Dream Analysis of Win States, Antagonism, Stability and the Astral

**Occipitalred** · 02-10-2021 07:37 PM

The Dream

Spoiler for The Dream:

I'm in a game. As a rule, a game has a win state. A condition for successfully completing a predetermined task. But this is a dream and here, the games I play don't have win states.

I am in a grand fantastical realm, up in a round tower, the top of which has a balcony along its circumference also accessible via a cliff. Inside, I am seeking for some object. An object to win? Or an object to allow my progress towards a win? There are many objects scattered on the tables and shelfs. But nothing seems useful or glorious. I only find objects that I remember from false memories but are now useless. What is my purpose in this game? I am lagging.

The tower owner is coming. I hide outside on the balcony assuming she will be displeased by our trespassing. But my ally is not motivated to hide. From the doorway he tells me to just get back inside and he goes back in, to my surprise. The owner catches him. He is a hedgehog and she wants to pluck each of his quills. On top of that, the game's ultimate villains have located us. The situation is so grave, and this is a dream after all, so I come back in, confident in my own infinite power. I summon chaos. And now the people in the tower are multiplied so the enemies are diluted, and we are now all bird rabbit creatures pointing at each other in slow hand drawn animations. Amidst the chaos and the change in visual aesthetics, I make it out with my ally the hedgehog back into the original graphics of the game, and on that same cliff. We proceed through a cave and into a giant room. The ground is water and the room is scattered with platforming structures. There are many other people competing against us in this game. I want to win! But what is the win state? Where do we go to win? What do we do? We make it across the room and the way out is above. But it's too easy! The room is so big. I go back because I feel dissatisfied. I want to win. So many competitors. So much to explore. I climb back toward the center.

"There are snakes!" Someone warns me. Indeed, snakes are scattered here and there on the platforming structures. Resting and ready to attack. I decide to take the offensive. I am now hanging from a vine and take a bow and arrows. I aim. Miss. The snake has seen me and has taken a woman's form. She calls out at me, defying me and ready to come attack me. Luckily, I am out of harm’s way but another player is now hanging on the vine with me and we sway. No matter, I aim again. This time, I get the woman right in the stomach but she does not care. She says I gained a 10 points bonus but now she is swimming toward me. The vine sways further and much closer to another snake. I aim at it and fail three times. There are only two arrows left. The snake is now a beautiful woman, but her face does not hide she is a predator. The other player with me asks to try so I hand her the bow. Meanwhile, I climb around and come toward the snake woman from behind. My ally fails to get a hit and is now in the woman's clutch. Desperate I take a hold of the snake woman's head and try to snap her neck but I am disgusted by the violence and I am made weak. I don't want to hurt her but she looks at me unphased. Her face tells me she will kill me as soon as she can. I spot a silver fang resting on the platform. Reluctant, but knowing it's her or us, I grab it and stab her in the neck. Her blood starts seeping out but I keep hold of her. Why are we doing this? I fill a salt shaker with her blood, wanting there to be a reason for this violence and hoping her blood will somehow be useful in the future. She dies and falls in the water below.

I make my way back toward the room exit. On the way, I find the hedgehog. He's a boy now. He tells me our other friend is in the next room. I make sure to not lose the salt shaker with the blood. It must have some use. There must be a reason. In the next room, there's a library. What's the game? Floor is lava? We stay off the ground. I climb up and push bookshelfs hidden above. I throw books. Some elderly men who are not players like us are on the floor and looking at me with exhausted surprise in their face. Evidently, the floor is not lava but this is a game. There must be a game. A challenge. A win state. Yet, these men are not playing with us. They must be the enemy. So, I throw books at them and kick them. They shuffle away.

My destruction is stopped to listen to a narrative. This is a dream. But it's isolated and so my destruction does not destroy the dream beyond and does not disrupt its inhabitants. As an example, I am presented with a statue of Voldemort which also attempted to wreak havoc in the dream world. Luckily, he was isolated in his own dream. I get the sense that I have been watched by entities of the dream beyond and they keep those doors closed to me. But maybe not permanently. Gazing at Voldermort’s tormented face, an effigy of my own naïve violence, I wake up.

