Thread: I thought I was alone...

First of all, congratulations to you. I've noticed that most people who discover lucid dreaming by accident and then realize what its is much later are the ones who can get really good at it. To answer your question, while I can lucid dream occasionally (but only because I learned about it two and a half years ago), I'm not very good at dream control. I'd prefer to think that it's because I don't practice enough rather than that I'm not capable; I know I am. Anyhow, I'm sure your calmness greatly contributes to your dream control; when we become panicked in a dream we usually lose control of it, or it just ends. I wouldn't be able to tell you whether your relaxation is genetic or learned, but either way, don't take it for granted. It's a great quality, whether you're using it for dreams or for waking life.

I think a calm personality is indicative a person who is balanced in their sense of reality, expectation, and the unknown. This is equanimity or "upekkha" and is associated with a wisdom and acceptance of all things. I think that's a key ingredient to advanced lucid dreaming.

Also, you mentioned the Holodeck. I think that Star Trek's Holodeck is the best schema of them all. A schema is a mental model; a set of existing ideas that connect together. Even if they aren't "real" they still fit together into a believable fiction to your unconscious mind. In the Holodeck, you can make anything happen and anything appears just by asking the computer. You can pause, rewind, teleport, and design other characters. Even with vague commands, the computer will fill in the details. That is so easy and so powerful. But you first need to establish the schema strongly in your mind. Doctor's prescription: watch more Star Trek (primarily Voyager, then DS9, then TNG).

Sisyphus, you are making me want to watch star treck. What sort of evil powers do you posses in order to do this to me?

I am glad to see someone that learned this naturally come here. I am not a "natural" at anything but control, but I had 10 LDs before realizing what it was. They were spread out and I knew that only a few things had seemed to cause them (things that I use now), but I did not pursue it until later.

I have not seen the same thing as the oneirologist about people that discover it on their own being much better later. I see a lot of people that get really good at inducing, but do not use the LD to its potential and enjoy dream control at all. You seem to be an anomaly though. I do not know what you have done with your LDs, but it sounds like you control them a lot.

I love the idea of persistent realms more than anything, going back to a place and nothing changing and the people remembering you. Having imaginary friends isn't a problem if they talk back.

Anyways. off topic. Back to your question. I am always "laid back" and never stressed. I am kind of crazy when I feel like it (with close friends), but other than that I am calm and collected and in really good control of my emotions. I used to have insomnia back when I was a child, but I would just spend hours either reading or with my eyes closed going to my own lands I made up. I can now fall asleep almost at will and rarely have any trouble with falling asleep, even though I wake up multiple times per night for LDing (djing, reseting intentions, raising awareness, SSILDing).

"I do not know what you have done with your LDs, but it sounds like you control them a lot."

To answer your question. I'm pretty much in complete control of my dreams when I want. I do whatever I want. Kind of like special get away vacation every night. I do let some dreams follow there own path to see where they lead. Every once in awhile I do not have 100% control. But that is very rare. If I do want to remember a dream completely. I will force myself to wake up from inside the dream. Then I can go back into another dream or continue where I left off. I fall asleep so quickly it doesn't affect my sleeping time. After reading more post here, I see so many people have trouble controlling. I remember some of the problems controlling in the beginning. Maybe I can help.

I am a person prone to stress and mood swings. While I have not done any lucid dreaming in a while because I have not tried, but I successfully learned it years ago and became fairly good at it, and I have always been moody/stressed/impatient and furthermore I am very bad at being aware of my surroundings in waking life, often lost in thought and day dreams. If I can achieve lucidity, I figure anyone can.

My thoughts are: while I would think that being calm, patient, observant, and aware in waking life are very useful to initiate lucid dreaming, and I would not be surprised if a larger percentage of such people lucid dream naturally without having to learn this skill. However, as I can prove, even someone who is not like that, can effectively learn lucid dreaming. Also I think for someone like me, lucid dreaming can have restorative effects of helping me become a calmer, More patient, less stressed, more observant and aware person.

EDIT: My goal now is to get back into lucid dreaming for all of those reasons, and I fully expect to be successful again as I have been in the past.

JoannaB,

Thanks for your comment. If you get stressed and have good control in a dream, then I know my wife can continue to get better as well.

