Just how real can you dream?

[TooVivid]

I just wanted to get some insight on how vivid and realistic some other dreamers LD's have been. I've had quite a few LD's where they were almost hyper realistic. I attained this level through the repetitive phrase "increase lucidity!" over and over again. It got to the point where everything was so clear and incredibly vivid I could hardly tell it was a dream at all. In those dreams whatever I would do, whether it was flying or manipulating the dream scape, it was very clear. I cannot achieve this level every time I have an LD, only occasionally.

[pennyintheair]

The most vivid dream I ever had was my first (and only) successful WILD attempt. It took place in my house and aside from missing clutter it was an exact replica of my house (typically in my dreams my home's off in room size, roof height, and it looks like someone took the blur tool to it) and I had to do several reality checks to convince myself that I wasn't just running around my rl house. These days I mostly do MILD and WBTB, and if I remember to say "Clarity NOW!" (I usually forget to) I can get hyper realistic dreams, but everything seems a bit too sharp and clear, like a video game or if I took the Sharpen tool to the world.

[smouse]

every wild ive had (pretty much all my lucids) is just like real life. Literally no difference. without reality checking, I would have no way to know for sure if its real or not.

[Sensei]

Mine vary on what time I have them. Just like my normal dreams. Some feel like they are going to be gone in a second and I usually spin if they are that bad, I feel it is worth losing it if I can barely be there. Some feel completely and utterly like real life. These are the hardest to break reality and do something like fly. Expectation still works really well though. Some feel like freaking James Cameron's Avatar. Which is probably where he actually got the idea since he is an LDer. 3D crazy awesome other world stuff.

[Radioshift]

I've heard people on this website who report that some of their dreams are somehow MORE REALISTIC than reality. I'm a novice lucid dreamer, and haven't really experienced too many lucid dreams that felt very close to reality, but I think there's an endless possibility.

[TooVivid]

I've heard people on this website who report that some of their dreams are somehow MORE REALISTIC than reality. I'm a novice lucid dreamer, and haven't really experienced too many lucid dreams that felt very close to reality, but I think there's an endless possibility. That's how some of mine are. They seem almost more real than reality. Its really crazy how your mind can create such a vivid and realistic atmosphere. I agree with the difficulty also to break into lucidity when the dream starts off very realistic.

[Sageous]

Okay, here's the thing(s): * When you are dreaming, especially non-lucidly, the environment you are in is real to you, the dreamer, no matter how blurry or exactly its images are presented; you only determine that a non-LD is unreal after you wake up and remember its imagery. This is the very nature and power of dreams. Though a LD is by definition an understanding, during the dream, that your dream environment is actually not real, there should be no reason to "shut off" the original sense of reality in terms of the images. In other words, dreams seem real during the dream because they're supposed to seem real. Try not to be amazed by that. * A dream cannot be "more real" than reality. That's like being most unique, or sort of pregnant; It simply does not work semantically, logically, or physically. The images in your dream might be extremely clear and colorful, but if they become clearer (i.e., everything is in focus, no matter how far away it is), more colorful, perfectly identifiable at a glance, etc, than the imagery waking-life reality offers, then the dream becomes not more real, but less real. Reality is reality; to surpass reality is to continue to be unreal. Hyper-vivid dreams, like the ones you guys describe, are just as unreal as dull blurry ones, simply because they don't match reality. Don't decide that your dreams are better than reality just because you remember them being very clear; they're just different in a different way. So talk all you want about your super-real imagery; that's cool, and creating it is one of the more exciting aspects of LD'ing. But don't decide that what you see is "more real" than reality, because in the end if it doesn't seem real, either direction, it isn't. Sorry. I usually ignore threads like this, but I'm in a foul mood today, and couldn't sit by while the basic nature of dreams is ignored once again.

[gab]

