Lucid Dreaming by Cthulhu Kitty
May 31st, 2007 3:09 PMAs you can tell from sentence one, I am not an experienced lucid dreamer. I had heard of it of course, and had thought it sounded intriguing, but had never actively pursued one until the tasks appeared on SF0. I checked out the obligatory Wikipedia article and began trying the various methods outlined therein to achieve a lucid dream. (BTW, I love the various acronyms: WILD and MILD, etc). I have been working on this since the tasks were first added. I got nothing, nothing, and still nothing. Although, I did finally start dreaming about another player which was cool (in case you're wondering, it was actually two players - Lowtech and Sir Bigglesworth).
Anyway, last night I was dreaming. I did not attempt any Lucid dreaming methods intentionally - I just went to sleep. I was exploring a cave and came across a stream. In trying to cross the stream, I encountered two big black amorphous vaguely shark like creatures. When I attempted to ward them off, my hand passed right through them. AHA! I said to myself. I can't pass my hands through weird amorphous shark creatures in real life! This must be a dream! AWESOME! Since I know this is a dream, I can do anything I want to. I have always wanted to fly in a dream. I actually remember having those exact thought processes in the dream. Then I gathered myself up to jump into the air and fly. However, I did not fly so much as swim through the thick air. The shark creatures continued to attack me, coming out of the water into the air with me. They folded themselves around my arms and began biting me although their teeth passed right through me. It still hurt, though, and I woke up.
So, here's my question - Was that a real lucid dream? Or was I just dreaming about having a lucid dream?
I'm inclined to think it was a first attempt at lucid dreaming made by a novice. According to other articles on luid dreaming that I read, beginning lucid dreamers often experience very short lucid dreams when first starting because although they do originally realize that they are dreaming, they forget pretty quickly and easily get caught up in the dream again. IE, in my case, although I first realized the sharks weren't sharks, once I began trying to fly, I didn't catch on that sharks can't swim in air and fell back into the dream.
In any case, it was a neat experience, and I hope that others follow.
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In my opinion, that's certainly a lucid dream. I've thought of the idea of having a dream that you realize that a dream is a dream, but my head starts to hurt... and besides, I'd think that dreaming you realized your dream was a dream would actually make you realize it was a dream. See? Confusing.
But in any case, better than anything I've gotten since this task was posted... *sigh*. Nice work.
That was definetly a lucid dream…
but staying in a lucid dream is a balancing act between being conscious but staying in the dream world. If you find yourself in a lucid dream again and you find yourself going out of it… try spining… just twirl yourself as fast as you can. That always helps me…
Also when I first start lucid dreaming I always get really excited and try to exact a wish of mine instantly…"Everyone get Naked were having an orgy… Holly Berry, Nicole Kidman… get over here!"… it does not always work like that… I could never just jump and fly… you have to float up… and then you have to see some sort of landscape… so a good thing to do to practice is when you wake up in the morning… before you do anything close your eyes and imagine you are dreaming the dream you just had and then imagine you have become lucid. Then just have an imaginary lucid dream where you run through some scenarios you would like to lucid dream about.
Interesting. When I fly in dreams, it's always like swimming in thick air. Sometimes it's even necessary to kind of hold my breath while doing it.
What's a dream without a few amorphous shark creatures? Don't you love it that the creatures themselves seemed normal in the dream, but the fact that you could move your arm through them did not?
I have lucid dreams all the time (I wrote about one I had recently for the same task) but mine are slightly different. I know that I'm PROBABLY in an alternative realty, that it is in fact not just a dream but an extension of my consciousness. The fact that I question it qualifies as lucid dreaming but I'm never sure; I can't control the outcome of anything, which leads me to believe that it's real life. The only difference between mine and others is that I'm so involved and connected to the dream, I have apparitions when I wake up and see the characters or setting around me. It's traumatic to say the least. It's like that separate reality REFUSES to let me go. The bottom line: acknowledging that it could be real life is the quintessential lucid dream and the ability to control them is almost never possible for most dreamers. And I totally know and have experienced the whole "flying through soup" thing, haha. Check out my post. Oh, my dreams are so vivid, I often quote them in real life, thinking that they actually happened in this reality. I make an ass of myself all the time.
That qualifies as far as I'm concerned. I've definitely failed at things that I've tried to do in things I considered lucid dreams, and last I checked total control over all aspects of the environment is not a requirement for lucid dreaming.