Reading text and 'sublucidity'?

[Artemidorus]

The night before last, I dreamed that I was reading a notice written up on a door, and I thought 'How interesting - I can read every word without difficulty' although I then realised that the words in fact taken together made no coherent sense. (I can't remember any of them, unfortunately; I lazily went back to sleep after waking from this dream.) The odd thing is that for my thought to make sense, I should have been aware that I was dreaming (because if in a 'normal' dream you think you are awake, you should not be surprised that you can read), and yet I had no such explicit awareness. It was totally unlike my usual lucid dreams, which begin with a sudden realisation 'this is a dream'. So what is going on here? Is this a sort of low-level, sub-lucidity phenomenon? Any views?

[gab]

It's not so unusual to have some awareness in a non-lucid dream. It just didn't click, you didn't become lucid. I'm not sure if you are RCing in waking life, but what helps us get lucid is not just the thought about something strange "how interesting, I can read", but the thought that we could be dreaming at that moment and the mantra that follows. Something like "next time I'm dreaming, I realize I'm dreaming".

[Artemidorus]

Thank you, you must be right. I've found RCs are some use, in that they get into my dreams, lucid and non-lucid, although sometimes they take up the whole dream, which is boring and obviously not what I'm aiming for; but 'mantras' have never yet worked for me, I don't know why. Taking time thinking about lucid dreaming is about the most productive thing I've found in waking life, though it does seem to result in various forms of 'sublucidity' (e.g. dreaming about having had a lucid dream, etc) as well as the real McCoy. But the WBTB technique is the one that seems most reliably to result in whatever mental state it is that produces lucid dreams, although as an insomniac I am not going to use WBTB deliberately. It happens enough without my wishing it!

[gab]

RC's by themselves don't help. Because then we will RC in our dream, and that's about it. It will be no different than dreaming about any other activity like showering or working. But the emotion that we associate with RC - that is what get's us luicid. So I do see RCs as very important, because they are a vehicle for our emotions, something to attach our feelings to. If done right, RC+Awareness+mantra, they are a very potent combo. http://www.dreamviews.com/dild/13212...ods-dilds.html http://www.dreamviews.com/induction-...hecks-rcs.html