Lucid Dreams

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I think lucid dreaming is really fucking cool. It's kinda like having a holodeck in your head (no, I'm not a trekkie).

Does anyone have them regularly? It's been so long for me I can't remember exactly when it was--probaly w/in 8 mos.

Do they last for a long time for you? I find that knowing you're dreaming causes the dream to rapidly collapse--you've looked at the wizard behind the curtain.

Know of any lucid dream inducers that actually work? I think it would sell like hotcakes.

― oops (Oops), Friday, 14 February 2003 16:16 (twenty-three years ago)

Know of any lucid dream inducers that actually work?

I would love this. Most of my lucid dreams involve me exploring imaginary places - looking in other people's houses and going through their closets. I finally get a chance to notice my surroundings instead of just using them as a set.

For a year or so in high school, I had great lucid dreams pretty regularly. I would fly around and explore little villages and go shopping. I miss those days. They seem pretty rare now.

― Sarah McLusky (coco), Friday, 14 February 2003 16:25 (twenty-three years ago)

I love it and it happens to me regularly. They don't last too long but I'm improving, but eventually they will always wake you up.

There used to be 'the dream machine' which could induce lucid dreams and such, by producing a small electric shock at the right time. I even had instructions on building one, but that was years ago.

― Fuzzy (Fuzzy), Friday, 14 February 2003 16:27 (twenty-three years ago)

I have lucid dreams here and there (not nearly as much in the past few years as I generally sleep 5 or 6 hours at most), but I'm not quite as fluent in the controlling of my dreaming as I wish. The only thing I'm really very capable of with a good consistency rate is flying, which is totally friggin invigorating; but it makes waking up a bummer, 'cause you have this weird impression that it might be possible to carry it on in waking life* but you just can't seem to remember how.

*Waking Life is also a very very excellent Richard Linklater film about this very subject.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Friday, 14 February 2003 16:36 (twenty-three years ago)

I have these often, but with no regularity. Although I generally take them as opportunities to fly or to get busy with dream babes, the best one I ever had was a nightmare in which, once I realized that it was a dream, the attacking monsters and I began to sing a musical number.

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Friday, 14 February 2003 16:40 (twenty-three years ago)

I've heard of a device that's basically an eye patch/mask (like the one's old ladies wear when they go to bed) with 2 LED lights. Somehow, another part of the device registers when you go into REM and the lights go on. It's supposed to not be enough to wake you, but enough to cause lucidity. Doesn't seem like it'd work: sometimes I'll be aware of something from the 'outside' world (alarm clock, storm, music, etc.) but it just incorporates itself into the dream or wakes me up.

*seen Waking Life and liked it despite its blatant intellectualism/philosophicalness

― oops (Oops), Friday, 14 February 2003 16:41 (twenty-three years ago)

The benefits of a LD (lucid dream) machine would be more than just entertainment.
My theory is that dreams play a big role in what your mood is when you wake up, and your mood when you wake up plays a big role in determining your mood for the rest of the day. You don't even have to remember any dreams for them to affect you. If you have a stressful dream right before waking, you obviously will still be in a stressful state after waking. This is the whold "waking up on the wrong side of the bed" Think about how much happier you would be if you felt the exhiliration of flying around just before waking.

― oops (Oops), Friday, 14 February 2003 16:52 (twenty-three years ago)

I think Waking Life wouldn't have worked if it hadn't been so damned fun. If all "intellectophilosophicated" films were that fun, I'd totally have gone to film school.

I actually sampled a great line from that movie for the intro to one of my band's songs...where they're talking about dreaming and the guy tells him to try flicking a light-switch if he's not sure whether or not he's in a dream, and the dude says "I can explore all these new dimensions of reality...not to mention I can have any kinda sex I want, which is way cool".

(which reminds me, I must get that sample cleared...)

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Friday, 14 February 2003 17:02 (twenty-three years ago)

my fave LD's are when i just go around smashing the fuck out of everyone and everything

*I've never heard of this film, I will try and watch it

― Fuzzy (Fuzzy), Friday, 14 February 2003 17:04 (twenty-three years ago)

I've only had them a couple times and they didn't last very long, just long enough to think "Holy shit I'm dreaming" in fact. I did manage to squeeze out "The milky bars are on me" in another. Like nickalicious I don't sleep enough to get them these days.

If you want to have them you should stare at the palms of your hands a lot. Apparently the palms of your hands are a dead giveaway in dreams. If you have a partner that can whisper "You're dreaming" to you then that can help trigger them too.

