• Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views




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    1. Stephen LaBerge - Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming

      by , 10-11-2022 at 11:17 AM
      After having a bit of a rought time recently, I've been doing a lot better. I've been keeping up with work, eating relatively healthy, reading, and making music. I had a big tidy up (my flat was a complete shithole) and this improved my mind clarity. I did buy some weed a couple nights ago and have been smoking fairly regularly, but I've been making sure that I'm not wasting my time consuming online videos, trying to be a bit more aware and productive.

      A few days ago, a book I ordered arrived - Stephen LaBerge's "Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming". I bought this book because of a recommendation somewhere on this forum, and I'm so happy with it. I only started reading it last night, but it struck a real chord with me. I've been aware of lucid dreaming for almost 15 years and had relative success with DILDs and WBTBs as a kid, but I lost my way with it through various bad habits and the general challenges life throws at you as an adult.

      I read the first 50 or so pages in one sitting and I felt a pretty profound change in my state of mind. LaBerge has written this book so that it flows really nicely, and whilst I already know a lot of things he is informing the reader of, it feels great to start from the beginning again. I kind of forgot about the depth of potential benefits that Lucid Dreaming provides, and reading this put me back into a magical state of inspiration and motivation to succeed in lucid dreaming again.

      I felt so connected with all of this that I went to bed feeling immersed in my thoughts of having lucid dreaming. I had my laptop by my bed, ready to write my dreams in the morning, and I fell asleep half-attempting a WILD, staying completely still and having my minds eye encompassed in hypogogic hallucinations.

      However, I woke up this morning with no dream recollection, feeling fairly groggy despite a long sleep. I had smoked quite a lot of weed last night but felt fairly collected as I got to bed, so I hoped that it wouldn't interrupt my sleep too much. However in hindside, it probably did. I need to remind myself that whilst I can smoke weed in moderation during the day, I'm going to have trouble pursuing lucid dreaming if I keep going to bed high.

      Another interesting thing happened last night - whilst I was reading the book, I had a few moments where my consciousness felt altered, like I was aware of something spiritual or mystical on my mind. I've felt this many time before when I feel inspired by mystical scenarios or readings, but this put me quite on edge. I started to have this fear that I would look away towards my kitchen for example, and see a terrifying, black demon, such as the woman from The Ring. This genuinely spooked me for a while and I kept having this sensation that any second now, something terrifying was going to happen. I remembered that I used to get this all the time as a kid, I got spooked to the point that I wonder if I experienced trauma as a child, once to a film and once to a book.

      I obviously wasn't scared to the point of true terror as I was as a child, but I realized that I hadn't thought about this sensation in years. When I've gone to therapists, they'd always ask me about my past and if I've had any traumatic experiences, and I've never had anything to offer there. I sometimes have felt that there is something hiding in my subconscious that I need to remember, and thinking about these feelings of terror made me wonder if that was it. I really was a bit of a messed up kid at times and the intensity of the fear would make me say and do weird things. it makes me wonder whether exploring this could be another application of lucid dreaming for me, working past my weird fears that seemed to arise again after reading lucid dreaming content as I would as a child.

      Anyway, onwards and upwards - I'm excited for a new day today, to begin working through the dream sign annotation exercise in LaBerge's book, and I plan to stop smoking at least two hours before I go to bed tonight. My recall used to be amazing with up to 10 dreams per night, and I cannot wait until I've got back to that spot.
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      Uncategorized
    2. Holidays and sexual dreams

