# Lucid Dreaming > General Lucid Discussion > DreamViews Podcast >  >  Q&A Episode 2: Natural WBTBs, Hypnagogic Imagery, and Hostile Dreamworlds

## CanisLucidus

*Q&A Episode 2: Natural WBTBs, Hypnagogic Imagery, and Hostile Dreamworlds*

We're pleased to announce the second episode of our new "Q&A" podcast format where *OpheliaBlue*, *RareCola*, *Paigeyemps* and I answer your user-submitted audio questions.  (RareCola and Paigeyemps weren't able to join us for recorded answers this time, but we read Paigeyemps' answers out loud during the podcast.)

In this episode we tackle questions on *natural WBTBs*, *hypnagogic imagery*, and *what to do when the dreamworld turns against you*.





*Embedded Player:*
  

Direct link to the MP3 version


Thanks to *Mahoogie*, *BlairBros*, and *Booney* for their great questions!

If you have your own questions that you'd like to hear us answer in a future episode, please post them in the "Submit Your Questions" thread.

We hope you like the episode!  Thanks to everyone for listening, and a special thanks to those who submitted questions.  We'd love to hear your feedback, so feel free to post here.

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## OpheliaBlue

Damn that was fast, great work! Will listen after work.

Hope you edited out all my national lampoon's moments  ::chuckle::

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## CanisLucidus

> Damn that was fast, great work! Will listen after work.
> 
> Hope you edited out all my national lampoon's moments



No way.  All still in there and _louder_.  On repeat.   ::D: 

Seriously, though, it was an easy edit job.  Awesome work from you again!  I'm eager for the world to finally learn about your great and terrible Mexican Food Induced Lucid Dreaming technique.   ::chuckle::

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## GrannyPigms

Hoorah! New podcast!

Great job guys, keep doing these they're great.  ::D:

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## CanisLucidus

> Hoorah! New podcast!
> 
> Great job guys, keep doing these they're great.



Thanks so much, GrannyPigms!  Glad you enjoyed it!   ::D:   We're looking forward to doing more.

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## swiggityswag

Answered my question very well and definitely going to use your information!

Thanks guys!

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## Booney

Nice episode, I'll be sure to listen to episode 1 now.

And I enjoyed/learned a lot from the responses to my question. I completely ignored the emotional aspect of the problem so great advice there, very helpfull.
Looking forward to more episodes.  :smiley:

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## CanisLucidus

> Answered my question very well and definitely going to use your information!
> 
> Thanks guys!







> Nice episode, I'll be sure to listen to episode 1 now.
> 
> And I enjoyed/learned a lot from the responses to my question. I completely ignored the emotional aspect of the problem so great advice there, very helpfull.
> Looking forward to more episodes.



That's wonderful to hear!  I'm so glad that it helped, guys.  Thank you both for the great questions and for listening to the podcast.

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## fogelbise

.
.
Wooohooo! Your time in creating these is very appreciated!! Very nice job once again!!!


*Spoiler* for _bathroom humor_: 



By the way, I like the way CanisLucidus linked back to the Mexican food thoughts with his HI "floaters!"....j/k.

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## CanisLucidus

> .
> .
> Wooohooo! Your time in creating these is very appreciated!! Very nice job once again!!!
> 
> 
> *Spoiler* for _bathroom humor_: 
> 
> 
> 
> By the way, I like the way CanisLucidus linked back to the Mexican food thoughts with his HI "floaters!"....j/k.



Thanks for the kind words, fogelbise!  It's great to hear that you enjoyed it.  The feedback really helps... it's the only way we can know whether or not we're getting material out there that you guys enjoy, so much appreciated!

And LOL @ the "spoiler".  Ophelia caught me totally off guard at the Mexican food part.  I wasn't sure I was going to be able to get it back together.   ::lol::

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## bemistaken

So informative! Please don't stop doing what you do! We are listening!  :smiley:

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## CanisLucidus

> So informative! Please don't stop doing what you do! We are listening!



