Thread: What exactly is lucid dreamin like?

I know you have control over stuff and all that. I have had one lucid dream so far, actually today.

I am more wondering How it feels when you get more experienced?

Because for me it felt like a very distant experience, I could not think clearly at all, it lasted for maybe a minute, and overall it was not to vivid. It was more like living a memory. It was still awesome (one of the coolest things ever), and I cannot expect much for my first time. But now I am curious what to expect in the future if I keep working at it.


So for the more experienced people is it like being in reality except you could do whatever you want for 5-30 minutes. Something less, something more?

Lucid dreams will probably never feel exactly like reality. You'll never be 100% conscious as if you were totally awake, and things will always seem "off", or a bit dreamlike. But details can become incredible and you can feel weight, impacts, wind, feel your breathing... Improving your recall and raising your awareness more can help make the dream seem like less of a memory while you're in it. As you become more experienced you'll get a feel for how dreams work and you'll be able to improve your surroundings better through stabilization.

Originally Posted by Sushi

Lucid dreams will probably never feel exactly like reality.

I have had one where it was an exact replica of a part of the city I live in. Even though I was lucid I did question my sanity for a few hundred miliseconds .

I agree with Sushi (what type of sushi I wonder though) but I'll try to give some more details and examples. Lucid dreams can be a lot, for the most part it is what you make out of it, but there's always this kind of mysterious factor given by your subconsciousness. And often you can consciously draw out this factor and experience totally new things. Most lucids, especially if you start will be hazy and though you might know you are dreaming, you might not realize it. But your level of awareness can also reach new heights, with new senses and totally new feelings and experiences real life doesn't offer. Though a dream will likely never feel like real life, it might just feel even more real in a way or simply different but dreams tend to always keep something distinct about them, not a bad thing in my book.
I'm not saying imagination is the only limit, but there aren't many more limits out there, and a lot of these other limits can be crushed in one way or another with enough time and commitment.

Thanks for all that detail stay sharp. And I agree I definately want my dreams to be distinctly different from reality. Or else everything would become really confusing. Also, if dreaming was just a more awesome version of reality than you would just want to dream 24/7 (Inception!!!), but seriously that would not be good it is best they are different.

I hope I can achieve that high level lucidity you described. Definately forward to it. I may look at a REM dreamer mask or supplements to help because it took me like a year to have 1 lucid dream. But I'll see, maybe I passed some magical learning curve.

Thanks for all the responses.

For me, lucid dreaming is very much like being awake. In fact, all my dreams are so convincing (despite how crazy the content might be) that I forget I am dreaming most of the time. When I have the pleasure and honor of experiencing lucidity in a dream I always take note of how awesomely realistic my dream reality can be.

For example, the other day I had a lucid dream that was created by basically questioning the setting I was in. I all of a sudden found myself in a house I didn't remember going to. It was morning and I couldn't recall how I got there. At that point I came to a shocking realization that I was in a dream. I even said it out loud (without mouth movement), I am in a dream. From that point on, I could create my surroundings. In this case I wanted to fly so I created beautiful sky water and landscape all around me, constantly changing.

Having a lucid dream, an advanced one, can feel just like you feel right now (except you can create anything against the laws of physics). The challenge is knowing what to do with it. If you don't know, you might wake yourself up or go to a negative place and forget you are dreaming again within the dream. Sometimes I can wake up and check on my physical body a little bit and then go right back to sleep into a lucid dream. This is like having two consciousnesses at once.

All this being said, I have been practicing dream recall for three years now in a disciplined manner. It has taken me this long to really push the possibilities of the lucid dream, and I am excited to see what comes next. I hope this helps you find lucidity in your dream. It helps to remind yourself of this possibility and use a trigger, like looking at your hands or learning to question your surroundings.

When you start out it will feel like you knew you were dreaming in the dream, but you didn't make the decisions that you would if you were full conscious.
As time goes on this will improve, good luck

To be honest, I can't really describe how lucid dreams are at all.. I mean.. awesome? But that just doesn't really cut describing it. Each experience is different, varies from dream to dream. Sometimes the dream will be naturally stable and you can fly around, teleport, shoot fireballs at people without worries, but sometimes the dreams a bit rocky and dream control can make the dream collapse. Then again, that's what stabilisation is for.

Experiences vary obviously. I.ve had two lucid but very dream like and fuzzy, 16 where it was like inception (sometimes really actually surprised my RC failed) but mine have been mostly short... 3 incredibly awesome as being 'real' plus lasting many seconds to a few minutes.

Full blown LDs sound pretty sick (inception like, generally awesome,etc.).

Wow I must be stuck in some sort of low level LD phase then. (I didn't think to mention this before since I thought I was just completly failing) Ever since my 1st LD I have been having a weird semi LD every night/morning (I have been doing WBTB, trying to do WILD, failing, and doing a RC in the dream to get lucid sort of). Probably had a good 2-3 so far in the last week.

It is like I am in a partial sleep or something. Sometimes I can even feel my physical body (I'm pretty sure), everything is usually dark too and I can't even do a real reality check. But since I practice all day awareness (its like running a constant reality check) I notice that my mind is thinking differently and I am not sure it is a dream or not. So I get stuck in like a half sleep half lucid thing and I can't think strait.

But a semi LD is better than no LD so can't complain there.

I'm totally new here but my first proper lucid dream was so realistic too me it was truly amazing it felt just like my reality, but as I knew it was a dream I came to the conclusion I could manipulate whatever I wanted. God damn movies like inception they really do open up your imagination.

In response to Bdream I've had other lucid dream experiences knowing I'm in a dream and also feeling my real body while I'm dreaming like a constant flux of being awake but being asleep I always passed this off as restlessness until last night when I had a true lucid dream. I was literally totally enveloped in my dream but I came to the realisation that I was in a dream and from there all I can say is it was totally mind blowing. I'm probably the least most experienced here but I've always had good experiences through my dreams sexual relaxing enjoyment but my sexual dreams have always been soo realistic to the point of me not wanting to get up haha! but who would cmon seriously, but for some reason whenever I have a sexual dream that triggers me to know it's a dream and It instantly seems to be short due to the fact I know I'm dreaming and wake up.

Last night was impressive though I could move objects at will change them morph them remove things remove people fly control the people in my dream it was literally like I was the god of my own little world, my dream also lasted around around 6 hours which to be honest was freaking awesome. But sadly after that I'm sure il be disappointed if I'm unable to recreate it again.

Hope this helped in some way I'm kinda new here so I doubt it

It's like being in a endless dreamscape full of mysteries and adventures in the far reaches of your imaginaTION JUST WAITING TO BE DISCOVERED. and you can go there

For me it is exactly the same as reality, any things that might be off could be that we are fresh into the dream and need some time to stabilize.