I'll cut to the chase: I've had what I believe is called a lucid dream. From wikipedia: "A lucid dream is any dream in which one is aware that one is dreaming." So here's how it began: At first, when I had nightmares I could realize that I was dreaming. For instance, I dreamed that my friend and I were being chased by witches with shotguns on our way home from school. I then hid behind one of the balcony railings of my house and thought, "Well, this is strange." To make a long story short, I realized I was having a nightmare and I forced myself to wake up. Soon, I could do this with many of my nightmares. I'd realize I was dreaming, and I'd force myself to wake up. After a year or so (I can't remember specifically, I was 10-14 yrs old), I could perceive myself in the setting of the dream. This changed things. One night, I'm being chased by deer hunters in an office. I think, "Well, this is strange.... wait a second..." and I turned myself into a freaking RHINO. Yes, I then proceeded to pummel my gun-firing enemies with the greatest of joy. Quick flash to another nightmare: I'm on a roof with a friend being hunted by a wolf just below us. With a snap of two fingers we're all the sudden playing capture the flag. With a wolf. If you're not thinking, "AWW YEAH!" then I don't know what more to say. Anyways, the end. I've had other instances of lucid dreaming but I'll end this here.. Only somewhat recently have I come across the definition of "lucid dreaming," so I thought I'd ask: Has anyone else had a dream like this? I'm genuinely curious as out of all the times I've told these stories I've never met anyone who's had similar experiences.. Weird, eh? TL;DR - Nice try
I've only had one lucid dream experience, if you could call it that. It happened one day where me and my gf fell asleep on the couch, and early in the morning we moved to the bed. It was like, the rolling around half awake half asleep sleep. I would just start dreaming, then I would have a sudden realization that I'm dreaming and for some reason this really frightened me. I guess it was like a "I'm not real" kind of thing. I would then shock back into half awake and would be back in the room. But I was still exhausted and would fall back asleep and dream in another minute. In my dream I realized I was in a loop of dreaming and then coming back out then dreaming, and this only worsened the fear. eventually it was too much stress and I just woke up enough to stay awake, and watched tv to calm my heart. lucid dreaming is p cool though. It's interesting experimenting with your mind
Like you, I learned at a young age that I could change the outcome of a nightmare if I realized I was in it, and I haven't had a nightmare since. I can still remember a lot of my lucid dreams that I had as a child. I used to be really big into lucid dreaming, and I would try dozens of different techniques in an attempt to reach lucidity. For about a month, I put a black ink dot in the center of my palm, and every time I noticed it throughout the day, I would do a "reality check," - a close examination of my surroundings to determine if the setting I was in was a dream. I would look at the things like consistency of physics, level of detail, etc. The idea is to create a habit that would carry over into your dreams, because if you can question the validity of your surroundings during a dream, you'll most likely come to the conclusion that you're actually in a dream. I had relative success; several times I'd realize I was in a dream and would wake up immediately, and once I had such a realistic and detailed dream that I was totally convinced it was reality, only realizing later that it wasn't. I did have three successful lucid dreams in that period, though, and I still have all of them recorded in a dream journal, which I still use. So yeah, lucid dreams are cool ****. Enjoy them when you have them.
I've had a few lucid dreams, and they rocked. In one I was a ninja doing all this agile **** in a half built four story house, another was when I was really young; I dreamed I was a weird robot guy and had something that looked like a motorbike without wheels that could fly, and it actually felt like I was flying around. Another one was a sex dream. I was on a beach with, for some reason, Christa Miller (before she had all the surgery), and we went under a pier and... lets just say it felt like it was real. ;P They're the only ones I can remember, but I haven't had one for a long, long time. I wish I would because they're one of the best experiences.
Wow, didn't realize others had 'em. Thanks much for the replies- @Fbu: I've had similar experiences. Like you know the eye tests where they say to focus on a house in a big prairie (then shoot a puff of air at your eye)? I'd imagine something like that, except there'd be clutter... literally just colors and lines and blurs everywhere. Like looking down a "path" with very colorful/blurred "trees" on either side, except they were mainly just smudges. I'd imagine that late at night sometimes where an object, like the opposite side of the "path" or just anything really, would come closer and closer. It would be absolutely terrifying and sometimes I couldn't tell if it was a dream or if I was awake or not, and I'd wake up startled and have to turn on the light to at least focus on one object so I wouldn't go crazy again lol. @Transh: I want that song as my ringtone. @Rorak: I've heard of people doing that, but idk if I could commit myself without looking like a loony ha. Do you have any specific dreams to share? I'm pretty interested. @Xun: That beach dreams sounds AWESOME. I wish I did more of that lol, mine were always pretty strange... capture the flag with a wolf... wtf. Okay, umm... what about sleep walking? I could talk about dreaming for a long time as you might tell.. I once fell asleep in my bed and woke up in the hallway... standing. I then proceeded to take a shower and get ready for school, assuming it was 6 in the morning. Well, I came back to my room, look at the clock, it was 2 am. Why I woke up standing in the middle of my hallway is kinda freaky. Anything remotely paranormal really freaks me out.. Okay ^that's not so bad, but I have more stories about dream/real life integration.. two pretty freaky ones, one that happened to me at 4 in the morning with a very heavily medicated aunt, and another that happened to my brothers at like 12 am... which is kinda disturbing? I'll prbly tell 'em later
I don't sleep walk, but I used to sleep talk. I'd sometimes wake myself up by trying to talk to someone in my dream outside of the dream. I also get a weird feeling sometimes when I first start going to sleep. I'll slowly be drifting off and all of a sudden I'll get a feeling that I'm falling, jolt, and wake myself and usually my missus up. I've also been noted to do something else in my sleep, and wake up half way through, but the missus usually doesn't mind so we keep going. ;P
There are techniques to make this happen, some people lucid dream every night. I've been trying for years, only managed to do it once so far. @<3Sky: that's one technique but it won't work when you first go to bed. Dreaming occurs during REM sleep, which doesn't begin until you've been asleep for a couple of hours. REM cycles then occur in increasingly-longer durations every 90 minutes or so. Most people set an alarm to wake themselves up after about 4 hours to attempt induction techniques like the one in your picture. Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views is a decent forum, but there's lots of information to be had just by searching around.
There are two types of ways to achieve lucidity, at least from what I know; you either have to suddenly gain awareness mid-dream, or you need to never lose awareness. The technique described in Sky's post is the latter of those two. Most mornings, after getting prepared for school and whatnot, I'll usually fall back asleep for 10-15 minutes. I've been doing it for so long that I no longer need an alarm, I just don't lose consciousness when I fall back asleep, and mentally time myself so that I wake up at the appropriate time. Like the picture describes, it's best to be really tired in order to make this work, and if you have incentive not to fall completely asleep (Like the prospect of being late to school), then you'll probably have the most success. This is the period when most of my lucid dreams occur. About two months ago, I had a lucid dream that was purely audio. I was completely aware of what was going on, but the mind does strange things when you're in a dream. I didn't get any visuals; I only heard music. It was a piano at first, playing a melody that I didn't recognize, but that I knew. It wasn't long before it started developing into an orchestral sort of sound, and I could feel my mind creating it, developing it, as the song moved forward. I don't play any instruments, and I've never written music before, but I have had an interest in music for a long time. I woke up pretty abruptly, and immediately tried to write down what I heard. You can imagine my despair when I had no idea how to write down the melody I had heard, and now it's lost forever. It was still an interesting experience, and now I'm learning how to write and play music, so if something like that ever happens again, I won't be unprepared.