Ok, so we had a topic about nightmares - but have you ever had lucid dreams? Or do you have them on a regular basis? Can you actually induce them? What's your technique? In any case, if you ever had one, share it!

I actually don't have a technique of inducing lucid dreams, but since I read a bit about them, I know several techniques of what to do once I'm “in”. So, the obvious question is how do I KNOW it's a dream. This is tricky, because I had dreams SO realistic I would even question that it's a dream. One time, I was walking in the middle of a pouring rain and I felt every drop of it on my skin. It wasn't merely real. It was hyperrealistic.

So what do you do?

One thing you should know about lucid dreams is that the dream reality is unstable - and it will adapt to your fantasies when you try and make it. For example, focus on an object, then turn around (preferably by 360 degrees) and think that you want it to change. And it most likely will. The first time I tried it - with great doubt, I might add - I changed a black pen into a blue one. But then I tried to do one of the coolest things you can do in a dream: fly. For some reason, I couldn't.

I solved that problem in another dream. I grabbed the tips of my jacket while wearing it and started flapping it like wings. Duuuh! ;)

One time I went to a bookstore and imagined a whole bunch of books by Terry Pratchett (I have some 30-40 books of his so far, btw). I actually flicked through a few of them and they actually made sense :|

I have a ton of them too as well.

Being an gamer girl though, my lucid dreams always end up being some bizzare version of Morpgs or something.

That, or it's a very distorted verison of my life.

Ever seen Escer's works?

http://www.mcescher.com/Gallery/back-bmp/LW389.jpg
my lucid dreams are often kinda like that…only it's always a werid verison of something I was familar with, like my home.

And I know what you mean about the flying. other times I can fly without thinking about it, no problem… but other times I can't seem to will myself to fly. So you know what I do in those situations? I just start thinking of myself as a bird, and I get turned into a bird and I just flap my wings.

I hate having to flap my wings/arms like that though…they always get SO tired from all that flapping! So of course I preffer the kind of flying where I'm just kinda gliding though the air without even doing anything.

The odd thing is…… i cant remember a dream i have had that wasnt lucid….. in every dream i have i seem to have complete control…. i can mold and shape “reality” in whatever way i see fit… so that kinda ruins nightmares for me…. as the bad guys dont stand a chance….

around 10 i discovered i also have the ability to chose my dreams before i sleep…. all i have to do is start living out the dream in my head as im lying in bed… its great because i can finish dreams that i didnt get a chance to……

ive talked to shrinks about this before because i was worried that i wasnt actually falling asleep, that i was actually just letting my imagination run wild while i was lying in bed, but it ends up that i use about 85% more of my brain while i sleep than the average person…… god, if i could only be a genius while awake…….

I've always pretty much been able to control my dreams. If I think about something right before I finally turn in, its 99% of the time my main topic of dream.

Does that mean you can dream about some hot stud(s) or hot chick(s) (whichever your pref) every night?

*ENVY…*

Forget flying, I can't even run right when I'm asleep. I feel as if my legs are tired and feel like jelly. So what I do is either get on all 4's and run like a beast, or I put my belly to the ground and start crawling like a lizard/centipede.

Funny thing is, when I do that I can go DAMN FAST.

I envy you people so much! I only managed to “wake up” in a dream a few times. Most of the time I wake up as soon as I realize it's a dream. Especially when I'm tryin to think up hot chicks…

Aurora: Yeah, I know Escher's stuff! Wow, must be cool to have dreams like that. Also, another way to force yourself to fly in a dream is to jump out of the window - like my friend taught me. Strangely enough, she was there in the dream in which I discovered the trick with the jacket.

Notlikelytocare: I think my problem is I use up all my imagination during the day so my dreams end up terribly mundane. Like, how much does it suck to dream of an average workday? LOL! Then again, sometimes I have the most trippy dreams ever, including sitting on a lonely asteroid at the edge of the universe (think The Little Prince meets Big Bang Theory)

Mlai: that is as cool as it is funny. Never tried that! Maybe I should!

I have the occasional lucid dream - as I said in the nightmare thread, I started studying them in response to my nightmares. When I'm lucid I practice flying. Jumping out the window never worked for me =( I just wound up with a hard landing. The last one I was able to control the flight pretty well. It was fun ^_^ My dreams aren't nearly as vivid as they used to be, though.

The first bit of the Xtremers Inc episode Those in Control are based heavily off of a lucid dream I actually had. Before this I assumed that lucidity automatically meant control so it was kind of striking -

Someone
Also, another way to force yourself to fly in a dream is to jump out of the window

I'd be waaaaaaay too scared to try that, even if I was lucid.

Do you realize how REAL heights look in dreams? Brrr…

Fitz
Aurora: Yeah, I know Escher's stuff! Wow, must be cool to have dreams like that.

