Thread: The Nature of Dream Control

Originally Posted by The Cusp

Questions.
What is a Night Stalker's True purpose?
Initially, I assumed they were just shit disturbing greifers, much like you will find in any online video game. People who delight in tormenting others. That may be the case,

Why terrorize dreamers?

Cusp, have you considered the possibility that they are inorganic beings who are feeding off of your attention?

Originally Posted by Vortex

Cusp, have you considered the possibility that they are inorganic beings who are feeding off of your attention?

They were too clumsy for IBs. They made very human mistakes. You could see when they lost lucidity or focus. One minute they are hunting me down, the next they get distracted by something in the dream. Plus the timing matched my challenges exactly.

Originally Posted by The Cusp

They were too clumsy for IBs. They made very human mistakes.

Come on, Cusp.. lots of different types of IBs in-dreaming..

Originally Posted by Oneiro

Come on, Cusp.. lots of different types of IBs in-dreaming..

Perhaps, but IBs aren't likely to suddenly lose lucidity like that. That's a human failing.

Well.. I would beg to differ about that..

I'm still quite sure they were real people rather than IBs.

Did they teach you how to stalk?
and are you saying these are people IRL that have mastered their dreaming skills so that they can enter other peoples dreams?
If you know how to do it, enter my dreams anytime from tonight to next friday night. THAT INCLUDES ALL YOU OTHER NIGHT STALKERS TOO!!!!

Oh and Cusp, I see you're over at astral dynamics.com
Do you believe in that too?

So maybe it was Gimpy who I had a run in with... the psychotic bastard with a limp
(Oh, and if you're reading this, Gimpy, thanks for the great experience, as terrifying as it was at the time )

Originally Posted by tommo

Did they teach you how to stalk?
and are you saying these are people IRL that have mastered their dreaming skills so that they can enter other peoples dreams?
If you know how to do it, enter my dreams anytime from tonight to next friday night. THAT INCLUDES ALL YOU OTHER NIGHT STALKERS TOO!!!!

Oh and Cusp, I see you're over at astral dynamics.com
Do you believe in that too?

No, I don't know how to do that. Yet. But I'm a lazy bastard. I'll get around to it eventually.

In regards to the AD site and OBEs, I'm not sure what I believe. I tend to think it's just a dream, but I'm starting to think RL is just a dream as well, so who knows? But I have very little experience in that area. I just go there to get the hippie perspective from time to time.

haha ok fair enough.
Anyone heard of that bigfoot being captured thing goin around?
Good example of the attention thing. I just wonder, if they went to the media and said "we found bigfoot" and they were like "yeh we don't care", nobody would ever bother trying to create these hoaxes.

Tell the truth Cusp it was you wasn't it? haha nah but what is that rumour/hoax thing you were going to do? thought of it yet?

Originally Posted by tommo

haha ok fair enough.
Anyone heard of that bigfoot being captured thing goin around?
Good example of the attention thing. I just wonder, if they went to the media and said "we found bigfoot" and they were like "yeh we don't care", nobody would ever bother trying to create these hoaxes.

Tell the truth Cusp it was you wasn't it? haha nah but what is that rumour/hoax thing you were going to do? thought of it yet?

Not yet. Really I just wanted to put that out there because it's a good analogy of how dream control works. There is very little difference in what's happening with those stories and what happens in a dream. They are both active on so many levels, it's hard to get a clear picture of of how much impact they have.

The Dream Sharing Scenario
Now as for this shared dreaming nonsense, I don't expect most people reading this to believe it. If you don't that's fine, but for the sake of this discussion, consider it a theoretical scenario. The implications of those three rules of dreaming under those conditions, where two dreamers are interacting, are just easier grasp. It's easier to learn to play chess against an opponent than by your self. Your biggest opponent is yourself, but it's hard to imagine how much we work against ourselves in dreams. The idea of an opponent helps clear things up.

