The Glade 4.0

About six months ago, I dreamed that I woke up facing my aquarium on the desk across from my bed. I groggily watched fish swim back and forth for a few seconds before I realized that I don't have an aquarium anymore, that when I did it only had one fish, and that it was never on that desk. I realized I was dreaming just long enough to get up and walk down the hallway, but I could feel myself slipping back into unconscious dreaming. I tried to "anchor" myself by rubbing my hands together and turning in a circle, but unfortunately it wasn't enough.

Last night I had my first totally-out-of-the-blue moment of lucidity. For stupid dream logic reasons, I was doing some kind of SWAT maneuvers outside around 4am. This struck me as sufficiently absurd that I realized I was dreaming. This time, I was suddenly fully alert and aware. I remembered Richard Feynman talking about being able to see light reflecting off of individual hairs in a dream, so I took a hard look at my surroundings. I could see individual blades of grass and tiny pebbles embedded in the concrete. I thought about other senses. I realized that I could feel the coolness of pre-dawn. I tried running and I could feel the breeze in my face. I could see motion blur when I moved quickly.

Unfortunately, I was so excited by how cool this was that I shocked myself awake after only about 15 seconds. Still, progress is progress. I'm one step closer to having my own personal holodeck.

I'm trying to think of cool things to try if I pull this off again:

• Flying (duh)
• Giving myself a Portal gun. Wheeeeeeeeeeeee.
• Acting out a bunch of scenes from The Matrix
• Shapeshifting
• Telekinesis
• Altering the terrain (raising up hills and mountains, making trees disappear, etc.)
• Slowing/stopping time
• Short-range teleportation (within sight)
• Long-range teleportation (complete change of scenery)
• Mind controlling a dream inhabitant

There are also a couple things that I have to try simply because I've been told that they're Very Bad Ideas(TM) and that you should never, ever do them:

• Look in a mirror
• Ask a dream person to show me my greatest fear

What else?

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Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

All I was ever able to do was "Escape" squeeze my eyes shut and open them again and be awake, or baring that somewhere else. I haven't tried to do this in a long time. I'm not even sure I could anymore.

However I'm nearly certain I've been in a dream with someone else before (not on purpose). Take what you will from that

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

I've been lucid dreaming since I was 8. It's actually pretty boring now since its like godmode in a video game. Last night I was helping a group of people kidnap someone from a mall (we were armed with WW2 era lugers for some reason) lead by a woman who didn't trust her cohorts. She also didn't know how to move very well while escorting someone. We drove a balck getaway van a short distance to a small helicopter which we then piloted to a base. I have no idea what the purpose of the kidnapping was but I don't think the group were in any way good guys.

Things I realized are bad ideas:
Talking to the manifestation of your subconcious.

Things I tried which were actually ok: Jumping out a building. (I felt falling which used to be an instant wake-up effect but I stayed asleep through it I remember hitting with a squishy thud-splat and the feeling of my body opening while my vision went totally black. I then felt my body come back together annd I stood up with a crowd around my gasping (over some seriously cracked concrete).

I'm gonna try the mirror thing to see how that goes and the greatest fear thing.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

From what I can tell, the mirror thing is mostly power of suggestion. If you were afraid of Bloody Mary as a child, you're probably going to have a bad time. If not, you'll probably just get a weirdly distorted reflection. It's also not uncommon to see something completely absurd ("Huh. My reflection is a giant talking squirrel"). I think some deep, primitive, bird-like part of our brain just refuses to believe that a mirror is *not* actually a window into another world.


Oh yeah, I forgot about that one. Asking to speak to your subconscious can have interesting results, ranging from positive and life-affirming to pants shitting.

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Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

My subconcious is another me walking around my dreamscape at random. Very rarely we see each other and we tend to walk away but once in a dream where I was at my childhood home I saw him walking the path back home I used to take from the bus stop. I walked towards him and we both stopped and said hello. I said "It's not a good idea for us to talk is it" and he replied something like "no its not". We then carried on our way.

