h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Thanx for taking the time to read my brief guide to Lucid Dreaming (LD). Why not share your own dreams, or give others advice on how to acheive Lucidity? Feel free to post your comments here, or mail me at [email protected]

Thanks for your piece. I can know explain what happens in my dreams. I to can experience this phase in my dreams, although I never had a "name " for It. Initially when I first experienced this it scared the living daylights out of me, and then I would wake up. However I am now having much more fun. I have also sometimes managed to speak to relatives and friends relatives that have died, in this dream state. These have been interesting experiences and usually quite amusing. Anyway carry on the good work.

Frisky: Thany you for replying to my article! I'm glad to hear that you were able to turn your Lucid dreams into a tool for self-enhancement. A lot of people choose to use Lucid Dreaming as a way of talking to dead friends or relatives. It helps to get things off your chest, or to say things that you never said to them in life.

You could also use your LD's to talk to people who you see in everyday life, especially if you have a problem you need to work through in your head. I often have LD's where my friends and family have a big argument or even a food fight! When they do this, each person takes on a different aspect of my character, to work through any worries I have. Have you ever tried this?

Keep dreaming!

When you have dreams about your friends, do they know anything about it when you discuss it with them the next day?

47158: Not normally, but I have had a couple of experiences, with very close friends, where we have both reported of dreaming about each other the night before. But what goes on in the dreams is never the same. Have you ever had this kind of experience? Are you a Lucid Dreamer?

Anyone else have any LD experiences?

Yes I certainly have, and horrifying they were too. No doubt you are familiar with the works of Carlos Castaneda who brought awareness of much of this to the Western World, whereas Indian cultures have known about it for centuries. I don't know how you can welcome it and enjoy it so. It filled me with terror every time it happened, for precisely the reason I suggested in my question: I found that the mental/spiritual life of my friends was becoming mixed up with mine. I wasn't sure of what was happening in the waking world and what was happening in the dreaming world. For many years I truly believed that I had murdered someone and was waiting for the Police to catch up with me. I am now fairly satisfied it was all just an altered state of awareness, but Phew! I don't want do go through that again!

I've had a few, I've been working at it for a while, although not as wossname as I should, so I only get lucidity occasionally. One thing I've discovered is that lucidity is more likely if you are having particularly vivid dreams... and I seem to have more vivid dreams if I'm not entirely comfortable. If the room is too hot, for example, or if I'm sleeping in the back of a car, my dreams become much more vivid. Of course, in practice it's hard to create these conditions on purpose, because you run the risk of being too uncomfortable to sleep at all.

My last few LD experiences have not been particularly fufilling, because I usually realize I'm dreaming, change one thing, and then wander off and forget that I'm dreaming again. Tch. Interesting dreams, though.

I saw a web page once for a company that sold a LD training device that looked like a pager, and you clip it to your belt and wear it around just like a normal pager. You could set it to beep or vibrate at random intervals a certain number of times a day, and when it goes off, you push a little button on it, and a little green light goes on. The theory being, eventually, you'll have a dream in which the 'pager' goes off, and when you push the button, the light won't go on because you're dreaming. Pow, lucidity. Or you can use it to remind you to do the regular reality checks throughout the day. An interesting idea...

As per my previous answer, I think we should all be grateful for a peaceful night's sleep and not wish for these fanciful ideas. The vivid dreams I had which were just like these Lucid Dreams I would'nt wish on my worst enemy. Can we just put it down to the fertile imagination of the human brain and not think about any possible mystical explanations? Killing somebody is not a good thing to have hanging over your head and sometimes I almost believe I did it, but I know it was a lucid dream. At least I think it was a lucid dream. I HOPE it was.

I remember an article I read some time ago now about a rather more invasive method of forcing lucid dreaming.
It involved some clever goggles that you wore to bed which, when they detected REM sleep (either through eye movement or with an EEG machine), they would flash lights at your eyelids. Apparently (apparently) this could be noticed by the sleeper (but hopefully not to the point that they woke up) which may force them to be aware of their dream state.
Two small downsides to these amazing goggles: a) I would have no idea where to get them beyond Muppet Labs, and b) you'd look like a dick.

http://www.cerebrex.com/dream.htm has both the pager-thingy I was talking about, and the LED goggles Mr. Slug mentioned. Pricey stuff, though.

As for looking like a dick, well, you're asleep - who's to know?

How much are the goggles? The whole "repetitive task" method doesn't work for me; my subconcious just thinks there's some new daily routine like cleaning my teeth and accepts it with the usual level of apathy.

And as for looking stupid; you never know when guests might drop in. Or home invasion-style burglars. Or alien abductors.

$275.

But it comes with batteries!

Wow. $275. Is that real money?

And I can think of hundreds of uses for them, too. And that doesn't include taking out the batteries and putting them in other appliances. (I am assuming, of course, that a pair of LED goggles would be categorised as an "appliance".)

I'm sorry, but I don't think that I've ever heard of anyone having had the kind of very negative experience of LD'ing that you describe. Perhaps your confusion as to what is real and what is not, and your construction of the (unwanted) murder fantasy, is linked to underlying mental instabilities. I'm not saying that you're psychotic, or anything, just that you could have a very fragile psyche. I sometimes wake up at night screaming from dreams that I can never remember. These aren't like normal nightmares, because they are not accompanied by the usual feelings of fear and apprehension. If you ever have negative experiences whilst in a Lucid state, you could try willing yourself to wake up. Jump into the air inside your dream, and tell yourself that this will allow you to 'jump' back into consciousness...

That really is a /lot/ of money.

I had a dream where I heard god yelling at me to watchout!
Later, I learned it was me telling myself to Wakeup!

I had a lucid dream once in grade three, but I woke up as soon as I turned lucid. Pity, I like lucid dreams, lucid awakening'd be good too. I've seen those goggles on a website as well, but they sound too pricey for me. I'll try that questioning tecunique, thanks.

I've had one proper lucid dream which scared me a bit as I didn't know how to wake up again. Luckily in the dream I was in my bed in my bedroom, so I turnedd over and went to sleep in the dream and woke up in rl. I've had more than a few where where looking back I know I was on the verge of lucid dreaming but didn;t quite make the connection, sort 'hmm, thats odd' but no more. One of them I still remember because someone was saying 'you must remember this..' and said something, which I have since forgotten. All very wierd stuff to be honest!

They could've been sing the theme to Casablanca...