Thread: False Lucidity?

I aim to put an end to these discussions, because they are all over this site and never seem to be answered.

I understand that:
1) You do not have to intentionally induce a lucid dream for it to be lucid. Many lucid dreams are completely spontaneous.
2) You do not have to be lucid throughout the entire dream for it to be a lucid dream.
3) You do not have to have ANY control over the dream whatsoever for it to be a lucid dream.
4) You do not have to be able to think as clearly as you would in your waking life for it to be a lucid dream.

However, a little while ago I began to get into lucid dreaming again. I would follow some routine religiously that consisted of eating well, exercising, meditating occasionally and writing in a dream journal. Due to insomnia, I gave up after about a week.
A couple of weeks later, after playing video games, not exercising that often, not meditating, not dream journaling, and doing some other stuff (that shall not be mentioned) I had what I would call a false lucid dream. I can't precisely remember what happened in that dream to be honest, but in a few weeks I had another similar experience:

Two guys and I are able to shoot webs out of our wrists in a similar fashion to spider man. We are swinging around the city when we receive a call. The person on the other end of whatever we were talking on tells us to rendezvous with the city's mayor on an island that is roughly 20 meters out from the coast.
The island is covers in sharp, jagged rocks and the sky is dark. a thunderstorm rages around us. The mayor begins to talk but I quickly become bored with the conversation (the webs we shoot are littering the city and he is reprimanding us), so I attempt to launch myself into the air using my web.
Suddenly, it occurs to me "I could just fly."
So I do a couple of diving forward rolls (a technique I had practiced a couple of weeks before in that first "false lucid dream" (Now I remember)) and I launched myself into the air.
I could fly and it was so easy. Unfortunately, I became overly excited and lost the dream.

Now, the issue here is that whenever I have had a lucid dream before, I have thought "I AM DREAMING" and the realization has brought the whole scene into crisp, clear focus that leaves me with an amazing sense of excitement and amazement.

In these two "false lucid dreams" the thought never occurred to me. The environment never became more vivid. The thought that I could have been dreaming never crossed my mind. There was just a seamless transition from dreaming to being "conscious", but it wasn't a consciousness that was similar to lucid-dream-consciousness. In the first one I thought "if I imagine an army over the rise behind me, it will be there", but the thought "I am dreaming" never appeared.

It seems, as I see it, that I must actually think or say the words "I AM DREAMING" in order to become conscious within the dream, otherwise, it's not the same. Perhaps other people are having the same problems and the answers to this thread will help them.

So please, I have spent a lot of time planning this out and writing it, give me an appropriate and equally thorough answer.

I think there is a difference between knowing you are dreaming, and understanding you are dreaming. In a normal dream, some part of you may know it's a dream, and you go about your activies. You can fly and shoot lasers out of your palms without thinking twice about it. You may even be talking to a DC about it being a dream (which has happened to me plenty of times). But when you get that snap, where you realize and understand "Oh! This is a dream! I can do whatever I wish, there are no laws" – and truly comprehend its implications, I think that's when you're truly lucid. I don't really think you have to say the words, as long as it's what you're thinking – though saying it out loud can reinforce it too. The thing is, you can say "I'm dreaming!" over and over and not really think about it. On the other hand, you can also say "I'm dreaming" in awe and amazement when the true realization dawns upon you.

Another thing which I think is important to know is: Just as you can be lucid without control, you may have also have total control without ever being lucid. I think many people are confused with this, because they think that them being able to do things they want during the dream means that they are controlling the dream, which must mean they're lucid – when that's not really the case. Remember that control is not equal to lucidity.

Hope this helps a bit :3

That does help a bit... I just don't feel like I fully understand whether I was lucid or not. I understand what you're saying though, so thanks (: . And thank you for not just saying "there's no such thing as false lucidity, you either are lucid or you aren't" and shutting me down like all the other members were doing to other threaders lol.