      by , 10-08-2022 at 10:02 AM
      I'm in a tough spot mentally at the moment, and I feel like this is being reflected in my dreams. When I was a kid, sure I had problems and addictions per se, but I had hugely varied dreams and a lust for life that got me excited for every day. However, I'm 27 now and I think a series of addictions, bad habits, and compulsive behaviours have got me into a right pickle. I need some therapy and I need to get off my ass and take action, because I have a lot of cool skills and potential, and I'm wasting them. Anyway, as I said, this lifestyle is being reflected in my dreams. I would say that recently, the two core themes of my dreams are holidays and sex. Sex is an obvious one - I definitely have a sexual addiction and really need to address this. On the other side, the holiday theme is a bit more benign. Basically I started freelance writing last year, and it went way better than I thought it would. Due to the remote nature of the job, for the first time I have been able to go on "work holidays" whenever and wherever I want, and I love it. However, I definitely think this can be a coping mechanism. If I'm having a rough, depressing, and unproductive day, I'll be looking online for cheap flights and before you know it I will be escaping to Morocco or something. Obviously travel is good, but I think that I currently use it to justify my otherwise boring life, and I think this is why it appears in my dreams so much.



      Anyway, my dream included a brief glimpse of being on holiday somewhere, perhaps Albania with my ex gf V on a train? (even though they don’t have trains in Albania). First part of this dream that I remember was being on a train, and V had squeezed herself into this weird slot by one of the sliding doors, almost like a magazine rack. I kind of get the impression she was avoiding me, but I squeezed myself into the same slot and we kissed.

      After this, I remember being in a hotel room. Initially, I was alone – it was dark and a bit depressing, much like my flat IRL. There were two rooms – one living room and one bedroom/study. The study had a nice desk setup and I had been doing work there, but I had also sprawled my belongings and trrash all over the place. I don’t remember at what point this happened, but suddenly a girl was in the flat with me. I sort of remember the essence of her being V from earlier, but in appearance it definitely was not. She was quite petite, really hot/cute, and we exchanged oral sex. It was great, although I’m pretty sure it got cut off too early at some point (classic).
      Categories
      lucid
    3. Small afternoon dream

      by , 10-06-2022 at 06:18 PM
      Woke up this morning without much dream recall, but I smoked some weed and ate junk food last night so that was no surprise. I only really remember an image of an ex-girlfriend (A. A), and drinking a soft drink that felt highly refreshing. In the afternoon I had a nap which included a small dream.

      V. was in a rush to catch a bus to Coventry, and I was with her. The weird thing was, I knew that I wasn’t there – I was trying to get to Leicester from somewhere, and was a part of her bus journey somehow. It was like I was a fly on the wall following her getting her bus, and she was late. She arrived almost at the stop when she looked around the corner and said “Double Decker Bus!” and quickly made a run for a nearby bus stop – the bus stopped within plenty of time, and she got on. It was almost as if she was narrating her journey, like she was in a film or something.

      There were some girls gossiping on the bus, including one I have recently seen on Tinder. They were laughing about a lady’s name, it was a random name like “Tina Jacketson” or something. Perhaps I was with Vicki after all, because not long after this, I was sat down with her standing on my lap somehow, looking for something. She looked down at me at one point and apologized for standing on me, which I said was no problem.

      I had a few thoughts that I hadn’t even considered where I was going or how to get to my city – I was just aimlessly following Vicki, which could be some sort of symbolism of what I’ve been doing for the last year.
      Categories
      non-lucid
    4. On holiday with an Elephant

      by , 10-05-2022 at 06:09 PM
      Haven't remembered any dreams the last couple of mornings, but I had a mid-afternoon nap today and had a funny old dream. I kinda stupidly had a Monster energy drink at lunch time, and those things have a weirldy opposite effect on me where they make me want to nap hard. I guess the stimulation from the caffeine keeps me slightly awake when I dream too, so I often remember them. Certainly won't be making a habit of that though!

      I was on holiday somewhere really nice with a very random group of people. Much like my last dream, it was in a fancy villa with tiled floors and lots of natural light. It felt a bit more exotic than Italy this time though. My parents were both there, my sister and her fiance might have been there, but strangely my ex-girlfrined (we only broke up yesterday, sadly) was there as was another couple. Bizarrely, the other couple was my ex-girlfriend's best friend's parents, who I met at a birthday party (awesome people, I would deffo go on holiday with them IRL!).

