Epic tales, mastering the universe, or just reading a good book next to a fireplace?
I’ve gotten there a few times, and in my semi-dream state I did a bunch of work and cleaned my house. So imagine my disappointment when I woke up and none of that was actually done 😔
Years ago when I was going through an extremely stressful period at work, when I wasn’t a rampant insomniac, I had the dumbest fucking dreams.
They were about grocery shopping, house cleaning - all like you say, frustrating as hell when you wake up and find everything is still a pit - but the worst were the work dreams.
I’d have entire stakeholder meetings, run workshops, present to the project board, have debriefs with my staff - and then have to relive the whole fucking thing the next day.
I was basically working in both my awake and sleeping hours. A constant feeling of deja vu. Having to actually double check my calendar to see whether the big meeting had already happened or not. What a fucking horrible time that was.
Ufff 🤣
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I learned about lucid dreaming from an old book I found when I was 18, and I began practicing. Because flying has been my passion since I was 5, I focused on that.
At first, I would run and take long leaps, like I was in low gravity. After a few weeks, one leap would keep me about 6 feet above the ground until I wanted to drop back down. I’d remain vertical with my arms relaxed at my sides, and just lean a bit for direction. About a year after I began flying every night, I could lay down and then close my eyes while making one push off the ground with my right foot and I’d be immediately at tree line. I loved flying through my neighborhood and the city, hovering over streets, visiting the houses of my friends, sometimes popping in to see them.
My dreams were in real time, so it was late at night and they were almost always asleep. It felt like an out of body experience.
I’d learned from the book how to make recurring dream threats your friend, and I befriended the wolves that had terrified my dream life at least once a week for over ten years. It was an incredibly empowering experience.
After a few years, I was in a lost time in life, and my dream flying reflected how out of control I was. By then, every time I laid my head on my pillow, my right foot reflexively tapped and I was off. But now, I was shooting straight up faster than a rocket and zipping beyond the moon in just a few seconds. I started panicking that I’d “lose my earth tether” and never be able to find my way back. I believed that I needed to return to my body in order to wake up. So now going to sleep was a threat in my mind. It took weeks to de-condition myself to stop flying.
In retrospect, I should have taken control, but my day life had really gone off the deep end and I think this is how it manifested. I haven’t practiced lucid dreaming or flying since I was 28, but I miss that exhilaration of zooming at tree line in a place I loved.
I don’t have nightmares any more, last one was when I was a kid and I drop-kicked some shadow monster person, just weird dreams where my brain will chip in a go “hang on that’s not how it works”, equally I don’t have ultimate control like I consciously decide what I dream about it’s usually just life with the weird filter turned on.
I remember my last bad dream. (many years ago)
I was running from some sort of skeleton things through a back alley. One of them caught me and we started fighting. In the struggle I managed to pin it down and yelled “Why are you chasing me?”
It stopped struggling and looked and me somewhat bewildered. “Because you were running.” It tried a few times to scare me into running again but I refused, so we just sat there and had an awkward conversation instead. Turns out my sleep demons are just as weird as I am.
Nightmares for me have absolutely nothing to do with the content of the dream. Like, I could be in am absolutely normal scene, say a park or shop or hotel but it’s ominous as fuck and I am utterly terrified. Sometimes my mind will then throw scary content at me, but not always. Other times there is objectively terrifying stuff going on but I am calm and serene and just face it, no feeling of fear at all.
The more control I have, the more likely I am to wake up, which is pretty annoying. Although, on the flip side, waking up through choice to avoid bad dreams is how I originally developed the skill of lucid dreaming. Noticing the signs of waking up and choosing to stay asleep is kind of a weird thing to do too, but it can lead to sleep paralysis.
However in any case, the level of control I have varies. Often, I am able to fly from danger or decide something didn’t happen and try again. More rarely I know there are no consequences to any of my actions and can completely control space, time and narrative. It’s odd knowing it’s a dream, but it still feels real. Though, still with a dream brain memory and dream logic, I’m not necessarily thinking as sensibly as I would do when awake.
This is how I use control with lucid dreaming. If something is taking a wrong turn I just say “No” and either remove the bad part or rewind on something that doesn’t make sense. I don’t really want to actively control the dream because I want to know what my subconscious is trying to tell me.
Noticing the signs of waking up and choosing to stay asleep is kind of a weird thing to do too, but it can lead to sleep paralysis.
Whoa, whoa, careful what things you’re saying here. This could make me, at least, worry about going back to sleep
It’s a skill like any other, so it’s going to differ depending on you. But, B. It feels like being a wizard or demigod of some sort.
It always reminded me of those stories (like, D&D/myth type stuff) where a godling of some sort is fairly vulnerable most of the time, until they get onto their own home plane, where they become fully omnipotent again. Kinda a “you don’t want to fuck with me here” sort of thing.
Probably colored by the fact I had my first one as a child, and used it to stop a nightmare in progress, which was very memorable.
I used to do it all the time as a kid accidentally to stop nightmares, but never knew I could do it on purpose, or really control things beyond “make the scary stop.”
