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Living in a Lucid Dream

noemamag.com

21–30 of 102 posts

Re: Living in a Lucid Dream

#21

I frequently have lucid dreams, in that I'm entirely aware of that fact that I'm dreaming while in the dream. What I find interesting, however, is that if I have a dream I forgot to study for my test, or I'm naked at school because I left my clothes somewhere else, or the school play starts tonight and I haven't memorized a single line... the fact that I know I'm dreaming doesn't help at all . Because the problem is…

> Curious if this is universal or if other people who lucid dream do always know the details of their actual true reality -- their age, what city and home they live in, current job, etc.

I have lucid dreams somewhat frequently since I was maybe 8 or 9 after I started getting prescribed medication to help me sleep (initially it had been almost nightly, but it reduced over the years to the point where it happens maybe a couple times a month now a couple decades later), and generally I do remember the details of my life in lucid dream, but I sometimes have trouble determining whether they're details of my life in the past or the present. If in my dream I'm back at school, it's usually not the case that I don't remember graduating, getting a job, and moving; often times I have a vague sense that all of that had happened, but then some issue was discovered with my records that forced me have to go back and retake a class or two. (This obviously is pretty implausible, but dream logic isn't always airtight!)

> What I find interesting, however, is that if I have a dream I forgot to study for my test, or I'm naked at school because I left my clothes somewhere else, or the school play starts tonight and I haven't memorized a single line... the fact that I know I'm dreaming doesn't help at all.

Having real world knowledge doesn't always mitigate the "issue" in the dream though; in my lucid dreams, I don't have any control over what happens beyond my own actions, so a teacher expecting me to hand in some assignment won't generally accept "it's a dream so I don't have to" as an excuse. There is a way that knowing that I'm dreaming helps though; I can just choose to wake up! I'm not sure whether being able to forcibly wake up is typical or not for people dreaming lucidly, but I've never had much trouble doing it. Sometimes I'll end up back in the same scenario if I fall back asleep again after though, so it might end up being worth it to suffer through the imaginary misfortune to get the real world benefit of sufficient sleep.

Re: Living in a Lucid Dream

#22

I frequently have lucid dreams, in that I'm entirely aware of that fact that I'm dreaming while in the dream. What I find interesting, however, is that if I have a dream I forgot to study for my test, or I'm naked at school because I left my clothes somewhere else, or the school play starts tonight and I haven't memorized a single line... the fact that I know I'm dreaming doesn't help at all . Because the problem is…

This is fascinating. I had a period where I was really trying to be able to lucid dream but never could. It’s interesting that this sounds so much like my normal dreams, but just adding that you do realize it’s a dream. I didn’t think it would be so similar.

Re: Living in a Lucid Dream

#23
post #20

The original "how can I tell if we're in a simulation" discussion: https://www.thelucidguide.com/the-butterfly-dream-chuang-tzu... False awakenings are another aspect of dreams: https://www.sleepfoundation.org/dreams/false-awakening

As a child, for a few years I had a recurring nightmare with multiple false awakenings, sometimes five or six until I would wake up for real. I would wake up in bed, get up and at a specific point, an overwhelming feeling of impending doom would overcome me. Then at the peak of this emotion, a monster would grab me by my ankles and violently drag me back up the stairs and into bed. I would then wake up and repeat the…

I have the same style of dream too. Except it's not scary just annoying. I dream my alarm went off, I got up, got ready and then boom, my alarm is backing going off, "oh that was just a dream", cycle repeats. This happens most of the night until I eventually wake up for real 2-3 minutes before my alarm actually goes off. This will also happen as I'm in some other dream. Like the first iteration, I'm dreaming something weird and the alarm wakes me up, but it's just a dream wake up. Annoying.

Re: Living in a Lucid Dream

#24

I frequently have lucid dreams, in that I'm entirely aware of that fact that I'm dreaming while in the dream. What I find interesting, however, is that if I have a dream I forgot to study for my test, or I'm naked at school because I left my clothes somewhere else, or the school play starts tonight and I haven't memorized a single line... the fact that I know I'm dreaming doesn't help at all . Because the problem is…

When I have lucid dream, I know that i'm sleeping in my bed (street location, city) and which day of week it is. So I have access to real life knowledge.

So I believe there is different level of lucidity, depending on each individuals.

Re: Living in a Lucid Dream

#25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is far from a definitive experiment. It's not testing the perception of time, just visual acuity during unrelated stress event.

>> read the watch > It's not testing the perception of time It's literally testing the perception of time?

It's testing the perception of reading numbers representing time while falling at a high speed and then bouncing a bit suspended off of a cliff or bridge or something. It's not obvious to me how you could conclude that the inability to read the numbers could be due to reading being hard when plummeting several hundred feet rather than due to any perception of time; if the experiment was trying to test whether the slowed perception of time could cause you to read times at finer granularity, how can you conclude whether it would be possible with slowed perception while stationary?

Re: Living in a Lucid Dream

#26

Richard Feynman reports in his biography on his own experiments with lucid dreaming. He found sleep to not be restful enough anymore, found it impossible to switch the lucid part of dreaming off and eventually had a negative experience that caused him to stop.

[deleted]

Re: Living in a Lucid Dream

#28

Richard Feynman reports in his biography on his own experiments with lucid dreaming. He found sleep to not be restful enough anymore, found it impossible to switch the lucid part of dreaming off and eventually had a negative experience that caused him to stop.

That's funny, I stopped lucid dreaming, exactly for the same reasons : I waked up not rested and stressed, because often I had false awakening happening in series.

Re: Living in a Lucid Dream

#29
The way I lucid dream is to 'stay awake' through the process of falling asleep.

There are a few tricks I use... but I don't recommend the experience (It can be... uncomfortable {there is a reason you don't remember the point you loose consciousness}).

I don't know if these are universally applicable tricks either. But focusing on a point (visualizing it as actively as you can) seems to be important to staying awake through the process of falling asleep...

Re: Living in a Lucid Dream

#30
post #20

The original "how can I tell if we're in a simulation" discussion: https://www.thelucidguide.com/the-butterfly-dream-chuang-tzu... False awakenings are another aspect of dreams: https://www.sleepfoundation.org/dreams/false-awakening

As a child, for a few years I had a recurring nightmare with multiple false awakenings, sometimes five or six until I would wake up for real. I would wake up in bed, get up and at a specific point, an overwhelming feeling of impending doom would overcome me. Then at the peak of this emotion, a monster would grab me by my ankles and violently drag me back up the stairs and into bed. I would then wake up and repeat the…

I had a dream like that a few months ago. Woke up around 5 times in my supposed bed. Each wakeup became more and more realistic but there was always something out of place like my lamp suddenly not being there or my door being open which then would make me "wake up" again. I was pretty damn conscious/lucid by the last wakeup but I didn't realize I was dreaming until I turned on the light, turned on the TV, switched to YouTube, selected a video, watched some of it and saw the video controls being wrong. Being aware of me having woken up so many times already at this point and this also being fake gave me the biggest sense of dread I've felt in a long long time. Luckily then I actually woke up for real.
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