What makes a dream different?

[Korpo]

I wonder why lucidity checks work. Let's say nothing is extravagantly different about your surroundings - how do you know it's a dream after you remembered to do the check?

I had dreams where I ignored the most extraordinary things or "explained them away" - believing my own bogus explanation. I started doing some checks on my walks with the dog, wondering when looking at everything how I would decide it's a dream or waking reality.

I have also experienced the opposite - becoming lucid in a dream and then starting to check or look at my hands or whatever.

I was reminded of all this by reading some small articles on dream yoga. I wondered how looking at physical reality and seeing it as illusion actually helps manifesting lucidity?

Physical reality seems to have continuity. I remember most things I encounter to have some roots in my past, and I have memories of the people I encounter. When dreaming or having other experiences I seldom stop and wonder who all these people are, how I got there or how this relates to the rest of my life. I guess state-specific memory plays a role.

But what makes a dream different?

Oliver

[CFTraveler]

Well, with me, continuity used to be a biggie. But the more 'conscious' I became the less a difference I could see, because I visit so many recurring scapes, that carry their own 'previous memory' that creates a 'different' sense of continuity giving dreamtime it's own reality. It's like living in two planets at once, one having a different timeframe or something.
So I'd say the biggest difference (besides physically impossible scenarios) is the way time works "over there". Or should I say "Otherwhere"? :mrgreen:

[Neil Templar]

I wonder why lucidity checks work. Let's say nothing is extravagantly different about your surroundings - how do you know it's a dream after you remembered to do the check?

i guess your stream of consciousness remembers falling asleep, or perhaps setting your intention to become lucid, while still awake?


I had dreams where I ignored the most extraordinary things or "explained them away" - believing my own bogus explanation.

Hehe, yep. strange that leaping from a skyscraper can seem so normal in the moment eh?


I started doing some checks on my walks with the dog, wondering when looking at everything how I would decide it's a dream or waking reality.
I have also experienced the opposite - becoming lucid in a dream and then starting to check or look at my hands or whatever.

the higher self always knows "where" the focus of consciousness is at. it's only the conscious mind that needs to be trained to "see".
it's funny, we become lucid, then remember we were supposed to be checking reality to get us there...hehe, kinda like the newborn chicken looking at the egg, and thinking "i must remember to get out of that thing :wink:



Physical reality seems to have continuity. I remember most things I encounter to have some roots in my past, and I have memories of the people I encounter. When dreaming or having other experiences I seldom stop and wonder who all these people are, how I got there or how this relates to the rest of my life. I guess state-specific memory plays a role.


i dunno. it's often my memory of the person/place/whatever, and it's relation to me that brings me to a state of lucidity. e.g. - two people being in a dream, that wouldn't normally be together in any situation in waking life... or being in a place and remembering that in real life, a new building has been built there...

i think the key is simply to keep on with the reality checks, and setting intention for lucidity before sleep... i rarely did the reality check thing tho. just setting intentions before bed has been really useful for me...


But what makes a dream different?
different rules for physical and non-physical reality?

[wstein]

The very fact that you DO explain them away is a difference. Do you look at a building and think anything other than some workmen put it there? OK, sometimes odd things happen in say road repair but I usually am unable to explain why they are doing it in that odd way.

There is a difference in the quality of the persistence of waking reality. Even though it may actually be an extremely vivid form of dream , it does differ from the standard night dream. People often describe this as physical reality being ‘dense’.

I have also noticed a sense of things in physical reality as having a character distinct from my own suggesting that I was not the originator or creator of most things. When I make something, I would do it in a characteristic way. This is similar to the way you can recognize the work of a particular artist. There a some good fakes but for the most part you can tell that something was make by another artist. I use this same sense to judge how much the current environment is ‘from’ myself (a lost suggests a night dream).

The way the environment responds to my actions also can (not always) give away the nature of a place. How often do physical object change in the physical world because you want them to?

[Alienor]

I wonder why lucidity checks work. Let's say nothing is extravagantly different about your surroundings - how do you know it's a dream after you remembered to do the check?

One of the most reliable checks is to hold your nose closed and try to breath through it. When you can still breath, you are dreaming. The surroundings do not matter at all in this.

As reality checks can fail, it is usually recommended to do a couple, just in case, if the first check(s) seemed to indicate it is not a dream.