That's great to hear, bemistaken, thank you!  If you guys keep enjoying this, we won't stop until my microphone falls over from tiring of hearing me yammer.   ::chuckle::

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## Bharmo

Excellent work guys! I really love your podcasts!!  :Clap: 
Would love to hear a podcast about the "other" LD techniques, it would be really insightful coming from you: SSILD, FILD, VILD, HILD, PBTB... Ooops, sorry, we had Pee Back To Bed thoroughly covered already  ::lol::

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## CanisLucidus

> Excellent work guys! I really love your podcasts!! 
> Would love to hear a podcast about the "other" LD techniques, it would be really insightful coming from you: SSILD, FILD, VILD, HILD, PBTB... Ooops, sorry, we had Pee Back To Bed thoroughly covered already



Thanks so much, dreambh!  I'm really glad that you liked the material!   ::content:: 

And I love your idea of a podcast on the "other" techniques.  Ophelia, weren't you and RareCola considering doing one like this back in the day?  I think it'd make for a great show.  SSILD could be particularly interesting as I think both RareCola and I got some of our early lucids with it but have differing opinions as to SSILD's value as a technique.  I think it could make for a great discussion.

We'll definitely have to put something out about this, whether it's in the Q&A format or the traditional format.  Thanks for the suggestion!

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## Bharmo

> SSILD could be particularly interesting as I think both RareCola and I got some of our early lucids with it but have differing opinions as to SSILD's value as a technique.  I think it could make for a great discussion.



Wow! I'm really intrigued about SSILD. That would be super interesting!!!  ::shock::

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## OpheliaBlue

> Ophelia, weren't you and RareCola considering doing one like this back in the day?  I think it'd make for a great show.  SSILD could be particularly interesting as I think both RareCola and I got some of our early lucids with it but have differing opinions as to SSILD's value as a technique.  I think it could make for a great discussion.



Yes, it was on the menu. It would make a very good and informative podcast, I agree.

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## poprockdreamboy

This Q&A was neat. The part where you talked about hypnogogic imagery was pretty cool. I used to have something similar to that when I was a kid, probably up until about 10 years old. They were really amazing. I'd close my eyes and see a fairly normal depiction of a given scene, and then all of a sudden, an object(s) in the scene would start to glow a very brilliant bluish-white. From there, one of two things would happen. The scene would either change and the process would repeat, or the object that was glowing would morph into another object. Objects in the scene ranged from abstract like cirlces or squares or seven segment display numbers to actual everday objects like an oscillating fan, or a light bulb. After watching them for awhile, I'd lose awareness and find myself in a DILD.

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## Sensei

Really good podcast. I am a very big fan of waking through intention, I feel like if you can't wake up when you want to, through intention, then you won't be able to LD through auto suggestion either. 

A lot of times if I don't feel like getting up for a WBTB, I will imagine something that gets my heart pumping a bit (sports or something). Then I stop and go back to my mantra and visuals. 

Canis, you sound really freaking familiar, is there any reason that I should know you?

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## CanisLucidus

> This Q&A was neat. The part where you talked about hypnogogic imagery was pretty cool. I used to have something similar to that when I was a kid, probably up until about 10 years old. They were really amazing. I'd close my eyes and see a fairly normal depiction of a given scene, and then all of a sudden, an object(s) in the scene would start to glow a very brilliant bluish-white. From there, one of two things would happen. The scene would either change and the process would repeat, or the object that was glowing would morph into another object. Objects in the scene ranged from abstract like cirlces or squares or seven segment display numbers to actual everday objects like an oscillating fan, or a light bulb. After watching them for awhile, I'd lose awareness and find myself in a DILD.



Cool, glad you liked it!  It sounds like it's been quite some time since you've experienced this kind of HI but I wonder whether you could get this experience back.  This is just the sort of thing we were talking about.  If you ever perform a WBTB, you may find the hypnagogic imagery of your youth returning to you!





> Really good podcast. I am a very big fan of waking through intention, I feel like if you can't wake up when you want to, through intention, then you won't be able to LD through auto suggestion either. 
> 
> A lot of times if I don't feel like getting up for a WBTB, I will imagine something that gets my heart pumping a bit (sports or something). Then I stop and go back to my mantra and visuals.



Thanks, Boss!   :smiley:   Yeah, I bet you are all over this method of WBTB.  Yours is the name that first comes to mind for me when I think about using intent to do all things LD.  Also, cool idea getting the blood pumping a little (but not too much, of course  ::D: ) to keep yourself from just rolling over and abandoning your WBTB.





> Canis, you sound really freaking familiar, is there any reason that I should know you?



Heh, that's interesting... do you perhaps remember me from the first episode?   ::D:   Other than that, I can't think of anyplace else my voice is really out there on the internet.  Let me know if you think of where this feeling might have been from though!  Maybe check with your subconscious on your next LD!   ::goodjob2::

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## Sensei

Glad to hear it! I don't mind being known for that. I think that it is something that more emphasis should be put on. Yeah, it takes less time to WBTB, thus more time dreaming.  :smiley: 

I listened to this episode first. Can't quite place the voice. I thought that it sounded like Rhett (from RhettandLink) since he is an LDer, but when I re-listened to his voice I realized that it wasn't even really similar. I'll let you know if I find out. Keep posting these podcasts! They are awesome.  :smiley:  You can get a lot covered in an hour of talking.

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## OpheliaBlue

> I listened to this episode first. Can't quite place the voice. I thought that it sounded like Rhett (from RhettandLink) since he is an LDer, but when I re-listened to his voice I realized that it wasn't even really similar. I'll let you know if I find out. Keep posting these podcasts! They are awesome.  You can get a lot covered in an hour of talking.



That's awesome that you said that! Because I love their style and was hoping to have a similar feel in our podcasts. We need more games or something though, huh. Oh and some intro music CL!  ::happy::

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## poprockdreamboy

> Cool, glad you liked it!  It sounds like it's been quite some time since you've experienced this kind of HI but I wonder whether you could get this experience back.  This is just the sort of thing we were talking about.  If you ever perform a WBTB, you may find the hypnagogic imagery of your youth returning to you!



I've been trying to get it back since my teen years. Of course, even when I was a kid, it didn't happen every night. At first, I thought it was due to a full moon, because the night that it happened, there was a full moon outside. I should also point out that the room needed to be nearly pitch-black dark. I'll have to try getting back on a regular sleep schedule so I can do WBTBs again.

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## CanisLucidus

> I listened to this episode first. Can't quite place the voice. I thought that it sounded like Rhett (from RhettandLink) since he is an LDer, but when I re-listened to his voice I realized that it wasn't even really similar. I'll let you know if I find out. Keep posting these podcasts! They are awesome.  You can get a lot covered in an hour of talking.



That's hilarious!  Ophelia told me the exact same thing (that I sound a little bit like Rhett.)  I hadn't heard of them before she mentioned that, so I then wound up wasting tons of time listening to all of the hilarious stuff they've got on youtube.   :smiley:   And I really appreciate the compliments on the podcast.  It's great to hear that you like them and that the material is enjoyable even for advanced LDers.





> Oh and some intro music CL!



Oh right, intro music!  You can sing, so I'm expecting great things from you!  Or if you prefer, I could record myself singing the high part from Aerosmith's "Dream On".   ::lol:: 





> I've been trying to get it back since my teen years. Of course, even when I was a kid, it didn't happen every night. At first, I thought it was due to a full moon, because the night that it happened, there was a full moon outside. I should also point out that the room needed to be nearly pitch-black dark. I'll have to try getting back on a regular sleep schedule so I can do WBTBs again.



