Great thinkers, dear dreamers, how can we be sure lucidity is real?

"The concept of lucid dreaming remains controversial, and alternative explanations have been given for the phenomenon. It may be that lucid dreamers are not actually sleeping but may be in a daydream-like state of semi-wakefulness. Or perhaps they are just dreaming but have a memory of the dream and believe that they were conscious and directing the dream but were not. It could be a “sleep state dissociation,” in which the person is both awake and asleep in the dream state at the same time. It is even possible that people are being fraudulent and not reporting true experiences. Research is complicated by the similarity between the EEG pattern of REM sleep and wakefulness. A distinguishing feature of REM sleep is that paralysis occurs during it. This paralysis does not typically occur in wakefulness and is the reason that the eye-movement technique was needed by LaBerge’s research participants."

What do you make of this?
I myself have been skeptical of whether my dreams are lucid or not.

Well, I think as long as I feel in control, it's probably going to be awesome.

Your dreams may or may not be semi-lucid / lucid, but try a WILD with a WBTB which can clear so much stuff away for you. You will feel in control more, and be most lucid in your dreams. Try it!

Because I asked myself this question while I was in a dream. :P

There is a lucid dream in a lucid dreamers journey that I call "The Lucid Dream". It is the dream that one actually becomes self aware in the dream. Not a foggy, hazy "I am dreaming, quick rub hands together, run! AHHHH!!!!", but a stop and realize that everything around you is a dream and think about that fact. It is often the most intense and blows people's mind when they had it.

I grew up with vivid and aware dreams, so it wasn't too much of a shock to me, because I often found myself making decisions in my dreams, just without knowing that it was a dream. I would often find myself in an impossible situation and be standing somewhere frustrated trying to figure out how to get out of using normal logic. I even concluded a few times that it was a dream.

I definitely know that some of my dreams are lucid and that I am, in fact, asleep and dreaming. I know this because the very reason that I learned to recognize when I was asleep was because of nightmares, and I learned to wake myself up from them. So if I wasn't asleep, how could I wake myself up?? The moment of lucidity is what I think is in question here, but it doesn't make much sense to me. If we become lucid in a dream, does that change our sleep state? I don't think so. but perhaps it does. It is definitely an interesting idea to think about.

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Originally Posted by kartune

"in which the person is both awake and asleep in the dream state at the same time.."

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A lucid dream, no?

Once you are there in the moment and you realise its a dream your'll know lucid dreams are real. Maybe i just dream of being concious, but then how do we know that any of our memorys actually happened. We dont. A person who is mentally ill has memorys of things that didnt happen in some cases. I guess all you have is your memory of the experience and what you think happend. Maybe im crazy or maybe i become concious in some of my dreams. I think its the latter and if not i quite like my form of insanity :P Unless one day i think im dreaming when im actually in real life and do a heap of crazy shit.... but thats another story XD

Even if it turns out that lucid dreaming is not what we thought it was, would that make a difference?
I have experienced it for myself, they are very real for me at the moment, and the memory is just as real as a waking life memory. And there was this study in which they showed that the lucid dreamers were asleep, and when they became lucid, a part of the brain 'turned on'. This also supports the idea that lucid dreaming is real, and not a memory about being lucid, while not actually being lucid at the moment.

Lucid Dreaming: A State of Consciousness with Features of Both Waking and Non-Lucid Dreaming

I was lucky to be accepted into LD studies at the sleep lab and was able to LD in the sleep lab several times.
I now not only have proof of LD as a phenomenon but also proof that my brain is capable of doing it :)
The most valuable experience for me was to match my subjective awarenes of the sleep experiences with objective EEG/EOG data.
To just experience successful WILD is one thing, but after that seeing how one starts sleeping and dreaming on the EEG recording, how and with what timing the transition from wake to sleep stage 1, 2 and finally to REM occurs helped me a lot to deepen my understanding of WILD.
Yes, there is a huge measurable difference between "wake" and "REM" and "lucid REM". My muscle tonus went up a little bit while getting lucid and spiked lots when really awakening.

What's funny is that the same logic can be used to reality.

How do you know you are awake right now or how do you even know that you are aware of being awake right now? Perhaps you are totally in your head thinking and thinking and your awareness is elsewhere. Have you ever experienced driving to work, thinking so much so that when you then stepped out of your car you think to yourself "Wow how did I get here?".

After 20 min of meditation and when your mind is free from the thoughts that blocked you from truly be aware of the moment right now, you realize that you were not even present.

And you "wake up" totally aware, just like a lucid dream.

There are some dreams where you say to yourself that you were aware, only to wake up to realize that you really weren't, and there are some days in your life where you say that you aren't in your head with your thoughts, only to wake up (after meditation) to realize that you really weren't.

However, there are some dreams and waking moments in the waking reality where you are fully present and aware and you are in the moment, in the now.

Wake up! :sleeping:

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Originally Posted by kartune

Or perhaps they are just dreaming but have a memory of the dream and believe that they were conscious and directing the dream but were not. It could be a “sleep state dissociation,” in which the person is both awake and asleep in the dream state at the same time. It is even possible that people are being fraudulent and not reporting true experiences. "

What do you make of this?
I myself have been skeptical of whether my dreams are lucid or not.

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I sense the article was written by someone who hasn't experienced a lucid dream! The feeling of becoming lucid is not something you mistake for a normal dream. Yes we lose our lucidity at times, but the "aha" moment of lucidity is unique to that of a lucid dream.

