Thread: Generally how long do Lucid's last?

Well, my lucids typically last a whopping ten seconds. Needless to say, I need a bit of work on the whole stabilizing thing.

I would assume that a well-stabilized lucid would last about as long as a regular dream. Possibly longer, since there are stabilization techniques and stuff, although I'm far from an expert on that sort of thing.

Plus once you do wake up from the lucid you can DEILD back in, which can make them quite long (even though it's really a string of dreams).

Originally Posted by Skydreamer707

well all of my lucid's (so far) have been spontaneous (like suddenly out of nowhere you realize your dreaming) and had a low level of lucidity plus only lasted max maybe 4 minutes. so what i was wondering how long do stable high-level lucidity lucids last? as long as a typical dream does? or does it just depend?can you make them last longer somehow? sorry if there's a thread on this alreadly >.< i think i saw it somewhere but i forget

Sometimes even longer than your usual 15-odd minute dream. Lucids range from as short as a few seconds to about as long as an hour usually. An hour is kicked around as being the upper limit for 90% of the time, but there are scattered reports of being able to stay in it for much, much longer. There's no real tricks guaranteed to extend a dream, aside from performing the stabilization techniques again when you start to feel like you are going to take up. As Hidden mentioned, there's always DEILD.

It varies. My last lucid dream lasted about for a half hour and I've had other lucid dreams that were even shorter (around 10 seconds). They should last as much as you want them to, or at least try to.

There is no standard level, actually. But be assured that 4 minutes is actually quite good! Most people seem to have short lucids the majority of the time.

My first Lucid was around 15 minutes.

My second was a whopping 45 seconds

The highest I have heard it like a hour.

But only like 5 minutes for myself.

You can really build it up, and given the right circumstances you can drag it on for a long time.

TBH I think it's more important to have steady lucidity over quality, because it's easier to work up quality that way than vice versa.

If you want to experience long lucids as a beginner lucid dreamer, then I'd suggest you try waking yourself up a couple of hours before you'd feel rested in the morning, and then going back to sleep. You can easily ride the lucidity if you keep it low level.

Your longest REM period is 45mins to an hour.
So theoretically you could achieve that.

Originally Posted by ClouD

TBH I think it's more important to have steady lucidity over quality, because it's easier to work up quality that way than vice versa.

What do you do for steady lucidity?

My longest lucid was a WILD and it lasted around 7 minutes. Maybe a bit less.

Lucid Dreams can feel like seconds, days, even years.

Then again...so can normal dreams. It's kind of like a TV show when they switch over to a different scene or jump forward to a future scene, so you're not always acting out every day in your dream, but you get that "feeling" that days have gone by.

It depends for every dreamer I guess, for me its 15mins+ most of the time, unless its a WILD/Subform.

Originally Posted by Arutad

What do you do for steady lucidity?

You change your waking perspective, be more aware.
You can let the feeling of "is this a dream" easily become an undercurrent (though personally, I don't think that is necessary).
If you are more habitually aware, simply it carries over into dream.
For steady lucidity while dreaming, you have to keep a balance between detachment and involvement. Too detached and you could wake up or enter a void state, too involved and you could lose the heightened lucidity.

Originally Posted by moonshine

Your longest REM period is 45mins to an hour.
So theoretically you could achieve that.

Technically, lucidity is knowing that you are dreaming, I'm assuming you mean that. You dream outside of REM, so theoretically you could achieve that if self-aware enough to pose the question, or trained enough to automatically ask it.

Originally Posted by ClouD

You change your waking perspective, be more aware.
You can let the feeling of "is this a dream" easily become an undercurrent (though personally, I don't think that is necessary).

How do you do each of these things?

For steady lucidity while dreaming, you have to keep a balance between detachment and involvement. Too detached and you could wake up or enter a void state, too involved and you could lose the heightened lucidity.

I'm never emotionally involved once lucidity arrives. Unfortunately, it doesn't influence the length of lucidity for me.

Originally Posted by Arutad

How do you do each of these things?

A lot of practice in perspective memory.

Originally Posted by Arutad

How do you do each of these things?

What I mean is simple, you just start living with more mental detachment to the daily grind at first.
With letting a feeling carry through the day, you just have to give it a certain amount of attention, as constantly as you can. Feeling like the world is a dream is not difficult to achieve.
You need to really give it some effort though, once you get past the curve of having to remember to remain aware then it becomes natural.

Originally Posted by Arutad

I'm never emotionally involved once lucidity arrives. Unfortunately, it doesn't influence the length of lucidity for me.

Not just emotional involvement, but how absorbed into the dream you are in general. Remaining balanced between the lucidity of detachment and the dream interaction is necessary to prolonging lucidity. I've found both aspects grow too, in other words, at the same time you get more and more absorbed and more and more detached from the dream as you maintain that balance consciously.
Double-edged-consciousness is a common meditation too, there are people that practice this in waking life, and it is a foundation principle for many meditative techniques.

In my first lucid dream 2 nights ago I couldn't really keep track of time, but it felt like a minute or so, but at the same time I get the feeling that the events I witnessed could have been spread over a number of days, and as soon as I thought about accomplishing anything it ended. It was quite the disppointment.

Originally Posted by mrdeano

A lot of practice in perspective memory.

Do you mean remembering to do RCs at daytime?

I'm wondering how remembering as a whole can be transformed in dreams, as only short memory is active, so often if you've lost lucidity you've lost it for good and will not regain it in a few moments. For that some kind of metamemory is required, to keep nudging you about needing to remember that you're asleep. But in the absence of long-term memory introducing such a metamemory seems like an impossible task.

Originally Posted by ClouD

What I mean is simple, you just start living with more mental detachment to the daily grind at first.
With letting a feeling carry through the day, you just have to give it a certain amount of attention, as constantly as you can. Feeling like the world is a dream is not difficult to achieve.
You need to really give it some effort though, once you get past the curve of having to remember to remain aware then it becomes natural.

I heard about it, but it always seemed like lying to think that this world is a dream. Does it really work this well? Obviously it works for you, but I wonder if really works as well as making LDs last considerably longer than they could be otherwise.

Double-edged-consciousness is a common meditation too, there are people that practice this in waking life, and it is a foundation principle for many meditative techniques.

What is that? I never heard about this meditation.

Remembering future intentions.

For example, remembering to buy a bottle of milk next time you go to the shop.
You don't have remind yourself throughout the day. But as soon as you walk into the shop you remember.

Apply the above to lucid dreaming. Set the intention to do a RC during a dream.

You can practice this with alarms. Set an alarm at random points during the day, your job is to remember to turn them off minutes before they go off themselves. The closer you get to the time the better.

But how will that make LDs longer? I really can't see how. It can make you lucid at night once you stumble upon your RC, and maybe you will do RCs multiple times, making even more LDs for yourself this way. But it won't make a single LD last longer once you have it...

Originally Posted by Arutad

But how will that make LDs longer? I really can't see how. It can make you lucid at night once you stumble upon your RC, and maybe you will do RCs multiple times, making even more LDs for yourself this way. But it won't make a single LD last longer once you have it...

The earlier you do a RC within the dream, the longer the lucid.

I heard someone had a 2hour lucid:
my first was about ten to twenty seconds
second was about a minute or two
and my third one was about two to three minutes
anyones after that I don't know.

Is a 2 hour dream even possible?

Originally Posted by mrdeano

Is a 2 hour dream even possible?

Unlikely. 45-60min rem period is about max.

Even if you did have a 2 hour lucid, you wouldn't remember most of it.
Lucid memories, like dream memories, have a way of melting away over time.