Lucid Dreaming

I highly recommend this book if you are interested in this stuff:



I suppose I'm overdue to reread it myself. At various times in my life, lucid dreaming has been very important to me. Many of the excercises can be quite helpful, although I think your overall mindset (24/7) is the most important thing if you are working towards truely lucid dreaming.

I can say from experience that you can work towards the ability to be totally aware and in control while dreaming, and it is an amazing experience (though always frustratingly fleeting for me).

Yea lucid dreaming is fun, i actually do it alot. Has anyone ever experienced sleep paralysis? It happens to me almost everyday, if you ever experience it is the worst feeling ever.

Thanks for the book recommendation, kai. I would definitely love to check into that.

I've had sleep paralysis, too, but not often. It did actually happen recently, though. I was napping in bed, when it's like my brain woke up, but my body didn't. I couldn't move at all; couldn't even open my eyes.

So all I thought to do to break myself out of it was start breathing really hard and making noises (though I couldn't actually move my mouth to talk). It worked, but the whole experience was completely terrifying! You almost feel like you're dead or something.

I've read that it has something to do with the way your brain changes during sleep. The part of your brain that controls movement sort of shuts down when you sleep, so you don't act out your dreams. From what I understand, sleep paralysis happens when the "conscious thinking" part of your brain wakes up, but the "movement control" part does not.

It's one thing I could go without experiencing again for the rest of my life.

That's insane! I have no idea how to explain the noises. Maybe you actually are asleep with your eyes open?

What's strange is that you mentioned having sleep paralysis while lying on your back. That's when it happens to me. And it's not often that I sleep on my back, so perhaps that's why sleep paralysis doesn't happen to me that often..... Who knows?

my bro took like a psych class or something and learned that sleep paralysis is the result of a chemical we have naturally in our bodies that we secrete during rem to keep us from acting out our dreams. its a terrifying feeling when you wake up, i could have swore i watched someone walk in my bathroom once and start making creepy noises and i had absolutely no way of moving or even making a coherent sound

this is a cool thread! shouldnt be so old...the discipline of lucid dreaming is basically the key to experiencing alternate dimensions. ive done it before and have always thought about trying to shoot fire out of my hands and it worked one time, just a short little blast but you can kinda see how you have to work at it to have control, ive tried flying though too and i just jumped, ha so much for that. but im waiting to see those clues cause i usually have no idea that im dreaming.

he told me about these little exercises you can do for gaining control when you find yourself in a lucid dream, like put your hand behind your back and think about an empty coke bottle. when you see you have the bottle, put it behind your back and think about it being filled and it should be filled. supposedly to gain more and more control you have to try little things like this and go by baby steps. how roodiculous* would it be to like fly hyperspeed through the cosmos or something (*see dictionaroo in "what stage")

anyone interested in lucid dreaming should try to get their hands on some of this stuff. It's legal in the US, and if you can stomach this bitter tea you may find it enhances lucid dreaming.


www.erowid.org/plants/calea_zacatechichi/calea_zacatechichi.shtml

karma for the book recommendation, ka mai! I'll have to check it out.

I've lucid-dreamed several times, it's great. Unfortunately, most of the time when I realize I'm dreaming, my mind gets so excited and ends the dream right after.

i've had maybe a handful of lucid dreams in my life... the most recent involved me being at work and it was the only time i've ever consciously (sub-consciously?) realized in the dream that i was lucid dreaming...

anyways i practiced flying around for a while and can't remember much of it now... it was a while ago.

i've noticed that corn decreases my dreams

indeed, i have gotten that humming noise a lot, it creeps me out, although the worst one ive gotten i saw the speakers on my room move as if they were alive, and i also heard my sister threatening to kill me, it really creeps me out. but besides that ive gotten a couple of lucid dreams and its an amazing feeling, it happen all of the sudden, i didnt do any exercises, i would like to learn some to have lucid dreams again, it truly is an amazing feeling.

I woke up in the middle of the night this week from my dog barking, I tried to make him go outside and he wouldnt so I tried to go back to sleep. I couldnt completely fall asleep, but I started having dreams that were pretty lucid. I dont remember much now, but in my dream I dreamed I was at Camp Bisco, pretty screwy, I have never been there or have any clue what its like, but thats where my mind told me I was. Anyways, I remember it being really crazy, with a big campfire and lots of people, and I even sort of remember meeting SparklyBecca there. The dream was really odd and lasted for a few hours of my semi concsience state. My mind was going off on some far tengents that night.
I have had quite a few lucid dreams, and one or two instance of sleep paralysis. The one intance I had of sleep paralysis was when I was sleeping in my car in Houston after the Bob Marley festival, and it was like a flashback from when I tried divinorum the day before. I couldnt move or speak or do anything. It seemed like a combintion of both, but I thought it was a flashback but fter rerading this I just think my mind was screwy for a day or two after that expeience.