Lumi's Dreaming Thread; Dreams of Moon

[Guest]

Given how lucid dreams work mostly on expectations, how come it is so easy to fly (I've read lot of people can fly without problem in their first LDs) but not something different like change the landscape or summon something? you're ignoring the way reality works either way.

[Lucilyn]

well this is just guessing, but our system is probably extremely qualified to guess about these things!

 

the reason it's hard to change the environment usually is that sort of thing never happens in real life, so usually you have to like spin around or close your eyes or go somewhere else to subconsciously feel like it's okay for things to change (the first 2 just make you stop seeing the environment for a sec so it can change). but with flying, I think most people associate lucid dreaming with flying, and so they go into it fully 100% expecting to be able to fly, whereas we're.. uncreative, and so we know we can't fly unless we believe we can, and.. it really works against us lol. also, people see flying in things like movies and cartoons all the time, we've heard TONS of people say they flew like Superman did in lucid dreams so that probably helped them a lot.

 

I can say for sure that when I tried to see one of us around a corner in my dream last night, I was thinking before I even did it that it wouldn't work because it never does because we can't convince ourselves it'll work, and then counter-thought that thinking it won't work is why it doesn't work while I walked over.. all that happened in about 3 seconds lol

 

aaaaaahh.. I just need to follow our protocol for once and then everything will go great...

[Luminesce]

Order of events went like this: I won the lottery, I thought "I can pay off my student loans", I woke up and swore, Flandre laughed at me.

 

I figured out a good way to improve "dream recall" - more on that in a second - but then immediately got sick for the first time in somewhere around 4 to 6 years, although it was just a cold. It was annoying enough my sleep was disturbed (I still slept, but falling back asleep was hard) and I could not practice dream recall. I'm mostly over the cold now, so I tried it last night, and similarly to past times where I worked intensely on dream recall my dreams were vivid night one. Which made that lottery-winning dream, the first I've ever had, very annoying. I was planning out what to do with the money and everything. I woke up shortly thereafter and swore because it'd been so real I was really making plans, at which point Flandre who'd been imposed next to me as she often is at night laughed. "At me", technically, but not mockingly of course.

 

The key to "dream recall" isn't actually memory. At least not for my intents it's not. The whole point of me practicing dream recall is to make my dreams more vivid, which dream recall always seemed to do. But dream recall is all about being connected to the dreaming state while awake. Memory does nothing on its own, and that's why my practicing dream recall practice hasn't been working most of the time, I've been doing it wrong. You have to re-live your dreams, not remember them. Put yourself in the same place mentally you were just in. Surround yourself with the thoughts and feelings that were going on and relive your way through (and backwards of course), rather than just trying to remember them. I've got day one and day two proof that this works far better.

 

More importantly, it quickly increases dream vividity too, although that was immediately used against me by my mind... Anyways, I can tell even when I couldn't remember my dreams yet that they had been more vivid. Strangely, it seems dream recall ability (or as I'm thinking of it as now, waking connection to the dreaming state) really does improve the actual quality at which you experience dreams. I'll be watching this time to see if dream recall is or isn't directly related to visualization quality, too. Hopefully it is, because I have a much easier time improving my dream quality than visualization quality.

 

Anyways.. keep getting interrupted writing this post. Dream vividity is the number one predictor for how likely I am to have lucid dreams, so this is a good thing. Vivid dreams are also a lot more satisfying/interesting than wispy clouds with occasional pictures, as far as recall goes, but I think the actual dreams aren't that much higher quality either. Certainly, my thoughts are far more in-depth in vivid dreams, this much I'm 100% sure of (and it's what tipped me off to the idea that low quality recall could lead to low quality dreams and vice versa). So hopefully we see something come of this, yeah?

 

 

Oh, and I guess it explains a little bit why Lucilyn's dreams tend to be more vivid. Aside from them just being more fun/interesting to begin with, she's a lot more attached to them than I am to mine for that reason, so her dream recall probably is higher just by default. But I can do that manually, too.

[Lucilyn]

I had a dream where I was just doing whatever and then, like, before I knew it it was 6 months later ??

I was really confused and thought I had amnesia, because the last thing I remembered was being somewhere else doing something else (can't remember exactly.. sitting at a desk in a place I've never been before). but it was somewhat vivid! So I was legit thinking like, what HAPPENED in between just now?? Do I really have amnesia? Is this how it works? and I think I woke up after that, don't remember.

 

So that was, like, the dream transitioning to another dream as it does all the time except I was lucid enough to realize the whole heckin world just changed? and why was it "6 months"? soooo weird, something we shoulda reality checked for, but it wasn't something we've ever experienced before...

