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

hello all,

there are a few things that are not covered in the post.

If your dream survived the fact that you realised that you are dreaming, you must be carefull for two things. You must not get too exited and you must stay alert. If you get too exited, you will wake up. If you do not stay alert and just enjoy and follow your dream, you will loose 'lucidity' and the dream will become a regular dream again.

The simplest trick is to wonder if you are dreaming a few times every day, for no reason at all. Make it a habit. I have used this technique and I can assure you, it works.

Some more tips:

Because dreaming you are doing something takes as long as really doing it, our brains use a sort of shortcut. You get a few flashes of doing it and your brain skips the boring parts. This usually creates 'holes' in your dream. If you are at work in your dream, your will not first get up, get dressed and drive to work., you just are at work. These 'holes' can easily be dected by backtracing your steps. Do this a few times a day or if you are suspecting you are dreaming.

Another easy thing to remember, the weirder the situation, the more likely you are dreaming.

enjoy your (lucid?) dreams

J.

I certainly have lucid dreams myself, I always have done, I find I can often find the answers to questions by thinking about it before I go to sleep, then I wake up in the morning with a solution or an idea... But it's the lucid nightmares I worry about...

Lucid nightmares ?
Zap them monsters. Pull out your faser and forget the stun setting .
Or maybe just pull out your seven mile boots (don't forget the inherent problems of a transportation which is based on putting one foot seven miles before the other... - TP)
and run for it. Or face the monster and invite it for a cup of some undefinable liquid
(no, i'm not english...)
Lucid dreaming means YOU are in charge... or maybe you just love horror ?

To be honest I don't think the fact you get answers to problems you were thinking about before you went to sleep have much to do with Lucid dreaming.
I always though this was related to the relaxation. Your mind is so busy trying to solve the problem, it doesn't realise that it's subconsciousnous has already solved it. ..
If your mind relaxes, it can once again be 'interupted' by the subconsiousness and then the little lightbulb comes...this is off course easiest when you sleep.
Just my little own theory.

WannaBe (Pleasantly Dreaming...)

I have a theory that the brain works in parallel( simultaneously) on a lot of different things at once, deriving the answers slowly, by our standards. There is also the part that can do long division, but that is only a piece. Maybe dreams are part of that process.

Other tips:

- If you're having a lucid dream and feel you're starting to wake up, try spinning in one place like a top. Often this will put you back deeper into the dream state.

- Lucid dreams are more likely if you're well-rested than if you're cutting your sleep short with an alarm clock every morning.

I actually managed the seven-league-boot trick when I was a small child...long before I ever tried to lucid dream in earnest. It still surprises me that I was able to pull it off without knowing just what I was doing. Although come to think of it, I guess I always lucid dreamed as a child to a certain extent--when I dreamed I was being chased, I would step just off the path (or whatever I was being chased along) and will myself invisible. It worked quite nicely.

I've been looking into this but i can't even seem to remember dreaming, let alone lucid dreaming. They say the trick to remembering you are dreaming is to write down your dreams. What do you do if you have nothing to write down.
I can only remember 3 dreams i've ever had. If it weren't for these 3 i would be sure i never dreamed. Can someone help?

To my esteem, the answer is a resounding NO ! Nobody MUST dream, while about everybody HAS dreamt, you yourself included! Psychologists say that dreaming rummages through memory and "completes" unfinished business. This may be so - and if it really works this way, maybe you are a very thorough person and finish everything over daytime leaving your poor brain nothing to do over and in the night! If that is good or bad I wouldn't know nor would I like to decide it. In my own life I dreamt a lot, but in leaps and bounds, "lucid" and even "visionary" dreams included, some of which I remember quite clearly, others only vaguely, and the rest? Who would kow whether I only forgot or didn't dream at all some days? The medical profession insists on the observation that everybody dreams several times over night during REM-phases (i.e. rapid eye movement while sleeping with eyes closed). So I probably forgot what didn't really have the power or interest to deal with! And maybe the same applies to you. If you really want to find out: Go to a sleep laboratory (probably every medical university has one) and ask them to observe you while sleeping. Instruct them to wake you up immediately after REM-Phases. I predict you will have plenty to tell! Best of Luck!