Question to lucid dreamers

i had a few lucid dreams as a kid, but nothing important. after i joined a yoga school and our teacher taught us about lucid dreaming i had 3 major lucid dreams in a short period of time. and they were all pretty intense.

generally in a lucid dream u basically know u are dreaming. but the yoga exercises we did also gave us control during the dream state. meaning, i was aware during the dream that i could wake up anytime i wanted, and i had free will. i was also aware that if i got overly excited at any moment, the lucid dream would end and i would wake up! so in my first yoga lucid dream i knew from the get go that i was in an unusual situation which demanded a certain mental and emotional balance. like riding a bike, or a tight rope... if i fell to one side i would go into deep sleep and forget about myself and loose the lucid dream state. if i fell to the other side i would disturb that specific state and wake up in bed...also loosing the lucid dream. so only by staying calm and somehow detached could i remain in balance and stay in the lucid experience.

the Tibetan monks practice lucid dreaming as a spiritual exercise, because in the lucid dream state u can have access to higher states of consciousness much easier and faster, since u are not hindered by the physical body.

If you're interested in lucid dreaming, you should check out the Lucidity Institute:
http://www.lucidity.com/

They have a lot of information and FAQs re: lucid dreaming. You can also find electronic aids such as the NovaDreamer and Dream Speaker to help you have lucid dreams:

http://www.dynamind.com/dream.htm

I have used the NovaDreamer sleep mask and Dream Speaker to good effect. The NovaDreamer sleep mask goes over your eyes, sort of like a regular sleep mask. But it detects when you are beginning REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, which is when you will start dreaming. The Dream Speaker is connected to it. This latter device is a recording and playback device that triggers playback of a prerecorded message such as, "I'm dreaming now," in your own voice. Playback is triggered by the NovaDreamer when it senses REM sleep. The combination of these two devices works well to promote lucid dreaming, because when you hear your own voice saying, "I'm dreaming now," it helps you become lucid--i.e., it helps you realize you are dreaming.

My equipment is about 15 years old, but I'm sure there are new and improved devices out there if you look around.

Lucid dreaming can be quite fun, especially after you've had some practice and gotten used to it. Your first lucid dream will probably be a pleasant surprise. but it may take a few tries to get it to happen predictably. In my first lucid dream I was eating at a restaurant, and I wanted more gravy on my mashed potatoes. So I just told the waiter, "This is my dream, so I want more gravy." And the waiter put more gravy on the potatoes.

After enough practice w/lucid dreaming, you will probably be able to do it regularly without using any electronic aids at all. Also, experienced lucid dreamers can use tricks to make sure they're dreaming and not awake. My favorite is to keep a digital clock with red glowing numerals next to the bed near my head. During a lucid dream I can "look" at the clock in my dream, and note the time. If I then "look away" in my dream and look back at the clock, if I'm dreaming the time will have changed to something completely different from what it was a few seconds ago. E.g., the first "look" may produce a time of, say, 12:30. The next look a few seconds later might show a time of 7:15. That's how I know I'm dreaming.

Just watched this movie today.
I've been having lucid dreams for the last year or two. I've never tried to have them, they just happen (usually at night). It's generally something, some connector that will make realize its a dream. For example, once I noticed I wasn't wearing my ring and I always wear it.
I also have false awakenings a lot (had two last night). Not a fan of them.

Tricks are what whores do for money... and candy.

I've been lucid dreaming a lot lately and I've never had a false awakening. I just actually wake up. Sometimes it's hard to snap out of the dream-like state and get back in touch with reality after you've awoke but that's about it.

I suggest we learn to love ourselves before it's made illegal.

A lucid dream is nothing to be scared of.

You're the master and you control everything.Otherwise it would be a ordinary dream wouldn't it.

You can configure your mind into having lucid dreams more often then average.Try concentrating,before going to bed,on something you're likely to see or experience in dreams.

In example,and this is personal,i often dream of stairways.Now when i feel like it(maybe once a month) i will focus on staircases before i go to sleep.I made a board for this(keep it under my bed) with many pictures of various staircases.

Now when i am dreaming and i see a staircase,there is a slight chance my dream will turn into a lucid dream because i conditioned my mind to think staircases are important.

I think i get about 4 or 5 lucid dreams a year.And unlike the random ones people often get just before waking up mine last a bit longer.Atleast i experience alot more,i have no clue they actually last longer obviously.