I was reading a book by Robert Waggoner: "Gateway to Lucid Dreaming", and he said that control is the wrong word. You don't control the dream, as such, you are only directing yourself within the dream. It would be impossible to consciously create a dream environment down to every last blade of grass or every stone on a path, or control the actions of every dream character all at once. He likened it to a sailor on the sea. No control, just direction.

Ahh I understand what you mean about control. As for your question, I don't think you were lucid in the dream you mentioned in the original post. I wasn't sure if you left it out or if it happened prior to the point at which you started the story, but I didn't notice you say anything about realizing you were dreaming. So I was assuming you weren't lucid. There are times where I sort of know it's a dream and my thoughts are rational as if I were lucid, but in fact I never really realize I'm dreaming

You can call it false lucid, or just a dream about being lucid. In these dreams it doesn't really "click". You don't actually realize, you are dreaming. You just talking about it.

Okay thanks. That gives me more of a solid comprehension of what I was experiencing. It's just hard to tell sometimes because everything is the same as a lucid dream, just without the "click" as you say. In my dream I will think something like "if i think this, it will happen". This has also happened for a brief moment in an earlier dream where I thought "if I imagine her getting shot like this, it will happen!" so I tried to imagine it not happening, but it happened, and blood came out of the person in exactly the way I imagined it would. A little confusing to say the least.

I know exactly what you're talking about, I think. Something similar has been happening to me occasionally and I think I posted about it a while back. Anyway, here is what I think, but I can't be completely sure. I believe that inside the dream we are always aware of the fact we are dreaming on some level. However we do not pay attention to this and just shove that thought to the side, never to come into the spotlight and grant us lucidity. Knowing that we are dreaming, even if we don't get lucid, gives us a bit of dream control, typically. What I have found is that the control allows me to defeat obstacles without breaking into full lucidity. Where before I came to a problem, or was shocked by some event, I suddenly became lucid all at once to solve it, and got that great lucid feeling. Now my consciousness slowly gets closer to greater awareness, but never breaches into lucidity. Even though I am not fully lucid I have enough control to know I'm not in danger, or am able to influence objects and my own actions. I feel that I am getting close to lucidity here, I am in control and things are vivid, and I only need something to push me over. I used to feel as if lucidity was on the tip of my tongue, but during those dreams it is like I push it away since I don't need it, yet it is in my grasp. That is just my take on it. However, I do not believe those sudden realization moments are gone. These new types of dreams are probably a result of my better control and awareness, but that doesn't mean the old type disappears. I sort of think of dreams as being on a sliding scale of consciousness, and lucidity can be obtained by jumping over a bunch of intermediate levels, or you can rise through them to the top. I think these types of dreams are just non-lucids where we are getting close to the top, but not quite there.

Yeah but that's the thing, everyone says it happens when you're close to the lucid state but not quite there. But when I had these dreams I wasn't even thinking about lucid dreaming. I was totally off it, yet I haven't had a dream like that in about a month or two.

The part about always knowing it is a dream is just speculation of mine, and if I am correct it is not just in these dreams, but all of them, and is just unnoticed. However, it is just speculation so we can ignore that part. But, during these dreams I don't necessarily say that it's a dream or anything, sometimes I do, but not all the time. The part in your post that made me think this was when you said that you could just fly. In my dreams like this, I think things like,"If I jump the fall won't kill me" or,"I want to find some snakes, but all I have to do is look on the ground and they will appear" and "holy shit there are a lot of snakes good thing they can't kill me." I think only once I mentioned something about everything being a dream, and I wasn't thinking about lucid dreaming then, it was a thought in the back of my head I was ignoring. You probably just had a dream with lots of control, and since you only have had that type of control in lucid dreams, sort of mistook it for one except you knew it didn't feel lucid. Awareness doesn't always equal thinking about lucid dreaming, so it is possible that you were getting closer to lucidity. Or it could be a normal dream with more control, and nothing more. I only have my experiences so I'm sorry if this doesn't help.

No it helps quite a bit. It's good to hear about other people's experiences with this because it helps me to understand better with every new perspective. Thanks (: