Pre-sleep treatment with galantamine stimulates lucid dreaming
journals.plos.org
journals.plos.org
I believe the first step is to train yourself to recognize a dream. It becomes easier once you've done it, so I assume a few lucid dreams can lead to many more. There are devices that supposedly trigger lucid dreams in many that have never had one, I highly recommend trying it. Example of one of these products: http://sleepwithremee.com/ . They detect REM cycles and signal you in-dream with light through your closed eyelids, since vision isn't actually suppressed during REM.
I've hit the point where I've had lucid dreams the seem to last over an hour. Its insane, not even something I can describe to someone that hasn't lived it. Like closing your eyes and thinking about flying, but with the same level of detail as the real world. The sound, sights, feeling of the sun and wind, even pain. To be a little inappropriate, sexual experiences also feel just the same as the real version. I've had hyper real dreams too, especially with vision. Colors that are impossibly bright and saturated, or impossible acuity.
Lucid or not, I realized a while ago that I don't experience physical pain in my dreams. I have started to wonder if this was a general experience. Experiences I'd expect to be painful (like getting shot or carried away by a wall of fire) simply startle me awake.
It's interesting to hear you do feel that. I've experienced all kinds of things emotionally - embarrassment, fear, anxiety. But never physical pain.
Self-aware nightmares are way more terrifying than the regular variety, a lucid dream where I sometimes can't take control. I usually try to wake myself immediately, but sometimes this leads to repeated false awakenings. The worst I remember is 5 false awakenings before waking up for real.
It is exactly as you described. Nobody can ever understand it until they experience it. Comparing it to the matrix might do it a little justice. But there are limitations -- waking up, falling back into non-lucidity, false awakenings and so on.
The first lucid dream I had was glorious. I was dreaming about being on a very tall grey building with overcast skies, on a wooden deck protruding from the side of the building. I became lucid and commanded the sky to crack with lightning and it did. I flew upward and created a swirl of clouds and was generally having an amazing time. This all was as if it were completely real. Then, too excited, I woke up. But it was a terrifying false awakening where a black figure sprinted toward me and attacked me. Then I woke up for real, absolutely terrified. It was so scary that I decided not to lucid dream anymore. But with recounting all of this, and thinking about it for the first time again, I think I might start doing it again.
I never consciously do reality checks, but I'm a very inquisitive and skeptical person. Easily distracted by cracks in the wall type.
I wouldn't let one bad experience stop you from lucid dreaming :( . I might be an outlier, but my experiences have been overwhelmingly amazing. Yes, I still have nightmares are the lucid ones are waaayyy worse. But lucid dreaming is such a great experience I would never wish it away
I am the same, I've never felt any pain in a dream, extreme fear is the strongest negative emotion or feeling I've ever experienced, but that usually wakes me up and ends the dream.
Interesting how we're all wired differently!
It makes for a really awkward discussion most of the time. And it's impossible to explain well to somebody that hasn't experienced it.
Might be generics or wiring, or just figuring out how to recognize dreams, who knows. Its real weird that some people can have this otherworldly incredible experience with no drugs, and yet most of the population never experiences it. I'm lucky I guess, but to me its normal
Nowadays when I do end up lucid dreaming (most often by accident) I notice a fairly significant drop in sleep quality.
Even worse, I sometimes lucid dream, then "awaken" into another dream where I'm not lucid and those experiences really fuck with me.
On a different note I'd love to get a high quality sleep-tracking night mask. Most of the "smart" ones I know of have awful battery life. I don't want another device to charge every few days.
I do not blame you. I've experienced sleep paralysis more than once, and it is not pleasant at all. I remember trying to scream at the top of my lungs in my head for... I don't know how long but my perception of it was that it was for hours on end. Then all of a sudden something broke through, and I woke my wife up with the loudest scream she's ever heard out of anyone.
Took a while for me to sleep again after that.
Most of my paralysis episodes didn't involve the "evil presence" people often talk about. That is, until a recent one less than a year ago, where I woke up with a giant "invisible" spider on my chest
It's terrifying to be in this state of mind where you know what's happening, but you also really, really feel that presence. I wonder if this is similar to what schizophrenic patients feel.