Originally Posted by EricinLA

To answer your question. I'm pretty much in complete control of my dreams when I want. I do whatever I want. Kind of like special get away vacation every night. I do let some dreams follow there own path to see where they lead. Every once in awhile I do not have 100% control. But that is very rare. If I do want to remember a dream completely. I will force myself to wake up from inside the dream. Then I can go back into another dream or continue where I left off. I fall asleep so quickly it doesn't affect my sleeping time. After reading more post here, I see so many people have trouble controlling. I remember some of the problems controlling in the beginning. Maybe I can help.

Very interesting. Do you have goals for your dream or do you just do whatever you want each LD? (Goals like:go to space, ride a penguin, transform into an octopus)

Lots do struggle a lot with control. It will be nice to have someone with so much control here. It will be interesting to see what someone who learned everything on their own's opinions will be.

As for my dream control, I never had as good dream control as you describe (a bit jealous here), but then again I did not have as much experience. I remember with practice I continued to get better and had lucid dreams more and more frequently and was able to keep lucid for prolonged time in very vivid dreams. At the height of my previous lucid dreaming experience, I had them regularly (though I don't recall any more how often - it has been years now since then). I remember I was able have prolonged fully lucid conversations with dream characters. I was able to change where I was and what I was doing. I was able to do more of what I truly wanted to do: flying. And I was successful in turning some nightmares into empowering experiences that were quite fulfilling. I don't remember any more why I stopped practicing, and I think I am a person who has to put in a conscious effort to keep having lucid dreams - I haven't had any in a long time, while not trying, so they do not come naturally to me. However, I definitely think the effort is worth it, and I remember that the better I got at it, the less effort it took. I am hoping to surpass my level of control that I had years ago this time around, and I am hoping that I will not start all over again, but that I will be able to build upon lessons learned years ago.

EDIT: It occurred to me, and please don't take this the wrong way, that maybe you are not the best dream guide for your wife. It comes naturally to you, whereas she needs to learn techniques for how to improve, and while you can teach her some of that, she may benefit from learning with people who are also struggling to see that she is not alone in this, and to learn about techniques that worked for others who also struggled. Has she joined this forum yet? Has she read a lucid dreaming how-to book such as the books by Stephen LaBerge?

I too had lucid dreams when i was younger and i am trying to start lucid dreaming again.
I can fall asleep very quickly usually close my eyes and im out and it is rare for me to get angry.

It occurred to me, and please don't take this the wrong way, that maybe you are not the best dream guide for your wife. It comes naturally to you, whereas she needs to learn techniques for how to improve, and while you can teach her some of that, she may benefit from learning with people who are also struggling to see that she is not alone in this, and to learn about techniques that worked for others who also struggled. Has she joined this forum yet? Has she read a lucid dreaming how-to book such as the books by Stephen LaBerge?

JoannaB,

I'll take that into consideration. My wife didn't understand what I was talking about either at first. It was only we were married (6 years ago) that she wanted to try it herself. After we shared a bed and she saw me moving around in bed a lot during REM sleep. (I guess I am not completely paralyzed when I dream). But she is not into it as much as I am. She is more into getting a good nights sleep. She has trouble sleeping now and then because she worries about other people too much. I think she tried it because she sees how easy is for me to sleep.

Eric in L.A.

Originally Posted by BrandonBoss

Very interesting. Do you have goals for your dream or do you just do whatever you want each LD? (Goals like:go to space, ride a penguin, transform into an octopus)

Lots do struggle a lot with control. It will be nice to have someone with so much control here. It will be interesting to see what someone who learned everything on their own's opinions will be.

BrandonBoss,

My only goal now is just to have fun and go with the flow of the dream. Complete control hasn't been a problem for me for a very long time. Funny, maybe that is why I hardly ever take a vacation. I guess I am taking a vacation from reality every night.

Out of curiousity.. you mentioned that you have been helping your wife learn, what kind of things did you teach her to help her along?

Originally Posted by PennyRoyal

Out of curiousity.. you mentioned that you have been helping your wife learn, what kind of things did you teach her to help her along?

My wife has trouble sleeping now and then. I think it's mostly because she worries about other people too much. Plus if she wakes up in the middle of the night she has a real hard time fallen back asleep. I've tried to teach my frame of mind on how to relax and stay calm during our awake time. She has improved a little. But I still see her yell at people that cut her off in her BMW and I'm the passenger.

