Fake Lucidity... Ever Happen to You?

[Jellyd0nut]

I figured I'd open a new topic... the old ones were kinda necro. So last night I had this dream (you can check it in my DJ: "Pseudo-Lucid Random Mess"). It was completely normal and non-lucid for the first part. However, the dream transitioned and as soon as the setting changed, I "knew" I was lucid. I immediately took it upon myself to try one of the TOTM suggestions I'd seen, which was to pee on a DC. Sadly, this didn't work , and I woke up. I went back and tried again. And again. Eventually, I REALLY woke up. This wake-up felt VERY different than what had happened in the dream. In fact, I realized that those "wake-ups" weren't real. Now, I realize that I don't think I was actually lucid in that dream. I sure didn't feel conscious, and I don't think I really chose my actions or what happened or anything. In essence (TL;DR), I think my brain gave me a fake lucidity experience. I know I really wanted to try to pee on a DC before that, and I know that would be the first thing I would try in a lucid, but I think I just got ripped off by my brain. THANKS, SCUMBAG BRAIN!

[dolphin]

I think you're second guessing yourself. It sounds like you knew you were in a dream, and were therefore lucid. A "fake" lucid experience would be one where you acted like you knew you were dreaming but really didn't.

[Jellyd0nut]

I think you're second guessing yourself. It sounds like you knew you were in a dream, and were therefore lucid. A "fake" lucid experience would be one where you acted like you knew you were dreaming but really didn't. I think the latter is what really happened. It's been several years since my last lucid (I don't really try for them too often). But has this sort of thing happened to other people?

[CoffinCakes]

I highly doubt that, to be honest. There are different levels of lucidity and awareness, and just because this one was much stronger doesn't mean that the other ones weren't real. If you knew you were dreaming (and there's really no such thing as "you dreamed that you knew you were dreaming"--I mean come on, that doesn't even make sense unless you trick yourself into believing it does), you were lucid. Period.

[Sageous]

...(and there's really no such thing as "you dreamed that you knew you were dreaming"--I mean come on, that doesn't even make sense unless you trick yourself into believing it does), you were lucid. Period. That may not be entirely true. I've found over the years that it is not only possible to dream we are lucid, but it might even be a fairly common occurance. When we spend so much time thinking about LD'ing, imagining how great it will be to do, practicing our techniques and daytime work, basically making LD'ing both a solid part of our lives and a real subject of our desires, our unconscious minds are going to take notice. Come dreamtime, I see it as not unusual at all that our minds will assemble dreams based on our desires and so much accumulated day residue, producing non-lucid dreams about being lucid; essentially having a false lucid dream (FLD). I used to have FLD's often myself, and have heard many reports from others who have had them. Upon waking, it isn't too difficult to realize you were dreaming about being lucid: the memory of a FLD has a much different "feel" to it than an actual LD, when you look back at how you behaved during the FLD, how your dreamworld was a bit more "real" than it is in a LD (I'm not talking about vividness here, or that feeling that some folks have of "realer than real" during a LD, but rather the sense that the dream world is an actual place, which is a non-lucid sense); in fact, the memory itself is different, because LD's are recorded as waking-life consciousness moments, while non-lucids are usually barely recorded at all (there are of course exceptions to both sides of that, but that seems the norm). There isn't much to be done about FLD's, since things like RC's will be just as false/dreamed about. Sometimes, especially if you practice MILD, you might be able to realize you are dreaming and "remember to remember." I've found the best way to deal with them is say "Oh crap, that wasn't a LD," as I am waking from it, and use that knowledge to fuel a DEILD that takes me back to the same dream, only properly lucid this time. I don't have time now, but I do go on much more about this stuff in an old thread of mine called A Treatise on Proof... you might want to check it out, if only to see how unpopular my opinions and experiences are in this subject (feel free to necro it, BTW!)....

[CoffinCakes]

Ah, but there's a difference between dreaming about lucid dreaming and dreaming that you knew you were dreaming (but you really didn't know you were dreaming), isn't there? Of course we frequently have dreams about lucidity; I had one just last night. I've even heard from some that this is a sign that you are about to have a LD (I'm not sure if that's true or not, but it at least makes sense) in the future. What OP and I think you are as well are trying to say is that it wasn't a lucid dream because the awareness wasn't top-notch, basically (?). This is where things get tricky, because it really just depends on an individual's connotations about what lucid dreaming is. To me, lucid dreaming is any dream in which you realize you are dreaming--and that's it. Sure, certain levels of lucidity can be distinguished (in this case, Jellyd0nut would have had partial lucid dreams in the past), but that doesn't necessarily mean that one is lucid and the other isn't. If I have a lucid nightmare, rather than a dream, then I still knew I was dreaming and therefore it was still lucid. If I have a dream that's fairly vague and blurry, and yet I can control everything and know that I am dreaming, then you can either call that lucid dreaming or partial lucid dreaming--but I'm still lucid dreaming either way. So no, to me, it doesn't make sense to say I dreamed that I knew I was dreaming, but I really didn't. I could say that about any lucid dream ever, no matter how eye-popping it was, but that doesn't make it seem any more or less likely.

