realness

[cousinsteve]

hey, i havent got lucid yet, but ive been remembering about 3 dreams a night, i was wondering how realistic lucid dreams are, ive heard and read around, but all that they say is that they are very realistic. What is so realitic about them?, is it like waking life except that you can do extrodinary things? or is it hazier? please inform me! Also, in WILD, do you have to do it in the middle of the night after you have slept, and why do you have to wait about an hour after that to try it? Thanks

[Asclepius]

the realism and vividness of lucid and non-lucid dreams vary. In some its hard to tell the difference. The degree of control also varies, but certainly flying around in a realistic environment is amazing. Part of the fun of LDing for me is discovering different experiences and possibilities. For WILD you want to make a rapid transition from waking conscious to being lucid in a dream. Sleep studies show that generally as the night goes on the REM portion of a sleep cycle gets longer. For example a sleep cycle might be around 90 minutes long. The first sleep cycle may have only 10 minutes of REM, so there would be 80 minutes of sleep before dreaming started, and thus WILD would be very hard to do. In the middle of the night when you wake up, you could hit a cycle where REM starts almost immediately when you go back to sleep. The staying awake for one hour is part of Wake Back to Bed, which you may or may not combine with WILD or MILD. Part of that technique is the need to activate your thinking so that you don't just sleep. However how long you need to stay awake and when is the best time to wake up vary a lot. Its good to experiment.

[cousinsteve]

hey, thanks a bunch, it helped clear some things up