#indexluciddreaming

[ylespar]

"In lucid dreams (LDs), people maintain consciousness and can make predetermined actions while asleep. Since the 1970s, electrooculography and other sensors have been used to send signals from LDs into reality. In this study, we test whether electromyography (EMG) can help transfer melodies from LDs, which can expand our abilities to transfer information from LDs into reality. Software was developed to translate EMG impulses into sounds. Four LD practitioners were trained to play musical rhythms by straining their arm muscles, which had EMG sensors on them. Then, these volunteers were asked to induce LDs and repeat the task under polysomnographic observation in a laboratory. Each volunteer induced from one to three confirmed LDs. Three of them were able to transfer musical rhythms into reality, as the EMG sensors detected electrical spikes in the arm muscles despite sleep paralysis. The researchers heard the sounds from the dreams in real time and in recordings. The results prove the concept that people can transfer rhythmical EMG impulses from LD, which could be potentially useful for transferring sounds or music from LD into reality. As one practitioner failed to transfer proper EMG signals, the method needs further investigation. Since LD practitioners sometimes create original music in LDs, it could be possible to transfer these insights into reality. These melodies can be broadcasted via the Internet, TV, or radio in real time."

Raduga, M., Shashkov, A., Gordienko, N., Vanin, A., & Maltsev, E. (2023). Real-time transferring of music from lucid dreams into reality by electromyography sensors. Dreaming. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/drm0000244

[ylespar]

Altering the scenario you find yourself in once lucidity has been achieved can be incredibly difficult. I've only managed to do this a few times, mainly by either flying far away from where I began or by concentrating intently on some minuscule detail in the environment, which typically causes the entire dreamscape to go dark before morphing into my desired setting. Resetting the dreamscape can also be achieved by purposefully waking up after becoming lucid, then immediately falling back to sleep while visualizing the scenario you'd like to appear in.

However, I will say that consciously taking an active part in the scenario you started in can result in some very interesting and illuminative experiences, especially if you're able to converse with dream characters nearby. In doing so, you may find that some characters are more "sentient" than others and will engage with you in much more profound ways.

I've been looking more into lucid dreaming, but I've hit a wall. I can become lucid occasionally, but the real obstacle is the dream itself— oftentimes a scenario is already playing out, and interrupting it just doesn't feel possible. How do you stop a running dream plot to direct your own scenario? Do you just announce "Cut!!" like a director and imagine the people and scene relaxing, like they're actual actors and props for a movie, and then going up to them and telling them that they're gonna play a different scene now, with a new script and new set?

I tried changing things with willpower— it didn't work. The dream just broke down and I woke up. I tried walking away from the current scenario to find some empty space— it didn't work. Some fucking guy shot me in the face with a gun and I woke up. Do I have to act in bizarre ways just so the dream won't startle and buck me off its back? I guess I do have to at this point. What could go wrong? I already got shot by a dream construct. It can't get any worse than this.

If anyone has any advice or personal anecdotes related to this, I'd love to hear about it!

[ylespar]

"You can ask any question in your conscious dream — and receive an answer in just about any form. It may be written on the wall, spoken to you from the sky, or a new dream scene may materialize before your eyes. The answers provided by the inner self may sometimes surprise you, coming from an extraordinary hidden secondary awareness."

— Rebecca Turner

[ylespar]

"This chapter presents a completely different set of approaches to the world of lucid dreaming based on the idea of falling asleep consciously. This involves retaining consciousness while wakefulness is lost and allows direct entry into the lucid dream state without any loss of reflective consciousness. The basic idea has many variations. While falling asleep, you can focus on hypnagogic (sleep onset) imagery, deliberate visualizations, your breath or heartbeat, the sensations in your body, your sense of self, and so on. If you keep the mind sufficiently active while the tendency to enter REM sleep is strong, you feel your body fall asleep, but you, that is to say, your consciousness, remains awake. The next thing you know, you will find yourself in the dream world, fully lucid."

Stephen LaBerge and Howard Rheingold, Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming (New York: Ballantine, 1990), 60.

[ylespar]

"Paul Tholey has recently derived several techniques for inducing lucid dreams from over a decade of research involving more than two hundred subjects. Tholey claims that an effective method for achieving lucidity (especially for beginners) is to develop a 'critical-reflective attitude' toward your state of consciousness. This is done by asking yourself whether or not you are dreaming while you are awake. He stresses the importance of asking the 'critical question' ('Am I dreaming or not?') as frequently as possible, at least five to ten times a day, and in every situation that seems dreamlike. The importance of asking the question in dreamlike situations is that in lucid dreams the critical question is usually asked in situations similar to those in which it was asked during the day. Asking the question at bedtime and while falling asleep is also favorable."

