Vivid vs. Lucid

Last night I believe I had the most vivid dreams I can recall. It had all the makings of a lucid - minus the "dream awareness" ingredient.
Normally I wouldn't post such a not-so-extrodinary event, but damn it - I'm in a major LD slump here and this is the first semi-enjoyable sleeping occurence I've had in months.

[color=darkred]Without going too much into the dreams, I experienced very clear dreamscape and characters:
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:?: Here's the question:
While I don't recall being lucid, I very much enjoyed the dreams. So much that I got up and made the effort to record them(at 5am). I have been keeping a journal, but then stopped due to my dreams becoming more and more fragmented. So I stopped. Anyway - the fact that I wasn't lucid didn't seem to bother me much for some reason. Could it be that the lack of knowing you're not "in reality" (I realize that's a relative thing) made it more exciting? Or is it just the lack of impressionable dreams lately that's making this seem great?

Anyone else have vivid dreams they think were better than lucids?

I am a newbie when it comes to lucidity as I've never experienced it, but my guess is that luciditiy and vividity are two of many possible extremes. You're either very lucid and there's not a great deal of detail, or the dream is very clear and very realistic, only it isn't lucid at all.

My dreams are always very vivid and very clear, though I've never had a lucid dream.

TB

Im afraid your asumption is somewhat.. wrong.. basiclay the more vivid normal dreams come as a by product of attempting to have lucid dreams your recall becomes very good as a result your dreams are more vivid the fact that you actulay wrote it down at 5am after it happened also means what you remember is likley to be more vivid than if you woke up at 10am and wrote it down.

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Originally posted by TB
You're either very lucid and there's not a great deal of detail, or the dream is very clear and very realistic, only it isn't lucid at all.

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You just wait untill you're first LD, newbie, you will find this to be quite the opposite! Good luck! :D

Sidenote:
I forgot to mention that I took some vitamins before bed:
B-Complex vitamin (50mg) + 100mg B6 vitamin + 250mg Magnessium. Just thought I'd mention.

I have had grand non-lucid adventures that were as vivid as you posted. Truly epic!

I have also had lucid dreams that were that vivid, but they are rare and highly cherished when I have them :D

I know what you're talking about, Joe. My LDs are mostly quite crappy and low in detail, whereas my normal dreams are sometimes great vivid adventures. It's astonishing to wake up from a dream like that and to be able to clearly remember almost every detail of the dream.

All I can do is to hope that some day my lucid dreams would be like that.

That's interesting, thanks Joe. You're right - I still can't wait until my first lucid dream. There must be quite a few varieties of lucid dream though, in terms of how vivid they are. Arrrhggg I'm so eager to lucid dream :(. Lol.

TB

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Originally posted by TB
That's interesting, thanks Joe. You're right - I still can't wait until my first lucid dream. There must be quite a few varieties of lucid dream though, in terms of how vivid they are. Arrrhggg I'm so eager to lucid dream :(. Lol.

TB

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The best thing I can recommend is constantly questioning reality during the day, asking yourself if you are dreaming and looking around for clues that you are. You should try dozens of times a day to float off the ground by your own power. When you finally do float off the ground by your own power, you are definately dreaming. Good luck.

Dear Tornado Joe,

What does Lucidity do but inform us that we are dreaming so that we can make decisions based upon the fact that we are dreaming. But after awhile do we not begin to make these same decisions in our dreams by habit. Lucidity teaches us to have no fear, and it teaches us we have a range of Supernatural Powers. Fine. After awhile we simply take such Knowledge for granted. When we have learned everything that Lucidity can teach us, what do we then need lucidity for. It is like carrying a crutch after our legs are no longer broken.

Indeed, I would trade Vivid for Lucid any night of the week. You yourself intuited the very same thing. Honestly, if you had been lucid, what would you have changed?

i'd rather have both at the same time :D

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Originally posted by hysteria
i'd rather have both at the same time :D

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Perhaps it is not so easy to have both at the same time, and I will explain why.

do you know what an Energy Budget is? In the Touring Motorcycle crowd, the riders like to trick out their bikes with plenty of state of the art electronic gadgets, flood lights, heaters, everything. But the typical touring motorcycle's alternator puts out between 250 and 450 Watts. That's not much. You add up the headlights, foglights, radios, heated gloves and boots and all that other stuff and pretty soon you have a motorcycle that is eating more power than the alternator can make up for. The thing will die at the next red light. Also, it takes horsepower to spin an alternator that is being loaded down to its maximum output. A low battery sucking on the alternator along with all of that optional equipment, the alternator will take horsepower that could have gone to the drive wheel. In that movie "Fast and Furious" I had to laugh at one scene in which the guy went into a drag race with his stereo booming. Well, any real dragracer interested in winning would turn off all electrical circuits except the engine essentials... even disconnect the alternator... as I said, it only robs horsepower.

So, let's move our Energy Budget over to our Dreaming. We can put our total Energy Budget into dream intensity, or we can begin shaving off power in order to fire up the "I must be Dreaming" circuits.

Yes, lucidity is handy, to beginning dreamers. But once you know how to dream, what use is it to remind yourself that you are dreaming? Lucidity engrains a pattern of Lucid Habits into the Dreaming Self that continue on whether the Dreaming Self becomes Lucid or not. Habits of Flight and Control continue in EVERY Dream. The Experienced Lucid Dreamers can certainly back me up on this. Indeed, you can ask them about many of their "Lucid" dreams and I'm sure they will admit that they never really at any point said to themselves "I must be dreaming". They simply acted as they always do in a Lucid dream and they figured that that would amount to the same thing. And since this is a Lucid Dream Page, they style all of their Dreams as Lucid Dreams -- because the Fly and they Control Things. But this is all from the habits that they developed when they DID USED TO have Lucid Dreams. I'm sure that more than who will admit it have long since outgrown Lucid Dreaming, and now they simply do Advanced Dreaming.

Hmm, that's interesting. I have noticed the same thing; when I am lucid I usually just tend to disrupt my dream (once I interrupted a symbolic dream and was scolded until I almost cried :cry:), and I have the most interesting and meaningful dreams when I am fully conscious and do not know that I'm dreaming.

Of course, I have always known that my lucid dreams would get better when I became more skilled.

Once I think I asked a "dreamguide" in a lucid dream if she could help me try to find a new color, and the next night I had a non-lucid dream where I did a lab experiment that attempted this.

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Originally posted by Leo
Honestly, if you had been lucid, what would you have changed?

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Well, for one I would try to use the experience as practice - to become better at lucid dreaming, period. Then, I would try to use it as a way of communicating with my \"self\".

At first I thought lucid dreaming would just be a great way of getting more out of life, extending the normal periods of being \"conscious\". But I've read a book recently that defines consciousness and discusses how in dreams we can really learn things about information and feelings our \"self\" is hidding from our \"awareness\". Suddenly lucid dreaming is like a vessel that can carry me out onto the doorway of who I am, why I am, etc. Sort of in the way a space ship carries an astronaut out into space.

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Originally posted by Leo
Lucidity engrains a pattern of Lucid Habits into the Dreaming Self that continue on whether the Dreaming Self becomes Lucid or not. - ... I'm sure that more than who will admit it have long since outgrown Lucid Dreaming, and now they simply do Advanced Dreaming.

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Geez, maybe some day - far from now. Right now I just feel like an explorer trying to get to the moon on a bicycle!