      All I really remember about the holiday was one scene - everyone was slowly getting ready to go out. Everyone was either freshly showered, showering, or getting ready to shower. I remember rather a lot of nudity, everyone seemed very comfortable around each other. This probably stems from me recently joining a spa/gym where everyone in the shower area is very comfortable with nudity. One of the showers was even right in the middle of the main hallway, which my ex-girlfriends best friend's dad was using. I was wandering around naked with a towel over my shoulder, on my way to the shower too.

      I passed through a dark bedroom where my ex-girlfriend was sleeping in an armchair. I gave her a tap and sung her name, and she hazily woke up and I told her it was time to get ready to go. It felt like we were going out for dinner, but the way I said this suggested we were packing our bags to leave. I walked out of the bedroom into a garden, which felt very African. Exotic plants, red dirt and dry grass, not to mention there was a damn elephant!

      I remember being very comfortable with the elephant - he was the neighbours pet, and in fact he wasn't like an elephant at all. Whilst he did have a trunk and he was large, it was very slim in the middle and weird gill-like features. It actually reminds me of a real animal or sea creature that I have seen before, but I can't quite put a finger on what that is. I walked around the garden to a large house gate which was the neighbours, where I was going for my shower. I never got to the shower though - I just woke up!

      Well, that was everything! It was a pretty neutral dream - I remember some people having bad vibes about the elephant, but I knew it was safe.
      Categories
      non-lucid
    5. First detailed dream recollection in a while

      by , 10-03-2022 at 11:44 AM
      Since reviving my account, this is the first proper dream journal entry I have created - I woke up in the morning remembering two relatively detailed dreams, which felt great. I had my laptop on my bedside table and immediately got writing.

      ----------------------------------------------------

      02/10/22

      Just a little snippet of a dream I forgot to write down from the night before. At some point I dreamt of someone breaking into my flat as it was as if I was stood right in front of the door seeing it get kicked in by a nondescript character. It was scary and I’m pretty sure I woke up instantly, aware that I forgot to lock the door (as I forget to do most nights)

      ----------------------------------------------------

      03/10/22

      #1

      First long dream remembered in a while! I was on Holiday with Italy lot and Connor. Whole dream felt like we were in Italy. However, there were landscape that felt more like Switzerland or smth, and at the end of the dream I could see a map within Google Maps, showing Sweden in the shape of the U.S. All of its cities did have Swedish-looking names, but they were all organized on the map like a weird grid. We were making our way through the country place by place, but I only recall being in one or two places.

      Connor was there too, and we were spending a lot of time by the pool listening to tunes. This was on the roof and felt a lot like a place I recently stayed at in Meta, near Naples, Italy. The indoor spaces in later parts of the dream also looked like the same villa.

      Connor didn’t look like he was having much fun with my musical recommendations. After a few musical disagreements, Connor starts playing Shpongle and the audio seems to come out of the sky. It was a good opportunity to become lucid as both of us thought the album just felt slightly flat and odd, as if it was unmastered. At some point Connor gets under a duvet by the pool, much like the double mattress im using right now that has no sheets on it. I was splashing about in the pool enjoying the vibes when Beth from the Italy trip came around the corner and said, “You guys ready to go in a minute?”. Triggered by this, I said something kind of obviously not true like “Yup, ready to leave whenever”, despite that I was inside the pool and pretty sure I had just made the conscious decision to dunk my dreadlocks under the water.

      At some point within the same dream, I was in a double bed in a communal bedroom that felt very similar to the Italy villa, pretty sure Connor was in the bed with me. I remember people beginning to wake up and wanting to leave. This information was provided on a TV screen, indicating when each person woke up through numbers and colours. Somewhere near my bed there was a mostly empty packet of classic M&Ms, and I was happy knowing that I left myself a couple, so I went for them. It turned out there was a lot, like two decent handfuls. I ate them anyway and felt slightly disappointed as I only wanted a couple, this was a bit too much.

