Brett's Lucid Dreams

Is lucid dreaming like the film Inception?

2010-07-22T08:25:00.000-07:00

Lucid dreamers like myself have been looking forward to the new 2010 blockbuster film Inception from Christopher Nolan. It stars Leonardo DiCaprio and if you enjoy action packed films with a good story you should certainly give it a try.

This post is for people who have watched Inception and wonder if the type of experiences shown can be relived through lucid dreaming.

Detailed Environments

Inception shows dream worlds as detailed as real life that can be experienced with all your senses. This is true of lucid dreams. It would be possible to touch the floor and know what material the carpet is made of. You can walk through imaginary cities and worlds and really feel as though you are there.

Dream World Manipulation

Inception is a big budget film that includes scenes such as cities folding in on themselves at the will of a dream architect. Lucid dreamers routinely play with their dream reality. We blow things up, create objects or creatures and invent our own locations. We can and do experience some of the big budget effects that you witness in the film.

Time In Dreams

It is difficult to gauge time in a dream. You can't use a watch or clock because they behave erratically. The concept of having a dream within a dream forcing your brain to work faster and time to slow down is a great concept for the film, but not something you should expect to experience in a lucid dream. However, time can seem much longer in a dream because your mind takes short cuts to progress the story. For example, when dreaming about driving to work, in reality it may take 30 minutes but in the dream it may take seconds if there is no story to play out during the trip.

Independent Dream Characters

The film shows dream characters created by the dreamers subconscious that act independently and unexpectedly. This is also true of lucid dreams. People will appear (some that you know, some that you don't) and interact with you. Although your mind creates them you have no idea what they will do next. You interact with them as though they are real.

But There's More

In Inception the dreamers are limited by physical constraints. Lucid dreamers have no constraints. We can jump in to the air and fly, toss a car down the road, walk through walls. We are only limited by our imagination. Let me also reassure you that dying in a dream is not dangerous and you do not end up in limbo :)

I hope this gives you some insight in to lucid dreams and how you can use them to create your own blockbuster experience. You may not be able to hook in to each others dreams like in Inception, but you can always share them in our lucid dreaming forums instead.

Reading my way into a lucid dream

2009-07-11T02:08:00.000-07:00

I woke early this morning as I often do. I think it's the bright light coming in to the room through the blinds that brings me around.

A few factors lead me to believe that I could have a lucid dream if I went back to sleep.
1) I didn't start thinking about work or the day ahead when I woke. That is always sure to make my mind too alert and wakeful.
2) I still had a good hour or more before I needed to get up.
3) A few seconds after closing my eyes, random images entered my mind. This is always a really good sign. My mind was still in the state where it randomly churns out inspirational images, or scenarios to fuel my dreams.

I put on my sleep mask to block out the light that had woken me and let myself drift off. I had various short dreams and daydreams but nothing lucid at first.

Then, laying on my right side, I imagined I could see through my sleep mask. In front of me was a piece of paper with a 6 digit code. I slowly examined the code one number at a time. As expected in a dream, the code didn't remain consistent. I didn't try hard to remember the numbers but just noticed that it was slightly different each time I read through it.

After a couple of minutes I noticed that I couldn't just see the code any more, I could see the whole bedroom around me. My imagined scenario had become my dream reality - I was in a lucid dream :) It was fortunate that I noticed the clarity of my surroundings and realised I was lucid, otherwise I may have wasted the experience by just staring at the code.

Conclusions
1) It was useful to recognise that my mind was in an ideal state for lucid dreaming.
2) My sleep mask helped by stopping the bright morning light from keeping me awake.
3) Reading the short code held my concentration as I drifted in to a dream state, and it reminded me I was dreaming by it's inconsistent behaviour.
4) My sleep mask also helped me confirm that I was dreaming because I knew I hadn't removed it and yet could still see.

I will definitely try this approach again.

Unpredictable Dream Characters

2009-07-04T01:49:00.000-07:00

Dream characters are really interesting creatures. Although they are created from your own thoughts you never know what they will do next. You may see old friends who you haven't thought of for years or meet people that you can't ever recall seeing before.

Until this morning I thought that all dream characters had one thing in common. If you ask them if you are dreaming they will dismiss the idea or try to tell you that you can't be dreaming. This can be an obsticle to becoming lucid if they talk you out of questioning your dream reality.

