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Scientists talked to people in their lucid dreams

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Re: Scientists talked to people in their lucid dreams

#41

Post by vimacs2 »

bayesianbot wrote: post #38
tiborsaas wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do reality checks regularly while awake. Try telekinesis, jumping (try to defeat gravity), look for your personal dream signs, that's why keeping a dream journal helps. So I made a tattoo on my hand not to forget to do reality checks. I got used to it and doesn't work :)

I really, really like closing my nose (with fingers) and mouth and trying to breath. It takes so little time, can be done anywhere and without anyone noticing and seems to work extremely easily in dreams for me. Lot of the other recommendations I've read are much harder. (As in flying or putting a hand through a wall were hard to do at first even when I knew I was dreaming. Looking at clock multiple times requires a…

I've have an amusing anecdote regarding the closing the nose reality check - I once woke up and was feeling strange. Everything around me looked completely real and in full fidelity but I couldn't shake the feeling off so I attempted to close my nose off to breathing and I couldn't breath through my nose as expected.

I still couldn't shake the feeling though and I attempted it twice more before giving up and concluding that I was just groggy and needed to hydrate so got up and went to the kitchen to get some water. Of course, I suddenly wake up with a jolt. The entire scenario was in fact a false awakening and my brain decided to cuck me.

I think for the reality check to really work, you need to not just perform it but really mentally try to will whatever affect you think will break the illusion. The problem with the above scenario is that as I was performing the reality check, I was doing it idly so my brain could easily emulate the expected effect.

the physics in my lucid dreams are generally quite grounded so I only managed to fly after my third lucid dream. Dream control != dream lucidity. They are separate skill sets that you need to train independently.

Re: Scientists talked to people in their lucid dreams

#42

Post by ianai »

sokoloff wrote: post #40
lrem wrote: post #5

This is amazing, underwhelming and not very surprising, all at the same time. Unsurprising, as it was already known that lucid dreamers can move their eyes... And I think everyone has experienced external stimuli, say an alarm clock, being seamlessly integrated into a dream. Underwhelming, as this requires people with rare skills and special requirement to achieve just 18% success rate. For a basic task. Amazing, bec…

On integrating outside stimuli, what I’ve always wondered is how wall clock time relates to time in the dream world. I have a vivid memory of a dream as a kid where I was a fighter pilot, went through a bunch of dream time as a kid’s idea of what fighter pilots did, was eventually shot down/ejected over water and condemned to drown in the dream. I woke up with my mouth stuffed full of my own blanket to the point whic…

I don’t know for your memory of course. But I definitely know my brain morphs an ongoing dream to the outside world.

Re: Scientists talked to people in their lucid dreams

#43

Post by vimacs2 »

yreg wrote: post #35
lrem wrote: post #5

This is amazing, underwhelming and not very surprising, all at the same time. Unsurprising, as it was already known that lucid dreamers can move their eyes... And I think everyone has experienced external stimuli, say an alarm clock, being seamlessly integrated into a dream. Underwhelming, as this requires people with rare skills and special requirement to achieve just 18% success rate. For a basic task. Amazing, bec…

>requires people with rare skills and special requirement It's not like one has to be born lucky though. It is possible to learn to lucid dream, or rather to remember dreams.

I can confirm this. I literally had zero natural aptitude for dreams and when prior to achieving my first consciously induced lucid dream, thought for a long time that I stopped having dreams (in reality I just was not recalling them).

Re: Scientists talked to people in their lucid dreams

#44

Post by EamonnMR »

nextaccountic wrote: post #33
jerrygoyal wrote: post #9

on a side note, people who do lucid dreams, how do you do it?

I followed the advice of this page http://www.lucidity.com/ which is mostly what other commenters are saying First step is to get a dream diary next to your bed to write down any dreams before you forget them (note: you forget dreams faster when you move your muscles, so try to write down without moving too much). In the long term, this makes you greatly improve recalling of dreams, which include lucid dreams. see al…

Be careful with clocks. I semi-intentionally developed clocks-not-looking-right as a dream test and then, not having thought about it for years, got a hilarious moment of disassociation when our conference room clock was broken and I happened to glance at it and see a totally wrong time.

Re: Scientists talked to people in their lucid dreams

#45

Post by ghusbands »

wahern wrote: post #12
vicedvin wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I may disagree, as from my own experience and lucid dreamers I spoke to, lucid dream is not a rest state but more of the awake. After lucid dreaming I am as tired as I did not sleep at all, maybe even more.