Discussion

I don’t believe lucid dreaming is cheating. I believe lucidity improves dream exploration. And I believe that in dreams and lucid dreams, we hold a worldview and make many assumptions that impede our exploration. Better clarity and lucidity should help us better explore our dreams.

Win States

Spoiler for Win States:

I’ve been noticing a pattern in my dreams. Games are a recurring theme, except, they don’t have win states (a condition for successfully completing a predetermined task). I think this a structural pattern of dreams (I intentionally say pattern, not rule). Like games, my dream will generate an environment and a semblance of a path forward. But there is no destination. No goal. No win state.

I think this is because a dream does not have an ending. It ends when we wake up, not when we achieve something. I don’t think dreams are manifested with a predetermined conclusion. Instead, I think they are generated much more alike a game like Minecraft or any other randomly generated sandbox game.

This pattern is not restricted to game dreams. When I am in a dream, there is little context, and I often assume my context. I assume I have a goal and that there must be a win state. I am often progressing violently with projecting a purpose on the dream that simply is not there.

What this teaches me: Witnessing this pattern in my dreams, my instinctive and violent assumption of an innate objective and win sate, I now realize it’s also present in my waking life. As early as my childhood, I’ve always had this sense. What am I doing? What’s the purpose? How do I win this? The answer to all this seemed to be some sort of enlightenment. And forever, I have been dissatisfied. Because I never found this satisfactory win state. And the more I’ve studied spirituality, the more I have been dissatisfied. The more the concept of enlightenment just seems to be our collective desire for an ultimate spiritual win. Obviously, there are spiritual events of achievement. Sort of aha moments where things click spiritually, and these moments could be described as transient enlightenments but I no longer believe in the ultimate win state of spirituality. Not only that, I think this feeling, this worldview, is blinding me. Because in reality, waking life and dreams don’t come with an ending. They’re more like sandboxes. You make goals for yourself.

How to have more clarity: When feeling the “What’s my purpose?” feeling, when waiting for a bigger purpose, dissatisfied in waking life, I want to take a moment to observe the sand-box nature of reality and ask myself, what do I want to do next in this sandbox. In dreams, when seeking my purpose, when assuming an incoherent context and projecting a goal, I want to observe the sandbox nature of reality and ask myself what I want to do next in this sandbox.

Antagonism

Spoiler for Antagonism:

In the dream, I assumed the tower owner would be mean. My ally was not as scared as me. But then she was mean (but the villain behaviour came after my assumption that she was bad). The snakes were only just resting until after I attacked them. (To be fair though, since I live with a snake, I have had dreams of snakes and they’ve often attacked me first… I have never touched my boyfriend’s snake, but he’s tried to bite me a few times from inside his terrarium, so I think that’s all fair. If I want my snake dreams to change, I would need to interact with the snake and learn to become familiar with it). Finally, the librarians never showed any hints of antagonism.

This is another recurrent pattern I have noticed in my dreams. I often project ill-intentions on strangers in my dreams. Often, baddies will have acted completely indifferent to me until I’ve spent a bit of time assuming they want to harm me. I assume they feel I am trespassing on their territory. Because my dreams are unfamiliar to me, I must not belong.