In my lucid dream this morning I was in an unfamiliar location and my mum was showing me her new TV that allowed you to change channel via hand or body gestures (an upcoming feaure on the Xbox 360). Suddenly both the TV and us were in a different room. This kind of thing happens all the time in dreams but we just go with the flow, but when you are on the verge of becoming lucid its a strange experience. I was totally baffled but still didn't know I was dreaming. My mum didn't notice the change of location but when I talked to her about it she seemed to believe me and joined in trying to figure it out.

Finally, it struck me and I said, "This must be a dream.", "Maybe your right" my mum said.

Now I was lucid and ready to go and enjoy myself :)

So, the one behaviour of dream characters that I thought was consistent (their insistence that you are not dreaming) can also be upredictable. Now if only I could get them to go out of their way to point out when I'm dreaming I could be having lucid dreams every night :)

Findings So Far

2009-04-06T09:22:00.000-07:00

Food and Lucid Dreaming
On the rare occasion I've experienced lucid dreams over the previous months I've been considering what I was doing and eating prior to the lucid dream in the hope of spotting a reproducible pattern.

A couple of lucid dream followed eating large amounts of ice cream or chocolate before bed, others followed overeating generally (which I normally don't do). However, simulating the same conditions did not provide further lucid dreams.

I don't think food is going to be the key, and its likely that eating sugary foods or large quantities prior to bed simply led to a disrupted sleep pattern. It's already known that having your sleep pattern disturbed can help invoke lucid dreams.

My personal conclusion is to avoid using food or drink to try to invoke lucid dreams. I think there are better more controllable and healthier ways to effect sleep patterns.

Abstract Dreams Stop Lucid Dreaming
I often have very abstract dreams that are related to work or problem solving. While there is imagery in the dreams there is no environment or people, just repeating images that represent work I am conducting or a problem I am trying to solve. I believe that the absence of people and environment makes it practically impossible to have a lucid dream.

I know it's the pressure of work that causes these abstract dreams. My partner Kelly is under the same pressure but she has normal dreams and also has great dream recall. The difference is her ability to switch off from work and focus on other things at night.

I still believe (as I mentioned in an earlier post) that increasingly using my imagination in inspiring ways can help me to have better quality dreams. If I promote fantasy based dreams I am sure that lucid dreams will follow, but my work is against me at the moment.

I have an idea how we can all help each other inspire great dreams. It's going to take me a few months to get my ideas ready, but when I do you will find a new feature at my website www.iAmLucidDreaming.com. My codename for the project is "the guiLD" and I can't wait to get started.

To end on a positive note, I had my best ever dream a couple of weeks ago and funnily enough it wasn't event a lucid dream, just very vivid and an unbelievable experience. I may describe it in a later post if I can find the time :)

Quick Update

2009-03-17T13:08:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it's been so long since I last posted. I just wanted to write a quick entry to say that I haven't stopped lucid dreaming and will be posting again soon. Unfortunately I have been too busy working to make any proper blog posts, but I do have a couple of things to report and will be back on again soon.

Getting Back To Basics

2008-09-05T01:26:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago my dream recall became poor again. This was disappointing after previously seeing some good improvement. It's been quite a while now since I had a lucid experience and feel as though I am going through one of those dry spells.

It's times like this that people often give up on lucid dreaming. However, I remember going through the same thing when I first attempted lucid dreaming. I kept struggling, giving up for a while, and then starting again. Eventually it worked!

I still don't know what eventually made it work for me, but maybe those rest breaks were important in some way. I do think that trying too hard to have lucid dreams can be detrimental and it certainly shouldn't get in the way of having good quality sleep.

I am still regularly working on my website www.iAmLucidDreaming.com because it is my hobby and I find it interesting. I am also doing my regular reality checks because they are easy. But, other than that I have started to give myself a break. I have stopped drinking water before bed to cause me to get up during the night to pee and stopped waking a couple of hours early to practice the wake-back-to-bed technique. The interesting thing is that since giving myself a break about 4 nights ago, I have managed to recall 2 good quality dreams.

When I first re-started my lucid dream attempts I jumped straight in, trying anything and everything to make progress. I know how great they are and I'm an impatient person at the best of times. I think that this may be part of my problem. When I used to have lucid dreams more regularly I remember them coming with less effort.

