Inducing a Lucid Dream

[Trey]

So, I found this image on a "Random" /b/oard *hint hint* *Chuckle*. Does anyone have any experience using this method? I want to try it tonight

Attachments:

[Helmet]

Seeming that it came from /b/ I don't think it will work, but it does sound awesome.
I'll probably try it tonight and report back the next day (Tomorrow)

[DubiousKing]

I will say, I disagree with the methods of testing whether you are dreaming of not. I've had dreams where I've turned on a light by flipping the switch, and ones where I've seen my reflection. Therefore, I do not trust it.

Also add in the fact that if sleep could be induced by tricking your brain into thinking you're asleep it probably would've been discovered years ago by the scientists who regularly research sleeping and dreams.

[Trey]

Okay, so I tried it last night. I was a little scared because someone on the thread had mentioned that when they did it, a big black dog would get in their face and say, "No one can help you now". But, then again, it's /b/ lol.

Results:

I did as they said. I laid perfectly still, and no matter how much I wanted to move or itch, I didn't. After about 10 minutes, I felt this sensation that started in my legs; Like someone was putting a lead blanket on my legs. The sensation started creeping up onto my chest. Me, being my curious little self, tried to move while I was in what I thought I was in sleep paralysis. This was stupid of me because I didn't let the process finish xD So I failed first try.

I tried again, this time I was determined to do it. This time, I didn't feel the lead blanket at all. This time, I felt myself drifting off, and then I stood up. I walked over to one of my walls, and there was a picture frame with a poster there (There usually isn't). I looked in it, and I saw a silhouette of myself in the reflection (This was at night, so it's understandable). It was then that I was beginning to lose control of my dream, and I found myself waking up and rolling over, lol.

So, my results show that I indeed had a lucid dream! I'm very happy too, because I've never had one before!

I read that inducing lucid dreams (AKA: OBE, which stands for Out of Body Experience) work best during the morning time. Supposedly, the seritonin (Day time hormone) allows your mind to stay on easier, while your body shuts down. Melatonin (Night time hormone) makes it harder because your tired mind will naturally wander around.

[DubiousKing]

Okay, so I am a bit of a believer now.

I tried this, too, since my curiosity overwhelmed my "logic" last night. I'm not good at keeping track of time, but I think after 5 minutes I started getting a weird feeling in my limbs, like they were being pushed down onto my bed by some invisible force but I also lost all feeling in them without having that tingly ants-crawling-over-your-skin numb sensation. My throat felt immensely dry but slightly different than that, almost like it was widening, which made it extremely hard not to swallow. I ended up screwing up the process more than 4 times and just gave up for the night.

I think it's needless to say, but I will be trying this again. I think the weird feeling with my throat may have been because I was a little thirsty before I tried this, so maybe a quick glass of water before bed will help this time.

[Trey]

Apr 20, 2010 7:23:38 GMT -5 DubiousKing said:

Okay, so I am a bit of a believer now.

I tried this, too, since my curiosity overwhelmed my "logic" last night. I'm not good at keeping track of time, but I think after 5 minutes I started getting a weird feeling in my limbs, like they were being pushed down onto my bed by some invisible force but I also lost all feeling in them without having that tingly ants-crawling-over-your-skin numb sensation. My throat felt immensely dry but slightly different than that, almost like it was widening, which made it extremely hard not to swallow. I ended up screwing up the process more than 4 times and just gave up for the night.

I think it's needless to say, but I will be trying this again. I think the weird feeling with my throat may have been because I was a little thirsty before I tried this, so maybe a quick glass of water before bed will help this time.

IKR!? I feel like I want to feel that invisible force every time I think about it! It's actually called, "Sleep Paralysis". It's not dangerous, so don't worry; Your body does it every time you sleep

Yeah, I had that problem with the throat, too. I don't usually sleep on my back, so I guess it's hard to relax and breathe effectively at the same time when I'm not used it it xD

  ▲
▲ ▲TRIFORCE BABY!

