dejavu in dreams/ repeated scenery

Okay I've yet to have a lucid dream but I have a month on dreams in my journal. I'm starting to notice in my dreams that I have seen these places before but I can't seem to remember from where. Like I'm remembering old dreams that I have forgotten. As well as repeat in scenery but different people/objects in its place. Am I getting close or any tips for me? I know its been a month but I'm still trying! And also in all my dreams I don't seem to remember any smells associated in my dreams. Why is that? Thank you

One good way to get a good understanding of lucidity it to wake yourself up. Dont try get lucidity straight away if you are struggling a bit, first get use to that ability to be conciously aware. Because lucid is about being able to make decisions in a dream state. Waking up becomes a useful tool later on if after lucidity you start to lose control and things become very intense. Once you wake up you can start over and because it will probably be early in the morning your REM cycle will have shorter intervals and you should be able to be more aware to enter a lucid state. Your brain is most active before it wakes up. There is a sweet spot where you dont want to wake up to early so that you actually stay awake but you also dont want to not wake up in an REM cycle.

There is also a very cool technique that i cannot more highly recommend. I think it was made popular by Salvidor Dali. You have to be really tired right . Then you sit in a chair with a coin in your hand and a pot on the floor underneath the chair. Once you drift off you will drop the coin in the pot which should wake you up. I am not sure how useful this method is but its fun. I think it teaches you a lot about your state of mind just before falling a sleep, and the wake up effect, which you can use to your benefit when experimenting with methods to induce lucidity.

I find personally that if i read a book for about 2 hours before i go to sleep i generally feel like i am in the right frame of mind . I am not sure why but this works for me.

"I don't seem to remember any smells associated in my dreams" neither do i actually. I think the sense of smell is very important in this concrete world, where a smell can warn you of danger and/or love . The smell sense can be useful here, but in the dream world there is little reason for it. Smelling however does have the highest relation to past memories and could actually be used, i think to induce a personal history type event in your lucidity. I have never tried it but it might be worth a go. You just need to activite that part of your brain somehow in the dream state

I have experienced this dream déjà vu before, and can say that I felt it more often as my recall improved...which was a huge part of the progression leading up to my becoming lucid for the first time. However, considering I had experienced it prior to and also after that first time, I cannot say whether or not it directly relates to how "close" you are.

However.

Spoiler for huge response:

I cannot say with certainty either what this sensation truly is...it's possible (even likely that) your dreams have reoccurring geography, scenarios, people, and that alone is why you feel you remember it. The same could be said for the déjà vu one experiences while awake.

But personally I've never found that explanation very satisfying at all.

And as far as I understand it currently, déjà vu in general (and other related phenomena) might be attributed to a simple and occasional perceptual upset in our brains.

Similar to how the images we receive with our eyes are imperceptibly flipped right side up, the fact that we can mistakenly misread typos as correct, etc., our brains filter and process things like stimuli, experience, and memory so fast that we aren't even always aware it has taken place.

Occasionally our signals get a bit mixed, and although we may feel as though the current moment is happening exactly as it has before in the past it is more likely that we are experiencing the present as we normally do, and sub/consciously we merely get the sensation that what we're feeling is more like a memory than like the new it actually is.

Or maybe we are just getting our details confused.

Either way, if the difference between the two is so subtle as to be mistaken in waking life, you can be assured that it is even more ambiguous in dreams.

So yes it is likely that your dream environment has reoccurring elements, but the only way (that I know of) to know for sure is improving your recall and keeping a regular journal; making note of elements that occur more often than others.

I can say for certain that a reoccurring element--noticeable through my journalling alone, really--was what triggered my first moments of dream lucidity..

The recall and awareness takes time, and for me at least, experiencing sensory things came more or less individually. Paying attention to scents, tastes, textures, etc... Just like in real life they depend on your level of attention. Taking time to focus on colours more, written words around you, the sound of a person's voice, subtle things like breezes and fog...all these things require practice to notice completely enough to commit almost immediately to memory.

In my experience it is challenging, but fun and revealing. Amusing, Much like life in general. (PSimdrunkbtw)

If you want a higher level of detail, you could try tackling each sense individually maybe? I tried this when taste was my weak spot and it worked out well enough. One time I thought I even achieved Synesthesia tasting smells and smelling sounds and whatnot...

Be careful, it can be gross at times.

Also, if you are really interested in pursuing these things in your dreams, my best advice to you would be to practice in real life simultaneously. The more habitual it is to your waking mind, the more likely it seems that your sleeping mind will respond in a similar fashion.

Hope that helps, but if not I recall there being other posts on deevee about this topic particular, as well as tons of others to consider.

Enjoy!

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Originally Posted by Frozenlegend

Okay I've yet to have a lucid dream but I have a month on dreams in my journal. I'm starting to notice in my dreams that I have seen these places before but I can't seem to remember from where. Like I'm remembering old dreams that I have forgotten. As well as repeat in scenery but different people/objects in its place. Am I getting close or any tips for me? I know its been a month but I'm still trying! And also in all my dreams I don't seem to remember any smells associated in my dreams. Why is that? Thank you

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The fact that you've noticed things about your dreams that are recurrent is definitely a good step! You can use those things as dream signs. Have you tried mantras yet? You could try telling yourself before you go to bed that if you find yourself at one of those places, it's a dream. :)