Someone just posted this dream about a lucid DC. To me this looks like an example of some possessing superb knowledge of dream control. Just consider the possibility, it makes it easier to identify specific instances or opportunities for dream control sequentially. Wether they are actual shared dreams or not doesn't change how these rules shape the dream in the least.

Originally Posted by mini0991

Last night, I had an LD where I think one of the dream characters seemed to be just as aware of it being a dream.

I was in my front yard and I got lucid, probably from an RC, can't exactly remember. I approached a girl standing in my front yard and asked for, well, I'm sure you all know.

Her reply was to grab me and throw me straight over into the neighbor's driveway! She had enough strength to lift me from the ground over her head! It popped into my mind that she was probably as lucid as I was, as I layed on the ground. I looked over the wall that's in our neighbor's driveway and she walks away, and in her place a bear appears and attacks me! The bear comes to my right and takes a missed bite at my right arm! I run from it, shoot at it, and soon two are following me. I run into the other neighbor's yard, stop near the pool, and one of them falls in. I pull out a pistol and start shooting the other one as I run for my yard. I climb up on the swingset ladder, and shoot the other one dead as it's on its hind legs behind me. Soon after, a dinosaur comes from across the field and that wakes me up (or gets me into an FA, can't remember exactly).

I could be wrong, but I think the DC was probably lucid and did this as a reply to my proposition! There was just something I suspected that she made the bear appear, so it would attack me.

Or it could be that I read about one childhood nightmare about a bear being in the closet during a WBTB.

Did you ever have the experience of DCs having as much control over the reality as you do?

Originally Posted by mini0991

Her reply was to grab me and throw me straight over into the neighbor's driveway! She had enough strength to lift me from the ground over her head! It popped into my mind that she was probably as lucid as I was, as I layed on the ground.

That would seem like a normal reaction for any good lucid dreamer. But let's consider that this girl really knew what she was doing, and she also knew this guy was a fellow dreamer. She knows it's a shared dream even though the doesn't. And he's pissed her off enough that she wants to make an example of him.

In order to ensure that he receives his lucid butt whooping, she wants make shure he doesn't wake up. Spinning is often thought to be a good way to stop from waking up, because the intense motion helps creates additional focus points to keep things stable.

Picking the guy up an throwing him would have the same effect as spinning, keeping him anchored, or even trapped, in the dream. It's actually much better, because spinning is too disorienting. Flying through the air and crashing into hard pavement is going to make things feel pretty damn real.

Originally Posted by mini0991

It popped into my mind that she was probably as lucid as I was, as I layed on the ground. I looked over the wall that's in our neighbor's driveway and she walks away, and in her place a bear appears and attacks me!

In a shared dream scenario, that would be a superbly skilled and stylish use of the second rule. She knows that she doesn't even have to bother dealing with this guy directly. She provides him something that will completely capture his attention, and she knows it will grow out of control as a result. Which of course it does. The guy focuses on the bear so much, it splits in two! Everything after the introduction of the bear element is a clear example of attention growing out of control as a result of the second rule. The scariness of the bear probably invokes the emotional element of the third rule as well, making it even more effective.

Maybe the bear was just a result of him reading about it, but I submit that people don't necessarily see the same thing during shared dreaming. All she needed to do was create a general purpose localized threat, and his dreaming attention filled in the details. Nothing trumps the fundamental rules of dreaming. Everything we experience is a direct result of our own personal schemata.

Wasn't there a general rule that things in dreams when lucid, are like you expect them to be? As in, when you eat a chicken it will taste like what you think chicken tastes like.

In a dream that I had once I was in a forest with people from my school playing around a bit, there was a supermarket, and I tried to summon a hot girl from my school.
It failed, other people appeared, and I rewound time inside the supermarket. I come out and what the? A girl walks into the scene from some kind of tunnel, that I did not know, did not summon, and did not expect to come here.

And I wake up.

I go back to bed, I'm in an other part of the forest, but with the same people including that girl, eventually I kissed her and her lips tasted like peach.

