Thread: Dreams Within Dreams, What's Your Experience?

Made perfect sense. Though I'd have to say I'd be lying if I said I didn't have any comments.

there is, in the end, only one dream.

As I stated in my previous post, You are entirely correct here. It IS only a single dream. However, this dream is simply encasing another. It really is the initial dream, if your looking at it in such a way, since it is holding the second within in it. I'd also have to say that it is partly my mistake on the wording, because it could have been easily mistaken the very way you did. But, In my defence, It is a literal dream within a dream. Considering that like I have previously said, Its a dream being hosted within a dream.

isn't this creation of another dream during your dream more of an intellectual pursuit? Isn't it something you are doing on purpose, rather than something that happens to you which must be dealt with?

No, It is not. I did not by any means make a conscious effort to induce such a thing. The first time it had happened, I was lying down in a bed. I soon drifted off to sleep where I found myself in a 'new' dream. In this dream, I had gained lucidity. I realised I was dreaming, and thought that the body I had just gone to sleep in, was my actual body in real life. It was only coming out of the second dream after my world faded away, I found myself non-lucid, and waking up in my initial dream, beginning my day in a routine fashion, as per usual.

It was then recollecting what had happened once I had awoken into reality, that it struck me. I wasn't dreaming that initial dream any more, I had fallen asleep in it, due to the normality of it. This normality was so great that a subconscious factor must have triggered that upon sleep, one must dream. Disregarding the fact that I was already in a dream. So, The second dream came through NLDing, and the lucidity was only triggered through the entrance of the second dream.

If you lose that initial dream, you will still be in the second dream, without any need of the initial dream, and possibly any memory of it.

Possible, yeah. The way dreaming is, it would seem likely that if your initial dream were to be destroyed, the second would remain.. I mean, yeah, you would probably carry out your second dream as if it was the initial, forgetting about the actual initial dream. However, this may really come down to a psychological thing. If one were to subconsciously accept that they are only able to dream the second dream through the first, then they would most certainly have to keep that dream in existence to dream the second through it. (i.e what happened when I came out of the second dream, I did not wake up from it to find myself in reality, rather I awoke to find myself in my initial dream. This dream then had to be ended for me to wake up into reality.) So, in terms of what was just said, it would seem that If the first dream were to be lost, then that would mean destruction of the second, and you'd be back to a baseline singular dream. Where you'd then awake from, to find yourself in reality.

Also a quick throw up of words by a fatigued mind, so notify if it's at all contradictory.

^^ Okay, I believe we are in effective agreement here, and have a feeling we always were!

Originally Posted by Validus

As I stated in my previous post, You are entirely correct here. It IS only a single dream. However, this dream is simply encasing another. It really is the initial dream, if your looking at it in such a way, since it is holding the second within in it. I'd also have to say that it is partly my mistake on the wording, because it could have been easily mistaken the very way you did. But, In my defence, It is a literal dream within a dream. Considering that like I have previously said, Its a dream being hosted within a dream.

Yes, now I get this. I would not draw the same diagrams as you do in describing all this, but your logic is sound, now that I've cleared my head of thinking you were talking about DC's creating separate dreams.

No, It is not. I did not by any means make a conscious effort to induce such a thing. The first time it had happened, I was lying down in a bed. I soon drifted off to sleep where I found myself in a 'new' dream. In this dream, I had gained lucidity. I realized I was dreaming, and thought that the body I had just gone to sleep in, was my actual body in real life. It was only coming out of the second dream after my world faded away, I found myself non-lucid, and waking up in my initial dream, beginning my day in a routine fashion, as per usual.

Understood; indeed, I think I may have said somewhere above that NLD's could certainly have the feeling of being a dream-within-a-dream, and in a NLD feeling equals reality. I managed to sidestep or misinterpret the part where you used that feeling (or rather a shift in "reality") to incite lucidity; if I had spotted it, we could have saved ourselves a lot of time!

It was then recollecting what had happened once I had awoken into reality, that it struck me. I wasn't dreaming that initial dream any more, I had fallen asleep in it, due to the normality of it. This normality was so great that a subconscious factor must have triggered that upon sleep, one must dream. Disregarding the fact that I was already in a dream. So, The second dream came through NLDing, and the lucidity was only triggered through the entrance of the second dream.

Though I still don't agree with this -- you can only feel like you are falling asleep during a dream/FA, you cannot actually do so, since you are already asleep -- but I think I get what you're saying now.

Possible, yeah. The way dreaming is, it would seem likely that if your initial dream were to be destroyed, the second would remain.. I mean, yeah, you would probably carry out your second dream as if it was the initial, forgetting about the actual initial dream. However, this may really come down to a psychological thing. If one were to subconsciously accept that they are only able to dream the second dream through the first, then they would most certainly have to keep that dream in existence to dream the second through it. (i.e what happened when I came out of the second dream, I did not wake up from it to find myself in reality, rather I awoke to find myself in my initial dream. This dream then had to be ended for me to wake up into reality.) So, in terms of what was just said, it would seem that If the first dream were to be lost, then that would mean destruction of the second, and you'd be back to a baseline singular dream. Where you'd then awake from, to find yourself in reality.

Agreed. But keep in mind that you are still the one creating these links and levels, be it consciously through the decisions and interpretations you make during the dream (LD or NLD), or unconsciously through expectation. Since this is a "psychological thing," you could just as easily or likely choose to let the original dream go completely, enjoy that second dream -- maybe even a third -- and finish up by waking up in reality, that first FA a distant, unimportant memory.

In other words, whether aware of it or not, you are choosing the terms for the natrue and survival of the second dream. Since those terms are not hard-wired requirements, then, meaningful as they may seem at the time, they could just as easily be other terms (i.e., the first dream does not support the second).

So I guess we're done here, but I must add that I probably would have put up that post even if I had fully understood your position, Validus. Even if I knew you had the noblest Inception-free intentions in your OP, I would have felt an urge to put up a cautionary post saying that DC's don't dream, so you cannot drop into deeper "levels" of dreams by having your DC body fall asleep during a dream. [And yes, before we start another loop, I do know that this feeling of "deeper levels" can happen non-lucidly, and can be created lucidly! ]