Question to lucid dreamers

Firstly I am yet to see this film. But I have had lucid dreams. I seem to be the only one out of the responders on here that has actually experienced many false awakenings. For a while there I was having false awakenings quite frequently and it began to scare me because I would feel stuck in a dream state that I had trouble escaping. After this I looked up lucid dreaming and I tried to stop myself from doing it by telling myself before going to sleep not to. I also found that lucid dreaming occurred most frequently when I had afternoon naps, or just at times out of the ordinary.

I guess you could say I haven't grasped the concept of lucid dreaming it's like I get stuck between the dream world and reality, once I become aware that I am dreaming by body morphs back into the sleeping position and I am back in my bedroom again, I think I wake myself up and begin to carry out my day until I realise something isn't right and then I freak out and try to wake up for real.I have had dreams within dreams up to 3 levels until I finally wake up to the real world. I would do reality checks by looking at my hands, if I was still dreaming my mind didn't let me see my hands and it was like I physically couldn't move my hands in front of my vision.

I think the easiest way to lucid dream is during the day, with some sort of background noise happening. Whether it is a television or outside noises like lawn mowers or workers etc I think these things can help.

I have friends who have been trying to lucid dream, they have written x symbols on their hands so that they can just do reality checks all the time. When they are dreaming the symbol won't be there.

Anyways good luck with it.

There is nothing scary about it. In fact after I started lucid dreaming I never had another nightmare which were frequent before. I only truly felt completely lucid as in my environment being crystal clear and me being conscious during it maybe 10 times. I never had complete control, more like an indirect control. I could expect things to happen and make them happen but whenever I tried to directly effect things it all fell apart. Spinning worked a little, but not for long.

An easy way to do it I found was going to sleep 4 or 5 hours, setting the alarm to wake me up and staying up for an hour or so waking my brain back up, then going back to sleep. I dont think I could ever do it sleeping through the whole night, Id just want to stay sleep. And I needed to devote alot of waking attention to dreaming consciously too.

I have been having lucid dreams every night for as long as I can remember. They are highly realistic, but always have giveaways to show that they are not, in fact reality. Sometimes you will know you are sleeping, but more often this isn't the case; however, it is not uncommon to mix up dream facts with reality, even hours or days after the dream. As far as I know, these dreams have never affected my sleep patterns. What you should know is that I have had multiple experiences in which I have (or at least thought I have) actually felt sensations from within a dream. In one case, a large man wrapped his arms around my torso, picked me up off the ground and squeezed as hard as he could. I could still feel the sensation after I woke up for several minutes, though it really caused no discomfort other that an unsettling feeling brought on by the fact that this was my first time experiencing this.
In short: there's nothing to fear. (There's also no way to bring on a purposeful lucid dream, not including certain prescription meds which list such dreams as possible side effects.) Don't be afraid, because lucid dreams really are an interesting an sometimes even inspiring experience. Pay a little attention and try to remember them when you wake up; it's quite interesting. Take it from an expert.

Lucid dreaming is fairly interesting. I have experience it several times and have also performed the 'light switch test' during lucid dreams. But I have stopped actively pursuing lucid dreams for the past few years because of the associated sleep paralysis I encounter.

see this article about sleep paralysis --- http://www.dreaminglucid.com/articlejc.html ---

I have experienced numerous instances of sleep paralysis that were not associated with lucid dreaming. And I have had lucid dreaming that does not include sleep paralysis. But sleep paralysis is somewhat uncomfortable, as it can contain unpredictable hallucinations. While I may know full well that I am in sleep paralysis, I am still unable to verify the accuracy/inaccuracy of the hallucinations I may experience. It's not always so, but this can be moderately unpleasant at times. I know I will eventually fall asleep or wake up. But this knowledge does not prevent a feeling of mild anxiety. Mild anxiety is not what go to sleep for.

So to answer your question. I find lucid dreaming fairly interesting and non threatening. It's nothing to be afraid of. Neither is sleep paralysis. Nothing bad will happen, you will wake up and be fine. Even if you encounter the anxiety that is possible in sleep paralysis. Also, the 'cool' factor of lucid dreaming only goes so far. It's not actually a gateway to another universe or a shortcut to true insight or self knowledge.

Well I hear a lot of support and apprehension on the thread. But nothing concrete. How does one do it ?

http://justgyaan.blogspot.com/

Well in my experience, you can wake up whenever you want to. You just suddenly choose to wake up or just kind of jolt yourself awake, but you won't know what time it is, or how long you have slept for.

I've has 5 lucid dreams as an adult. I remember when I was young I used to do it a lot and thought it was normal, now it's kkind of hard and haven't tried in a while. It's the best though.

I used to have many lucid dreams until I didn't find them interesting anymore. Don't be afraid of having them.

My inspiration was the dream book by Frederik van Eeden, a contemporary colleague of Sigmund Freud. Just like Van Eeden, I did dream experiments, like leaving notes in my books (they weren't there the next morning) or testing my senses in the dreamworld. All with the knowledge that I was dreaming.

In this thread I read a lot of other stuff which I find interesting, but don't really relate to.



"I don't discriminate between entertainment
and arthouse. A film is a goddam film."

Watching 'Waking Life' on Sundance channel got me to thinking about the 'lucid dreams' that I've had in my lifetime. I'm 37 (male) and I remember having 3 or 4 'lucid dreams' in my lifetime where I can control everything in the dream and do anything I want. I usually like to fly like Superman and I am not afraid at all. The last one I had I met a girl named Nikki and we were in love, she was beautiful, and we were flying in a Hummer vehicle and sitting on an amazingly beautiful beach, I created huge structures in seconds, and much more, it was absolute PARADISE! When I wake up I'm extremely sad and usually weeping uncontrollably for some reason, probably because I know I can't go back for a long time, if ever. It is truly an extraordinary experience. I think if heaven exists, then it (for me) would be just like the 'lucid dreams' I've had.
I don't know what brings them on, they are random. I try to think about the things I thought about during the day prior to the dream hoping it will trigger something in my mind to allow it to happen again but it never works. This subject reminds of that movie "Vanilla Sky'.