Thread: How real are LDs?

Yes... It's an amazing feeling. But don't get too excited because it can wake you up!

And after your dream? do you remember it like last days morning shower? ^^

Usually better. Lucid dreams are generally more interesting than routine showers, so they tend to stick with you.

Originally Posted by archdreamer

Usually better. Lucid dreams are generally more interesting than routine showers, so they tend to stick with you.

-.- XDDD i just ment if you remember it like your real life?

Yes, if your recall is sufficiently developed.

i just ment if you remember it like your real life?

I've been wondering about that myself, how people remember their lucids.
I find that my memory of lucids is very superficial compared to non-luncids. I can remember the dream but not any of its sensations, and the memory fades quite a lot in a matter of hours. Non-lucids on the other hand seem to retain many of their elements for years.
I wonder if it's a matter of experience...

For me, my lucid dreams are 101% real. My most vivid memories are those of lucid dreams. I remember them just as I remember falling down stairs. I remember how each of my senses experienced it. I probably remember them more easily because of how interested I am in them, and how infrequently they occur. Without even looking at my dream journal, I can recall each of my lucid dreams in detail. Even the ones I had before I knew about lucid dreaming.

Originally Posted by Timothy Paradox

Yes... It's an amazing feeling. But don't get too excited because it can wake you up!

I would say don't even think about waking up at all. Usually sometime during the excitement, you realize that your time is limited, and then perhaps you consider that if you woke up, the amazing world around you, and its limitless possibilities would be gone. I propose that it is this process that leads to waking up.

In the land of dreams, everything is affected by what you think about. The extent to which it is effected is based on how much you believe what you're thinking. You can actually wake yourself up on purpose if you're having a nightmare by thinking about waking up. So my opinion is that you can be as excited as you want to be, as long as you keep the thinking about waking up to a minimum, as it is not the excitement itself that causes you to wake up, but the line of thinking that usually accompanies it. My reasoning for allowing excitement is that I have had many dreams where I was very excited, but did not wake up.

So when you first realize you're in a dream, try to think about what you want to do and start doing whatever that is. If you just stand there thinking "wow, I'm dreaming, this is awesome!" for too long, you are a lot more at risk of waking up. I can attest to this from personal experience

Yea i know i do this too much but here's another matrix quote. This movie answers so many questions about lucid dreaming.


What is real?
If real is what you can feel, smell, taste and see, then 'real' is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain

In a dream, your brain comes up with it's own electrical signals. These are often identical to those experienced in real life. This means that dreams have the potential to feel exactly, and i mean exactly like reality.

Originally Posted by Dizko

In a dream, your brain comes up with it's own electrical signals. These are often identical to those experienced in real life. This means that dreams have the potential to feel exactly, and i mean exactly like reality.

Perhaps even more real than 'reality' due to the elimination of the need for those signals to be sent along neural pathways. Also, any imperfections in your neural network would not affect how you experience your senses. It's all in your brain, which is what makes you you.

Rather, not how real it is, but how much consciousness is experienced?

I think this question needs to be answered carefully. There are different levels of awareness and lucidity in LDing, and so to answer this you have to take into account what sort of LD we are talking about. I'm going to answer for my fully lucid dreams, as opposed to the lesser lucids.

In higher lucids everything is 100% vivid, if I concentrate on it. Things don't exist if you aren't paying attention to them, so my "peripheral sensations" are usually much hazier than in real life. Things I AM paying attention to are amazingly vivid. Sort of like looking at a good HDRI photo as opposed to a regular photo (look up HDR photos, I am partly in love with them because they remind me so much of my dreams: you can see all details, nothing is over or underexposed http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1374/...c1ea1a2165.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...Dupont-HDR.jpg http://fc06.deviantart.com/fs32/i/20..._by_funk86.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi..._night_HDR.jpg They have to be done properly or they look fake and like shit, though). Taste can vary.

My consciousness is just as real as in waking life, the only problems I ever have are sometimes with remembering small details. I am very much aware and conscious, but I often have trouble remembering lucid dream goals. Ironic, huh? It's like when you find yourself in the grocery store, and you know you made a list of groceries, and you know it's on the kitchen counter by the microwave, and you know the first thing was "asparagus" and the last was "eggs", but you just can't remember what was in between those two.

There is something about remembering dreams that is just difficult to do. When I first wake up they usually try to fade on me, but if I take a moment to recall them they suddenly come back, and I will never forget any of my good lucids. They are some of the best, most vivid, and important memories of my life.

As always, Shift runs in with the perfect words.

It does vary from person to person though, some people have trouble seeing right unless they induce a WILD, while others seem to be able to see them as though they are waking life. Everyone is different. All in all, I do remember myself being there just as normal life, albeit it's a little foggy sometimes.

Originally Posted by Jurence

Sometimes I have really really vivid dreams and when I wake up i say 'wow that was a really vivid dream' but I don't actually remember BEING there and I dont remember actually feeling anything when it happened (even if phsyical stimulation was occuring)

when you have a lucid dream, are you as conscious as you are right now?

It depends on how lucid you are. I've had my first lucid dream with 100% conciousness and the dream environment was hyperreal....it was realer and clearer than real.

IMJ

Originally Posted by Scarhand

As always, Shift runs in with the perfect words.

I wasn't aware I had that reputation haha

Those pics are very interesting shift, they really are the closest things I've seen to replicating what dreams look like.

Yea HDR is awesome

Yes when i was lucid about 2 or three weeks ago i still remember it and it was so real. Like in real life.