Me and my strange dream condition.

[nothingbutblues]

Hi, My name is Victor and this is my first post. I am a fan of Steely Dan, Wes Anderson movies, Richard Feynman books, green tea, meditation and assorted other weird things. But that is obviously not why I signed up for this forum. For about fifteen years or so I have been suffering from a strange dream condition. Essentially I am dreaming with my eyes open; I see a combination of the real world and dream elements. Hallucinations, if you will. These dreams happen perhaps twice a week on average, and they seem to be more common when I am under a lot of stress. One recurring dream of this nature is that I open my eyes to find people from my college class in my apartment. I start talking to them, asking them what they are doing here when I am in bed, et cetera. I can interact with real, physical objects; I can move furniture around, for instance. Eventually I go back to sleep, and when I finally wake up in the morning I always remember these dreams very vividly. I find that any objects I might have moved during the dream are in their new positions. Maybe this sounds like a really cool thing, but I find it anything ranging from mildly troubling (as in the classmate example mentioned above) to terrifying (I tend to see snakes and other things I am afraid of). I am not used to writing about this, which gives me a feeling I have failed to describe what these dreams are like. Let me just clarify that I am -not- lucid and stress that I see a combinatin of the real world and dream objects, which - I believe - is not the case for most sleepwalkers. Can anybody relate? Is this common? Is there a name for it? Can you do anything about it? Thanks for reading, Victor.

[Bonsay]

It sounds dangerous. I've heard of people acting out in response to dream like imagery in various sleep stages and I've read an article about it quite recently. Here it is for anyone who wants to read it. A part of the article is about something similar to what you describe, so it could be REM Behavioural disorder. Have you ever hurt yourself, if this has been happening for 15 years already. Also welcome to DV.

[mowglycdb]

See a Doc o.o Well if you become lucid , you might stuff have an easier conection with the dreamworld, and also you can choose to go back to bed.

[nothingbutblues]

It sounds dangerous. I've heard of people acting out in response to dream like imagery in various sleep stages and I've read an article about it quite recently. Here it is for anyone who wants to read it. A part of the article is about something similar to what you describe, so it could be REM Behavioural disorder. Have you ever hurt yourself, if this has been happening for 15 years already. Also welcome to DV. A lot of good stuff in that article; thanks! I have never hurt myself or anybody else in these dreams/hallucinations. See a Doc o.o Well if you become lucid , you might stuff have an easier conection with the dreamworld, and also you can choose to go back to bed. That is exactly why I signed up for this forum! And yes, I have thought about seeing a psychiatrist about this. I find that keeping my stress levels low (by meditating and running every day, for instance) helps a lot.

[leonhardrhine]

Does this happen everywhere where fell in sleep? I ask this because is there a relation of this happening with location of sleeping. You say you sleep eyes open, what happens if go sleep blind folded? I'd give a try for that. Yes, I am agree, this could be dangerous, though, if this has been happening for years, then I guess it stable. Anyway, you could try to take control over this whole situation with lucid dreaming e.g. wake up when you want and so on. I am not psychologists nor doctor, so I suggest also visit some professional. AND WELCOME!

[Andywarski]

wow, thats an intense dreamlike state, connecting with the real world? Intense. I thought I had that because I have false awakenings during my lucid dreams all the time and I tried moving something when I did have a false awakening, but nothing happened when i woke up. Hey try this, if and when you become lucid you should write on a piece of paper (that you leave beside your bed, or your dream journal if you have one *which you should* ) while in your dream so when you wake up you can see what you wrote or drew. Perhaps you can make crazy art in your dreams into real life and become a lucid painter famous artist. Ok now I may be just taking it to far lol. But good luck with that and remember to post frequently, everyone here is really supportive

[leonhardrhine]

this post might get very interesting. Keep a log of your experiences here if you will, we could open some new techniques from your experiences...

[nothingbutblues]

