Is it possible to become the perfect lucid dreamer? LD's whatever nights you want them, perfect clarity and control, for long periods of time. This has probably been asked a million times, but I'm rather curious.
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Is it possible to become the perfect lucid dreamer? LD's whatever nights you want them, perfect clarity and control, for long periods of time. This has probably been asked a million times, but I'm rather curious.
If you are devoted to really building skills and can keep to it for say 10 years then you could have LDs that last 20 minutes with high clarity, and some level of control. LDs every night are not guerenteed for even Master level dreamers.
I sometimes experience one of my powers weaken, such as flight. I may be suddenly struck with the pull of gravity and must fight against it.That is after 20+ years. I do not beleve in 'the perfect dreamer' but promise that you can experience amazing vivid long dreams while highly lucid, in which you have super powers.
Even the word 'perfect' itself is somewhat an implausibility. Unless we're talking bacon.... not a flaw to be discovered.
I think it's definitely a realistic concept to be able to lucid dream every night, recall dreams with insane accuracy, have amazing control, etc.
Think of lucid dreaming as running, the more you practice and learn, the further and further you can go.
Although it may not be possible to have one every night without fail, the extent to which you can improve will astonish you.
Or hell, who knows, maybe you CAN do it. Aim to find out?! :)
There's many factors that influence lucidity, habit, practice and memory are just a few of them that we can control. Brain chemistry is one of those which is much harder to deal with. Still, after a huge period of time with continuous practice it's not like you need to wait long to induce a lucid ^^
Though, as Yuppie said, "perfect" is a very strong word, I want to believe it is possible to have LD'ing on tap, with lucid dreams of any length and quality available according to nothing more than your interest in having them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lucid_boy
The trouble is, I have been working toward that goal or well over 30 years now, with substantial effort, constant expectations, and an open mind (most important), and I'm still years away from that level of "perfection." On top of that, as I age and my body finds a new way to remind me of that fact every day, new obstacles appear that I never faced before (like issues with memory and sleep). Though I am in complete willful denial of it, there is an excellent chance that that perfection will not come in my lifetime.
Though this is purely anecdotal, and on its surface a little depressing, I think it makes a good point: Keep "perfect" LD'ing as a goal, and strive to meet that goal -- who knows? you might get there. But in the meantime, enjoy what you have, value and learn from your LD's as they are, and try each time you are lucid to make it just a little longer and stronger than the last time, and never tire of waking-life development of self-awareness and memory. Take enough well-placed small steps, and you might just eventually find yourself standing at your goal.
Oh yeah, and have a lot of fun, because isn't that why we're all here?
I know a 10yo child who has lucid dreams everynight. i use to ask him everyweek how he is doing. last time he told me he had a 1- hour LD and he felt tired...
he knows how special his ability is, because he can´t get much feedback from his parents and most kids. altough he doesn´t have much control, he seems very interested to.
Hmm, just to say that every child is already a very gifted dreamer. if we want perfect «lucid dreamers», basically we can´t waste this early potential.
Well, i know most of us are not kids, but i feel like writing this :)
^^ Yes, indeed, children do seem to have a natural tendency to have some awareness that they are dreaming, though they rarely if ever do it on purpose, tend to exercise little to no control, and, above all, lack true self-awareness (in waking-life too). All of this makes their conscious presence in dreams far from perfect, I think, and barely lucid, if lucid at all:
I'm sure someone out there (Darkmatters? Mzzkc? Zoth?) might be able to explain the psychological reasons for why kids occasionally know they're dreaming, though my guess is that their immature grasp on reality coupled with their natural, healthy, narcissism/solipsism makes them occasionally just figure that this world they're in is every bit as real as the world in which they just fell asleep. This last bit, I think, might confirm that, though kids may be aware they are dreaming, they are not truly lucid dreaming because their minds still lack the self-awareness that defines LD'ing. I believe that the experience children have is very different from what an adult (including teen) LD'er experiences. So, though it seems so on paper, children are not necessarily LD'ing "naturally," even if they remember knowing they were dreaming.
Again, someone else might be able to explain it better.
This seems like an interesting idea for a new thread, I think.
