Post: #1

I have been interested on the topic of lucid dreaming for some time, and was surprised when I did a search here and the most related I found was this: /thread-4521.html

Looking to direct this thread to LUCID dreaming specifically. For those who don't know, a lucid dream is a dream where you become aware you are dreaming. From that point on, you either wake up, or continue within the dream and may even become able to manipulate the dream itself.

I haven't had much experience with it. I've had two instances of lucid dreams that I remember, and they weren't that special. One I woke up right after my realization; the other I was able to fly around a bit, but woke soon after.

Interested in hearing your experiences with lucid dreams.

Post: #2

Lucid dreaming is great. But you become so excited that often you will accidentally wake yourself up. I have only experienced it about 5-6 times in my life.

I found my experiences to be similar to my man, Anthony Cumia...

Post: #3

The other one is when your brain wakes up before your body. Since you are actually paralysed when you are asleep - it means you are pinned down and unable to move. It can be quite spooky since it feels like some invisible evil presence is pinning you to your bed. And when you try and scream - not a single sound comes out of your mouth. Which just adds to the panic.

Of course - there is nothing spooky about it - since it is just your body waking up (for about a minute or so) out of sequence.

A friend was telling me about a Catholic priest she knew. Funny thing. He experienced the same thing as well. But due to his religious outlook - he held the belief that it was a battle for his soul being carried out between the devil and God.

Funny how different people can have such radically different understandings of the same phenomena. Just shows the usefulness of spending a few minutes researching a topic on google.

cardguy

PS You can buy headsets which apparently induce lucid dreaming. But I have never tried one. Still - I am curious to know more about those gadgets.

Post: #4

Quote: The other one is when your brain wakes up before your body. Since you are actually paralysed when you are asleep - it means you are pinned down and unable to move. It can be quite spooky since it feels like some invisible evil presence is pinning you to your bed. And when you try and scream - not a single sound comes out of your mouth. Which just adds to the panic.

That's right, I remember reading about that as well. I think I might have had that in the past. But as with most dream sequences, it seems like you just recall it right after you wake up from it, but forget it by the time you wake up in the morning.

I purchased a book sometime ago, Lucid Dreaming by Robert Waggoner, and it was very insightful. I only read about 2/3 of it, but it included some techniques for you to try and become lucid. I will start applying that once I have time.

The possibilities for what you can do in lucid dreams are endless... Sure, you can have sex with that high school teacher you used to lust for, but you can also fly over the Grand Canyon, teleport to the top of the Eiffel Tower, run at 100 miles per hour.. But what I am most interested in would have to be interaction with other dream figures.

Post: #5

I stopped trying to take control of my dreams (lucid dreaming) as all my attempts would result in failure as I tried to control the dream.

I do like simply remembering the dream and I allow my mind to do its own thing (Always interesting when keeping a dream journal and then commenting on how my interactions, dreams and how I acted in the dreams change over time)

Post: #6

The other weird one (and this is the rarest of the lot I think) is when you wake up and are still dreaming. As such - you can temporarily hallucinate conversations and so on. I think alot of out of body experiences are like this. I once had one where I woke up and started to semi-float around the room. I think. There was a small earthquake back then - so maybe it was that which woke me up. Hard to recall.

Nevertheless - I suspect alot of 'out of body' experiences are of people dreaming they are in their bed and floating around their room.

And later this gets misremembered as them being awake in bed and floating around their room.

This is interesting as well. There is now a way to artifically induce 'out-of-body' experiences:





And I think this is the first step to creating Sex 2.0 (ala Demolition Man):

Post: #7

And this video is an even simpler demonstration of the 'out-of-body' concept demonstrated above:

Post: #8

Have done it.
Would endorse.

Post: #9

(04-04-2013 09:16 PM)cardguy Wrote:  The other one is when your brain wakes up before your body. Since you are actually paralysed when you are asleep - it means you are pinned down and unable to move. It can be quite spooky since it feels like some invisible evil presence is pinning you to your bed. And when you try and scream - not a single sound comes out of your mouth. Which just adds to the panic.

Of course - there is nothing spooky about it - since it is just your body waking up (for about a minute or so) out of sequence.

A friend was telling me about a Catholic priest she knew. Funny thing. He experienced the same thing as well. But due to his religious outlook - he held the belief that it was a battle for his soul being carried out between the devil and God.

Funny how different people can have such radically different understandings of the same phenomena. Just shows the usefulness of spending a few minutes researching a topic on google.

This is called Sleep Paralysis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis

I get this at least once a week. I'm the most frequent sufferer of this condition out of anybody I know. Many people get this a few times in their life, but nobody I know gets it constantly like I do. I hate. It's not as scary as it was when I was a kid as I've gotten used to it, but the scariest thing about it is just not knowing how long it's going to last. If this is anything like what it is to be a coma that is the most terrifying thought I can imagine.

