
I’m a lucid dream researcher – here’s how to train your brain to do it - YeGoblynQueenne
https://theconversation.com/im-a-lucid-dream-researcher-heres-how-to-train-your-brain-to-do-it-118901
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jl2718
Years ago I read LaBerge(?)’s book and went way down the rabbit hole of many
techniques to detect a dream state. Each one of them worked for a short while
and then my dreams would have them all working properly. Eventually I was
basically unable to distinguish reality. There are problems with that. First
was that consciousness never gets a rest, and I felt like an insomniac.
Secondly, I was remembering way too much, and most of it was incredibly
boring. If it wasn’t boring, it was scary in a way that dreams are not
supposed to be. At some point I swore I had been awake for 3 days in full
sunlight with a terrible headache doing nothing but repeated reality tests,
which would occasionally fail. So I stopped, slept, and never tested reality
again. There were times I achieved lucidity by other means, but never reality
testing. Overall, however, highly recommended. The world between my ears
became endlessly fascinating, and that brought me through many times when I
had little else.

~~~
mrmonkeyman
I agree, same experience here. I've seen and experienced things which are not
normal. It affected me. Not that bad, but still.. 10/10 will do again.

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scarejunba
I have lucid dreams every now and then accidentally but they all kind of
ruined the experience. Like having a cheat code to a game.

Perhaps someone would share why they like doing this? I dream almost every
night and they're quite entertaining except for when they turn lucid.

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guiambros
> _I dream almost every night and they 're quite entertaining except for when
> they turn lucid_

Funny, I'm exactly the opposite: some of my most fascinating dreams were the
lucid ones.

I remember vividly one of them, and it was one of the most mind blowing
experiences - I could _control_ where I wanted to fly, I could move things in
my mind, and I _knew_ it was a dream (some things seemed off, so I did a
reality check and discovered I was dreaming).

It only lasted a few minutes (or seconds?), but the moment felt like ages.
I've had a few more lucid dreams since then, but nowhere near the same
experience.

ps: not sure if it's correlation or causation, but taking ZMA before going to
bed seems to increase the number of dreams. Melatonin does the same, but I
only use when traveling across timezones.

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scarejunba
Fascinating, that sounds boring to me. I guess we just like different things
:)

Definitely second you on the sleep when out of the comfort times. I think it's
just that I wake up less correctly and recall more. Definitely got some good
stuff when I use melatonin to fix schedule due to flying far.