I had the worst sleep paralysis I've ever had, I was laid facing the wall with the light and I would have sworn there was absolute evil behind me, it was frankly terrifying.
It broke suddenly and I kept out of bed and shot out the room, took me about 15 minutes for heart rate to come down.
I don't scare easily and I'm a life long atheist but I can see how if you where raised religious you'd assume it was whatever evil presence your religion has.
Do you know for sure that it actually wiggles? Because that's what I tried doing once, and my wife told me that my entire body was still and I just woke up all of a sudden.
Once you come to terms with the fact that sleep paralysis is a thing, I think it's just another interesting mental experience. The lack of control is also kind of fun. Who knows what's going to happen next? But you probably won't die. Not the worst thing in the world.
A year or so ago, I woke up during the night and felt tingling in my feet. The tingling kept increasing in intensity and seemed to slowly rise along my limbs. A few seconds later, I suddenly heard someone shout with an aggressive but soft voice next to my ear, and felt eerily realistic hands grab my arms and vigorously scratch my right palm. In absolute terror, I remember trying to scream and shake it off, but I couldn't move. And it felt so real. A few seconds later I managed to snap off the paralysis, and rocketed out of my bed. I didn't sleep that night.
Such as?
So I think lucid dreaming is not necessarily a problem in itself but forcefully training yourself to do it can be rough going.
Personally I've found them deeply disturbing. Throughout my life I have experienced moments of sleep paralysis at most on 10 occasions. They've left a big impact though, and I sympathize with anyone who has the misfortune of feeling as though you are trapped and unable to move.
After watching the film "Waking life" I spent a long time thinking about lucid dreaming and perhaps maybe had 1 or 2 myself. I had never connected the two however, definitely food for thought.
When I actually learned what it was I tried lucid dreaming and stuff with it. But, I always find the feeling uncomfortable. I don't like not being able to move or do anything while your dreams mix with your bedroom.
It doesn't happen so much now. Every once in a while if I wake up in the morning and go back to sleep, the second time I wake up it'll happen. I don't tend to sleep in any more and once i'm awake I get up.
I don't know if it's related but i've always had problems sleeping. When I was young I was scared to sleep, even as a baby i didn't sleep well. I can usually fall asleep alright now but the slightest noise in the night wakes me up and I still feel wary about losing conciousness.
Makes it very difficult to keep track of things.
I've always been a little scared that I would be awake, think I'm in a dream, and then do something stupid, like try to fly.
So, no harm in accidentally trying to fly in reality. Except looking weird.
What has helped me stimulate higher consciousness is drinking a half cup of coffee right as I go to bed. Caffeine does not amp me out like most, but it does make the dreams more vivid & memorable.
However, the NIH research suggests(which I am more inclined to trust over commercial sites): Sunlight, happiness, exercise and diet. Fatigue even reduces amino acids that may inhibit absorption of serotonin. As for the diet part:
"Although purified tryptophan increases brain serotonin, foods containing tryptophan do not."
Once I get there, I have complete control and can fly however I want as fast as I want. I've never been able to hold on for more than a minute or so though before I wake up.
I heard an old tale (pre-internet days) where dreaming happens in a different part of the brain than reading, so supposedly it isnt possible to read in a dream and thus being able to read is a litmus test of whether you're dreaming or not....but i often read during dreams so I couldnt figure it out.
Searching the internet (present day) reveals a spectrum of opinions on whether one can or cannot read during dreams (and thus whether it can be used as a litmus test for reality.) Do you know if there is a definitive opinion on this?
I suppose I can always use a totem.
For me those things were very new and out of curiosity I often tried to verify if dream reality is some kind of "real" reality or connected to it. Among my curious quest, I also tried to read newspapers in my dreams and was also able to read pars of it, e.g headline/date. I even wrote the information down afterwards at that time (dream journal). The headline was not interesting btw and the date was in the future.