[Trey]

*Waiting for helmet's results *

[low]

If it worked, then you were very lucky. There are much better methods of doing so, but the method you used is generally referred to as a Wake Initiated Lucid Dream (WILD), which means falling asleep without losing consciousness. This particular method of WILD isn't mentioned in LaBerge's text, so I don't take it seriously. Also, the methods to tell if you're dreaming seem just wrong to me, although they may work simply because you expect them to work: In the real world, a mirror shows your reflection whether or not you expect it to. In a dream, your expectation is the outcome.
Anyway--There are better ways to induce a lucid dream than simply not moving, although not moving is certainly essential.

The goal is to keep mentally awake while passively accepting anything you're given. Does this sound like meditation? Well it should, because it is. You generally want to relax, first, and the best way to do that is to tense up muscles, hold, and release. This is called progressive relaxation. Another technique for relaxation is called Pot-Shaped Breathing. This involves taking slow deep breaths until you can feel your abdomen expanding and contracting fully with your diaphragm, at which point you resume a natural rhythm.
Techniques after you feel relaxed tend to use imagery: The Black Dot technique, the White Dot technique, and the Lotus and Flame technique. These are all derived from ancient yoga techniques and involve visualizing your own body with images superimposed on it. If you're interested, you can look these up, online. They're moderately effective, but I recommend the next two: Hypnagogic Imagery is that amorphous multi-colored light you see when you close your eyes. What you want to do is acknowledge but not focus on every new shape as it passes by. Don't get too attached, don't get too unattached. The shapes will get slowly more complex until you enter a lucid dream. The last method is just counting yourself to sleep. Count to yourself until you're dreaming. It's good to throw in an affirmation: "One, I'm dreaming, two, I'm dreaming, three, I'm dreaming." Don't be too embarrassed if you keep losing track of what number you're at. Your logic may be a bit inhibited when you're falling asleep.

I like to combine the two and watch hypnagogic imagery while I count to do a WILD. A WILD, however, is a notably less common occurrence than a MILD, or Mnemonic Initiated Lucid Dream. This takes longer to do but is more reliable. What you'd do is keep a dream journal and try and have a good idea as to what your dreams generally consist of and then ask yourself, "Am I dreaming?" when you encounter similar scenarios in waking life. For example, if my dreams all have flowers in them, I would ask myself "Am I dreaming?" whenever I saw a flower in real life. This is done to get you in the habit of questioning reality, which is essential to realizing that you're in a dream while you are in a dream. You listed flipping light switches and looking in mirrors as reality tests above, however, a better way is to look at something with text, turn your head, and look again to see if the text has changed. This includes digital watches. If the text has changed, then yep, you're dreaming. Don't get too excited, because that may wake you up. However, if you can feel yourself waking up, then a good way to stay in the dream is to stretch your arms out to the side and start spinning like a top. Dream spinning has a problem, though, which is that you'll often end up with a false awakening, which is when you wake up from your bed within your dream, thinking you're awake. This means you'll have to recognize that you're dreaming, once again. Dream spinning can also be used to transport you from sticky situations in your dreams, but it's not recommended. So put quickly, a MILD happens when you notice something fishy about your surroundings and then do a reality test to confirm that you're dreaming.

Anyway, here's something I wrote about trying a WILD a while ago, which is a bit frightening:

"I listen to Brian Eno's Music For Airports during a midday nap and begin to close my eyes, breathing deeply and watching shapes and colors of light float by, passively reacting to them, counting to myself "one, I'm dreaming, two, I'm dreaming," et cetera, to one hundred, three times over. By this point in time, I am fully aware that my body is at least numb if not mostly paralyzed. This does not frighten me, however, I suddenly feel my heart beat uncomfortably hard and fast and a sensation--not necessarily painful, but certainly active--around the area between my eyebrows. After experiencing this for a bit, my vision stops appearing like normal vision with foci and peripherals and instead jumps out at me, suddenly, covering a spectrum too full to fully explain. I can feel Rapid Eye Movement set in my eyes, and the picture, which just looks like random yellow spray paint on a white wall, stays somewhat still as opposed to flowing hypnagogic imagery. A few seconds more and the picture begins to appear like a strip of analog film, with imperfections scrolling. At this point, I simply can't take the heartbeat anymore, and twitch a finger or toe and lose my state."


