First, the best way I know to start lucid dreaming is to get in the habit of asking yourself, "Is this reality?" Eventually this habit will carry itself over into your dreams. And guess what happens when you ask this question in your dream? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Now, I was reading something about improving brain power and it says that your brain doesn't distinguish between dreams and reality. It reacts the same way in either case. When you're dreaming your ability to move gets switched off, so when you try to move, you're doing the same thing you would do when awake, except it's normally disabled so you don't go thrashing around in your sleep! Since your brain doesn't distinguish between dreams and reality, you could use this to your advantage. You could practice something in your dreams that you want to become better at in real life. You could also overcome phobias like fear of heights, or water! What do you think of this? Think we can use lucid dreaming to improve ourselves? Can you think of anything else we can use lucid dreaming for? I have an idea I want to try out, but I don't expect it to work. Maybe someone else can try too. I want to try to learn to move things with my mind in dreams, then try to apply that knowledge in real life. Who knows? There's a chance it might work!
Actually that's a good question. When I first started thinking about Lucid Dreaming I thought if I was capable of dreaming such on a regular basis I would practice Martial Arts in my dreams. I don't know, I think it might help when it comes to the mentality of whatever you are practicing but overcoming phobias......no I doubt it because you'll always wake up and realize it was just a dream. But I don't know.
I thought of the martial arts aspect too! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Of course you'd still ahve to physically train your body outside of the dream world too. As for phobias, or course you'd wake up and realize it was a dream, but that doesn't matter. It would still work. They used VR to help people get over phobias, and dreams are much more realistic so I think it would work even better.
I think it depends on the phobia. They don't have homophobia VR simulators for instance but they do have arachnophobia ones and ones for a fear of heights (as far as I know). I'd use them to practice various sexual tricks and strategies. Hmmm yes cunningverycunning...
Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Uh, no, sorry I don't. I read it in some new age magazine a long time ago, and I saw it on some tv show. That's all I know about it. I definitely remember someome getting over a fear of hieghts with it though. And Pollux, you're essentially correct, but you make it sound as if there are different specialized simulators. They just run different programs thats all.
Sounds possible, but I can think of a few problems. What if you misused it? What if you tricked yourself into believing things that werent true? Exactly what would happen if you began to rely on it....um..somehow. Well, ya never know. Sounds dangerous to me. But I think it could also be an evolutionary mechanism. neways, it's late I should be sleeping.......... :bugeye:
You don't need to be in a lucid dream state to do this. You can do this in your head, while you are awake, right now. Visualization. I remember reading about a study with kids and basketball playing. There were 3 groups. One that practiced for 20 minutes each day. One that didn't practice, but sat in front of the net visualizing practice, for 20 minutes. The third did nothing each day (control group). The control group showed no or very little improvement (obviously). The practice group showed 20% improvement. The visualization group showed 19% improvement. Not much difference. The lesson that I've learned is that the brain can't tell the difference between actual experience and imagined experience for the most part, at least in terms of intrinsic learning. However you don't get the benefits of exercise and muscle tone via visualization. -Xenu
I had a dream not too long ago that came true. I don't remember how lucid it was however. Most of my dreams are at least partially lucid, very few are strongly lucid. In the dream I was talking to two different friends on campus, in waking life I hadn't seen either of them in several months. While I was talking to one the other interrupted our conversation making the person I was talking to mad. In the morning I wrote the dream down, not thinking much of it. I went to school, and met one of the people in the dream. While i was talking to her, I felt a kick at the back of my feet; it was the other person in the dream and she had interrupted our conversation. During the whole conversing I didn't even think about the dream. It wasn't until after I said goodbye and started walking away did it hit me. It was strange because I hadn't seen either of them in a long time, and they appeared coincidentally at the same time, like in the dream. So is this precognition? I don't know for sure. I have a strong beliefs that people can communicate to others via some kind of "telepathy-like" via emotions. For me it was my way of reaching out to friends I hadn't seen in a long time and wanted to see. -Xenu
That's a pretty cool account of your dream, Xenu. However, I'm curious--if you had that dream, and found it significant enough to write down, how is it that the dream didn't hit you as soon as the SECOND person from the dream bumped into you? Just a side note: I had the most horrifying experience of my entire life last night. I was in that pseudo-dream state of drifting off to sleep, and suddenly "I" was in a room (yet I was watching myself, and it didn't look like me, but a 12 year old child--yet I associated it as first-person, it felt like I was the child), and suddenly something took me over. My facial features gave way to all skin wrapping around my face. (If anyone has seen the newer House on Haunted Hill, it's just like that. I'm sure that's where it came from, too, because I was watching trailer clips from it for it earlier in the day and I'm betting my brain had memory fragments of it.) Some voice, not particularly scary, said something totally random like "Now, the palace of glass!", and then my vision gave way to pure blackness, I was paralyzed, and suddenly I was hit with the most powerful emotion of fear and terror and confusion that I've ever had in my life. It was like a series of images, but instead of actual images, they were quick shots of horrific emotion delt to me blow after blow for a few seconds. I woke up within seconds, and was totally paralyzed by fear for about 30 seconds, then I decided to get some external stimuli in and opened my eyes. I was blown away and practically scared to try to go back to sleep for a while Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Eric
Woah, that's messed. I know, but you can utilize more of your time if you can do it when you're sleeping. And dreams are more realistic than any "visualization." Who the hell would misuse it to screw themselves up?!