Had some dreams which I think were really interesting, maybe they are also interesting to read for you:
* becoming lucid in dream, all dark, a noise, flying towards me like a fly, emitting a sound which terrifies me to the bones. The entity comes from far distance, swiftly flying closer and closer whirling like mad around me. Had this dream multiple times - till I decided in real life that I should stop being afraid of imaginary noises in dreams. Next time the dream came up I remembered my decision and I tried to not panic with all my courage and it worked. First few times this dreams occurred, when the noise approached, I woke/sprung up from sleep which so much sheer panic, I did not believe I was able to feel so much fear/panic (sweaty + heart beats like crazy). * flying through a purple tunnel (like near death experience), while flying through (I could influence speed), my body was shaking as if in roller-coaster (but not my real body was shaking, since I was aware of it), it felt like something within my body was shaking, which was not muscles/bones, also feeling like my body was charging up with some kind of electricity. I could control the speed, finally reached end of tunnel, saw sky, mountains, nice landscape: since I was lucid, I thought: "Wait, am I going to die now?" -> I then hesitated to go further, the tunnel dissolved in a million threads and I woke up. * becoming lucid in a dream, with a new kind of peaceful mind-state, I felt like void, but was still aware of existing/being (everything was dark, I did not identify as something, but still was aware). A desire to "wish" something came up and with it my nice mind-state was broken and the wished scenery appeared. At the same time I felt, that my control/awareness of the dream diminished, till it was completely gone. In hindsight, I came up with the theory, that a dreaming-mind without desire (Scale: longing <---> fearing) is complete and aware (but nothing is there, no self, but still awareness). It splits up as desire arises and creates two halves: the desired (observed) scenery and the observer. I wonder if spiritual/religions people learned their theories from lucid dreams: at least for me this would make sense to me. * lucid dreams where I felt my body in bed and small orbs flying through my body, as the flew through, voices appeared in my head and some of the orbs tried to take my body resp. pushed me awareness out. I resisted and woke up. (After this dreams I thought I might have some schizophrenic disorder) * same dream as above, this time a wasp tried to enter my head, as it was trying to enter my head, I heard millions of voices talking at the same time. (Waking up -> schizophrenic disorder barometer rises) * waking up and for about 5 sec. had no memory of who I am, where I am, what this is all about what I am seeing. Very strange experience, like being completely out of this world. Had this 2 times (After each time, slight concerns that something might not be ok with my brain/circulation). * Impressing art dream: looking at ancient stone bridge, which was made of thousands of horses emerging out of each other like a wave (sculptured horses), similar to the painting from "The Great Wave" from Kanagawa. The bridge was broken in the middle. * Many dreams with fake awakening, also some with >5 times in a row and aware in paralysis. It often happened to me that I fell back to sleep with increased body awareness. Most of the time I then dreams to rob through a desert with numb limbs trying to move on and fighting to open my heavy eyelids. In such meta-state, heavy eyelids resp. problems opening my eyes seeing something was dominant. Often I could really see, what was around me, but my eyes were not focused and I misinterpreted the image I was perceiving. * Some dreams where I saw things from the future, e.g. I once dreamed about a scenery where I saw people with some kin of liquid space suite. They turned it on and I was impressed to see such superb sci-fi suits with such cool effects when activating them. Turns out, weeks later, I went to the cinema and saw the scenery in some superman movie. Critic: does brain gave me false memories about it? Did I unconsciously see some trailer and then had a dream about it?
Things I assume could have triggered my lucid dreams: * bad nutrition (fast food, almost just microwave food) * noisy room (under my room was a street) - it was like a bridge, below street, low traffic * snoring / maybe apnea in sleep? * very dark room (closed roller blinds) * to much sleeping * to less outdoor action/interaction * meditation (focusing on a point e.g corner of wall, not letting it go, not allowing yourself to blink or to look shortly away (surely its not good for your eyes!) - after a short period of time, if you keep your eyes on a point, vision blanks out and you become blind)
Yes, this seems a difficult exercise, but it is exactly what your mind is against in a dream. And while a few people can read things in dreams, many cannot. Some folks can read simple signs. For me, most times, letters move around - if they are even latin letters at all. That said, sometimes I know what they say regardless. I get the illusion of reading, but not the actual experience.
