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Comment by argumentum | Hacker News Reader

Up till my early 20s, I used to lucid dream so much, I thought it was the normal state of dreaming (for everyone). Over the last few years the frequency has declined to maybe a couple times a month.

Of course, you never know how much you'd miss a thing until its gone. In this case, I didn't even know it was a thing before it started fading away.

I'd certainly let my brain be zapped to get this superpower back.

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I used to dream and lucid dream a lot. My email signature was "Traveller by day and dreamer by night, or the other way around, I don't remember."

I have lost it and it is something I would like to get back.

I too experienced a plethora of lucid dreaming through my early twenties. Sometimes I would have a few a night for weeks. They tapered off gradually and I have maybe a few a year now (I'm 35).

Many were tied with sleep paralysis, which didn't give me the fear that most people associate with it. Sometimes I could extract my preceptual self from my body and experience walking around the room in a weird lucid dream world. All while simultaneously being aware of my pysical body lying in bed.

I would love to have those dreams again.

Wow, so similar. My first lucid dreams were initiated during sleep paralysis. Initially, these episodes were absolutely terrifying (i felt like I was suffocating). Lucid dreaming cured me of this fear .. once I realize i'm in a dream I can change the scenario to something more pleasant.

Or just fly away through the window ;)

I feel sleep paralysis and lucid dreaming are deeply linked phenomena.

I never had any lucid dream unfortunately, but this link has already been looked at, notably here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgJOMqIhvHM&list=PLC2DC804CF...

What's your sleep cycle like? Do you tend to fall asleep out of utter exhaustion, or do you tend to give yourself a reasonable bedtime and wind down period. I've found that I dream lucidly a lot less when I've let my sleep hygene go to crap.

As an aside, because of being a naturally lucid dreamer, nightmares confuse me and on the rare event I have them -- once or twice a decade -- they freak me out a lot more. That absolute loss of control of one's subconscious mind is near unfathomable to me. I can remember being six or seven and my sister telling me about a nightmare she had and me being absolutely confused about them; the thoughts of being injured in a dream was just something that happened in movies.

Interesting .. I tend to "become" lucid in the middle of a non-lucid dream (nightmare or otherwise). Rarely will I be lucid from the get go.

So when I gain "control", the initial scenario is set. Sometimes, it's quite a fascinating "twist" on recent real-life events. Other times it's Alice and the Wonderland style craziness.

Often I think I'm in a partially Lucid dream. I know I'm dreaming, I can mostly do what I want (including completely changing the scenario) but I am also not in control of everything that happens, particularly what characters appear or what they say/do in response to me. It's a bit like living in an alternative universe.

The strangest aspect is how realistic the characters are, particularly the real-life people. I'll be talking to a friend, and get a conversation that is so like that person that I'll often forget that it was said in a dream. This has led to some strange real-life conversations, lol.

Opposite experience here. The only times I've experienced lucid dreaming was when I was exhausted in a noisy/sunny environment.

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