EvilZone
Encyclopedia Galactica => Science => : lucid March 05, 2012, 11:27:06 PM
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First of all while I debated for a short while about the relevance of this topic to the forum I remembered one fact. Lucid dreaming(in my opinion) is just another form of hacking. Now I'm sure many would disagree. For those people I might recommend looking at this thread http://evilzone.org/general-discussion/odd-set-of-skills/ (http://evilzone.org/general-discussion/odd-set-of-skills/).
In reality your brain is really just a very complex computer and dreaming is just another function of that computer so if your definition of hacking is limited to computers then I think this still applies to you.
Now for those who don't know:
Lucid dreaming is a phenomenon when in a state of dreaming you become aware(lucid) and realize that you are actually in a dream. There are a couple of key benefits to this. First of all its fun as fuck. Second, and this is really the more important part, you can improve many aspects of your brain by doing this regularly if you become good at it. Also you can give you great insight into your own life and mind....a bit like hacking into a program and modifying it.
When you begin lucid dreaming you will notice that not only are you aware that you are in a dream, you can also control your dream world. More common things like flying are possible. But there are many other things. For example in one particular dream of mine while experimenting I set things on fire, lifted objects by pointing at them and controlled where they would go, changed day into night....and so on. While fun, these things may seem unimportant which, they kind of are but there are other things that you can do that can have real benefits. One thing about lucid dreaming is that when it happens your dream world becomes much more vivid to the point of even having peripheral vision. With the ability to chose where you go in your dream(which never ceases to amaze me)you can go to faraway points in your dream. You can even summon people from your real life and have real conversations with them!
Keep in mind this does take energy and sometimes you will find that you are exerting actual physical effort in your dreams.
The techniques:
Most people go their entire lives without ever experiencing this phenomenon or even knowing that it exists. However there are things you can do in your day to day life that can help you (set up)your dreaming experience.
First, make a habit to look at your hands intermittently throughout the day. Be sure to count your fingers. This is the technique I prefer to use.
If you choose you can look at a clock(must be digital)throughout the day and make a conscious effort to study the time. When you see a digital clock in your dream you will not see numbers you will see unreadable lines as though the clock has malfunctioned. Likewise, if you look at your hands your fingers will appear meshed, and will morph together as you scan over them as though you are looking at them one or two at a time through a magnifying glass.
The reason for doing this is that after long enough if you make this a habit in your daily life you will find that you will dream about doing these activities just like you dream about other things that happen in your daily life. The act of seeing your hands or a clock coupled with the fact that they will not appear normal in your dream, is often a great way to "snap you out of" your mundane dreaming and will trigger lucidity.
Another useful technique is to ask yourself "am I dreaming?" throughout the day. Be sincere. Try to get into the mindset that many people theorize...that we are all in a dream, that the real world is an illusion.
Yet another is to, as you are laying in bed feeling that warm wave of sleep start to drift over you, try to keep in mind of your intent to lucid dream. It has been known for some people to fall asleep and go immediately into the realm of lucid dreaming.
Things to keep in mind:
Often times the activities you may choose to do become harder the more you lucid dream. This is a challenge you must overcome if you want to achieve even greater control over your dreams, your life, and the computer which is your brain.
Nothing worth doing is easy.
Also, when you begin to lose control of a nights dreaming experience(inevitable as we all must wake up eventually) you will get the sensation that you will be leaving soon. Familiarize yourself with this feeling. Sometimes you will lose control of your dream before you are ready to wake up. You must be able to recognize that feeling if you want to "override" waking up. These are some techniques you can use when you feel about to wake up.
One such technique is to scream at the top of your lungs. I suppose you can scream whatever you want however its best to scream something related to lucid dreaming like "Lucid dream longer!!"For some reason this can extend your lucid dream for at least a little while longer. Its a way to force the dream to come back.
You can also try to run as fast as you can in your dream. Anything that requires you to exert alot of force quickly seems to do this.
There are many more aspects of lucid dreaming that I have not covered as it is probably impossible to cover them all. Lucid dreaming is fun to some, to others its entering a whole new world with endless possibilities. As I've said before with the right intent you can gain great insight into your own life and this world.