Good luck!  I hope you see that HI again.  You may want to consider experimenting with a sleep mask, too.  That gets it _really_ dark.

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## EmptyBucket

Really enjoy these, great job guys  :smiley: 

Also a point about Pee Back To Bed, When you finally go to the bathroom you will feel very relaxed and may fall asleep easier, and half a liter seems to work good for me  :wink2:

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## poprockdreamboy

I've got a question regarding hostile dream environments. In the podcast, y'all talked about hostile dream characters. Well, what about negative situations in dreams? Personal examples include electronics not working properly such as trying to turn my keyboard off, and the buttons not doing what they should do, not being able to move and my mom is calling me to come do something, getting stuck in a dream environment that resembles a bathroom with very dim fluorescent light, having clothes througout most of the dream, then at some point looking down and realizing that I'm naked. Other common examples include falling, getting lost, being late for an important event, failing a test or project. How do you deal with those hostile situations in a dream?

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## OpheliaBlue

Ahh, "device/gadget failure" This is actually a really good dream sign. Common things that refuse to work properly in dreams: electronics (specifically phones and computers), legs, getting to work or class or chores on time, or just getting up on time, speaking of time CLOCKS, being improperly (or not at all) dressed, even potty failures of all design, being lost/losing someone, teeth falling out or other body injuries, injured animals or children that can't be helped.. the list goes on.

I personally call them "stress dreams." Hopefully if the stress is dramatic or bizarre enough, we'll question it in the dream and get lucid!

Really good podcast idea, plus it can tie into nightmares a bit.

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## CanisLucidus

> Really enjoy these, great job guys 
> 
> Also a point about Pee Back To Bed, When you finally go to the bathroom you will feel very relaxed and may fall asleep easier, and half a liter seems to work good for me



Thanks, EmptyBucket, it's great to hear that you're enjoying them!  Thanks for letting us know you're having fun with them.  And definitely agree on the relief angle.   ::D: 





> I've got a question regarding hostile dream environments. In the podcast, y'all talked about hostile dream characters. Well, what about negative situations in dreams? Personal examples include electronics not working properly such as trying to turn my keyboard off, and the buttons not doing what they should do, not being able to move and my mom is calling me to come do something, getting stuck in a dream environment that resembles a bathroom with very dim fluorescent light, having clothes througout most of the dream, then at some point looking down and realizing that I'm naked. Other common examples include falling, getting lost, being late for an important event, failing a test or project. How do you deal with those hostile situations in a dream?



I agree with Ophelia -- good podcast idea!  She's exactly right that as unpleasant as these situations are, they make for great dreamsigns.

If you can learn to view your waking life stresses with a critical, questioning eye (Why do I feel so emotional about this?  Does this really make any sense?), this is a habit that should gradually carry over to your dreams.  A waking life benefit of this is a certain sense of detachment from surges of emotion.  It's like a form of waking meditation.  You learn to view these situations as what they are, almost as an outsider rather than just getting swept up and carried along by the currents.  Dream Yoga focuses on this a great deal.

Thanks for the question!

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## NyxCC

All right! I had to listen to this in small portions during the day and not pre bed just to be on the safe side, but I am equally motivated. Some great advice here and it's a pleasure to listen to you talk about lding. :smiley: 

Here are some of the ideas from the podcast I am interested in implementing: 
- sleeping in from the other side 
- dream incubation and visualization (this was also inspired by some recent conversations with NewArtemis)
- I have also been motivated to experiment with straight to bed lding as I had a few successful instances for this as well, so I can combine the above two to play with it whenever's possible. I know success rates are low, but can't hurt to spend 10 mins relaxing and watching dreamlets pre bed.

Also, I love CL's approach to solving dream problems by total denial, which is something that we often have to repeat to ourselves. "Everything is fine, this dream is going in the right direction".