Okay, here's the thing(s): * When you are dreaming, especially non-lucidly, the environment you are in is real to you, the dreamer, no matter how blurry or exactly its images are presented; you only determine that a non-LD is unreal after you wake up and remember its imagery. This is the very nature and power of dreams. Though a LD is by definition an understanding, during the dream, that your dream environment is actually not real, there should be no reason to "shut off" the original sense of reality in terms of the images. In other words, dreams seem real during the dream because they're supposed to seem real. Try not to be amazed by that. * A dream cannot be "more real" than reality. That's like being most unique, or sort of pregnant; It simply does not work semantically, logically, or physically. The images in your dream might be extremely clear and colorful, but if they become clearer (i.e., everything is in focus, no matter how far away it is), more colorful, perfectly identifiable at a glance, etc, than the imagery waking-life reality offers, then the dream becomes not more real, but less real. Reality is reality; to surpass reality is to continue to be unreal. Hyper-vivid dreams, like the ones you guys describe, are just as unreal as dull blurry ones, simply because they don't match reality. Don't decide that your dreams are better than reality just because you remember them being very clear; they're just different in a different way. So talk all you want about your super-real imagery; that's cool, and creating it is one of the more exciting aspects of LD'ing. But don't decide that what you see is "more real" than reality, because in the end if it doesn't seem real, either direction, it isn't. Sorry. I usually ignore threads like this, but I'm in a foul mood today, and couldn't sit by while the basic nature of dreams is ignored once again. Ok, I'm guilty. I have been describing some of my lucids as more real than reality itself. Maybe a poor choice of words. Not sure what others mean by that, but this is what I meant. In waking life I wear glasses/contacts. So without them I still see, but I lack details. Even with contacts, I doubt that my vision is as good as it could be, a 20/20. Now in some of my lucids, even if just for a portion of a LD, I see as if I had eagle eyes. Better than 20/20. Incredible vision. Sometimes even feels like I have binocular vision. I see incredible details from 0 to infinity. No smog in my way, nothing blurry, colors incredibly vivid as if right after the rain, I can zoom in and out. Once I kneeled down and observed a blade of grass, that was more beautifull, more green and more detailed than any grass I have ever seen in WL. And I do like plants, so yes, I have observed grass in WL. When I touch anything, even the simplest thing, it feels same way as it does in WL, yet so much better. For example I touched a wall and a desk in LD. I touched those things in WL a thousands of times, but it never felt as good as in LD. In LD, I feel more 'there' than I feel 'here' right now. More engaged, more in tune, more connected to everything in LD.

[Sageous]

^^ That's all fine. I too have very poor eyesight in waking life, but in dreams it is always perfect -- I never have glasses in dreams, though they're always perched on my nose in waking life, and everything I look at during LD's is crystal clear, regardless of distance. All I'm saying is that if you can see better than you do in dreams than in reality, or you attach more meaning to things you touch in dreams than in waking life (the "good" bit), you are not making things "more real." You're just making them more interesting, or more accessible (as per the vision) than they are in physical reality. There is a difference, and I think that difference is important when it comes down to maintaining your self-awareness: if you start believing the stuff you're creating in LD's is reality (or better), you run the risk of surrendering awareness to the "truth" you are inventing by deciding that the stuff you are seeing or doing is "more real" than reality. Again, reality is reality. If you make your dream experience more interesting than reality, that's fine. Indeed, I think that's why most of us practice LD'ing. But by doing so you are not improving reality, or creating a hyper-reality; you're just doing something different from reality. And, again, there is nothing wrong with that!

[TooVivid]

Okay, here's the thing(s): * When you are dreaming, especially non-lucidly, the environment you are in is real to you, the dreamer, no matter how blurry or exactly its images are presented; you only determine that a non-LD is unreal after you wake up and remember its imagery. This is the very nature and power of dreams. Though a LD is by definition an understanding, during the dream, that your dream environment is actually not real, there should be no reason to "shut off" the original sense of reality in terms of the images. In other words, dreams seem real during the dream because they're supposed to seem real. Try not to be amazed by that. * A dream cannot be "more real" than reality. That's like being most unique, or sort of pregnant; It simply does not work semantically, logically, or physically. The images in your dream might be extremely clear and colorful, but if they become clearer (i.e., everything is in focus, no matter how far away it is), more colorful, perfectly identifiable at a glance, etc, than the imagery waking-life reality offers, then the dream becomes not more real, but less real. Reality is reality; to surpass reality is to continue to be unreal. Hyper-vivid dreams, like the ones you guys describe, are just as unreal as dull blurry ones, simply because they don't match reality. Don't decide that your dreams are better than reality just because you remember them being very clear; they're just different in a different way. So talk all you want about your super-real imagery; that's cool, and creating it is one of the more exciting aspects of LD'ing. But don't decide that what you see is "more real" than reality, because in the end if it doesn't seem real, either direction, it isn't. Sorry. I usually ignore threads like this, but I'm in a foul mood today, and couldn't sit by while the basic nature of dreams is ignored once again. Well you sure are a spirit crusher. I wasn't trying to say ANYTHING along the lines of dreams being more real than reality. I KNOW they aren't real I just wanted to see how many other people had hyper-vivid dreams is all. Chill out.

