Back when I was practicing Tibetan dream yoga (their version of lucid
dreaming), I would have many, many experiences similar to the one you mention
in the first paragraph. The "tell" was that upon waking (for real), I'd 1)
remember the dreams and waking up in them with some clarity (as opposed to
haziness that faded in a few minutes) and 2) then go back to sleep and go back
into the *same* dream.
My favorite such dream was once when I ran into some gnarly things trying to
kill me in my dream. That *rarely* happened with me -- I think I can count the
number of "nightmares" or "bad dreams" I've had in my life on the fingers of
both hands -- but this one was pretty gnarly. Man-beasts of some kind were
definitely trying to kill me, and it was *personal* (trying to assassinate
*me*, as opposed to just killing everything in sight). I was running from them
in the dream, just in survival mode because I didn't have any weapons to defend
myself, and then decided that the best way to survive was to wake up. So I did.
I found myself covered with sweat and still shaking a bit from the experience,
but it was still the middle of the night and I knew what tended to happen when
I'd go back to sleep after one of these lucid dreams, so I looked around my
room and found the fake samurai sword (real Japanese, but lacking an edge
because I used it in my Kendo classes and we tried not to kill each other
there). I grabbed it, pulled it into bed with me, went back to sleep, and
voila...found myself back in the same dream, with the same astral badasses
still trying to get me. But now I had the sword. And in the dream it was a real
sword, with a real edge. To quote W. C. Fields, "I hacked my way through mounds
of flesh" and awoke refreshed. :-)
I am far from the world's leading expert in lucid dreaming, and in fact don't
try to practice it any more. If it happens, it happens; if it doesn't, I don't
try to make it happen. But I do remember that the "key" to taking control in my
lucid dreams always started by following Carlos Castaneda's advice of "finding
my hands." I'd be awake in the dream, meaning that there was a "me" witnessing
everything, and then have a secondary wakening and realize that I could change
things if I wanted to. So for me, what "worked" to enable me to "want to" was
lifting my own hands in front of my eyes and then focusing on them as I began
to first touch items in the dream, and then gesture at them. The gestures over
time allowed me to change their color or nature or -- as you say -- change the
entire dreamscape and "go somewhere else."
From: "s3raph...@yahoo.com [FairfieldLife]"
<FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com>
To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, November 16, 2014 12:22 AM
Subject: [FairfieldLife] Lucid-dreaming query
So last night I had a lucid experience while dreaming (it's happened a few
times before - always involuntary as I've never bothered to follow the
"techniques" recommended by devotees of this perception). At least I assume it
was a lucid-dream experience - I suppose one could have a normal dream which
included the false thought that one was lucid when in fact one wasn't (if you
can follow that explanation). What's more, I woke up (for real), mused about
the dream for a minute, then fell asleep again and immediately went back into
the same dream landscape in the same self-conscious, lucid state.
Now I'd heard that when in a lucid dream you can alter the "dreamscape" to suit
yourself. So you might find it amusing to flip over into being a Zero pilot on
a kamikaze mission and diving into the Golden Dome in Fairfield. Whatever
floats your boat. Anyway, though I was lucidly self-aware that I was indeed
dreaming I couldn't change the story narration unfolding before me so just left
the dream to run its course while absorbing the novel experience.
My question is: is there some trick to getting the dream to change to suit your
whim or is it a case of practice makes perfect? Or maybe most lucid dreams are
like mine? Or maybe my will power is feeble compared with my imaginative power
and others have a more dominant will?
Anyone had a similar experience?
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