Well, my seven year old has described to me a lucid dream in which he consciously pushed a button just using his mind. So I would say that's really good control. And I would be reluctant to question his self awareness: mostly because I do not know how self-aware he is, and would rather not guess, but I have not heard anything that would make me question that he has full self awareness. I know I had full self awareness probably at that age, but definitely by the age of nine or so because I remember enough of my self awareness level from back then. Now I did not have lucid dreams back then. I am excited that my son is starting already.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sageous
I can't explain it really, I just know it's very common for kids to learn to recognize the dream state - most likely because they have such intense nightmares. Many learn to wake themselves up when having a nightmare, but some learn instead that it's only a dream and can't hurt them. Interesting the things you say, that kids have less self-awareness in waking life. This is true, it's something that develops over many years, and probably doesn't really become complete until near adulthood or somewhere in late adolescence. Also interesting that you say what kids experience isn't really lucidity. Didn't you just say on another thread that simply knowing you're dreaming qualifies as lucidity? In fact, this is why I thought you didn't believe that, because I've seen you many times say that true lucidity requires a certain level of self-awareness and memory of waking life as well as just knowing you're dreaming. You're somewhat of an enigma Sageous. :shadewink: (my nice way of saying you're a confounding old geezer! - and I can call you that, being nearly the same age myself!)
But yeah, Ill agree that kids might not have high awareness with their lucidity, and it does seem many of them don't take advantage of the knowledge that it's a dream by trying to change anything or simply walk away from the monsters - most seem to just know it's a dream and sometimes that relaxes their fear and anxiety, but in some cases it seems only to terrify them worse for some reason - as you say, I think they believe a dream is every bit as real as waking existence. I hadn't really put that all together in that way before, thanks for that.
I had just a couple of lucid experiences in my youth - not as a kid really, probably in early high school. I was vaguely aware it was a dream - or at least I kind of knew that I wasn't in normal waking existence and that the normal laws of nature no longer apply, but I didn't seem to realize that I could do things other than go along with the dream plot. It sure was an amazing feeling though! Lucidity but with very low awareness I suppose, but the strongest feeling was a knowledge that I now understand the different rules here, which I thought gave me an advantage over everybody else in the dream (though I thought they were real people alas.. ). This feeling of possessing secret knowledge made me feel really confident and I ended up winning the conflict - I only vaguely remember what it was now, something about driving around in super fast cars that had weird contraptions under the hoods instead of engines, and we understood traffic patterns so well we knew exactly how to weave through little pockets of traffic to the front and then we'd get open highway that we could burn through for miles until we reached the end of the next knot of traffic and do it all again. One of my coolest dreams, just because of that amazing feeling.
All well and good. Because experience tells me that it is a very bad place to go, I don't dare question a mother's confidence in her child's abilities; so I won't offer a response, except to say that I stand by what I said, and what I said is based on more than single anecdotal experience. And, of course, there are exceptions to every rule.Quote:
Well, my seven year old has described to me a lucid dream in which he consciously pushed a button just using his mind. So I would say that's really good control. And I would be reluctant to question his self awareness: mostly because I do not know how self-aware he is, and would rather not guess, but I have not heard anything that would make me question that he has full self awareness. I know I had full self awareness probably at that age, but definitely by the age of nine or so because I remember enough of my self awareness level from back then. Now I did not have lucid dreams back then. I am excited that my son is starting already.
Also, I think you and I may have different definitions of self-awareness, JoannaB.
You know, you try to add something to a conversation...
I really, really do not like to be parsed, Darkmatters. I've got some 1,700 posts on these forums and yeah, some things I say might have a different inflection based on context. If you've read some of those posts, you understand exactly what I meant by "true" lucidity, and you also understand that I have said many times that there are many different levels of lucidity. So, yes, I guess a child's lucidity would be the equivalent of an adult's very low-level lucidity without the ah-ha moment. Sort of like how people can be aware of their surroundings during waking life without an ounce of self-awareness.Quote:
Originally Posted by Darkmatters
I had more, but I have to go right now. Suffice it to say that I've added childhood lucidity to my list of things not to talk about... it ain't worth it. And please knock off the cherry-picking, Dakmatters; you're better than that.
You're taking it entirely too seriously - I meant it more as a gentle shoulder-punch with a smile. But I am sorry if I got on your nerves. Ok then, it seems to just be a matter of using different wording in different contexts.
Anyway, Joanna, I also was surprised at the idea of reaching full self-awareness at age 9! I can remember things clicking together in my mind at least as late as age 12 or 13 and my worldview coming into better focus. Though maybe we have different ideas of what self-awareness is. I'd say everybody believes they're fully self aware - all the time! Even 3 year olds. And it may well develop earlier than I said (late adolescence or early adulthood) - I might be mixing it up with cognitive development, which I know can't become complete until the brain finishes growing and the skull plates fuse somewhere between maybe 19 and 29 or so, with wide variance for different individuals.