I'm pretty sure there's distinction between lucid dreaming during REM sleep and something akin to day dreaming while falling in and out of sleep, which some might still call lucid dreaming. I've experienced both. In the latter you won't feel refreshed in the same way (or at all), similar to when stress or alcohol prevents restful sleep. (Stress or alcohol very well may have setup the conditions for the non-REM dreami…

Whether in REM or not, I feel less rested the more I lucid dream.

Re: Scientists talked to people in their lucid dreams

#46

Post by sokoloff »

ianai wrote: post #42
sokoloff wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On integrating outside stimuli, what I’ve always wondered is how wall clock time relates to time in the dream world. I have a vivid memory of a dream as a kid where I was a fighter pilot, went through a bunch of dream time as a kid’s idea of what fighter pilots did, was eventually shot down/ejected over water and condemned to drown in the dream. I woke up with my mouth stuffed full of my own blanket to the point whic…

I don’t know for your memory of course. But I definitely know my brain morphs an ongoing dream to the outside world.

Agree: mine as well.

Maybe I should simplify my question. If my alarm starts ringing at 7:00:00 and this is an instance where that stimulus will be incorporated into a dream which started slightly earlier, can the dream be 4 hours long in dream time, ending with the alarm stimulus, if the dream started at 6:58? Or is there a much smaller (or larger) time dilation possible?

Does the brain speed up to quickly get to a scenario where that alarm sound is plausibly part of the dream world? If I started dreaming 1 second before the alarm, what’s the most complex dream I could experience that ended with an alarm sound?

The brain and dreams are fascinating to me, which is pleasingly meta.

Re: Scientists talked to people in their lucid dreams

#47

Post by blarg1 »

jerrygoyal wrote: post #9

on a side note, people who do lucid dreams, how do you do it?

I did it twice ages ago, I noticed I was in a dream after realising things that didn't make sense, I was on a bus to school when in reality it was the holidays.

At the time I was also staying at someone else's house so I had that weird feeling of sleeping under a different roof.

Also the whole time I was on the verge of waking up, I could feel my body and had to be careful not to move it while moving in my dream.

Re: Scientists talked to people in their lucid dreams

#48

Post by ghusbands »

thwoawayyowser wrote: post #2

Does this mean my staff could be asked to get some work done while asleep? In all seriousness I look forward to seeing exactly how much we can do while lucid dreaming. Also, what are the consequences? Does it cost you the nights rest? or could this be a life hack for getting more done in a day?

There are all sorts of things that are meant to happen during sleep, around learning and similar, that are unlikely to be feasible while you're lucid dreaming, so it might impede learning skills, for example.

When I did extensive lucid dreaming I found my brain was making my dreams more and more boring, I'd guess to reduce the chances of me noticing that I was dreaming.

Nowadays, I retain an awareness of when I'm dreaming, and I interrupt dreams when I'm especially fascinated by something in them or don't like them, but I otherwise let them run their course and don't take control.

Re: Scientists talked to people in their lucid dreams

#49

Post by ghusbands »

lesquivemeau wrote: post #6
thwoawayyowser wrote: post #2

Does this mean my staff could be asked to get some work done while asleep? In all seriousness I look forward to seeing exactly how much we can do while lucid dreaming. Also, what are the consequences? Does it cost you the nights rest? or could this be a life hack for getting more done in a day?

No you are rested as if it were a normal dream. But it's not easy to keep focused on something while lucid dreaming, you will likely forget that you are in a dream and no longer be lucid.

> No you are rested as if it were a normal dream.

Given the sibling comments, this is clearly not a fact. It's best to avoid stating opinion/experience as fact.

Re: Scientists talked to people in their lucid dreams

#50

Post by ghusbands »

dorkwood wrote: post #23
wahern wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had a productive coding session in a lucid dream at least once. But it was just a small number of lines of code (a few blocks) I was playing around with, and I had been thinking about it all day. The visual and semantic memory was sort of stuck in my mind, consciously and subconsciously. In any event, it was insanely precise (I was editing on a giant terminal screen) and when I woke up I typed in my refactored a…

Something I tried testing once was practicing the guitar while in a lucid dream. I was really interested in whether I'd be able to practice inside a dream and see improvement outside of it. Unfortunately the one time I attempted this, the guitar didn't sound correct, and I woke up moments later. I'm still interested in whether it would be possible, but I unfortunately no longer have the ability to test it.

It should be feasible, given that mental practice seems to work in general (from both studies and anecdotes). When I've tried practicing piano in lucid dreams, I've found the wrong notes sounding even when I press the right keys to be distracting, but if you can ignore 'dream effects', the practice will probably help.
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