Not to mention I have fought the desire to do something bad in a dream, hence using my waking thought process. For example, in the waking life you may love cake but know it is not healthy so you avoid it. In a non-lucid dream one would usually act on impulse and subconscious desire, but during a lucid dream one can control their actions even if desire is pulling me towards a certain action. Hopefully this makes sense!

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Originally Posted by kartune

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What do you make of this?
I myself have been skeptical of whether my dreams are lucid or not.

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Your question seems to be strangely muddled.
The title asks if lucidity is "real", and yet you finish asking if your dreams are lucid or not.
Of course dreams, lucid or otherwise, are not real in the sense that they are virtual, just as an apple in waking life is real, but an apple in a dream is not a real object.
As to whether the experience of a lucid dream is real or imagined, my experience of lucid dreams is very definitely real, and completely unlike a normal dream. The only way I could describe the experience is that it is so like real life that it is almost the opposite of a normal dream.
As to your dreams, if you had a lucid dream like I have just described, you would know the difference between that and an ordinary dream.

I don't find it to hard to understand lucid dreams as the conscious mind becoming aware enough of the unconscious real world simulation that we use to make sense of our world. If you think about the real visual stimulus that the eyes see, it requires this real world model to fill in the gaps and create the continuous scene we perceive. In dreams, that simulation system is active without the real world direction of the visual cortex, so it can run free. In lucid dreams we become aware of that simulation that is running in the dream and so it feels like real life because it essentially is the same internalised model that is used to make our perception of real life.

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Originally Posted by kartune

What do you make of this?
I myself have been skeptical of whether my dreams are lucid or not.

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Then you may be experiencing what some call a False Lucid. When you have an actual lucid dream (some use terminology such as "high level lucid dream"), there will be no doubt and you will often feel upbeat the entire day and will be reliving the LD in your head many times! Lower levels of awareness can leave you doubting, especially if you loose lucidity and continue the dream as a normal non-lucid dream or if you have one or more false awakenings that you don't catch after the lucid period.

For those like kartune who think that they may have been lucid but have any doubt about what is lucid and what is not, you may want to read the OP from Sageous here: http://www.dreamviews.com/general-lu...ise-proof.html

Happy dreaming! :)

I think that all that really matters is how you experience lucid dreams.
If you feel that you are aware of the dreamstate and can decide to try out things that you have always wanted to experience, and if it has a powerful effect on how you feel when you wake up, then that's all that really matters.

As MasterMind said, the same thoughts can be applied to reality. We only THINK we're lucid in reality. We're convinced of it, we have memories of thinking clearly in reality. The same thing is true for a lucid dreamer's lucid dreams. They are convinced they were thinking clearly. So what's the difference? As long as it FEELS like we can think clearly, does it matter at all if that's actually true or a false memory? No, it doesn't, just like we don't trouble ourselves with whether we are actually lucid in waking life.

Besides, it's quite easy to prove to yourself that you are lucid. I doubt the unconscious mind can do mental arithmetic very well - something that is possible when you're lucid, and a technique I use to strengthen my lucidity. The first couple of times I did it I made extra effort to record what calculations I did and the results of those calculations in my memory. Upon waking up, what do you know? I was correct.
Another good way of proving lucidity to yourself while you're dreaming is remembering your waking life. In my experience this has a tendency to destabilize the dream quite significantly, but it's possible. You remember everything up until you go to bed that night. This feels really conclusive as evidence that right now, you are dreaming, and it gives you a kind of continuity from your waking awareness. It's a really powerful feeling in my experience.

Anyone with a true lucid dream experience should find the question somewhat humorous. We know because we experience. Was our experience "real"? Well, define "real". As others said, what makes reality any more "real"? Who cares what you call it or how you categorize it? The end result is the same.

My present answer and feeling is this - Make up your own mind about your own experiences...there is no need to convince anyone else what you feel are truths/real or not (or be convinced by them). If it feels right good for you. If you are having some doubts..you need to do some more exploring and figure out what makes the most sense for you.

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Originally Posted by GetDreaming

I sense the article was written by someone who hasn't experienced a lucid dream!

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This!

To paraphrase the oracle from the Matrix: ""Being [lucid in a dream] is like being in love. [You can't prove] you're in love, you just know it. Through and through. Balls to bones."

It is REALLY lucid dreaming. At least in my case. Cause I can wake up at will.
Actually it is the way that I experienced lucidity first time in my life. I was 9-10 years. The dream was about my schoolmates. We are talking and in one moment I'm like "OK, guys, I have to wake up, bb" And waked up )

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Originally Posted by Runeword

My present answer and feeling is this - Make up your own mind about your own experiences...there is no need to convince anyone else what you feel are truths/real or not (or be convinced by them). If it feels right good for you. If you are having some doubts..you need to do some more exploring and figure out what makes the most sense for you.

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Truth is not relative.
Most people think that if it was more widely accepted as scientifically proven (which it is scientifically proven, just not widely accepted) then we would have more people to enjoy this with, more experiences to learn from, and more technology centered on it. This is a lonely road at times, but that doesn't mean you have to walk alone. I like the idea of being able to talk to all of my friends about experiences like this and be able to enjoy some awesome experiments with people near me (not that I don't love my friends on here), so I think that convincing others of what you are doing is really a part of the journey and part of believing something. If what you believe is good, wouldn't you want others to share in it? It is good to know what you believe and why you believe it no matter what others will say, but that doesn't mean you should leave others in the dark.