Thread: My Lucid Dreaming Experience. Any similarities?

That's an interesting phenomenon, the rewind effect. It doesn't sound like a lucid dreaming experience particularly. In lucid dreams, at least in mine, I realize I'm dreaming, from some discrepancy or 'clue' that things aren't the way they are in real life or I fall directly into a dream with very little or no lapse in consciousness and hence know that I'm dreaming more or less from the outset. Afterward, I say OK, I'm dreaming and sometimes the dream dissolves and I wake up or I walk around trying to change things or lately (from reading this forum and gathering ideas that I remember to remember in my dreams) I try to do things you can't do in real life like fly or tell the people if they are somebody I know that we're dreaming, or if they're a character trying to engage me "to fuck off", etc. I also have had these for a large part of my life and didn't know the term applied until my early twenties and then still didn't do much experimentation, as many of the folks at DV do, and gain more competence and practice as a lucid dreamer. At one point I was very good at it but more or less without trying and had experiences of teleporting myself and a few other tricks.

I'll get to the point. Lately, I've been telling my dad who lives in the same town as I do, about my LD experiences and in one of them, which I went to sleep with the intention of sharing a dream with somebody, he was present and we were in his house across town. He popped up on the TV screen while we were chatting and then looked around quizzically as if for a camera and I told him that we are in a dream. After, I said, "if you remember this I can ask you in the morning and we will know that we shared a dream." I talked to him the next day and he didn't remember anything and later I had another LD with him in it and we talked about it again, and again he didn't remember. Without leading him as to any imagery I asked what he had dreamed that morning and he told me his dream. He said he had a dream about losing something and didn't like the outcome and that he started the dream over and changed it so that it ended differently. He explained that in the changed version he had taken out some content that made him uncomfortable, or had negative connotations for him, and though in the reworked version he still lost things at the beginning he ended up getting back more than he had lost in the final couple of sequences. I asked him, thinking in terms of Lucid Dreams, do you know you're dreaming and he said something similar to your 'observer' idea, but that when the dissonant material (something he doesn't do in his waking life) was reworked into a different storyline the dream more or less re-envelopes him and becomes compelling enough again to not no he's dreaming (as one does in a LD) and that the dream proceeds through it's convolutions and plays itself out as a normal dream does with twists and turns and characters and whatnot.

From a psychological standpoint, and I hope I'm not getting to personal here, my mom has mentioned for many years a quote and I can't remember from who, possible CG Jung or Freud, famously said, "Have a good nightmare" instead of "have nice dreams." He was making the point that in dreams we have the ability to exercise the subconscious of certain tendencies that exist in the spectrum of human tendencies, namely those associated with the dark-side of our nature, that we possibly don't have many outlets for in waking life. I'm not sure that a symptom of being a perfectly integrated person would even exhibit itself as a warm and rosy and perfectly peaceful dreamlife. That's a matter of opinion, however, and not having the opportunity to talk to a lot of enlightened folks about their dreamlives I can't make that claim with any authority at all. I guess what I'm saying is that if you have that kind of control over your dreams to edit out content, and bad outcomes, but still seemingly are persuaded to have the dreams but with positive outcomes, you may be offended (conscious 'observer') by what your dream life is entertaining or exercising you with in terms of content and so are radicalized into changing the content until you are comfortable with it. If there is indeed a positive aspect of dreaming things that are difficult to cope with or uncomfortable to experience you might be exerting an iron control over something to point that you've eradicated that from your dreams for the last couple years, as you said. On the other hand there may not be anything wrong with that at all. Most of the people here use the kind of control they have in LD to enjoy themselves and do cool shit that you can't do in real life, so more power to you! Have a good one.

As for dreams not having logical thinking. It's exactly the 'logical thinking' part of the dreamer (maybe not the actual dream framework, or technician, however) that makes you realize that you are in a dream and after that it is that logical thinker that starts to tinker and play with this reality. Again, at this point, at least speaking for myself, I'm not interested (too much) in the previous content of the dream, especially not to re-initiate it with changes, though sometimes the dream characters try to mess with me, or new aspects of the dream come into existence. I normally, to the contrary, step out of whatever framework I was previously caught up in and do things like trying to will the setting of my dream to change, pay attention to the details of the dreamscape and then study it. Recently, I observed melodic music playing in the background of my dream and I tried, and succeeded in changing it into a heavy beat. As I paid attention and made a conscious effort to do so the music changed slowly and morphed from the original music to the beat and I clapped along with it.

Also, and with a few exceptions, I can will myself awake from LDs, it doesn't take a positive outcome or getting hit by something heavy. It's often a problem that when I find myself to be Lucid the dream tries to unravel and with practice I've been holding them together longer. That is a common theme in these threads, as well, I've noticed. The exceptions for me are LDs I've fallen directly asleep into and I've tried to research whether they are LDs or Out of Body Experiences but without to much success. It's hard to pin these things down b/c they are such subjective experiences. These experiences where I can't wake up have a completely different tone than my normal dreams or my LDs that are mostly in the mornings. These ones are dark and powerful and at times I'm instantly engaged in an action such as feeling paralyzed but trying to reach a remote control to turn off a TV that is at the foot of my bed. I know that when I turn the TV off I will wake up. More, I'm in the same bed I fell asleep in, (with the exception that there is no TV at the foot of it). In one of these I went through a horrible experience and tried to wake up with my eyes tightly clamped shut for minutes on end knowing I was dreaming the entire time. When I did finally wake it was more like as you describe something external in the dream finally released me, like being hit by something. Afterward I went through a series of false awakenings and in one of them I saw myself walk into the room I was really asleep in (I was fully paralyzed and lying in the bed I was actually asleep in) and saw myself look down at me and then finally woke up. That dream fucked me up! To tell you the truth I would have edited the fuck out of it if I had your ability, hahaha.

"May you have a good nightmare!" - Fritz Kunkel (Adlerian psychologist) was fond of saying to people he met in the evening.

"If inner and outer goals are very different, the conflict can create evil nightmares with the purpose of forcing the dreamer to change the direction of her or his journey." - Anita Konkka, Finnish writer

Both quotes from Oneira - Dream Wisdom: Quotations on Dreams and Nightmares