By the way, CL talks about how good he was when dealing with problematic DCs but in recent dreams it has been a bit more challenging. Something similar happened to me during the previous month. I was under quite a lot of stress in July, plus all kinds of distractions and my lds and actions weren't at their best. 

First I noticed an increase in non-ld type of nightmares, like I would get more chases than previous months, DCs were more aggressive, etc. When I became lucid, the momentum of the dream would be so strong that I would sometimes cancel the whole LD or phase into the void to a non-ld, instead of calming down (I classified those as micro-lds). After some analysis, I think that my increased level of emotions during that time plus decreased awareness and ADA practices may have spilled over to my dreams and affected the mood there as well. I try to be more detached now and for the moment my dream control is improving. Anyone else noticed a similar correlation? :Thinking:

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## CanisLucidus

> All right! I had to listen to this in small portions during the day and not pre bed just to be on the safe side, but I am equally motivated. Some great advice here and it's a pleasure to listen to you talk about lding.



Thanks, Nyx, I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed it!  It's exciting to see just how many ideas you're going to be putting into practice.  I think that for the sleep-deprived, "sleeping in from the other side" a la Paigeyemps is going to work really well.  I think that I can go to bed at pretty much any time so long as I can get my room dark.  Embarrassingly, I even nodded off for a second when we were lying in my son's bed for story time last night.   ::chuckle:: 





> - dream incubation and visualization (this was also inspired by some recent conversations with NewArtemis)



You know what?  I tried NewArtemis' visualization tech last night, too, after reading how good your results were with it.  It kicks ass!  Easy, easy transition back to sleep even after WBTB.  I didn't manage to actually incubate the scene I imagined but I fell asleep so easily after a "wide awake" WBTB and did tons of dreaming.  I need to swap stories with you two on this!





> Also, I love CL's approach to solving dream problems by total denial, which is something that we often have to repeat to ourselves. "Everything is fine, this dream is going in the right direction".



Great, I'm glad that has been working for you!  That self-denial and present tense thinking has always worked for me if I can just remember to do it!  More often than not, this part ends up being the real trick.





> By the way, CL talks about how good he was when dealing with problematic DCs but in recent dreams it has been a bit more challenging. Something similar happened to me during the previous month. I was under quite a lot of stress in July, plus all kinds of distractions and my lds and actions weren't at their best. 
> 
> First I noticed an increase in non-ld type of nightmares, like I would get more chases than previous months, DCs were more aggressive, etc. When I became lucid, the momentum of the dream would be so strong that I would sometimes cancel the whole LD or phase into the void to a non-ld, instead of calming down (I classified those as micro-lds). After some analysis, I think that my increased level of emotions during that time plus decreased awareness and ADA practices may have spilled over to my dreams and affected the mood there as well. I try to be more detached now and for the moment my dream control is improving. Anyone else noticed a similar correlation?



Great analysis.  You know, I think that you've broken down my problem perfectly.  When I've got more waking life stresses going on, it's harder for me to bring the proper sense of calmness into the dream.  Not only does it make me less patient with DCs but it also makes the appearance of hostile DCs more likely.  During the when I was treating hostile DCs the worst, I was suffering a much higher than average level of waking life stresses.  Nothing that's really all that bad, but more just that feeling of being a little overwhelmed.  It really bleeds over into the dream.

Excellent thoughts as always from you, Nyx, thanks!

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## NyxCC

Well, thanks for making these awesome podcasts! 





> You know what? I tried NewArtemis' visualization tech last night, too, after reading how good your results were with it. It kicks ass! Easy, easy transition back to sleep even after WBTB. I didn't manage to actually incubate the scene I imagined but I fell asleep so easily after a "wide awake" WBTB and did tons of dreaming. I need to swap stories with you two on this!



It's amazing isn't it? I have to confess that I have enjoyed the visualization so much, I even stole some time from my daily meditation to visualize. When I felt like falling asleep I just opened my eyes, did a few more mins of gazing meditation, then stood up. Really nice! I think it's totally worth doing and am looking forward to hearing more of your experiences with it. 