This is one of the things that make me believe in Shared dreaming, as there is no reason for her lips to taste like peach, and I'm sure as hell my pillow doesn't taste like peach.

But then again, some of your other stated ''rules'' aren't exactly 100% valid either.

Originally Posted by [Alpha]-0mega-

Wasn't there a general rule that things in dreams when lucid, are like you expect them to be? As in, when you eat a chicken it will taste like what you think chicken tastes like.

Sort of, really it comes down to what schemata you have active in you mind, which is not necessarily what you might be expecting.

For instance, the word "NOT" has very little meaning in your dreams. If you were to say to yourself in a lucid, "When I open this door, there is NOT going to be a blood sucking vampire standing there!". The "not" won't help since you've already invoked the image of the vampire, which in all likelyhood is exactly what you'd find.

Originally Posted by [Alpha]-0mega-

But then again, some of your other stated ''rules'' aren't exactly 100% valid either.

Well that's pretty vague. If they don't seem valid, you probably just don't understand it yet. Tell me what you have a problem with, and I'll do my best to better explain.

Originally Posted by [Alpha]-0mega-

This is one of the things that make me believe in Shared dreaming, as there is no reason for her lips to taste like peach, and I'm sure as hell my pillow doesn't taste like peach.

You should read up on Archetypes. There is every reason for her lips to taste like peaches! Peaches have a very fundamental feminine association. It can mean boobs, or even the fuzzy peach.

Yeah I was going to say that peaches seems 'dream logical' to me. So many things I can think of that could make you taste peaches on her lips. But Cusp's examples will do lol

I'm not taken on the shared dreaming and therefore NS & DW yet, so I'll stay out of that conversation until I experience it.

I experience things just like the girl/bear stuff whenever I have an idea cross my mind. The instant he conceptualized in the dream that she 'may' also be lucid the scenario played through. My thoughts anyhow.

As for where the idea came from in the first place. Something like that happens when I doubt my control at all.

Haha now I’ve read the full page. This Nightstalker idea is very interesting to me. Let me give it a whack. I’m not nearly as experienced as you sound so forgive me if I’m shooting air. I just really like theorizing.

If you’re that deep into believing anything is possible in the dream world, and that the ‘real’ world might be a dream, and even other people being able to enter your dreams, wouldn’t your dreams reflect your beliefs whether or not they were true? Isn’t your mind going to introduce these concepts in your dreams as you understand them?

I don't think having good control would remove this problem. It sounds like you’ve incubated this idea over time. Reading what you typed and seeing how it escalated, having it progress and get more complicated as you think more about what the truth could be - I bet you can find a correlation in your opponents actions based on what you had, at the time, accepted as possible. At one point you had the idea, wow this guy is could beat me, and so he could. Also I bet there's a pattern in what types of things in general entered your dreams as you conceived of their existence in the waking world.

And if you’ve invested a lot into explaining what’s going on, and start to believe it really is possible, I can completely see you creating this entire situation for yourself.

But if I’m right and it's just your head, how you would find your way out of it? Sounds like you already worked out of it naturally, by convincing yourself that you had started understanding their technique (which required you to come up with one, one that works in line with something you perceive as a previous weakness, i think you said things about attention), and that maybe because of that the next fight wouldn’t be so one sided.

That's how I feel my dreams work anyway. I very well could have read something wrong or had a misconception about dreaming in general so if all that was pointless blather it won't hurt my feelings to hear it lol.

Originally Posted by Brainstorm

wouldn’t your dreams reflect your beliefs whether or not they were true? Isn’t your mind going to introduce these concepts in your dreams as you understand them?

Knowing that's the case is the first step to avoiding that situation. But this thread has nothing to do with belief, I'm not asking anyone to believe anything. Besides, this is not what I was expecting to find. I already thought I knew everything about lucid dreaming before I started this. I've since had to start over from scratch and relearn everything. Wouldn't it have been easier to come up with a scenario that that matched my pre-existing body of knowledge? It sure would have taken a lot less work...