Yeah, sometimes it's cool. but most of the time, sometimes it's just too confusing. Like I'd be looking for some friends of mine and then end up getting lost. Then I realize that the reason why I was “lost” was because I was actually WALKING ON THE DAMN CEILING THE WHOLE TIME! So of course I couldn't see them around unless I looked “up” to the ground where they were.

I had a small amount of control in my dreams, when I was younger I mean. Whenever I wanted to stop my dream, I would just shut my eyes really tight until I saw a haze and it usually worked! Not always of course! Mostly nightmares prevented it from working. I also had some control in moving and looking away from things, but sometimes I just felt like some sort of shiver and then I would be frozen on the spot. Usually being forced to focus on something in a nightmare, that I really don't want to focus on.

I haven't had any controllable dream in a very long time, and as far as I can remember I was never able to shape my dreams. I would be pretty fucked up if I did, too many of my dreams involved the death of my friends and family and ultimately myself.

Penguin
I've always pretty much been able to control my dreams. If I think about something right before I finally turn in, its 99% of the time my main topic of dream.

I wish my dreams would work that way, but they just don't. My dreams rarely have anything to do with anything happening in my day or whilst I am trying to sleep.

Oh, and although I was never capable of jumping from someplace high, I just stressed my brain in my dream and you get a weird haze which usually woke me up. You guys know what I mean by stress the brain right?

As I said before, even though I barely dream anymore, I did have the best dream I have ever had in my life the other week. :);)

(why can't my dreams involve that sort of thing more often.)

ive had one or 2. its always been before i wake up and someon has to say my name. if that dosent happin then i dont do it. i prefer not to any way. normaly when it dose happin in my head when i here my name i usually say somthing back like “shut up im trying to wach this” or “just let me kill this next guy” (dont ask) and even if they do the dreams ruind because my consios mind has nothing on the imagination of my unconsios one (god i know i bucherd that word right there)

Whirlwynd
Jumping out the window never worked for me =( I just wound up with a hard landing.

I actually never had the chance to try it out myself - but the odd thing is sometimes in dreams I would end up falling from RIDICULOUS heights and land as softly as if I jumped off the window on the ground floor.

Mlai
I'd be waaaaaaay too scared to try that, even if I was lucid.

Do you realize how REAL heights look in dreams? Brrr…

Oh yeah! Actually once I tried to focus on the “image quality” of the dream and I was surprised it was pretty damn sharp - with just a bit of a tv screen feel. Everything looked almost TOO real to be a dream.

Aurora: what about gravity in those dreams? Do you feel pulled “upwards” when You're upside down, walking on the ceiling?

Bek: Yeah my brain can't take some things in a dream, too - and I wake up. But I usually wake up when it starts to get interesting. Like, I walk up to a hot chick! - bam! wakey-wakey! :P A good way to stay in the dream when you feel you're waking up it spinning (yup!). Worked a few times for me. I'm pretty used to being stressed out in my dreams. Half the time I'm being chased by someone/something (either huge or in large amounts) or feeling uncomfortable in some environment. I seldom actually have FUN in my dreams!

VGman: It's usually the case with me, too. Even when I'm beginning to think it's just a dream, I get distracted and forget to do the reality test.

I've very rarely had lucid dreams. Usually if I'm self-aware at all during a dream, I just take the strangeness of the dream in stride as if it were real.

Oh, and if you pay close attention, the degree of realism present in a dream varies greatly depending on your focus and exactly what you pay attention to. Perspective and scale in dreams is frequently shot all to hell. I've had a dream where I rode out of a ship's well deck in a rubber raft to the edge of the normal-sized swimming pool the ship was floating in. Then I climbed out of the raft which promptly disappeared, onto the deck around the swimming pool, then stepped across onto the deck now miniature naval vessel which was floating in said swimming pool. I was conscious of what I was doing, but saw nothing strange about the change in scale at all. The individual bits all looked very realistic, they just didn't fit together in a way that's possible (or even sensible) in waking life. So: Focal detail? check-plus. Perspective? check-minus. Continuity? minus (see me after class).

Lol. I have lucid dreams all the time.
As for flying and doing magicky stuff as soon as I realized that I was tired of flapping my arms I started flying like superman and it was so much more fun.

But usually I just let the dream take over… because it requires so much concentration and I usually just want to save that for daytime.

SwissCheese: this is exactly the thing about most dreams - even if a cow flew by, which is impossible in reality, you'll be like “oh ok”. This is because the frontal lobes of your brain - which are responsible for the reality check - shut off. In lucid dreams, they are somehow stimulated, causing you to “wake up” inside a dream and realize this isn't reality.

Mechanical_Lullaby: usually, I wear my brain out during the day so much with daydreaming and creative thinking that my dreams end up being terribly mundane. Well, most of the time. And then, once in a while, I'll have the most psychedelic dream ever.

