Techniques for bizarre dreams anyone?

[Rasputin]

Hey. One of my class mates told me about this historic figure, a French prisoner who was held in a prison-island. He managed to do something to his oxygen supply to the brain, thus making his dreams much more vivid. This way, he walked as a prison in the camp at waking life, and as a free man in his vivid dreams.
My question is: any ideas on how to make your un/subconsciousness more Dali-esque in nature? Most of my dreams are pretty much mixed scenes from my boring waking life.

[CFTraveler]

Read bizarre books, and then don't get enough sleep. Ignore #2, it's bad advice.

[CFTraveler]

Better advice: Learn to Lucid dream, and then tailor to your tastes.

[Veles]

yes, read bizarre books, watch bizarre movies, visit bizarre places, eat bizarre food, listen to bizarre music, etc...
Well, the only suggestion i've got is hyperventilation. But even that probably won't help, and it's actually bad for you anyway.
Drugs are also incredibly bad, so we won't even talk about that.
AP seems to be the best option, it's a "dream" in a way...

[journyman161]

You could try the obvious - get a more interesting life so you're not reliant on wierdness in dreams to provide your entertainment...

Note that playing around with the oxygen supply to your brain is DANGEROUS!!!

[Rasputin]

Just a couple of days ago I was very interested in sleep deprivation. After succeeding the difficult task of not falling asleep until 2 A.M I unconsciously gave up and woke up 5 hours later to find my MP3 player turned off.
Thanks for the tips, i probably should start spicing up my "reading life" before I spice up my "Living life" :)

By the way, I've found out the name of the book I was talking about- "Papillon" by Henri Charrière". Several folks told me there is no mention of any "lack of oxygen" techniques so probably the best way is to start practicing Lucidity :)

[The Cusp]

Wow, I vaguely remember that papillon movie from when i was VERY young!

YOu want bizzare dreams, watch the movie Pan's Labrinth.

[orbit1]

Here's an interesting post about cheese and various foods that can affect your dreams:

http://forums.astraldynamics.com/viewto ... ght=cheese (http://forums.astraldynamics.com/viewtopic.php?t=2815&highlight=cheese)

[Neil Templar]

yeah i've always found that cheese before bedtime gives me more intense dreams,tho they are often quite scary.

[Tom]

From dream and sleep yogas in Tibet there is an approach of sleeping in a box which does not have room to lay down in. If you do not lay down during the day or night, so that you only sit or stand, your sleep is not as deep and you have much more awareness in your dreaming. The purpose of sleeping in a box is to be propped up by its sides.

[wstein]

Raise large amounts of energy and push it into your energy body or aura, just before drifting off to sleep. Do not ground or dissipate the energy. This will also make your dreams much more detailed and easier to remember. WARNING: you will not get as restful sleep. May also cause spontaneous OBE.

[edit: spelling errors]

[Freawaru]

I second CFT: learn lucid dreaming.

To activate the "moon chakra" by sleep fasting can have unpleasant effects. I have done it several years ago - unwillingly - and ended up with dreaming while being awake.

A lasting effect is that I tend to get memory flashes of dreams while I am awake and not concentrating. They are very short and not threatening and I recognize them as dream memories - but at first I really worried what the heck was going on in my mind.

Anyway, if you have not done it already I strongly suggest to learn tranquility before experimenting. There are many medtation techniques for reaching the tranquil state (also known as samatha) and this skill is a kind of safety belt for the mind.

[CFTraveler]

To activate the "moon chakra" by sleep fasting can have unpleasant effects. I have done it several years ago - unwillingly - and ended up with dreaming while being awake. Holy Guacamole! How long did it last for?

[Freawaru]

To activate the "moon chakra" by sleep fasting can have unpleasant effects. I have done it several years ago - unwillingly - and ended up with dreaming while being awake. Holy Guacamole! How long did it last for?

The dreaming while being awake? A few days. When my sleeping time became more than three hours out of 24 again it stopped pretty fast.

But I read that sleep fasting can lead to hallucinations. I have no experience with hallucinations so I don't know the difference or if there is a difference to dream. To me it felt like dreams and I always knew when it happend. There was no confusion between what is real and what not as others report when halllucinating.

And my dreams are usually no nightmares. But if they were and if I had not recognized it for dream whenever it happend I think it could have been a very terrifying experience.

My dream memory flashes while being awake are still there. And it has been almost seven years! For me they provide no problem - I am just mindfull of them happening and that is that. But if I would not recognize them for what they are and if they were nightmarish I think I could go insane because of fearing them.

I also heard that sleep deprivation is used in torture....

[CFTraveler]

But I read that sleep fasting can lead to hallucinations. Also known as temporary psychosis. Which is why I don't recommend it.

[Freawaru]

But I read that sleep fasting can lead to hallucinations. Also known as temporary psychosis. Which is why I don't recommend it.

Guess, I can count myself lucky :?

[sleeper]

I'm not sure why you want to have bizzarre dreams...but there are some things that helped me to have lucid dreams.

When i first wanted to have lucid dreams, i set the timer on my digital watch (hey, it was the 80's and it had a calculator and it was cool!) to go off every 15 minutes, all day. Every time it went off, i asked myself "am i dreaming? Am i awake?" This was extremely irrating, btw. Two days later, i had my first lucid dream. I was only lucid for a couple seconds before the dream took back over, but it was a success!

The next day, i kept the watch timer going, and i added "I want ice cream!" to my "am i awake?" statement. Sadly, i didn't lucid dream for another week, but, when i did, the ice cream was fantastic. and i was lucid for a little longer.

[TalkingHead]

To get back to the prisoner who "over-oxygenated his brain?" I think very fast breathing; almost like hyperventilation just before you go to sleep should definitely help; especially spontaneous Lucid Dreaming. I really don't think there's anything dangerous about this although I have a feeling CFT will disagree :lol:

Someone else posted about a technique to exhale rapidly and fully to get rid of toxins.

[CFTraveler]

I really don't think there's anything dangerous about this although I have a feeling CFT will disagree It depends on what you were doing to hyperventilate. :wink:

[Alaskans]

Raise large amounts of energy and push it into your energy body or aura, just before drifting off to sleep. Do not ground or dissipate the energy. This will also make your dreams much more detailed and easier to remember. WARNING: you will not get as restful sleep. May also cause spontaneous OBE.
I second that. I think it's a matter of expanding beyond your physical body, or shifting to outside your physical body while falling asleep, or shortly before. Feeling yourself as being something beyond the body you inhabit, vague, with an unknown but very large size, if you can, of being some expansive layer of the universe itself. It seems to give astral dreams and better recall. Or what wstien said.

Sorry for interrupting, talkinghead.

[AndrewVoe]

I have also heard that cheese is supposed to work well. I pulled it off of another website, but to avoid spamming links, I'll just provide you the excerpt of the explanation.


Cheese contains certain amino acids
tryptophan - shown to reduce stress and induce sleep
phenylalanin - under the right conditions, stimulates the waking part of the cortex.

I personally have found that it does help you have more vivid dreams, I'm not sure about bizarre though.

* SNIP * Part removed. - Oliver