Thread: What is the difference between a lucid dream & a day dre

Well a day dream is you just thinking stuff you wish you could do, playing out scenarios in your mind, lucid dreaming is more like doing the scenario, not just thinking about it

Thanks for your help.

So with a lucid dream, you can actually feel what you're thinking about?

yes, and sometimes it can feel just as real as reality. If you do a WILD, it could feel more real than real. day dreaming is just thoughts, lucid dreaming is actual sensory input (but we don't know where those senses come from)

When you lucid dream, you are inside some random setting. It's absolutely realistic, even more real then reality. You have limited control over countless things. As you advance, degree of your control increases...

Daydream is nowhere near LD....

Wow, this is pretty amazing stuff. I'll read this site and see if I can have one. What is a WILD, btw? Thanks again.

WILD stands for Wake Induced Lucid Dream.

It is When you have your body fall asleep while your mind stays awake, then you slip into a Lucid dream directly.

I have to disagree with Ev. day dreams can be pretty vivid and similar to an LD, if you are good at visualisation and what-not. I can actually feel something just by looking at it or thinking about it. it really depends on how good you are at things like that...but, I would say lucid dreaming is better. a LOT better for some, but like I said, it depends.

I remembered my last dream this morning. I am going to get a dream journal to try to remember all of my dreams. I also am starting to question reality and hopefully I'll be doing this in my dreams, soon. I tried to WILD about three times, yesterday, but I guess I'm not ready for it. Two times I felt as if I was going away and paralyzed, but I decided to quit. These two times, I felt my heart beating slower and it was a lot more noticeable, which was kind of wierd. Also, my throat was filling up with saliva. In my third attempt, I was unable to get this far. I guess I'll just take a slower route toward getting a lucid dream.

Originally posted by Ev
When you lucid dream, you are inside some random setting. It's absolutely realistic, even more real then reality. You have limited control over countless things. As you advance, degree of your control increases...

Daydream is nowhere near LD....

I have to disagree with your notion that progress always equates to more control. I find it only leads to an increase in the length and number of LDs. My first LD was until 2 days ago still my greatest, and I had total control.

I'm intrigued by the notion that someone would think that day dreaming and LDing are even comparable.

Maybe someone could define the act of day-dreaming for me?

i agree that day dreaming can be very realistic, but not as much as a LD. i day dream, and its sort of like you get to build your set, and then you go deeper into the dream, almoast like sleeping, and then u get to go into the set u built.

Paperdoll is right, daydreaming can be pretty vivid depending on how powerfull your imagination is. But, at least in my case, LD has been like 100x more vivid, as your subconscious created the scenario for you, and you just go around doing as you wish. You don't have to imagine many of the things that happen that are not related to you(in a day dream you do).

In few words, the difference is big as playing a video game vs. Being in the Matrix...

:scratches head in thought:


I think that [obviously] the subconscious is the means in which we 'see' dreams and 'daydream'. Imagination has a good influence upon it also. The subsonscious has a greater hold in sleep, and that is the difference...i really think that the conscious presents us with reality, when we are 'awake' and can present up consciously into the dream world, to see what the subconscious is 'doing'...

now you'll notice that the subconscious is AWAKE during day dreaming, and the conscious is AWAKE during LUCID DREAMING...WOW! that makes sense!

I daydream quite alot. I've discovered that when you discover yourself daydreaming, you stop daydreaming. Also, when I daydream, I do not see my surroundings anymore. I actually see the scene I am thinking of, but I need about 50 minutes of something boring to do so.

Also, if I daydream about walking around my school, and I walk (in the daydream) into the place where I am daydreaming, I suddenly stop with a kind of "fizzing" sensation.

I daydream quite a lot, too. I'm known amoung friends and family for going into 'my own world' and they tease me for it. Oh well, I'm somewhat of an escapist and I like my world.

This topic made me curious about something. My dreams (non lucid) are very realistic, very colorful and very sensational. My daydreams are almost same, lacking the same feeling. I'm wondering if the more realistic dreams/daydreams are would the ability of inducing lucidity be less?

I've had fantastic dreams, but my lucid dreams were few and very far between. Just a thought, though.

Thats a good question.
Are you saying that if you have very vivid daydrams will this decrease your ability to LD?
How vivid are your daydreams? DO you see objects? Like a zone?

Lucid dreams differ from daydreams in one fundamental way and that is lack of control is possible in lucid dreams whereas in daydreams you always have total authority over every action and detail. A daydream is governed completely be your conscious mind, if something is there, its because you wanted it to be there. Imagine a scene and try to make something random happen; you can't - whatever did happen, your mind formulated it and entered it into the seen entirely deliberately.

In LDs, because a large amount of the workings of the conscious mind are shrouded by sleep, random events can either happen or are simulated in a way that seems random because the workings behind them are transparent.