Where my lucid dreams start

Hello All,

It's been a while since I posted here, I still lurk and enjoy the site.

I am still very successful with my lucid dreams although I rarely try any more. In fact I am least successful when I do try.
I'd say I have a lucid dream once or twice a week without trying but the reason I am posting this is, I have noticed for a while now that my lucid dream always
starts as a false awakening. I am always laid in my bed questioning whether I am asleep or not. The way I figure it out is I try to roll out of my body.
It is a little sluggish to get out but I look behind and see myself sleeping, then off I trot out the house and into my lucid dreams, I still use traditional dream checks like the nose pinch too once I leave the house. My bedroom seems to be the same all the time but my house layout isn't always the same. To me I don't think I am really leaving my body, I just think subconsciously
I found the easiest way to become lucid and that's my method.

The other night something weird happened as well, when I got out of my bed/body, I felt very drained, I've never had a lucid dream before where right off the bat I feel drained and heavy.
Has anyone ever felt this?

Does anyone else start their lucids this way? Is it possible I am really leaving my body? Do you have your own way that occurs every single time you become lucid?

I've also woke up right at an REM cycle and heard some very weird messages, i'll leave that for another post/thread.

Thanks for reading.

Thesatellite

I'm no expert on OBE's but the sluggish feeling might have some common explanations. Do you recall having nightmares/dreams in which you try to run but you can't? It's quite common I think. I'm not sure if the heaviness/sluggishness comes with a certain stage in REM-sleep or is related to your level of awareness, but it happens quite a lot I believe, so I wouldn't worry about it.

Unrelated, I think it's awesome that you've found such a reliable way of getting yourself lucid!

I occasionally have lucid dreams where I feel drained and heavy. I figure this feeling is a result of a dream metaphor for something in waking life that making us feel mentally exhausted or that is causing us hardship or distress.

Hi EddieDean,

I have had nightmares like that. Funnily enough, the following day I was a little sick and took the day off work, maybe connected not sure. I have never experienced that before though so I felt i'd ask if others have.

Yes it can be quite amazing at times. Funny story, recently my wife was away for the week and I slept in the bed alone. I woke up (or thought I did) to a stinky bedroom and my wife laughing uncontrollably as quiet as she could beside me having made the stinks. She told me she came back early and snook in. I was actually dreaming, she was still away. That night didn't turn into a lucid dream, I just figured it out when I really woke up.

Thanks

Hi Dolphin,

Yes as mentioned to EddieDean, I was actually sick the day after so it could be connected. Also there's so much going on in the world right now, I wouldn't be surprised if that could make it's way into our dreams. When you have experienced this, did you tie it to something in the woke world? Did you overcome it or soon wake up?

Thanks

Sometimes I've attributed the feeling to my sleeping waking life body during the dream. Although in those cases, during the dream, I've also felt a tingly feeling in my dream body. When we notice our waking life body during REM sleep, we tend to notice a tingly feeling in our body, which is a sign of REM atonia, the process which immobilizes our body during dreams. Other than that, I haven't directly tied the heavy drained feeling during dreams to anything in the waking world, although I'm prone to mentally exhausting myself by working long and hard on a project and deciding to give up entirely and throw the project away before I'm finished. Sometimes, tingly feeling or not, I have been able to overcome the drained and heavy feeling during the dream by just trying to ignore it and focusing on something else.

Interesting about mentally draining yourself. I have been busy too with my job, it has been a little crazy. We'll just see how it goes.

I've had those kinds of dreams dozens of times for the first two years that I've practiced LDing, and a few times thereafter. Now, don't quote me on this, but I believe these LDs occurred during a non-REM stage of sleep, either just before REM would begin, or after. Reason I make this assumption is that these LD's almost always occurred under when I was still experimenting with optimizing WBTB times. They also happened during times where I had wildly inconsistent sleep schedules, and also after high-stress days (things that are known to throw the sleep cycle out of whack).

But again, it's just a hypothesis.