Ok, here's a pretty decent paper on stages of self-awareness (Joanna, you'll like it): http://psychology.emory.edu/cognitio...0levels%20.pdf
Fully developed by age 5? Wow - I don't know about that! But I really like the following part, the discussion about how adults are constantly fluctuating between different stages of self-awareness, and the fact that it doesn't develop in an individual so much as in social situations. I may well have developed very late because I spent most of my childhood alone and did not have positive relations with my parents.
And I especially like this part (not directly related to this conversation, but I like it so much I'm putting it here anyway :cheeky:) :
Quote:
As adults, we do indeed manifest all of the levels of self-awareness developing early in life: from our immersion in skilled actions such as competitive sport which entails a great deal the implicit self-awareness of Level 1 (differentiation) and Level 2 (situation). Interestingly, if one rises to the next levels of explicit self-awareness (Level 3 and above) while engaged in skilled actions such as playing tennis or golf, this transition is associated with dramatic changes in performance, typically a deterioration. Tennis and golf players will tell you that if they step into explicit self-con- sciousness, erring into explicitly thinking and reflecting on what they are doing, their game tends to collapse. There is nothing worse for tennis players than self-reflecting on the shape of their backhands. The same applies for people engaging in meditation. People meditating and teachers within the Buddhist tradition for example, will tell you that certain states cannot be attained without emptying oneself from self-reflecting mental activities.
My definition of self awareness includes being aware of one's self, one's personality and traits, one's feelings and thoughts, what makes one different from others, and capacity for introspection including self criticism and assessment.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sageous
When I was nine, I was an avid day dreamer and reader and very introspective. I knew who I was, what made me very different from others. I knew the difference between dream and reality, and that dreams were not real. I also once told my mother around that time that I lived in three worlds: reality, the world of my imagination including day dreams, and the world of other people's imaginations including books and movies. And I told her that of the three, I enjoyed reality the least. Now, doesn't that sound like self awareness? I was a very introverted child who spoke like an adult and had just one or two friends. I was not very happy due to my father's strictness, but I knew that his temper quickly faded, and that his outbursts would make me miserable, but that usually seeking out a good book would make me feel better. Now it is possible that I was an expectional child, but I really don't think so. Or at least I am pretty sure I am not the only one who at nine or ten years old was like that.
As I said, I don't know whether my son is as self aware as I was back then because I can't really get into his head, plus he is two or three years younger than those memories (and at that age every year makes a huge difference). However, I know I can have pretty sophisticated philosophical discussions with him already for example.
Perfection is a nice goal to have, but at the same time an impossible one, not because of difficulty or anything, but because there always, always, always are some ways to improve, even when one don't sees them. Not much good in this case stopping somewhere will do. :dreaming:
Yeah, I suppose what I was thinking of was a little different from self-awareness - more like awareness of a lot of facts about the world without which we still have pretty childish ideas. For instance, I can remember around 10 or 12 having a sudden realization that the majority of the world had already been explored and there were no more really big unexplored areas that hadn't at least been surveyed from orbit or by airplane, so probably no exciting hidden species aside from maybe some insects or very small animals in accessible regions - a thought that crushed my childish imagination and brought my adult conception of reality into much clearer focus - but not self-awareness, is it? Up until that very moment the world was a vast and mysterious place for me. After that moment life lost a good deal of its excitement.
At somewhere around the same age I had a similar revelation that meat is muscle. It happened one night when my mom was serving beef roast and she said something about slicing it against the grain of the muscle fibers, and I was all like "Eeewww! There are still muscles in there?!" - and she quite blandly informed me that muscles ARE meat - what did I think it was? Well of course, I didn't think anything about it at all - I had no competing theories, I just vaguely thought there was something called flesh that is the meat, and that muscles and veins etc all were separate from it (it also disturbed me when I learned there are veins and tendons etc in meat.. ). Both of these revelations really hit me afterwards, when I was exploring out in the woods and pondering what I had been told or thought about. Again came that big shift and a click as my worldview came into much clearer focus, like when you switch from a regular channel to an HD channel - I now had a nearly adult understanding of the goegraphical nature of the earth and the inside of bodies - two of the last great formerly unknown territories. But now that I examine these revelations, neither of them has anything to do with self-awareness at all. though they are the kind of ideas that inform a person's awareness overall and probably vitally important to lucidity. So I do agree with this kind of awareness being important to achieving real lucidity with high awareness - if you still believe the world is vast and shapeless and largely unexplored or that the inside of bodies is dark and mysterious and secretive, then you're not very lucid in waking life.