Happy dreaming
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One should not dream and actually do, but you sound like you ate mushrooms :D
Kudos for writing it up, but I'm not sure what did you want to say with it :P
Heh you sure sound like an interesting person to talk to :D Sometimes shit looks like you're in a matrix, ya know.
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Its interesting. That matrix idea is becoming more and more relevant in my life lately.
I guess this kind of thing is too...powerful for me to not share what I know about it.
I'm curious as to why you would say that one should not dream and actually do?
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+rep for this, because there are a few techniques covered, I didn't know yet.
I do not practice lucid dreaming anymore, but I did for a while. I also had lucid dreams spontaneously when I was a kid sometimes going along with a sleep paralysis afterwards (which is frightening if you don't know what it is).
One of the things I liked to do, was moving into people on the street. I could actually see how they looked inside and I felt their blood, heard their heart and so on. It is hard to describe.
The lots of details I got were sometimes so overwhelming that I woke up. Another "danger" is loosing control again, fading back to the normal dreaming. That happened a lot to me.
It is definitely interesting and worth trying.
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WoW :o
I've never heard of this until now. This can have some philosophical implications on reality, the fact that someone can create his/her own reality raises some questions about the reality we experience everyday. +1 for this
I would like to know if there is a possible connection between hallucinogenic drugs and lucid dreaming ? Do you have any information on this
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I have never trained or even tried to do this lucid dreaming, but, interestingly enough, I get these every now and then.
Sometimes I dream stuff, and then just wake up and remember every single detail. Then, I analyze the scenario, decide what I want to do next in the dream, decide how I will do it, and go into sleep again. Then the dream becomes even more vivid and I see me doing what I wanted, just before I went back into sleep.
Dreams are strange things.
I actually get solutions to my problems through dreams. I remember how once I couldn't get some C code working proparly and could not figure out whats wrong. Then after a few days of strugle with the code I was dreaming about how I fixed it.
When I woke up, I remembered what I dreamed, and quickly realized that the solution in the dream would actually work. And it did. The only problem is that I have to write the dream down as soon as possible before it fades away.
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I actually get solutions to my problems through dreams. I remember how once I couldn't get some C code working proparly and could not figure out whats wrong. Then after a few days of strugle with the code I was dreaming about how I fixed it.
When I woke up, I remembered what I dreamed, and quickly realized that the solution in the dream would actually work. And it did. The only problem is that I have to write the dream down as soon as possible before it fades away.
lolwhat! you too? I thought I was crazy with this, but seems more people ate having the same.
It did happen to me few times before - when I was writing some apps and in the end just could not figure out one thing or another and I struggle for few days with it , I go to sleep, and in the morning when I wake up I somehow immediately know the solution, so yeah I gotta do it right away because I can't seem to remember a lot of dreams, but it's in my head, even tho I can't have a clear picture, when I start to code it goes out :D
Weird shit dude, really weird to understand but it's true :D
About these lucid dreams that sound creepy, sorry for my first comment. I didn't read it all at first, only few parts so I thought you were writing shit being high :D
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Can this relate to astral projecting at all? I was thinking of trying that but this sounds much more fun and easier O.o
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WoW :o
I've never heard of this until now. This can have some philosophical implications on reality, the fact that someone can create his/her own reality raises some questions about the reality we experience everyday. +1 for this
I would like to know if there is a possible connection between hallucinogenic drugs and lucid dreaming ? Do you have any information on this
Although I have done my fair share of hallucinogens I've never noticed a direct connection. I do know that smoking marijuana can effectively stifle this...and actually dreaming altogether. One of the many reasons I don't smoke.
One author Carlos Castaneda has a series on his experiences with a shaman named don Juan who teaches him about many things that raise questions about reality, including lucid dreaming. He has him doing a variety of drugs like Jimson weed and peyote. However he does this mainly to help him "break his plate of reasoning." Theres no circumstances where the use of one of these drugs directly causes a lucid dream.