 

well anyways, fun dreams as alwaysish! Hopefully they're really getting lucider and we can start having? more lucid dreams!

also happy not-quite-Thanksgiving anymore, I'm goin to bed, next up is Christmas... or like, "The Holidays" I guess since we like the whole month?

[Ranger]

Cat's dreams are so random the dream assumes the whole thing is happening in chronological order. A recent weird experience Cat had with dream time was waking up at 10:28 or 10:29 on a Sunday only to actually wake up around 6 am in real life.

[Guest Reilyn-Alley]

Sounds like there was one of those Spongebob transitions..

 

*bad french accent* "Six months later..."

[Tewi]

That dream recall method Lumi talked about wasn't remembered very well in our mind. Trying to put myself back into the situation (that's of course blurry) similarly to say wonderlanding was not giving any results at all. Just reread what he said, seems we were supposed to focus more on the mental aspect of simply thinking like you were there. I suppose I'll try that.

 

I'm doing something else far less theoretical, though: re-remembering my dreams later in the day. I know that the dreams I recalled last night were recalled somewhat clearly, but when I woke up I remembered only the last I'd had, and an hour later I could only remember bits of the last one. I managed to recall.. three? with some effort, but for sure you forget them quickly over time still.

 

I think the effort of re-recalling dreams later in the day will make a massive difference. I'll also be trying to create mental "flags" with which to start the recall during the night starting tonight, some quick association that gives me somewhere to start on recalling the night's earlier dreams. Oh, and the "putting yourself back in the dream" thing. Too bad we can't stay connected to the dream state well enough to actually do that, at least not yet.

 

Everyone sure has an easy time of all this compared to us. The harder you have to work for something, the more rewarding it is (generally), and the reverse applies too. You become desensitized easily to things that come easily. I believe eight years of wanting nothing but to lucid dream will allow us to appreciate finally doing so for quite a while, if not forever, though. Especially if we never master lucid dream induction and have to live with completely random DILDs forever. Still, dream recall is the key to those happening far more often.

 

Oh, currently fronting until Thursday so that our month or so of playing Smash Ultimate straight doesn't delay our lucid dreaming endeavors for the same or longer. I intend to set us on track to decent dream recall so we can still make some sort of progress during that time. Oh, and hopefully we remember to enjoy the holidays without Smash Bros taking up too much of our.. mental considerations. It's really going to be Lumi and Lucilyn just thinking about Smash before and after bed whenever they aren't actually playing it, probably a fair share during the night too. I'll have them remember to check in here at some point or two, even if it's just to say how dream recall has not improved and they're really enjoying the new game.

[Guest Reilyn-Alley]

Sounds like you guys may be dreaming of Smash for awhile, lol. I know we will be playing it tons too. Seriously, if any of you want to play Lance or me let's just get the PM party started. I get the impression Lucilyn is really competitive and really good at quick, twitchy gaming so this should be a great challenge. Maybe I'm a little competitive too. >_<

[Tewi]

A couple more things while I'm thinking about it. First, I think I'll number my dreams throughout the night, a very easily repeatable process every single night and a good format for quick associations. 1, backyard. 2, RPG. 3, bar/investigation. Like that. Writing about these things (and re-reading my post after posting) helps me remember this stuff, by the way, that's why I'm posting again. Actually, it's 90% of why we post in this thread at all. 10% to keep public record of our attempts, so even if we fail it's not all completely "wasted" effort.

 

Second. Our dreams are reaching unprecedented levels of us knowing we're dreaming. We've written about this maybe only once or twice, but basically, we almost always have some background knowledge of our dreams being dreams. It's how we've avoided having nightmares all our life, at least since age 12 or so (Lumi had a single nightmare somewhere between age 5 and 7). Whenever a scenario becomes slightly more than we're willing to deal with, we naturally direct it not to go that way. If a bridge we're on is about to snap, it doesn't; if someone's about to open a door and see us naked.. they don't. I guess it's nice. Feels a little cheesy though, I'll admit. Too bad we're cursed with the opposite in that our dreams frequently delay resolution of something we're anticipating until we wake up. It's utterly ridiculous and ruins even Lucilyn's more interesting dreams from time to time.

 

Anyways, it's related to the nightmare/unpleasant scenario avoidance. That "background knowing" that we're dreaming is.. hardly explainable. I literally wake up and recall my dreams, and had thoughts in the dream about how the thoughts I was having related to the dream. If I can recall one really quick... Last night I had something along the lines of "How I'm thinking about this is definitely affecting how the situation is playing out in this dream". Typical introspection on our thoughts, except with the awareness we're dreaming, thought ever so casually. It's honestly quite insane, for awareness-of-being-dreaming not to immediately set off tons of flags we must have an isolated area of our memories exclusively for dreaming that's used to such things, developed/experienced entirely while asleep with no conscious input from us.

