Dreaming while staying in control

[KirkStar]

Anyone here have any experince with lucid dreaming?
I've taken it fairly far, but I seem to be missing something in order to do it at will all the time. If I focus on it and the right circumstances are in place, I can at best manage a succes rate of 1:4

Not having a clue what I'm rambling on about?
Lucid dreaming = being able to control your dreams while staying in the dream.

I'll be happy to share experinces and techniques... If you won't a jumpstart on the subject have a look here http://www.lucidity.com/

If you are not immediately tempted consider this; ANY sexual desire you can think of (litteraly) can be forfilled when you go to sleep, in a manner so real to you, that you can find it hard to separate from the real thing.

Curious?

 

[kittykateater]

Never heard of that, closest I got was a frightening dream where in my dream I screamed to frighten away the danger, I remember dreaming I needed to scream loud enough to wake myself up FROM the nightmare. My scream also awoke my wife who wanted to know why I was screaming!

My mom used to do something similar. She would have silly, nonsense dreams and want to wake herself up from the silliness, so in her dream she would shake her head to wake herself up, and she wouldn't quite stop once she actually was awake. dad would ask her why she was shaking her head so much.

I did have a dream that was a premonition once, though. I am into old cars, and in this dream, I was talking to a man named John. He told me he had been driving in the country and saw an old farmer's barn in the process of being torn down, when he noticed an old car in the barn. He asked the farmer if he could buy the car, and the farmer agreed. John told me the car was built in 1916 and he had looked at the manufacturer's serial number plate, it said 821. When I awoke I couldn't believe how much detail was in that dream.

Guess what? A week later I got a letter in the mail from a man I'd never heard of before, his name was John and we had a friend in common who had told him of my interest in the same kind of car he was interested in. His letter continued that he had recently been out driving in the country and had noticed a car in a barn that was being demolished. He had bought the car from the farmer on the spot. The car was built in 1916, and oh yeah, the serial number was...yup, 821!

To this day I have NO idea how...or why...I knew all that in a dream a week before I received this letter!

 

[KirkStar]

Interesting thing with the numbers. I won't even attempt an explanation but I have heard similar things before. There's a famous case about a man dreaming of a boy that got run over by a car. The dream was very vivid, much more vivid than what the man was used to, so it made a big impression on him.
Later, I can't recall exactly how much later.. a week or so, the man came to the place he had dreamt of, not far from where he lived, and the exact scenario from his dream replayed in front of him. Knowing what and how things were going to play out, he managed to save the boy from being run over. Again - I won't even attempt an explanation

The awareness of dreaming while you are doing it, is actually a major step to control what you are dreaming. Without knowing you are dreaming to begin with, getting control is close to impossible.
In the case of you thinking you had to scream to wake up, you could have turned the table, thinking 'Okay, I'm dreaming, so there's nothing to be afraid of' - and by extension 'I can do whatever I want'. But this takes some practice (and some luck if your not reallly good at it).

Thanks for sharing.

 

[Disrupted]

I doubt I have ever experienced (at least fully) lucid dreaming.

I recall moments where I am partially aware of being in a dream (due to having some sort of flight ability), but in most cases I am on autopilot, just watching everything unfold.

If lucid dreaming could be activated at will, sleeping would not be so tiresome at all in having to deal with.

 

[KirkStar]

The problem with being aware but on 'autopilot' as you call it, is largely but not exclusively due to how the sleeping patteren mesh with the dreamstate. Or put differently - if you dream at a point in time where you are close to wakeing up, say 10-15 minut before, then your sleep is very light and your consciousness
can play a bigger part (and your control be greater).
So part of the trick is getting enough light sleep and avoid getting woken up the alarm clock.

 

[p_akopian]

I used to have occasional lucid dreams as a child, but I haven't as an adult. For the past few years, though, I've been having these strange euphoric epiphanies in my dreams. I'll be dreaming in some situation, and then my character in my dream will suddenly be taken with visions of my own future -- often erotic in nature -- a sort of dream-within-a-dream, and I am filled with pleasure and anticipation, which wakes me up. Upon awakening, I have this great sense of confidence and energy that persists for hours.

It only happens to me a few times a year, but it's pretty amazing when it does. If only I could control it!

 

[KirkStar]

Sounds like a good time! It's taking some effort to have specific dreams come to you on command each time you want to.. I know of some people that can do it, but mostely, as far as I can tell, the best you can hope for (if you work on it) is a success rate of 20-30%.
A small but very neat trick. - If you are dreaming of something pleasant and you are starting to wake up (to the level of being aware of your surroundings) you can go back to your dream again at will;

Get up, right now, and stand on the middle of the floor. Put your arms out in a Jesus-crusifix-fashion and spin around. Not to fast, you don't want to get dizzy, while keeping your eyes open. Note 2 things:

1) the physical feeling of spinning
2) how the surroundings streak by your eyes

When you are about to wake up as mentioned before, try and recall 1 and 2 - AT THE SAME TIME.
For some unexplained reason this will get you back to the dream state. I think the predominant theory is that it distracts the brain in a fashion that halts the process of waking up.. - Anyway, it works really well.

Go back to sleep..