New here, thought I'd share...
My name is Michael. I'll start off by clarifying my situation:
I've had lucid dreams on and off nearly all my life. I've wondered if it is due to being Bipolar, as I was diagnosed so and there is some evidence that a side effect is increased lucid dreaming. No, I'm not on any medications, and haven't been in over a year. They don't work, the physical side affects are horrible, and I do a better job of managing symptoms on my own than with pills. I have a stable life- job, wife, family, kids. I'm not religious; I think of myself as agnostic. I don't take drugs, smoke, or even drink. I try to keep a logical, intellectual view on life. The worst I can say is I probably don't eat right or exercise enough, but who does these days?
Over the years I've gained some amount of control over the dreaming, though it's still very much a double-edged sword. The problem is it's so intensely realistic, while in them I can't differentiate it from reality. Nightmares become real-life personal horror films, and more than once I've woken up (or been woken up by my spouse, seeing or hearing physical signs of distress) momentarily confused, then completely relieved and thankful that it wasn't, after all, real. Another unfortunate side effect is that unlike normal dreams, which start to fade almost immediately upon waking, lucid dreams are so real to me that they are stored like any other memory. I've even found myself feeling or acting certain ways, subconsciously influenced by events that never truly happened.
On the positive side, I've had some great lucid experiences. I started "flying" back when I was around ten, I think. Over the years I've worked on it (silly as that sounds). It's more like, if I concentrate correctly, I can do a sort of float/hang thing in the air, though with limited control. I recall doing a rather poorly executed hover over my neighborhood then, thinking how neat the tops of trees and houses looked. Sometimes in my dreams, I'd do something impossible in real life and be excited and happy- then wake up to the fact it wasn't real! The 'welcome back to reality' factor is also both good and bad, I guess.
I've got a really vague theory about how it happens, actually. We've all heard that you have an unconscious mind (which is responsible for dreaming) and a conscious mind (which is 'you'). My thought is that normally, it's all one or the other. In rare cases both are on, which creates what we call lucid dreaming. Call it a defect, or in tech terms an 'undocumented feature' of the brain :roll: either way, it seems to make sense. For example, this morning I had a series of lucid dreams. I was 100% awake from 6AM to 7AM. Then I dozed back off, but instead of sleeping normally, my brain kept running while I dreamed. I couldn't tell what was reality anymore- though a few times I started waking up, recognized I was in bed and that I was dreaming, and closed my eyes to successfully return to the dream. While I couldn't completely control the dream, I was able to guide it in the direction I wanted and achieve the goal experiences. I had multiple nice experiences, then left for work by 8PM. Hardly enough time to hit normal REM sleep, huh?
There's also a few side effects (which may just be specific to myself). Lucid dreaming makes me tired. A night full of it, and I wake up pretty exhausted. This also makes me think my theory is correct- the concious brain never getting a chance to rest. A lot of times it's worth it, but sometimes I really miss old-fashioned sleep. I've also had the problem that my brain seems to keep going even while I sleep... if someone watches a TV at night in the other room, I often wake up tired but able to quote from whatever program/movie was on the next day. Obviously, I now seek to always have a quiet, dark house at bedtime.
Lucid dreaming can also be addictive. Imagine your own personal real-life playground, where you can run, explore, and do anything without consequences. I once remember running (? I was moving quickly, anyway) through a series of rooms; another time I was in a town, going through doors. The detail and realism was wonderful. Once there was a long line of people before me, and I slowly looked each one in the face, marveling later that my brain could create all these individual diverse persons so effortlessly. Perhaps that's one of the reasons I'm convinced it's reality during the experiences. I've explored actions I would never do in real life. I've used it as my own little fantasy world, having pleasurable guilt-free experiences with others. I've just had fun exploring houses I used to live in, captured in perfect detail (though usually with some strange changes), never knowing what or who was around the next turn.
I haven't read any of the forums here yet, but I'm looking forward to doing so. It will be interesting to see if anyone else has comparable experiences or comments. Just thought I'd say hi and introduce myself :)