Fitz
Aurora: what about gravity in those dreams? Do you feel pulled “upwards” when You're upside down, walking on the ceiling?

lol. well, you ever noticed how in some escer images that the people in them doesn't seem bothered in terms of gravity shifts? Well it's like that for me, I don't really feel the pull of gravity or anything like that. I'm just stuck to the celing.

of course after I realize that I was on the celing, I just kinda “shifted” my gravity when I dediced to walk down the walls in order to reach the ground. Just like that one redheaded chick in Farscape.

And that's the funny thing about my lucid dreams… that whole “reality check” thing seems to be only halfway working. Even when I realize that it was a dream, my whole brain doesn't think “whoa, that's impossible” whenever I happen to see something out of the extraorinday. I'm just basically like “Ah, I see.” And then I just have fun with the strangeness.

Someone
usually, I wear my brain out during the day so much with daydreaming and creative thinking that my dreams end up being terribly mundane. Well, most of the time. And then, once in a while, I'll have the most psychedelic dream ever.

Yeah that's a big problem for me.

The time before falling asleep is the best time for me to “daydream.” Quiet… dark… I'm relaxed… I have time…

But the price of that is I either don't dream, or don't remember I dreamed, or dream about being lectured by my dad. WHEE.

Only if I don't daydream before bed would I ever get cool dreams. Why can't I do both~!!

Cool discussion!

As time goes on, I more and more realize I'm dreaming at some point while asleep. If I'm having a repeat dream (which happens alot, my brain apparently likes reruns), I always know it's a dream and I can alter what happens to a degree. Like, go behind door number 3 instead of 2.. last time, 2 was bad.. let's try something new. LOL. I thought it was kind of common, but it seems I'm verging on something not everyone can do. But it's not like I'm training myself, nor do I care to take it as far as I can go. It's nice to not have complete control over something…

Very rarely do I get so wrapped up in a deam that I think it's real. I usually have the power to wake myself up at any given time if I don't like where the dream is going. My favorite dreams are the flying ones, where I suddenly realize that I can fly (oh, right, duh!). Only once have I been able to acheive that by my own decision. That I can remember, that is.

It's not a conscious “I'm going to have a lucid dream tonight” type thing.. I only know what's happening in my dreams, and it's not the same thing as making a conscious decision while awake. It all seem to just “go with the flow”, like I'm watching a movie, but sometimes I get the remote control. And once in a rare while I can be, like.. assistant director, heh.

As for daydreams… it's almost always a given with me that whatever I'm daydreaming about before I fall asleep will NOT be what I actually dream about. Ain't gonna happen. It'd be nice to have a dream about winning the lottery, but instead I get “attack of the bunny slippers” or some crap.

Slightly off topic, but what kind of dreams do you guys have? Someone mentioned having boring monotanous dreams as they're so imaginative during the day… me, I seem to have what I call, “video game dreams”.. where I'm on a mission or out-running an enemy, but never feel anxious about it- it's fun like a video game would be.

Yeah videogame dreams. Apt description.

I once had this dream that I'm a John Woo super gunman descending a half-built skyscraper, blasting away guys in black suits (a lot of whom fall out of the unglassed windows) along the way.

Fully automatic infinite-ammo twin pistols, of course.

I used to have lucid dreams more, back when I'd have nightmares more often. A couple times I was able to take control of my nightmares and change them.
Mostly from what I've read and seen, one way to wake yourself up in a dream is to have a cue thing, some image that tells you its a dream. Like a deceased loved one, or something you wouldnt normally see, like the Eiffle Tower or something. I first learned about that technique from a Star Trek Voyager Episode, surprisingly it seems to work.

I usually figure out most dreams arent real, but only about 10 or so minutes before I wake up. I figured it was just part of the normal waking process.

i can wake up in a dream and control it as well.
i usually have 10-15 dreams per night.
but its very hard to do..

Ok, this isnt' about controlling my dreams so much as it is a weird set of dreams.

I keep having recurring dreams (quite a few different ones, but I'm only going to talk about one main one). In my dream I meet Bruce Campbell. He's usually alone and sad about something. I always ask whats wrong, and in a sad voice he tells me. I opt to solve the problem by becoming BBF's (best friend's forever) with Bruce, which solves his problem and makes me very happy. It always ends with zombies raining on our parade. I've had the dream about three times in the last month. I just yesterday had one about Jack Nicholson as the Joker trying to haunt me out of some house. It also ended with us becoming BBF's.

I think I have a problem.

Most of the time, I'll be in the middle of a messed up dream and suddenly I'll become really aware and think “this bores me. i wanna do somethin' else!” The something else is always X-Rated though. Yeah, I have issues…

Aurora: yeah, if I managed to do the reality check and it proved it was a dream, a few times I had the best time actually messing with the impossible. One time I was at a book store and I'd open and read books that never existed - and oddly enough, they made sense!