What this teaches me: I think there is two things here. First, I think I am too fast to feel I don’t belong. In those moments I want to observe that I do belong. I want to observe the space that I take, the effects that I will have. And I want to take responsibility for them. Observe the feeling of belonging. I am here. Observe the feeling of responsibility. I am responsible. I am here. Second, I think I am too fast to feel other people are antagonists. This I think comes from all the bullying as kids. All the judgement. I come to expect it. Someone always has something to say about any thing anyone does and I’m to sensitive to it. I interpret is as antagonism. I want to reinterpret this judgement as a microaggression, to be able to brush it off more easily. If someone makes a judgement or a criticism, doesn’t mean their overall judgement of me is negative. Does not mean they want to harm me. People make judgements to reinforce their own worldview, their own sense of wisdom, individuality, and control. When I feel judged, I want to observe their judgement (and here I am reminded of the 20th Major Arcana of Tarot, Judgement) and observe it in its spiritual nature. As something that belongs to them. And I want also to take a moment to cleanse myself spirituality. Feel clean and pure. Unlike the dirtiness that judgement often leaves me feeling.

How to have more clarity:
In dreams, when I will encounter strangers, I will observe that I belong here, that I am responsible for my effects (this is a dream after all, and by definition, I cannot trespass). Also, I will observe that their judgement belongs to them and that I am clean. Obviously this is a lot to remember to do in a dream, so rather, I will practice this before sleeping and in waking life until I master it better.

Stability

Spoiler for Stability:

Astral

Spoiler for Astral:

I don’t believe that dreams are a forum for different beings to come together and exchange. Because if it were, I’m sure someone would have found a way to make that ability profitable, or useful at least. And we would know. Yet, it would be awesome.

In this dream, as in many others, I feel like an outsider in my own dream. The dream seems stable enough, yet, incongruent with my own intuitions about it. I think the floor is lava and we must stay above it. No, it’s not. People are on the floor. I think they are antagonists. No, they aren’t. They’re just looking at me like “what the hell” is this guy doing climbing over the shelves and making a mess? My interpretation of the dream content is wrong. My expectations are wrong. They aren’t even the opposite of my expectations. We are just not aligned. It’s like I am in another world than my dream world. It’s like I am delirious in my own dream. Disconnected.

Interestingly, while my delirium intensified, I felt present. I was reflecting, trying to understand but failing. And the dream stopped me from further embarrassment by directly telling me I was being wrongly chaotic. And the dream told me not to worry about it because I was in an isolated dream. When the dream told me this, I also heard the insinuation that if I became more lucid in the future, if I showed that I could have a clear mind and not be disruptive, I could be connected to the dream beyond, to others.

In any case, I see why it is a relief that we don’t share dreams nightly; there would be too much accidental harm. Yet, the dream seemed to end with a challenge. “Come back when you’re more civilized. Come back when your mind is clearer. Come back when you are truly lucid.”
My feeling that there was an opportunity to dream with others is as likely another delusion as all my other delusions in that dream so that, I can let go of, even if it was more serene than the others. However, I am not letting go of the challenge. That, I take. I want to tear down my worldview and come back to the dream world with more clarity so that I may dream in alignment with the dream. Not seek win states where there are none but see dream for what it is and find pleasure in it, make my own objectives. Not project antagonisms on neutral dream characters but meet them as they are. I want to believe that dreams have roots (psychological) rather than that they are random non-existent nonsense.

May I listen to my dreams more, project onto them less.