@Kulverstukas
Don't be sorry this is a weird subject to talk about. Most people chalk this up to "hippy shit" I see this as an incredible and useful part of life to be explored.
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lolwhat! you too? I thought I was crazy with this, but seems more people ate having the same.
That's really nothing new. Several scientists claim to have found solutions in their dreams. One of the most famous is probably August Kekulé and the benzene.
Sometimes I dream stuff, and then just wake up and remember every single detail. Then, I analyze the scenario, decide what I want to do next in the dream, decide how I will do it, and go into sleep again. Then the dream becomes even more vivid and I see me doing what I wanted, just before I went back into sleep.
That doesn't sound like a lucid dream to me. I mean that is possible too--planning beforehand how the dream shall go, I also did this sometimes. But in a lucid dream you are aware that you are dreaming and are able to influence it the same moment you dream. The experience is much different from a normal dream, even a planned one.
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Don't even try astral projections. Crazy shit that ca n leave you mentally ill.
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+rep for this, because there are a few techniques covered, I didn't know yet.
I do not practice lucid dreaming anymore, but I did for a while. I also had lucid dreams spontaneously when I was a kid sometimes going along with a sleep paralysis afterwards (which is frightening if you don't know what it is).
One of the things I liked to do, was moving into people on the street. I could actually see how they looked inside and I felt their blood, heard their heart and so on. It is hard to describe.
The lots of details I got were sometimes so overwhelming that I woke up. Another "danger" is loosing control again, fading back to the normal dreaming. That happened a lot to me.
It is definitely interesting and worth trying.
Can't say I've tried that. I remember in one lucid dream I encountered a person who showed me many things to do in the dream that I never would have thought to do. It didn't seem like I had dreamt this, it was more like I was gaining information from an outside source. This person told me that he too was currently lucid dreaming in another real physical location in the world and it just so happened that we were in the same plane at the same time.
Yeah its easy to have it slip back to normal dreaming thats why I like to use the screaming or running techniques. It often helps at least for a little bit.
Deque is right that(while cool and potentially useful)is not a lucid dream. Dreams are your brains way of recharging and repairing. Its not uncommon to have a problem, then go to sleep, and without actually remembering anything in your dream you wake up and the problem seems easy to solve. This happens to everyone
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Once you start lucid dreaming - especially from self induced - you lucid dream every night.
I know.
Don't open this door unless you are ready to be that way forever.
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Haha I think your confused. Lucid dreaming and insanity from too much LSD are very different things
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In not sure. I don't remember.
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I have practiced loads of in real visualization, like when listening to music, i can see fireworks, or i can imagine a man walking over the floor and really believing it comes with a almost frightened feeling.
I am going to look into this, i had once a dream (not so long ago) where i feld some kind of power/reality mix, i killed the enemy's for the first time in my life, it felt good.
Thanks :), maybe you could do some more writing on the technique parts?, i have experienced a way of meditating in the past, where you just go meditating and when in a state of mind you visualize a world, i takes loads of concentration but it works.
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I have practiced loads of in real visualization, like when listening to music, i can see fireworks, or i can imagine a man walking over the floor and really believing it comes with a almost frightened feeling.
I am going to look into this, i had once a dream (not so long ago) where i feld some kind of power/reality mix, i killed the enemy's for the first time in my life, it felt good.
Thanks :) , maybe you could do some more writing on the technique parts?, i have experienced a way of meditating in the past, where you just go meditating and when in a state of mind you visualize a world, i takes loads of concentration but it works.
Thats definitely the kind of mind control that you need in order to be able to lucid dream. Of course lucid dreaming won't happen the night after the day you decided to start thinking about it. Although it might. I think the smart people on this forum probably won't have too much trouble with it. As I've said before lucid dreaming in my opinion is hacking. :)
I'll compile more thoughts and post other helpful techniques soon, although, I'm not the final word on this subject.
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I started looking into lucid dreaming after night terrors became a real problem. Helped in some ways and made it worse in others. Some times I wake up and cant move or control myself for an hour or two... terrifying.