Reading is sometimes a trigger for lucid dreams for me. It was unsettling at first :)
Very odd experience, but it fits with my memories of trying to read in dreams. The words are either nonsense, mad-libs, or they make sense, but change the moment your attention shifts.
Such things made me think about the difference between actually reading or watching something in a dream, and merely having the feeling that I did. Did the writing I thought I read/wrote really exist in my mind such that I lost something on waking up?
I suppose it's all a matter of practice or of becoming more lucid, though.
Yes, like a holodeck :)
There's definitely other psychedelics that produce "real" seeming illusions but I'm not aware of any that give you direct control over them like lucid dreaming can.
On psychedelics, I view the world and myself differently. I know I'm on drugs. My stream of thought is different I'm obviously still in my house, for example, and I know I can't fly or make things appear out of thin air. By the time any hallucinations would be dream-like (strong and heavy), I freaking know I'm hallucinating. Even with lighter things (much more common), I know it is a hallucination. I know that my painting doesn't really move like that, for example.
Its definitely unsettling at first. I started lucid dreaming by chance at ~11 so I guess I'm used to it. I don't think much of it when I look away from the window and it turns into a flock of birds, just roll with it ya know :)
I think the false awakenings are part of lucid dreaming. The awareness that you're not actually awake yet is a small step from control of your dreams.
All conjecture of course because we know startling little about how dreams work :)
How do you differentiate between the two? Is it even possible?
So at that moment I would realize I was dreaming. But I don’t see why you’d just jump off of a bridge neither in a dream nor IRL. Personally what I chose to do was to attempt to fly by imagining jet motors on my legs. And it worked! And then I got excited and woke up :P
Anyway, when you become lucid it is because of things that are not like reality, so it will be obvious that it really is a dream. I see your concern but I could never imagine anyone thinking they were dreaming when they were not.
Another couple of times I’ve realized I was dreaming because the text in books or in papers were a jumbled floating mess rather than the static arrangement of letters that one would expect, and no information was conveyed as opposed to real life where most books and magazines are written to present some form of information in writing.
And one time I had a nightmare where my fingers and hands got holes in them and something was coming for me and I said “this is not possible”, and I realized then that I was dreaming and I took control and turned the nightmare into a pleasant dream by projecting the disease over on my assailant and escaping from it :)
I'm also not able to generate a complex text in a dream, so trying to read a book can also work, and I suppose there are many similar possible tests based on the limitations of your dreaming mind. But the advantage of the wristwatch is that I always wear it in real life, so I know I will also be wearing it in dreams, so I can always do that test, while a book may not be available in a dream.
If you want to kill me, give me a wristwatch that does weird stuff and I might jump from a skyscraper trying to fly in real life at some point :)
I don't know if that helps or not, but that's what it does with me.
How did you train yourself to recognise a dream; was it a particular kind of reality check? Do you find you also have great dream recall in general?
I don't do a certain reality check, but I've been lucid dreaming on and off since early teens so I just notice sometimes. Most often when I remember noticing its because I look away and things are different when I look back
Have they done any fMRI studies on this phenomena?
Two way communication is theoretically possible by measuring eye movements and signaling back with light flashes, but not sure its been done.
And yeah I have a feeling it affects sleep in some way, especially because being lucid for long periods of time tends to wake you up randomly at night
hit zoom button to undo the horrible default zoom
Risks are often greatly overestimated, and appealing to the corporate mindset disgusts me. I'm the type that loves risk and doesn't hesitate to call bullshit as long as it wont get me canned. Figuring out if you're in a dream is superficially similar to realizing someone is screwing with you lol.
Could be related to lucid dreaming but who knows.
It flashes the lights at a predetermined time.
There are devices which detect REM, then flash, but the Remee is not one of them.
Do you use some device yourself? Which one do you recommend?
Do you find that you have pretty much full control, or are you just along for the ride a lot of the time?
