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    DarkestDarkness

    xliii. Non-dream but dream-like experience

    2 Comments
    by
    DarkestDarkness
    , 09-30-2018 at 11:55 AM (641 Views)
    Note: Technically, this wasn't a dream. Not entirely sure why I felt like putting on the DJ. Last night I was listening to the OST from STRAFE through some old headphones (80s I think) I have which make me almost unable to hear/feel the room if no music is playing, and I just had my eyes closed while listening.

    The soundtrack feels a bit "melancholic" to me in general, but others might not think of it that way. I wasn't trying to think of anything in particular and some imagery formed, though with little vividness, hardly any more vivid than regular imagination. Forgot some of the details, since this was last night before going to sleep.

    I couldn't recall any actual dreams today, my focus on waking up wasn't in the right place and ironically I'd forgotten about intents last night.


    As I was listening to second half of the OST, I had thoughts come and go of "darkness". Not vivid but dream-like imagery of being pulled down by my "dream" arm into pits - swarms of spiders and insects would appear and I wondered why it was that I could never have visualised a scene like this without feeling fear or horror in the past. Though the imagery wasn't strong, I still felt some disgust at some of the insects, particularly big ones.

    This repeated itself in different ways a few times mixed with other passing thoughts I can't remember, related to the imagery. I remember thinking that this probably wasn't what I was "looking for" and thinking that it was interesting that a dream-like setting had formed.

    Then as the soundtrack got into the last quarter the thoughts went sort of into the actual in-game area that the track would play in, though the imagery was still relatively weak vs an actual dream, I could sort of feel a dream-body and started remembering the black lizard from another of my DJ entries.
    I started wanting to spot him but instead I realised that I was that lizard this time, seeing from first-person, but wearing a labcoat (which is one of my artificial dream-signs) and though I couldn't visualise clearly, I tried to do hand/finger reality checks; counting wasn't possible due to the low duration of physical memory and lack of "vision" - but passing my clawed fingers through my other hand's palm worked.

    Though I was fully aware of the music being outside this and the fact that I was sitting on a chair, I felt it was important to try and do a RC to see if my mind would agree with what I was wanting to do. The place the "dream" body was in, was indeed dream-like, despite being awake.

    As the music progressed I remember running through the halls of Athena (the in-game area) as if it were in the actual game, getting "deeper" into the area, "looking" down at my "dream" legs, noticing that they were scaly and black and that the feet were dinosaur-like, with 3 front claws and 1 rear claw or something like that; the in-game enemies were appearing and I attacked them with the claws I had and my large reptilian mouth, eating some of the smaller enemies and making particular note of all the blood that was showering from the enemies, just like it would in the game. I wondered, was this the darkness I was looking for? I concluded it wasn't. I tried to taste the blood but the sense wasn't strong enough since I could still feel my actual mouth too. I tried using the channeling effect from Warframe with my attacks but while this did disintegrate the enemies into energy, more seemed to appear from the dispersed energy.

    As the music got to the last track I had on the list, which is the music for the final room in Athena, I realised I was standing where the boss would be. There was the player character down below in the chamber; he was autonomous and attacked the boss control room tower and shot towards me too, not penetrating the glass with the bullets. For some reason I taunted him by licking the glass, noticing the tongue to not be reptilian-like but being long, with somewhat better visuals than before. Then I remember breaking the glass and crawling down the wall as a lizard would and going for the player character and killing him; the hordes of enemies that were attacking him turned to me instead and I remember fighting them and soon after the music ended and the imagery ended, as if I'd" woken" up, despite having been "awake" the whole time.

    Edit: Forgot to remove private entry checkbox, so changed that. (I sometimes check it so I don't post by accident when I'm sleepy and everything is half-typed ).

    Edit2: Added a name to the title of the DJ entry so I can find it more easily when I'm looking for it.
    ZAD and MadMonkey like this.

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    Updated 08-08-2020 at 08:43 PM by 95293

    Categories
    lucid , non-lucid , memorable

    Comments

    1. ZAD's Avatar
      This is really awesome! I loved the previous dream about your lizard (and the strong symbolism he represents) so it's really cool to see him reappear. But I'm honestly more impressed though with this experience, being able to induce a waking sensory visualization with just music (albeit music associated strongly with a separate physical location).

