Sceptical view on lucid dreaming

A good way to "wake up" in your dreams is to get in the habit of asking yourself, "is this a dream?", during the day and performing some kind of test to find out yes or no. Once you get in the habit of questioning your reality you will eventually ask the question and find the answer is "yes".

Also, once you figure out your dreaming, to avoid waking up (for real). I have had success with calmly looking at something, then something else; then look at the first thing again, and the second and add a third, then return to the first and look at the sequence again, and again each time adding something else, until you get settled.
 
I can't remember my dreams as a general rule but since I started having what I think are spells of sleep apnea I've started remembering. They all involve some form of choking or drowning. I wake up from those nightmares but still can't draw a breath, it's awful, if that's lucid dreaming I prefer to pass on it.
 
Jodie said:
I can't remember my dreams as a general rule but since I started having what I think are spells of sleep apnea I've started remembering. They all involve some form of choking or drowning. I wake up from those nightmares but still can't draw a breath, it's awful, if that's lucid dreaming I prefer to pass on it.
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That does sound like sleep apnoea and it has nothing to do with lucid dreaming.

It can, however, be a serious health risk, so I strongly recommend you see your doctor very quickly.
 
I can't remember my dreams as a general rule but since I started having what I think are spells of sleep apnea I've started remembering. They all involve some form of choking or drowning. I wake up from those nightmares but still can't draw a breath, it's awful, if that's lucid dreaming I prefer to pass on it.
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That's a variation on my claustrophobic nightmares which I learned to invoke and finally disarm by exerting control.

Yours might be physically based so not really lucid dreaming as much as a forced passage through the intermediate state..waking before you are ready.

Serious sleep apnea should be attended to.

However I see little harm in attempting to induce and then control the onset of the nightmare as you are drifting to sleep....just a note ..it did not always succeed in controlling the nightmare

This particular event for me remains very vivid even 60 years on and left me with a strong sense of control over fears and my ability to influence my mental state and to a degree my dreaming state/outcomes. Freeing oneself of a phobia that way was quite empowering.
I'm sure it's just a variation on desensitizing. Controlling a repeated lucid dream ( which I can still recall) removed that phobia for me......felt it kinda neat then...still does.

Whenever I'm in a high intensity engagement over time....learning to fly in a short period or an intense period of duplicate bridge at tournament level....I'm aware of the activity being in my dream states. Dreams are in my view a post processing of the neural net activity of the conscious day previous ....this fits well with my Bayesian brain view of the mental spectrum....a constant updating of the comparator database.

No mystery, just a cool bit of evolution of the brain ....and not restricted to humans.
 
William Parcher said:
Good luck with that. Your dreams can create a "sensible time" on any clock or watch
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There are reliable ways to recognize you are sleeping. You ignored very well known fact that you either can't read books in dreams (blurring or gibberish) or text (that you never actually can read) changes every time you look into it.

There are many other recognizable, if less reliable, nonsensical features. While most of them will not trigger lucid dreaming, some of them are sufficient. In my case, elevator buttons had nonsensical values (I had many elevator dreams in my life, usually as in-between of other dreams) and once I managed to understand it is dream because of it.

I find it interesting that in both cases it involves letters (or digits). Is it something in them that make brain sometimes able to understand that it is not actual reality?

"I dreamt that I realised I was dreaming, dreamt that I was affecting the course of my dream, and then dreamt that I woke myself up by telling myself to wake up."
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So he had lucid dream, yet he denies lucid dream exists? What is even difference between "I had lucid dream" and "I dreamt that I realised I was dreaming"? Talk about denial. :rolleyes:
 
Jodie said:
I can't remember my dreams as a general rule
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That's pretty normal, and one of the reasons that keeping a dream diary is one of the steps if you want to try lucid dreaming. By recording any dreams when you first wake, you should improve your ability to recall them (there's not much point having lucid dreams if you don't remember them) and increase your general awareness of your state, dreaming or waking, as I understand it.
 
This thread amused me so much that I had to change my Slippers.

What is all this nonsense about not being able to read clocks or books, or see your nose in dreams? :)
Is it the new "If you fall out of bed whilst asleep you will die"?

MALCOLM, N.
Lucid dream
"I dreamt that I realised I was dreaming, dreamt that I was affecting the course of my dream, and then dreamt that I woke myself up by telling myself to wake up."
 
Mader Levap said:
There are reliable ways to recognize you are sleeping. You ignored very well known fact that you either can't read books in dreams (blurring or gibberish) or text (that you never actually can read) changes every time you look into it.
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After playing on a MUD for probably too long, I've actually had dreams that involved only reading/using text, before getting to the rest, so I'm definitely going to have to dispute that. Changes on rereading, sure. Never actually can read, though, no.
 
The Atheist said:
That does sound like sleep apnoea and it has nothing to do with lucid dreaming.

It can, however, be a serious health risk, so I strongly recommend you see your doctor very quickly.
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Yes, I have my appointment made for sleep studies. I think it's in combination with this sudden onset of reflux I get at night. I basically need to lose this 50 lbs. I've put on in the last couple of years.
 
The Atheist said:
That does sound like sleep apnoea and it has nothing to do with lucid dreaming.

