and my awake state. So I relaxed and sure enough within a few seconds I was rolling forward with the same sensation as I had come out of the last dream and I remember deciding to maintain lucidity. It was almost like the movie The Cell with J-Lo when she was inside the criminals head. Like a curtain came up and a scene appeared for me to interact with. There were these rings hanging from the ceiling and I used them to swing from one to the next til I came to a door. I remember thinking I am controlling this and whatever is behind that door will be of my minds creation. The door was any old door that would be in an apartment with a normal handle. I opened the door and inside was a very beautiful woman with blonde curly hair and a powdery face and she was wearing an almost see thru latex suit and she was smiling. The latex wasn't tight fitting but more like a dress with flowing ripples. She seemed happy to see me and there were obvious sexual connotations going on. Then I saw a door behind her. As soon as I saw the door I knew something was going to be on the other side to challenge me and the latex girl having the time of our lives and sure enough a dude opens the door. He had no mouth and looked kinda like he had downs syndrome or something. And behind him were a few more like him of varying heights and builds. All were male and all seemed like they were going to challenge me. I was still lucid but I feel like my brain had to create the reality and it was coming at me faster than I could create it. It's almost like either you create the reality or your brain will do it for you....and you may not like what your brain creates. So at this moment I decide I have power in this dream and that I am going to get rid if these guys by shooting them with my finger. Just my finger. So I point my finger at the closest one and fire and sure enough blue and purple electrical sparks shoot from my finger and the mouthless weird downs syndrome guy turns around and leaves. I remember being excited that I had just controlled my reality with amazing results. I mean when was the last time you could shoot sparks from your finger?.....it felt like I was really doing this. So I aimed at the other guys, one by one, and shot them as well. They also took off. This was where the dream ended as I was staying with my girlfriend and I think I had been making noise or something and she rolled over and woke me up. After waking up I was dumbfounded! I was so excited that I experienced true lucidity in a dream. I recall the dream like it was an event that actually happened....like two days ago I shot sparks from my hand in an attempt to ward off skin faced weirdos so I could sleep with my rubber dressed angel. It was insane.
So....yesterday my patch fell off while sleeping and I didn't experience any dream recall but I know the patch was the reason I experienced full lucidity and I am going to try again tonight and see what happens. After reading all of these flying dreams I am excited to give that a try and see what I come up with. Sadly I feel me and my rubberized vixen will not meet again but who knows. If I created her once she's still in the back of my mind somewhere. Finally I want to say.....if you really want to lucid dream, try the nicotine patch. I don't recommend it for a non-smoker or someone that isn't already addicted to nicotine as it's a bitch to get off of. But the patch makes it MUCH easier and if it has the benefit of allowing me to create a virtual reality I can control, I'll stop smoking to use these things any day. Good luck all and have fun!