Lucid dreams and other weird mind stuff

[InCali]

Do you have lucid dreams? I have them pretty consistently; although maybe not quite as often as I did when I was younger. Usually, something just doesn't quite fit right for me and I come to the conclusion that I must be dreaming. It's kind of cool because I realize I can do anything I want to; and I have quite an active imagination.

The other night I had a dream that I was on a sailboat. I'm not quite sure where it was, but I think it was somewhere in the Monterey Bay. Anyway, we made a turn and the shore looked completely different and was way closer than it should have been. I figured that was impossible and that I had to be dreaming. In this case, it was like something (on some level, that would be me) was trying to make me forget I was dreaming. Maybe because regular dreams help you rest better and I was really tired??? So, people were trying to distract me to make me forget I was dreaming. It didn't work until we were walking down the street and heard some chanting. One of the people I was with was about 15 feet in front of me, looked up the cross street, turned with a horrified look on his face, and ran. I knew it was cannibals (LOL) and that was the end of the lucidity. I ran across the street, up some stairs and into an apartment. There was another door on the opposite wall and I was wondering if I could lock it before the cannibals opened the door and then I woke up.

If lucid dreams aren't as relaxing or restful or whatever and I was trying to get myself to the non-lucid state so I could sleep longer or better, I failed miserably.

I've also experienced Deja Vu and on more than one occasion, I have told people what was going to happen in the immediate future and, when I've had strong feelings like that, have never been wrong. My guess is that the outcome was so logical that it kind of had to happen, but one time, I was watching a football game (49ers) and on 1st down, I said to people "They're going to complete a pass over the middle to the tight end". I literally saw the play in my mind before it happened and "knew" it was coming. When the pass was completed as I described it, people looked at me like I had an arm growing out of my head. Not exactly a first down call, but it was a west coast offense and a play that is used pretty often.

 

[InCali]

I did some reading on lucid dreaming and problem solving. A long time ago, I used to repair computers and laser printers. There was this one laser printer that was giving me problems. I literally replaced everything that could have possibly been the problem with no luck fixing it. I had a dream that I was looking at it and trying to figure out what the problem was. Suddenly it occurred to me that it was a transistor that I had already replaced. I woke up, sat straight up, and just "knew" that was the problem. When I got to work the next morning, I replaced the transistor and, sure enough, it started working. The transistor I had put in was bad in the same way as the one I replaced so when I took readings I got the same results. This made it appear that the problem was elsewhere when, in fact, it was the transistor.

 

[BatsAndNights]

Weirdly enough, I had my first nightmare in probably the last decade when my COVID symptoms were at their absolute worst. It was when I was working an old job at a cafe which was housed within a leisure centre which was...not run well lmao

Essentially it was the worst case scenario. No money for change to give when customers give notes and they were all giving £20 bills, they all wanted orders that took forever, etc. I only woke up because I was essentially about to start talking s*** and telling them all to **** off. Woke up literally drenched in sweat. Had to shower, clean my sheets, the whole shebang.

Definitely an odd experience

 

[InCali]

Weirdly enough, I had my first nightmare in probably the last decade when my COVID symptoms were at their absolute worst. It was when I was working an old job at a cafe which was housed within a leisure centre which was...not run well lmao

Essentially it was the worst case scenario. No money for change to give when customers give notes and they were all giving £20 bills, they all wanted orders that took forever, etc. I only woke up because I was essentially about to start talking s*** and telling them all to **** off. Woke up literally drenched in sweat. Had to shower, clean my sheets, the whole shebang.

Definitely an odd experience

I've noticed that fevers/illness and nightmares tend to go hand in hand.

 

[MissMarvelous]

Yup, I had a few of those and it was a horrible experience (crying over my Grandma's death, a panic attack and, finally, someone pinning me down the mattress -not in the good way :P).

 

[InCali]

Yup, I had a few of those and it was a horrible experience (crying over my Grandma's death, a panic attack and, finally, someone pinning me down the mattress -not in the good way ).

I don't have nightmares very often. I mean I suppose some people would consider some of my dreams to be nightmares, but I don't really get scared often about them. Sort of like my recent lucid dream. I ran to get somewhere safe and then wondered if I was (safe), but it wasn't like I was terrified or anything. A lot of my dreams revolve around solving problems or trying to fix things that I know should work, but don't. A lot of those times I just say to myself "There's something not quite right here so I must be dreaming" and then I test it out to make sure. I remember once, I figured out I was dreaming and woke up; only to figure out that I just dreamed that I woke up and was still asleep. That was kind of trippy and I got sort of a kick out of it.

iI never thought about my own lucid dreaming and the movie Inception until after I started this thread, but think about that now. I wonder if the concept of lucid dreams inspired the movie. I never looked into why Nolan made it or anything like that.

 

[InCali]

Oh. One other thing about dreams; at least my dreams and I'm pretty sure this is true with everyone.....have you ever noticed that dreams sometimes seem to be very coherent, even though they might be quite complicated? Have you ever wondered how you were able to come up with all those twists and turns while in the stream of a dream so that everything fit? The answer is that dreams are not linear, but you go back and fill in things that were missing or didn't make sense. As part of my, sometimes, awareness in dreams, I've been aware of this. An example of this might be seeing someone that you recognize, but can't quite name at first. Then you remember "the past" where you met that person and remember their name. That part is done after you saw them as a something of a stranger. That's an easy one to recognize, but it happens all the time with dreams in more subtle ways. When you look back on your dream, it just seems linear to you.

