Thread: Dreaming Of Having A Lucid Dream

I have had this several times in the past few months. I don't actually lucidly dream, but I dream about having a lucid dream. I dream of a story where I believe I am dreaming and have dream control, but I'm not actually having a lucid dream - I'm not genuinely aware that I am dreaming, nothing is vivid and my conscious mind isn't in the dream - I am simply dreaming of a story/fantasy where my shallower dream self thinks I am dreaming and has certain dream control. They're still at least partially a good sign for me, since it proves to me that I'm thinking and practicing about lucid dreaming so that the idea of thinking the thought of "am I dreaming?" and remembering dream goals has partially carried over to my dreams (in these dream stories I have of dreaming I'm in a lucid dream the first thing my dream self tries to do is try some of the dream goals I've actually set in real life to carry out in actual lucid dreams), but they are still not actual lucid dreams.

In these dreams where I dream about lucid dreaming, my dream self doesn't usually do actual reality checks - I remember my dream self suddenly thinking internally "I am dreaming" (I actually hear the thought words), with no explicit trigger; the trigger that causes my dream self to think "I'm dreaming" in these dreams about lucid dreams is either so obscure I can never remember it upon awakening in spite of practicing keeping my dream recall up or the thought literally comes out of nowhere.

I have heard other people also have this issue. Anyone have tips for how they tried to solve this issue (like perhaps tried to make sure that they reality checked more mindfully/properly in real life so they did so in their dreams so their awareness rose to actual lucidity, or something)?

I have a feeling I might not be doing my reality checks mindfully enough, so the simple idea of trying to have a lucid dream is carrying over to my dreams and I have dreams about lucid dreaming and my dream self believes the environment is a dream based on a reminding thought alone - so I don't do a reality check and if my dream self does reality check it doesn't bring proper awareness, and I just have a normal dream ABOUT lucid dreaming without truly realising or becoming properly aware of the dream.

1. If it really is not a lucid, but only dream about lucid, it indeed is a good sign. Means that your thoughts about lucids are getting into your dreams.

2. Knowing that you are dreaming while in a dream IS a lucid dream. It can be as foggy as the worst non-lucid, have 0 control, and it still can be a lucid.

3. People often think they don't need to do RCs, because sometimes they get lucid "out of the blue", without doing an RC in a dream.

Well it's not out of the blue. Although ofc it could be an incidental lucid. But when you are thinking about lucids and practicing, even if you don't do a physical RC in a dream and you get lucid just by thinking "I am lucid", it's never just out of the blue. It's because your daytime thinking about lucids. That's the practice. Physical RCs are just something that we attach the thought of "I am lucid" to. So, we can get lucid with or without doing a physical RC in a dream, when the important part - the thought "I am lucid" happens to appear. The RC is just a vehicle.

4. Sometimes it is hard to tell if it is a lucid or just a dream about being lucid. I had those before. It feels like we are about to figure something out, like we are about to say something that's on tip of the tongue. But it just doesn't click. We can see a sign saying "you are lucid" and it will not trigger lucidity. Because without the thought coming from us, it's just an empty word, just like an RC done incorrectly. It will transfer into our dreams without the "I am lucid" thought.

5. You don't have to remember the trigger that makes you think in your dream that you are lucid. People with some experience will tell you, that they just suddenly know they are lucid and they remember what they did last time. For me it's I just stand up from the bed and I'm in a dream, lucidly. Nothing in a dream triggered it. It came from my daytime thinking that I could be lucid at any moment, even right now.

6. What really helps to drive this idea home is when you believe you could be dreaming at any moment, every time you are doing RCs. When you RC during day and you can't breath through your pinched nose, you see only 5 normal fingers, your thum won't go through your palm... don't ever acknowledge it. If you do, then same will happen in your dream. Instead, visualize or just simply believe that it could all happen and that next time you RC, it will. Don't limit yourself that it will not happen in waking life. Because when you are dreaming, you believe it's waking life so RC would fail you. But if you believe they will happen next time, it doens't matter if you think you are asleep or awake, you will get lucid when you asleep.

Sorry for the ramble. Please ask what I didn't answer.

Originally Posted by gab

1. If it really is not a lucid, but only dream about lucid, it indeed is a good sign. Means that your thoughts about lucids are getting into your dreams.

2. Knowing that you are dreaming while in a dream IS a lucid dream. It can be as foggy as the worst non-lucid, have 0 control, and it still can be a lucid.

3. People often think they don't need to do RCs, because sometimes they get lucid "out of the blue", without doing an RC in a dream.

Well it's not out of the blue. Although ofc it could be an incidental lucid. But when you are thinking about lucids and practicing, even if you don't do a physical RC in a dream and you get lucid just by thinking "I am lucid", it's never just out of the blue. It's because your daytime thinking about lucids. That's the practice. Physical RCs are just something that we attach the thought of "I am lucid" to. So, we can get lucid with or without doing a physical RC in a dream, when the important part - the thought "I am lucid" happens to appear. The RC is just a vehicle.