My frame of mind is "To do everything you can possibly do to solve a problem/help a situation/project. But once you have done everything possible don't worry about it." Worrying about something you can't do anything more is just a waste of your time and energy and will just stress you out.

If she able to relax before going to sleep (usually after sex). I will give her an assignment to try to dream about. I tell to keep thinking and visualize about the situation I want her to dream about while she falls asleep. For her a relaxing dream about our honeymoon in Hawaii works best. Like I said, unless she is relaxed it doesn't work for her.

She can only get into a dream that she wants to from the start of sleep. But from what she tells me she has very little control in the dream so far. Maybe because she loses focus. Being calm gives you the ability to have great focus on the task at hand. No distractions in your mind is key.

Ah but see, for me my mind is full of distractions, and I would not be willing to give that up. If the price of lucid dreaming were the need to have an orderly mind, I would not think it worth the price. Lol

But I found when I did lucid dreaming that I could be myself, with all the complications that brings along with it, and I did not have to change myself unless I wanted to and only as much as I wanted to, and I could still enjoy my dream life and with practice gain more control over it when I wanted it.

We are all wired differently as human beings, and that's ok! but I think those of us who are wired differently from others may need a different approach to lucid dreaming, both because different approaches work differently for different people and because different approaches appeal to different people's imaginations.

Originally Posted by JoannaB

Ah but see, for me my mind is full of distractions, and I would not be willing to give that up. If the price of lucid dreaming were the need to have an orderly mind, I would not think it worth the price. Lol

My mind runs at 100 miles an hour. I'm always thinking of multiple things at once. But for me to have 100% dream control. I need to focus all my mind on the situation. I'm controlling everything in the dream. Myself, other people, the environment (Everything). It take a lot of calm focus to do it.

Funny when I'm awake I feel like the world is kind of moving in slow motion and people are talking too slow me too. I actually have to slow my speech down so I don't sound so fast to others. I think that is what gives time to think about many things at once when I waiting for people.

But I found I can also use that focus I learned in dream control for solving problems during my awake time and holding all the data in my mind all at once. So my mind is all cluttered up too. But I learned how to focus it when I need to. If I didn't I would never get anything done.

Originally Posted by EricinLA

My wife has trouble sleeping now and then. I think it's mostly because she worries about other people too much. Plus if she wakes up in the middle of the night she has a real hard time fallen back asleep. I've tried to teach my frame of mind on how to relax and stay calm during our awake time. She has improved a little. But I still see her yell at people that cut her off in her BMW and I'm the passenger.

My frame of mind is "To do everything you can possibly do to solve a problem/help a situation/project. But once you have done everything possible don't worry about it." Worrying about something you can't do anything more is just a waste of your time and energy and will just stress you out.

If she able to relax before going to sleep (usually after sex). I will give her an assignment to try to dream about. I tell to keep thinking and visualize about the situation I want her to dream about while she falls asleep. For her a relaxing dream about our honeymoon in Hawaii works best. Like I said, unless she is relaxed it doesn't work for her.

She can only get into a dream that she wants to from the start of sleep. But from what she tells me she has very little control in the dream so far. Maybe because she loses focus. Being calm gives you the ability to have great focus on the task at hand. No distractions in your mind is key.

Thank you for the reply, I am of a similar personality and my significant other is much like your wife. I'm always trying to tell her not to worry about the things that she cannot change or control

Come to think of it, I change my mind, I am not jealous of your level of control in dreams. I don't think I would want complete control. One of the things that I enjoyed about lucid dreaming when I did it was that even though I was aware that it was a dream and I could control them somewhat, but my dreams continued to surprise me in good ways by not following my directive, but making me laugh at their results instead and at times I was in awe how my subconscious self could come up with an even better solution than the one that I had unsuccessfully tried to impose on it.

For me one of the key ways of gaining lucidity in my dreams was to actually increase the level of my distractions. I would pay more attention to random details, I would question the weirdness of stuff throughout my waking life, and do reality checks, which usually resulted in a confirmation that I was fully awake, and made me appreciate more fully how weird waking life can be if you think about it.