Also, I might have something of a sleep disorder. Maybe mild narcolepsy and I don't really sleep a lot. My primary care physician wanted to put me in a sleep study, but my current living situation (parent care) doesn't allow me to do it. Even then, I'm not sure I want to do anything to "fix" what might be "wrong". I kind of like the way things are. Dream awareness is kind of cool and fun.

 

[BatsAndNights]

As far as I know from my own academic studies, the main prevailing theory on how dreams work is that your brain more or less reorganises itself during REM sleep, including your memories and the like. Dreams are just a bi-product of that and are why they can get kinda whacky.

It's also why (as far as I recall), most if not all dreams involve people or things you have already seen.

 

[InCali]

As far as I know from my own academic studies, the main prevailing theory on how dreams work is that your brain more or less reorganises itself during REM sleep, including your memories and the like. Dreams are just a bi-product of that and are why they can get kinda whacky.

It's also why (as far as I recall), most if not all dreams involve people or things you have already seen.

Yeah. That fits. It seems that my dreams generally involve some seemingly insignificant thing that happened or that I noticed the day before. I wonder what it is, exactly, that allows us to experience lucid dreams. I think I tend to have them when I am sleeping less deeply, but it could be that it just seems that way to me because I know I'm dreaming. If I want to, I can wake myself up on a dime when lucid dreaming; except for that time I woke myself up and it was just a dream that I woke myself up. Then I woke myself up for real.

Also, I can smell things when asleep, have tangible sensations of touch, and can even actually feel pain during dreams. I think my mind actually creates it because one time I dreamed that I hurt my wrist and I mean I could feel it in my dream. I woke myself up and for just a second, I had a pain in my wrist, but it went away almost immediately.

EDIT: Where did you study dreaming? They had a class about that at UC Santa Cruz when I went there, but I never took it. It involved writing down your dreams when you first woke up. People said it helped them remember their dreams even after you stopped writing them down and there were some other things they said that I don't remember right off the top of my head, but I think it gave them a little more insight as to why they had their particular dreams.

 

[BatsAndNights]

Yeah. That fits. It seems that my dreams generally involve some seemingly insignificant thing that happened or that I noticed the day before. I wonder what it is, exactly, that allows us to experience lucid dreams. I think I tend to have them when I am sleeping less deeply, but it could be that it just seems that way to me because I know I'm dreaming. If I want to, I can wake myself up on a dime when lucid dreaming; except for that time I woke myself up and it was just a dream that I woke myself up. Then I woke myself up for real.

Also, I can smell things when asleep, have tangible sensations of touch, and can even actually feel pain during dreams. I think my mind actually creates it because one time I dreamed that I hurt my wrist and I mean I could feel it in my dream. I woke myself up and for just a second, I had a pain in my wrist, but it went away almost immediately.

EDIT: Where did you study dreaming? They had a class about that at UC Santa Cruz when I went there, but I never took it. It involved writing down your dreams when you first woke up. People said it helped them remember their dreams even after you stopped writing them down and there were some other things they said that I don't remember right off the top of my head, but I think it gave them a little more insight as to why they had their particular dreams.

I studied sleep as a whole, as one of my topics for Psychology. I'm not a dream expert, persay, but I do know some stuff because of my time studying sleep overall.

I'm not sure how legit the less deeply thing is, given dreams conceptually only can really happen at REM as far as I'm aware. I could be wrong though. Been a while since I studied it and I can't say we got into lucid dreaming so that's a complete blind spot for me.

 

[InCali]

I studied sleep as a whole, as one of my topics for Psychology. I'm not a dream expert, persay, but I do know some stuff because of my time studying sleep overall.

I'm not sure how legit the less deeply thing is, given dreams conceptually only can really happen at REM as far as I'm aware. I could be wrong though. Been a while since I studied it and I can't say we got into lucid dreaming so that's a complete blind spot for me.

I'm not either and think it's probably just that I'm sort of conscious when dreaming so it seems like I'm not in a deep sleep. Sometimes I find my dreams fun or pleasant and tell myself "stay asleep". LOL I do find that the lucidity aspect will fade if I don't keep myself conscious of it. It's kind of fun knowing that you are asleep and in another world that you can, often, control.

I was a psych major too, but focused on methodology and statistical analysis; as well as the history of psychology with a professor named M. Brewster Smith and personality with Elliot Aronson. Professor Smith actually studied under Gordon Allport at Harvard and was one of the most brilliant, knowledgable men I've ever met. If you haven't heard of them, look them up. They both have had fascinating careers and were really good people. I went on after that to study electronics and became an engineer; which might go a long way towards explaining my damage.

 

[InCali]

I was telling my wife, who is a therapist about some of my recent dreams and that a doctor wanted to do a sleep study on me. She knows someone who is something of an expert in the field and is going to talk to her about this weirdness.