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    Thread: The layers Of Lucid Dreaming

    1. #1
      Knowledgable quassom's Avatar
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      The layers Of Lucid Dreaming

      So before anything is said, majority of this information was introduced to me by Reece jones in one of his lucid dreaming videos. I'm posting what I have learned here to see what you all think about it.

      Layers

      Each layer has a major and minor version of itself. Obviously the minor would be the lesser of the two.

      Layer 1

      Minor: So this one is rather boring, basically you become lucid and You are startled that you ARE lucid and you startle yourself back to the waking world. Not much else to it.

      Major: like layer one minor you become lucid but instead of waking into the physical world you "wake" to a false awakening and is a new dream entirely

      Layer 2
      Minor: you realize that you are dreaming but you don't exactly understand the implications of this. In other words you dont comprehend that you have the ability to do whatever your imagination pleases therefore you don't have the ability to do whatever your imagination pleases. This layer may also seem like your watching a movie or like you have the "omniscient" point of view and everything is usually blurry and (insert antonym for "crisp")
      Major: this is basically the same as layer 2 minor except that the dream characters appear to be more aware than you. Like a dream character may say "remember back there in the living room? Well that was a dream!" but you may not care enough to see if you still are dreaming.
      Layer 3

      Minor: so you become lucid, and you understand the full implications of it but you don't have control over the dream because this layer too feels movie like it will also be very vivid and clear and stable. And it feels like The dreams unfolding before you. The dream characters although appear to think they are real but you understand they are a facet of your imagination. The important part is that you unwillingly are put in the "movie" feeling and you are guided through the dream

      Major: the same as layer 3 minor but the dream characters know they are not real and you are willingly letting the dream guide you. You are letting yourself be directed. Usually this is the best way to have your subconscious "communicate" with you

      Layer 4
      There is no major or minor because this is the "100%" lucidity layer you are the director you control what happens

      I would like to point out that a dream isn't predetermined to be a specific layer. For example if I am at layer 2 minor you can escalate to any higher level at any moment assuming you are able.
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      Cool. Not much to say about it really, just a way of classifying levels of lucidity.

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      Hungry Dannon Oneironaut's Avatar
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      I have seen his videos and I like his breakdown into layers. He even mentions another layer that isn't quite lucid. You may dream you are at a school or class for lucid dreaming (minor) or dream that you are lucid dreaming (major) without actually being lucid. I think that it is important to realize that it doesn't matter where you are on the map, if you are on it you are doing good. Too often people become frustrated because they are not as skilled dreamers as they would like to be. They become too goal oriented and this works against them. They become frustrated and this takes all of the motivation out of lucid dreaming for the subconscious mind. The subconscious mind participates positively when it is having fun. One needs to relax into lucidity. This map of levels is good if approached with this attitude.

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      Knowledgable quassom's Avatar
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      Yes I believe you mean the layer "zero" dream state, I didn't want to put that in here just because it typically doesnt lead to an actual lucid dream. Just a bad coincidence that you dreaming "about" dreaming but yea I always thought that was a funny layer
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      When I watched these videos half a year ago, when I just started lucid dreaming and didn't have a first lucid I thought it was logical and made perfect sense, but now I think there is much more to it, because mostly my lucids didn't fit in these categories. Although I think that would be really usefull to determine all those levels/layers/whatever individually, from your own experience, so that you can use it to go to a higher level once you're already lucid as he stated.
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    6. #6
      Night Stalker <span class='glow_000000'>Baron Samedi</span>'s Avatar
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      Reece has a lot of good ideas and insight. I do, however disagree with his ideas of layers. Let me explain. Lucidity means nothing more than awareness. Are you aware you are dreaming? Then it is a lucid dream. Are you unaware you are dreaming? Then it is a non-lucid dream.

      Within the dream, besides being aware of the dream itself, you may or may not be aware of:

      -Your dream body
      -dream control
      -the physical plane AKA waking life

      We can have different levels of these different types of lucidity.

      Here's an example:
      You do not know you are dreaming, yet you shoot fireballs out of your eyes at a band of marauding orcs.
      You have dream control awareness, or lucidity, but this is not a lucid dream.

      Here's another.
      You know you are dreaming. A horde of zombies is chasing you. You run. You do not even think to summon weapons, fly, or teleport. You wake up smacking your head. This is a lucid dream, but you were unaware you have dream control.

      Here's another example:
      You know you are dreaming. A swarm of bees attacks you. You try to engulf yourself in flame. You get stung. It doesn't work. The bees disappear, but now a giant slug is bearing down on you, trying to eat your face. You try to grow huge, and step on it, but you can't. This is a lucid dream, with awareness of dream control, but you have no dream control.

      Here's another example:
      You know you are dreaming. You are so consumed by the dream, you do not think of waking life. You do not bother to wonder whether you have dream control or not. You become an epic god, and vanquish your enemies with the souls of the damned. This is a lucid dream, yet you are are unaware of your waking life. You have no dream control lucidity in a sense, because you use your powers without thinking.

      So, instead of saying there are different levels to lucid dreaming, I would say there are different types of lucidity/awareness. What are you aware of, is the question.
      ya gwan fok wid de Baron? ye gotta nodda ting comin. (Formerly known as Baking Nomad.)

    7. #7
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      WakingNomad,

      I think you might be offering an overly-simplified portrait of awareness, and perhaps of lucid dreaming itself.

