Making research easier & Boring and Interesting dreams

[Ex Nine]

I once heard that there is nothing more boring than someone else's dream. I don't agree at all, of course. Whoever said that originally, however, must not have realized that dreams by themselves are usually bewilderingly boring, no matter who is dreaming them. Let's face it, some of them can be drop dead dull. And there's nothing worse in lucidity research than having to get out of bed and lose sleep in order to remember something you'd want to forget just as much as you easily could. The next worse thing is experiencing said dream as it's happening. Not only are boring dreams undesirable for the reason that they are simply boring, they also do not captivate the dreamer's interest enough to look out for dream signs and act on them. Lucidity and lucidity research are altogether easier and more fun when dreams are already interesting. The goal of this study is to find reliable means to have more interesting non-lucid dreams, so that the dreamer will be interested in whether or not the experience is a dream as it is happening. "Interesting" may be different for each person, which compounds the difficulty of this endeavor, but it does not necessarily mean to have more vivid, longer, realistic, or more pleasent dreams. Any of these in the right combination can also make the dreamer uninterested in whether or not the experience actually is a dream as it is happening. During my onslaught of boring dreams I have noticed that I haven't been engaging many purely creative faculties in real life. Certainly I've been using creativity in other ways, like creative problem solving, but if anything this has contributed to dreams that put me in a sticky situation where my thoughts go on automatic into getting me out! That's speculation, though. And there is significant creativity involved in reading books, but it's still anchored to something you know you don't control, which is not itself a productive LD habit. But purely creative activities alone do not interesting dreams make. I have known a few artists who have boring dreams and don't seem to be very interested in lucidity in the first place. So, it seems that one would do to both practice purely creative activities and alter the purpose for doing so. Starting today I will draw for at least an hour every day for the purposes of having interesting dreams, not just to have fun, advance a project, or learn new skills, though none of these are mutually exclusive. This means that while drawing I will be thinking about how nice it would be to be creating these works in the dream environment, what kinds of things would take place, etc. I have every reason to think that this will be successful, but I'll be documenting everything very thoroughly, of course, including the dream journal and the sketchbook. And I wanted to post this just in case anyone wanted to try a version for themselves. Perhaps there are other activities that would work, or others where people would find altering the purposes for them distracting. I understand the simple answer to the question is "make your life more interesting, and your dreams will follow," but that doesn't always make one interested in whether or not the experience is a dream, either. The idea here is that a prolonged and leisurely enjoyable invested interest in the creative power of dreaming will simultaneously make non-lucid dreams more interesting and make the dreamer more interested in whether or not they are dreams. Thus, making lucidity and lucidity research a whole lot easier.

[funky_chicken182]

I understand the simple answer to the question is \"make your life more interesting, and your dreams will follow,\" but that doesn't always make one interested in whether or not the experience is a dream, either. The idea here is that a prolonged and leisurely enjoyable invested interest in the creative power of dreaming will simultaneously make non-lucid dreams more interesting and make the dreamer more interested in whether or not they are dreams. Thus, making lucidity and lucidity research a whole lot easier.[/b] Hmm... not sure about that. Because my life is really boring and I have really exciting, crazy and adventourous dreams. But, I think for the most part you are right. If you conscious mind finds interest in dreams, creativness, and dreamlike things then the subconsious will follow.

[Ex Nine]

Yeah, I included that statement to stave off people from saying it, actually. But, may I ask, actually how often are your dreams exciting and adventurous? Some of the time or most of the time? Do you dream journal? Perhaps it is only most of the time that you remember?

[eXistenZ]

I was thinking that to show a part of your theory we can conduct a survey. A poll in which people can define their daily life from boring to exciting, another poll to define their dreams with the same scale. Then we can compute correlations. For instance, if a boring life is connected to exciting dreams, dreaming seems a sort of compensation and comfort. If exciting life is tied to exciting dreams, one could suggest to be active and serene during the waking time to solicit good dreams. To avoid average answers (due also to the fact that we would ask for an answer regarding average days and average dreams) we could force the extreme ends putting just "boring"- "mildly boring"-"mildly exciting"- "very exciting" (or something simliar) as scale items. I know, my research design is full of flaws, but it is easy to participate to. eXistenZ

[funky_chicken182]

In answer To Ex NIne's question I have it pretty much all the time. In fact that is why i have trouble with RCing. I have to have one part in my dream that's not crazy to do a RC. And that hardly ever comes. I also agree to Existenz's idea for a poll. One of the flaws that comes to mind right away are disabilties. For istance I think I have slight ADD. I think in the poll we should also include if you have any handicaps or diseases.

[Ex Nine]

Hmm. This is more complicated then I thought it'd be. But that's okay. That's good! That means we're in virgin territory. I'll continue with my project. And I'll be on the lookout for your polls.

[eXistenZ]

I'll try a poll, just to see whether there's room for further study. I will structure it in a way to assure some scale validity. Originally posted by funky_chicken182 I also agree to Existenz's idea for a poll. One of the flaws that comes to mind right away are disabilties. For istance I think I have slight ADD. I think in the poll we should also include if you have any handicaps or diseases. If the research aim is to establish some relationship between happiness of life and happiness of dreams, I wouldn't go so deep by asking for the potential reasons of the happiness/unhappiness, like having a disease (also because it might be perceived as a sort of invasion of the private life of the respondent). eXistenZ

[Ex Nine]

It's been a week and my dream recall has decreased, for the reason that I am now sleeping all through the night, without my natural awakenings. I think this is because I am more satisfied with my day after expending some creative energy through drawing, and that makes me more restful. Although, yesterday morning, I had one of the most fascinating lucid dreams of my life. And it came from recognizing the silliness of a dream that directly tied into my thoughts on character and story development. Very amazing. It had to do with experiencing the topography of extra dimensional space. And at one time during the experience I thought, is this zero dimensional? When I woke up to write about it I found that I was lacking the proper words to describe it. It obeyed no familiar rules of perception at all. [Edit: I don't think I was actually travelling through different dimensions, just dreaming of it]. So, if I use a week as a period for comparison, my dream recall went down and my lucid dream frequency went up. I'm sure that there are many complexities involved here. That is the challenge of our research in this area. But I hadn't expected this at all.