It Is A Pleasure To Be Here

Hello! It is a true pleasure to be here. I wish to thank the administrator, whoever he/she may be for getting me up and able to post. I don't know you but your timliness and service is much appreciated.

I'm a highschool student and during a particularly long and boring Spanish class today I had noted how many people were yawning so in the next study hall I decided to go to Wiki and try and figure out yawning. Yawning led to stretching, which led to sleeping, which led to the interesting segment on dreaming. It was in a reference section that I discovered your site, I was impressed by the tutorial pages and the interesting and amusing concept of actually being aware in ones own dreams. I'm very interested in trying this, and possibly applying it somehow.

As someone new to the concept though I have a few questions that I would appreciate some answers on. First off, All this talk of being aware that you were dreaming has happened to me before, but it did not give me any abilities to manipulate my environment even though I was full blown aware that what was happening around me couldn't be true. In these situations where I was aware, I knew that I was dreaming but I was powerless to change anything, I could not even control my own actions if I was dreaming about doing laundry, I will continue to do laundry and the moment of knowledge does not enable me to change my course of action, I am compelled to fulfill whatever objective I am attempting to accomplish, whether it be washing clothes or slowly suffocating as I try to escape a caved in ruin (woke up and found that my face was in a pillow, explained the trouble breathing :) ) Are these dreams lucid? I knew they weren't real but I was utterly powerless to do anything that I wanted to do. Now that I mention it I never really felt like I wanted to do anything else than what I was doing, I recognized that it wasn't real, thought about it for a second, and simply continued on. If I could eventually just actually control myself that would be a mind blowing experience for me. So I'm just wondering here about all this lucidity stuff.

I was also thinking, since I am a highschool student and students always have to study, could I access my memory while in a lucid dreaming state. I mean there are tons of things I know I listened to in my classes that I can't really remember, I was thinking that if I really wanted to in a dream could I think myself to have a folder or a book with all my class information in them so I could review with perfect clarity? Is something like that possible?

I also am wondering how real the dream environment feels? I can remember some of my more vivid dreams but either I forgot or I never did have as much sensory input as I am accostumed to in real life. things always seemed to have...I don't know...a phony quality about them. Like the texture of peoples faces was not right, I don't really know how to describe it ,but very rarely when just dreaming do I feel that I have anything beyond basic visual and auditory sensory perception, like only a small number of the dreams I can remember had tactile sensation, to where I really felt things like cold or hot, rough or soft. I don't think I've ever felt pain and I know of one dream in particular where I was stabbed to death multiple times only to be resurrected and stabbed again. I can't remember any dreams where I've smelled or tasted. Are you able to control these sorts of things while lucid dreaming? or are you just more aware of them than before? Do you think that improving my dream recall will suddenly begin to show that I've had these things all along?

Thank you so much for allowing me to post, any answer or insight you could offer me would be accepted with gratitude.

:shock: Too... polite... system overload... :microwave: AHHH!!!

Seriously man, Politeness is awesome and all, but not a necessity. We're all normal people here :content:

That said, Welcome to Dreamviews! The coolest place on earth.

The admin who approved your account is Seeker, one of 4 admins. Icedawg (The creator of the board, but he doesnt come here anymore. Meanie), Seeker(Hes the uber leet mod, he loves us all. Hes like God, except for a forum, and cooler), Aphius (but hes nothing special), and Howitzer who was just recently made admin. Hes cool, but we still like poking him with a stick :poke:

To your question, lucidity is simply knowing your dreaming. This may or may not come with control. Control takes practice, and learning control is easy with the help of our vast knowledgebase and super cool members.

Technically we're in our minds when Lucid Dreaming, so in theory yes. Many people use Lucid Dreaming to access their subconscious and learn things about themselves even they didn't know. So that idea is very possible. Many people do use lucid dreaming for studying as well.