I turned off collisions once, and spent like twenty minutes just putting my hands through walls and giggling.
It's highly likely that participants were unblinded by side effects, a common problem in many placebo-controlled trials that is rarely addressed. If you're a lucid dreamer, and interested enough to participate in a clinical trial, you might be more apt to report the outcome of interest during active drug (= side effect) periods. Note that this need not be a conscious decision, just an unconscious bias.
Many RCT's include some language about asking participants to guess treatment assignment - but this result is rarely reported...
It seems as if anything that allowed many non-lucid dreamer to lucid dream consistently would have to be more than a placebo effect.
I was actually first taught how to do this by my Chinese martial arts teacher, he recommended I spend any time I had in lucid dreams shadowboxing and sparing with opponents and in situations (often against weapons) I fear the most. It has actually increased my ability to think objectively during stressful situations. Especially because when you get too excited in a dream it usually collapses (look up deepening techniques if this is a problem for you).
One way I have heard people use this technique outside of martial arts is practicing public speaking in the dream state to increase confidence and create a realistic practice environment. Of course the possibilities are wide, however I find it very difficult to do things I have not experienced in real life, for example I can jump really high like I would if I was on a trampoline but I can not fly around like superman.
This is the Guidebook that taught me the fundamental techniques: https://www.obe4u.com/files/the_phase/the_phase.html
Happy Dreaming all, it's the weekend give it a try!
I do solve programming problems in those dreams, at least I think so; I wake up with a clear path to attacking those problems I went to sleep with and I do have lucid dreams where I am discussing those issues with someone. Always someone who I 'feel' I know, but who looks very different than they do in real life. I definitely would find going to sleep a lot more boring without these dreams. Advantage I find as well (I am not sure if everyone has this, but the book I learned lucid dreaming from says it's one of the side effects) is that I remember all my dreams.
I have long been curious about the following; since I have been wearing wristbands like the Fitto, which measures sleep, I notice something which could be related (or Fitto etc sleep measurement is just bullshit; I had it with multiple brands though); compared to everyone I know, I spend far more time in REM and deep sleep; far more than my comparable age group. I spend, comparatively, very little time in light or awake state every night. Wonder how this is for other lucid dreamers.
Sometimes wish I could turn it off, though - it can be exhausting. I'd like sleep to be more restful by default but have a way to choose to have a lucid dream if desired.
I was going to ask you how you learned and practiced lucid dreaming. What book was that?
The all fail the tests that come later in the same book (I will try to find it); the book trains you to fall through your bedroom floor and check the table in your own house for something. Then to prove it is OBE, someone puts something there, like an ace of spades and the next day you tell what it was. Cool so ofcourse I tried this; I fell through my bed, through the floor (which was made of wood which it was not) and floated over the livingroom table, saw a big white paper with a square. Told my sister this: there was no square, there was an ace of spades. It was, ofcourse, a dream but I was far more amazed I could get my brain so far as to do what I set out to do: create a dream in which I do what I wanted before I went to sleep. That I can no longer do at will; that required a lot of training.
I had a friend of 16 years and more who is in love with a singer in a popular 90s band(obsessed) and it's no way reciprocated. She says he loves her in another dimension and she controls her dreams to speak to him. I use to have to listen to her talk about her fantasy conversations with him until i could no longer take talking about some delusion. She is no longer the fun person I use to know... just lost in a delusion and I and all her family/friends tried to make her snap out of it.. but no one is more important then the delusion :-(
Is there another reason why one would want to lucid dream other then to create another reality that doesn't exist?
I've occasionally experienced lucid dreams. You don't have to get lost in them...
It simply plays a song when you aren't pressing left mouse button. I go to sleep with a mouse taped to my hand and try to keep pressing he button. After around 5-15 minutes the song starts playing on my laptop speakers. For some reason, even if the music is plays, I lucid dream.
One night, right before bed, make the mental note that you need to remember your dream when you wake up. Maybe even write yourself a reminder on your phone or post-it note. When you wake up, seeing the note might help you remember what you dreamed off. Maybe the first time you still won't remember, but I'm sure after a few nights you probably finally will remember your dream.
