The Dreams Thread

[UnseenWombat]

Ive been meaning to ask, what do you mean by reality checks? Do you mean like saying to yourself, "i cant fly, grass is green, the moon is not cheese." Like do those things count?
Also, when you say think about dreaming and reality, are you supposed to think about them at the same time or dreaming then reality and vice versa?

Well, the things you mentioned are sometimes also true in dreams. There are some things that are often different though. There are many different kinds of reality checks, usually they involve something physical. Some are:

1. Look at a clock, note the time, then look at it again. Is it the same? If it is, you're probably awake. If not, you're dreaming.
2. Look at a clock--Does it say an actual time, or are there all jumbled symbols on it?
3. Look at your hands (this is my favorite one). Do you have the usual number of fingers? Do they all look normal? If not, you're dreaming.
4. Pinch your nose and close your mouth and try to breathe. If you can, you're dreaming.
5. Turn a light switch on and off. Does it behave like it's supposed to? If not, you might be dreaming.
6. Try to push your tongue out through your clenched teeth. (I do this one all the time IRL, but never seem to do it in dreams.)
7. Try to push the index finger of one hand through the palm of the other. This is how I became aware in my first lucid ever, IIRC.

Just try to do something simple, because sometimes RC's even fail in the dream. If you try to fly and can't, that doesn't necessarily mean you're awake, because some people can't fly even when they're dreaming.

Thinking about dreams and reality just means always wondering if what you're experiencing is reality or if it might be a dream. (It leads to some mind-bending thoughts too LOL. Just about the nature of reality). Reality checks help you make a determination one way or the other. But if you're not thinking about it, you'll forget to do the RC. Just try to remember to RC even more than 10 times in a day. We're so conditioned to accept whatever we perceive as reality, that it's harder than you think.

Also, in order to lucid dream and have it be worthwhile, you have to remember your dream. An experience isn't worth much if you lose the memory of it. Just because a dream is lucid doesn't necessarily mean that your long-term memory is active any more than during a normal dream. It helps to have a dream journal, for motivation to remember, and it helps to have a notepad by your bed where you write down what you dreamed as soon as you wake up from it. A little flashlight, so you can see wtf you're writing also helps, or else you'll have a jumbled mess that you can't even make out when you read it later. (Trust me, I know.) Improving your recall is a big part of lucid dreaming for the reason I explained, and it also helps you have dreaming on your mind so you'll do more RC's. Finally, another benefit of a dream journal is that you can go back years later and reread what you did, like I had almost totally forgot that epic lucid I shared in my last post.

Lucid dream sounds interesting. I don't remember most of my dreams, but I've had several dreams that I was able to control where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do. I had no idea there was a name for that until now.

My most recent dream which would be last year was a disturbing one. I dreamed of a naked woman who climbed up on a chain like a monkey, and dropped down from there. She sat on a meat hook and swung back and forth. She told me in a playful manner to give her a push. When I refused, I was surrounded by chains of meat hooks that dropped all around me. When my perspective of the area zoomed out, I can see myself carrying a sword across my back as big as Cloud's Buster sword, and I drew it out. I leapt up and cut the chain that the woman was swinging from and a large hand holding all the meat hook chains came down from the ceiling. I hacked the hand off by the wrist and the stump quickly retreated and that's when I woke up. I knew what that dream meant. It was a common temptation of lust, as it rears it's true appearance, and I overcame this. And the woman on the meat hook had no idea how much harm it was doing her as she seems to swing on it playfully. She was being manipulated or controlled by someone like a master pulling strings on a puppet.

I can sometimes interpret my own dreams. I have a gift for interpretations, but I've been using it to interpret art works. I rarely ever considered interpreting dreams though. To be honest, I'm not sure I really could. Well not to that extent. Dreams could mean anything from different perspectives. So, anyone's interpretation of dreams is as good as mine. At least with art work, the visual is more certain and established. I can refer to the art work from time to time.

I found Lust once. It was before I knew about lucid dreaming, so it was just a normal dream, but I was in a cave with someone (IDR who), and we went back to this small alcove where there was a large, heavy stone idol with a demonic face. I somehow knew that this was Lust.

Yes, dream interpretation is hard. I think the best person to interpret a dream is the person having it, because only they know all the things going on in their own mind and life and can make the connections. I don't for a moment buy into the crap you see in bookstores on dream interpretation that says something like dreaming about cheese means you need to get out of the house more or whatever.

 

[Pyrrus]

Thank you so much!! :D I will try it tonight V 3V God-willing I'll be successful :o and if I am Ill be sure to post xD Also i have a dream journal already :3 Ive had one since I was 12

 

[UnseenWombat]

Also look into WILD and DEILD. They're difficult but powerful techniques. Also, trying them also sometimes leads to DILDs even if they fail.

Oh, and remember, the best time to try to LD is after you've been asleep for 4 or 5 hours. (It won't work first thing in the night.) Get up, stay out of bed for a bit (the amount of time varies between people, an hour works best for me), and then go back to bed. This is called Wake-back-to-bed, WBTB. Your chances of having a lucid go up dramatically.

Once you get on a roll and want to try to increase your frequency of lucids, you might try Galantamine (an OTC anti-alzheimers drug, only available online AFAIK). I've had some good success with that. It's still no substitute for frequent RC's and constant awareness of reality though.

 

[DeathInMyEyes]

I feel violated and slightly aroused that wombat dreams about me. All homo.

Lucid dreaming has been something of an interest of mine for a while. While I remember I've had many lucid dreams, I can't seem to remember them fully, but just that I was able to control some of them. For instance, when I used to have an interest in song writing, I would dream of singing a song. I would wake up remembering singing words that just flowed wonderfully, but couldn't remember the words, only that I had complete control over them in my dream.


Also, on the note of horrific lucid dreams, I've had a couple. In the last one I remember, I was lying awake on my bed. I was staring at an eagle statue (one that I'd never bothered unboxing from the last time we moved, which was probably my cue) on top of my entertainment center. I began to feel an almost wicked presence as the eagle statue began to levitate and fall as if something huge was just tossing it up and catching it. Dunno why, but a sudden wave of terror came to me as I woke up and found I was completely unable to move, as if something much larger than I was holding me down.

This particular dream was very unnerving because a couple years ago, my mom had a very similar experience.

She told me that, while she was sleeping, a cloaked demon (she said it looked like a dementor from Harry Potter) began to pin her down in her bed. She began to scream and such, but to no avail. She looked around her and every thing was dark. Being the religious woman she is, she began to scream something like "In Jesus' name, begone!" until it finally left her alone. She was freaked the fuck out the next day.

Of course, this was all before I found out about sleep paralysis. Going hand-in-hand with WILDs, I assume thats what had kept us pinned down. Still, it was scary as shit at the time.

 

[Ghengis_John]

What's the big deal about lucid dreaming? I have some degree of control in all my dreams, making choices, changing scenarios, even sometimes rewinding to do things over. I assume everyone does this, so what sets a lucid dream apart?