Can someone tell me...

[TheSilverWolf]

The difference between being lucid and DREAMING you are lucid? I've read other places that it is possible to dream you are lucid during a dream, but aren't REALLY lucid. Is this really possible? If so, how are you supposed to know if you were actually lucid or simply dreaming you were lucid? I've been mulling over this question long enough--I'm ready to get an answer to this very strange mystery ~SilverWolf~

[JoannaB]

Ok, think about what it really means to be lucid: lucidity requires at least a basic kind of awareness that you really are dreaming, either from the start of the dream (WILD) or after a revelation of becoming aware of dream state (DILD). Now, it is possible to have a low awareness lucid dream, but at least some sense of awareness is required. In a non lucid dream about lucid dreaming, lucid dreaming would just be the subject matter of the dream but there would be no sense of awareness. You would not have a sense of self, and while the subject matter would be "this is a dream" but you would accept it just like you accept the purple elephants and zombies and whatever else is in your dream. There would be no questioning. If the dream changed from a different theme to the lucid dreaming as theme in non lucid dream, you would not have the sense that a light bulb went on, you would not realize that your awareness changed in any way. It would be like first you dream of being at work, then you dream about being lucid in a dream, and then you become a flying giraffe in a polka dot sweater, and there would be no qualitative difference in your perception. What I once read is that a non lucid dream about lucid dreaming may have surprisingly more amazing content than an early lucid dream because the non lucid about lucid dreaming would be a wish fulfillment dream based on your fantasy of what a lucid is like, and you would not have the limitation of early lucid where the excitement might wake you up prematurely. But you would not really have control. You would dream about having control.

[TheSilverWolf]

Thanks for that explanation. So now I know I can truly classify what I thought were lucid dreams as that--lucid. Good to know, because after reading it's possible to dream you were lucid, I had been wondering about my "lucid" dreams. ~SilverWolf~