I'm thinking that since it was my default assumption that it wasn't a good idea to talk may very well be why he said it's not.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Awesome, Stathol! "You've taken your first step into a larger world."

I've been experimenting with this stuff off and on since I was 11 years old. It all started when I had a dream about the girl I had a mad crush on. I wanted to experience that every night, and was determined to figure out what conditions were needed to recreate it. Was I thinking about something at a certain time of day? Was it food related? Song related? A sequence of events?

It all came up a bust, and eventually morphed into solving the question "What would happen if I knew with absolute certainty that I was dreaming inside of a dream?"

I decided to try repetition. Every night before I fell asleep I'd repeat to myself about 100 times "Remember it's a dream." The first few nights didn't yield much. But after the fourth or fifth night, I was riding my bike with another kid in my dream and I felt like I was forgetting something. Like there was something I was supposed to remember. And then *BAM!* I could remember it all. I was dreaming. I was fully aware that I was in a dream and realizing that what I thought was fine detail, that my brain was fuzzily filling in blanks here and there. But my first reaction was to tell the kid I was riding bikes with that he wasn't real and was a part of my dream.

And that's when he pulled out a television remote control, pointed it at me, and said "I am? Well, in that case..." and zapped me and I began to get sucked into the ground. I quickly recanted my statement and told him I was joking, which he then helped me get back on solid ground. I woke up shortly after that. I've since learned most people wake up shortly after their first lucid moment, so you're not alone there.

But after that night, I knew I was onto something.

I found that it began to get easier to (what I wouldn't learn until decades later is called) lucid dream. I didn't need to repeat the phrase as much as time went on, it was more of putting myself in that mental state before I fell asleep. The more you lucid dream, the easier it is to realize when you're dreaming and remind yourself of it.

To do the things you want to do, (if you're anything like me) then you need to really work on willpower. The brain does a really great job of simulating real world physics, and it also does a decent job of ensuring you follow those rules most of the time. Even when you want to bend them.

A few examples: I love to fly in my dreams. Most people do, but for many it's a rare thing. For me, I do it all the time. But it took me a while to get the willpower to overcome my mind's enforcement of simulated gravity. Just wishing it to happen wasn't enough (at the time), nor was trying to take big jumps. So what I did was do something that I normally wouldn't do in real life. I'd take a running jump like I was going to "belly flop" onto hard pavement. If I could get my body truly horizontal and paralell to the ground (so there was no chance of landing safely), then my mind would relent and I'd take to the skies.

In the early 2000s I was on a big Hulk kick, so I lucid dreamed myself into being that superhero fairly often. I could superjump easily enough. But I found that smashing physical objects was harder to do. Punching my bare fist into a jagged brick wall would cause my brain to simulate what would happen in real life: wall wouldn't budge, my fist would be scraped up and sore as hell. So what would I do? I'd get angry and punch that same wall with the same fist even harder than before. Then it would bust. Or, seeing an 8 inch sharp, metal spike sticking out of the ground. I am in bare feet. The Hulk should be able to slam his barefoot down on that spike and watch it bend and snap without damaging his sole. Again, my brain wanted nothing more than to simulate "that's a very bad idea" but I had to override that with sheer willpower.

It's that kind of retraining and willpower that will allow you to take more active control of your dreams. A lot of my nightmares are about bullies, since I was picked on a lot as a kid. And if I ever tried to fight back, my punches would be like moving through molasses and with about as much power as a baby can muster. Very, very frustrating. Then: willpower. Now when I get in those situations, I force myself to go 90-100% lucid (more on this in a bit) and all of a sudden the bullied dream turns into a kickass revenge movie or the horrific nightmare turns into an Evil Dead movie (Groovy!).

I've found over the years that I enjoy my dreams the most when I'm not 100% lucid. These days I am only about 40% lucid. I like being along for the ride, instead of the person doing the driving all the time. But when you've practiced it enough, it's easy to "flip on the switch" to be 100% lucid when you want it.

But that's what it all boils down to. Practice. It probably took me a few weeks or months when I was a kid to get a grasp on being lucid. And it took more experimenting with willpower to do the other stuff I wanted to do. Just keep at it! It's certainly a fun pass time and makes dreaming a far more interesting experience.