That bit speaks volumes, I think.Quote:
Originally Posted by Darkmatters
Yes, JoannaB, we do have very different definitions of self-awareness.
For me, self-awareness is nothing more -- or less -- than being aware that you are here, that you have an effect on everything around you, and everything around you has an effect on you. In a sense, self-awareness is less about you than it is the fact that you are not the center of the universe, and that everything you do and say has an effect on your world and others, and the world, and what others say or do to you, has an effect on you.
As Darkmatters said above, I believe that many, many people (especially those who are sure they are self-aware all the time) manage to live out their entire existence without a moment of self-awareness; even the truly self-aware can only maintain the attitude in bursts or with a little work; humans simply don't seem wired for self-awareness. Also, the self-awareness I've defined is critical to successful LD'ing, especially of the higher-level kind, because that sense that you are part of this reality goes along way toward getting you to understand that this is a dream, it is all your creation, and anything you do can effect it.
Your definition is more about self-knowledge, I think. Self-knowledge is also very important, and it is excellent that you and your son seem to have it in good quantity (also a rarity, I think; yes, you were an exceptional child). And this is not semantics, especially in this context.
I am sure that self-knowledge can and does develop in childhood, so I have no problem with that. Finally, self-knowledge isn't much help with lucidity because you'll have it with you in equal measures whether in waking life, in non-lucids, or when lucid.
That's all I got.
It amazes me how one day I'll have an incredible lucid (clear, beautiful, long), and the next day I have to strive to have one and it ends up being fuzzy, short, and with me landing on my face. :upsidedown: (there wasn't a 'landing on my face' emoticon :P )
I can say though that as time and practice has gone by, I've gotten a lot better. More lucids, better quality, and longer time. There are still the occasional lucids that seem to bring me back to the beginning, but I take it one day at a time and treat every experience as a learning one. And like Sageous said, just have fun with it. :)
@Darkmatters: I am quite confident that my son probably still believes that there are vast unexplored parts of our world, and probably does not know that meat are muscles (unless they covered that at school already, I don't think so). However, in old historical times when people believed that the sun orbits the earth, people were self aware, but just lacked scientific knowledge. And I don't think lack of scientific knowledge would necessarily have a negative impact on lucid dreaming. Hey, maybe in those days they dreamed that the earth goes around the sun and figured that was proof they must be dreaming because it contradicted their waking knowledge. :)
@Sageous I confirm that our definitions of self awareness are very different. You are right that kids have a much less sophisticated sense of their impact on the world around them and of the world's impact on them. Some people say that many young people only realize that they are not the center of the universe once they fall in love, and some people never learn this. Hmm, I am not sure though whether I agree that this is essential to true lucidity - I don't think I do. I will need to think about that some more though.
No, the things I brought up are not just scientific knowledge - they powerfully inform an individual's understanding of the world they live in. It's more like I suddenly understood for the first time that the surface of the world (land anyway - the parts where I could conceivably run and play) was pretty fully mapped and charted, and that there was no place I could go that would be like the worlds of my imagination and daydreams. I don't think understanding which goes around which (earth and sun) really affects people's lives in any significant way - it's a pretty abstract concept that has no real direct bearing on a kid's life. Unless maybe he daydreams about finding a spot where he can break through the shell of the heavens like the little guy in my sig pic (or whatever that is he's going through there).
But see, before humanity developed enough science to become aware of the earth's relation to the sun, even adults could engage in excited speculation about what might happen if they found the shell of the sky, or the edge of the earth (those who believed in the flat earth), so that lack of awareness allowed them to exist in a weird dreamlike state very conducive to childlike reveries and daydreams. Now adulthood robs us of that, which I'm not saying is altogether a good thing - in a way adulthood is harsher now than it was then. Same for the scientific understanding of what's inside bodies - as opposed to Medieval ideas about humours and spirits and whatever they thought was in there (except of course for the butchers, who at least knew what it all looked like and felt like, if not what all those slimy globs actually do - though of course everyone knew people weren't the same inside as dirty animals!)*
So yeah, Im saying making these discoveries is a profound life-changing event - to individuals as well as to humanity as a whole. Before you understand them life is kind of like a dream in many ways - you think if you just travel farther in any one direction than you have before that you could actually fall off the world's rim, or that some crazy little creature with the deformed head of a jester might run laughing fiendishly out if you cut yourself and you might need to recapture him and put him back in order to avoid 'the slow creeping death of the soul' or something.