      I would say that all the types of lucidity you mentioned are what I would call examples of weak to mediocre lucidity -- quassom’s layer 2 to layer 3. I like to call them levels instead of layers myself, but that’s only semantics. Bottom line is there are definitely different levels of intensity to which your awareness aspires in a dream, all of which relate directly to the quality of self-awareness a dreamer has maintained during the dream:

      * At the lowest level of lucidity, a dreamer realizes that the world she is currently exploring is a dream, but fails to remember that her true body is sleeping where she left it, or even that the body she occupies now is just a dream character. This level is often quite exciting, because the dreamer is consciously experiencing all the surprises and oddities of the dream, as though being swept away by it, without ever realizing that her own mind is the one doing the sweeping.

      The vast majority of lucid dreams are of this low-level type, or perhaps are not even lucid at all: at this level of awareness, the dreamer is still susceptible to “false lucid” dreams, wherein the dreaming mind fabricates just the right circumstances for a dream to actually be about being lucid, rather than actually being lucid. If a dreamer reports his dream as a long series of events surrounding him, completely out of his control, but he was sure he knew he was dreaming, there is an excellent chance that he is simply dreaming he is lucid, rather than actually being lucid – this is a false lucid dream. The difference between the two experiences in normal circumstances is nil, and by most measures (all of which are subjective) a false lucid dream is every bit as exciting and enlightening as a low-level actual lucid dream, and both are equally valid in terms of conscious experience. Both are also remembered as dreams -- meaning they're not recorded into long-term memory at all in most cases, often drifting from the mind with the slightest distraction upon awakening...this is more important than it might sound, but I don't feel here is the time to go into it at length; I'm being lengthy enough as it is!

      * The next level of lucidity carries enough self-awareness to keep the dream from controlling the dreamer, but not quite enough for the dreamer to fully control the dream. In this level, call it mediocre lucidity, the dreamer remembers who he is and where his actual body is sleeping, but still cannot manage to fully accept the non-reality of the dream. When a dreamer wakes from a mediocre lucid dream, he will often describe talking to dream characters as if they were real, and talking about events in the dream as if they had actually happened. For example, his descriptions will include many phrases like, “And then this happened,” or “I looked the other way and a whole new world unfolded before me," or “I listened carefully to what the old man had to say.” A dreamer experiencing a mediocre lucid dream cannot change its content – even if he turns around, or flies away, he merely spurs on a new dream over which he has little control, or loses lucidity altogether. But at this level at least the dreamer cannot be fooled into believing he is lucid when he is not. Also at this level the dreamer's memory of the event tends to be recorded as a conscious event, and thus is more firmly planted in long-term memory -- because it really happened, as it were.

      * The next level could be termed full-on lucidity, though it would still not totally tip an awareness scale. Full-on lucidity means that the dreamer’s waking awareness is fully present, self-awareness is strong, she remembers who she is and acknowledges consciously that her body in the dream is not actually hers, but that of a dream character created by her own dreaming mind. This level allows full control of the dream, including the dreamer’s understanding that the dream can be abandoned for something else at any time. This level is the apex for most lucid dreamers, as it embodies the limits of conscious participation in the biological event of dreaming. As the lucid dreamer’s awareness becomes the driver of dream events, everything in the dream, no matter how odd at its surface, becomes by definition intimately familiar to the dreamer. She recognizes that all this is hers, without exception.

      For you dream-sharers out there, I truly believe that you need to achieve full-on lucidity before you can identify visitors to your dreaming universe, or create pathways out of your dreaming universe and into someone else’s; anything less opens the door for your dreaming mind to convince you, and, upon waking, your memory, that you did things and met people that in the end were just its own creation. That, though, is just what I believe -- I have nothing, anecdotal or not, to prove or disprove that suspicion.

      * There is of course more. After full-on, awareness surpasses the dream and its inherent human metaphor and symbolism completely, effectively turning the state into something else altogether...

      So yes, WakingNomad, while LD’ing is all about awareness, it is about more than just awareness that this is a dream -- after all, since it is very easy for your dreaming mind to convince you that you are having lucid dream -- even when you are not, you really do need a certain level of self-awareness to truly understand that this thing you are in is a dream and this body you occupy just a character in the dream. Even more self-awareness is required to accept that everything around you is of your own creation, and that the entire universe around you is malleable.

      Sure, lucid dreaming is all about awareness, but as a condition of consciousness, awareness and self-awareness can be incredibly complex things. To set them all at one level is to sell short the potential of the lucid dreaming experience.



      **** Please note that I'm being extremely brief here describing a subject about which entire books could be written. I hope I was able to get my point across, though. ****
      Last edited by Sageous; 07-25-2011 at 06:36 AM.
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    8. #8
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      Last edited by 2Worlds; 07-26-2011 at 01:02 AM.

    9. #9
      Retired Post Whore-73PPD jarrhead's Avatar
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      I always thought there needed to be a layer between Zero and One.. I called it "unconfirmed suspicion."


      An example was the week I started LDing (which I found this site the day after I saw Avatar, go figure.) where I looked at the computer clock, away, and back again. I knew something wasn't right, yet I couldn't get the time to change or ever confirm that I was dreaming.

    10. #10
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      Sorry I'm so late to this thread; but Reece assigned major and minor divisions to Layer 4 as well, didn't he? The main difference being that at Layer 4 Major, your mind is so conscious of the fact that it's dreaming that even your dream characters naturally know that you are, whereas in Layer 4 Minor, they don't. Also, Layer 4 Major is supposed to appear even more lucid (clear) than its predecessor.

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