I haven't had a lucid dream for the past few years, but there for awhile I had them about once every couple of months.

I am a sleep-disordered person anyway. As a child, lots of sleepwalking...then lucid dreaming...and now I have bouts of sleep paralysis (yuck!).

For me, lucid dreaming is an awesome experience.

I didn't *do* anything to bring them about...they just happened.

I literally would 'wake up' in the middle of a dream, and realize I was dreaming.

After the first few of these dreams, I did try to 'train' myself to take more control over the dream world. Once I could do that...wow!

I totally focused on flying in dreams...flying for me was an incredibly sensual and exhilarating experience. I would lift off 'the ground' (and the feeling of doing that is beyond words), and fly over houses and treetops, with my own special silvery moon shining down.

However, once I decided I wanted to fly out into space, which I did, but then I started to worry that I would be all alone out there & might not be able to 'come back' -- that was a bit scary...I then decided to fly back to earth and midway I woke up.

And, there were other times when I started 'thinking' too hard during a lucid dream (like thinking 'it's impossible to fly') which screwed up my lucid dreaming. For example, I would be starting to float up into the air and then float back down to the ground because 'people can't fly' (bummer!) -- other times, over-thinking would make me wake up. And then I would be a bit sad because the dream was cut short and I didn't know when the next one would happen.

I have never had 'false awakenings' or anything like that, so no problem there.

And you can do other types of things in the dreams, too, if you can hang on to the dream and not wake yourself out of it too quickly. Just about anything you can think of.

It's hard to describe to someone who hasn't had the experience -- like trying to describe color to a colorblind person.


Wish I could go back to it...overall, a very fun & unique experience!

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"Much communication in a motion, without conversation or a notion"

As far as I know, Lucid dreams aren't associated with any of the scary things you're worried about such as false awakenings.

I've experienced both but they haven't been connected. In fact, a false awakening is sort of the opposite of a Lucid dream since you believe that you've woken up when actually you're still dreaming (where as, Lucid dreams are characterized by being aware that you're sleeping). False awakenings can be frightening if you're waking into a nightmare. Over my life I've had a few intense ones which started with me waking up in as I normally would only to find something awful waiting for me. That said, these are pretty rare (I think I've only had 3-5 false awakenings which were scary). Most of the time, a false awakening is just weird.

Lucid dreams, on the other hand, usually begin for me when I start to become aware of all the odd things in dreams that don't make sense. Sometimes it happens when I realize that I can't remember how I got into a specific situation. Usually it's the result of me questioning some element in a dream that's counter to my actual memory. As for controlling them, that tends to be hit and miss. Sometimes I've been able to will things to happen but usually doing so causes me to wake up. I think being TOO aware ends up disrupting your sleep.

The great thing about Lucid dreams is that, in my experience, knowing you're dreaming removes any fear. In fact, learning to become lucid is actually a therapy that is sometimes used to treat nightmares.

I remember when I was a kid I had a nightmare after seeing Terminator 2. I'd actually seen it about 10 times without issue but then a friend told me that the T2 had given him nightmares and I made fun of him for it. The next night, in what is a pretty clear case of poetic justice, I had a dream where I was being chased by two women made of liquid metal who could transform their arms into blades (as the villain of the film could). Anyway, it was actually very scary until some part of me started to remember that I'd seen Terminator 2 in theaters and thus I must be dreaming. I got the idea that if I just stopped running and faced the robot women, I could wish them away or something. I stopped running, stood my ground, and said something like "I know you're not real." Then, one of the women cut off my head :( It was so strange. It was like watching footage where someone drops the camera on the ground.

Anyway, after she decapitated me, the evil woman and the other death robot just kind of stood there, as if they didn't know what they were supposed to do now that they'd killed me. I remember thinking, "this is awkward." It was almost like I'd encountered a glitch in a video game that broke the game. We just starred at each other until I woke up a minute later.

The important thing to remember is that I wasn't scared, even when my head was cut off because I knew I was dreaming.

I only have dreams of which I have some memory of when I wake up, that are lucid. I always know I'm in a dream and my ability to control what happens sometimes is very high and sometimes very low or not at all. I don't remember a time in my entire life when I didn't know that it's just a dream....what's it like for those who don't or can't lucid dream? Please let me know.