Stephen LaBerge and Howard Rheingold, Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming (New York: Ballantine, 1990), 38.

[ylespar]

As soon as you become lucid and realize that you're dreaming, calm your excitement, lift your arms out to your sides, and spin your entire dream body as hard and as fast as you can. Doing this will recreate the sensation of inertia, which will stabilize the dream so that you don't awaken prematurely.

If (for whatever reason) this doesn't work for you, try this: bring both of your hands up in front of your face and attempt to bring them clearly into focus; stare intently at all the minute details, such as the creases and blemishes on the palms of your hands. As they come into focus, the dream will stabilize and you'll be able to stay in longer.

As you explore the dreamscape, there may be subsequent moments when you feel that you're going to wake up. You'll know by the pulling sensation and darkening of the dream. If this starts to happen and you want to remain, simply repeat either of the aforementioned techniques.

Godspeed.

i fucking SUCK at lucid dreaming. each and every single time that i go "oh shit i'm inside a dream" it instantly collapses and i either enter a completely separate dream, wake up, or wake up inside a completely separate dream.

[ylespar]

May, Edwin C., and LaBerge, Stephen. 1991. Anomalous Cognition in Lucid Dreams. Menlo Park: Science Applications International Corporation. Accessed June 17, 2023. https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00789r003100140001-2. Declassified document released by the Central Intelligence Agency under the Freedom of Information Act on October 27, 1998.

[ylespar]

Dreaming True

The ability to have control and consciousness in the dream state, also known as lucid dreaming. According to Hereward Carrington (in his book Higher Psychical Development, 1924) dreamers can keep conscious control up to the moment of falling asleep. He advises: ⠀⠀⠀⠀‘‘When you have learned to do that, then construct before yourself, mentally, a definite scene, which you must hold firmly in mind. Then, as you are falling to sleep hold this scene before you, and at the very last moment, before you fall asleep, consciously transfer yourself into the scene—in other words, step into the picture; and if you have developed yourself to the requisite point, you will be enabled to carry over an unbroken consciousness into the dream state; and in this way you have a perfect continuity of thought; there is no break in the consciousness; you step into the dream picture and go on dreaming consciously. That is the process of dreaming true, and after this dream is fully enacted, then you should remember perfectly all that has transpired during the sleep period.’’ ⠀⠀⠀⠀In the book The Projection of the Astral Body by Sylvan J. Muldoon and Carrington (1929), Muldoon remarks that these instructions are in harmony with the method of dream control used to induce the astral body to move out into space. An article in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research (vol. 26, July 1913) records van Eeden’s experiments in dreaming true. The British psychical researcher J. Arthur Hill vouches for the truthfulness of the experiences in The Dreams of Orlow (1916), by A. M. Irvine.

J. Gordon Melton, ed., “Dreaming True,” in Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology, vol 1. (Farmington Hills: Gale Group Inc., 2001), 449.

[ylespar]

Stephen LaBerge and Howard Rheingold on Tibetan Dream Yoga

The idea of cultivating a state of mind while awake for the purpose of carrying it into the dream state as a means of inducing lucid dreams has been used by Tibetan Buddhists for more than a thousand years. The origin of these techniques is shrouded in the mists of the past. They are said to derive from the teachings of a master called Lawapa of Urgyen in Afghanistan and were introduced into Tibet in the eighth century by Padmasambhava, the founder of Tibetan Buddhism. ⠀⠀⠀⠀The Tibetan teachings were passed down from generation to generation to present times, when we have The Yoga of the Dream State, a manuscript first compiled in the sixteenth century and translated in 1935, which outlines several methods for "comprehending the nature of the dream state" (that is, inducing lucid dreams). Most of the Tibetan techniques were evidently tailored to the skills of practiced meditators. They involve such things as complex visualizations of Sanskrit letters in many-petaled lotuses while carrying out special breathing and concentration exercises. [...] ⠀⠀⠀⠀For beginning lucid dreamers, the most relevant Tibetan technique is called “comprehending it by the power of resolution,” which consists of “resolving to maintain unbroken continuity of consciousness” throughout both the waking and dream states. It involves both a day and a night practice.

Stephen LaBerge and Howard Rheingold, Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming (New York: Ballantine, 1990), 41.

[ylespar]

"Lucid dreams suggest what it would be like to discover that we are not yet fully awake. Consider the following analogy: as the state of ordinary dreaming is to lucid dreaming, so the ordinary waking state is to the fully awakened state. Taken in this sense, the lucid dreamer’s wish is for transcendence—the dream of Dreaming True."

Stephen LaBerge, “Lucid Dreaming: An Exploratory Study of Consciousness During Sleep”, PhD diss. (Ann Arbor: University Microfilms International, 1980), 120.