Some of the limits and unknown features of lucid dreaming...

When you are having a lucid dream, you get the feeling that you are god, sort of. You can fly, you can make things appear out of no where, go anywhere, even create new places and people and things, you can even make things spontaneously combust; aka, explode on the spot (aaahhh, good times). But there are some things that you just can't do.

For instance...

If you want to smell a food that you have never smelt before, or smell a flower, or eat a food, or touch lava or something crazy, but something that you have never done before, it won't work. It won't work because when you touch something in a dream that you have touched before, because you aren't really touching it, your brain has to associate the feeling of touching it in the real world with you touching it in your dream. So if you haven't touched something ever in your life, your brain won't know what to do and it will probably feel like something that has no friction and won't stick to anything.

Another thing that you shouldn't rely on in the real world is simulating a scenario. Say you want to ask someone out, but you don't know what they will say, so you have a lucid dream, make yourself appear at work or something, spawn that person next to you, and ask them, and they say yes, then that's probably just what you want them to say. It's impossible to know what someone will say unless everyone had no personality at all and everyone was insanely predictable.

Anyway, on to some of the cool, unknown features of lucid dreaming. Your brain is a very smart... thing. It does things sub-consciously that you don't even know about. These things can expand the limits of lucid dreaming enormously, if you know how to use them. For instance, sight is probably the only exception to the rule above. When you see someone for the first time, you might not have a vivid image of what they look like the next day, but your brain will have sub-consciously taken in what they looked like, and stored it somewhere. In a normal dream, your brain will use that image that it stored away as the one that you see, and it will be a perfect replica. So although you might not be able to think about someone during the day, you can see them perfectly in a dream.

Your brain is also smart enough to create entirely new objects, people and places. But remember, you aren't god, you can't do everything. But you can do a hell of a lot!! :D






I'm going to post some of the things that i have created and i want you to post some of the things that you have created as well so that other people can enjoy them. Please make sure that someone hasn't posted the same thing as you already.

For the most part I believe this is correct, but I think your mind can make up the feelings for some things, for example, getting stabbed by some maniac will make you feel the pain. Or is that just adapted from a pain you have felt elsewhere?

I think it's just adapted from pain that you have felt before. Say if you have tasted caulliflower but not broccoli, and you eat broccoli in an LD, then you will most likely taste caulliflower, it's not the same, but it is the most similiar. The thing about pain is that it's all the same, it's just in a different area and more or less severe. So being stabbed with a knife would probably just feel like a thin piece of metal being shoved into you and then lots and lots of pain. Your brain doesn't totally rely on experience.

From what i've experienced and heard, your brain always implys the laws of physics in your dreams, unless you are in an area that doesn't require it like space, or you are on earth and you are LDing and you make it zero gravity or something. A good thing to test in an LD would be getting an injection, i hate them so i might experiment with that tonight.

same here, nerve blocks hurt like hell so thats probably my most severe pain related memory for my mind to go on. But i'll try tasting something i havn't tasted before next time i have an LD

and physics are a pain in the --- LOL

Tell what happens when you eat something. I want to know. I think it might just taste like your favorite food or something that you have had so many times that you remember the taste all the time. I think my first project will be to get a cube and play around with it. Maybe i should try to make it into a perfect circle.

Created? A planet, new specie (Walms, thats from where I got my user) animals in general, crazy food that tasted... weird <.< Armors based on polimers, some were weak some were strong enough to shield you from a nuclear explosion at certain distance of the core, new "materials" to do swords, current materials and experiment with them. Thats some.

I have to say i disagree with most of the original post. Im not saying your wrong, because we will never really know who is right - let me just share my view on the matter, we're all here to learn from eachother right? =]

I believe you can experience things in lucid dreams that you haven't experienced in real life.

I believe you can smell things you have never smelt before and feel the pain of touching lava. Some of my most painful moments were during nightmares, i have never felt that sort of pain in real life. Thankfully i don't have nightmares any more because of lucid dreaming.

