multi-level dreaming and how to dream lucidly for several hours
The Movie "Inception" is mostly made up of pure Hollywood fantasy, but nevertheless contains a few elements that - although presented unrealistically - contain some basic knowledge about dreaming. Today - but not for the first time -, I dreamt on multiple levels, one on which I was actually lucid, another underlying one where I assumed to be awake and yet another where I was probably awake - or very close at least. The first (lucid) level was the one I started with, exploring a city and talking to entities. At some time, I believed to awake in a room, together with my family. They had some knowledge about what was happening on the lucid level, which made me believe that I have been speaking loudly during the experience. I even attained some lucidity on this level later on, but it was destroyed by constant attacks of catlike creatures I couldn't get rid of. But before, I switched levels several times, falling back asleep, being lucid, waking up again and so on. In the long run, I left the room on the non-lucid level to search for a place to sleep without disturbance and to avoid those cat things. That's when I finally got lost in ordinary dreaming. Although I wasn't lucid on that level, my awareness was very high and I have a vivid memory of it. There still was the other level on which I (probably) was really awake, but I only scratched that, because whenever I got close, I knew how to sustain the state. You can't fully eliminate external noises living in a large city's center, so you've got to learn to deal with it.
The lesson is to always do reality checks, whenever you wake up. False awakenings are a common incident and you may fall "back" many more levels, especially when you successfully recheck. The dream world doesn't want you to become and stay lucid. I had to deal with it a lot in the beginning, but it stopped as soon as it couldn't disrupt my lucidity anymore, because I trained myself to do checks.
The whole experience took several hours without blackouts. That may sound incredible, but once you have some experience and learn a few things about sleep phases, it becomes an option. The first thing to do is to oversleep to become tired again and change sleeping patterns. This can be done by sleeping many hours at once or having one or more naps during the day. The more you sleep, the longer the REM phase becomes, the one you are most likely to become aware of your dreams/have the most vivid perception - which does not mean, that you don't dream during the other phases. At some point, you will be able to sustain a consistent state of REM for many hours (7 is my current record). The body is not really asleep then, but in a motionless trance. There is no paralysis and you can even seamlessly switch between waking and dreaming to some degree, even if you open your eyes (which may induce an out-of-body experience). You shouldn't move too much though.
I know a few other tricks, but that's it for now.