Then when I learned about lucid dreaming, I started practicing and managed it several times, but stopped when a dream character noticed what I was doing, and tried to murder me for it in one of the most terrifying moments of my life. I’m aware there’s nothing supernatural or anything about it, and I understand the science behind it… But I ain’t gonna lie, that woman in the bog flying towards me with her feet off the ground, screeching “you don’t belong here!” And slamming into my chest, waking me up with phantom sensations of her touch? It scared me straight, and I haven’t had the balls to try again. Lol.
Yeah, you never can guarantee initiating a lucid moment, it happens to you. You can cultivate the tendency, but that’s it.
But once you start remembering it and consciously thinking about it, it starts to become a little more accessible to your sleeping mind. I think this is what makes dream journals so effective for developing the skill in the first place.
But yeah, that happening and simply not remembering in the split second you have to do so would kinda suck. Though I would be slightly tempted, personally, to process the experience a little bit now that I’m awake, and then go like “fine. let’s dance bitch.” and go back to sleep. Because all I need is to become lucid at any point, and I can summon her to be dealt with.
I had a lot of practice focusing on and thinking about dreams in general though.
edit: Considering this a little further, when I said “dealt with” that struck an unfortunate tone that I didn’t fully intend. It’s useful imo to remember that she is a figment of your imagination, and she wouldn’t be there if there wasn’t a reason for it. So, my “dealt with” isn’t like levitating her into the sky to slowly disintegrate her from the toes up or something. I would probably get started by simply asking that slice of my own mind, what does she want? Why is she here?
Likely sentence would be banishment on pain of destruction, but it would depend on what she said.
I’ve never had full control, but there have been many times I’ve realized I’m dreaming, nudged the dream in a preferred direction and then swiftly let my consciousness over the dream fade so it could continue without interruption.
The more control I exert on my dreams, the more likely I am to consciously blink and actually blink myself awake. Gentle nudges in the direction I want to dream is the only path for me.
It rarely happened but usually it goes like this: something bad or undesirable happens; it could be a nightmare but that’s rare, and the only instance where i get “control” of my dream is when i know what’s going to happen and i can stop it. Anyhow, by failing to prevent the undesirable outcome I basically sort of become aware and return to the point where the undesirable outcome was almost happening, again and again until I either wake up or prevent it.
Yep, my experience is similar. It’s usually dreams where I’m about to die.
I’ve only managed it once, flying around a featureless void, exulting in the feeling of control. Then a fistfight, again with a featureless opponent. It felt like controlling the dream to that extent and not waking up took a lot of brain power
So in the beginning all you see is like “low-resolution” which gets polished as the skill grows?
I assume so, it takes constant effort and practice to be able to do it at all though, that was over 10 years ago now when I was in my first year at university, I haven’t had the time to dedicate to it since 😅
Once, and only once, the dream ended with me deciding to enter the mystic portal and me subsequently finding myself standing alone in the hallway of a Hampton Inn in Salt Lake City at 3:00am.
I was in my jammies. No socks, no room key, no phone. I contemplated many options to get myself out of the situation, but they were all objectively bad. The only high point of the experience is that the breakfast bar hadn’t opened in the lobby, so this remains something shared between only me and the night clerk. Neither of us were happy, but she was wearing more clothing.
My main takeaways for hotel stays and dreams:
-jammies must have pockets
-jammies must have full coverage
-spare key cards are in the pockets
-never enter the mystic portal that you summonedMystic portals: never again
I can’t say I can control what I dream but occasionally I’m aware that I’m dreaming and then I feel like I’m much more in control of the situation because I know nothing bad can really happen.
The term is ‘lucid dreaming’ and it’s great. Most times I’m on autopilot, but once I become ‘aware’, I’m usually flying around like superman. I avoid getting sexual because those tend to wake me up lol
When i was a horny little teenager i tried to fuvk everything in my dreams, and would always wake up. Now when i control my dreams, shit usually goes so sideways that i have to kill myself to wake up. It’s kinda fun in a way, but even dream suicide is pretty gnarly. Like i jumped out of my parents windows countless times to end a dream, and everytime there is a little part of me that thinks mid air: this IS a dream right?
Makes me think about Inception 😅
I can remember only once where I would say I was lucid dreaming. I was walking down an old, fairly creepy, dimly lit street, and as I approached a corner I thought “wait, I hate horror” and conjured up a gun. At this point I knew I had control, and ended up walking into a nearby pub or tavern to start playing Cards Against Humanity with some mates.
I avoid getting sexual because those tend to wake me up lol
Oh! Peculiar!
Like playing a video game with God mode on.
Unfortunately the more things I alter in the dream the more likely I am to wake myself up.
For me, it is going through the setting that my mind created for the dream.
The strange thing is that, even if it a dream of a place I know, my dream doesn’t recreate places from memory. There will be remixing of places, adding additional elements that aren’t there. The lighting is also generally cool and doesn’t reflect actual lighting.
The strangest thing is that I can’t read in my dream, but I know what the text says.
It’s wonderful. You can fly, summon stuff, Do anything your brain can imagine
It’s the only safe refuge in this world of sour tears
