Thread: Lucid Dreaming gets harder with age?

i agree. Theres SKILL involved, and so that complicates things.

Getting lucid for most people is going to be hard work. And its a spectrum,
most people who can lucid dream are still working on getting better.

if it was as easy as flexing the muscle alone, it would be easy. Its finding
an otherwise subliminal muscle to flex thats the harder part.

The need for REM certainly lowers with age.
Perhaps it is simply a misunderstanding of needing less REM as you get older.

As for the ability to achieve Lucidity, I see no reason why this should fade.

it gets harder to learn to LD as you get older, but if you learn it at a young age, its fine for the rest of your life so long as you keep it up. i saw a documentary a while ago saying that parts of your brain become really hard to use if you dont use them before puberty. or something like that.

Originally Posted by slash112

it gets harder to learn to LD as you get older, but if you learn it at a young age, its fine for the rest of your life so long as you keep it up. i saw a documentary a while ago saying that parts of your brain become really hard to use if you dont use them before puberty. or something like that.

Proof?

Originally Posted by Shift

Proof?

I think we can believe him without any proofs. Now is the documentary right? That's another question.

Anyways, I think that if you learn how tol LD and then completly stop your habbits of 'cause your too lazy, your lucidity might decrease but I still think that as long as you keep up with it, its all fine. I can easily LD now, well, now I LD most night and I've started only 4 weeks ago, however I need to learn to stabilize now... prometheuspan, is right, we always try to improve (not that I am pro or anything) but I mean everyone is always trying to improve. There's not a level of lucidity called "perfect" we all have to find it ourselves. Dreming is about OUR world so its our preferences.

Originally Posted by SleepyCookieDough

I think we can believe him without any proofs.

Maybe you can. I prefer to make sure as best as possible that things are legit before I buy into them.

Originally Posted by Shift

Maybe you can. I prefer to make sure as best as possible that things are legit before I buy into them.

I meant that we can believe he watched the documentary, now if you want to know if the documentary is true, he doesn't know more than you, maybe someone should do a reasearch on google about this

Originally Posted by SleepyCookieDough

I meant that we can believe he watched the documentary, now if you want to know if the documentary is true, he doesn't know more than you, maybe someone should do a reasearch on google about this

Yes, google would be a good place to start this investigation.

I'll look if I can find anything... Wait i shouldn't... I have spanish exam to study for tomorow -_-'

I dunno if thats THAT true. I haven't had but two lucid dreams, only one controlable, in about 6 months of trying. While my GRANDMOTHER has had some just by listening to my talk about them.

Originally Posted by Rai Saix

I dunno if thats THAT true. I haven't had but two lucid dreams, only one controlable, in about 6 months of trying. While my GRANDMOTHER has had some just by listening to my talk about them.

Same happen with my brother. Is your grandmother interested about Lucid dreams? Is your whole family LDing? [Sorry for the off topic questions]

Originally Posted by slash112

it gets harder to learn to LD as you get older, but if you learn it at a young age, its fine for the rest of your life so long as you keep it up. i saw a documentary a while ago saying that parts of your brain become really hard to use if you dont use them before puberty. or something like that.

The "or something like that" has me totally convinced! I'm a believer!!! I'm just buggin' ya slash. Couldn't resist. Anyway, I'm of the mindset that anything is possible. The only limitations are the ones we set.

Well, all what Slash said is that it gets HARDER not that you can't do it. Just that you will have MORE as in a BIT more or LOT more but not necessarily a lot more difficulties to do it. If you haven't learn how to bike and then you are an adult, it will take you more time than if you had learned it as a kid. The proof: Languages. It's so much harder when you are an adult to learn a language. Kids learn a language so fast. Look, babies born without knowing any and then in a bit of time, they just learn a whole language... Yeah, don't forget, there just kids and there not trying so hard, that's why its so long.... Anyways, I've made my point (I hope)

Originally Posted by Rai Saix

I dunno if thats THAT true. I haven't had but two lucid dreams, only one controlable, in about 6 months of trying. While my GRANDMOTHER has had some just by listening to my talk about them.

My mom, who is around 50, is the same way. No effort put in, more lucids than some of the members I see on here. Just because I talk to her about them

Originally Posted by Shift

My mom, who is around 50, is the same way. No effort put in, more lucids than some of the members I see on here. Just because I talk to her about them

Is she a natural or is it only because you talk about it?

Originally Posted by SleepyCookieDough

Is she a natural or is it only because you talk about it?

I am pretty sure it is only because I talk about it. It seems she had them sometimes when she was way younger, to wake up from nightmares and etc. like many do, but whenever we talk about lucid dreams it has always been the ONE memorable lucid dream that she's mentioned, and then the ones since I started to get really serious about it. I would not call her a natural.

