Thread: why do my lucid dreams do not feel like real life?

^^ Maybe the first step here, Iriba, is to remember that lucidity does not equal vividness, no matter what they tell you. That said:

My first suggestion is that you might ask yourself this: "Why does my dream need to be as real as waking life?" After all, you get plenty of vividness in waking-life, right? On a personal note, I think most of my most amazing lucid experiences occurred in decidedly not real-life conditions. I think I've almost found that creativity and exploration work a little better when I'm not distracted by real-life imagery. Also, I pretty much never have a dream body when lucid, and haven't felt disappointed yet. But that's not what you want to hear, I'm sure, so let me toss out a suggestion:

I've found, or at least have come to theorize, that most of our lucid experiences happen when we are very close to wakefulness, even with DILD's. Because of this, your senses are very close to acting as they normally would in waking life; they're looking for input from reality rather than your dream. Unfortunately, you're still (mostly) asleep, so there isn't much for your waking-life senses to pick up... the dream world therefore becomes gray, often dull, because that is all your physical body's senses are registering. There may be a way to fix this, with a little practice:

I suggest that, instead of trying to summon senses or clarity, you might try doing the opposite by "going with the flow" of the existing dream. Do this while regularly reminding yourself that this is a dream, and perhaps remembering that your actual physical body is right where you left it, asleep in bed (you do this because "going with the flow" is often a sure way to lose lucidity, especially if you get too caught up in the details). Then, after a few minutes of allowing your dream to develop and, not coincidentally, allowing your body to drop into a deeper sleep, you might find it easier to enjoy some full-on lucidity while also enjoying enjoying "real-life" vividness -- because, of course, you are further away from waking-life and your senses will be more inclined to respond to the cues of your dream imagery rather than looking for input from reality..

All your dreams already feel like real life and ARE vivid, you just aren't recalling them as having such vividness. I mean if you really were able to notice that reality wasn't as vivid as 2 hours ago or a day ago, why wouldn't you be lucid?

If you want vividness comparable to real life, just remind yourself of that principal. Believe you already have the vividness, and also just believe you have the dream recall and you will notice that it will become much more detailed. This can happen at ANY point during your sleep, this is one way people DEILD chain, they have multiple dreams, recall them and have more, it CAN work.

It also helps not seeing dream memories and waking memories as using different memory banks.
I bet, considering you have good memory, you can remember things from 2-4 years ago, maybe like you were just there? You remember all the details, what was vivid to you, what happened, ect... Dream memory works the exact same. You don't complain about how unvivid waking reality is I'm sure, so why complain about dreaming reality when they both use the same exact functions of memory?
Dreams and reality is much more interesting if you do have the awareness/vividness (which you do already), just maybe not the mental perspective to really help you realize it.
So I suggest trying it out, it works wonders for me personally

Dream memory can go deeper and more advanced than this, but this is just the basics

Originally Posted by Iriba

anyone else already had this problem? what did you do?

Yeah I know what you mean. Sometimes the lucid dream starts out foggy and not as vivid as real life. I think though that the more vivid the dream the more "power" is required to maintain it. By power I mean awareness or focus. It's why its easier to maintain lucidity if you're in a room by yourself vs in a crowded mall.

Trust me they can definitely get as vivid as real life and with practice you will be able to maintain it. I suggest meditation to increase your awareness. You'll naturally find this translating to the dream world.

Rubbing your hands together won't increase vividness - it's more of a mental thing. Meditate an hour a day for 6 months and see how it improves.

Originally Posted by DreamSwimmer

Yeah I know what you mean. Sometimes the lucid dream starts out foggy and not as vivid as real life. I think though that the more vivid the dream the more "power" is required to maintain it. By power I mean awareness or focus. It's why its easier to maintain lucidity if you're in a room by yourself vs in a crowded mall.

Trust me they can definitely get as vivid as real life and with practice you will be able to maintain it. I suggest meditation to increase your awareness. You'll naturally find this translating to the dream world.

Rubbing your hands together won't increase vividness - it's more of a mental thing. Meditate an hour a day for 6 months and see how it improves.

I would second this. Oh man, yes, they can be like real life. Sometimes when you wake up.. you feel like you don't have dream recall.. you have memories. You don't just remember what happened. You were there.


Anyways.. agree with meditation. Although I'm new to it, I think it helps. Also, take vitamin B6 and choline on a daily basis.