Thread: How do you know if you are really lucid dreaming?

Originally Posted by puppycat

I mean, what if you are just having a non-lucid dream about having a lucid dream?

If you don't become self-aware you will just wake up once it's done as it was a regular dream.

low-level lucid dreams are similar to non-lucid dreams about being lucid. When you have a fully lucid dream, you'll know the difference though. Think about your last dream that took place in a real location. Next time you are there stop and look around. Think about how much more conscious you are, that's sort of the difference. It's hard to explain, it's just the level of consciousness that you have during the truly lucid dream.

i ask them to define consciousness if they can not i do not teach them

hahahaha

Personally, I never thought lucid dreaming required "being conscious while asleep." I figured all that was required was to know you were dreaming, being -conscious- of that fact, and thus able to act upon it, not to regain full -consciousness- while still asleep.
Anyway, from what I understood about lucidity, dreaming you are lucid is exactly the same as being lucid. Like daydreaming about daydreaming, or metathought. You are daydreaming or thinking.

Originally Posted by JET73L

Personally, I never thought lucid dreaming required "being conscious while asleep." I figured all that was required was to know you were dreaming, being -conscious- of that fact, and thus able to act upon it, not to regain full -consciousness- while still asleep.
Anyway, from what I understood about lucidity, dreaming you are lucid is exactly the same as being lucid. Like daydreaming about daydreaming, or metathought. You are daydreaming or thinking.

You must be having some really low-level, low-quality lucids. A LD where you are fully conscious is completely different from one in which you passively remark, "Oh, I'm in a dream". It surprises me that you say that, but I see you have wings, so you must know what a high level lucid feels like. You think they're the same thing?

*All text in this post is the personal opinion of JET73L, and not to be taken as fact*
No, I have had high-quality lucids before, it's just that I don't think there's anything unusual at work there. In a non-lucid, you don't know you're dreaming, so you can't concentrate on making the world better, or more detailed. You assume it's perfectly normal for people in the crowd not to have faces, and for chairs not to block your path until you'r sitting in them. However, in lucids, you know you are dreaming, and can thus allow yourself to wonder at the environment, and increase or change details. I just never thought that people "wake up" their mind for lucid dreams, any more than they "wake up" their mind when a lecture in school or a television show starts getting interesting. Same sort of consciousness, just paying more attention.

If someone can prove me wrong, I'll gladly change my viewpoint, but until then, this is firmly my opinion on the nature of lucid dreams.