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Anyone here have lucid dreams?  I've been doing some research on dreaming and keeping a journal.  After some reading, I've heard that you can actually control and shape your dreams through practice.  Has anyone tried this?

I'm pretty sure you can't die in a dream. No, reality is not a dream.

touche.  I once had a dream where I was drowning and couldn't breathe.  woke up and realized that I had somehow rolled over on my face into the pillow...

Psalms.

?

I mean, I've read through Psalms several times.  Just curious why you referenced it.

While I wouldn't say they're lucid, I will say that I can sometimes control and otherwise shift my dreams in the way I would like.

Oh, and on the topic of dying in dreams (as in you die within the dream), I've done it dozens of times, however you always "black out" just before you die and wake up. 

Were any of those instances being murdered?  Or just drowning, falling from something etc...
 

If you call suicide, poisoning from a snake-tailed spider, the Slenderman or being spat out by a plant at an extremely high velocity murder, then no, I haven't really been murdered in a dream.

I have lucid dreams all the time.  Well, more like nightmares.  I generally use my leaping ability that eventually morphs into flying to stay ahead of the danger and eventually use it to thwart the threat.

I have this one recurring dream where the ceiling fan goes haywire (spinning out of control) and flies apart.  I start in on the tedious work of fixing it and all the damage it did to the room.  When I wake and look around, everything is as good as new and I can't tell if I repaired it, or if it never happened.

I killed various monsters bare-handed...because my mom told me to.

I always did the exact opposite of what my mom said.  She would attack me like a crazy lady, but at least I didn't turn out like her.  She's still my nemesis in a lot of my nightmares.

Hmm...  I'm just kinda interested in trying to create a lucid dream.  I've read varying techniques where you can consciously control your dreams.  Kinda funny cuz it reminds me of the matrix.  One technique has you ask yourself during the day if this is a dream or reality when there is a strange occurrence.  Much like how when Neo had deja vu, he started questioning the world around him.

 

I'm not crazy guys, I just think this is interesting.

I read something about it a while back.  It said something like during your normal routine, use cues as prompts.  Like every time you open a door (if you open doors in your dreams) look for evidence that you are awake.  It'll force you to consider it in your dream.  Or you could make a conscious mental note as to whether or not you are wearing clothes in public.  That kind of stuff...

I used to lucid dream a fucking lot, in Junior High, but less so now. One dream I still remember was that it started out as a nightmare about zombies, but I realized I was dreaming. It ended with my crushing hordes of them with a tank full of naked women. 

Sounds cool.

You can definitely die in a dream. Done it several times. Haven't died recently though, happened more when I was a kid or teenager.

Sometimes I've woken up, other times I just reappear elsewhere in the dream. The type of death varied, it was always being killed by something or someone though.

I was always more prone to "drowning" (Fade to black as soon as I couldn't keep my head over the water) or falling long distances. Occassionally, I'd survive the falling, but it really sucked, because I'd tense up in anticipation as I was about to fall, and I really, really hated that feeling..

The only time I've ever fell to my death in a dream, was the time I rolled out of bed and crushed a lamp. 

Probably the weirdest death was when I was like in elementary school and I dreamed this female vampire was trying to suffocate me by putting a plastic bag over my head.

She chased me out of my grandmother's house and in broad daylight. Caught me by some parked cars, bag went over my head and then I woke up.

I had one cacophony nightmare that I almost oke up from screaming. It's the closest thing I think I've ever personally experienced to psychadelic imagery in a dream, what with an old dude with big sunny yellow deserts and pianos/DJ tables merged with jungle plants. One of the few nightmares that I actually remembered consciously trying to wake up from, actually.

In broad day-light huh? Did she sparkle?

Kind of reminds me of one dream I had, but I believe I already posted it on here before.

My only lucid dream was after watching a movie about lucid dreaming in college, so it's definitely possible to trigger them even if you've never had them before. I'd make more of an effort to have more, but I so rarely remember my dreams, it doesn't seem worth it to be doing reality checks all the time.

