You're being chased by a horrible demon, through some surreal, hellish landscape. Suddenly your legs sink into a bog of quicksand and the demon's closing in fast. Frantically, you look around for any exit. Suddenly you get the urge to glance at your digital watch. The numbers on the watch are spinning madly out of control, as if it were counting milliseconds instead of seconds. A wave of relief washes over you, you suddenly feel a sense of excitement and joy, and with some previously untapped supernatural power you fly into the air and shoot off toward a brighter place.
Welcome to lucid dreaming. A lucid dream is a dream where you become aware that you're dreaming. Something's happening in the dream, and you suddenly realize: oh wait, I'm not really here. I'm really in bed, sleeping safely. This is just a dream. Hmm, I always wondered what it would be like to time travel / walk through a mirror into the other side / fly / have three arms / etc. Let's find out...
Because once you realize you're just dreaming, suddenly you're in control. It's shocking how realistic the dreamworld is, once you go lucid. I've gone lucid a number of times, and every time I remember just being amazed that it was a dream. It seems so real!!! And yet, one very non-real thing, is that you have complete godlike power over the entire environment. Afterall, it's all in your mind!
TRAINING TO GO LUCID
Some people who are really dedicated to lucid dreams, install some pretty interesting habits in their everyday routines to increase lucid dream rate. For example, some people periodically do a wristwatch check. A wristwatch check means you look at your wristwatch and try to telekinetically change the time with your mind. If you can pull it off, you're dreaming. The idea is, if you do the check often enough, it becomes a strong enough habit that it persists into your dreams. Then in your dreams, you're going about the various bizarre dream stuff, and suddenly it's time to do a wristwatch check, the check succeeds and you realize you're dreaming.
I found that in the long run, the biggest thing that helped me with lucid dreams, was just being aware of some common dream patterns. But then, I never went so extreme as to install regular habits just to get more lucid dreams. The good thing about learning the dream patterns is you can do it just once and it should instantly upgrade your lucid dream rate, without having to do any crazy navy seal training type stuff.
So, here are some common "dreamsigns".
ELECTRIC STUFF DOESN'T WORK
In dreams, it's extremely common for anything electric to function strangely or not function at all. Besides things simply not turning on, some more mind-trippy examples might be.. your computer operating system is suddenly 100% arabic... your wristwatch is going berzerk, like it's counting milliseconds instead of seconds... your cell phone's earpiece just gives off static or noise. Another big one is elevators. In my experience, when I get in an elevator in my dreams, fasten your seatbelts cuz we're in for a wild ride.
BODY PARTS ARE MESSED UP
The two common examples here are distorted hands (extra fingers, "stretched" hands, etc.) or the famous teeth-falling-out. I just recently had a really profound and long lucid dream triggered by the teeth-falling-out pattern. One other thing that falls into this category. If you look in a mirror in your dream, chances are you're gonna see something trippy. At least, that's what my experience has always been with dream mirrors.
FLYING
If you find yourself flying like Peter Pan at any point in time, there's a decent chance you're dreaming. For some reason, though, in my experience this never made a great lucid dream pattern. I have flying dreams very commonly, but I never remember it triggering lucidity. Usually in my flying dreams, there's some "logical" explanation for how I'm flying, like I just figured out some "obvious" way using just basic physics to ignore gravity. It's usually pretty disappointing when I wake up from one of these flying dreams and find that, no, my revelation about how to fly doesn't really work.
There are lots of other common patterns. You can see a big list at the Wikipedia Dream Sign article.
LUCID DREAMS AND REAL LIFE
Having lucid dreams helps remind us of the dreamlike nature of real life. After all, how do you know you're not dreaming right now? Could death just be awakening from a strange dream?
If you're interested in lucid dreams and want to learn more, a good starting point would be Wikipedia's Lucid Dream article.
Here are some other articles I wrote. Can you guess which ones were dream-inspired?
Life Is A Game
Introduction To Urban Exploration
Subjective Reality
The Sound Of Your Native Tongue
Welcome to lucid dreaming. A lucid dream is a dream where you become aware that you're dreaming. Something's happening in the dream, and you suddenly realize: oh wait, I'm not really here. I'm really in bed, sleeping safely. This is just a dream. Hmm, I always wondered what it would be like to time travel / walk through a mirror into the other side / fly / have three arms / etc. Let's find out...
Because once you realize you're just dreaming, suddenly you're in control. It's shocking how realistic the dreamworld is, once you go lucid. I've gone lucid a number of times, and every time I remember just being amazed that it was a dream. It seems so real!!! And yet, one very non-real thing, is that you have complete godlike power over the entire environment. Afterall, it's all in your mind!
TRAINING TO GO LUCID
Some people who are really dedicated to lucid dreams, install some pretty interesting habits in their everyday routines to increase lucid dream rate. For example, some people periodically do a wristwatch check. A wristwatch check means you look at your wristwatch and try to telekinetically change the time with your mind. If you can pull it off, you're dreaming. The idea is, if you do the check often enough, it becomes a strong enough habit that it persists into your dreams. Then in your dreams, you're going about the various bizarre dream stuff, and suddenly it's time to do a wristwatch check, the check succeeds and you realize you're dreaming.
I found that in the long run, the biggest thing that helped me with lucid dreams, was just being aware of some common dream patterns. But then, I never went so extreme as to install regular habits just to get more lucid dreams. The good thing about learning the dream patterns is you can do it just once and it should instantly upgrade your lucid dream rate, without having to do any crazy navy seal training type stuff.
So, here are some common "dreamsigns".
ELECTRIC STUFF DOESN'T WORK
In dreams, it's extremely common for anything electric to function strangely or not function at all. Besides things simply not turning on, some more mind-trippy examples might be.. your computer operating system is suddenly 100% arabic... your wristwatch is going berzerk, like it's counting milliseconds instead of seconds... your cell phone's earpiece just gives off static or noise. Another big one is elevators. In my experience, when I get in an elevator in my dreams, fasten your seatbelts cuz we're in for a wild ride.
BODY PARTS ARE MESSED UP
The two common examples here are distorted hands (extra fingers, "stretched" hands, etc.) or the famous teeth-falling-out. I just recently had a really profound and long lucid dream triggered by the teeth-falling-out pattern. One other thing that falls into this category. If you look in a mirror in your dream, chances are you're gonna see something trippy. At least, that's what my experience has always been with dream mirrors.
FLYING
If you find yourself flying like Peter Pan at any point in time, there's a decent chance you're dreaming. For some reason, though, in my experience this never made a great lucid dream pattern. I have flying dreams very commonly, but I never remember it triggering lucidity. Usually in my flying dreams, there's some "logical" explanation for how I'm flying, like I just figured out some "obvious" way using just basic physics to ignore gravity. It's usually pretty disappointing when I wake up from one of these flying dreams and find that, no, my revelation about how to fly doesn't really work.
There are lots of other common patterns. You can see a big list at the Wikipedia Dream Sign article.
LUCID DREAMS AND REAL LIFE
Having lucid dreams helps remind us of the dreamlike nature of real life. After all, how do you know you're not dreaming right now? Could death just be awakening from a strange dream?
If you're interested in lucid dreams and want to learn more, a good starting point would be Wikipedia's Lucid Dream article.
Here are some other articles I wrote. Can you guess which ones were dream-inspired?
Life Is A Game
Introduction To Urban Exploration
Subjective Reality
The Sound Of Your Native Tongue
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1 comments:
I've tried to practice Japanese in my lucid dreams, but unfortunately the other dream people only have the same amount of knowledge as me.
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