Differences between Lucid Dreams and Non-Lucid Dreams

Many people say that when they first become lucid everything gets suddenly much more vivid and bright. Strangely, I find the opposite to often be true. When I become lucid, the dream usually starts to lose it's vividness and I have to work to make it realistic again. I think this has something to do with the fact that when I'm non-lucid, I BELIEVE that everything that's happening is real, so it seems much more realistic, and then if I become lucid, I know it's not real so it starts to get more murky/unrealistic. What are your experiences with this, and have you noticed any other general differences between non-lucid and lucid dreams?

That isn't much of a general difference, since the general is the dream gets more vivid. I don't think there are any general differences actually, considering vividness and control of LDs vary from time to time, other than being aware/not that is.

Hi,

For what it's worth, I am in the former category - the dream gets MUCH more sharp, clear and colorful when I'm lucid - but that's because I am always astonished by the "realness" of the dreamworld I am in. I remember one specific dream in which I became lucid while in the back of a - flying convertible - (yes, it does sometimes take something truly extraordinary to make me wonder if I'm dreaming!!! :lol: ) - In this particular dream, when I became fully lucid, I became aware that I was leaning on the back of the bench seats in front of me while talking to the driver and passenger. I examined the vinyl piping on the seat and was utterly amazed and impressed with the detail of the piping - the little specs of dust & dirt in the seem where the piping met the seat that was revealed when I felt the piping and pushed it back a little; the stitching clearly visible, the areas of wear on the piping where it was more shiney and had less of the faux-leather graining... The people I saw down in the streets below, walking, talking to each other, going about "their" business... I still find myself smiling and shaking my head when I remember that dream (it was one of the first of the spontaneous LDs I've had - many years ago).

Your question also revolves around differences between lucid & non-lucid, and *possibly* there is where the question may be answerable, depending on your experience.

I have had dreams where I knew not only that I was dreaming, but I had my full waking consciousness present within the dream - I could remember not only that I was dreaming, but remember what the room looked like that I knew I was sleeping in, and remember details about my previous day, or about my schedule for the next day. In these dreams, my impression of the dream is every bit as clear, vivid and sharp as "normal" reality. Possibly more!

But I have alo had dreams in which I knew it was a dream, but I like to say that these dreams are dreams in which I "dreamed that I knew I was dreaming" - I did not have access to full waking consciousness - the fact that I "knew" I was dreaming was really only just another element of the dream. In these dreams, they almost always fade when I say something like "well, I'm just dreaming so I can just do X". There is no sense of the "OMG" factor that accompanies - for me - a truly lucid dream. They often have a dim, "yellowish" quality in my waking memory the next day, wheras fully lucid dreams have the quality of an actual memory of waking life. I think in NLP terms (if you're familiar with this stuff) they call this a "submodality" difference.

I don't know if this offers you any helpful info - but I hope it is useful to you in some manner.

Dave

Well to me, I don't think it changes. But I notice alot more little details that makes the dream sharper :)