On the note of giving your brain commands tho, i feel like it's only a matter of time before we learn to literally crack the human mind the way we would a computer.... Now that's scary stuff if you think about how much damage you could do. you can't just reimage the human mind...
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you can't just reimage the human mind...
Well I never thought about that part. Thats an interesting way to look at it. So far I haven't really done anything negative to my brain through lucid dreaming(Disputable).
Although on the subject of being paralyzed when you wake up thats happened to me before. I woke up and felt pressure and couldn't move, I also saw a girl standing over my bed clear as day repeating something to me in a low harsh whisper.......can't remember what she said. She disappeared and I jerked out of bed.
Never happened for an hour though that sounds scary...is it possible that there was a time lapse effect? Because when you dream even though it can feel like hours its only been five minutes.
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I felt that too.. But it happened with me only few times.
Sometimes my dreams repeat. And that's the point where I'm the king of my dream because i know what will happen next. It's like I can handle my dream.
And about that hacking of mind, you are right. When you know that it's only a dream then you have no fear. And you can do whatever you like.
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@Wolf: A sleep paralysis usually takes a few minutes only and happens also to healthy people, more often to people who are not able to sleep regularly or about the same time (like shift workers). If you have been paralized for hours, it is either a dream or--in case it happens more often--you should visit a doctor about that. It can be a hint for an underlying condition.
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Lol, i'm a shift worker and an insomniac. So that explains a lot. And I will admit there could have been a time lapse effect, but still some scary stuff.
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Interesting I didn't know that part about shift workers. I used to work the night into early morning shift for UPS. Also an insomniac. I guess that explains that
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Inception anyone?
How do you relate lucid dreaming to the stuff happening in movie inception?
Are lucid dreams as real as the stuff in inception dreams?
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I suppose inception might be a good example in the way that(again with enough power, energy, and concentration)you really can literally construct your own dream.
I only saw that movie once so I don't remember other details otherwise I might give a better explanation sorry. :P Although, I would say that trying to understand the concept of lucid dreaming by relating to it with a movie is silly.
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I am a frequent practitioner of lucid dreaming. I usually have one about every month now (when I first started it was about every 4 months). The only thing I have to work on is my urge to beat the living fuck out of my dream citizens mortal kombat style.
One of my favorite times while lucid dreaming was creating a coastline, and watching a never-ending sunset. The level of control you have on everything when you lucid dream is retardedly addicting. I've flown in the air, created landscapes, killed people, long-jumped over the san francisco bridge, teleported, gained super powers etc.
There are, however, down sides of it. I once, "woke up," I guess, but I was still dreaming, and when I actually woke up I was extremely out of my mind that day. I've also reverted into possibly one of the most horrible nightmares of my entire life, and woken up with sleep paralysis, but other than that, it's a really awesome hobby to take up. I've most recently been having lucid dreams after a night of drinking alcohol, just food for thought if there might be a connection there. Any thoughts?
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I've most recently been having lucid dreams after a night of drinking alcohol, just food for thought if there might be a connection there. Any thoughts?
Actually I've noticed that too. It at least doesn't stifle it like marijuana does.
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I started with learning :), last night i used http://luciddreamingapp.com/android/
After a night you get graphs like this
(http://img.1mobile.com/web/screenshot/f/8/f83b9aa90afb7ad409c80a076852aee2.png)
Very nice :D, also there are many systems included like wild, mild etc.
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Wow. So has it worked?
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No, because it needs atleast 3 days of data before it can predict the best times to wake and do all.kind of reminders.
Also doing reality checks, however yesterday i did it in english but i.think its better to do anykind of this stuff in my native language.
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Gotta love smart phones. Yeah i think your native language is definitely the best way to go.
I hope it works..feel free to ask me questions is something isn't working for you.
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Inception anyone?
How do you relate lucid dreaming to the stuff happening in movie inception?
Are lucid dreams as real as the stuff in inception dreams?
I'll partially take back what i said about it being silly to relate lucid dreaming to a movie. If you want a really good example take a look at a movie called Waking Life.
It shows what I mean when i say that its possible to have a dream thats indistinguishable from reality. Also how you can have actual conversations with people.