Dream vividness and the feeling of being real varies. Some may feel very realistic, some may feel out of this world. Others may feel dull and some unrealistic. It all depends. But, with practice you can learn to make your dreams more vivid and realistic. Anything can be controlled in our dreams, they're in our mind, so they're only limited by it. It just takes dedication and practice.

Once again, welcome to Dreamviews! I hope you enjoy it here :) If you have any questions, feel free to ask. We have an awesome, friendly and helpful community who are more then happy to help with any problems you may have.

Happy Dreaming! :content:

Hi there, Bentrider :welcome: to the forum! Glad you found the place. :content:

Those dreams you described before, if you knew you were dreaming, then yes it was a lucid dream. But lucidity and control are completely separate things. You can have control and not be lucid, just as you can be lucid and have no control. Of course, the goal of this forum is to gain lucidity AND have control. For a good example of some kick-ass LDs, check out Oneironaut's DJ.

See you around. Good luck and have fun!

First off, thanks to Burns for the DJ plug. :wink:

Second, welcome to Dream Views, bentrider!

As has been said, awareness of all of the things you described (how real things seem, in terms of your senses) comes in various degrees. Think about it much like being awake. If you are really tuned into something, it will become more vivid, whether it be the sight of an object, the smell of something cooking in the oven a few rooms away, the sound of a train a couple miles away. This is all the same as dreaming. What you sense in your dreams all depends on both how much you are aware of that certain thing and how much you purposely tune into or out from its existence. These things not only change from person to person, but often change from dream to dream. It all depends on your state of mind, while dreaming.
The differences between control and lucidity have also been discussed, so I won't waste too much time on that now. :content:

Glad to have you. Make yourself at home and, if you have any questions along the way, don't hesitate to ask around.

Cya. :ninja:

My advice is to start a Dream Journal right away to increase Lucidity. Also if you start practising techniques, especially those that require you to wake up and go back to bed (WBTB) I find it helpful to read others dream journals. Especially the hot topic ones....you know who you are.

Welcome welcome welcome!! :yumdumdoodledum:

Wow, that's some good information. Thanks for answering my questions and doing the little extra to get me to where I need to be in order to start working towards this skill.

hmmm, so as far as what happens and what my experiences should be within a dream environment depends on my level of focus and awareness? This is going to take a little bit of doing. I think it'd be neat though. It sounds really funny when you think about all the reality checks, but I've had a few moments this afternoon where for probably the first time I've seriously asked myself if my surroundings were real. It's a little eye-opening when a person realizes all the things in the world that they take for granted. Kinda cool.

I'm a little curious about how the control part is going to come into play, but I've yet to read all the tutorials here so I guess I'm going to start there. Would any of you have some suggestions of things most important that I should get down first? I am going to start working on recall, tonight if I am able. Are there things I can practice while awake? What kind of reality checks may I do? Will I really be able to tell by using the checks if I am awake or dreaming? Will my brain just trick me by simulating the checks as they would work in reality? Now that I'm thinking about reality checks I worry if those thoughts would endanger the accuracy of the checks while I'm sleeping... :shock: I guess I will have to think about all that in the morning.

Thanks to everyone who has helped out the new guy! Seeker, thou art a can of awesomeness! Thanks for letting me into this quality establishment.

Finally, Oneironaut and Exobyte, I wish to compliment your signatures, they made me smile. The matrix just fits this whole business perfectly, I am a big fan of the movies for their philosophy and action, and Exobyte, with the Master Chief??? What more can I say the Chief is awesome, and hopefully if I ever reach any level of competency with LD I would love to visit a halo. :) (yes, I like cats too Burns, but they don't like me, last one thought my fingers were edible. I still very much appreciate you welcome) I very much appreciate the welcome from all of you. Thanks very much!

EDIT: oh, thanks to you, lucidbuddha as well! I'll get on it right away.

