Just had a thought....

[evilknny9]

Well I was thinking about why lucid dreams are often so much clearer than regular dreams, and I think i might have figured that out. During a regular dream, it's just your subconscious putting together events, usually in reandom sequence. When you realize you are dreaming, you then make your OWN decisions, and this brings the conscious part of your mind into it. At that point, what happens is processed by a different part of the brain, and it feels realistic, even when you woke up because you were using your conscious mind instead of your subconscious. does this sound right or am I like totaly off?

[mongreloctopus]

there may be something to this. i have been starting to have a lot more non-lucid dreams in which i'm just as much in control of myself as in a lucid dream--that is, i'm totally aware of my surroundings, my thought processes and can control my actions as if though it were all really happening. in those dreams there is no way to describe it as being vivid, because it's as if it's actually happening--just like a lucid dream. i think it's "waking up" the part of your mind that checks out normally during REM.