StephL saying Hello!

**StephL** · 10-17-2013 03:36 AM

Hi there fellow dreamers!

I´m Steph from Berlin and I came across this site per Google while primarily searching for interesting psychological and psychiatric articles.

What a great place this is - knowledgeable people - so much information and experience collected and with real enthusiasm and investment of time and energy - and all primarily to help others along their journeys!

I really treasure it a lot, that LD is approached with a rational and scientific mindset by many members on here - trying to work against muddling up expressions and scaring people with fairy tales.

My own story goes ..
I am reasonably sure that I had short “natural” lucid dreams repeatedly as a child.
I would know that I was dreaming and – that I remember – I usually jumped out of the kitchen window on the second floor, to get going with my flying – or rather air-swimming hehe ..

Later on I either didn´t remember it - or it didn´t occur anymore.

Until in my teens when a little Castaneda hype swept over.

Going mainly by – “I want to believe!” – I took it on face value.
I told myself for almost two weeks before falling asleep, that I would become aware of it in a dream that night, and then to look closely at my hands.

So it happened – from a scenery in a cave, which I was exploring with friends and for and with fun.

I remembered and looked at my hands until the image and all surroundings had fully stabilized.
Suddenly everything went nightmarish – the walls and ceiling of the cave were transforming into sand coming down on me – being alone by then.

So – I made a desperate effort to "find my body again" and wake up – believing from the books I was in real danger.
Found it – transferred my consciousness into it – buut: I couldn´t move for the life of me!!

A SP in the true sense of the word.
I have had very frightening experiences with real dangers - I managed to get myself in mortal danger even – but I would say this SP was probably the worst of all - because - I could do absolutely nothing.
The malignant presence feeling or hallucinations with my eyes open did not occur though - well - maybe - I was afraid the malignancy from the dream would find me, but I did not perceive it then.
But I thought I would die and for quite a while - getting frantic in my mind until I finally broke it with a head-movement.

As I understand it there is REM Atonia where you are paralysed and not aware - which is as it should be.
Then there´s Sleep Paralysis - same but with conscious awareness - mostly after waking up but also falling asleep.
It has two forms - isolated and chronic - ISP and CSP.
So that would make me ISP I suppose.

Never done a WILD and never did an attempt at it with having the classical nREM transition sensations with itches vibrations and dissociations and what have you.
So I do not know how my experience relates to such phenomena - is it just mixing up terms, or can both commence in such an endeavour - I do not know.
I would expect to have the sensations first and as a surely distinguishable phenomenon from the eventually following atonia.
I believe the being so frightening might be only when you come out of a dream and expect to wake up and get away.
If you consciously want into REM - and if you then do experience SP - it could feel a welcome thing.
Lets face it - we all should not be so easily scared, if we do these things in the first place.

Anyway - I digress - that horror, sic, kept me off going on with it quite comprehensively.
I also didn´t know about dream control - or anything useful, basically.
But I always kept being fascinated – and so I came across better information, too – and loads of BS..
Notable in the latter category - one Nick Newport and his dubious sales-pitch…

Trying to follow his recommendations – should have seen through it right away – lead to a setback, where I thought, it just might not ever happen again.
Even while thinking I would know, what he was on about – I for the best efforts couldn´t ”get a SP conjured up” and do that drop-roll whatever.

Anyway – I achieved two real LD´s a bit later – just by telling myself so before falling asleep.
These got me really excited and motivated and, and..

But that was it then – stress - other things on my mind mainly – and lack of later genuine effort.
So – I hope with taking part here, I will keep the mindset and desire going to venture further on!

Especially the intensity and beauty and detail of my dreamed sensory perceptions have a huge appeal.
It seems to me a very, very worthwhile endeavour to learn as much as possible about LD and to try to fathom the phenomenon and it´s potential.

Good thing that more and more psychiatrists and neuroscientists finally get interested in the topic - and not scared away by the risk of getting ridiculed and maybe even loose one´s reputation as respectable scientist.
There is some German research out there as well – Munich, Berlin and Leipzig together.
I read two of their articles – maybe later on I give the material a bit more attention in detail and post about it.

Weeell – loads of stuff I wrote it seems!

Just trying to say hello actually!
StephL

**IAmCoder** · 10-17-2013 03:58 AM

Moin, moin Steph! Welcome to DreamViews. It sounds like you will fit right in here.

Heidelberg University is currently recruiting for a motor learning experiment: http://www.dreamviews.com/research/1...ipate-too.html.

If you enjoyed Castaneda, you should enjoy this thread, one of my favorites: http://www.dreamviews.com/attaining-...ml#post1737341.

**JoannaB** · 10-17-2013 04:17 AM

Welcome to Dreamviews, Steph! It is good to have you with us. You sound quite knowledgeable already, but if you have any questions about anything - for example where to post some question or comment on the forum - feel free to ask. I look forward to interacting with you more on the forum.