HOW. VERY. BIZARRE. I have so much to write about what happened last night I am not sure where to start. So. Let me start out by mentioning this; I am vegan and also severely allergic to gluten, which means my diet is very limited. Last morning (that would be Thursday morning - it is Friday morning as I am writing this) I accidentally got some gluten into my system, however, which meant I had to spend the entire day in bed, getting my system back to equilibrium so to speak. Whenever I get sick like this I tend to (1) drink coffee - which I normally never do - in order to stimulate the elimination process, and (2) only drink fruit juices for a day or two. Right after I realized I was sick (again, this would be Thursday morning) I had two cups of coffee, followed by some apple juice. Fast forward a few hours, and that is when the weirdness set in. ~ 5 pm: Again, I am not used to coffee, and at this time I remember feeling very edgy and restless. I was in bed listening to a Duke Ellington collection and I enjoyed it, but I had a slight feeling of anxiety. ~ 8 pm: After downing a few cups of green tea (I am a hardcore addict), a multivitamin and some vitamin D (my regular regimen) and some more apple juice, I felt this wave of joy and creativity coming over me. I sat down in front of the piano and recorded a very strange version of Thom Yorke's 'Black swan'. I remember thinking to myself 'I am going to have to stay up all night because of the coffee'. I also remember my playing was very fluent. ~ 2 am: I decided to get in bed and try to get some sleep. I was still restless, though, so I started listening to a talk on quantum physics in my headphones. After twenty minutes I got extremely tired and fell asleep right after taking my headphones off. I should mention that I was not sleepwalking/hallucinating tonight; in other words, the dream I am about to describe does not belong in the category I described in the original post of this thread. I dreamt I was walking in a field at night, looking at the sky. All of a sudden I saw fireworks going off in the distance. Not normal fireworks (which rarely impress me) but something extraordinary; they were covering the whole sky. All of a sudden I noticed I was standing exactly where the fireworks were taking off; in fact there was an ocean of fireworks around me about to blast off. I remember this whole situation hit me as very surreal and that the text on my t-shirt looked looked completely messed up (very 'Waking Life-esque', in case you have seen that movie) which made me realize I was having a lucid dream. There is a bit of a blank spot here, but later on in the dream I found myself in the house in which my best childhood friend grew up. The house was empty. I was still completely lucid but had this slight fear that I would wake up before I had a chance to try everything I was excited about. Someone had told me that you can extend a lucid dream by doing pirouettes, and this seemed to work very well for me. Again, all text elements looked completely messed up when I looked at them, which made me very confident I was indeed dreaming; a strangely comforting feeling. All of a sudden I started flying around in the house. At one point I started eating stuff in the kitchen; I was upside down in the air, reaching down for the food. I remember thinking to myself that the food did not have a very rich flavor, which was a bit of a disappointment. All of a sudden two fears hit me: (1) if this is not a dream after all, I would have some explaining to do to my friend's parents, and (2) what if I will not be able to wake up? Being a bit of a whimp, I decided right off that i wanted to wake up. ~ 6 am: All of a sudden I saw my bedroom wall in front of me, and realized I was awake. I had thoughts like 'this has been a profound experience' and 'I need to write this down in my journal, while all the details are still somewhat fresh to me'. This thought was so overwhelming to me though that I decided to go back to sleep. ~ 9 am: I woke up again, decided to get up to brew some green tea, and finally started writing this message. Let me clarify one thing; there were -so- many amazing things happening in the dream that I can not remember right now, and I do realize I was a complete idiot for going back to sleep after I first woke up. I only managed to capture a few primitive details in this post. When I woke up the first time I had this weird feeling that it would be very hard for me to integrate what I had just experienced with what I already knew (or thought I knew) about my mind, from years of being a meditator and a student of cognitive psychology. I will end this post now, before it gets out of hand. If this post is somewhat unstructured and rambly, it is because I am a bit shocked by the fact I got to experience what I believe to be a whole bunch of lucidiy milestones in not only one night, but the very first night after I signed up for the forum and started reading some of LaBerge's fundamental theory on lucid dreaming. If only I had written this right after waking up the first time... Does this happen everywhere where fell in sleep? I ask this because is there a relation of this happening with location of sleeping. You say you sleep eyes open, what happens if go sleep blind folded? I'd give a try for that. Yes, I am agree, this could be dangerous, though, if this has been happening for years, then I guess it stable. Anyway, you could try to take control over this whole situation with lucid dreaming e.g. wake up when you want and so on. I am not psychologists nor doctor, so I suggest also visit some professional. AND WELCOME! The blindfold idea is quite interesting, but also sounds a bit scary; what if I would start walking around without seeing anything? wow, thats an intense dreamlike state, connecting with the real world? Intense. I thought I had that because I have false awakenings during my lucid dreams all the time and I tried moving something when I did have a false awakening, but nothing happened when i woke up. Hey try this, if and when you become lucid you should write on a piece of paper (that you leave beside your bed, or your dream journal if you have one *which you should* ) while in your dream so when you wake up you can see what you wrote or drew. Perhaps you can make crazy art in your dreams into real life and become a lucid painter famous artist. Ok now I may be just taking it to far lol. But good luck with that and remember to post frequently, everyone here is really supportive That is an excellent idea. I am quite serious about playing the piano; perhaps I could compose something? this post might get very interesting. Keep a log of your experiences here if you will, we could open some new techniques from your experiences... Will do!

[leonhardrhine]

The blindfold idea is quite interesting, but also sounds a bit scary; what if I would start walking around without seeing anything? You could use just a ribbon of clothing and lay it loosely on your eyes or longer one and turn it around head, in case you stand up it will freely fall off. Anyway, I can see a strong correlation in certain stimulating things. Firstly the coffee, I have had many experience with coffee. I did not drink coffee for one month and then I took 3 cups before going to bed. I got many lucid activities then. I do not know how about others but seems to me that coffee and not regular sleeping time gives higher rate of LD. Writing here also triggered the effect for going lucid, so you got the taste of it very well. I wish you all good. Keep posting, enjoy to read. To not hesitate to write longer posts. I will read them for sure. Something unique about your dreams. L.