Thread: Do you find your state of mind different when Lucid?

I would agree. In dreams (even lucid dreams) I feel like a shark - always moving forwards.

When I make sure to get fully lucid before setting out to do things, I'm almost exactly the same as in real life, although things move in leaps sort of. If I don't, there are usually those kind of illogical dream thoughts clouding what I do unless I really focus.

depends on the degree of my lucidity, sometimes I'm more or less myself, however usually without most of the moral and logical inhibitions of RL, but even so I think it's best described as "parts of the brain are turned off". that's what it is and that's exactly how it feels like.

some specifics:
when in a lucid my memory is affected- that is I can remember a dreamgoal if I try but I doubt anyone here would have random thoughts like "hmm did I leave the window open" or "did I do all my homework for tomorrow" or even think about the waking state, a common exception being dream-related RL, that is "ooh ppl on DV will like this dream a lot", etc

It varies for me. Occasionally I'll be as clear headed as in waking life, but more often than not I'll be slightly altered in some way. Usually my judgment is somewhat impaired and I have poor impulse control. But I think the most striking difference is that I seem to be completely "in the moment" and give little thought to what I'm going to do or what I've just done. Not an altogether unpleasant experience, but it can make it difficult to complete some of the lucid tasks I've set for myself.

Originally Posted by DuB

It varies for me. Occasionally I'll be as clear headed as in waking life, but more often than not I'll be slightly altered in some way. Usually my judgment is somewhat impaired and I have poor impulse control. But I think the most striking difference is that I seem to be completely "in the moment" and give little thought to what I'm going to do or what I've just done. Not an altogether unpleasant experience, but it can make it difficult to complete some of the lucid tasks I've set for myself.

I agree with this. Sometimes I am impaired and sometimes clear-headed, but usually (but not always) I "feel" like myself and not a different person. Interestingly I have noticed that my consciousness usually is very much so "in the moment" and more of a singularity. In real life I might often have 2 or 3 things on my mind or more. This keeps me from WILDing. If I want to WILD I have to have one thing on my mind and one thing only which is to WILD. I need to have a singular thought on WILDing and that is it. Often times as soon as I WILD, I split back into two thoughts, one which is experiencing the WILD and the other that is so happy that I am WILDing. When this happens, the dream breaks up.

The best analogy I can give to this is kind of like singing a song in the back of your head while talking to your friends. It is almost like your mind is split and doing two things, but I find this doesn't happen in my LDs.

Also, I really agree with what yuriythebest said about some parts of the brain being "turned off". I haven't been able to reflect enough and identify which parts are turned off or why, but I do know that the LDing mind seems to be conscious but simpler in many ways. This makes sense as the LD world manifests under a different set of laws than the physical world. So it would make sense that some parts of the brain designed for the physical world would not proccess information well and might even inhibit LDing instead of encouraging it. If that was true then such parts of the brain designed for proccessing the physical world might need to be turned off when LDing.

This of course brings me to the next logical question and one in which we all have probably thought about at sometime or another. Is there a LDing part of the brain that makes LDing better? Maybe a part of the brain that works in LDs or even in regular dreams, but doesn't do much in the waking world? What does it feel like? What does it do? I know these questions are kind of the opposite to this thread, but it is still an interesting question to ponder. Maybe it needs its own thread.