If you do remember your dream, have a piece of paper close by and write it down immediately, otherwise you might forget about it after your shower.
The future is daunting.
"the future is already here. it just isn't evenly distributed"
I have been a lucid dreamer since a long time. It definitely is an amazing thing. I have never really got tempted to wear VR headsets or such devices. I can achieve this state just before I have fallen asleep completely. I get a stronger control over dreams usually in the morning when I have mentally woke up but have not opened my eyes yet.
1. I can fly, hover, experience 0 G. Helps me save the money which I might have spent in doing it in real life.
2. I can solve problems. Programming problems or other real world problems.
3. I meet people whom I may not get a chance to meet with in real life.
4. I can "continue" a dream after waking up and going back to bed.
The best thing about this ability is that you have complete control on your dream. You are aware that you are dreaming. You can direct the dream to go whereever and however you want.
Egyptians were supposedly obsessed with being lucid during dreams so they don't "lose" themselves in the afterlife. Seems quite logical, since you essentially lose track of yourself during a dream.
The whole thing is like a snake swallowing its own tail. If what "they" are saying is correct, then this is "my" dream. The Buddha is a character I dreamed up to remind me how to wake up.
Why isn't this solipsism? First, because it's not my personal dream (the person being a character himself). Second, for a similar reason as MWI is not solipsism. This branch really is my own branch (in a particular sense). What I experience as other people are really "my versions" of them, but this does not mean there aren't other perspectives analogous to mine.
This idealist perspective can be made internally consistent. At that point, deciding between it and materialism may seem like a matter of preference. The difference is that the idealist perspective can be confirmed, in the same way that a nighttime dream can be: you discover, very precisely, how you constructed the whole thing, including all the tricks you used to blind yourself to the ruse.
Add to this, a very strong insistence that everything is in a perpetual state of flux, that there is no perpetual "you" or "me" (or indeed anything). Trivial physical example - a molecule in your body is exhaled, and now inhaled by me... (cue "we are all one..."). A part of the earth turns into a banana plant, you eat the banana, and the banana turns into a human being. Now where are the boundaries of "you" and "the Earth"? See first paragraph reminding you about the very limited nature of your sense perceptions and memories.
The foregoing is stuff "we all know" but push into the background while we "get on with real life", but the yogic/Buddhist approach asks us to foreground it, and ask ourselves how we would conceive of and live life with those understandings in the foreground. Further, what if dynamics beyond those limited senses were at play? Psychology and ethics which takes the above as a starting point, rather than exisiting power relations, ends up looking different from what we have now.
What's the difference between that and lucid dreaming, and how can you distinguish?
Don't you feel like you have control and are making decisions in every dream that you have?
Is it really that interesting if you happen to dream that you're controlling a dream vs dreaming that you're controlling your flight around the world or whatever nonsense we dream about?
I used to be able to do it a lot when I was younger - it still happens to me every once in a while now. But you KNOW when it happens - it's not at all like "a really real dream", it's something completely different.
I woke up to the sun beaming through the window into my eyes. Maybe I was more lucid/aware than usual for that reason.
But I have no way of knowing whether the control/awareness I had in that dream was any different than the illusion of control/awareness and decision-making I have in any other dream.
It seems like quite a leap to assume I was in control just because I dreamed I was.
I'm afraid not.
I've had some lucid dreaming experiences. For a normal dream, when you wake up you realize your actions during the dream were more or less just reactive/instinctual. During lucid dreaming, you can actually pause and contemplate the situation and your actions before making them.
When you're lucid dreaming, you can choose to wake up or stay asleep, although eventually (usually very quickly) one will start to happen automatically: either your brain will wake up or it will trick you back into dreaming.
I will say that when I'm having a genuine lucid dream, after I wake up, I know without a doubt it was a lucid dream. With regular dreams, I look back on them and don't exactly identify with my "dream self." That guy didn't realize how absurd the scenario was. He resembles me, but he wasn't me.