[Sageous]

^^ All good points, CoffinCakes, though I would refine your baseline LD definition of LD'ing being "any dream in which you realize you are dreaming" to something like "any dream in which you know you are dreaming." The difference might seem subtle, yet I think it is significant, mostly because it separates things like dreaming you are lucid from actually being aware that you are in a dream. I'm not arguing the point, though, because I've been there before on these forums, and I have no interest in going there again... However, another part of your post did raise my eyebrows: So no, to me, it doesn't make sense to say I dreamed that I knew I was dreaming, but I really didn't. I could say that about any lucid dream ever, no matter how eye-popping it was, but that doesn't make it seem any more or less likely. Yes, you can indeed say that about any LD ever, can't you? Funny that nobody ever talks about this on the forums: Dreaming, which certainly includes lucid dreaming, is the one and only thing we humans do that is defined exclusively by memory. ...and memory is a tool that any trial lawyer will tell you is a remarkably fallible and malleable tool; especially when combined with our desire to have LD's or interesting or meaningful dreams. Unlike anything else we do in life, there is no existent external vehicle for recording our dreams as they happen. We cannot monitor them with a video recorder, write them down as they are happening, tell someone about them, snap a photo of our dreamscapes or favorite DC's, or any of the other things we normally and easily do to store our waking-life moments in places far more reliable than memory. Memory is all we have. Yes, LaBerge et al certainly proved that LD's exist, but he did so with experiments that involved simple physical signals (like eye movement) and did nothing to record what the subjects saw as they moved their eyes. And yes, EEG's and certainly can indicate when dreams are happening, and fMRI's can apparently hint that our waking-life consciousness is present in dreams... but still no actual dreams. Finally, I did see some pictures a scientist took of a subject's dreams, but those pictures were decidedly unrelated to the dream the subject reported. So: In a sense, dreams exist only in our past, and our only reference to them is memory. With that in mind, I think it is important to learn to work with your memory to be sure that what you just had was actually a LD, and that you didn't just dream that you were lucid. This is not as hard as it sounds, and in the end will allow you to both better remember your dreams, and better prepare yourself for actually being lucid in your dreams, rather than getting caught in a trap of consistently dreaming you are lucid without ever reaching the point where you truly know you are dreaming during the dream. I personally have been practicing this for years, and have learned to recognize upon waking that what I just had was not a true LD, and then doing a DEILD to make it so; all it takes is a willingness to believe that maybe I was just dreaming about being lucid, and then avoid adding stuff to the memory to retroactively "make" that dream a lucid. Finally, being able to differentiate between FLD's and the real thing only improves the LD'ing experience, because it helps keep FLD's from becoming the norm and trapping you in a series of recurring NLD's that just seem lucid... and once you can clear that trap easily, the fun and growth really begins! Your "official" LD count may decrease a bit as you learn to dismiss FLD's, but I believe that the content of that count will become much richer and decidedly more memorable. Oh, and yes, the OP is an excellent example of a person who is using their memory well and with honesty, by recognizing immediately after them that those first "lucids" were just dreams in order to finally "wake up" for real.

[Djaxup]

...and have learned to recognize upon waking that what I just had was not a true LD, and then doing a DEILD to make it so... For me waking up from a LD feels very different to waking from a FLD. Waking from a LD I witness the waking up process completely, feel sleep atonia fading from my body etc. If I wake up from a FLD it is just like waking from a NLD. It is a bit harder with DILDs where I lose lucidity along the way. So the dream starts out as a LD, then I gain lucidity, take control etc, but later get involved in some dream plot and lose consciousness again. Most of those I would call FLD without hesitation, but I've had some DILDs like that that were vivid and I was in control and I also was able to recall waking life bits. Those are usually quite early in the night, around 03:30 (i go to bed at about 00:00). If I can recall my name, age, occupation and the events of the day/evening before, I am quite certain that I am having a full fledged LD. That and the waking up part are my main indicators right now. But lots of dreams that I thought were LDs I now see as FLD.

[Milly]

For me waking up from a LD feels very different to waking from a FLD. (...) That's the same thing for me. I've never tried to find out what exactly was different, but upon waking up I could always tell something was off. I had a lot of FLD before achieving a LD, but once I had done both it was easy to tell which was which. I don't mind FLD though, I find them easier to remember that ND!