― Alfie (Alfie), Friday, 14 February 2003 17:06 (twenty-three years ago)

I read in a book about the hand thing. I tried it one night and it kinda freaked me out. I started LD'ing and I suddenly remembered to look at my hands (in the dream), it was like a bolt of electricity just blasted into me. I woke up almost instantly and couldn't get back to sleep for hours.

― Fuzzy (Fuzzy), Friday, 14 February 2003 17:09 (twenty-three years ago)

The people in your dreams probably wanted to have the day off from having the fuck smashed out of them.

― Alfie (Alfie), Friday, 14 February 2003 17:15 (twenty-three years ago)

yeah, but in order to remember to look at your hands (or turn off the lights) you already need to have some level of lucidity.

Ever noticed that you can fade in and out of lucidity very rapidly. Like one instant I'll know it's a dream (yet, this lucidity still differs qualitatively from waking lucidity) and the next I'll 'buy into' the dream again, then become lucid, then....

For me, lucidity elicits the famed "Fuck or Flight" response

― oops (Oops), Friday, 14 February 2003 17:17 (twenty-three years ago)

Fully Guaranteed?

― oops (Oops), Friday, 14 February 2003 17:30 (twenty-three years ago)

hey, this thread reminded me that i had my first lucid dream 2 nights ago (after i gave up properly trying about a month ago)

― mitch lastnamewithheld (mitchlnw), Friday, 14 February 2003 17:31 (twenty-three years ago)

This hand thing is interesting. Anyone else know any tricks for dream manipulation?

I used to stare at certain pictures every night before going to sleep in hopes of having the people incorporated in my dreams, but it never seemed to work.

― Sarah McL (coco), Friday, 14 February 2003 17:33 (twenty-three years ago)

i sometimes have them but most often in the "shit, i'm paralysed again" pre-waking state when yr minds come to but yr body's still snoozing. don't much like those. the best way to get them, i find, is to have a lie in. that drifting off/waking up semi-conscious thing is highly conducive to head-messing.

― michael wells (michael w.), Friday, 14 February 2003 17:41 (twenty-three years ago)

Cool shit happens if you're really tired and try to stay awake.
Your thoughts are based in reality, but get twisted as you start doze.
I think this state can be called "dreamy lucidity", like the opposite of a lucid dream. Instead of lucidity creeping into your dreams, dreaminess creeps into your lucidity. It's very close to tripping, where reality serves as a basis for flights of fancy.

― oops (Oops), Friday, 14 February 2003 17:53 (twenty-three years ago)

first thing to do according to various sources: keep a 'dream journal'. the hippiness of it all might be a little hard to shake at first, but it seems to work. first time i tried it, i dreamed i was recording my dream in my new dream diary - while still dreaming.

i read about the hand thing and the thing where you can't read digital time or alter the ambient light or remember a piece of text and a had a semi-lucid dream (i say semi cos i'm not sure about the extent of the control i had over what was happening) wherein i looked at my palms, realized i was dreaming, and excitedly showed everyone else in the dream how it must be a dream cos look this digital watch ain't working right and hey, try switching off the light and i'll bet you can't remember what i just wrote down.

― mitch lastnamewithheld (mitchlnw), Friday, 14 February 2003 18:14 (twenty-three years ago)

YES! I've written down my dreams for most of my life, and I can look back at early ones and recall vivid dreamemories. I haven't been able to do this lately because of the snooze button/ alarm clock. I wake up and hit the button and totally forget what had just happened. I've got to switch my life schedule around so that I can wake up whenever I want.

― A Nairn (moretap), Friday, 14 February 2003 20:30 (twenty-three years ago)

I find it bizarre to remember a dream from more than a year ago out of the blue, and it's as clear as when I first remembered it. Sometimes, I remember an old dream that I have never remembered before (at least not when fully awake)

― oops (Oops), Friday, 14 February 2003 20:39 (twenty-three years ago)

Although I also find it extremely bizarre, there are some dreams I had 10 and almost 20 years ago that I can remember more vividly than some things that happened last week.

I still flash-back often to one I had at about 9 years old where I was kinda-running along a beach, but I wasn't on the ground, I was leaping along on sort-of "path" made up of these widely-spaced-apart huge Stonehenge-ish stone pillars just wide enough for my foot to rest on the top as it toppled over into the next one, onto which I leapt, and this process continued for a very long time, as the stone pillars toppled one onto the next like 20' tall dominoes.

In fact, that dream was one of many with a definite beginning, middle, and end, all of which I remember more clearly than what I did last Thursday. Kinda weird to think about.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Friday, 14 February 2003 20:54 (twenty-three years ago)

I remember particular dreams I had when I was still very little as if they happened yesterday, or at least scenes from them. I had one when I was 10 or so (hard to remember exactly when) that involved the christmas turkey getting out of the oven in the middle of the night and trying to kill my family. Uh, also my family lived in a castle for some reason. And the castle had a roller coaster built inside it.