**Sivason** · 02-11-2021 05:47 AM

Thanks for sharing your deep personal thoughts here. Boy, so much there. I am not sure from the post if you want thoughts on any of this or were just looking to express yourself. Anyways, it was profound and interesting. assuming you do want a discussion I will throw out a few thoughts. I am impressed you can see in your self the drive to find a win-state. I had not really thought about this before. I got into Dungeons and Dragons very young (9) and when we started we ask how the game is won. The answer is always something like how do you win in life. I liked the game and the fact that you just did it for the experience and if anything was a win it was just because you reached some goal you had decided equaled a win. It was also cool that after that you just picked another goal, unlike every other game I had ever played. I guess this helped me in real life as I adopted that sort of thought for my own existence. that being: winning is what I decide it is and the goal can change as I see fit. I have not experienced dreaming where I felt a goal or win was required, mine goes on the sort of logic I mentioned. I guess we can figure out interesting things from how our mind deals with a malleable world in dreaming.
I see what you are saying about spirituality. I read when I was about twelve or thirteen the book Be Here Now and a phrase from that stands out. "before enlightment chop wood and carry water, after enlightment chop wood and carry water." It is normal at first to look at the spiritual path as a rush to some end point "enlightment." But the truth is when you reach what the old religions called enlightment you can just understand and see more of what is really going on. You still have short comings and flaws. You still need to do daily life, and find out you only reached a small step on what becomes clearly an endless path. It could be disheartening with no clear win or end, it can also just fall into the same idea of an endless game where you get to decide what is a win and can change your goals. Eventually one would reach a point where they are born on the path again and again reaching "enlightment" at younger ages. If it had been the one true win that would be sad, instead it was the first goal and then became a tool to help you pick more goals and continue along the endless path.
On the astral stuff you of course know I fully believe in that stuff and that I have been actively experiencing profound astral stuff for most of this life. My opinion does not matter being just some guy. I will say that after all these years and decades I still act terribly wild and irrational at times and spend more of my life locked out of areas then being welcomed. They keep giving me chances and I am improving. Think about the opportunity to self improve, not only learning to be aware during dreaming but struggling to act in an honorable or at least rational manner while doing it. That is a mighty experiment in personal improvement.
Thanks again for taking the time and sharing so much personal insight.

**Occipitalred** · 02-11-2021 06:06 PM

Yes, thoughts are welcome!

I love how well you absorbed this lesson as a kid from playing Dungeons and Dragons. It definitely highlights for me that different attitudes exist and that it is a reasonable goal for myself to shift my perception here.

From my reading your dreams in the astral, you seem to behave quite a bit more graciously than me. Sure, you follow the direction of your desires but I don't recall you acting delirious haha

**DarkestDarkness** · 02-12-2021 12:56 PM

Often I wonder if I should really be trying to give my opinion in threads like this seeing as how I'm so rarely lucid... So just take my opinion as just that, my inexperienced opinion. I also dislike the fact that I make such long posts that don't allow for a quicker exchange, leaving me making a lot of assumptions, but I find it difficult to act otherwise on forums, due to their less instant nature.

I notice you seem to struggle with something as a whole, but I'm not sure what that is exactly, in truth. This thing about win-states is interesting though, as I don't recall ever getting a glimpse of that before.

Possibly, you could be missing here that there's a "why". You seem to be the type of person who is very driven and goal-oriented and it's just part of your personality or nature to be that way and you're basically trying to rationalise against it and challenging this attitude on a high-level. You seemingly have a lot of highly structured thought, maybe more than average but perhaps you just express more than others; obviously I don't know how you're thinking or acting daily but this is my impression, at least. You basically want certain things here at an emotional level, I feel; if you're all the way on the side of thought, maybe you could benefit from giving way to feeling more than to thought on this matter. Don't misunderstand me, rationalising is important but there is such a thing as too much of a good thing, right?

Going on that, it's possible that games have compounded this way of being, reinforcing it somehow; or perhaps not and the objective side of some games simply draws you in naturally. You mentioned Minecraft which is pretty much open-ended and so I am left wondering how you play a game like that. I have some friends who have tried to play games like Minecraft and they just have no clue what to do and get bored and I have spent so much time in sandbox games myself by contrast, possibly thousands of hours, as I did with Lego, playing often alone or with a sibling in a make-believe world. And I have had so many dreams about game worlds and them blending into my dream reality as just an innate part of that reality, especially with World of Warcraft, a game I played for almost a decade, having earned itself a well engrained position in my symbolic world.

So, I wonder on some level if you are trying too hard. You could be thinking so much about it that you don't make yourself actually feel what you really seem to desire, which seems in part to be a sense of being part of the dream-world. I wonder again, too much rationalisation? I don't know if this makes sense exactly and I am struggling to explain what I'm thinking, or feeling, about your contextual situation. I think I want to help you reach what I think you're reaching for but I don't know how. Reaching for something may sound like a driven and goal-focused thing too but it depends on how you look at it, too. A short-term goal can be part of an aimless long-term process that is just pointing in a certain general direction.