Also, to respond to other posts in this thread:

Apr 20, 2010 7:23:38 GMT -5 DubiousKing said:

Okay, so I am a bit of a believer now.

I tried this, too, since my curiosity overwhelmed my "logic" last night. I'm not good at keeping track of time, but I think after 5 minutes I started getting a weird feeling in my limbs, like they were being pushed down onto my bed by some invisible force but I also lost all feeling in them without having that tingly ants-crawling-over-your-skin numb sensation. My throat felt immensely dry but slightly different than that, almost like it was widening, which made it extremely hard not to swallow. I ended up screwing up the process more than 4 times and just gave up for the night.

I think it's needless to say, but I will be trying this again. I think the weird feeling with my throat may have been because I was a little thirsty before I tried this, so maybe a quick glass of water before bed will help this time.

Sounds a bit like what I had, at first. While doing a WILD, one thing I forgot to mention, which I really advise, is only breathing through your nose. Your throat does dry up pretty easily. Other sensations here could either have been nervous twitches or hallucinations from sleep paralysis. Just think of something else to distract you.

Apr 20, 2010 6:47:00 GMT -5 Trey said:

I read that inducing lucid dreams (AKA: OBE, which stands for Out of Body Experience) work best during the morning time. Supposedly, the seritonin (Day time hormone) allows your mind to stay on easier, while your body shuts down. Melatonin (Night time hormone) makes it harder because your tired mind will naturally wander around.

Morning time: This has to do with the circadian rhythm. When you sleep at night, you shift through stages of sleep at different lengths and even wake up about 5 times a night and completely forget about waking up at all by morning. Each period of REM sleep is longer than the last, so this is why lucid dreaming is more likely to occur in the morning. The first experience of REM of the night may only only be 5 minutes. The last may be over 90. The longer you sleep, the more opportunities you have to recognize you're dreaming. Also, I can't help but use this opportunity to emphasize the benefits of sleeping well each night. A paper from MIT in 2001 called Temporally structured replay of awake hippocampal ensemble activity during rapid eye movement sleep provided huge evidence that REM sleep is a major aid in helping us learn. If we sleep 8-10 hours a night, like we should, we get much more REM sleep. Insomnia is almost considered hip among young people and this is just wrong. Your sleep makes you healthier and smarter and, with lucid dreaming, can be a more euphoric experience than most if not all recreational drugs and has no unwanted consequences.
For your 2nd point--supplemental melatonin (your body makes its own, anyway) may make it easier, not harder, to have a lucid dream, if for no other reason than making your REM periods longer, but it also greatly increases your odds of having terrible nightmares and is not recommended, but it can still help you sleep. If you need sleep and are having trouble getting it, by all means, take melatonin.

[Trey]

Thanks for the great insight! I will definitely take this information and use it to my advantage ;D ;D

I'm going to make this thread about experimenting with different methods

Has anyone tried this method before?
WARNING: These videos depict some disturbing images that depict what nightmares might consist of. ESPECIALLY starting at the 3:15 mark of the first video.
PART 1


PART 2

[Helmet]

I tried to do it last night, but I was in a bad position, my head and neck felt was imbetween two pillows, causing a really uncomfortable feeling. I soon had to change positions and I instantly fell asleep.

I also had the same experience with having trouble swallowing, and I did feel pressure on my legs, but my fingers and quads would twitch every once in a while.

I'll try it again tonight.

[kspons]

i've never purposely tried to take control of my dreams, but sometimes (mainly in the morning hours before i wake up) i realize that i am dreaming and can take control. This doesn't happen all that often, but nonetheless it does. when i realize that i'm dreaming i usually think myself away into mountains or someplace scenic. but i usually soon get sidetracked and wakeup (in my dream) and begin doing my daily routine of showering, brushing my teeth, etc. pretty boring, i know. but i think it usually happens in the morning before i wake up due to the seritonin (as pointed out by Trey).