― Sarah McLusky (coco), Friday, 14 February 2003 21:06 (twenty-three years ago)

I've been having lucid dreams, nightly, since late last summer - the meds I am on, when combined, have this odd little side-effect. Odd. But I do like the lucid dreams, so long as they're not nightmares (which they were last night, unfortunately, sthat's why I am so groggy today). Oh, and the meds combo? Paxil and Wellbutrin, along with something to stop the tremours from the Paxil.

― I'm Passing Open Windows (Ms Laura), Friday, 14 February 2003 22:53 (twenty-three years ago)

I've had lucid record-shopping dreams. They are very prosaic. I am walking through some record store which feels absolutely familiar (upon waking I realize it's just a composite of many record stores I've been to) and often find a record I've been looking for forever (upon waking I realize there is no such record). Recently I purchased in such a store a CD or LP (it kept switching) of some '80s band called A Flock of Frippery, who apparently were some would-be New Romantic band with so little conviction that they wound up dressing like U2 rather than Duran Duran. The liner notes were very Palao-like and alternately praised and dismissed the band. I wish I could remember more; there were some good lines. Anyway, the whole thing was frighteningly lucid to the point where even 24 hours later I was still struggling to convince myself none of it was real.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 14 February 2003 22:58 (twenty-three years ago)

the christmas turkey getting out of the oven in the middle of the night and trying to kill my family. Uh, also my family lived in a castle for some reason. And the castle had a roller coaster built inside it.

This is why I love listening to other peoples dreams

― Fuzzy (Fuzzy), Saturday, 15 February 2003 00:26 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't think I've ever had lucid dreams. I want one of those machines

― Curtis Stephens, Saturday, 15 February 2003 00:33 (twenty-three years ago)

sometimes even just the thought of lucid dreams can induce an experience, or interuptions in the night. I live next to a noisy main road, I think this has a lot to do with why my dreams are lucid.

― Fuzzy (Fuzzy), Saturday, 15 February 2003 00:37 (twenty-three years ago)

Once I had a dream with this gorgeous piano music, and I had the ability to transcribe what I was hearing (what I'd do to have that in my waking life!), but I didn't bother writing it down because I thought, "it's from The Sound of Music." When I woke up I realized it WASN'T, and I got so mad at myself for not writing it down. Just NOW I realized that if I'd written it down in the dream, it still would've vanished when I woke up. (I never have lucid dreams, to answer the thread question.)

― Maria (Maria), Saturday, 15 February 2003 00:41 (twenty-three years ago)

I know exactly what you mean. Dreams, unfortunately, only project your emotions and nothing else. So many times have I heard perfect music in dreams but woken up only to forget the whole flippin lot.

― Fuzzy (Fuzzy), Saturday, 15 February 2003 00:48 (twenty-three years ago)

I've written lots of songs in my dreams, but never in real life.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Saturday, 15 February 2003 06:51 (twenty-three years ago)

I've managed to write down about a dozen pieces of music I've gotten from dreams, usually just a few notes or a bar or two but sometimes much more. It seems to be happening more lately -- a few weeks ago I got a (basically) complete song, with everything but the lyrics (I snagged a couple brief lines, but that was it).

Whenever I lucid dream (which is 1-2 times a year -- usually it happens when I deliberately oversleep, i.e. keep making myself fall back asleep past 9 or 10 in the morning), I have a hard time not waking up immediately. The trick is supposedly to spin around in your dream; it doesn't work perfectly, but it seems to help.

― Phil (phil), Saturday, 15 February 2003 07:05 (twenty-three years ago)

