Fake Lucid Dreams

Hi there,

I've been searching about this topic both on Google and here, but it seems there isn't a concept for "Fake Lucid", same as we have one for "Fake Awakening". I don't think they can even be considered "lucid", but just normal dreams.

Let me explain myself...

Just this night I had this dream where I was lucid, supposely, but I did really weird things in an already existing world and I was somehow trapped in it, and I assure you that it was not "me", the one in there.

In the few (and very short) real lucid dreams I had, it was me and I could try to calm down, do RCs, or walk here and there trying to stabilize the dream and explore the world. In this case, I was just like "hey, this is a dream, cool, lets have some fun"... but once I woke up I realized I was just "dreaming I was lucid".

In this dream I started runing in this unkown village, trying to impress people jumping from wall to wall or climbing buildings using the valconies. The thing is that I didn't have the strenght to do it properly, often failing. I also did a bit mess and a crowd was trying to get me, and I told them "don't you realize you can't do anything to me?" as I started to TRY levitate away from them.

The thing is that I started flying a bit, but gravity was stronger. Somehow it was a "lucid" dream, in which I was trapped by the real dream, meaning that really I wasn't lucid, but just dreaming that I was having a lucid dream, or something like that.

That's what I think about this experience. It's a situation where you can't stop to think, or do RCs, etc. because simply, you are not really lucid... it's a normal dream.


This night I also had a strange dream, what I would also call fake lucid... after a long adventure with other people (seemed like a movie, with the army following us, riding a train ilegally, jumping in the desert, hanging from a helicopter...), suddenly one person started deforming in front of me. What I said?: "Hey, hey! wait! We are OK.. don't you realize? If that's happening to you, then YOU're dreaming!!"

So, I suddenly "realized" that the other person was dreaming :lol:
I calmed everybody down, told them everything was OK and that nothing was going to happen. I asked him to try stay asleep so we could have some fun... but he decided to wake up. My last words were "no, no, dont wake up!".


So, in both cases I realized it was a dream when I woke up, but both were dreams about "dreaming I'm lucid"...


What are your experiences/opinions on this? I mean, those dreams where you think you're lucid, you don't have full control (but you think you have) and when you wake up you realize it wasn't really "you".

Thanks!
Regards.

It's common to dream about lucid dreaming, especially if you're the type of person that reads lucid dreaming material and forums on any regular basis.

We don't bother calling them "Fake" or "False" lucids...

Quote:

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because simply, you are not really lucid... it's a normal dream.

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They can be confusing and certainly disappointing...but it's still closer to a lucid dream than many people get, and that's okay in my book. :)

First one sounds like it could be low awareness lucid, being aware of dreaming is what being lucid is, it's not uncommon in low awareness lucids for one to not have memory of waking life in dream or even have somewhat different personality, though, if you really feel like you weren't aware that you were dreaming at all, it could be non-lucid dream about actions that one would do when lucid, it's really up to you to decide. :zzz:
Second one sounds like non-lucid since you weren't aware that you were dreaming. :-?
Either way, don't be disappointed, like melanieb said it can be because you think alot about lucid dreaming, and it's not a bad thing, thinking about lucid dreaming can help increasing chances of being lucid too and those non-lucid dreams can also be turned lucid, keep working on awareness and think positive! :)

*Moved to Attaining Lucidity*

I had one of these yesterday, it was very confusing and subsequently frustrating upon waking up and realizing what had happened, but it opens up some interesting avenues of philosophical inquiry.

I had a series of dreams where I would have a false awakening, attempt to WILD, succeed, have a lucid dream for a while, wake up, repeat the cycle. It was irritating afterwards because I wasn't truly lucid, as you mentioned in the original post: instead I was behaving irrationally and not really doing anything that "I" would like to have done.

It's interesting philosophically because clearly I was exercising some decision making capabilities while being "fake lucid" but at the same time I could clearly say that it wasn't "me" in retrospect. If I were asked to point out some key difference between how I make decisions while lucid and not lucid, however, it becomes difficult. I think if we could answer this question we'd have an important signpost to better DILD endeavors.

- Memory
I thought perhaps what was lacking was memory of my previous goals while awake. If that's true, that means that in order to have a lucid dream you just need to set a goal and intent. If you remember that you need to do a specific action, the reason WHY you are doing it may be enough to make you lucid. However, we are generally not able to remember our goals in dreams unless we are already lucid. In general the goals driving our actions are random and not even rational. Trying to inject rationality into our behavior is probably like driving a square peg into a round hole.

- Context
This is related to memory but with an important difference. The context for our dream experience may be what defines a dream as lucid or not. For example, in my dream I was lucid, but mentally I was not aware of the larger context (i.e. the last time I was previously awake and fully lucid). Along with the context your brain will create a cascade of memories that fully grounds you in the present moment and may make available all those mental faculties which we feel are necessary to be truly "lucid" in a dream. This might be related to All-Day-Awareness practice, which, if practiced correctly, is meant to keep you aware of the context of your existence rather than the purely sensual aspect of existence.
Unfortunately I have a sinking feeling that this is again related to waking memories that are shut down when asleep. If my consciousness is very "flat" in dreams, I am still left searching for a trigger to remind me of the greater context for my existence. It is not something that is always evident, unless you remind yourself to examine it carefully.

- Habit
Since it is difficult to access our executive decision making capabilities and related memories while dreaming, it seems a good bet is to create a habit that follows us into our dreams. However, I'm not sure this is possible. I've analyzed all my dreams and I can't find a single habitual action that I do while awake AND asleep. Although I have many waking habits, as a rule they do not follow me into my dreams. I don't see why we should be able to create an exception to this rule.

So far it seems the only reliable way to succeed is to seize the moment between sleep and waking, when our higher faculties start to return but we are still capable of falling back asleep (DEILD, WILD). If anyone can think of a better way I'd love to hear it.

Thanks all for the replies.

@Checker666 thanks for the notification of moving the post and sorry, I just posted there because I saw a similar post from 2008.

Now, to the topic:

@blueremi, interesting thoughts, I agree.

There is something obvious I think, and is that with lots of experience, specially in ADA (all-day-awareness) you should be able to control these type of dreams, but just the same as any other dream. The thing is that in these dreams (or at least in my case with little to no experience), you simply don't happen to think clearly... you are just on a normal dream. This ends up not being able to do REAL reality checks (you do one, get happy it's a dream, and continue doing stupid things), you just don't stop to think about the environment, your actions, or any other things...

The last "lucid" dreams I had were just some kind of transitions while trying WILD, that ended up in fake awakenings, and those were real lucid dreams, where you know you was trying to get asleep lucid, you realize you are in a fake a wakening, and then try to stabilize the dream (in my case, failing).

In any case I understand that this "fake lucid" dreams are just normal dreams, and even if it's frustrating, you can't pretend to try becoming lucid next time it happens, because you won't even be able to think about it.

This reminds me I have a recurrent "nightmare" about a turtle I had when I was a little kid. No matter how hard I try, I always realize I was dreaming when I wake up. It happened many times and I always think "next time, be smart and know it's a dream". But it won't happen.

I guess the same applies to this fake lucids in my case.

Anyway I hope that with more experience and practicing dream journaling, maybe I become real lucid.

Thanks,
Regards.