[Piccard]

I've been looking at doing lucid dreaming for a while now, however I've never got to the point of realizing that I'm dreaming, mostly due to too many worries in real life and a disorganized sleeping pattern. I've recently started trying the dream journal method of lucid dreaming, however it hasn't gotten me far because of laziness on my part.
The WILD method is something that I've never tried before, mostly due to the fact that I've heard many "horror stories" related to it. However after reading through this thread, I may try it out.

[Tiffany]

I tried doing it last night, but it didn't work. The first time I tried, my limbs started to tingle and then it felt like a fairly heavy, warm weight was being pressed against them, but my eyes kept twitching for some reason, so it didn't work. I tried two more times (when my eyes stopped twitching) and couldn't seem to get it right, but I think I'm going to try again tonight.

[Trey]

It is said that hardly anyone gets it the first time.. I guess it takes a lot of practice, lol. At least I won't be losing very much sleep over it

[Leo McGinnis]

The method described in the OP is, as someone else said, the WILD method.

For most people this is by far the hardest technique to induce lucid dreams. I've only successfully done it like 5-6 times before. However, it's also the most sure-fire way to get a good lucid dream consistently once you get good at the technique, since you don't have to rely on realizing when you're in a dream.

In my personal opinion it's the most satisfying technique. The end result is a very clear lucid dream usually, but just the ride can be a thrill, too.

My body starts feeling all weird as it's falling asleep and as my mind slowly enters the dreamworld. It feels like I'm both light as a feather and very, very heavy. Both falling and floating. And my sensations (sights, sounds, sometimes smells) are very vivid at this point. That alone is worth it.

[Trey]

Apr 21, 2010 13:50:39 GMT -5 Leo McGinnis said:

The method described in the OP is, as someone else said, the WILD method.

For most people this is by far the hardest technique to induce lucid dreams. I've only successfully done it like 5-6 times before. However, it's also the most sure-fire way to get a good lucid dream consistently once you get good at the technique, since you don't have to rely on realizing when you're in a dream.

In my personal opinion it's the most satisfying technique. The end result is a very clear lucid dream usually, but just the ride can be a thrill, too.

My body starts feeling all weird as it's falling asleep and as my mind slowly enters the dreamworld. It feels like I'm both light as a feather and very, very heavy. Both falling and floating. And my sensations (sights, sounds, sometimes smells) are very vivid at this point. That alone is worth it.

I'm going to try this again tonight I was able to get to the point where I feel like I have a lead blanket over me, and my limbs eventually began to feel completely numb. I started having the sensation of spinning, and I was seeing different color patterns on the inside of my eyelids. Also, I felt as if someone was standing next to my bed watching me. I guess I failed to get to the next step, because I opened my eyes to see if anything had changed xD It didn't, and my body snapped awake, lol.

How will I know when I enter this "Dream World"?

[jmejia1187]

Why does this thread make me think of the matrix
"A world has been pulled over your eyes, to hide you from the truth"

[Trey]

Apr 21, 2010 15:20:30 GMT -5 @jmejia1187 said:

Why does this thread make me think of the matrix
"A world has been pulled over your eyes, to hide you from the truth"

A lot of people associate lucid dreams and OBE's with the matrix. Maybe, the movie was inspired by lucid dreams. There's actually a book about lucid dreams called, "The Matrix is Real. Hack it"

[Tiffany]

Apr 21, 2010 14:14:06 GMT -5 Trey said:

How will I know when I enter this "Dream World"?

I was wondering the same thing......

[Camoon]

I use the WILD method. I haven't Lucid Dream'd in a while, but I've had more Lucid Dreams than I can remember in my time.

The WILD method is awesome. I love knowing that I'm drifting into sleep while it's actually happening.