And I mean, what made you post this topic in the first place? Something in you probably wanted external input. Was it thought, feeling, or a mix of both that pushed that?

Because I am so rarely lucid, I can give little in the way of examples. Going back a bit and thinking about really being a part of the dream-world in a lucid context, in my last lucid dream, at no point was I wondering if I really belonged there probably because I inherently already believe that the place I was in just a part of me. It is me, including on levels that don't cross the threshold of consciousness and this happened to really show in that dream where I had interactions on a level I hadn't had previously. I can't give you a rational explanation at any point that will make this fall in place for you, and I honestly don't believe anyone can. It's that thing about experience, we are able to empathise and relate to others because we've had X or Y experience and until we have felt a specific thing, someone else can't make us simply feel that thing. I think on some level we all generally do have some ability to emulate feelings we haven't experienced yet (dreams do this, after all), whether they are accurate or not in their emulation comes down to the experience.

At some points in your dream you seemed to be hyper-focused on needing an objective or a reason for things that you were doing. However, you also suggest that you were acting deliriously in the dream, some kind of rampage almost. Did you feel this was a truly lucid way of thinking, did it feel true to your waking self in some regard? I think both in lucid and non-lucid dreams there are still parts of our self's character that are defined on some level by the dream itself, i.e. the part below conscious threshold, which doesn't necessarily represent how we think or our desires from waking life and that therefore could have a somewhat symbolic significance in itself.

Maybe there's something about intent too. I wonder and can't remember if I've asked before, what is the first thing that comes up as your long-term intent with dreaming lucidly?

**Occipitalred** · 02-14-2021 10:27 PM

Originally Posted by DarkestDarkness

And I mean, what made you post this topic in the first place? Something in you probably wanted external input. Was it thought, feeling, or a mix of both that pushed that?

I had this dream, and I enjoyed the process of studying the experience. How I responded to the dream. How the dream responded to me. It's a major thing that fascinates me about dreaming. The patterns. Writing it here helped me organize my thoughts. Also, this is what I like talking about regarding dreams, so I'm wanted to post to have this type of conversation with you all too.

Originally Posted by DarkestDarkness

At some points in your dream you seemed to be hyper-focused on needing an objective or a reason for things that you were doing. However, you also suggest that you were acting deliriously in the dream, some kind of rampage almost. Did you feel this was a truly lucid way of thinking, did it feel true to your waking self in some regard? I think both in lucid and non-lucid dreams there are still parts of our self's character that are defined on some level by the dream itself, i.e. the part below conscious threshold, which doesn't necessarily represent how we think or our desires from waking life and that therefore could have a somewhat symbolic significance in itself.

I see where some confusion comes from. When writing out the dream, I highlighted the feelings that I had. In the dream, they were subtle. I wouldn't have picked up on it if I hadn't been studying my dreams for a long time. They weren't thoughts. I didn't think "How do I win?" "What is the win state?" "Why am I doing this?" So, I wasn't crazily violently screaming "GIVE ME A WIN STATE!" lol but I had a subtle feeling, a quiet uneasiness. When I describe a feeling, it may sound like I'm thinking it through a lot but if I didn't, then you wouldn't know I was feeling anything at all and I could have described the dream like this: I was in a tower, in a game, searching around piles of objects with a hedgehog. You wouldn't know if I was enjoying myself, feeling competitive and successful or disoriented.

Originally Posted by DarkestDarkness

Possibly, you could be missing here that there's a "why". You seem to be the type of person who is very driven and goal-oriented and it's just part of your personality or nature to be that way and you're basically trying to rationalise against it and challenging this attitude on a high-level. You seemingly have a lot of highly structured thought, maybe more than average but perhaps you just express more than others; obviously I don't know how you're thinking or acting daily but this is my impression, at least. You basically want certain things here at an emotional level, I feel; if you're all the way on the side of thought, maybe you could benefit from giving way to feeling more than to thought on this matter. Don't misunderstand me, rationalising is important but there is such a thing as too much of a good thing, right?

