Lucid dreaming: Rise of a nocturnal hobby

Lucid dreams for me were a side effect of other things. They didn't effect the quality of my sleep, which was already very poor.

My sleep apnea was such that my brain "woke up" about 45 times an hour. This kept me from ever experiencing full REM cycles. One of the more jarring side effects is that, unlike other folks, I when I went to sleep I dropped from wakefullness directly into REM sleep without anything in the middle. This meant I would start dreaming immediately. I was able to remember extremely vivid dreams when someone would wake up up about 5 minutes after I'd fallen asleep (sometimes less). This slowly allowed me to realize I was dreaming after I'd fallen into this "fast REM" sleep.

Thankfully, the sleep apnea is treated now and I no longer suffer the somewhat debilitating side effects of not getting REM sleep. For me those side effects were constant drowsiness, inability to focus, falling asleep while driving (smashed into someone at 75mph at 3 in the afternoon because of sleep apnea thankfully my car was lower than theirs and I just slid under them and smashed up my hood), irritability, etc.

This is way off topic but anyone who thinks they might have sleep apnea should totally get checked out. There has been a huge quality of life change for me since getting this treated.

I've only had one or two fully lucid dreams. In one I realised I was dreaming, I could not get myself to wake up. I was then convinced I should kill myself to wake up, but could not fully determine if I was sleeping or not, so why take the risk?

Unfortunately, clocks and text seem to work in my dreams. Another reality check is covering your mouth and nose and trying to breathe. Supposedly, this is a good test as in a dream you'll keep breathing. Plus, it's unobtrusive, unlike turning lights on and off at offices and other people's houses.

I've heard a lot of claims about lucid dreaming among some young people I know well locally (some of whom post here from time to time). I don't get the impression that lucid dreaming is really as beneficial as they think it is. Some cases I know about from personal observation involve disturbing sleep cycles so much in pursuit of lucid dreams that the young people failed in work environments or crashed and burned in their university studies. Getting a normal amount of sleep (for you, that leaves you feeling rested when you wake up in the morning) is very important. It's a lot more important than what kind of dreams you have.

I read through the whole submitted article, and I didn't see any reporting on rigorous study of the waking state health or performance of long-term lucid dreamers. All we see in the article is anecdotes, summed up by

"For Hobson, the neuroscientist, the benefits of being able to achieve lucid dreaming are much simpler.

"'We don't really know if there are real psychological advantages, but I can tell you that it has huge entertainment value. It's like going to the movies and not paying for your ticket.'"

An issue to consider whenever participants on Hacker News discuss self-help strategies is how reliable the research base is. People who only use the University of Google Library to do research will often find websites by advocacy groups that are pushing a solution that may not have been tested. Fortunately, Google's own director of research, LISP hacker Peter Norvig, has written a guide to reading research reports

http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html

that reminds us all about what to look for when someone reports some new, amazing treatment. Check out whether lucid dreaming has really been well evaluated with sufficiently large sample sizes, control groups, and other marks of good research.

I think a writing intervention

http://homepage.psy.utexas.edu/homepage/Faculty/Pennebaker/H...

may do more for many people in high-creativity careers than lucid dreaming. There is a better research base, by far, for the writing self-help than for lucid dreaming. Try it and see how it works.

I've always been able to enjoy interesting movie-like experiences by DAY-dreaming, and it's not explained here why anyone should alter their sleep cycle (which has known risks, up to and including psychotic symptoms) just to be entertained. A lot of researchers over the years have done a lot of research on human dreams in particular and sleep cycles more generally. Where is there any evidence that lucid dreaming is helpful rather than harmful, long-term?

Best wishes for much success in improving your personal insight and problem-solving.

There's a guy setting up to experiment with morse code via eyeblinks: http://lsdbase.org/ I don't think he's quite got the hardware all done yet.

It's probably the best plan. It has been scientifically demonstrated that eye movements are under something like conscious control (for the relevant value of "conscious") during dreaming, as shown by the famous recording of someone's eye movements going back and forth very clearly, while the subject reporting watching a tennis match. There's nothing else you can count on being able to move; I'm not sure what typing you expect to occur in the real world no matter how strenuously you type in your dream.

Can you only have a lucid dream only if you were dreaming in the first place? I only infrequently dream - like once a month. When I do dream it's usually something really boring, like watching the water bucket (with a beach ball inside) in a well going up and down - and if I do realise I'm in a dream, I immediately wake, but paralysed for like half a minute... no chance to do any lucid dreaming. :(

I am feeling a lot of envy reading about everyone's experiences in lucid dreaming. :(