With a genuine lucid dream, I look back at the dreamer and can say, "yeah that was 100% me." Also, I find that becoming lucid always sort of pulls the dream into a more realistic scenario. It goes from chaotic and weird to just plain normal life (only, the rules have changed now).
So I guess what leads me to believe that I've had these "pseudo lucid dreams" is that I look back on them after waking and don't identify with the dreamer the same way I do with a genuine lucid dream. It feels more like I was watching someone else, like a recording, than as though it was a real firsthand experience
Maybe philosophically there is no difference. But it would certainly dispel a lot of the folk magic around lucid dreaming.
Check out Stephen LaBerge for more info. They found that while asleep, a person is basically paralyzed with exception to their eye movement. In a lab setting they were able to have the dreamer use a signal, using eye movement, that they were dreaming.
One thing they did was to test the theory that subjective dream time is different than time experience while awake. They did this by doing the eye signal, counting down 10 seconds, and then signalling again. They found that there was no "time dilution" when compared to wakefulness.
Woke up to what I believe is reality. Am there still.
Or Hell.
Same same.
https://www.rxlist.com/consumer_galantamine_razadyne/drugs-c...
However...
https://www.amazon.com/Galantamine-Dreaming-Nootropic-Supple...
Hmmm.....
[1] - https://reference.medscape.com/drug/razadyne-galantamine-343...
[2] - https://www.drugs.com/dosage/galantamine.html
[3] - https://medlineplus.gov/druginfo/meds/a699058.html#side-effe...
Like anything else, it's only remarkable until you've understood and experienced it. I look forward to the time when this is considered a normal state of consciousness and is just something people do to enhance their life experience.
We in the west have a pretty weak relationship to the limits of consciousness. It's great to see this changing with studies like this popping up more frequently.
That said, I've only achieved mixed results with my lucid dreaming experiments as I found the training to hamper my energy the next day. I'm going to give galantamine a try and see if I can get some more consistent results.
Smoked it, the smoke is thick and a bit... sorta soapy. Apparently the tea is disgusting.
Next two nights I'd have a lot of dreams, but also sleep fitfully and not feel well rested. Definitely an interesting herb, but not a habit I'd want to make frequent because of the tiredness. That was a few years ago now.
This book from 2006 detailed Galantamine and other nootropic stacks that stimulate lucid dreaming long before noots were "cool":
makes me feel like I'm missing out on something...
If anyone has any advice that’s worked for them on stimulating (lucid) dreaming, I would love to hear it.
Keeping a dream journal will make the above less necessary.
I find my "bandwidth" limited during lucid dreams - I can't explore wide open spaces and if I look at details, I am prone to waking up. I never found the "just like being awake and being there" trope to be true. I spent a lot of time on detailed lucid dreaming - mainly, I wanted to test OBEs, so I would have an "OBE" and go to a place I have never been, but could check later, like a neighbor's house, or a store. It would always be absurd and "poorly rendered", nor would it match, when I checked it later irl (what a surprise).
I noticed I was dreaming and tried flying. It worked for a second, until “god” decided it wasn’t possible and I was pulled back to the ground by an invisible, irresistible force (EDIT: I think it’s called gravity?!). Trying to fight it just woke me up.
The poor rendering of places I’m not meant to go to is something I noticed when I gained control of a dream and tried going into a random building that was a “decoration”. The inside was completely empty, and the walls were gray. It seemed like a polite “fuck you” from my brain.
In a normal dream someone threw me a ball and it followed an “uncanny valley” trajectory. Almost right, but so wrong at the same time. Nice try, brain.
Lately I just try to enjoy my dreams. Paying attention to details can spoil a fun dream (I have to be careful to never check my wristwatch in dreams!)
This may be a Can't Unread sort of thing for some people, but... flying in my dreams is now a source of frustration for me since I noticed that no matter how "high" I fly, there is always something on the horizon higher than me. If I fly over this building, another one even taller will be behind it; if I fly over this tree, another one even taller will be behind it.