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Inception anyone?
How do you relate lucid dreaming to the stuff happening in movie inception?
Are lucid dreams as real as the stuff in inception dreams?
(http://legacy-cdn.smosh.com/smosh-pit/072011/derp-inception.jpg)
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My wife suffers from lucid dreams. And yes suffers.
Her dreams have so much emotion and feeling, that her heart is affected. Blood pressure goes up, heart rate increases, lashes out verbally, sweating, etc.
I get very concerned and have even been able to talk her down to calmness while she is sleeping. She hears me and knows what I say, but it comes through in here dreams. She'll get up the next day and recite everything I have told her, but still doesn't believe I was talking to her in the waking world. The problem is, that she can't tell the real from dreaming while she is asleep.
Lucid dreams can be some really freaky shit. I've relized I was dreaming before and could control shit, up to a certain point. Then once I believed I was dreaming and couldn't feel pain, and it was all in my head, shit hit the fan.
I was shot with a hand gun in that dream, and I feel I really experienced death. It was like my soul was falling into a void inside a shell, like I could see the walls of my person fading away in the distance. If she didn't wake me up from thrashing around and gasping, I might be dead right now because of a dream. My body temp was 96, and heart rate through the roof.
Really, be careful with this. The mind waking or not still thinks shit is real. Die in the matrix, die in life. More truth there than what science knows.
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I was shot with a hand gun in that dream, and I feel I really experienced death. It was like my soul was falling into a void inside a shell, like I could see the walls of my person fading away in the distance. If she didn't wake me up from thrashing around and gasping, I might be dead right now because of a dream. My body temp was 96, and heart rate through the roof.
Really, be careful with this. The mind waking or not still thinks shit is real. Die in the matrix, die in life. More truth there than what science knows.
With practice the next time someone pulls a gun on you in a dream you can affect that situation. Lucid dreams aren't always a fun time. When you have control over your dream that doesn't only mean you can do things, it is possible to completely change the situation.
I've had scary dreams before, often times they are dreams about getting arrested which usually end in an overwhelming feeling of doom and terror until I wake up. With the ability to lucid dream often times I will become lucid in those situations and may do something like laugh in the cop's faces, fly away, or think the dream into another situation where perhaps the cops suddenly aren't interested.
May be a bad example for you I don't know. To some people this topic seems to be a scary topic that is misunderstood. New things are scary. As a child everything is full of wonder and beauty and as you get older you mind forms a....plate of reasoning. This plate of reasoning is obviously a useful thing in this world of logic, however it is kind of a comfort zone that your brain is afraid to leave. This is why in the world of today things like mother's getting psychic feelings and people getting messages in their dream's is thought to be insane because it is not proven by science. Science, although it is a great thing, forces everything to have to be proven. Which is also fine. But it is cause for some ridiculous theories. Did you know that there is and ongoing study that is trying to determine whether or not fish have feelings? They poke and prod at fish who flail in response to the obvious pain that they are feeling but because fish can't scream people aren't sure if fish have feelings. To me this is the most absurd question and I don't need science to tell me that fish have feelings or that dogs can think.
I realize on a community like this, this may be a radical and foolish post. Can't change what I think though.
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Just had one last night. I was drinking for about 6 hours. I just happened to be dreaming about my high-school graduation party, and how awesome it was, but then I remembered..."Wait a minute, I'm half way across the world in real life right now, I'm just dreaming." This time I decided to fly into outerspace. It was all going good, and then I reverted into normal dreaming and fell approximately 60 miles to my dream death.
Oh also, if you want to try an experiment with your subconscious, ask your dream citizens if you are really dreaming. They will always tell you, "No." With a smile on their face. This can also be used for a decent reality check, because sometimes IRL people will sarcastically say, "Oh yeah, you're dreaming right now."
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Just had one last night. I was drinking for about 6 hours. I just happened to be dreaming about my high-school graduation party, and how awesome it was, but then I remembered..."Wait a minute, I'm half way across the world in real life right now, I'm just dreaming." This time I decided to fly into outerspace. It was all going good, and then I reverted into normal dreaming and fell approximately 60 miles to my dream death.
