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    Lucid Dreams

    1. Very short, very, very intense lucid

      by , 02-29-2016 at 10:47 AM
      To bed at 12.30, woke at 6.00am and WBTB at 7.20am. Lucid at 8.30am. It hit me suddenly. I'm at the edge of a very green field. There were others there. Overwhelmingly green, the grass, the surrounding bushes and (I'm not a biologist) some kind of ground vegetation, like docks, was everywhere. It was so intense, the most vivid dream I've ever experienced.

      I thought something like, “hey! I'm lucid..do a reality check.” Doh! So I try to push my thumb through my palm and I can't. While I'm fumbling about the dream slips away. Gone. I try to get back into it and I can't...never have managed that yet. I'm overwhelmingly awake.

      With no preparation, and very little in the way of good dream experiences these past few weeks, it came out of the blue...well green actually...so much green.

      Anyone who has had a number of LD's surely knows what I mean, when I say I just KNOW when I'm lucid. There's no mistaking it. The vividness, the presence, my thoughts and responses. I know. So the last thing I should be doing is RC'ing so soon after I hit the event. Stand still, look around, and slowly and carefully stabilize the dream.

      When I can, I usually touch a wall. Maybe I should have touched vegetation. I need to quickly spin when I sense the dream going. I've done that successfully once before. I need a different approach. I eat the right stuff, my brain get's all the stimulus it should reasonably need. I've taken “little helpers” like melatonin, but I can only hit LD's at the top of the morning. Mystery.

      When I say there was no preparation, maybe there was. While I was up, I watched part of David Eagleman's series “The Brain” Part 5 “Who will we be?” When I went back to bed, I pondered for a short while about what it said. Maybe there's nothing special about the biological construct of the brain. The “mind” is not what the brain is, but what the brain does. Hooray for that.

      We are advised to think “dream” things when WBTB, so maybe thinking “brain” things had the same effect and provided a stimulus (albeit short). When I WBTB, I'll work my way though The Brain series again, to see if I can trigger another LD from that.

      Whenever I start to flag, I always seem to get something to spur me on. Short lucids, or the recent “schemas...” all contributions gratefully received...

      PS An Afterthought. Maybe I'm looking at this from the wrong angle. Maybe I'm sleeping a lot deeper now and my (few and far-between and short) LD's happen when I'm rising from deep sleep, up towards awakening, and I reach a plateau when I'm not yet quite awake but I now have enough awareness to trigger a lucid. That might also explain my failure to pass the "thumb through palm" test

      It's a thought, and maybe I need to condition myself to sleep lighter (if that's at all possible)

      Updated 02-29-2016 at 01:43 PM by 63430

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    2. Another lucid...but with a difference...

      by , 12-03-2015 at 12:35 PM
      Lucid-dreaming again last night, but with 2 major differences. Firstly, only 2 days between events...secondly I drifted in and out of lucidity on at least 4 occasions. As per usual there are prices...it takes at least 5½-6 hours of sleep, then a WBTB (so I went to bed at 12.30 and finally got up at 09.30...I couldn't do that if I wasn't retired)

      Also, the events don't seem particularly long (although my recall may just be limited) It's beginning to look like I need at least 1½ hours before I WBTB (rather than the hour I have been doing) Also, I'm not doing a massive amount of preparation...the usual “I'm dreaming...I'm lucid” etc exercises throughout the day for a few moments at a time.
      But, as before, I had an extended session while I'm relaxed for meditation...I'll carry on doing that.

      I didn't do any reality checks during the LD...I didn't need to. I'm walking through fields and everything suddenly firms-up and becomes so vivid and I'm thinking “Yay! I'm there again” (by now I just know when I'm lucid...the sensation is so different, the level of awareness is there and I'm thinking and planning) Then it drifts a bit (my recall suggests?) until the next scene which firms-up and again becomes lucid...and so on...

      As per usual, my impatience kicks in and I decide to fly...but too hastily, as I feel as if the lower part of me is lagging behind...not good. I stop, then instruct myself to start again, but slowly and gently and that works. Clearly, the whole thing wasn't a solid consistently drawn-out experience because there's gaps in my memory and the coming-and-going of lucidity but I'll take what I can get thank you brain cells (forget Ed, these are now my little Minions and I love 'em)

      I'm so thrilled I start to tell the wife...and I can see her tense-up. That hurts, because we've been married so long and she surely knows that I'm not given to flights of fancy...I'm just used to sharing things with her. I tackle her about it (gently) and ask her if she thinks I'm imagining all this and she's non-committal. (you think I'd have learned by now)

      Finally she says “I don't believe in this sort of thing” which presumably either means “you are imagining this or “get thee behind me Satan!” It's easy to see that it was a foolhardy individual who mentioned lucid-dreaming in the middle ages...although generations before that had a much better deal because it was “just the shrooms talking and next time you're out can you get me some dear?”

      All very interesting...where to go next? 1. Keep the exercises ticking over (maybe, if I can get a cluster of lucids, things will move to earlier hours of the night...I can but hope) 2. I've got my long-term plan to kick-start the brain. 3. Who cares? I'm loving it anyway.

      A puzzle. I instruct my brain to wake me closer to dreams ending and often feel a bit ill. Yet I can feel lucid dreams ending from inside a dream (how much closer can you get to dream-endings?!) and feel no ill-effects whatsoever...

