Lucid dreaming thread

banned_crab

Ive recently been reading about tibetan dream yoga, im pretty obsessed with the idea. I begin my progress towards lucid dreaming today. I have little experience but ive done it before about 3 years ago. I was working on it for a week and got it done than never cared enough to try again. But today I am at it again. The reason I want this is because I feel that dreams are the only place were I can achieve unbiased. So I would like to understand myself better,my subconscious and my unbiased feelings. Apparently it is even possible to lucid dream every night.

The purpose of this thread is anything Lucid dreaming related. Tips,techniques,stories,experiences,etc anything really. I am interested in what methods youve used or some past experiences with lucid dreaming.

Discuss

Zayl

Aha! a fellow walker of dreams, hello!

I use my lucid dreams to meditate, when I have them. I don't picture myself under a tree or anything. In fact, I try not to picture myself at all. I do my best not to form any other concept outside of meditation itself. It is quite the experience.

I have also attempted time dilation within dreams (for example, spending much longer in my dream, than I spent asleep) unfortunately, I've only met limited success with that. Other than all of that I use lucid dreams to... well, build the ego I guess, I don't mean too, but it is too tempting to pass up. I build an entire world around myself, and interact with its denizens and so on. In these worlds there is no pain, hate or fear, only love. I try not to dream like this too often, it makes waking up too depressing.

Woah93

Keep a book and pen next to your bed, every time you wake up from a dream grab it and write down your dream. After a week of doing this I recall having as much as 4 different dreams in single nights and I remember them a lot better. This has increased my chances of lucid dreaming tremendously as you start to notice "cues" that your dreaming and become aware of it.

TheEccentric

I have never understood how people can do that, whenever I realise I am in a dream I automatically wake up whether I want to or not.

David

This may sound odd but a good tip is if you feel you may be dreaming, jump and swim. If you can fly, you are dreaming.

Make sure you jump from the ground into the air though, lol. It's worked for me a few times and I've never tried to fly in real life but better safe than smushed.

TheEccentric said:

I have never understood how people can do that, whenever I realise I am in a dream I automatically wake up whether I want to or not.

Try not to finish the realization... Just jump and enjoy. The more you do it, the easier it is.

Also please remember that it is easy to get attached and addicted to lucid dreaming... It is very much escapism.

Woah93

Hmm I guess I never get that "excited" when I realize I am dreaming. I just tend to think it's cool and then do things I can't do in real life. I wouldn't view lucid dreaming as escapism though because everyone sleeps and it's not like you can turn it off or on. What's wrong with a nice additional experience to be had at night when your sleeping?

karmatib

Any tips on just plain old dreaming? I haven't had a dream in years. My nights basically feel like as soon as a I fall asleep... I wake up. there is no sense of time between the two points and I can never remember dreams. Maybe I don't fully fall asleep? I am always tired.

Woah93

Possible to do with lack of REM sleep. Are you on medication or smoking weed since that surpresses it as well. Also check if you are getting enough sun during the day and enough darkness during nights, no computer or TV at least an hour before you go to bed, this will spur more melatonin in the brain which promotes dreaming. Other then that I can't think of anything. Good sleep cycle helps too.

David

Waking up in the middle of the night and going back to sleep often helps me to remember at least.

Bunks

karmatib said:

Any tips on just plain old dreaming? I haven't had a dream in years. My nights basically feel like as soon as a I fall asleep... I wake up. there is no sense of time between the two points and I can never remember dreams. Maybe I don't fully fall asleep? I am always tired.

Hi @karmatib. Are you on any kind of medication or drug? This can affect your ability to dream.

I used to smoke marijuana every day for a few years and didn't dream at all during that period. It was quite exciting to start dreaming again when I stopped smoking.

You may have sleep apnea given you're tired all the time? Might be worth getting that checked out.

seeker242

Lucid dreaming was my first foray into "spiritual things". I got into it after hearing about Tibetan dram yoga too. Although, I spent most of the dream time doing stupid things. Lucid dreaming is good but not if you only use it to do stupid things, like chasing some naked women around. (or men)

banned_crab

awesome thanks guys

I been writin down dreams but sometimes i cant remmeber any

Jeffrey

I lucid dream in persecutory dreams sometimes because when the chips are down for and I am feeling awful I remember the dharma and when I remember in my dream then it is apparent that I am just dreaming.

David

The first lucid dream I had when I was 16 years old. A friend and I were running from the cops and started running up a spiral staircase. After what seemed to be a long time, I looked down and saw there was no bottom. I could see the cops running up and around. Looking up I saw there was no top and could see my buddy running up and around.

It dawned on me that it must be a dream and so I grabbed the rail and flung myself up to land right in front of my friend. He looked startled and confused so I said "Don't you get it man? It's a dream... We can do whatever we want!"

That's when I woke up. I didn't wake up when I knew instinctively that it was a dream but once I acknowledged the fact.

robot

The instructions that Don Juan gave to Carlos Castenada about Dreaming were the first I had ever heard of the possibility of being awake while dreaming. That was when I was a teenager.
While there has always been a debate about whether Don Juan was an actual person or not, his instructions for setting up and practicing Dreaming are surprisingly effective. That was my experience.
Unfortunately, these instructions are spread through a number of the books so one needs to read a lot to get to them. The downside to that is that one could be at risk of inviting wrong views to develop, from a Buddhist perspective.
Of course, focusing on lucid dreaming at the early stages of a Buddhist practice likely risks reinforcing dillusions in any case.
Kind of like seeking altered states through drugs or getting lost in television or the internet, or any of a million other distractions, instead of trying to be comfortable with and draw insight from the present as it is.
I think we need to be awake when we are awake before we can be awake while we are asleep.
I have always enjoyed it when it happens.

riverflow

ourself said:

The first lucid dream I had when I was 16 years old. A friend and I were running from the cops and started running up a spiral staircase. After what seemed to be a long time, I looked down and saw there was no bottom. I could see the cops running up and around. Looking up I saw there was no top and could see my buddy running up and around.