Originally Posted by Shift

I am pretty sure it is only because I talk about it. It seems she had them sometimes when she was way younger, to wake up from nightmares and etc. like many do, but whenever we talk about lucid dreams it has always been the ONE memorable lucid dream that she's mentioned, and then the ones since I started to get really serious about it. I would not call her a natural.

Probably has nothing to do with age either... What could it be that makes some people better than others without them being natural?

Originally Posted by SleepyCookieDough

Same happen with my brother. Is your grandmother interested about Lucid dreams? Is your whole family LDing? [Sorry for the off topic questions]

Well, my grandmother likes the idea becasue she has has nightmares all her life, as she was abused a lot as a child. But she is not actively trying to reach lucidity. However my grandmother is an extremely open minded person, unlike most of my family.

Most of my family thinks its BS, crazy, or pointless. My mother seems to think that it is possible for us to realize we are dreaming, but not for dreams to be as vivid as real life or for us to be able to control them. And my father just gets annoyed when I talk about them. Well, everyone does, except my grandmother.

.........................

Originally Posted by Rai Saix

And my father just gets annoyed when I talk about them. Well, everyone does, except my grandmother.

Yeah, why do they do that? Why get ANNOY. Everyone those that to me too. I mean, I wouldn't get annoyed by someone that talked about colored ghost flying around him all day and supplying him with cookies.

PS. Sorry for my habit to get off topic.

i could see how ld'ing could get harder with age, but that doesn't mean that an older person can't do it with ease. it's all about relativity. maybe if an older person gets a ld just by hearing someone else talk about it, that means that if they were to try ld'ing when they were younger, it would be even easier. if it's hard for someone to ld now, then when they get older, it will be even harder. that's what i think.

Originally Posted by 16Candles

i could see how ld'ing could get harder with age, but that doesn't mean that an older person can't do it with ease. it's all about relativity. maybe if an older person gets a ld just by hearing someone else talk about it, that means that if they were to try ld'ing when they were younger, it would be even easier. if it's hard for someone to ld now, then when they get older, it will be even harder. that's what i think.

It's exacltly what I think too.

ya I think it all comes down to the situation if some one has been LDing all their life they would prolly be better and it would be easy as they got older

but for some one who just starts at 60 it would be harder to work on recall. I know that as I got older my recall got worse and then just vanished because other things were more important at the time.

I also think that A persons mind state also contributes if they just think i'm to old to lucid dream then they are but some one 20 years older could say i'm not to old to lucid dream and they would have a better chance of success

Losing an ability, any ability, as you age IMO is due to not focusing on developing it further and further. Some people say that they have got to the point with an ability that they cannot go any further, i do not believe this to be possible especially for humans at this stage of development.

Use it or lose it. One post said that an atrophy could take place and i believe that to be close to truth. As for LD's being stronger or occuring more at younger ages, i think that they could be perceived as being stronger while younger. Younger people have not fully developed (or are not far along their path of development) their views and interpretations of the world around them. i believe they are much more in touch with their imagination so they can more readily get in touch with their LD_ing abilities and think of it as a normal occurence.

The older they get, the less they may use this natural ability due to other distractions like school, television, social networks of friends, real-life committments and experiences, etc. Maybe they have even forgot about it as not many people focus on talking about dreams or put focus on the importance of this 1/3 of our lives.

Personally i did not have a lucid dream (that i could recall) until i was in my early 20's. It was sudden, unexpected and exhilarating. From there i began to pay more attention to my dreams and unconscious states and had many many more LD's. I was having up to 3 a week in a very short period of devoting my time to the task of LD-ing.
Keep trying and practicing techniques that work for you. Like a lot of people on this great site, i also believe that keeping a physical or mental journal of dreams, their images, the feelings, events, surroundings, people, pretty much everything that you can think of in detail is very important to refining your skills.

Stopping LD-ing for a while and then starting again (to me) is not like riding a bike, you can't just get back on. Stick the training wheels back on, get balanced and focus.

I hope everyone here makes LD-ing a part of their life and continues developing their skills because it it one of the most positive and beneficial experiences to use as an aid in our constant development.

i think LDing is connected to brain chemistry and neural plasticity - so kids have that going for them. but they don't know how to channel this information very well.

we have evidence that adults can do LDing perfectly well to amazing levels. they have substituted intention, learned behaviors, and such for the natural gifts children have.

and yes some people have better chemistries than others, most likely.

but then again, some people have more ability to focus, set their minds to something, determine that they will succeed, and so on, and i think this counts for a lot.

i also think it really helps if you have some past experiences to fall back on.. in either LDing or going in to altered states some other way. plus maybe martial arts or other training where you learn focus and mental discipline.

actually, oddly enough, brain science shows that when adults lean a new language or skill, they "youthify"... so learning LD may actually help keep them young and restore youthfulness! a perfect thing to take up to return to a younger, more neuro-plastic brain.