[Sensei]

Well you sure are a spirit crusher. I wasn't trying to say ANYTHING along the lines of dreams being more real than reality. I KNOW they aren't real I just wanted to see how many other people had hyper-vivid dreams is all. Chill out. He means well. I assure you. I see what he means, and what Gab means, and I think that both have valid points. I think that if it was given a better term (like Hyper Real) then it would be okay with Sageous as well. It is different from reality, but it seems to exceed what we expect of reality as opposed to fall short of nonvivid dreams. So it doesn't seem more real, but better than it. This is both of their points Sageous is just saying that if you go past real and it continues to be more vivid, clear, and amazing then it is still going away from real, not closer to it. This is why I rate my LDs on a vividness scale of 1-15, 10 being as vivid as real life.

[gab]

Sorry. I usually ignore threads like this, ... Don't be sorry. I wish you didn't ignore threads like this. Teach us! Well you sure are a spirit crusher. I wasn't trying to say ANYTHING along the lines of dreams being more real than reality. I KNOW they aren't real I just wanted to see how many other people had hyper-vivid dreams is all. Chill out. I believe he is chilled. There is only a handfull of people here that know their stuff. I wish they posted more often, even if it hurts our feelings, heh.

[Sageous]

Well you sure are a spirit crusher. I wasn't trying to say ANYTHING along the lines of dreams being more real than reality. I KNOW they aren't real I just wanted to see how many other people had hyper-vivid dreams is all. Chill out. I don't mean to crush spirits, TooVivid; quite the contrary. Yes, your OP didn't say anything about dreams being more real than reality, but I think you could see where the thread was going -- you even acknowledged as much in your post #6. I guess I should have let the thread be, but I just didn't want to walk away from yet another exchange of well-intentioned misinformation. No need for me to chill, by the way; I'm pretty well chilled most of the time. Just trying to calmly insert a little clarity. And yes, Gab, I am sorry for being a spirit-crusher, if that happened. I really hate sounding negative about any of this stuff; especially when it wasn't intended. I stand by my words, however.

[TwoCrystalCups]

Dreams can feel and seem real, but it can't be realer than reality. I only had a few dreams that seemed like i was awake and then i had to do RC. lol

[ArchLight]

While I can't speak for the intensity of the qualia or the 'likeness' of experiences of others dreams (which makes it hard to actually say that a dream cannot be more real that reality given the preference and partiality for lucid dreaming and they ) I can say that mine are more vivid because they're personally more appealing and because I want to entertain them with all the intensity, and clarity of desire, they CAN seem more 'real' than reality, because in terms of objective reality, everything is definite, and as far as we NOW know it, is unresponsive to desire, thought, and will alone. But when you consider the function of the intuitive mind, which is sub/unconscious, it communicates with the conscious mind via symbols, images, dreams, and impressions which are taken from objects, and situations to discern the psychological nuances of say a situation, or the connection/status of a relationship between others, the intensity or awareness of that experience can be more intense than like say merely experiencing/interacting with an object in real time. These are the 'AHA!' moments we experience...I myself experience them with such intensity that it provides me with the inspiration and answer to solve a problem...direct connect via the unconscious mind. Emotions that are derived from the symbolism, of the images, and dreams we experience that comes from the unconscious mind can seem VERY real, and how are they any less real in terms of RAW experience? Are they considered less real because they lack the physical tangibility of external reality? or is reality merely the interpretation of experiences via the separation of the senses used to interpret the palpability of the experiences? When you consider the split between external and internal reality, you begin to see that there is really NO split...both forms of reality are still experienced and interpreted, and meaning is derived from them; much like we use our physical senses to collect information and apply meaning to various forms of stimuli that we experience in objective reality, we do the same in a lucid dream. My question is, why is subjective reality/experience considered less credible or seen as more 'unreal' than objective/concrete reality/experience when the person filtering the information through their senses is in the end the only one left to discern that answer in the first place? Is it because what's experienced within the realm of subjective effect is based usually off of impression and symbolism, and less off of empirical data and numerical values? Is it because impressions make it less than credible, and reliable sources of evidence because they're experienced by the individual person and aren't shared by everyone? If that is so, than that would be contradicting because our senses are what takes in and partially assigns meaning to what we experience in objective/concrete reality as well as our internal experience; for instance, how could it be that 4 people can go through the same relatively traumatic situation and yet only ONE person may suffer with and begin to manifest mental illness? This is because information is taken in by the senses, and some variable in the person's subjective existence is responsible for that person developing a mental illness. Why can't there be a subjective experience that is so palpable that it completely replaces the reality your currently experience? I've had lucid dreams where my sensory systems we're completely in tact, and that is by partial definition what makes a lucid dream a lucid dream; when one's senses are so fully engaged as to lead one to believe that they're not dreaming, but if dreaming, then why are all sensory systems engaged? Why when we engage in these types of lucid dreams do we experience things?. One dream I could hear and feel the rain and wind against my skin, and I could hear the thunder, and see the lightning; soon I began to fly through the storm dodging lightning . I had completely immersed myself within the dream, and that was a lucid dream, an alternate reality? Perhaps, one of sorts, but any less real than the objective? I don't think so, because all the sensory data that I could experience was intact. In the end what difference does it make whether you're day dreaming, lucidly dreaming, or awake, as long as you enjoy it? I love lucid dreaming! Can't wait to see what I want to do tonight...