      ----------------------------------------------------

      #2

      In another dream, I saw myself being in the middle of a chaotic scene on a metro train in China with a friend, I can’t remember who. There was some sort of zombie-like apocalypse going on, or there may not have been zombies but many people were hunting us for some reason. When the dream started, the person I was with was fighting off attackers, but after they were gone it was more chill. We were in the carriage with other people but they didn’t take much notice of us. My friend had a hoody on and was positioning it so that no one could see his face, so perhaps that’s why everyone was being chill. At each metro stop, he would panic and look through the windows while trying to look neutral, hoping to catch anyone who knew about us before it was too late.

      At some point I just got off the train for some reason, in some quite nice-looking town in the middle of nowhere. The weather was appearing fresh and crisp, like a British spring afternoon. It didn't look like how I would imagine a Chinese town to look like - felt more like Europe again. I was aware of a game that we were playing – it involved a survival/challenge element – if you got off the train at the wrong stop, you had to spend all day there with limited food, money etc. It was something like that, and whilst it sounds awful rn, in the dream it sounded like such a great idea. I also thought about how the language is very confusing and therefore it’s easy to get the stop wrong, making this game a fantastic way to visit places in China that I otherwise never would.

      ----------------------------------------------------

      Overall, I enjoyed both of these dreams a lot! I've stopped smoking weed in the last couple of days and have been trying to exercise more, and I think this is allowing my mind to be fresher and ready to dream. I'm not going to jump straight into attaining lucidity - I'm going to continue what I'm doing for perhaps a week, by which point a book I ordered on Amazon, "Exploring the World of Lucid Dreams" by Stephen LaBerge, should have arrived. I heard about this book in a lucid dream video yesterday and it sounds great - I've never actually read any books on lucid dreaming, only consuming online content. I think the arrival of this book will be a good opportunity to immerse myself in lucid dreaming, start reality checking again, and set some WBTB alarms. Exciting times!
      Categories
      non-lucid
    6. Long night of dreaming that I completely forgot

      by , 10-02-2022 at 10:00 AM
      After reading for a couple hours last night, I let out some steam in an emotionally charged dream journal post, hoping to actually remember some dreams this morning in the process. I definitely think my calm evening of reading and meditation helped me slip into a deep sleep of many dreams, but sadly I do not remember any. I remember waking up in the middle of the night very horny and remembering my dreams, but also being very tired. Classic - I never really did find a way of logging my dreams as and when I remembered them. It's kind of like brute force - my ideal method would be laptop as I type fast and could get back to sleep ASAP, but having the energy to do that in the middle of the night is tough. I remember people years ago talking about using a voice recording app which I might try tonight, but I think I tried this before and my mid-sleep voice was just too slurry. Anyway, I woke up today feeling refreshed and well-dreamt (even if I don't remember them)... here's to tonight!
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    7. Picked myself back up again

      by , 10-02-2022 at 01:45 AM
      I rekindled my Dream Views account about a month ago posting about an unfortunate rut of bad habits I found myself in, adding a journal entry that covered my earliest dream memories as a means to improve my dream recollection.

      This didn't quite go to plan - I think I had a couple of productive days, but flew out to Italy with friends shortly after. It was a great time, but an unfortunate argument with friends (which was resolved, but with a slightly bad atmosphere in the air), too much drinking, and some sad discussions with my partner about us probably breaking up sent me back into a bad place upon my return. I had left myself a gram of weed for when I got home, and this has ultimately been my downfall once again. When I smoke weed, it's like I have no control of how much or when I smoke it. It muddies my decision making, and before I know it I'm a month deep into a weed whole, eating horrendous food whilst neglecting my responsibilities.

      Anyway, I've been crawling out of the rut the last couple of days, finished up some weed I had left over, and have been trying to make more music instead of mindlessly consuming content. I've been reading as well, telling myself that whenever I am doing nothing such as watching YouTube, I could just be reading instead. It's put me into a really good headspace, feeling meditative, calm, and inspired as I always would after reading for a while.