I used to worry about reality checks failing too, but honestly they work. If you really stop and question it, and accept the fact that you could be dreaming, the reality checks should work just fine. Me? I swear by the nose-plugging RC. :P
Oh yeah- Welcome. :)

well, I've been trying to do the poke hand thing today when I get the opportunity, and the reading stuff thing. I tried to do the nose plugging, (I can pinch it closed, right?) but I inhaled and nearly gagged myself. :)) I think the reality checks are a lot of fun especially in slow class sessions because I mean, come on, if I know if I'm sleeping I can wake up before the teacher sees me! They actually give me something to do when I am bored.

My lazy mind played a trick on me last night, I told myself I was determined to wake up and write down any dreams I had. Guess what I dreamed? I dreamed that I had had a dream and that I wrote it down on my laptop. I got up in the morning all expecting to read the list and figure out what I'd written and was shocked to not find the file. In retrospect I should've known that it wasn't real because I only remembered opening the laptop and typing it down, never opened up word. I find the episode slightly amusing.

Going through the tutorials though I happened to have a few more curious things. I read about WILD and am interested in trying it, I don't want to get impatient or anything but should I really work on dream recall for a while before trying anything like that? What would you suggest?

I've also been reading about different things to do while LDing. And since everything is not bound by any kind of logic in the dream environment, I wonder if I created something like a coca-cola and I drank it, would it taste like coke or would it be completely different? would I actually have that kind of detailed control over things? with that being said would I ever get to a level of control that would allow me to do that.
can one feel hungry in the dream environment? (and while on that topic could you actually feel like you'd eaten anything at all?)

What's up, yo!
Welcome to the forum.
I've never used dreams to access a memory. According to my psychology class, even the memories accessed through hypnosis do not have a very high percentage rate of being accurate.
But, being hypnotized IS different from a lucid dream.

Lucid dreams can very VERY real. In some of them, I am amazed as I look at my hands, and the walls. My favorite thing to do in a lucid dream is look at things up close, to see just how much texture they have, and how real they look.
And, of course, sex with the DV girls! :D

Wahoo!
-sloth

Hmm, ok. I may have to factor that in if I ever consider studying. Thanks for the info.

I'm a little iffy about LD simulations of sex. Yeah, it's a little tempting, I am human after all, but I am good friends with so many great ladies. One thing that I never try to do is be influenced by my sexual nature when being with them. I want to love them as people not feel motivated in the back of my mind to constantly do stuff with them, in THAT way. It'd feel a little disrespectful towards them if I used lucid dreaming and encountered them in such a situation. I consider them to be like family, not sure how that would change the way I treat them. I don't know but I may have to decidedly avoid that kind of thing.

The realism sounds like something to shoot for, though. I"ve not had anything like that yet Ill have to look at it a little more tonight

just a little side note.. beware the ninja team :ninja: very sneaky.. when you are here for two weeks.. you may want an adopter.. they can help you out a bunch.. *makes faces at sloth* hope you enjoy this place..

Hmmm? what is an adopter? what do they do? should I get one?

We have a program called the Adoption Program for members who have actively been here for two weeks. The program is like a mentor program. If you need help with Lucid Dreaming, you request for someone to "adopt" you, and you'll get good one-on-one help with that person. :)

That sounds cool. I'll have to look into it when the time comes? I wonder who I'll get? how many people sign up for this kind of "big-brother/sister" program? Would it be likely for me to become a student quickly or is there some kind of waiting list?

Nope, no waiting list. :) Basically the way it works is you make a post in the Adoption forum saying your looking to be adopted. Then, while you wait you ask around to people you think would make a good mentor to help you. Many people would not only be honoured to have you ask to be their mentor, but more then happy to help.

(Be sure to watch people's sigs though as some people are too busy at the moment to adopt)

The reason you must wait two weeks though is a member policy thing. Its to make sure we know the person isnt just going to come and go after a few days, and for the said member to get aquainted and meet everyone, possibly meet some people who would be potential mentors.

Excellent! I guess I will just have to stay constant until that point then. I understand the logic in the waiting period.

Thank you so much everybody for helping me out with my questions and for assisting me in the aquisition of this skill. Your knowledge and experience are highly valued.