Post: #10

In one of his memoirs - Richard Feynman described his self-experiments with lucid dreaming and sensory deprivation tanks.

He was also fascinated by hallucinogenic drugs. But never took any for fear of ruining his brilliant mind.

Post: #11

I feel for you, Speakeasy.

I usually panic a bit when I get them. But a couple of times I have had enough alertness to understand what was going on. And that made it better...

Now - until now I never made the link between sleep paralysis and being in a coma. Scary shit!

Post: #12

I have a buddy who told me once about his experience with sleep paralysis. It involved seeing dark shapes and figures moving around the room trying to strangle him. Crazy what the mind is capable of..

Post: #13

I've had sleep paralysis a few times. Thought I was being abducted by aliens.

Thomas Edison did lucid dreaming and credited to his success. He would only sleep four hours a night but take several naps a day in which he lucid dreamt. That's the secret to lucid dreaming. Do it at nap time.

http://www.world-of-lucid-dreaming.com/f...amers.html

http://www.davidcharles.info/2010/11/hyp...s.html?m=1

Post: #14

(04-04-2013 09:43 PM)MidniteSpecial Wrote:  I've had sleep paralysis a few times. Thought I was being abducted by aliens.

Thomas Edison did lucid dreaming and credited to his success. He would only sleep four hours a night but take several naps a day in which he lucid dreamt. That's the secret to lucid dreaming. Do it at nap time.

I do recall the most weird dream experiences occurring during these vampire naps I would take in the afternoons. I would slowly drift from awakeness to some in between dream/aware state where thoughts would just become so strange/twisted/random. I would wake up after 40 minutes and remember everything perfectly, and more often than not it was usually extremely bizarre.

Post: #15

(04-04-2013 09:36 PM)speakeasy Wrote:  

(04-04-2013 09:16 PM)cardguy Wrote:  The other one is when your brain wakes up before your body. Since you are actually paralysed when you are asleep - it means you are pinned down and unable to move. It can be quite spooky since it feels like some invisible evil presence is pinning you to your bed. And when you try and scream - not a single sound comes out of your mouth. Which just adds to the panic.

Of course - there is nothing spooky about it - since it is just your body waking up (for about a minute or so) out of sequence.

A friend was telling me about a Catholic priest she knew. Funny thing. He experienced the same thing as well. But due to his religious outlook - he held the belief that it was a battle for his soul being carried out between the devil and God.

Funny how different people can have such radically different understandings of the same phenomena. Just shows the usefulness of spending a few minutes researching a topic on google.

This is called Sleep Paralysis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis

I get this at least once a week. I'm the most frequent sufferer of this condition out of anybody I know. Many people get this a few times in their life, but nobody I know gets it constantly like I do. I hate. It's not as scary as it was when I was a kid as I've gotten used to it, but the scariest thing about it is just not knowing how long it's going to last. If this is anything like what it is to be a coma that is the most terrifying thought I can imagine.

I get this when I haven't slept in a few days (I'm a terrible insomniac). It's a horrific experience. I often feel like I'm being "abducted", like floating away under someone else's control. I always feel an evil presence, and the most fucked up thing is that I'm actually conscious - I can tell myself that I'm in a sleep paralysis state, that none of it is real. But until your brain catches up and lets your eyes open - it's a fucking nightmare.

Post: #16

(04-04-2013 09:42 PM)Nascimento Wrote:  I have a buddy who told me once about his experience with sleep paralysis. It involved seeing dark shapes and figures moving around the room trying to strangle him. Crazy what the mind is capable of..

Yeah, when I was younger I'd hear loud whirring noises, it would feel like something heavy was pressing down on my back or chest(still get that now to some degree), sometimes shadowy things out the periphery of my vision. or often an innocuous object in the room like a lamp would look like a monster. I had a really weird episode a few months ago. I have a plant that sits on my nightstand next to my bed, it looks like a little palm or something, but I was having a dream that I was on a subway and all of a sudden there was this weird shape that appeared in the air and in the dream I was like, what the fuck is that. And then as I woke up, it was the shape of the plant. I guess my eyes were open and somehow visual stimulation was being interwoven with the dream. When I was in my early 20s, I had a Bob Marley poster above my bed. I had this sleep paralysis state and I was looking up at the poster and Bob Marley was shaking his head side to side so fast it looked like a blur. I just freaked! But I couldn't move or wake myself up. And the weird thing about it is the only part of my body I can control are my eyes and my breathing. But I try to keep my eyes shut when it's happening because any little thing in the room that looks unusual will look terrifying and you always have this ominous presence like something is coming toward you. I've never taken LCD but this is what I'd imagine a really bad trip must feel like.

Edit --

For some reason this almost never happens at night. It's mostly likely to happen as other have said above, during daytime naps when you're feeling drowsy, especially if you fall asleep in front of the TV. And for some odd reason, it has NEVER once happened in my life when someone else is in the room. It only happens when I'm alone.