It dawned on me that it must be a dream and so I grabbed the rail and flung myself up to land right in front of my friend. He looked startled and confused so I said "Don't you get it man? It's a dream... We can do whatever we want!"

That's when I woke up. I didn't wake up when I knew instinctively that it was a dream but once I acknowledged the fact.

That's interesting -- in almost every case (that I that I can recall) I only have had lucid dreams in similar scenarios-- usually being chased down by "bad guys" and it is only when I am cornered and can't get away that I realize I'm dreaming and I can fly, teleport, become invincible, or whatever.

It's like the pressure I'm feeling in the dream triggers the awareness in me.

Other than that I don't have lucid dreams. But I do often have very vivid dreams-- many of them don't make sense. I won't go into them all, but I seem to have a lot of dreams with different US presidents in them LOL

But I did have a dream a few weeks ago that was very powerful about my cat Issa, who died in January of 2012 and left me heartbroken:

I've had this problem about the death of those I love-- I feel like I can no longer address that person (or animal) in the second person-- only in the third person. Being aware of this peculiar linguistic feature has, for many years, signified this immense gulf between the living and the dead and has only made my grief worse. And so when my cat Issa died, I felt the same way.

A few weeks ago I had this intense and vivid dream about Issa. I don't even know why-- I don't think he was consciously on my mind at the time. He was rolling around on the floor and I was petting him-- as we often would do together. You know how in dreams really strange things can happen but seem perfectly "normal" in a dream? -- so, Issa said to me in this really funny voice, "I love you" ---- at which point I started crying in the dream-- but was also actually crying and I woke up still sobbing big crocodile tears of utter joy. It took me awhile to stop crying, but I was so happy. I then realized I could still refer to Issa in the second person-- I could address him, and that he would always be with me-- all the moments we shared together were within me and a part of my own life, inseparable. I'm not doing justice to the experience at all, but it was quite powerful and took me an hour or so to settle (sometimes it takes me awhile to settle from the "emotional inertia" from a powerful dream-- both "good" and "bad" dreams).

I then remembered something I read in a Thich Nhat Hanh book, No Fear, No Death-- where he related a similar experience regarding his mother:

The day my mother died, I wrote in my journal, "A serious misfortune of my life has arrived." I suffered for more than one year after the passing away of my mother. But one night, in the highlands of Vietnam, I was sleeping in the hut in my hermitage. I dreamed of my mother. I saw myself sitting with her, and we were having a wonderful talk. She looked young and beautiful, her hair flowing down. It was so pleasant to sit there and talk with her as if she had never died. When I woke up it was about two in the morning, and I felt very strongly that I had never lost my mother. The impression that my mother was still with me was very clear. I understood then that the idea of having lost my mother was just an idea. It was obvious in that moment that my mother is always alive in me.

I opened the door and went outside. The entire hillside was covered with tea plants, and my hut was set behind the temple halfway up. Walking slowly in the moonlight through the rows of tea plants, I noticed my mother was still with me. She was the moonlight caressing me as she had done so often, very tender, very sweet... wonderful! Each time my feet touched the earth I knew my mother was there with me. I knew this body was not mine alone but a living continuation of my mother and my father and my grandparents and great-grandparents. Of all my ancestors. These feet that I saw as "my" feet were actually "our" feet. Together my mother and I were leaving footprints in the damp soil.

From that moment on, the idea that I had lost my mother no longer existed. All I had to do was look at the palm of my hand, feel the breeze on my face or the earth under my feet to remember that my mother is always with me, available at any time.

robot

My cat, Shortwave, died about 20 years ago under mysterious circumstances. I still dream about her regularly. Maybe because I never got another cat.

Chaz

heyimacrab said:

The purpose of this thread is anything Lucid dreaming related. Tips,techniques,stories,experiences,etc anything really. I am interested in what methods youve used or some past experiences with lucid dreaming.

Some food for thought ....

I don't do Dream Yoga myself.

BUT!!!! I do study regularly with a teacher in my lineage (Kagyu) who specializes in death practices. According to him, Dream Yoga is used as a preparation for death and the Bardos that follow. The idea is that dream states are similar to the Bardo experience and the practice can help a practitioner to prepare for that part of death. The belief is that a practitioner can achieve enlightenment after the death of the physical body while still in the Bardos but prior to birth and Dream Yoga is a good practice for when that actually happens (and it will).

Jeffrey

I had a dream that my ex-girlfriend I talked to her and then she walked away. For some reason I thought that she was going to hell. (And no I never told her 'go to hell', hehe).

I decided I would find her wherever she was even if I had to follow her to hell. So I was following her. This is only semi-lucid by the way.

Then like a music lifted me up and to wakening state. The music was from my sangha liturgy CD and it was the voice of my guru singing Om Mane Pema Hum.

I felt she rescued me from going to hell to find my ex. Maybe I really would have found hell? :hair:

footiam

You would understand

heyimacrab said:

The reason I want this is because I feel that dreams are the only place were I can achieve unbiased. So I would like to understand myself better,my subconscious and my unbiased feelings. Apparently it is even possible to lucid dream every night.
.

You would understand yourself better if you are awake.