Thread: Dream "crumbles" after attaining lucidity due to "lack of relevant knowledge"

Originally Posted by DreamMT

Hey,
I'm just curious if anyone else has ever experienced this. I'm not a very good lucid dreamer (trying to improve by joining here!); but I have had numerous lucid dreams over the years and first read one of Stephen Laberges classic work on the subject when I was in my teens (about 10-12 years ago).

I generally have issues with staying in the dream and not waking up due to that classic "overexcitement" feeling (OMG IM LUCID YEEAH) a lot of the time. However, what I find especially bad is the following type of scenario that I will illustrate using an example of flying:
Say I'm in a dream, walking down a street in town X. Some kind of dreamsign triggers me to become lucid and as I realise this, I think to myself "well, if this really is a dream, I should be able to fly", this is my acid-test for dreaming usually. I am usually able to fly straight up.
THE PROBLEM (often, not always is) that as I ascend into a bird's eye view of Town X, I realise "I've never flown over this town at this height; I don't really have a clue what it looks like from this perspective."
As soon as I realise this, it's like the dream collapses in some weird way...visually as well as mentally. It's as if my mind is so realistically oriented that it won't let it fool itself, as if I become frustrated by the fact that this is just a "fake" simulation in my head that my mind is creating and not based on knowledge that I acually should have in order for the "generated" landscape to be realistic (although I actually couldn't care less about whether what I see is realistic; I just want a stable simulation of whatever it is).

Does anyone else experience this and if yes, are there ways to overcome it?

I think as you gain more experience you'll have better luck but I can relate to this somewhat. One thing you can try to do is to try to keep your interactions more within the boundaries of the dream. I notice sometimes if I try to push my own agenda too much the dream will fade quicker. Take your time to look around, listen, touch your surroundings and really look closely at the details.

Maybe try not to focus on whether the representation of the town is real or not, but instead just focus on the town itself. Or if this happens persistently, maybe spend some time in dreams actually getting to know the consequences of your actions (of which there are none...).

A good way to overcome it may be to not fly up to test if you are dreaming or not. Try something else, but use a "normal" Reality Check when you want to test whether or not you're dreaming. Another way to get over it may be to teleport to somewhere new that you know doesn't exist, that way you can override the logic centers of your brain and you don't have to worry about whether or not it seems real. Everything you see is new and so it won't make a difference whether you think it seems real or not, since you already know that it isn't. It could simply be a case of just changing your viewpoint. Check out this article on Stabilization and it may help you along the way.

Good luck!

Next time that happens, just be to sure add, "but I'm pretty sure this is what it would look like from this perspective".