Post: #17

My sleeping is fucked up. I am a total night owl - yet I have to be awake at 6 in the morning to get ready for work.

Often what I do is stay up all night, and then sleep for 10 hours or so the next day - straight after work. It is fun in a way since nothing is more pleasurable than sleep when you are totally exhausted. Especially when you go to bed early enough that you know you won't be wokrn from a deep sleep by your alarm clock.

Post: #18

I just wish parents would tell their kids about Sleep Paralysis. Shit like this fucked up my sleeping when I was growing up.

Another tip you have to tell all kids is this one. There is nothing worse in the world than ice cream headaches. Well - the ice cream headache is caused by a nerve which runs from the roof of your mouth to your forehead contracting. This is what causes the headache. Well - if you vigorously lick the roof of your mouth, when you get an ice cream headache, it will stop this nerve from contracting - and thus get rid of the headache.

Best thing I ever learned...

Post: #19

I occasionally get Exploding Head Syndrome when sleeping, at times if in addition to Sleep Paralysis it drives me insane.

I often get it as a gunshot noise or a very loud CRACK/TOC noise.

Post: #20

(04-04-2013 09:47 PM)Nascimento Wrote:  

(04-04-2013 09:43 PM)MidniteSpecial Wrote:  I've had sleep paralysis a few times. Thought I was being abducted by aliens.

Thomas Edison did lucid dreaming and credited to his success. He would only sleep four hours a night but take several naps a day in which he lucid dreamt. That's the secret to lucid dreaming. Do it at nap time.

I do recall the most weird dream experiences occurring during these vampire naps I would take in the afternoons. I would slowly drift from awakeness to some in between dream/aware state where thoughts would just become so strange/twisted/random. I would wake up after 40 minutes and remember everything perfectly, and more often than not it was usually extremely bizarre.

Once I ate bison heart. I seared it in garlic and oil a minute each side. My girl at the time dared me to eat a piece raw so I did.

I had the most vivid insane dreams of my life that night. I was in a UFO with a Native American going underwater through futuristic cities it was bugged out. I did research the next day and supposedly heart has high amounts of co enzyme q 10 in it which can enhance dreams.

Lately I've been trying to lay down for forty minutes a day. I'm bad at naps but I just close my eyes and keep them closed. Usually I lay flat on the floor on my back or on a couch on my back. I jump in and out of lucid dreams. When my timer goes off I have that feeling where I ask myself, "was I ever even sleeping that whole time?"

Pretty cool stuff to experiment with.

Post: #21

(04-04-2013 09:58 PM)Emancipator Wrote:  I occasionally get Exploding Head Syndrome, at times if in addition to Sleep Paralysis it drives me insane.

I often get it as a gunshot noise or a very loud CRACK/TOC noise.

There is another episode similar to paralysis called a 'hypnagogic' episode, which basically happens right as your brain is disconnecting and you are falling asleep. Basically, you will hear whispers or see images that aren't really there. I often have someone whispering in my ear "hey!"

Nobody there. Just my fucked brain.

Post: #22

I once got sleep paralysis at a job I was at. I snuck away to take a nap in a recording studio room. I was trying to scream and stuck really bad it was fucked. I partied hard the night before and accredited it to that. It can be scary when it happens. Magnesium is key to relaxed sleep.

Post: #23

(04-04-2013 09:36 PM)speakeasy Wrote:  This is called Sleep Paralysis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis

I've had this happen to me twice. The last time was a few months back. I was conscious after a lucid dream but I couldn't move for about 2 min. It was like something was pressing against my chest.

It's common among people with west african ancestry.

Post: #24

(04-04-2013 10:00 PM)ryanf Wrote:  

(04-04-2013 09:58 PM)Emancipator Wrote:  I occasionally get Exploding Head Syndrome, at times if in addition to Sleep Paralysis it drives me insane.

I often get it as a gunshot noise or a very loud CRACK/TOC noise.

There is another episode similar to paralysis called a 'hypnagogic' episode, which basically happens right as your brain is disconnecting and you are falling asleep. Basically, you will hear whispers or see images that aren't really there. I often have someone whispering in my ear "hey!"

Nobody there. Just my fucked brain.

I've had stuff like this too while in a somewhat lucid/hypnogogic state. Hearing voices mumbling random things that sometimes are intelligible, sometimes not. Then again, you sometimes wonder if maybe there is some pathway to an alternative reality you're tuned in to.

Post: #25

(04-04-2013 09:58 PM)Emancipator Wrote:  I occasionally get Exploding Head Syndrome when sleeping, at times if in addition to Sleep Paralysis it drives me insane.

I often get it as a gunshot noise or a very loud CRACK/TOC noise.

Wow I never even knew this existed. If I get this now it will be all because of you. Ha ha.