Here is a very good intro to lucid dreaming and also writes about what are good reality checks and how they work.
http://www.dreamviews.com/f20/beginners-guide-lucid-dreaming-116237/

[Beekeeper]

I’m only just beginning to toy with an idea. I’m thinking that having a real life persona that is more aligned with the authenticity of the psyche might in fact be a path to lucidity. It’s just one aspect of being lucid while awake contributing to lucidity while asleep. Since I haven’t considered the implications of the theory or developed it, perhaps I shouldn’t have said anything about it yet.

I do think aligning psyche and persona is a dream function. Perhaps by becoming more conscious of this, we can more consciously explore what is required of the psyche from within the dream.

[psionickx]

But the more 'conscious' I became the less a difference I could see

I’m thinking that having a real life persona that is more aligned with the authenticity of the psyche might in fact be a path to lucidity

I have nothing to add here except that i couldnt help but notice how well the two theories go together.

[Beekeeper]

Yes, I see what you're saying psionickx.

[Neil Templar]

i also think developing the practice of conscious intending in daily waking life, as taught by Abraham-Hicks as a means to master the Law of Attraction, will no doubt develop dream lucidity.
if we consciously set an intention for each segment or activity of our day, we soon get into the habit of being in "co-creator" mode, all the time.
i don't think it's so important to know you're dreaming, but to know you are able to create what you want in the moment.

[poème]

I wondered how looking at physical reality and seeing it as illusion actually helps manifesting lucidity?


I wouldn't exactly see physical reality as an «illusion» because this word gives the impression that what is experienced is not «real», and yet it is, just like what we experience in dreams is really felt and experienced. However, I certainly would see physical reality as another kind of dream, hence why we speak of «awakening» (from this dream). In this dream, the counscious self learns how to decipher the hidden meaning laying beyond the appearance of things. The persons met, the events put on its way, all contribute to make it learns to come in touch with the unseen, and with its hidden self (uncounscious?).

Then surely, it is as Beekeeper said; when one learns how to become lucid in the waking state (the counscious self learns how to come in touch with its hidden self), one also learns to become more lucid in the dream state because it is then more in touch with its hidden self, therefore more in synch with its realm (the dream state), making it easier to recognize for the counscious self. Then I suppose the characters met when lucid in a dream would be no longer unkown, and the memories of both realms (waking state and dream state) would be shared, just like CFTaveler mentions.

The waking state and the dream state appear like two completely separated worlds, but maybe they shouldn't be seen as such...

[Korpo]

Poeme has some good ideas right there. I'm not sure this is what is meant in the context of dream yoga, lacking the instruction to know, but I think this will work just fine.

More in general I just wondered why looking at your hands was supposed to help to decide that you're in a dream. Okay, once I had different hands than I expected, but I found that out after I had become lucid.

I think what Alienor said should work extremely well since it exploits a property of the dream state. It is different however from the most basic lucidity cues I know of, Castaneda-style. I would like to know why they work.

What Neil suggested is that I would remember falling asleep, but that's what I seldom do, and if I do I'm already half-lucid and acting accordingly.

It's almost more like proving to yourself how lucid you already are by doing something that challenges the accepted rules of physical reality or by looking for clues that they are being violated in some way.

Cheers,
Oliver

[Beekeeper]

Yesterday, a reference to the movie "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" came on TV. This brought with it a bunch of associations from childhood. I told my kids that my brother loved the movie when we were little but that I had no particular attachment to it. Nonetheless, any time I see it it makes me feel a particular way. The best way I can describe that is as a particular energetic pattern emerging from within me. The same thing occurs with certain scents and songs. It occurs to me too that my dream lucidity often results in a similar sort of way.

[jamboh]

One of the most reliable checks is to hold your nose closed and try to breath through it. When you can still breath, you are dreaming.

I have found this is also by far the most reliable check, and if I do it in my dreams the shock of being able to breath through "solid" matter never fails to jerk me into lucidity. I haven't had any success with looking at my hands as a trigger.. they just look normal and I carry on dreaming as normal. If I look at my hands when lucid in a dream they also appear to be pretty much normal so I guess it doesn't work for me. I haven't noticed any correlation between trying to foster an attitude of 'questioning reality' and success in lucid dreaming. For me the success is directly related to how habitual the practice of regularly breathing through my hands has become. I think I could potentially omit the 'questioning' and just rely on the jerk from the shock of the reality check to achieve lucidity... but then I've never developed the 'questioning' to a point where it becomes habitual..