My nonexistence in dreams

[Oski]

Hello, I don´t know if I am posting this thread in the correct sub-forum, but it is related to achieving lucidity through certain techniques, so I quess it is. After 3 months of practicing techniques for attaining lucidity, I had about 5 dreams in which I became aware of the fact that I am dreaming, yet they lasted for about 5 seconds each. But that is not what I want to talk about right now. What I want to talk about are my normal dreams. Now that I am able to recall 2-5 dreams every night, I notice that huge majority of my dreams have one similar attribute. When I found out what it is, I was quite shocked. It is that I do not exist as a person in those dreams. In some cases I just don´t seem to have a physical body, and I exist only as an idea, or as some invisible ghost talking to someone, or as narrator of the story. In some other cases, I completely disappear, the whole dream is about someone else, somewhere, doing something, and I am only a spectator, although I sometimes control some of the characters, like if I was a wandering ghost able to possess a body of my liking. It was not always like this. Dreams without me started occuring in the last month. And I know that you have already understood why am I making an issue out of this; without "being" in my dream, how can I possibly comprehend that it is a dream? I can´t do RC, the dreamworld seems copletely normal, because why it shouldn´t be? I am not the one in it, so who am I to judge. I just can´t do anything that i wanted to do (like recognizing that it is a dream), because it´s not the "whole me". And yes, I double checked, even triple checked the situation. It´s not like aI have a bad dream recall so I don´t even remember existing. It is a problem that needs solving, I think. It´s not that I hate these dreams. They can be quite entertaining without me participating in the action. But I want to have lucid dreams, I want to be able to do what I wish, and mainly, I want to be the one that is living the dream. Because it is my head, and i don´t know what bussiness might anyone else have in it. So I am asking you for help; what should I do to change this? And is this a normal condition?

[Redrivertears]

Hey there, I have plenty of dreams in which 'I'm not in the dream either'. For me, they're usually in the early onset of sleep (likely caused by NREM dreaming). I think its quite normal. Likely, the reason why you're only noticing this now is because your dream recall got better. These dreams usually tend to be more vague and subsequently harder to remember (especially if they are NREM dreams!). Just my 2 cents, -Redrivertears-

[Oski]

Maybe I should try increasing my self-awareness to somehow minimize the number of these dreams?

[Sageous]

^^ Increasing self-awareness is always a good idea, Oski, and doing so might just solve your problem. Here's something to consider: during my "full-on" LD's, when I have complete waking-life-self awareness and access to memory, I almost never have a dream body. "I" am essentially a focus of presence in a dream, and that I am also fully aware that everything in my dreamworld is also "me." It took many years of LD'ing for me to recognize, consciously and unconsciously, that a dream body is not necessary, and that the entire dream is now my dream body. So maybe you're actually well ahead of the game here! But that was not my point; this is: I have found in these dream-body-free dreams that I could have a dream body whenever I needed it. For instance, if I needed to touch something, hands would appear (which is kind of spooky, because that is all that appeared), or if I wanted to take a walk and have a personal chat with a DC, a dream-body me would appear to accommodate the DC in conversation. So, though my default presence in full-on LD's is no body, one will appear when I need one. You might therefore be able to do RC's or participate "bodily" in your LD's, Oski, if you've got enough self-awareness to make the decision to do so. Also, since I believe that RC's pretty much never make you lucid (because you must already be slightly lucid to perform one properly), not being able to do one in a NLD isn't really a problem; you might try not to believe it is. And, once you are lucid, with a little practice you should be able to produce hands with which you can do RC's. So yes, work on that self-awareness during the day so that it's more present in your dreams, and your problem might be solved...well, it will be solved for LD's, but not for NLD's: You might need to just live with this bodiless situation in your NLD's, and assume that it is just a temporary blip in how your unconscious constructs dreams. You could perhaps try incubating dreams that include a dream body by setting an intention like "I have a body in my dreamworld," but I'm not sure that would work; or perhaps spend extra time thinking about having a dream body during the day, in the hopes of building up expectations that oblige your unconscious to provide a dream body. However, that dream-bodiless state in NLD's should not have an effect on your ability to transition to LD's; it might even help, given the odd nature of existing without a body. tl;dr: I can't help much with your missing dream body in NLD's, but a lack of a dream body during them should not be an impediment to lucidity; lucidity is driven by self-awareness, and not by the presence or activity of your dream body. So work on building up enough self-awareness (and general readiness to LD) to spark LD's and it won't matter if you have a dream body or not.

[ATA]

I moustly experinced this in NREM dreams or WILD attempts. In some types of WiLD techniqes dream body do not apear automaticly and must be created. In mental travel to my dream world i useualy dont have body if i doun t create or select one. Cause be probably some wrong sugestion or belief . Try to remeber if you give some sugection in relaxation, meditation , trance something im not fealing my body , i want to be observer .. If this kind of sugestions dount have time limit or some switch they can couse lots of problems even after years .

[Oski]

Thank you for your responses, I have found in these dream-body-free dreams that I could have a dream body whenever I needed it. For instance, if I needed to touch something, hands would appear (which is kind of spooky, because that is all that appeared), or if I wanted to take a walk and have a personal chat with a DC, a dream-body me would appear to accommodate the DC in conversation. So, though my default presence in full-on LD's is no body, one will appear when I need one. Whenever I needed to talk to someone in NLD, my voice would be heard, and I could communicate with them. Maybe that is a good sign.. Actually whenever I had a LD (except for the latest one) I could firstly see myself from the 3rd person perspective. Then it transition to first person, and than it ended... one way or another. But, that is a completely different story. I have just recently found out that meditating before sleep extremely increases vividness of my NLD. I am going to continue doing that, and see if I can get any results.