Well, rationalizing is the game here. It's like psychology and philosophy. This is fun for me, not distressing and burdensome. And there’s like I said the fact that I might have mislead you by trying to describe my feelings and making it look like I was hyper thinking, instead of subtly feeling.

Originally Posted by DarkestDarkness

Going on that, it's possible that games have compounded this way of being, reinforcing it somehow; or perhaps not and the objective side of some games simply draws you in naturally. You mentioned Minecraft which is pretty much open-ended and so I am left wondering how you play a game like that. I have some friends who have tried to play games like Minecraft and they just have no clue what to do and get bored and I have spent so much time in sandbox games myself by contrast, possibly thousands of hours, as I did with Lego, playing often alone or with a sibling in a make-believe world. And I have had so many dreams about game worlds and them blending into my dream reality as just an innate part of that reality, especially with World of Warcraft, a game I played for almost a decade, having earned itself a well engrained position in my symbolic world.

I actually enjoyed playing Minecraft. I would challenge myself to build a maze-like castle out of a mountain, or build a building in the shape of a dragon with hidden passages, a ship, etc. Meanwhile, my brothers were more skills oriented, leveling up and making potions and enchantments. I would enjoy setting up a trap to prank them. Another activity I enjoyed was to create two portals far apart and trying to connect them in the nightmarish environment with no clue where to go. So now, that you bring it up, I do entertain myself in sandbox types of games. So you again show me that I should be able to learn to strengthen this attitude.

For me the game that has engrained a position in my symbolic world as you say is the old Tomb Raider games. They were my favorite games when I was young, and they instilled in me this exploration craving. What’s on the other side of this door? What’s protected below this temple?

Originally Posted by DarkestDarkness

Going back a bit and thinking about really being a part of the dream-world in a lucid context, in my last lucid dream, at no point was I wondering if I really belonged there probably because I inherently already believe that the place I was in just a part of me. It is me, including on levels that don't cross the threshold of consciousness and this happened to really show in that dream where I had interactions on a level I hadn't had previously. I can't give you a rational explanation at any point that will make this fall in place for you, and I honestly don't believe anyone can. It's that thing about experience, we are able to empathise and relate to others because we've had X or Y experience and until we have felt a specific thing, someone else can't make us simply feel that thing. I think on some level we all generally do have some ability to emulate feelings we haven't experienced yet (dreams do this, after all), whether they are accurate or not in their emulation comes down to the experience.

You asked me elsewhere to expend on my thought that for me, lucidity is more subtle than we generally talk about and this is it. We generally consider lucidity is when we say “I am dreaming!” but I believe another way to talk about lucidity is the set of beliefs and attitudes that form our worldview in dreams. What’s more lucid?

A. A DC approaches. I think “I am dreaming!” but I feel antagonism from the DC. They chase me away from my lucid dream until I lose lucidity.
B. A DC approaches me. I don’t consciously think “I am dreaming!” but I inherently already believe that this place is just a part of me. The DC welcomes me.

There are no non-lucid dream where I don’t realize I can just fly away or access powers when I am cornered by enemies. On some level, the knowledge that we are dreaming is not hidden. But we are participating in the dream and there is nothing non-lucid about participating in a dream. Reading a book is not an act of non-consciousness. Likewise, consciousness is not exclusive to the “Aha! I am dreaming” moment. That is why some people struggle to believe in lucid dreaming. “Conscious in a dream? Nonsense! We are unconscious in sleep!” False. We are conscious in every ordinary dream. Otherwise, how could we see or feel anything? Remember anything? I’ve had a few non-lucid dream where I was able to recognize monsters as symbolic representations of my fears and to me, that’s the kind of lucidity that interests me.