P.S. - I also experimented with remembering dreams. I usually remember dreams if I want to, but not always. I found that there is a small window (at least for me) between the time I am still asleep and fully awake that my dream is still there and fresh but will fade within a few seconds. I experimented with keeping a pen and paper next to my bed and forcing myself to remember to write down a phrase or single word about my dream the second I begin to wake up. I found that this worked beautifully. Just a single word was usually enough to cascade the memories of the dream back into my mind.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

I rarely remember my dreams. When I do there seems to always be a point where I remind myself I am dreaming and this is not the real world. Useful when I am racing down a mountain road in a car I don't know and the brakes go out. This seems to be a pattern.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

Yeah willpower. Flying was hard at first and now its a given in any dream where I just want to waste time or get someplace quick. Sometimes its hard to go over about 80 miles an hour and sometimes when I punch through the upper atmosphere its just as easy to travel to Jupiter in a few seconds, or outside the solar system. (note - most of the time space is just really really boring) Sometimes I can pluck the sun out of the sky and hold it my hand and crack mountains in half with my mind. Sometimes I can barely fly - all depends on willpower and attitude and how much you really care about doing anything.

Passing through walls still is hit or miss. Sometimes I just am like "feh, matter" and sometimes I keep bouncing off I find it easier to just make the wall vanish.

Forming objets is pretty easy, I once got on a motorcycle as it was forming from the ether under me. A sketched drawing and then color and noise and detail formed while I was going about 40.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Space is only as boring as you will it to be.

More advanced stuff is not being tied down a body at all (corporeal or not). No need for hands, no need for two eyes with a narrow field of vision. Other advanced stuff is being killed in your dream, but refusing to let death stop you. I've fallen from great heights (like 5000+ feet) only to impact, get up and walk away (I'm still alive, so there's that myth debunked). I've been stabbed, shot, dismembered, drowned, electrocuted, a whole bunch of other stuff. I just will myself back and keep on truckin'. I'm like Jason Voorhees. (though nowadays I don't even let the death occur, I just adjust brain physics to be impervious)

And Micheal, I completely understand about the driving thing. But it is good to remember it's just a dream and, if you want, you can take control of the situation.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

I do. I've developed a number of ways to end it favorably in the dreamscape. Once I remind myself it's a dream. One of the fun ones was making it the Mach 5 and jump off the road, deploy the wings and when a good landing spot is found, the parachute. Chim-Chim appears in the passenger seat as soon as it becomes the Mach 5.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

I've been told that the best way to deal with the willpower thing is to just use props. Even a thoroughly flimsy explanation like, "I can fly because I'm wearing this magic flying ring" is enough for your brain to go, "well, okay then. Seems legit."

_________________
Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

I just embrace me essential awesomeness and my brain goes - yup that makes sense - awesome people get to teleport.

I do have several power up versions I run through though. Normally I am just me and this is the mode I prefer to run in because its more fun to let the dream go around and be part of it rather than directing it. If something comes up and I think it will be fun I power up to walk through walls or fly. If something shows up that looks like it would be a fun thing (say a dragon) I'll shoot energy bolts of my hands and be generate force fields and stuff. If the thing gets annoying and is stopping fun from happening I go into god-mode where the universe quivers in anticipation until it waits for my will to be decreed.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

It's different for everyone. It's all about making yourself believe, 100%, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the action you are about to take *WILL* happen. It's a lot like Dumbo. If you need a prop ("magic" feather), then by all means go for it.

My personality is that I don't like props, or like to believe that I am somehow special, or whatever. I just like the idea of mind over matter. So for me personally, when something doesn't work I do it again twice as hard. Or like with the flying, I didn't need a prop but I did need to make my brain think "Ok, I either need to simulate gravity and pain or I can simulate flight." All the while me prompting it towards the latter.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

After reading this thread and later waking from a dream, I repeated "lucid dream" over and over until I fell back asleep. But when I woke up later, I realized that my previous waking and repeating was a dream itself.

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