Anyway - it is fully possible for your brain to construct new images it hasn't seen before, right? It does this by taking images it has seen, mixed with colours it has seen, and comes up with something new.

So why cant it do this with smells? After all, the sense of smell isn't really in our nose, it is just picked up there - the real 'smell' is created and stored in our brain. So it is perfectly justifiable to assume that our brain could take previous smells and come up with a new one that smells nothing like the other things we have smelt before, would you agree?
I've smelt some pretty weird things in dreams.

Many people have been able to aquire 360degree vision in a lucid dream. This is something that NO-ONE has experienced. It is extremely difficult to picture in your mind what that would even look like. I myself have only been able to put myself into 2 different bodies and have two different views at the same time - something which i also have never experienced in real life.

As for simulating a scenario, i believe lucid dreaming is a brilliant way to do this. Of course it can't tell the future and it wont be able to predict wether someone will go out with you, but think about it. Think of all the different responses to questions you have heard throughout your life. Think of all the peoples attitudes to certain issues you have stored. In a sleepy state, this information can be accessed instantly, so in a dream if you ask someone a question - it may not be the exact way the person would reply in real life, but it will be a pretty good estimate based off all that information you have stored on peoples general attitude to things.

I also believe it is possible to see new colours in dreams. Some people say they have, most say that they are unable to remember what the colour looked like. Is this because the colour wasn't real?
Well what is real?
Lets slip in a matrix quote:
If real is what you can feel, smell, taste and see, then 'real' is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain

In a lucid dream, there ARE no electrical 'impulses'. Impulses come from outside objects. In a dream, everything is from your brain, your mind decides what is real. If you like, it is a different reality, and you can do anything and, even though it would not be my favourite choice of words, you ARE a god in your lucid dreams, and until we understand this, dream control will not be mastered.

Sorry for rambling on, haven't posted in a few days :P

Sight was one of the things that had an exception. I'm pretty sure your brain can make new colours and stuff. I had a discussion with my brother yesterday about what would happen if you tasted something in a dream that you have never tasted before. He said that maybe your brain will stop you from interacting with it, eg. teleporting you to another room. He also said that your brain might just decide to fire off random impulses to make a totally new taste. Or it might associate it with a familiar taste to you. eg. Chicken :D

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Originally Posted by Risos

Sight was one of the things that had an exception. I'm pretty sure your brain can make new colours and stuff. I had a discussion with my brother yesterday about what would happen if you tasted something in a dream that you have never tasted before. He said that maybe your brain will stop you from interacting with it, eg. teleporting you to another room. He also said that your brain might just decide to fire off random impulses to make a totally new taste. Or it might associate it with a familiar taste to you. eg. Chicken :D

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I once flew to the moon in a lucid dream, tasted a chunk, and it tasted like cookies & cream.:goodjob: These sorts of things probably aren't the same for everyone, but clearly, our brains can and may sometimes pin certain tastes we've experienced to tastes it hasn't experienced (like the moon).

I disagree with the "new colors" argument. I read a thread on that once, with this new colors debate, and personally, I don't think it's possible. Creating a new color would require some sort of new primary color, or seeing something that's outside of our visual spectrum of light. That's like experiencing a new sense (which is different than seeing 360 degrees, or being in two places at once). Until that sensory input enters the brain once, it doesn't know what it is or how to create it on its own. I can't prove it, but like we can't even imagine the 4th or 5th dimension (assuming we exist in the 3rd), I don't think it can truly create anything entirely new on its own that it has never experienced before in some form.

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Originally Posted by baseballmk92

I once flew to the moon in a lucid dream, tasted a chunk, and it tasted like cookies & cream.:goodjob: These sorts of things probably aren't the same for everyone, but clearly, our brains can and may sometimes pin certain tastes we've experienced to tastes it hasn't experienced (like the moon).