Originally Posted by JoannaB

One of the things that I enjoyed about lucid dreaming when I did it was that even though I was aware that it was a dream and I could control them somewhat, but my dreams continued to surprise me in good ways by not following my directive, but making me laugh at their results instead and at times I was in awe how my subconscious self could come up with an even better solution than the one that I had unsuccessfully tried to impose on it

If you read some of my other posts. You will see I got so good at controlling everything I got bored. So I learned free dreaming and just go with the flow to see how things turn out with no or very little interruption from me. So I know what you mean. I've solved a lot of problems in my life by free dreaming a solution.

For me it usually takes hours to fall asleep but I've always had lucid dreams and some dream control, as I've recently become aware of what lucidity is my dream control have improved a lot or rather I've learnt to take advantage of it.

I think its more important to be focused, determined, confident and curious than calm to achieve dream control. The first times I remember I've successfully controlled my dreams is in nightmares where I have been violent and angry or scared not very calm. I guess the most important thing is to really want the control at least it is for me, it works best when I "need" it the most.

Maybe your wife would benefit from thinking about what her motivation is for dream control and try to work around scenarios that would produce a desire from her to take control of the dream.

Dream control is easy, but it is not the same for everyone. The best way for your dream control as you say is focus. You already know it is a dream and you know that you can change 100% of everything in a dream. This confidence in your dreaming self is what makes you good at dream control. It has to make sense to the person controlling the dream though.

The best way to think of dream control for me is:
Do or do not, there is not try. -Yoda

Lots of people pass this off as philosophical crap, but it is the truth. Put dream control in perspective, if you are sitting there trying really hard to do something, it is because you do not think you should be able to do it easily. When was the last time you tried to walk? or eat? You don't try to do these things, you just do them.

This is something that might help your wife. You do not need to be stressless to not try to do something. Hope this helps.

And yes... I get all my LDing tips from Star Wars. Oneironauts = Jedi

BrandonBoss,

I would agree. You need 2 thing for complete dream control.

1) Complete FOCUS.

2) You must BELIEVE that you can do anything.

Hey Eric, can you also make dreams that feel like they span over multiple days, weeks, years, decades? Or are your dreams the 'normal' duration of 1 hour at max?
Can you also induce false memories? Like willing to be a gladiotor in the next dream and then waking up from your dreambed remembering all the things you've done up untill then? Because I know false memories/thinking patterns are not uncommon in dreams

Originally Posted by Ginsan

Hey Eric, can you also make dreams that feel like they span over multiple days, weeks, years, decades? Or are your dreams the 'normal' duration of 1 hour at max?
Can you also induce false memories? Like willing to be a gladiotor in the next dream and then waking up from your dreambed remembering all the things you've done up untill then? Because I know false memories/thinking patterns are not uncommon in dreams

To answer your question. Well I've been doing DC so long I guess I have 2 kinds of dreams. I pretty much know every time I'm in dream right from the start. The start of dream is usually random because most of the time I don't try to enter into a specific dream (I can enter a dream directly from where I left off the last time though if I want). But once there I usually just "Free Dream" and try not to interfere and let it follow it's own path naturally to try to learn from them. If I don't like where is going and or are getting bored I can change it or myself into any situation almost instantly.

Like last night I was kind of getting bored in the dream I was in and decided to change it up. I become a character I use now and then. He doesn't have a name. But he is indestructible and the strength of the Hulk. He is fun to just shake people up in my dream. I've had dreams I've continued over days or even continued months or years later.

I'm not sure exactly how long they are actually lasting. Why? Because I've tested this out to see how long they actually are in real time. I've induced a dream and kept track of everything I'm doing in the dream. Maybe 1-2 hour might have passed in the dream. But I force myself to wake up and look at the clock again. Maybe only 15 minutes have passed. At least for me it seems like the dream world time seems to move faster than real time.

Now to the false memories. Yes, I have had those. They are so weird. You swear something in your dream was a real memory later in your awake world. I'm better at knowing which are which now. But sometimes I still get fooled because my dreams are so vivid and seem so real now. I find the dream memories I get fooled on are the ones I don't wake up in the middle of.

Any more questions? I'm happy to share what I've learned on my own the last 30+ years of doing this on my own.

How often do you LD? 20,000 over 30 years is almost two a night.

Have you ever tried to dilate time within the dream? By using dream control logic.