      As lucid dreamers I'm pretty sure this is everyone's dream (pardon the pun) since having to actually fall asleep for hours and perform techniques and set intentions for a ten-second to three-minute lucid dream is rewarding, but the payoff can sometimes be frustrating. The experience you describe definitely appeals to the instant gratification centers of my brain, although I'm sure there were more factors involved and the experience wasn't 1:1 with a lucid.

      I'm curious, what was your wakefulness/mental state before the visualization?
      DarkestDarkness likes this.
    2. DarkestDarkness's Avatar
      This is really awesome! I loved the previous dream about your lizard (and the strong symbolism he represents) so it's really cool to see him reappear. But I'm honestly more impressed though with this experience, being able to induce a waking sensory visualization with just music (albeit music associated strongly with a separate physical location).

      As lucid dreamers I'm pretty sure this is everyone's dream (pardon the pun) since having to actually fall asleep for hours and perform techniques and set intentions for a ten-second to three-minute lucid dream is rewarding, but the payoff can sometimes be frustrating. The experience you describe definitely appeals to the instant gratification centers of my brain, although I'm sure there were more factors involved and the experience wasn't 1:1 with a lucid.

      I'm curious, what was your wakefulness/mental state before the visualization?
      My mental state prior to that was that I was fully awake, and my only intent to begin with had been to listen to music through the headphones quite loud. The music feels like it takes much longer to pass this way, since I'm only paying attention to it and nothing else.

      And yes, I think the fact that I do associate the music to a physically representable space is important too. But more importantly, that this can happen at all for me probably has mostly to do with my (sensory) hypersensitivity - I'm not suggesting you can't do it, I'm suggesting that I have other negative factors countered by that one; because most people can fall asleep much more easily than me, something like this may even just be a good way to get into a WILD anyway. Another thing to consider is that it's much easier for me to get into a relaxed state at the very end of the night while I'm still sitting at the computer rather than lying in bed, the only problem with the computer room being the other stimuli like noise or light in the room, vs being in the bedroom where it will (in principle) be silent; this is probably where the headphones were probably good, since these are pretty good at excluding externalnoise. But in bed I have different problems, like with saliva, twitches, inability to let go of muscles etc...

      The loud music also has another advantage; it's difficult for me to think about words as much because the sound input into my head is so high (I can't hear myself thinking over the music is a common expression that could apply here). This leaves more room for visualisation I suppose. I personally struggle to not think of words all the time. If I'm "thinking" at all, there are almost always words, which I sometimes find quite annoying.

      And you're right, it's not at all 1:1 with a lucid experience. Recalling an old lucid experience or this experience has similarities, but during the actual moment, there is a lot less vividness to this visualisation method (since I'm still actually awake and completely aware of my real body).

      But I've tried doing this in the past with much less success, too. I think one of the important factors vs previous times was that the soundtrack is about 1h long, (which interestingly is how long I usually take to fall asleep) and the visualisations only started to really form in the last third/quarter of the soundtrack. i.e. the last 15-20 mins of a 60min long session, if you will. In the past I didn't try to just listen for an hour, nor did I have good headphones. Basically what starts to happen is a gradual state of focus (or trance?); I get into a similar state when drawing for long periods of time, and I think many people probably do, but obviously in that situation you're trying to draw and not relax (though I suppose it may work for someone, but not me).

      Also, you might find this interesting too; I've tried doing similar sorts of visualisations in a sensory deprivation tank (salt water flotation tank), which did include music (of my choice) playing. I think the reason that didn't work very well was because I would get anxious for time and because it was during the morning, usually.

      So to summarise, I would say the main factors were:
      • Long soundtrack
      • The association of a three dimensional space to the music
      • Good external sound exclusion headphones (can't think of a better way to describe the effect)
      • Night/before bed time
      • Loud sensory input
      • Ability to remain still and/or relax
      • Low expectation

      I don't think I missed anything but let me know either way. I hope my answer was helpful/insightful.

      Edit: Oh, and I can't fall asleep at a chair, as much as I'd like to, primarily because of my back pain, but also the concern that I might slump the wrong way (i.e. hit my head on the desk).
      ZAD likes this.