Mlai: the name's Fitz ;) And you're not the only one with this problem. I was never able to “dream out” my daydreams - especially when I tried and even did some preparations with accordance with the advice on lucid dreams that I found online. Extremely frustrating!
Also, you always dream. It's just that you don't remember most of those dreams. They're just very elusive. But they come every night. There are only a couple documented cases of people who don't dream at all - but the problem is related to some sort of mechanical damage to the brain (one of them was a Vietnam veteran, who got shot in the head)

Dgriff13: actually it happens to me a lot of times. I haven't elaborated on it before, because it's different for me. It's that sometimes I relive a certain situation in a completely different setting - ergo, same problem, different context. Though most of the time I meet the same people then. For instance, I would re-live my “clashes” with one of the professors - though they would take on absurd shapes, sometimes. So those dreams are like a recap, but in some distorted, grotesque form. But I also had a few dreams in which I resolved some problem. E.g. one time, in my senior year in college I was doing teacher practice as a teacher of German in junior highschool. Planning out classes was a pain in the rear. So I would often dream about teaching a class. And one time I dreamt that I gave the kids a crossword to fill out as one of the exercises. So when I woke up, I was like: EUREKA! I used that exercise in class next week, and the kids actually loved it!

Neilak20: I've seen the STRANGEST things in my dreams and never even crossed my mind that they were out of place. The movie “Waking Life” (I recommend, I love Richard Linklater's movies) gives a few hints about dream reality. For example, if the light's on in a room, the light switch won't turn it off - and conversely, if it's dark, you can't turn the lights on. Also, digital clocks don't work right - they'll show random, nonsensical signs.
Lefarce: you don't have a problem :) You actually make friends with people chasing you, which is actually problem solving. I just keep running away. According to some dream therapists, one should actually try to solve their problem in a dream rather than run away or just do the Superman thing.

Tea_Green: you think you have issues? LOL! I almost NEVER have x-rated dreams! Now THAT is a problem!

Oh and back to the topic that DGriff13 brought up: what kinda dreams you have? I'm actually glad this came up, I have a few that don't fit into nightmares, and starting a new topic would be stupid. So, anyway, mine are usually:
1) someone (or many someone's, usually en masse) or something (huge) chasing me, with murderous intentions: terrorists, counter-terrorists, aliens, chupacabra, midget mafia, wolves, bears, boars, bulls, Minotaur, school bullies etc.
2) me chasing someone - either going trigger-happy, John Woo movie style, like Mlai here, or by stealth
3) being lost and trying to find my way home - I get on the wrong bus/train and it takes me god knows where and I can't get home nohow, so I'm running in circles until I wake up
4) reliving some situation in different context, as mentioned above
5) video games - I was driven to the very edge of insanity by the game Little Big Adventure, and the insanity went on in my dreams, where the game turned into something completely different, sometimes. I also had this trippy dream about the original Doom game, which continued after the ending, and there were these odd cutscenes with humanoid crocodile in what looked like a hell. Eep! Scares the hell out of me to this day.
Speaking of trippy, sometimes I have dreams of a completely different reality - usually some distant future, and another planet. I actually dreamt of things that would make a decent sci-fi novels if only I could remember more precisely after waking up. At other times it would be something simple - like sitting on a small planetoid on the very outskirts of the universe. The realization of that fact would make me dizzy.
Sometimes I would have dreams that seemed to suggest some sort of fictional past. I just had the feeling that I had a whole life behind me, complete with different memories, which I could easily remember. Or I would realize it's not a new dream, but one I'm just returning to.
My favorite dream ever, though, was of an endless ocean. I was sitting in a mile-high tree, which was walking across this ocean to a destination unknown. For whatever reason, I was trying to climb on top of it - and when I got close to that, I noticed the tip of the tree is scratching against the sky, which looked like a ceiling. Then it broke off altogether, stuck to the ceiling… and, after growing arms and legs, proceeded on all fours, upside down, in the opposite direction.

I find whenever I have a lucid dream, if I try to change it too much I wake up.
I wake up before the ending happens, and I'd get so into it I'd wake up and go like “noooooO! WTF!” So I'd make up and ending after I wake up.

My favorite dream that happened recently would be me being with my favorite anime character. I'm not sure if the dream was in anime; if it was, I took it as a completely natural phenom.

No, we weren't having sex or making out. But we were on a date. A friendly fun date, without making out. We went to book stores, a mall, etc.

It wasn't a lucid dream. I really can't tell. Even if I did know I was dream, it was too much fun for me to want to try changing anything and crashing it. Because like someone above said, when I try too hard to affect a dream, I often just wake up.

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Oh, and who parkours/freeruns in their dreams? I've been doing that ever since I was REALLY little, even before there was a term for it.