Thread: lucid dreaming layers?

No.

Something like this?

Yes, there is such thing. They are layers of lucidity and dream control, starting from 0 and going up to 5. Watch slash's tutorial provided by Ekyu for much more detail

Originally Posted by jblb2424

Yes, there is such thing. They are layers of lucidity and dream control, starting from 0 and going up to 5. Watch slash's tutorial provided by Ekyu for much more detail

Lucidity is an ever-shifting continuum, not a series of discrete levels. Furthermore, the word "layers" is being misused as it implies a nesting of some sort. For example, in the movie Inception they described dream "layers" as a dream within a dream, which is nonsense with no basis in reality.

It's been a long time since i saw that video, but i think he is just talking about the awareness and vividness in lucid dreams. Not sure if it's correct to call it 'layers of lucid dreaming', but like i said it's been a long time since i watched all those video's. It had some interesting things in it though. Anyway, i assumed the thread starter was talking about something like this.

Originally Posted by Ekyu

It's been a long time since i saw that video, but i think he is just talking about the awareness and vividness in lucid dreams. Not sure if it's correct to call it 'layers of lucid dreaming', but like i said it's been a long time since i watched all those video's. It had some interesting things in it though. Anyway, i assumed the thread starter was talking about something like this.

yep that was exactly what i was talking about.

Originally Posted by cmind

Lucidity is an ever-shifting continuum, not a series of discrete levels. Furthermore, the word "layers" is being misused as it implies a nesting of some sort. For example, in the movie Inception they described dream "layers" as a dream within a dream, which is nonsense with no basis in reality.

cmind, Hes talking about dream AWARNESS. theres a spectrum of awarness in dreams that should be noted. calling them layers is just a tool to define the different layers of lucidity which IS an existing concept in our dreams.

No 'layers'. Just different levels of awareness.

Long rant, got too into the analogy, sorry.

I watched those videos too a while ago. That guy isn't describing discrete layers that really exist. He's just putting labels on his feelings of awareness/vividness. There's nothing wrong with that, it's natural to try to organize things into categories, but in reality it's more complicated. There are many elements to lucid dreams and each one can be anywhere from strong to weak or different from anything you've felt before.

It's like putting the labels 'child', 'teenager', 'adult' and 'senior' on people. Every one has its tendencies, and it helps to use the labels, but in reality each individual person won't fit into one category. Ex: a really mature 17 year old who has the intelligence of a 35 year old but a playful nature like a 9 year old. It would be hard to place that person in the 'teenager' category when immaturity, rebelliousness, a mediocre seriousness, etc. are descriptions of the teenager category. But for legal reasons, age is identified by the number of years the person has been out of the womb, and it's understood that it's really more complicated, so I'm fine with it.

But this 'layers of lucid dreaming' thing I'm more opposed to because they're too specific and I don't see any reason for making them up other than to confuse people. It's like trying to fit people into age categories solely on their personality traits when there is no legal reason to do so. It might be helpful to loosely define someone who is dependent and immature and is still learning about the world as a child, just as it would be helpful to define a lucid dream in which you aren't very aware and that isn't very vivid as a poor lucid dream, but the categories he claims exist are too specific. It's like he's defining children as immature, dependent, lives with parents, etc. when there do exist children who are homeless and don't live with their parents, who are mature for their ages, etc. He just doesn't seem to leave much breathing room.

While I was following that, I kept experiencing this hybrid lucid dreams which didn't seem to fit under any category. So I'm not opposed to the idea of categorizing lucid dreams, but there would have to be less categories, maybe 2 or 3, and it would have to be obvious how every dream fits into every one. I guess if you were gathering statistics and needed to know how 'good' people's lucid dreams were, it might help to develop a couple categories. But in general I find it works better to rate every quality seperately (vividness, length, awareness that you're dreaming).

And this guy is way off by his last layer in which he claims you're really traveling to different dimensions or some s***.

The others got It it's better to call it "The Five Layers of Awareness" because you can be aware of dreaming without being aware that your dream characters are real etc. Is that awareness then? Yes AND No.

I use Reece Jones Layers in my practice to easier meassure my awareness of each dream. Check out my Dream Journal for examples.

Way off? If he have empirical experience that lead to his knowledge anything can be considered real, it's the only reason we call our world real. - no discussion of this because I don't have enough empirical knowledge myself to defend my point. Although I refuse to beleive that consciousness is an ilussion of elecrical impulses in my brain so I'll keep searching. (I also have a friend who have shared an experience with my astral projection mentor, not that it does anything to you, but my point is that experience is key to a change of belief, also skepticism of course but don't be totally skeptic unless you have the reasons to, but I trust that you do so END OF DISCUSSION nah really keep talking if you want..)

Anyway the layers can be a helpfull tool to help you reach each layer. I have described it before but here we go...

Layer 0 (Minor) Experiencing something that should trigger lucidity without becoming lucid. Instead to aim for lucidity aim for awareness! If you tell a new guy to tell himself to become lucid and he fails he will be disapointed,if you tell him to try to be more aware of his dreams and the first step is layer 0 (Minor) it will be much easier to attain, when that is attained layer 0 (Major) is the goal
experiencing dream control without becoming lucid, that means that you are aware of the dream which makes the dream feel vivid and then you experience something like superpowers for example you are then very close to becoming lucid which takes us to layer 1 (minor) that is the same goal as layer 0 (Major) but this time you are aware enough to become lucid, aware that one is dreaming, the first time you might be too excited and wake up immediately but if you fix that you have reached layer 1 (Major) which means that you become lucid but either start dreaming unaware or have a false awakening here simulated lucidity (continue dreaming that one is lucid dreaming even though he is not aware of it) can be experienced.

I can go on with all the layers but my point is that attaining LUCIDITY is easy as pie and I hope you can see why the layers can both help you stay motivated and become lucid. The purpose of the layers is to INCREASE the awareness not attain lucidity.

Awareness is the goal, lucidity is the bonus. In the begining dream journaling and a habit of awareness in daily life is what takes you through the first layers. The layers are of course not perfect, but they are helpfull