It's a slight possibility. Like I said, you might become reliant on it, to the point where it becomes the basis of your confidence. You might not allow your brain produce some miniscule chemical compounds that it needs, by....um...somehow. There's the possibility. I'm not saying lucid dreaming is bad, but that anything taken beyond moderation has it's repreccusions. Or maybe I'm just trippin'.......
I don't know if this helps any, but a friend of mine (who's into this type of thing) told me when one is having a lucid dream, someone is trying to contact the dreamer, or that both are dreaming and somehow meet in "dream" phase. It sounds improbable to me, but it's an interesting thought. I had a dream once, where I was the coordinator of some sort of gala, and my friend was stressing over her lines (she was the hostess). It was a situation where I was outside looking in, even though I was the person I was looking at. So, I kept telling her to calm down, and suddenly, I snapped back and I was the person I had originally been looking at. There was a moment of confusion, then I just said it: "You're dreaming, this is not real." My friend started saying I was crazy, how could this not be real, and she poured some water into my hand. I could feel the water, feel it trickle down my arm, and it was cold. But I just shook my head and said: "This isn't real. I'm dreaming. You're not here." And with that, I brushed my friend clean out of the air. Just like that, as if she were made of trillions of feather-light particles, I just fanned my hand and she blew away. I began walking away from the auditorium I was in, and made my way up this dark and dank stairwell. I climbed in what felt like an eternity, and suddenly I was on the rooftop (it looked like the rooftop from Spiderman, because I just saw the movie, haha). I looked around and smiled. Then, I looked up, and saw God. (Well, it was more of a feeling, like a gigantic presence rather than a wise old man dressed in white on a throne of light.) Feeling satisfied, I made my way to the edge of the building, and jumped. -BSoulBot
When I had this dream, I was in the middle of a dreamworks class in which we were supposed to write down every dream we could remember. So at the time of the dream, it was "just another dream to write down". I don't know why it didn't pop into my head when the second person nudged my foot. I guess I was too wrapped up in the moment of conversations to think about it. It was only when I had a chance to reflect on what happened, it popped into my head. -Xenu
For you maybe. As I said above, my dreams are just as hazy as my visualizations. I don't distinguish much between them. But I do agree with the time thing.
Too much of anything will hurt you, my friend. For example, if you drink too much, you die, and water is probably the thing we need most. Lucid dreaming is a tool like anything else. You can use it and abuse it.
I would like to pose a theory of how lucid dreaming could be harmful. Firstly, dreaming happens only in REM sleep. There is much evidence that one of the purposes for REM sleep is learning. <This may be a large leap for some, if you want me to post some additional info on this, let me know> When you are in REM sleep your brain is very active, as if you were awake. It's as if the brain is taking all of the new info obtained throughout the day and integrating it with old info. It's kind of like defragging your hard drive on your computer. I think that dreaming is a natural byproduct of these processes. It's your brain trying to make sense of all of these fragments and filling in the gaps. What I suggest is - if you take control of these natural processes, this info collected throughout the day won't be integrated as it normally would. Your learning could be deprived.
Xenu Regular dreaming occurs in REM sleep, yes? And this seems to me the conscious mind's enema. What about night terrors and somnambulism and such, which I believe are rooted in the deep sleep stage? Would they be, using my previous metaphor, the subconscious mind's enema?
