Dreams don't feel like they should
Hi,
This is my first post here and I have a few questions for you higher beings out there. Whenever I have a dream it feels more like a story is unfolding infront of me rather than something interactive. I therefore don't understand how I will be able to question the reality of dreams while im in them. Ontop of this, my dreams have always looked hazy when I experience them. It's as if im looking through a grainy filter into the world. Also I'm having trouble falling asleep while thinking of thoughts that pertain to remembering my dreams and being intent on participating in them because the only way I seem to be able to get to sleep is to let my mind wander and to think about whatever comes to me. If I try to think about one thing it keeps me on edge.
Skip down to the bottom for the long of the short, this is just a bit more of my experience from last night.
I started looking into LDing yesterday and I got ahold of the Hemi-Sync tapes to try to use those a booster but I find it impossible to fall asleep while listening to the sounds that it plays. I looked around in the forums and people said that you should play the tapes after you have had about 4 hours of sleep, so I set an alarm and woke up to try again. Yet I still couldn't fall asleep (I gave it about an hour, no dice). So I paused it at the point in which you are supposed to enter natural sleep and started reading. I ended up reading about 25 pages (end of the book) and trying again and STILL no luck. So I just abandoned the idea and just went to sleep trying to stay focused on the intent of remembering my dreams. I woke up about two hours later (8:30 EST) but I was out cold and just fell right back asleep. I'm assuming I had woken up at the end of a REM period but I can't confirm because I didn't remember any dreams. Then I woke up again at around 10:30 and I went "Oh damn, no dreams, I knew this wouldn't work." But then I went "Wait a second what was that last thing about driving a formula one car all about then." It's wierd how they come to you. One second in your unconcious state you are experiencing out of this world fantasies and then the moment you wake up you just forget all about it.
In short I geuss what I'm asking is
(1) How can I feel as if I'm participating in the dream rather than it feeling like a story that I simply watch. The reality checks that need to be done to experience a LD cannot be done. I just don't feel any sense of ME in the dreams. It's like I'm watching a first person view of me being controlled by somebody else.
(2) How can I make my dreams more clear? They just appear very grainy and hazy. I want to experience more vivid dreams.
(3) How can I fall asleep with the intent to remember my dreams and to experience a LD? What seems to happen is I reenforce the idea for about 3 or 4 minutes and then my mind just goes off on it's own.
(4) I really want to use the Hemi-Sync tapes but they interfere with my falling asleep. I think I am just more sensitive to the sounds and voices because I know if I let my mom have a go with them she would be out cold before the guy said a word.
I think that's it. Thanks for putting up with my wall of text.
EDIT: I do not think that any of this inability to sleep is related to stress because I have a fairly carefree life right now and after all, yesterday was Saturday.
Re: Dreams don't feel like they should
Quote:
Originally posted by Joo52
In short I geuss what I'm asking is
(1) How can I feel as if I'm participating in the dream rather than it feeling like a story that I simply watch. The reality checks that need to be done to experience a LD cannot be done. I just don't feel any sense of ME in the dreams. It's like I'm watching a first person view of me being controlled by somebody else.
(2) How can I make my dreams more clear? They just appear very grainy and hazy. I want to experience more vivid dreams.
(3) How can I fall asleep with the intent to remember my dreams and to experience a LD? What seems to happen is I reenforce the idea for about 3 or 4 minutes and then my mind just goes off on it's own.
(4) I really want to use the Hemi-Sync tapes but they interfere with my falling asleep. I think I am just more sensitive to the sounds and voices because I know if I let my mom have a go with them she would be out cold before the guy said a word.
1) The word that I like most in relation to lucidity training: habits! Yes, habits are, in my opinion, the most effective way of achieving lucidity, all the way up to becoming lucid every time one dreams. This is simply because a habit is part of the subconscious, which means one follows the habitual action both while awake and asleep. Thus, the answer to your question would be: form habits. A habit of analysing your surrounding environment, actions, etc. I believe will bring not only the feeling you seek but lucidity as well.
2) This now pretty much ties in with the above if you wish to analyse my thoughts on this topic. Dreams, I would say, seem hazy because of the lack of attention one may have towards one's senses. Simply put: if you give much priority to your senses in waking life you are more likely to have more vivid dreams. When conceptual thought is interpreted into sensory information, "emulated" if you will, I would say the intensity/precision of the interpretation depends on how much priority one gives to his/her senses.
3) Falling asleep with the intent to become lucid isn't really a practical strategy. I see two variations here: one being forming habits throughout waking life all together (not just before sleep) and the other being the well known WILD (Wake Initiated Lucid Dreaming), which you can learn more about here on Dream Views, simply because it involves just what you are interested in: falling asleep consciously through hypnagogic imagery but it's really better to read up on the technique for yourself.
4) Sensitive sleep can be a problem when attempting such methods and the only advice that comes to my mind is to keep the volume very low and destroy any distractions, for example, by wearing an eye band.
