Lucid dreaming
Last night I dreamed I was smoking a cigarette. I often dream of smoking but I never know that it is a dream, so I always feel guilty about it. Like I have ruined something. Like the not smoking for over four years is erased and I will have to start all over again because of one lapse.
So usually when I wake up from one of these dreams, I say to myself, “If I’m smoking, I’m dreaming. If I’m smoking, I’m dreaming.” To try to train myself to know I am dreaming next time. Partly because it would be nice to be able to enjoy the cigarette. (How ideal! Smoking without really smoking!) But also I would just like to train myself to be aware that I’m dreaming when I’m dreaming. And maybe then learn how to change the dream if need be.
So last night, in my dreams, I’m walking along a path in the back yard of the house where I grew up, and I’m smoking. And it dawns on me that if I’m smoking I’m dreaming! I know I’m dreaming! I say to the person with me — hey, this is a dream, what should we do? And the person doesn’t believe me. So I decide to show them that it really is, by flying. Then I don’t know what happened, can’t remember, but wow! It worked! Yay! Can’t wait to try it again.
The beautiful picture above was taken by a very talented individual named Justin Mclean. He has graciously made it available under one of the Creative Commons licenses. I’m not sure how to do a proper attribution, so please correct me if I’ve messed up in any way.
October 15th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
That’s pretty cool. I wanna learn to do that.
October 15th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
A long time ago, I was able to be lucid, briefly, once, by telling myself at bedtime that I was going to go to sleep and dream. Many nights in a row I did that, and then was aware one time. I didn’t keep it up after that for some reason. Do you remember your dreams? Is there some recurring thing in dreams that isn’t true IRL? Like, I also tell myself sometimes “if I see Claude, I’m dreaming, if I see Claude, it’s a dream.” Claude was a very dear cat who died a long time ago, and he shows up in my dreams often enough that he would be a good signal to learn too. The wikipedia article seems to have some good pointers too, if you haven’t looked at that yet. Let me know if it works, I would love to hear about it! :)
October 16th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing about coming up with a recurring theme to be a signal. I came up with two that aren’t super often, but probably would happen once a month or so – if I dream of Jax or if I dream that I’m flying.
Hmm…according to the wikipedia article, the wake-back-to-bed technique has a 60% success rate. That’s pretty good.
October 16th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Yeah, that is pretty good! Please do let me know if it works, I would love to hear about it. :)
October 17th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
my first response was
“where did she get that wonderful picture of Claude and why don’t I have a copy?”
my second response was
“He looks thinner than I remember, but I suppose that it’s been a long time.”
even though it isn’t really him, it’s a very nice photo.
on lucid dreaming…
another successful technique that I have used to use is to repeat an action that uses your entire body three times a day (for me it was to spin in circles) with the intention of “waking” in your dream life when you find yourself repeating that action. I love flying in my dreams. Most of the time I can only glide, though. Still fun, but with less freedom, i suppose.
very cool stuff, keep us posted on your progress.
October 17th, 2008 at 11:23 pm
It is so very like him, isn’t it? But not quite exactly him. There is a flickr group all about Maine Coons, I did a search in there for “white” and came up with a whole bunch of pictures of cats that look just like Claude. Toe tufts and all. It was really fun to look at them all, brought back lots of memories.
A spinning technique is mentioned in the wikipedia article about lucid dreaming. Neat! I too love to fly in dreams, but I’ve never been a glider. For me it’s more like swimming through the air, doing something like a breast stroke. And it always feels wonderful, working my way up into the air.
February 8th, 2014 at 10:52 am
[…] Shortly after we moved to our house in a nearby neighborhood, Gibby died of a sudden and acute case of we know not what. That was over 10 years ago, and ever since then, Milo has been an only cat. He made the adjustment admirably — instead of following Gibby around, he would follow me or Moses around. He took to sleeping on a pillow between our two pillows. He made friends — kind of — with the neighbor cats. He ate, played, slept, and purred, he did his business outside bless his heart, and just generally was right up there with the best cats ever. […]