Into the Lucid World

I find this an interesting topic, since I'm a lucid dreamer.

In a lucid dream, I usually explore the places I am in. Lots of my dreams are like an open world video game or something. It's this vast environment and I can go anywhere I want. Also, I visit the same places over and over again in my dreams. Since these places don't exist, I feel it's a little odd that I revisit them; it's as if there is an entire world existing in my dream world that stays consistent instead of just changing with whatever dream. I can usually walk on water in lucid dreams and sometimes fly.

I also have the strange ability to read and write in dreams. This is supposed to be impossible, but, what can I say? And yes, I see individual words and letters. Sometimes I will write things down while I'm dreaming, usually things I want to remember about the dream, so I can remember them more easily when I wake up.

I'm not very good at waking up from dreams. Usually I just end up in more dreams. I guess when you're a lucid dreamer, realizing it's a dream doesn't help...

 

I can read and see illustrations in dreams, but I've never tried to write.

 

^Yes, around four or five that I can recall, including the 'dead but not dead' one I had a couple days ago. One of the most amusing lucid dreams I've had was one where I was at a Shakespearean type of theater, and calmly strolled onstage eating a sandwich. I suddenly realized what I was doing, and said 'why I am I eating a sandwich? Go away, sandwich." The sandwich promptly disappeared, and I looked out into the audience trying to think of something to say. I breezily exclaimed 'All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream", and I danced and pranced offstage as the audience applauded.

 

Dragon, I go to the same places, as well. I also often see the same people.

I gained the ability to do this after an NDE and coma preceded by a course of mefloquine. Ever since "The Incident," I've had full-color dreams that seem to last for weeks, and so lifelike that I had to develop a tell.

Sheila, it's funny that you mentioned reading, above, because it's my tell: I know now that if I read something twice and the words aren't the same the second time, I'm dreaming.

Otherwise, no joke, I could be dreaming right now; my "Big Dreams" are that realistic, and moments from them burn in like memories. Mefloquine is a real bastard on the gray matter, it turns out. The trick is that, as soon as I realize I'm dreaming, the dream doesn't end. I just settle in for the ride. I'm not all-powerful in these dreams, but once I'm aware, I can tweak things the way I want them to go, putting a little English on the storyline. I can even go back in time in the dream and try something again.

A lot of people refer to their mefloquine dreams as nightmares. I've found that it's only a nightmare if you let it be, but isn't that true of anything?

 

Fortunately for me, I didn't drop from malaria. It just happened that our team was on shitloads of mefloquine because of the place we were working in.

I think my ability to lucid dream is a result of a combination of factors: PTSD and TBI from the incident; the resulting NDE, which removes you from the immediate corporeal perspective (and if that sounds woo-woo, I'm sorry, that's just how it is -- I feel like I haven't really been here since I got back); and the damage from the mefloquine like a cherry on top.

 

Yikes.

I don't think there's a particular reason I can lucid dream; as far as I know, I've always been able to do it.

I think I've talked about the library dream on here. In it, I was in a library and I could pull books off the shelves and read them. One I looked through had illustrations and i remember much of the story; there was a moonlit desert where sapient worms held council, and a girl in a grey and white striped dress called Winona the wolf girl (I don't know either.) In the dream I thought I had to be in some kind of subconscious residence for latent story ideas, so I started pulling off books and trying to remember as much as I could. Unfortunately I woke up rather early on and haven't been able to go back.

I dream a lot that I'm lost somewhere in the tangle of roads near where I live, and I'm trying to get back home. These dreams are somewhat scary, since I have to be able to conceptualize the path to get back to my house clearly, or else the dream won't lead me there. The roads will just go on forever. This dream seems to have replaced the dream about being lost in an infinite suburban neighborhood like the one my grandmother used to live in. Having lucidity in these dreams is more frustrating than anything, since I'm trying to remember everywhere I've already been and all the turns I've taken and where I'm trying to get to, and if I'm not able to remember, the dream changes so it's irrelevant and i'm even more lost. I swear I've been stuck in those for hours.

 

Is lucid dreaming simply being aware you're in a dream? I used to not be able to distinguish dreams from reality (I used to have hyper realistic fantastical dreams), yet not while I'm aware I'm in a dream (I can enter and exit my dreams at will) I find that these days the feel is closer to magic realism than fantasy.

Nothing like the mushroom headed energy sucking vampires, and waking up with scratches like I used to have.

But here is the bizarre thing, I dream so much, that dreams almost feel boring. So often with dreams, I never feel inspired to write about those.

 

I started stimulating lucid dreaming with a basic reality check some time ago.

Each day, several times a day, you just look around you and ask "Am I dreaming now?" It helps to have a regular reminder on your phone, or put sticky notes around the house.

The stuff to look for is the kind of thing that jars with our experience of reality. Is anything doing something it wouldn't normally be doing? Are you doing anything that you wouldn't normally be doing? Are you floating or flying? That sort of thing.

When dreaming, you always assume that you're not dreaming (of course) so it's really a surprise when you realise "Hey, I'm floating! I must be dreaming!" The surprise can throw you into waking up, so you need to immediately relax, consciously really let go and relax. Realising you're dreaming feels like suddenly floating up and surfacing from under water. So you need to get heavy and 'sink' back down.

I love the fact you have a forum for this here. I guess I should start doing it again. Never took it very far before, now I think it might be worth exploring!

 

Oddly enough, I can only lucid dream after I resume it. Odd thing for sure as it baffles my wife. I can wake up from a dream, got the bathroom, get a snack, go back to bed and resume the same dream. After that point I have better control of what happens in the dream. Has been a double-edged sword when I have dropped back into a nightmare occasionally. At least I was better equipped the second time to handle it.

 

This thread was really interesting to me as one of the magical abilities in my novel is a type of lucid dreaming/remote viewing. Need to figure it all out still but this was interesting.

Never tried controlling a dream before, in fact, most nights I'm not even aware if I am dreaming and rarely remember them when I wake up. The few I am aware of I have no control over. The dream just seems to take me on it's own little ride.

Really need to learn more about lucid dreaming