      So, here I am again - hopefully back with a bit of consistency. I sadly cannot recall much dream activity in the last month or so. The only dream I really remember was a few days ago after returning from Italy, dreaming that I was on holiday with my partner and friends, but somewhere else this time. I was laying down or sat down, and she was standing over me, basically telling me in a rather harsh way that she was done with putting up with me and making compromises for our relationship, and that was that. It was a really vivid dream that left me feeling pretty emotional. Perhaps as part of a synchronicity, my partner messaged me that same morning to tell me that she had a bizarre dream where she faked her own death, watching me and my friend J crying all night at her death, only to be there eating with us at breakfast in the morning. Her dream kind of gave me complex-vibes similar to some dark thoughts I've had at low points in my life, thinking of faking or even taking part in suicide, knowing that others are mourning for you.

      I didn't mention my thoughts on her dream - just told her that I had a slightly more realistic and sad dream of her finishing things with me. We both felt sad from this, and haven't really chatted much since. I wish I had a more positive and interesting dream to share with you, but perhaps they will come tomorrow.
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    8. Earliest Dream Memories

      by , 09-15-2022 at 11:24 PM
      It's been years since I've posted in a dream journal on DreamViews - I had one on another account which I kept going for ages, and I loved it. I've been in a rut recently fuelled by bad habits and laziness, and I want to pick myself up and grow stronger than ever. A big part of this is going to be about reducing my consumption and reconnecting with my spiritual side, something that I'm very excited to do.

      I'm very happy to see Dreamviews is still going, and it's old-school forum format gives me great solice, feeling like I can base myself here for a while for my self improvement journey. I'm hoping to join in with the community again (I wonder if the daily/weekly/monthly challenges are still about), but I'm going to start things off by returning to my dream journal. I always found that if I wasn't remembering my dreams for a while, I could simply write down as many dream-related things as I could remember and I would remember my dreams the next day.

      Earliest Dream Memories

      There's a few dreams that I remember having as a child on several occasions, essentially recurring nightmares. They were super abstract and had a overall feeling of 'doom', which I've always thought is interesting. These are abstract and mature feelings, so it's strange to have them as themes in toddler dreams.

      #1: The Rocket Launch. In this dream (I think it was recurring), I remember a vast 2D landscape, much like something you'd find in a very very old, rudimentary video game. It was in black and white, and the 'subject' of the scene was a cursor representing a rocket ship. I would see the black dot zipping across this infinite white void, not looking like it was moving due to its blank surroundings, yet something giving me a deep feeling of extreme speed. I would come to realize that this rocket was heading at enormous speeds towards a planet, perhaps earth. It also could have been the other way around, but there was just this overwhelming feeling of impending doom coming from the collision. I remember that this dream would feel infinite, timeless, and like nothing in the world mattered at that moment.

      #2: The Baby Rattle. This dream is much less detailed, but I remember it terrifying me - there were three young toddlers, perhaps one years old, standing over me on my bed giggling goofily whilst shaking rattles, getting closer and closer to me. Although it does sound like the thing of horror movies, I remember realizing that the scene itself wasn't scary in itself at all, yet in the dream it was incredibly haunting.

      #3: The Alice in Wonderland Effect. This is perhaps the most interesting of my old dreams - in fact I'm not sure it was even a dream. I remember it happened a few times and it would always happen as I was drifting into sleep. I would imagine a small ring that would have the mass of the entire universe, unimaginably heavy and dense. I wouldn't imagine it as the weight of the universe at the time because I'm pretty sure I was a toddler when this was happening. Something about the ring with this unimaginable mass really shook me up, it was an intense and almost doom like feeling. Later in life, I remember bringing this up to a couple of friends as well as my sister, and they all experienced something similar. One person remembered a feeling of the room feeling very small, whilst they themselves felt enormous. I also had a friend who had similar dreamlike experiences of being under a huge boat, with the monolithic darkness of the boat's bottom causing immense feelings of dread. I did a lot of research online to see if I could find anything similar to these experiences, and after a lot of searching I did. There was something called "Alice in Wonderland Syndrome" i think, and it had something to do with being caused by very mild strokes caused naturally in children. Apparently its very common in kids but disappears as they get older.
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