[sanctispiritus]

My lucid dreams do not look real at all. In almost all of them the trees have red leaves and and It is always windy. Sometimes it looks like a big storm is passing by.

[Metallicuh]

I don't care about realism, I like detail.

[sanctispiritus]

At the same time some of those unrealistic dreams that I have had are somewhat detailed. Some times I pick on of those red leaves in my hands and they look quite real to me.

[blackbirdrising]

How real are they? There have been dreams so real that I wake up with evidence of the dream still on me. Twice I've woken up with my feet hurting from "slamming on the brakes" in the dream right before I wake myself up. Once last winter I woke up slinging my arms in the air and my partner (who was already up, sitting in the chair nearby) said "Good lord woman, who are you swinging at?" I looked at him still catching my breath, and said "I was grabbing the wheel." In the dream my son was driving a car with green interior at night and I was in the front seat with him. The road we were on was missing parts of the road, and he was about to drive us into a drop off. I also remember lots of deer by the road. Does (female) specifically. I remember that one like it was yesterday. My son wore a flannel checkered shirt, jeans, white sneakers. I smelled the musty old car smell. I never saw the car from the outside, but it was 1960's model judging by the dashboard and steering wheel. The morning of September 11, 2001, I was living in El Paso, Texas. I woke up at 6:30 am with a jolt. My dream was only a split second in length - it was more of a sensation, shift in energy, a feeling, than a dream. Something slammed through me, thats the best way I can describe it, and I felt something open. I awoke, sat up and gasped, clutching my chest and scrambled out of bed shaking. I felt "emergency" but had no way of knowing what it was. I turned on the TV to the local news, and saw that there was a plane perched high in one of the WTC towers. In other words, what woke me up was, the sudden loss of life. After the second plane hit and the first tower fell, my mother called me on the phone to make sure i was ok. I remember we didn't even say hello, I knew it was her. She just said "Are you ok, Carolyn?" I nodded (as if she could see me nod over the phone) and said "Yes. I'm ok." we said our I love yous and hung up. I remember being in psychic overload (shock of the loss and the change in energy) for a month. It was a very busy month in the spirit world. Once in 2001, December 10th I remember the date of this one, I dreamed that Condeleeza Rice came up to me and I was being questioned by two men in janitor uniforms. They questioned me about who I was, but they had some small details wrong. At the end of the dream, I was suddenly in a field with some trees, green grass, and in the background was the space shuttle, blowing up - fireball. Condeleeza Rice looked at me with a smile and cheerfully said "I did that!" I woke up feeling like I had been taken somewhere for the purpose of being shown this. I felt like I had been very busy in my sleep, when I woke up I was exhausted. Fast forward two months later in February of 2002, the space shuttle Columbia blew up on its re-entry, in the sky leaving a trail hundreds of miles long, and some of the debris landed not far from where I lived at time (El Paso, Texas). Those are just a few examples. Dreams to me are rarely "just" my mind resting. I tend to be "at work".

[CharlesD]

I think real is kind of relative. I have a lot of weird things that happen, but there are some common patterns that you would think would trigger lucidity more often than they do. Often it's little silly things that trigger it and the more preposterous things I just go along with like they're normal. One common thing that happens to me is I'll be controlling some kind of vehicle third person, sometimes in a video game, and then all of a sudden I find myself in the vehicle and the transition from seeing it on a screen to being in it is seamless. When I'm in normal settings, everything is fairly detailed though. I don't have the fuzzy stuff too often, only when I'm close to waking up. I've never had what I would call a premonition in a dream, but I did have some disturbing dreams for a few days after 9/11. The closest thing I had to predicting anything was a couple years ago when I had lost my watch and couldn't find it anywhere. This is a nice watch my wife got me one year for our anniversary. One night in my dream I was looking all over the house and I checked in a particular spot and there it was. When I woke up I realized that I hadn't checked in that spot and when I went there I found the watch, almost the same as it had appeared in the dream. I chalked that up to my brain just knowing that there was still a place I hadn't looked.