4. Sometimes it is hard to tell if it is a lucid or just a dream about being lucid. I had those before. It feels like we are about to figure something out, like we are about to say something that's on tip of the tongue. But it just doesn't click. We can see a sign saying "you are lucid" and it will not trigger lucidity. Because without the thought coming from us, it's just an empty word, just like an RC done incorrectly. It will transfer into our dreams without the "I am lucid" thought.

5. You don't have to remember the trigger that makes you think in your dream that you are lucid. People with some experience will tell you, that they just suddenly know they are lucid and they remember what they did last time. For me it's I just stand up from the bed and I'm in a dream, lucidly. Nothing in a dream triggered it. It came from my daytime thinking that I could be lucid at any moment, even right now.

6. What really helps to drive this idea home is when you believe you could be dreaming at any moment, every time you are doing RCs. When you RC during day and you can't breath through your pinched nose, you see only 5 normal fingers, your thum won't go through your palm... don't ever acknowledge it. If you do, then same will happen in your dream. Instead, visualize or just simply believe that it could all happen and that next time you RC, it will. Don't limit yourself that it will not happen in waking life. Because when you are dreaming, you believe it's waking life so RC would fail you. But if you believe they will happen next time, it doens't matter if you think you are asleep or awake, you will get lucid when you asleep.

Sorry for the ramble. Please ask what I didn't answer.

Thanks for the reply. I suppose I probably didn't make some things completely clear when I was writing the initial post, so I might clear them up for you so you know what I mean.

I certainly knew that dreaming of having a lucid dream was a good sign (it boosted my confidence in having lucid dreams in the morning and I was glad I was making progress). When I said the thought of "I am dreaming" came out of the blue, I meant more than just I didn't reality check. I also didn't see anything off with the dream environment that made me question whether I was in reality, or a close inspection of something that made me realise it was a dream, I was literally just in a normal dream with no awareness minding my own business when the thought "I am dreaming" just randomly popped into my head - my dream self wasn't even thinking about lucid dreaming until that point, it was as if out of nowhere my dream self randomly decided that I must be dreaming. I also only suggested that maybe I didn't remember the exact trigger if there was one, but I remember the events directly before and after the "I am dreaming" thought and the thought came out of nowhere (though I am assuming that is indeed what you mean when you say "incidental" lucidity).

In relation to number six, when I do reality checks one of the main things I do in reality is imagine it happening as if in a dream (eg. the pinch-nose reality check as led me to lucidity in a lucid dream before so when I do it in real life I try to tell myself to discern that I'm in reality and make sure that I've proven it, and when I go to pinch my nose I imagine breath coming out my pinched nose as I remember it happening from in the dream and say to myself something like 'if I am dreaming, this is what will happen' and then blow). Though since I have to move around during the day it means I sometimes don't have time to do a reality check with a decent amount of thought put into it (I certainly almost never do them on mindless autopilot - that's the one thing you shouldn't do and one thing that I avoid, but sometimes I only have the time to do a reality check shallowly when I'm moving from one place to another with my hands full of books).

My main problem is that these dreams (several) about lucid dreaming have been the only remotely-lucid-like dreams I have had in the past month or so, and I am thus wondering/sort of worrying, if these are indeed lucids but just rather low, whether or not I'll fall into the pattern of having these lowly lucid dreams in place of the more adequate level of lucidity (the sort of level where you at least know for certain that you're having a lucid and not a non-lucid ABOUT LD'ing) I have usually had with my LD's.

I suppose if they are dreams about lucid dreaming and I get them often enough I could probably use them as a springboard to actual lucids by reminding myself that I often have dreams about lucid dreaming, and I know what I'm like in them, so do a MILD-like intention/suggestion to remember that if I randomly think I'm lucid (but I'm not still properly aware at that point because it is a dream about lucid dreaming) and my shallow-feeling dream self has reasonable levels of dream control that I might be having a dream about lucid dreaming and therefore I am indeed dreaming. If I'm having a low lucid, it might probably help my awareness and possibly lucidity, especially if I begin to fall back into a non-lucid. I don't know exactly how I'd do that, though; it sounds like crazy dream inception layers. If I think I'm dreaming and I tell myself to look out for dreams about lucid dreaming and thus if I have a dream where my dream self thinks I'm dreaming I'll know that I'm ACTUALLY dreaming (and that I am dreaming that I am dreaming), what if my shallow dream self that thinks I'm dreaming (in a non-lucid dream about lucid dreaming) doesn't think beyond it because in a dream about lucid dreaming I am dreaming that I already think I'm dreaming.

I think my head might explode Ah well, if I have more of these and I figure something out I might try it and see if something happens.