So basically, what I am doing now, is spotting the beliefs and attitudes that are obstacles to my dreams and I meditate over them, trying to correct them to enhance my dreams. Last night again, I had a chain of dreams plagued by conflict. But I responded to each conflict with relative maturity and responsibility. Yet, I believe the mere presence of these conflicts is my projection of antagonism. It will be a victory when I will see this antagonism pattern ebb away from my dreams. Perhaps a dream where a DC is mad at me and I realize I am projecting this anger and that I should listen to them without judgement instead. That will show better progress to me than realizing I am dreaming and seeking out food.

Originally Posted by DarkestDarkness

Maybe there's something about intent too. I wonder and can't remember if I've asked before, what is the first thing that comes up as your long-term intent with dreaming lucidly?

Long term goals... Well, when I got into it for the first time, I was convinced that lucid dreaming was the key to the esoteric. My long-term goal was definitely to go to "real life" version of "Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry." Sigh. Then there are the direct long term goals of "I want near perfect recall, near perfect frequency, I want long lucid dreams."

But now, mostly, my goal is like I mentioned above, more in terms of lucidity as a lucid perspective rather than awareness focused on awareness. I want to study and heal my mind. Like, dreams with a greater ratio of supporting DCs than antagonizing DCs is a clear goal that I have. To me, it shows a perspective shift. And I get there through emotional meditation and real life practice.

**DarkestDarkness** · 02-16-2021 11:22 AM

I haven't managed to finish writing a reply, but I just wanted to say this in the interim.

I had an interesting dream, which I think came as a result of this thread and the following point you specifically made:

Originally Posted by Occipitalred

There are no non-lucid dream where I don’t realize I can just fly away or access powers when I am cornered by enemies. On some level, the knowledge that we are dreaming is not hidden. But we are participating in the dream and there is nothing non-lucid about participating in a dream. Reading a book is not an act of non-consciousness. Likewise, consciousness is not exclusive to the “Aha! I am dreaming” moment. That is why some people struggle to believe in lucid dreaming. “Conscious in a dream? Nonsense! We are unconscious in sleep!” False. We are conscious in every ordinary dream. Otherwise, how could we see or feel anything? Remember anything? I’ve had a few non-lucid dream where I was able to recognize monsters as symbolic representations of my fears and to me, that’s the kind of lucidity that interests me.

My dream was pretty banal but my dream self was much more... self-aware? But in a way that I can't consider lucid in the sense we ordinarily describe here. I'll be posting the DJ for it later. Either way, I think you may have created some kind of turning point for me, time will tell. It just feels like one of those moments where something falls in a slot that's been unfilled.

It's not as if dream awareness by my non-lucid dream self is a new thing, but it just felt different this time, more objective.

Edit: DJ link-back (private entry, only friends will be able to read, I believe)

**Occipitalred** · 02-17-2021 05:22 PM

I'm glad to hear DarkestDarkness!

Appropriately, I also have an update. I dreamed I was skating on a curving ice path the width of a street. There was a lot of snow but it was all esthetics and no hindrance. As I became aware of the dream, I had this passing thought, but not in those words: "Isn't this quiet (no goals) [for a dream]? Well, I can enjoy this."

It was an example of 1. not having an "aha! I'm dreaming" moment and 2. Intrinsically knowing I am dreaming.

In my dreams, I always have the assumption that dreams always flow. I had a dream once where I got in too small a hole and got stuck. I just told myself "well, dreams don't stay stuck on the same thing so I just have to wait and I'll be unstuck." Then, I was surprised that I stayed stuck for quite a bit longer than I assumed." That's just an example that I know I'm dreaming and make assumptions based on that. It's my dream worldview. And here in this dream, with my dream worldview, I was surprised that I did not have a goal. Because my dream worldview is that there's always something to do, always flow, and I was surprised the dream was just allowing me to hang out.

I guess I learned that dreams can be pretty peaceful and chill. And I did enjoy skating for a bit.