      Strangely, there are trade-offs. I can have a few days of 2 or 3 dream-recalls a night, but no lucids, then a cluster of days with a couple of LD's, but with no recall of other dreams...as if there are only so many Minions on the job and something has to give. Also, my developed ability to recall a dream I had a few minutes ago (and I've moved around a bit...even sat up sometimes)...results in the discovery that recalling celeb's names, if I'm watching quizzes like Pointless, requires me to wait patiently for half a minute, until my brain generally spits out the answer...send me more Minions!

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      Updated 12-03-2015 at 12:40 PM by 63430

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    3. A short dimly-lit lucid...but I'm still ticking over!

      by , 12-01-2015 at 11:59 AM
      It's currently a gloomy, windy, rainy start to Winter here and it's clear by now that the season affects me...I don't get SAD I just don't go out much, I don't get that all-important sun...that needs to change. Not many remembered dreams at the moment but I'm persevering with mantras and attempts to up my awareness...less impatience, steady forward-plod....I'm in that blessed state where I know I CAN do it I just need to find better ways.

      So, after a total of 8 hours sleep and a WBTB I achieved a short lucid this morning. I think it was borderline because it was dark and there was no vividness but that blessed realization “this is a dream” popped up. I seemed to be in a seaside town, with 2 companions and we could see the lights of the town centre in the distance as we moved towards it.

      Yesterday afternoon, as I sat down to meditate, I started by doing fairly deep conditioning re my main dream signs (not just reciting mantras, instead really picturing scenarios that contained the signs, as I mentally said things like “I'm dreaming...I'm lucid...I remember my dreams” (well buck up on that last one lately) and it may have made the difference.

      In the lucid I'm pleased that I immediately went through reality checks...but forgetting to check my hands (which I love doing...that and pressing walls, which I did do) but already I could feel it slipping and I started to spin and it stabilized. I had pre-determined to look around and check everything but it was dark (a sign I think that I was always right on the edge of lucidity) Then it slipped again and I woke.

      I need the brain boost that I think my new mate Psi could provide. The time is right, the conditions are right and I just need to find where he hangs out and that's the hard part. I thought I'd found him recently but, apparently, it was just someone who looked like him...gotta be careful, he has some really nasty companions...can't risk getting on their wrong side. I really need a change of local scenery...lots of fields with grazing cattle etc...places to walk and think things over and search...

      Still ticking... not that we're in a competition or anything...-6804.gif

      Updated 12-01-2015 at 03:27 PM by 63430

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      lucid
    4. Lucid last night...albeit only for a short time

      by , 10-24-2015 at 11:06 AM
      It was a short lucid event...as mine tend to be...but encouraging nevertheless (and anticipated). Yesterday, for the first time during the day, I managed to jerk out of my daytime “dream” on about 10 occasions (the “dream” that isn't “awareness”) I usually get so caught up in daytime living that I only manage a few.

      I only practiced the awareness for a few minutes each time...looking around, thinking “this is a dream,” noting body sensations (particularly the feet) but the real breakthrough was the fact that the “trigger” occurred much more frequently. Maybe reading about the brain is helping...”use it or lose it” as the book says and I'm much more aware how neurons, axons and dendrites work and how critical it is to stimulate the brain by repetition.

      I think I really pushed my brain sections when I first learned the dream routines. I remember how tired I often felt, how sometimes I awoke feeling really ill and (what I called) the “flashing” in my eyes. I now know that neurons were being frantically sequestered from other tasks to cope with my new demands. The basics are now firmly implanted so hopefully, when health problems etc are resolved I'll be even more back on track.

      I was dreaming about a town and I had somehow entered a place where I sensed I shouldn't be and I was poking about in some equipment and I broke a piece off. I retreated apparently still clutching a bar of metal and decided to return to the (hall?) and replace it but I couldn't find the place again. That's a major DS for me and might have started the LD process. The dream was more vivid than usual and I remember tossing the metal into a nearby bush then thinking “I'm dreaming!”

      By now, I can keep the excitement at a reasonable level and I resolved to look around and not dash off (another first really). Then I thought “RC” (good) and decided to levitate. I had resolved to try 2 or 3 RC's and maybe suddenly change the order (further validating the lucidity) but I'm happy that I full-filled most of my training.

      I rose cautiously but started to go out of control a bit so I abandoned that and focussed on a nearby pub. It was beautifully clad in small bright green tiles and all there was a small war memorial alongside it. Then I felt the dream ending. Damn!

      I have same old 2 problems...the shortness of my LD's and the fact that they are generally at the top of the night (usually after at least 7 hours sleep + a WBTB). I assumed it was lack of melatonin but I now have 1.9mg tablets which I've occasionally taken at various times throughout the night with no effect so far. I'm going to try 2 tabs one night (although the Spanish chemist was apparently shocked when asked for 4mg tabs and, knowing how even Spanish painkillers are at higher strengths than allowed in the UK, I'm understandably cautious)

      Hopefully, the “awareness” trigger is here to stay and I can further extend the periods of awareness. So...a good result for me and maybe a sign of more to come

      P.S. I had a “romantic” dream 2 nights ago...not sex...but hey! that's over-rated (I can afford to say that at my age) But, I'd rather have a romance with a good plot than a quick “wham bam thank you DC” but can I have it lucid next time?
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