So, I am going back to basics. My plan is to:
1) Try to find out what makes me recall dreams by keeping a journal of my daily routine including what I eat & drink, how many hours I work, walk, workout. What programs and films I watch and what my general mood is like etc.
2) Introduce experiments one at a time to see how they effect my dream recall.

My first experiment relates to exercising my imagination.
Experiment 1 - Imagination & Dreaming
When I was younger I used to day dream every day for quite long periods. This continued to my mid 20's at least. I don't have time to daydream any more and I wonder how exercising my imagination in that way could help my dreams. Adding fuel to this idea is the fact that my girlfriend recalls dreams every night. We live, eat, sleep, work and relax together so have exactly the same routine. But Kelly is very much a day dreamer.

So, I plan to have periodic brakes from my work to have short day dreaming sessions. I will report back on any effect this has.

Progress with Dream Recall

2008-08-11T10:02:00.000-07:00

My dream recall is slowly improving using the techniques mentioned in my last blog posting. I have been under pressure to meet some timescales recently so haven't had as much time to commit to lucid dreaming as I would have liked. Hopefully this will change again soon.

I still don't remember a dream every night, but it's not far off now. I have found that when using the MILD technique I have been waking in the middle of the night after some dreams. Unfortunately I am still in a confused state and sometimes don't make the connection that I have just woken after a dream and am supposed to be updating my dream journal.

It does appear to be very important that you shouldn't move before trying to recall your dream. I have forgotten a few dreams because I decided I could still remember it (as it only just happened) and set off to the bathroom. Even if it still feels recent, you should lie in bed and run over the dream a few times before you move and then write it down straight away.

I am enjoying recalling my dreams. They seem to be getting more vivid too. Now I just have to turn them in to lucid dreams.

I did manage another short lucid dream this week. I found myself in a game I play called Halo 3 on the xbox 360. The visuals were really clear and I was looking forward to trying using the weapons and man cannons that shoot you through the air but unfortunately I woke up. I am really excited about visiting this place again, so I have added to my Dream To Do List to ensure I don't forget it.

Improving Dream Recall

2008-07-28T03:52:00.000-07:00

One of the main issues that currently prevents me from having regular lucid dreams is my lack of dream recall. It's very rare that I manage to recall a dream. Failure to recall dreams means that I can't complete a dream journal and therefore can't identify dream signs and will be much less likely to carry an awareness in to my dreams.

Last week I tried a couple of techniques to improve my dream recall with very positive results.
1) Mnemonic Induction Of Lucid Dreams (MILD).
I have been aware of this technique for a long time and used it in a half hearted way. This technique is basically about conditioning your mind prior to falling to sleep. I wrote an article on the subject (click here to read it) which helped me focus on the topic, but the key to success is to believe in it and put importance in achieving results using it. The first night I tried it I woke after my first dream and recorded it and then woke later in the morning and recorded a second dream. That represents massive progress for me.

2) Drinking Water To Wake
I find that when I go to bed I fall to sleep before spending very long at all using the MILD technique. I introduced an additional method as a backup and again had great results. Just before going to bed I drank between half and three quarters of a pint of water. This results in waking during the night to go to the toilet and provides additional opportunities to recall dreams. The first time I tried it I dreamt that I was about to perform on stage in a band, but I needed to pee. As I walked to the toilet in my dream I woke up. This highlighted another potential benefit of this method, needing to pee could be a dream sign. Now I plan to do a reality test whenever I go to the toilet. Having woken to take a pee, you also have another opportunity to practise the MILD techniques as you fall back to sleep. If I wake up after only a couple of hours, I also drink more water to have another waking.

Using the combination of these techniques I have gone from hardly ever recalling my dreams to recalling at least 1 most nights. I will continue using the techniques and see if the effectiveness drops off over time. I will record these and any other techniques I find useful in my article on improving dream recall.

A week off

2008-07-14T06:32:00.000-07:00

Last week wasn't the most productive as far as improving my lucid dreaming abilities. The week started off with my girlfriend being ill and ended with me catching her bug. Both these events led to late nights, irregular sleep and some nights with no sleep at all.