 

I'm not going to say it utterly ruins our ability to Dream-Induced-Lucid-Dream or anything; they're simply in the place of thoughts anyone might have in sufficiently vivid dreams where thinking occurs. Thanks to reality checking habits and dreams getting just a bit too vivid/lucid, we can still have DILDs. But it is a bit perplexing to recall my dreams and remember that I was "aware" I was dreaming, yet not lucid. This also seems distinctly different from the common "Aw man, I realized I was dreaming in the dream but didn't become lucid!" thing people tend to experience. It really feels to me like a microcosm in our mind/memories/thinking processes that's just gotten used to being semi-lucid during dreams thanks to our habit of introspection. Not 100% certain on how/if it relates to our unpleasant-scenario avoidance, but it seems likely related. That "background knowing" of being dreaming... perhaps it's secretly our greatest enemy.

 

Nah, that's our brain being too dang good at discretely waking up and falling asleep. But food for thought I guess. While it doesn't seem to interfere with common DILDs (I mean, not common for us, but then, our dreams are rarely so vivid as to cause them for now), it is a bit of a missed opportunity for less-vivid DILDs.

 

Oh, anyways, my point was less to write about said phenomenon and more to point out that it's been occurring for me far more often in the last couple of days than it ever has before. Hence the perplexion. I can deal with the occasional occurrence, but this blatantly and frequently it's becoming a bit annoying. On the other hand, it could well be a sign that we're increasing the level of thought going on in our dreams - exactly what we're going for.

 

 

Oh, that was far more than I expected to write. Worthy of two posts back to back, then. @Reilyn If the online situation works out, we'll send you our friend code or whatever. Know that Lumi has extensive experience fighting online in Brawl, and that we've played quite a bit of Smash Bros, although aren't quite at a competitive level and don't necessarily intend to be. We naturally adapt how hard we're trying to how good the other player is to make sure both sides are having fun though, so even if you're not quite as good as us it should be fine.

[Flandre]

Huh, Reisen forgot to post about the lucid dream she had. Well, she went over it as best she could after waking up, anyway.

 

About 11 hours of sleep before hand, occurred randomly in the last minute or so of the last dream she had. She slept on her arm weird and it made her elbow sore, so she spent maybe five minutes trying to lay it out in a comfortable position before falling back asleep. While this might have had the effect of a WBTB, oddly she had no real thoughts during that waking time, so it was a totally physical and no mental WBTB. Seems like that's our best bet, which we sort of knew, but it's hard to consciously decide to do WBTB and not think at all.

 

The weird thing is that while the lucid dream occurred in the scenario of us having just woken up, it wasn't actually a false awakening. There was a dream, and then the dream just sort of transitioned to us getting up to go to the bathroom, and I think it was a light switch not working that caused her to reality check. Strange to have "waking up, then realizing we're dreaming" be a thing and not have it be a false awakening though.

 

Anyways, it was quite vivid. The "actor" for the dream was Lumi, however, as I'm pretty sure he tried to impose Reisen to hug her, met with as little results as we expected (which probably is what causes itself). After not quite knowing what to do and just sort of looking around and out the window, we woke up, with a pretty seamless could've-been-false-awakening (but wasn't) transition to opening our eyes. Reisen remembered to reality check shortly after getting up, but not before that as we need to. Speaking of, completely ignored protocol again, we're supposed to stop everything and focus on stabilizing the dream. Despite our attempts to remember to do this, the dream had a distinct "I actually have no idea what to do now" vibe to it. Our dreaming mind is like a dang (not quite) warring country that refuses to work with us for all these years, despite us sharing a border and supposedly mutual interests?

 

 

Main thing of note is mostly just that it was likely caused by sleeping for 11 hours, and then spending a few minutes keeping ourselves awake but not relying on any sort of thought to do so, purely physical. Raising our arm in the air as an old lucid dreaming technique goes might do it. Getting up and then lying back down might too, but I think the brevity is a bigger negative factor than the physical effort is positive, if Reisen's lucid dream is any indication, though it may have been totally random.

 

Anyways.. Two days left. We intend to keep working on lucid dreaming actively while playing Smash Ultimate, or at least we do now, although the first few days are likely to be chaotic - thoughts of the game are likely to fill our mind during the night, so actual lucid dreaming attempts could be hindered, although recall should still be somewhat viable to practice. Let's seee...