It's not just in my dreams that reflect these rules, it's every dream, every time. I didn't make them up, they were already there waiting to be discovered. Show me any dream that was recalled with enough detail, and I'll be able to walk you through it's development step by step.

If I am delusional, then as a self fulfilling fantasy, you gotta admit it's pretty tight.

Or maybe you believe I'm making this up. Especially after that post I made about rumors. I am one of the one responsible for keeping that Night Stalker thread alive. Perhaps the shared dreaming thing is my rumor. In which case, that would make it an incredible example of my rules for dream control being applied to the to the waking world.

I maintain that I'm just trying to describe the truth as best as I can see it.

Originally Posted by The Cusp

Show me any dream that was recalled with enough detail, and I'll be able to walk you through it's development step by step.

Hmmmm, I'll take you up on that offer, I'll post a dream that I have tonight, on this thread tomorrow.

This morning I was lucid for the longest time ever. And I lost my lucidity 5 seconds after thinking that...
As soon as i became aware of the length (even though it might've been a short period, since we all know time can get funky) of my lucidity, it started wavering.
Before it had been very constant, almost as if i was not aware that i was lucid, even though i was. One could argue that it was semi-lucidity, but that's not what i felt (remember). I remember being fully lucid. I was lucid, but didn't put attention on the time. Almost like when going into a trance i learned how not to pay attention to salivation and then i didn't need to swallow anymore. The most stable one I have ever had . . . until that one fateful thought.

Originally Posted by anomanderis

This morning I was lucid for the longest time ever. And I lost my lucidity 5 seconds after thinking that...
As soon as i became aware of the length (even though it might've been a short period, since we all know time can get funky) of my lucidity, it started wavering.
Before it had been very constant, almost as if i was not aware that i was lucid, even though i was. One could argue that it was semi-lucidity, but that's not what i felt (remember). I remember being fully lucid. I was lucid, but didn't put attention on the time. Almost like when going into a trance i learned how not to pay attention to salivation and then i didn't need to swallow anymore. The most stable one I have ever had . . . until that one fateful thought.

Sounds like a less extreme form of introversion, without the waking up.

Originally Posted by The Cusp

2. Introversion: The dreams realizes they are dreaming and are so amazed, excited and thrilled by this fact that they focus all their attention on that thought alone. What that implies, the realization of what's happening, what's possible, all these thoughts direct a sudden rush of your awareness inwards to deal with all these mental machinations, which creates a corresponding vacuum in the dream around them. With no attention to sustain it's self, the dream collapses and the dreamer wakes up.

http://www.dreamviews.com/community/...ad.php?t=64017

Another vampire?
Castle, person in the shadows wearing a black cape, sound like DRACULA! to me. lol

Originally Posted by The Cusp

Sounds like a less extreme form of introversion, without the waking up.

I assume you mean the moment when I started thinking of the time?
Today I had another lucid, where I was in control and it was extremely stable (none of that 'I can't move my eyes or i'll wake up' shit anymore) until after lets say 20-30 seconds or so i first became aware of the length of time i had been lucid (the point of introversion, so to speak). A few seconds after that I woke up.
It seems that to lengthen my lucidity, I need to push the point of introversion as far as possible until i get rid of it.

Originally Posted by anomanderis

It seems that to lengthen my lucidity, I need to push the point of introversion as far as possible until i get rid of it.

You might not have to get rid of it, you could try to balance it out. I'm sure if you had that thought while you were running, you wouldn't have had that problem. Of course it's kind of hard to stop those kinds of thoughts from arising at the wrong moments.

But there is a process to waking up. Things fall apart first, and if you can catch that happening, you might be able to counteract it.

I'm just trying to take part in the discussion and offer what I got out of it so far. I haven't read the entire thread and from what I have read I really admire what you've done so far. Don't get me wrong there

Few people make such thought provoking posts anywhere on the internet let alone here!