I was just wondering how many of you guys have had lucid dreams. It's one of those topics of interest for me. Before I begin, I'd like to mention I got much of my info from Answers.com and Wikipedia.
No, not wet dreams dummy
, I mean lucid dreams. Where you realize you are dreaming and are conscious but still in a dream-like state.
This has been scientifically proven to be true. So-called "lucid dreamers" have actually communicated with researches while sleeping through a series of specified eye-movements while in a dream state. Some people are just naturally lucid dreamers or have acquired the "skill" apparently through trial and error or as some claim with the help of books, cds, etc. Your supposed to do something called a reality check, like looking at the time repeatedly or your hand. If it changes dramatically, then you know its a dream. You have to be conditioned to automatically do this upon dreaming.
They say that if you work at it then you can not only realize that you're in a dream, but also control things that happen in the dream. You can control the plot, fulfill fantasies, do things impossible in normal life like flying, seeing atoms of objects, go to any point in time etc. The possibilities are endless. Like the Immaculate virtual reality. You can create a "dreamscape", a psuedo-reality that seems real and you control everything about it. Sometimes it can be more real than reality itself, if you can believe that. This phenonmenon is refered to as hyper-reality. I mean, how the hell do we know that life itself isn't one long dream that we'll finally awaken from one day (Matrix alert!). It really is, just with some boundaries.
I personally have had this happen to me twice (that I can remember). The first time lasted much longer and I was quite young. Though I realized it was a dream shortly into it, I had little control over what happened and don't really remember it that well. I just remember waking up awe-stricken. It's really a weird feeling.
The second time was only like a week ago. Lots of unusual things were happening. At first I was in this mountain state park, only to appear near an avenue and a beautiful beach after only a short walk through the woods. For some reason, suspense of disbelief, the phenomenon that normally keeps you from suspecting anything is fishy in a dream when ususual things happen, failed at that moment. So then everything just swirled around and I was still dreaming. But I was staring from above at what appeared to be myself lying down, with a "third eye". No idea what to make of that, but it was creepy. I had no control over it, and I woke up soon anyway.
I haven't remembered my dreams often until recently when I became interested in them again and devoted some conscious thought to the subject. You can't always remember what exactly happened or specific details, but you always remember that feeling of how real it was. We really shouldn't just ignore them though; we spend a third of our lives in this universe and really should take some time to understand it.
This kind of reminds me of something weird. Whenever I dream, it seems to always take place at my old house. It's weird, like my dream self knows no boundaries of time or space and recalls certain things from real life yet has no sense of "real life"; the dream is it. Anyway, I can be my age that I am now (which I will decline to share), have things that I have now like my car, yet i'm in the old house. I seem to have some sort of connection to it, even though I didn't like it. Of course all kinds of unusual things happen too and I don't realize its a dream, thanks to suspense of disbelief. It doesn't make sense to me.
I really don't know why I was reminded of this...
Any thoughts, or is it just a dumbass topic?