Oh also, if you want to try an experiment with your subconscious, ask your dream citizens if you are really dreaming. They will always tell you, "No." With a smile on their face. This can also be used for a decent reality check, because sometimes IRL people will sarcastically say, "Oh yeah, you're dreaming right now."
Same. I was drinking for a good amount of time last night and had some pretty vivid lucid dreams. I told someone that I was a real person who was invading their dreams. They were shocked and would not believe me.
I'm not saying there's a direct connection but drinking seems to make it more likely to lucid dream. Or maybe it makes it easier.
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I know I'm digging up something a touch old, but this was on HaD. Turns out we can communicate from the dream world into the waking world via Morris Code.
http://hackaday.com/2012/06/20/communicating-from-inside-your-dreams/
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i read over all the posts and unless i missed it, i didnt see anything about this topic... would it be possible to practice skills in a lucid dream and still keep that experience IRL? i would assume so, but i want to know from you guys
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i read over all the posts and unless i missed it, i didnt see anything about this topic... would it be possible to practice skills in a lucid dream and still keep that experience IRL? i would assume so, but i want to know from you guys
I think lucid dreaming is all about fucking bitchs in your dreams lol.
But really, you can take away a lot from the dream world that will help in daily life. Let us all unlock the un-waking world, we have a lot to learn
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would it be possible to practice skills in a lucid dream and still keep that experience IRL? i would assume so, but i want to know from you guys
It's plausible, and worth an experiment; however, I have my doubts. Take learning how to do a back-flip for example. In your dream, you would be mentally ready to attempt one in real life; however, your body would not be conditioned to the training that took place in your dream. Just one example I could think of.
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ok.. so I just read the first post and I have a question.. you said we have to practice to realize when we are dreaming.. right?
so, Its been about 2 years or so but I always know when I am dreaming, I mean its not something weird is it? I never did any sort of exercise or something, but I always know when I am dreaming, but I never remember the dreams after some hours of waking up, even when I wake up the dreams are never clear, but I do know that I had a dream and if it was pleasant or not.
the only thing related to mind exercise are that I meditate in once about a week.. and I sleep really long.
I do not take tea, coffee, hard drinks and drugs.
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ok.. so I just read the first post and I have a question.. you said we have to practice to realize when we are dreaming.. right?
so, Its been about 2 years or so but I always know when I am dreaming, I mean its not something weird is it? I never did any sort of exercise or something, but I always know when I am dreaming, but I never remember the dreams after some hours of waking up, even when I wake up the dreams are never clear, but I do know that I had a dream and if it was pleasant or not.
the only thing related to mind exercise are that I meditate in once about a week.. and I sleep really long.
I do not take tea, coffee, hard drinks and drugs.
Are you saying you always know that you are dreaming WHEN you are dreaming? I don't think it is abnormal. Have you ever been able to control your dreams because of this? I started lucid dreaming before I ever knew what to call it, or that it happens to other people. Ever since then I always at the very least, have a faint idea that I am dreaming. That is if I am not fully lucid.
I don't think it's all that abnormal.
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Are you saying you always know that you are dreaming WHEN you are dreaming? I don't think it is abnormal. Have you ever been able to control your dreams because of this? I started lucid dreaming before I ever knew what to call it, or that it happens to other people. Ever since then I always at the very least, have a faint idea that I am dreaming. That is if I am not fully lucid.
I don't think it's all that abnormal.
yes, I almost always know, and I have dreams almost everyday.. You could say that 9 out of 10 i know when I am dreaming. There is always a nagging feeling.. kind of hard to explain, but I know that this is a dream and that it is not real. The dreams are vivid but I do not remember them after few hours. Something like when you really like a song you pick up while walking on the street and you really like it but when you try to find it on the net, you forget the words...
and as I said before.. I do not take any mind altering substance.
EDIT : No, I never tried controlling them, and it seems like I cannot control them either.. all dreams are like I have taken the back seat of a car and someone else is driving it.