My theory is that dreams, unsurprisingly, come from your own personal experience and the neural nets you build, and my visual field in real life always has something above me; buildings, trees, etc. I essentially never stand on the top of the horizon, let alone personally fly for real in the cockpit. Consequently, it is essentially impossible for me to dream that I'm truly flying. (I've managed some exceptions a couple of times, but it's not reliable.) Real flying is frustrating because seeing it out the side through this tiny window is not enough visual stimulation to fix the problem; I really need the cockpit view, preferably during takeoff, and preferably more than once every few months.
However, as a compensating factor, I appear to have over the years watched enough Star (Gate/Trek/Wars) and played enough space flight sims that I can be "in space" with reasonable freedom. I have managed to jump from "the ground", which is as I described above where something is always above me no matter what, to "space", by closing my dream eyes and transitioning. It's a risky move, in the sense that it definitely pushes me closer to just plain waking.
Reflecting on your comment about there always being something on the horizon, I realized that I've always imagined being surrounded by a fairly sparse cloud layer while "in flight".
So my two pieces of advice are: (1) Build up your neural network's ability to support large scenes by observing large scenes, and (2) consider things that would be reasonable to find around you while in flight (clouds, planes, other flying people, birds, etc) and actively try to find "yet larger buildings" as unreasonable.
Staying in a lucid dreaming state, for me, seems to be more about knowing when the density of ambient "plausible reality" drops too low and steering (or snapping) yourself away from those areas.
The dream getting unstable feels like how being extremely tired in real life feels like. Your vision might get slightly blurry, your head will feel like it is moving back and forth, left and right, if that makes sense. And then you lose control. Unless you do something to stabilize the scenery. I find that spinning helps in these situations. Brings you right back.
I’ve found that my dreams are a space for me to integrate experiences.
Many people certainly seem to dream about issues of great significance to them. I have before, but it is by far an exception and not the rule. My dreams give me a window into how I conceptualize the world and how I break things down and store them, but it's actually quite unusual for me to have anything that can be traced back to specific emotional experiences.
I work with a variety of folks, including some of the top founders in the valley, and this type of subtle exploration is one of the most useful tools to unlock deeper levels of clarity, performance and wellbeing.
I've naturally lucid-dreamed for decades now (which also means I have no useful advice on how to do it), and I consider this sort of statement to either mean A: they've got a wildly better visualization center than I do (and I know mine isn't tip-top but it's not terrible) or B: they don't really have a lot of experience at lucid dreaming and haven't noticed the limitations yet. It is far from a Virtual Reality simulation.
Detail isn't really an issue in my experience. On a few occasions I've experimented with paying very close attention to reflections and things like water droplets. i found them not just remarkably realistic, but hyperreal, with much more detail than I think actually exists in the real world.
I'm also not sure how to tell the difference between a dream where I dream I'm lucid and an actual lucid dream. There's a definite feeling of being aware that I don't get in regular dreams, but maybe that's just part of the dream!
Just pepper your angus bruh. The effects of this stuff lasts 4 to 6 months after only smoking it a few times.
Perhaps with Miracle fruit I could drink it but no way on its own.
Just smoke it two or three times. Then prepare for journeys to other worlds.
This is utterly awful advice if you don't want to acquire a nicotine addiction.
Keep a dream journal. This will improve dream recall and help you identify patterns in your dreams. Identifying patterns is good, for example, if I find myself in a classroom I know I'm dreaming. I never go into classrooms awake, but occasionally find myself in one while dreaming.
The best way to keep a dream journal is to spend 5-10 minutes while first awake in bed thinking about your dreams and writing them down. That is the time and location dream recall is the easiest.
That being said I only lucid dreamed once but I went from no dreams (which is why I started) to remembering 5 a night. But I don't keep it anymore.
;)
Looks like it may impair your working memory if you have normal cognitive function.
Then I woke up and realized I was at work.
Then I fell asleep and dreamed I was in Inception.
Then I had a lucid dream that I was taking galantamine.
Then my self driving epistemology went into an infinite loop with my AI's sense of self awareness.