At least I can confirm that poor sleep doesn't help lucid dreams. Saying that, I did have one lucid dream experience. I was having a rough night, slipping in and out of sleep, then I found myself in a state of sleep paralysis. There were no images, but I was totally surrounded by a pure white light and I had the sensation of spinning around and falling. I knew I was in my bed dreaming, but this didn't feel like a good experience so I tried to bring myself out of it. My girlfriend was fast asleep beside me, so I tried to talk to her from within my dream saying, "Kelly, can you wake me up!!". I have no idea whether I only said this in my dream or out loud. After I woke myself up I regretted not putting up with the sickening sensations. I promised myself that next time I will continue and try to gain control of the dream. I think that would have been difficult though.

I am still not sleeping well at the moment and feel quite rough. So, whether I like it or not last week was a week off my lucid dreaming training and next week may not be a good one either.

On a brighter note I complete my first major milestones on my lucid dreaming website, www.iAmLucidDreaming.com. We now have a working lucid clock to help with reality checks, an online dream journal and a dream to do list to plan what we do when we become lucid.

2nd Week Lucid Dream Attempts

2008-07-07T02:45:00.000-07:00

Wake Back To Bed Method
I used the WBTB method most days last week in my attempts to induce Dream Initiated Lucid Dreams. On one occasion I couldn't get back to sleep which is the worst case scenario. Due to this potential problem I have only been getting up for short periods and for a couple of mornings I stayed in bed and tried to recall my dreams for about 5 minutes before drifting off back to sleep. I only had one lucid dream and this was on an occasion when I got up for about 10 minutes. My sleep pattern has not been regular enough this week either. I need to get that back in check and then risk getting out of bed when using this method.

Sunny Summer Mornings
All my recent lucid dreams have been very short and have felt unstable. I noticed that the walls have been giving off a shimmering light. We have wooden vertical blinds in our bedroom and these let a lot of light in to the room in the morning. I suspect that the bright light on my eyelids is resulting in the shimmering light in my lucid dreams, which may be the reason why they are so unstable and short. To test this I have ordered a sleep mask that states it will block out 100% light. When this arrives I also plan to use ear plugs to mute any other distractions. I will be interested to see how this partial sensory deprivation will affect my dreams and lucid dreaming. I hope the sleep mask comes soon.

Caffeine or Coincidence?
I have only been drinking decaf coffee and tea for months and I hardly ever eat chocolate so my caffeine intake should be pretty low. One night this week my girlfriend convinced me that green tea does not contain caffeine so I had a cup together with half a bar of dark chocolate. That night my mind was a whirlwind, I was also distracted by thoughts of work too. I knew my mind wasn't anywhere close to being in a state to have lucid dreams. Was this all due to the caffeine?

Dream Recall
I did manage to recall a few dreams this week which is an improvement, but this is an area I need to work on much more.

Conclusions for the second week

My sleep pattern was less regular which may have reduced the effectiveness of the WBTB method.
I do need to get our of bed when using the WBTB method.
Bright light may be having a negative effect.
Caffeine is bad especially when your body isn't used to it.

These are all assumptions and will only be proven if I change my approach over the coming weeks and see improved results.

If you have any tips or would like to discuss lucid dreaming come and chat with me at my website: www.iAmLucidDreaming.com

You may have noticed I have a gadget on my blog which links to other lucid dreaming blogs. If you fancy documenting your efforts as I am doing please add your blog to the gadget too. Click here for more details.

Getting Back To Lucid Dreaming

2008-06-29T11:59:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in my first post, I haven't had lucid dreams for a long time so I am really starting from scratch. Like many people who want to have a lucid dream, I am impatient and already find myself trying to short cut the process and am disappointed not to get instant results. Some people are lucky enough to get results very quickly, but the first time I attempted lucid dreaming it took me months. That was largely because my efforts back then were more sporadic rather than routine. Maybe a more committed approach will work better this time.

My Starting Position
No lucid dreams (or attempts) for well over a year.
No (to little) dream recall.
Irregular sleep patterns and usually tired.
So, it should be easy then!!

My first weeks intentions
Improve my sleep patterns.
Keep lucid dreaming on my mind.
Perform regular reality checks.
Start my dream journal.
Attempt to have dream initiated lucid dreams.