It can, however, be a serious health risk, so I strongly recommend you see your doctor very quickly.
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Seconded. My stepfather's cause of death on his death certificate was sleep apnea. It is quite capable of killing you. He was also drunk at the time, but I'm not so sure that's necessary. It probably was a contributing factor though, so it might be best to stay away from alcohol until you address it with a doctor. Obviously alcohol can keep you asleep when you might otherwise wake up.

I haven't been able to sleep while even slightly drunk since knowing about it, although I don't have apnea (and admittedly beer does give me terrible heartburn nowadays, too -- unrelated factor as far as I know in my case). Scary stuff.
 
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Jodie said:
Yes, I have my appointment made for sleep studies. I think it's in combination with this sudden onset of reflux I get at night. I basically need to lose this 50 lbs. I've put on in the last couple of years.
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The weight will be the problem for sure - two classical obesity health risks.

Lose the weight and I bet you any amount you like they both disappear.

Good luck!
 
ComfySlippers said:
This thread amused me so much that I had to change my Slippers.

What is all this nonsense about not being able to read clocks or books, or see your nose in dreams? :)
Is it the new "If you fall out of bed whilst asleep you will die"?
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I don't know how or why it works, or even if it really does at all. What I do remember is dreams where I couldn't read writing or digital clocks. One in particular was dreaming that I woke up, looked at my clock, and it was indecipherable gibberish. I don't even think it looked like a 7-segment display.

"Oh, I'm dreaming. Ok then."
I opened my door and for some reason, there was a mirror at the end of a hallway with no doors.
"And it's that kind of dream. No thanks, evil reflection. I'm out"
So I forced myself awake.

It was a good ability for a while. Then my dream self took some English classes or something.
 
ehcks said:
I don't know how or why it works, or even if it really does at all. What I do remember is dreams where I couldn't read writing or digital clocks. One in particular was dreaming that I woke up, looked at my clock, and it was indecipherable gibberish. I don't even think it looked like a 7-segment display.

"Oh, I'm dreaming. Ok then."
I opened my door and for some reason, there was a mirror at the end of a hallway with no doors.
"And it's that kind of dream. No thanks, evil reflection. I'm out"
So I forced myself awake.

It was a good ability for a while. Then my dream self took some English classes or something.
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I've had a similar thing going on. I can't look directly into a mirror while sleeping -- either "reality" fades and I wander off into a different dream or I wake up or something. My mind just won't conjure up the mirror image or even an impression of it.

Of course, most of the time I don't think of looking in a mirror anyway, so it isn't exactly anything meaningful. It's really just connected to one or two particular dreams, rather than a pattern as far as I know. Most of the dreams that I remember anymore aren't particularly memorable, so I really couldn't speak to the content even an hour later. It's been a long time since I've had anything whatsoever interesting going on in that department.

I'm also not so sure that I'm not completely aware that I'm dreaming on some level nowadays. They're not memorable or interesting though. All I get that I remember is rather mundane events and conversations with perhaps a few odd transitions where I clearly skipped from one dream into something else entirely, sometimes re-writing earlier events in the process, and even changing the characters/participants. There's no attempt at conscious control though, nor has there ever been. I'm not so sure that my sleeping mind can even grasp that concept.

The structure of the dreams are vaguely interesting -- like being aware of inconsistencies upon wakening -- but the actual content isn't nearly as interesting as it once was. I even used to have dreams where I wasn't actually me per se (I was even female in some of those)... none of that going on lately.

I may have to brainwash myself into dreaming something interesting again -- which I sort of can do, but I wouldn't really associate that with lucid dreaming. It's more of a matter of just telling myself I want to dream "something interesting" (not my actual internal terminology, but it'll do in this case) tonight and remember it as I go to bed. There's also something you might call a "mind state" or whatever associated with it. Never had much luck in picking a subject though. It's probably more interesting if I don't pick the subject anyway.
 
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Well even though my nightmares are inspired by sleep apnea/reflux in that dream, I realize it is a dream, and make a solution to get my breath back. I use the solution but I either wake up yelling or I have sleep paralysis where I'm fully awake and can't make myself breath. It reminds me of how you feel when you get the wind knocked out of you.

I don't see the point of lucid dreaming. What's the fun of dreaming if you know it's a dream? The good dreams are good because you are so disappointed when you wake up and find that none of it's real.

That brings me back to my lucid dream I had back in 1992. I was on an old fashioned train and met Harry Potter before the Harry Potter books were written. Oddly enough JK Rowling dreamed about Harry Potter while falling asleep on a train. If muses were real, I'ld say they got the wrong address on my part. At the time I looked like her and had the same initials, I can see how a muse might make that mistake :)
 
Jodie said:
I don't see the point of lucid dreaming. What's the fun of dreaming if you know it's a dream? The good dreams are good because you are so disappointed when you wake up and find that none of it's real.
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I first played a virtual reality game 35 years ago. Even though the graphics were crap, I was blown away by the idea and thought they'd be everywhere in no time.

I'm waiting with bated breath for Oculus Rift.

Lucid dreams are like that, but better.
 
The Atheist said:
The weight will be the problem for sure - two classical obesity health risks.

Lose the weight and I bet you any amount you like they both disappear.

Good luck!
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I know you're right, it's extremely tough to do after menopause, but I'm working on it.
 
There are a few chemical shortcuts, but the ones I know of are all highly illegal!

Dropping a few Alzheimers pills sounds a lot easier.
 
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