I don't think I'd ever want to lucid dream, because I like surprising myself. I hear that it gets to a point where it's the only way you can dream without drugs, and I definitely don't want to be the guy from that one H.P. Lovecraft story.

The reason I don't want to lucid dream is because I heard it can cause sleep paralysis, but I don't know how accurate that is.

Well, I can imagine that allowing your brain to think consciously while it's not necessarily supposed to can make the body put paralysis on overdrive, so you don't wake up accidentally, but that's just me taking an artistic license in biology.

I'm perfectly content to lucid half-dream, (staying awake, but toning down your thinking enough so that your subconscious kicks in and does all the weird shit a normal dream does while you're still awake and thinking. Not sure how else to explain it...)

I don't dream at all, and it's not that I just forget it when I wake up. Other people know they dream and know that they have forgotten it when that happens. It's not that way for me.

If reality is a dream, then does that mean that I am dead or unable to wake?

This dream stuff has got me interested in other things.  How many hours do you guys say you sleep on average?  My week is usually 6-6.5 hours a night and when I'm in the field 4 hours a night.

Lately, about 4 hours, rarely around 7 hours. Insomnia.

I'm an extremely light sleeper and when awakened am instantly alert so it takes a while to get back to sleep.  To add insult to injury there is a state highway within fifty yards of the house and a downgrade with a stoplight at the bottom, so trucks use their Jake Brakes regardless of the time of day.  I'd say I'm lucky to get four hours a night, and since I can't nap in the daytime or when there is any light at all, I just live with it.

hmm. interesting.  I'm trying to make myself get used to sleeping a schedule that has me asleep by 11ish and waking up by 5 and not feeling like death and tired.  Hasn't worked yet.

Start stretching and yawning about a half hour before your desired bedtime.  Daytime sounds and light can make it more difficult for your body to adjust.  And when you wake get out of bed immediately.  Decrease or eliminate your caffeine intake until you are satisfied with the new schedule.  Don't deviate from the schedule.  Although there are a lot of other techniques, these are the things that everyone can agree on.

Well hopefully in a bout a week's time I can give you the evidence to how well this worked with my experiment ;) 

And yeah, I'm trying to sleep 6 hours at least!  Really hard though when you work 13 hour shifts most of the week and want a social life too.

Good luck!  I hope it works for ya.

In the summer I work mostly sixteen hour days (weekends included), but in winter I average probably two or three (due to the lack of customers and influenced heavily by cold weather).  As far as a social life goes, I wouldn't even know where to start.

It's kinda funny.  When I was in college working 30 hour weeks and taking 18-21 hours of classes, I kept telling myself I'd do more and have more free time when I got out. haha.  Boy was I wrong.

I thought I'd be retired by the time I was this age and I'd spend the rest of my life traveling, but life had it's own ideas.

7 hours...

...that's a lot compared to you guys.  O.o

I envy you.  I haven't slept that many hours straight since middle school.

I might AVERAGE eight hours, but I very often sleep for 12+. Or sometimes, zero. >_<

Poor, poor owl.  Welcome to the real world.  If I ever slept for eight hours, I'd probably not be able to wake up at all.

Your normally pleasant demeanor has taken an interestingly sarcastic tone, recently. 

Yeah, I should probably dial it back a bit.

Come back to the light!!

XD

Sorry, @Morgan_R, I was being a turd.  I was just playing around.  I didn't mean anything, really.

No worries! You'd have to try harder than that to ruffle my feathers. XD

Recently, 2 - 3 hours maximum if I'm lucky. Weekends and such: 10 - 12 hours easy.

Usually I go to sleep at around 11 Am to 4 PM, and wake up at around 11 AM to 4 pm. On average, about 20 hours of my day are spent sleeping.

wow...do you have hypersomnia?

No, I just can barely lift myself out of my bed, I'm 350 pounds and my legs give out when I stand on them since I'm turning 90 in 1 day.

So are you a troll or just Schizophrenic? 

Well, I don't know what a 90 year old would be doing on this website...

I had a phase where my body woke me up every 1-2 hours when I tried to sleep. As annoying as this was, it meant I dreamt at least 2-3 times per night, which was really cool.