I disagree with the "new colors" argument. I read a thread on that once, with this new colors debate, and personally, I don't think it's possible. Creating a new color would require some sort of new primary color, or seeing something that's outside of our visual spectrum of light. That's like experiencing a new sense (which is different than seeing 360 degrees, or being in two places at once). Until that sensory input enters the brain once, it doesn't know what it is or how to create it on its own. I can't prove it, but like we can't even imagine the 4th or 5th dimension (assuming we exist in the 3rd), I don't think it can truly create anything entirely new on its own that it has never experienced before in some form.

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Sometimes I find myself saying "words" in my head which I do not have a pronunciation associated with in real life.

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Originally Posted by baseballmk92

I disagree with the "new colors" argument. I read a thread on that once, with this new colors debate, and personally, I don't think it's possible. Creating a new color would require some sort of new primary color, or seeing something that's outside of our visual spectrum of light. That's like experiencing a new sense (which is different than seeing 360 degrees, or being in two places at once). Until that sensory input enters the brain once, it doesn't know what it is or how to create it on its own. I can't prove it, but like we can't even imagine the 4th or 5th dimension (assuming we exist in the 3rd), I don't think it can truly create anything entirely new on its own that it has never experienced before in some form.

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I guess your not creating new colors, i think you are just able to see colors that you havn't seen before.

On the whole creating a new color, Your eyes actually can see a color you've never seen before. When people get eye surgery they remove the very front of the eyeball and with that layer gone a new color can come in, And after you see that color you mind remembers what it looked like.
So there is a color our eyes can recognize but we normally don't see it the to the f first layer of the eye.

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Originally Posted by mustbe18

On the whole creating a new color, Your eyes actually can see a color you've never seen before. When people get eye surgery they remove the very front of the eyeball and with that layer gone a new color can come in, And after you see that color you mind remembers what it looked like.
So there is a color our eyes can recognize but we normally don't see it the to the f first layer of the eye.

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To do: get LASIK

If you eat something in a dream that you have never tasted before, it will usually be 1 of 2 things

1: It will taste like you imagine it would taste

2: It will taste like something similar

I dont imagine why you would be teleported or stopped from interacting with something like that. The same thing goes with smells, It will either smell like you think it will smell, or smell like something similar.

Sight is a tricky one though, im not really sure what to say about that

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Originally Posted by Risos

For instance, sight is probably the only exception to the rule above. When you see someone for the first time, you might not have a vivid image of what they look like the next day, but your brain will have sub-consciously taken in what they looked like, and stored it somewhere. In a normal dream, your brain will use that image that it stored away as the one that you see, and it will be a perfect replica. So although you might not be able to think about someone during the day, you can see them perfectly in a dream.

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This is incredibly interesting, and honestly, I've wondered this before. For example, I've studied pictures of people before in hopes of creating more accurate representations of them in dreams. That got me thinking that you might subconsciously know exactly what someone looks like. Sometimes I can't remember the details, but then I thought that I must know what they look like because I always recognize them. Good to know! :D

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If you want to smell a food that you have never smelt before, or smell a flower, or eat a food, or touch lava or something crazy, but something that you have never done before, it won't work.

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I disagree with this as well, but it depends on what you mean by "it wont work." and if you expect it to fail, then it most likely will.

Hmm well I have gotten new videogames that I have never played before in dreams and my brain made the game how I would expect it to be.

I got stabbed and broke bones in my dreams. Never in real life. I have to say it was pretty convincing. Especially the excruciating pain part of the thing.

The body associates feelings it makes itself with things that happen you to in real life. it already knows what getting stabbed feels like, getting stabbed just triggers the feeling. but when it comes to food, you may not get the right taste, but only because your brain doesn't know what it tastes like, not because it doesn't know the taste.

If you've been chainsawed before or hit repeatedly with a knife or been shot, can you feel the same thing in your dream??