It seems to me that living in that kind of state of surreal dreamlike reverie is not really conducive to lucidity - it's more like living in a non-lucid dream where things are very strange and you just accept it. Once you've made the transition to understanding these things aren't real I think you're a lot closer to a lucid state.
*Except maybe for soldiers who were also butchers or butchers' assistants, who could readily see that the bodies of slain soldiers look the same inside as the pigs and cows they help render in the shop.
I am not sure that is is a matter of children getting lucid; it is more a matter that some people are more natural at LDing, and it shows up in childhood. Perhaps, your child is just really good at a thing, because of past lives, or brain pysiology.
As far as self-awareness in youth. I was a bit of a prodigy, and was showered with adult praise suggesting I was a reincarnated master. I was astounding, I suppose in the appearence of self-awareness. I must say though, that in reflextion, I stayed failrly naive in my self awareness into my mid-twenties. I must agree that even a 3 year old feels they are fully self aware. It is in hind sight that I now know how much I was lacking.
The adults around me talked about me in the same way as posted earlier here about the child. I was supposed to be shockingly self aware and full of profound insight as a pre-teen. However, I can still say, something vital to self awareness was not yet there. I will probably not be able to explain it. For what it is worth, I was able to LD at 16 and was pretty good by 18, yet lacked something as far as true awareness. So, I am rambling and not sure if it relates to 'the perfect dreamer' concept.
Sivason, you're a bit of a mystery - your profile says you live in Idaho, but you apparently grew up among Buddhists?
Well my father was a non-denominational Buddhist, and my mother (they were divorced) was heavily into the new age movement when it hit hard in the early 80's. The last post probably sounds vain. It is not as if anyone high ranking or significant every met me until I was 18. It was just normal people in Buddhist or new age circles complimenting my mom on what they assumed was a reborn master. I hate the term. I will say that as complimentery as it sounds, it was really a bit embarresing. The term 'master' is very obnoxious, and implies some level of superiority that is again obnoxious and contary to self growth. In my opinion.
I try to avoid talking about me,,, so perhaps I could be a bit of a mystery... Let's not talk about me,,,
I was simply making a point that as one of those children who was accussed/ assessed with having astounding self-awareness, I was still grossly lacking in true adult self reflextion and awareness, regardless of what any new-age people wanted to believe. Also, that despite me knowing I was grossly lacking in development, I was able to LD fairly quickly and with great success, so I am not sure if we can make any statements about a childs LDs being less or different froma fully aware adult. But, 16 is pretty much an adult, so maybe it does not bear at all on the subject you guys were discussing.
Alright, I won't ask any more questions then - you can remain a man of mystery. Thanks though, that was a good explanation. And I agree - a child thinking they're already somehow exceptional would tend to either embarrass them or make them narcissistic - either way probably hindering rather than helping development.
'Perfect' is not a concept that you will find embodied anywhere in the world. But I expect that by perfect you meant lucidity at will and effortless control, I believe these are achievable.
I wouldn't call it the perfect Lucid Dreamer but people can definitely achieve the things you describe and they don't have to be Spiritual or even deeply into Meditation or anything like that, it also doesn't have to take decades of practice.
I can Lucid Dream every night I try! (a bold claim I know).
95% of the Lucid's are truly detailed and vivid!
I pretty much always have complete waking consciousness, full control over my actions and a lot of control over the Dream, though sometimes not as much as others (like Sivason says) in the occasional Lucid I can't even fly!
My average Lucid Dream has gone up from around 1-2 minutes in the beginning to around 10-15 minutes now, which in a Lucid is longer than it sounds.
I still have a way to go on this front though, as I'd like to be getting 20 minutes+ on a regular basis.
I only started trying to Lucid Dream on the day I joined this Forum, so coming up to 2 years now.
I had never done any Mediation or anything like that, though have been using simple Meditation breathing techniques for a while now to help get Lucid.
I had also had a handful of Lucid Dreams as a child, but always woke within a minute at most.
I believe achieving nightly Lucid Dreams with great clarity and control boils down to a few things....
Having excellent Dream recall, by this I mean remembering 4+ Vivid, or at least quite Vivid Dreams a night.
A strong determination to achieve.
Finding exactly what techniques work best for you.
Lastly, Luck! By that I mean some degree of Natural ability.
from what I've read, some people just take to Lucid Dreaming like a Duck to Water, where others can be truly dedicated and still struggle.
That's not to say that people without these things can't become regular Lucid Dreamers though, they definitely can!
Just in my opinion what greatly helps one archive Lucidity on a nightly basis!