I just had one last night ( i just woke up so this may be a little slppoy). I was in a sort of outdoor warehouse where there were all these metal racks with all sorts of things on them. I had a camera and a bike, and so did my friend, His was digital my was manual. THis place was dangerous and many gangs of theives were around. They wanted our bikes and camerea.s There was a movie theater near by that everyone was going to go to after a large dinner.
going back a bit: A huge crowd was waiting in line to get food. One side was Japanese food the other was America food. It had the feel of a school feild trip and the people there expected us to eat all the American fod so there wasn't too many people in the Japanese food line. I went to that one and was really excited by al the sushi I got an dall the little soy cracker snacks. I then went to eat my food on thislarge hill where everone was going. I set my food down in the middle and went to find my friends.They ate fast and where already in line at the theater. I asked them what time/what movie are you going to watch. They said "Idon't know maybe 8." I was like "ok, that's fine, as long as it was a time." I left and went went to eat my food, then I finised and tried to go back and find the theater.
This is when I was in the large outdoor (kind of underground) warehouse (junkyard). I set my bike down and walked around looking at objects and buttons and gears. Then I went back around a corner and saw a bunch of people with bike frames in their hands. I tried to look for my bike, but couldn't find it then I looked for the frame of my bike while kicking the people in the shines. They seemed to have gotten away with it. Then me and my friend were anxious to find our camereas which we had also set down somewhere. We found them exactly where we left them in a room a little ways aay that was dark. behind the door was a barrel trash can and we had tossed them into it (I actually remember when I did this earlier). Then we brought them with us but encountered another gang. there were to guys that went for me one little guy to grab my camera and a big guy to beat me up. I kicked away the little guy, so the big guy went for my camerea. Seeing how he was a little slow I maneaverd away and through the camera up away over a few rows of shelves. I tried t remember eactly where it was. The big guy tried to find it and get me. I grabbed a box and started to swing it at him, but as I was swinging it I was peeling of the tape and trying to open it. I was going to grab what was inside and hit him with it. I got a large metallic meat cutter out and slung that at him knocking him over, then I went to find the camera hoping that the back did not pop open. I found it a few shelves back and my friend was getting out of his struggle so, having realized that it was nearly dawn and the movie theater had been closed for a while. We tried to feind our way home (without bikes) Here we seperated and I found myself going along a road and tryong t cut through some woods and thick snow, and falling over into the snow. That's where I woke up.

― A Nairn (moretap), Saturday, 15 February 2003 13:46 (twenty-three years ago)

not where I woke, but when

― A Nairn (moretap), Saturday, 15 February 2003 13:46 (twenty-three years ago)

I haven't read the whole thread but feel compelled to add my twopenny's worth:

Lucid Dreams are FUCKING AMAZING - they are a springboard to an Astral Projection.

Sleep parlysis - astral projection - lucid dreams > there is more in heaven and earth than is dreamt of in your philosophy...

Keep dreaming. Dream harder.

― chris sallis, Saturday, 15 February 2003 21:07 (twenty-three years ago)

eleven months pass...

"first time i tried it, i dreamed i was recording my dream in my new dream diary - while still dreaming."

I just started writing down my dreams in hopes of helping me remember them, and this is the same exact thing that happened to me the first time I tried it. I wonder how common this is?

― stephen morris, Sunday, 8 February 2004 18:09 (twenty-two years ago)

two years pass...

i had one two nights ago that ... sort of faded from (i suppose) illucidity to pellucidity. very existential + weird; the beginning, normal, passive dream experience was an horrific near-nightmare thing about going columbine and shooting up an alabama walmart filled with people i vaugely know. as i stopped, in the dream, to change the clip on my gun (which IRL i have no knowledge how to do), i found myself fully immersed, actively, in the narrative. analogously: i'd been watching a tv show about myself, and then fallen smack dab into the action. and at that point there were gun totin' police officers trying to catch me. i was able to get away from them, running, aware that i had to survive their bullets or i would never wake up in the morning. what i noticed - and remember even now - is the faces of these officers: fully rendered, incredibly vivid, hyperreal. one of them, especially, has been dogging me for two days, and i'm secretly worried i'm going to see him on the street and realize i'm still stuck.

― Damn, Atreyu! (x Jeremy), Thursday, 3 August 2006 00:23 (nineteen years ago)

four years pass...

just had one of these for the first time. floating felt very strange, like someone had picked me up by the top of my head...

― ryan, Tuesday, 11 January 2011 22:12 (fifteen years ago)

twelve years pass...

this seldom happens, but on occasion the time I’m going to wake up coincides with a rem cycle. I can hit the alarm without fully waking up, but I jump back into my dream with the understanding it’s a dream

someone I did this three times in a row today! mostly woke, remembered details, and jumped back into the dream throwing it in new directions. luckily, I was in a good mood over the last day so it was mostly surreal and interesting

― mh, Wednesday, 3 May 2023 01:28 (three years ago)

two years pass...

not a lucid dream, but one that got me thinking.

dreamt i was meeting a friend, i wanted something, i forget what. she was working at a department store, it was around Christmas. we met, she was busy so i was following her as she moved around the store. it only took a couple of minutes, but several locations, some back and forth. only as i was leaving did i notice that she kept looking up. and only then did i realise she was looking for mistletoe and not finding any with berries on, that that was why she'd kept moving around. and then i woke up.

how was i so surprised by her actions when i'd dreamt up the very specific scenario, time and space, that allowed them to happen?

― koogs, Wednesday, 21 May 2025 04:25 (one year ago)

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