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Living in a Lucid Dream

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Re: Living in a Lucid Dream

#51
post #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…

> 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.

REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep has paralysis on every part of your body except one part: Your eyes. As such, anyone can indeed force themselves away by attempting to open their eyes. Note though that you can "open" your eyes and it still be a dream, so you have to be sure open your eyes in real life, which requires actually physically moving the muscles.

There is of course also other ways of doing it, but this is probably the most universal and has an associated logic to it.

Re: Living in a Lucid Dream

#52
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's possible, but completely anecdotally I was in a six car pileup and watched the stuff move from my backseat to the window to smash against it in what felt like 20-30 seconds. I remember clearly having several thoughts in what could not have been more than 1 second between getting hit and my entire car smashing into another at 60 mph. "Oh, that's my kleenex box, dang that's just hanging there huh?" "What's that no…

Weird that your seat belt broke, they aren't supposed to do that. Was it damaged previously?

Not sure, I realized later that the car was made in 1986 and was 20 years old at the time of the crash (and so literally didn't come with airbags.)

I just figured they were old as hell, and I ended up having to hold myself off the steering wheel with my arms.

Ended up bending it significantly, which I can only put up to the time(not much!) that was actually spent transferring energy from me to the wheel.

Re: Living in a Lucid Dream

#53
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That experiment seems a bit silly. Is anyone expecting time perception to actually take the form of basic sensory/cognitive processes running as if “overclocked”? I certainly wouldn’t expect basic stuff like perceiving blinking messages to change, since nothing is really changing optically (at least controlled for other things like pupil dilation). That’s just as silly as expecting someone to be able lift heavier wei…

It is not silly at all, although the experiment may be flawed. Pro baseball players report that they can see 90+ MPH fastballs clearly, down to details like the stitches on the ball. Zen martial artists also have claims of being able to react as if time has slowed down.

I find it plausible that this enhanced level of awareness cannot be directed at will to just any object, but is bound to whatever goal puts one into the zone. Which would be the flaw in the experiment.

Re: Living in a Lucid Dream

#54

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…

I've had a handful of clear lucid dreams with different levels of awareness/control. In most of them I know that there's no real consequences but I rarely try things that would seem dangerous/extreme. One time I was flying and knew it was a dream, I could control how/where I was flying but for whatever reason I couldn't fly above a certain height like there was yet another unconscious limit to my lucid dream control. At least in that one I was trying and testing what I could do in the dream.

In most other cases after I wake up, I think to myself I knew I was dreaming why didn't I try more stuff?! Waking up from lucid dreaming can be very smooth fade-out/fade-in and sometimes I can extend the lucid dream state after partially waking up by reimagining the world I was leaving then on finally waking up I just wish I could have stayed longer but is no surprise at all.

Re: Living in a Lucid Dream

#55
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That experiment seems a bit silly. Is anyone expecting time perception to actually take the form of basic sensory/cognitive processes running as if “overclocked”? I certainly wouldn’t expect basic stuff like perceiving blinking messages to change, since nothing is really changing optically (at least controlled for other things like pupil dilation). That’s just as silly as expecting someone to be able lift heavier wei…

It is not silly at all, although the experiment may be flawed. Pro baseball players report that they can see 90+ MPH fastballs clearly, down to details like the stitches on the ball. Zen martial artists also have claims of being able to react as if time has slowed down.

> Pro baseball players report that they can see 90+ MPH fastballs clearly,

Has it been tested? Like by putting marks on randomly thrown balls and asking the player to identify the balls?

Re: Living in a Lucid Dream

#56
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most psychological experiments are far from difinitive due to the complexity and difficulty to measure abstract measurands like "perception".

Can they produce useful results then? Do you know of any instance where even though the experiment was limited it led to breakthrough? Not asking to trap you into the induction problem (believing that something that happened in the past will happen in the future). I'm just curious.

A negative result is still a useful result.

Before this experiment, no one knew if a high-stress environment would speed up visual perception. Now we have some evidence that it does not.

Re: Living in a Lucid Dream

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First site: "For the security of our visitors and to avoid abuse of the site, this website runs a zero VPN, Tor, or Proxy. They must have extremely valuable info? Then i checked it through a cache, almost no content, affiliate links, a shop and huge popup. Is that site a complete joke or is this some new anti AI thing?

Where is that? I can't find. I know the owner. One of the few contemporary LD teachers you can trust to not give fake info. Still posts videos with clickbait thumbnails on YouTube though. He is not technical at all. There is plenty of content on the site, as well as the archived old LD forum, but the navigation is rather cumbersome, yeah.

I see. And appreciate all "old web content" though the current setup seems pretty visitor hostile, with anti VPN lockout (you only see if you have VPN), huge popup etc.

Re: Living in a Lucid Dream

#58
I broke my ankle and the pain from that and the related surgeries has messed up my sleep in some interesting ways:

When the pain was at its worst, I basically wasn't getting any sleep at all and after a few days, I was practically delirious. I had a few times where in the middle of the day, while awake, I would start dreaming. Not like a daydream, but not exactly falling asleep either. Hard to explain but it's like the boundary between "this is what I'm perceiving about the real world" and "this is what I'm imagining" got very thin and permeable. My mind would wander off into dreamspace and I'd think it was real until I would realize "No, that's some crazy dream shit."

I also ended up with several days of nerve pain. I would be fine sometimes for hours and then completely out of the blue I'd get an intense (like 9/10 on a pain scale) stabbing pain in my ankle. Like someone snuck up and nailed me with an electric cattle prod.

When this happened while I was asleep, I would be jolted awake. But, also, my dreaming brain would try to incorporate the pain into the dream somehow. And since those two things were happening simultaneously, I would be yanked awake with a head still full of some crazy dream involving nerve pain that I was actually feeling. Sometimes, it would take a good ten minutes of sitting there to sort out what the hell was going on versus what was just dream nonsense.

Overall, would not recommend.

Re: Living in a Lucid Dream

#59
post #9

The below is not specific to lucid dreaming but more about experiments regarding consciousness and perceived passage of time: - Researchers wanted to see how the "time slows down under extreme events" worked - They created a watch that blinked a message at a time too fast for humans to see under normal circumstances - They then had people bungee jump and try to read the watch during the jump Turns out that people cou…

That experiment seems a bit silly. Is anyone expecting time perception to actually take the form of basic sensory/cognitive processes running as if “overclocked”? I certainly wouldn’t expect basic stuff like perceiving blinking messages to change, since nothing is really changing optically (at least controlled for other things like pupil dilation). That’s just as silly as expecting someone to be able lift heavier wei…

My own experience with edibles (of various ratios of the desired chemicals) is that, the only way I can describe it, the sample rate of my senses change and my brain isn't processing all the sensory input at the same rate—a different rate than when I'm sober and a different rate from each other. Time slows down as the sample rate for my perception of time passing increases. Meanwhile, the sample rate of my hearing decreases and I perceive music differently, low frequency tones (and background music) are significantly more prominent I my perception.

Re: Living in a Lucid Dream

#60
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird that your seat belt broke, they aren't supposed to do that. Was it damaged previously?

Not sure, I realized later that the car was made in 1986 and was 20 years old at the time of the crash (and so literally didn't come with airbags.) I just figured they were old as hell, and I ended up having to hold myself off the steering wheel with my arms. Ended up bending it significantly, which I can only put up to the time(not much!) that was actually spent transferring energy from me to the wheel.

Steering wheels are designed to bend, for that exact reason.
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