What has actually been happening
On the positive side:

I am starting to get to bed earlier (aiming for about 11:30). The more routine your sleep habits are, the better you will sleep. The better you sleep, the more likely you will be to achieve your lucid dreams.
I have temporarily cut out alcohol (although I'm not a big drinker anyway).
I have been doing some work on my website: www.iAmLucidDreaming.com every day which has helped me to focus on lucid dreaming.
I have started using the Lucid Dream Clock on my website to ensure I do regular reality checks.

On the negative side:

I have not started my dream journal. I have been convincing myself that I should wait till I write the online dream journal on my website but really I'm just being lazy. I need to put a pen and paper by my bed and start tonight. I have recalled a couple of dreams, but soon forgot the detail.
In my rush to have a lucid dream I have also jumped straight in to attempting WILDs (wake initiated lucid dreams) in the middle of the day. These are a challenge even for experienced lucid dreamers, but my impatience is driving me to attempt them.

Results
The first couple of nights I just kept lucid dreaming on my mind and was reminding myself to have lucid dreams as I fell to sleep. I actually started to recall bits of my dreams when I first woke up so I can see that by just being more aware, my recall is already starting to improve, but still not very good.

I then started doing my regular reality tests and also introduced the Wake Back to Bed (WBTB) method of assisting lucid dreams. The idea here is basically to wake up early, read about lucid dreaming for half and hour then go back to sleep. On the two occasions I did this I had very short lucid dreams :) They only lasted 20 to 30 seconds and I could see that they were unstable, but they were as vivid and breathtaking as I remember them to be.

In the first lucid dream I didn't do a reality check I just knew I was in a dream straight away due to the surroundings. This shows that making lucid dreaming part of my daily routine is paying off and resulting in me being generally more aware of whether I am asleep or awake.

In the second lucid dream, a dream character didn't react as I would expect them to in real life. As they left I decided to do a reality test, simply looking at my hand. My hand was blurry and it was hard to count the fingers correctly so I was pleasantly surprised to find I was dreaming.

I intended to use the WBTB technique on three further mornings, but hit various problems:

This attempt failed because I didn't get out of bed and instantly fell back to sleep.
This attempt failed because I couldn't get back to sleep. Disaster!!
Due to the last failed attempt I was very tired and this morning I have no recollection of waking and turning my alarm off.

Conclusions for first week
I'm really pleased I got to experience some short lucid dreams and don't feel I really deserved them yet. This tells me that to some degree lucid dreaming is like riding a bike, once you have the skill it does come back easier.

I also feel that I am falling in to the same traps many other new starters will, such as not doing my dream journal and messing up my techniques. That's not so bad, because my mistakes will provide more valuable experiences for my blog :)

I look forward to seeing what next week brings.

My Lucid Dreaming Blog

2008-06-25T07:14:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my new blog. I will be regularly posting here while I experiment with lucid dreaming techniques. I will provide as much detail as possible about the effort I am putting in to having lucid dreams, and explaining what is working for me or what I think is holding me back. I hope that other people who are interested in having lucid dreams will benefit from my postings. Feel free to make comments if you think of things I should try or if you think I am doing something wrong.

A little about me
I am a male, 37, self employed web developer and in a happy relationship. I am not religious, I don't believe in spirits, souls, ghosts or reincarnation or anything other worldly. I don't think dreams have anything important to convey to us so I don't value dream interpretation. I have a very logical and sceptical mind. I stress these things for two reasons. 1) Just so you know where I am coming from, 2) Some people may be put of trying lucid dreaming because they think it's something mystical or spiritual. You do not need any beliefs to succeed in lucid dreaming.

My Lucid Dreaming Experience
I first tried lucid dreaming quite a few years ago. After some time and effort I succeeded in having numerous dreams, but I eventually let it slip away as I got distracted with other things. Just over a week ago I decided to renew my efforts and to stick with it this time. My goal is to have regular lucid dreams and to make the most of them by trying out fun and interesting experiments.

I haven't had a lucid dream for well over a year so I am pretty much starting from scratch. I have no guarantees that it will work for me any more. Is it harder to have lucid dreams as you get older? I don't know, but I am going to find out.

To encourage me to keep up with my new hobby I have created my own website. www.iAmLucidDreaming.com. This website is intended to be a homepage for people like me. Together we can write articles, chat in the forums and help each other to progress. I am also writing various tools to help us. Come by and chat in our forums when you have time.