The darkness before you wake up, and "the tunnel"
This is long but I think I found something significant that people can try themselves.
You know when a lucid dream ends, or you lose it, you go to this darkness. It's often simply being asleep, eyes shut, somewhere in between sleep and awake. But sometimes you are still dreaming clearly, and the darkness is a sign that you will wake soon. I have always tried to make a dream restart from that place, with all but non-existent success. A lot of FAs occur that way, when you think you are opening your eyes to wake up, you wake into a different dream.
But I finally found a way to make something in the darkness itself. If I travel in a straight line, flying, a tunnel begins to form. It's very vague at first but if you keep going, it will become quite real. It sort of looks like going down a wormhole.
One thing I'm looking for is anyone examples of being able to create anything out of the darkness that is there after a dream ends and you haven't waken up yet, or between dreams.
But I also want to talk about the tunnels. I have managed to make one about 5 times in the past two weeks, I often go into the darkness, as I often "lose" the dream before I wake up. The tunnel does not just form behind you, it also forms in front of you, and then you just follow it. I have once kicked myself out of it to look on from outside, but if you are trying to create a tunnel I think you will find it more appealing to stay in and make it stronger - at least that's why I follow it.
Well today I had an LD, where it was like a first person shooter free for all, and everyone in this tall building was fighting. It was mayhem and havoc, and I went lucid. I made the whole tower collapse to make conclusion to the fighting. To simulate the fall, I remembered what it was like to be on a free-fall ride at an amusement park. And upon hitting the ground, the lights were out, everything was black and this led me to the place I keep calling darkness.
I began to fly in a straight line, looking forward, I stretched my arms forward and straightened my legs behind me to be in total superman position. The tunnel slowly began to form. The past few times I have actually been afraid to get to the end of it, but I'm more familiar with it now. I could also feel myself breathing, or at least thought I could and this comforted me. I decided I was going to go all the way to the end of the tunnel.
What was a white mist-like substance forming at first, the tunnel began to turn harder. It was now more like a mix between white cardboard and plastic, almost plaster-like. Like something you would see used with vents. On and on and on I went. I began to count thinking I could measure how far it went. I only got to about 15 when I had reached the end. Since I think people will find this easy to reproduce they may want to try it before reading this spoiler, discussion continues without the spoiler if you want:
Edit Spoiler alert:===============================
At the end it was twisted the same way a tootsie roll in packaged. Both ends of it were like this. Near the beginning of the tunnel was a place with a hole, and a puddle of water at the bottom, as if someone had broken in there. I went to one end and turned around to go to the other end, I could not push through either end or chip away at the wall at all.
Spolier ==========================================
One thing about these tunnels is I have never waken up while travelling through them, it's like the mind LOVES to go through them during sleep and they are almost a perfect mixture of distraction and movement to keep it happily asleep. Staying in that "In between" state for long is not easy and I think this is a pretty significant thing for people to add to their experiences, if they have never tried it before.
Because I've never been able to do anything in the blackness but move, but if we can create things while there, from scratch it would be a great addition. Now if you simply fly in a straight line (Big edit: WHILE in the in-between state or place, the darkness that follows a dream ending), a tunnel should start to form, please try it! When your dream ends and if you don't immediately wake up, you will find yourself in this blackness. I'd also be interested to know how people first respond to the tunnel. It really seems like "One of those things" that would be pretty universal in dreaming.