> Great analysis. You know, I think that you've broken down my problem perfectly. When I've got more waking life stresses going on, it's harder for me to bring the proper sense of calmness into the dream. Not only does it make me less patient with DCs but it also makes the appearance of hostile DCs more likely. During the when I was treating hostile DCs the worst, I was suffering a much higher than average level of waking life stresses. Nothing that's really all that bad, but more just that feeling of being a little overwhelmed. It really bleeds over into the dream.



I am very happy to hear that my explanation makes sense. By the way, I think that the brain and also the dream can't tell the difference between when you are emotional about minor issues and when emotional about the end of the world, those chemicals can start circulating in your system on both occasions. (And we all know how irritating minor issues can get too!) Now that we are more or less clear about how this thing works, it is time to take our power back and turn it into awesome dreams. _We are calm and relaxed and have good dream control!_  :smiley:

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## CanisLucidus

> Well, thanks for making these awesome podcasts! 
> 
> It's amazing isn't it? I have to confess that I have enjoyed the visualization so much, I even stole some time from my daily meditation to visualize. When I felt like falling asleep I just opened my eyes, did a few more mins of gazing meditation, then stood up. Really nice! I think it's totally worth doing and am looking forward to hearing more of your experiences with it.



Aww, thanks!   ::content::   Yeah, I'm looking forward to getting better and better at using this skill.  I'm still trying to get used to just using it as a transition back to sleep, and once I've got that down I'm really interested to see how incorporating mantras and advanced, more specific visualization might work.

I love that you are incorporating this into daytimes practices too.  I'm looking forward to hearing more war stories from you guys on this!





> I am very happy to hear that my explanation makes sense. By the way, I think that the brain and also the dream can't tell the difference between when you are emotional about minor issues and when emotional about the end of the world, those chemicals can start circulating in your system on both occasions. (And we all know how irritating minor issues can get too!) Now that we are more or less clear about how this thing works, it is time to take our power back and turn it into awesome dreams. _We are calm and relaxed and have good dream control!_



Yes, exactly!  In waking life, too, minor issues can ferment in our minds to the point where they _seem_ like the end of the world.  It's that same process that unfolds when dreams spiral out of our control, just way more concretely and with better special effects.   :smiley: 

_We are calm and relaxed and have good dream control!_

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## CanisLucidus

I've just posted episode 3 of the Q&A podcast!  You can find it here: http://www.dreamviews.com/dreamviews...-mistakes.html.

We've got questions about time dilation, dream stabilization, common lucid dreaming mistakes, and finally we learn just how well OpheliaBlue can sing the little wow-wow-wow-weeeow beginning part from _Let's Get It On_.

Check it out when you get the chance!

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## gab

Yes, I swear by pee water.  ::D:  I drink just about 4-5 gulps of water before bed, and then every time it wakes me up to go potty. I use it to record my dreams. I think, it wakes us up at the time we already wake up naturally, which is between sleep cycles, right after last REM of the cycle. 

Great time to record a dream that just ended, and also great method to wake yourself up naturally.

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## CanisLucidus

> Yes, I swear by pee water.



I thought that just needed to be quoted.   ::chuckle:: 





> I drink just about 4-5 gulps of water before bed, and then every time it wakes me up to go potty. I use it to record my dreams. I think, it wakes us up at the time we already wake up naturally, which is between sleep cycles, right after last REM of the cycle. 
> 
> Great time to record a dream that just ended, and also great method to wake yourself up naturally.



I agree, that's a good way of putting it.  It's really like it just "nudges" you toward waking up without the intrusiveness of an alarm.

I also tend to agree with you that it's more likely to lead to well-timed awakenings that coincide with your natural sleep cycle (vs what an alarm would do), but I don't really have any evidence for that.

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