**StephL** · 10-17-2013 07:02 AM

Originally Posted by IAmCoder

Moin, moin Steph! Welcome to DreamViews. It sounds like you will fit right in here.

Heidelberg University is currently recruiting for a motor learning experiment: ...

If you enjoyed Castaneda, you should enjoy this thread, one of my favorites: ...

Thank you!
I will take a look at what Heidelberg is doing - definitively!
Castaneda - let´s say I did enjoy it and still find it really compelling art - but I´ve been turning into a very sceptical person.
Sill interested in more or less a lot - I´ll take a look at that too!
I had to remove the links from the quote - seems I got to be member for 6 days for posting links - even in quotes - hehe.
I do understand that rule though - good to do some housekeeping in a place like this

Originally Posted by JoannaB

Welcome to Dreamviews, Steph! It is good to have you with us. You sound quite knowledgeable already, but if you have any questions about anything - for example where to post some question or comment on the forum - feel free to ask. I look forward to interacting with you more on the forum.

Thank you - and I will!

In the moment - I have a rather mundane question and will take a look or post in the meta-forum about it.
Seems I cant upload an avatar picture - also not do it per link and photobucket.
Size should not be a problem..

Anyway - I know where to look and thanks you both for the warm welcome!

**Darkmatters** · 12-24-2013 01:22 AM

Well Hi there Steph!!

I didn't see this thread until now. Very interesting that you also were inspired by Castaneda. I read his entire Don Juan Matus series and was extremely skeptical about all the sorcery stuff, but to this day I still love the Way of the Warrior aspect of it all, and I try to incorporate that into my life as much as I can. I often think in terms of indulging for instance, or of choosing the path with a heart - taking as long as it takes to make your decision then acting on it definitely without having second thoughts. And realizing as much as possible the fact that one day you will die - there's no escaping the fact, and it's worse than useless to live in happy denial of it the way so many do, which leads to all sorts of problems.

I'm very glad you've joined us - your presence here for the last few months has really injected a lot of vitality into things. We'll miss you while you're away - for your holiday as well as later when your free time evaporates (or is that coming up very soon?)

At any rate - thank you for livening this place up so much and I hope you can visit often in the future!

PS - sometimes I still think of you as our own 'Carla Sagan'!

**StephL** · 12-27-2013 04:19 PM

Thank you so much Darkmatters!
I think, I might take another look into the Castaneda stuff - it gave me this amazing first and most realistic of all my LDs to date.
Maybe it had to do with the very fact, that I thought, I had entered another realm of reality, which also holds dangers.
It emphasized as far as I remember the fact, that one would be in the LD with all one´s being - and in danger of not finding one´s body again.
Lately it came to my mind, that this "realization" - really making myself aware, that my body was meanwhile lying in my bed - might have brought about this mindblowing stabilization.
If I remember it - which I didn´t last time - I will try to do this again - intellectually grasping this fact completely and not starting to go about this or that goal after a bit of classical stabilisation with hand-rubbing and - something I found very effective - slowly turning around.
Not as fast as to have optics swirl, still being able to see things clearly - but forcing my brain to constantly construct stuff according to the speed of this.
If that makes sense..

And yeah - there were philosophical ideas in Castaneda I liked a lot as well..

My free time will run out about January/February - so then I won't chat about as much - but I will see to it to keep up journalling and come to discuss whatever lucid business is taking place with me - and keep up contact to you guys and gals as well.

I am still extremely flattered by your comparison..
Once my hair is grey* - I maybe want to write a book of my own - Sagan is a bit high of a standard to aspire to - but why not dream..

*just how grey is open to interpretation - there are some of the silvery hints at mortality already to be found..lol

I find it great, how deeply you are interested in philosophy - actually reading the original books - many don't and claim anyway to know what this or that is all about.
Very nice to have met you on here!

**Darkmatters** · 12-27-2013 05:53 PM

Any time you want to re-acquaint yourself with the core of Castaneda's writing, here is a nice summary containing Don Juan's words with the rest of the elements edited out: Carlos Castaneda's don Juan's Teachings

The entire thing can be read in a day or so, as opposed to reading all the books straight through, though there are important things included in the books that aren't here (for instance Castaneda's reactions to the things Juan said, which often help to elucidate the concepts better, and hammer them into the reader's head through repetition). This makes a great reminder or review material.

You can download them all as PDF files and put them on your Kindle like I did (with a Mac you just go to File>Print>PDF>Save As PDF, and then drop the files into the Documents folder of your Kindle while it's plugged into the computer - not sure if the process is the same on a PC or not).

Hah! And happy 666th post!!

**EDIT

I believe what Juan calls the Nagual is the unconscious, and the Tonal is the conscious mind. He claims it can't be described so simply, but I think it's because as soon as you name it (as the unconscious) you're then dealing with only a conscious concept of the unconscious, and not the thing-in-itself at all anymore.

Thread: StephL saying Hello!

LinkBack

Thread Tools

Display

StephL saying Hello!

Ohaidere!

Bookmarks

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions