Thread: General Dream rule

A little bit of your meaning is lost in translation. What exactly is the dream rule that you want discussed? Are you saying that the dream rule is that you can't stray from the goal of the dream?

The dream rule is always different, theres stuff you can do and stuff you can't do. Every time I gain control of what I do in the dream I almost always become aware of what the rule is, and if I don't have control I still kind of know what this rule is, because sometimes theres other people in the dream going against it, being a menace to the dream. So the rule I want to discuss in the General dream rule, the rule for all dreams, being hypothetical here but if the dream rule is to get as far of from your goal as possible that is what you should try and do, otherwise the dream punishes you. I never had this rule yet tough. The most standard rule is don't stray of from your goal to much, but sometimes it can be smaller things, like if you try and fly and you are not supposed to, and if you do you kind of either feel yourself waking up because you're not supposed to or everyone in the dream becomes really annoying to you for doing it. Sometimes your ''powers'' have no limitation, but the simplest thing can be the dream rule and punishing you, like you are not supposed to meet this person.

I think I understand what you mean. I've experienced a similar thing, though I've never really thought about it in this way before. My dreams also try to prevent me from doing certain things sometimes - but to me, it doesn't usually seem like punishment so much as prevention and warning. It's almost as if something in the dream is threatened (whether it's of the dreamer straying off some path, or becoming lucid and completely ignoring the current dream) and, to prevent those things from happening, comes up with its own threats. When I first started consciously trying to lucid dream, dream characters would often change somehow and attack me as soon as I gave some sign of knowing that I was dreaming. Or I'd wake up, or immediately afterwards have a false awakening which would sometimes trick me into thinking I was dreaming again and being under the dream's control, reabsorbing me in a sense. Just last night I dreamed that I became lucid in the middle of a nightmare while the characters were doing something I couldn't fully see and the dream faded. I had a false awakening, but I became immediately lucid again, only this time it was completely dark and I couldn't move properly or turn or will the lights on, and something came out of the darkness and pinned me to the bed, preventing me from moving. I'm not sure why this was, but I couldn't stop thinking/feeling like the dream wanted to conceal something from me.

I think this is what you're talking about, though I'm not sure, so I'm sorry if I'm wrong I've always thought of it as the dream being threatened or trying to prevent me from doing or discovering something rather than having some particular goal or purpose, so that's an interesting/new way to look at it for me. Unfortunately I've not really read or heard much about this from others, either...

What kind of goals are your dreams trying to accomplish/are you trying to accomplish in your dreams - do you mean particular goals (e.g. finding something or someone or doing a certain task), or more general ones, like making you feel afraid/keeping you from becoming lucid/flying/gaining any control? The dream rule being not to stray off too far from a goal kind of makes sense, but I'm not sure how one could tell what their dream goal was. Or do you just mean getting distracted from the things the dream is trying to show you in general? Do you have any more specific examples of your own?

I've noticed something like this a few times as well; like the dream is trying to conceal something, or to keep the dreamer from becoming too powerful. I have a couple of theories about this, but I feel like it may be a psychological limitation. If you believe there is going to be a rule to keep you from doing something, if you have doubts about your control, if you think doing a particular task will make you wake up, then the dream will likely make it so. This is also why things chasing you in your dreams almost always find you. It's constantly in your mind that your pursuer may catch up to you at any moment, so you can never get away.

It's kind of like the lucid dreaming trick of rubbing your hands together to "stabilize" the dream. There is really NO NEED of doing this other than its placebo effect. You never have to stabilize your non-lucids, after all. But rubbing your hands together indeed makes the dream more clear, because so many people have told us that it works and we believe that it will work. In the same way, if you get the intuition in a dream that there is some kind of dream rule you need to follow, the rule will hold true because of your belief in it. Sadly, it's not very easy to just *stop* believing in something.

I think that maybe the way to overcome this is to believe in something that overshadows the original belief. This could be any number of things, like a magical amulet that protects you from any "rules" the dream creates. As long as you actually believe it will work, it should short-circuit the rule.

Originally Posted by vasiona

What kind of goals are your dreams trying to accomplish/are you trying to accomplish in your dreams - do you mean particular goals (e.g. finding something or someone or doing a certain task), or more general ones, like making you feel afraid/keeping you from becoming lucid/flying/gaining any control? The dream rule being not to stray off too far from a goal kind of makes sense, but I'm not sure how one could tell what their dream goal was. Or do you just mean getting distracted from the things the dream is trying to show you in general? Do you have any more specific examples of your own?

Yes, it's kind of like a warning at first, it will never throw you out immediately, you feel drifting out of your dream and if you just stop doing it, your dream become as stable as it was before, or just a bit more unstable. Also funny thing, I have been pinned in my bed as well with strings completely unable to move and another time I had a feeling something sat on me, pretty unpleasant feeling.

Mostly the dream rule is always don't stray out of your goal, and it's mostly a general one like if your chore in your dream is go to school, just go to school and there you can do whatever you want, but if I have a very particular quest, I just sometimes simply need to do it. The rule is nothing written or isn't always clear, but you kind of have a 6th sense most of the time of what the rule/rules is.
Also I have had dreams with unlimited power, once I realized that I was dreaming and I began to fly, very fast, then I decided that I didn't like Denmark, so I blew the whole country up, and made a bigger explosion that you could ever imagine, but it still didn't wake me up. Sometimes there is just things that you are not meant to see in your dream, or if you gain control, you cannot just simply create whatever you want and completely change the topic of the dream.

Originally Posted by LolaTheLoner

I think that maybe the way to overcome this is to believe in something that overshadows the original belief. This could be any number of things, like a magical amulet that protects you from any "rules" the dream creates. As long as you actually believe it will work, it should short-circuit the rule.

Most probably it is my beliefs, but I have had experiences with the dream rule as far as I can imagine and the rule is very strong, at least for me, if I made a amulet that could protect me from any rules, then I could probably imagine that the dream would like to take it away from me. I also find ways to use the rule for my advantage.
I had a nightmare when I was young, it was about a witch and her two hell hounds and she kidnapped dolphins, and the part I remember very strong was that she was outside my front door trying to get to me, the hell hounds made off a very scary sound and aura that made me feel terror, and I could not close the balcony door at the back, making the sound and aura come in from there, tough she didn't know this door was open, yet. So then I gained control of the dream, and I immediately knew that any door I could open could be a potential exit from the dream, so I told everyone inside to open all doors, no doors worked, but I knew there was one. So at last I took up a match box from my pocket, and opening that was *kind* of like a door, and it was the exit from the dream.

Lately I don't have much problem with my dream rule as I'm kind of aware of what it is and I also have less limitations from my power, but changing the dreams topic or try and change a old dream too much is mostly a big nono. Tough with Lucid Dreams I kind of have bit more problem with the rules again, and that is why I made this thread. It mostly have to do with flying, and as someone said at another forum, if you open a window and jump out of it you can fly! Doesn't work for me. But I have been able to fly unintentionally or from just standing on the ground having the instinct to fly and then actually able to fly, rather than just wanting it.

Interesting. sometimes, I have dreams that have certain weird rules that are only in that dream.

Originally Posted by WakingNomad

Interesting. sometimes, I have dreams that have certain weird rules that are only in that dream.

These are the exact rules I'm talking about.

Originally Posted by Lancell

Most probably it is my beliefs, but I have had experiences with the dream rule as far as I can imagine and the rule is very strong, at least for me, if I made a amulet that could protect me from any rules, then I could probably imagine that the dream would like to take it away from me.

Hmm, I see what you mean. I know how strong suggestions given by the dream can be, though I'm not sure of a better way to overcome such things other than practicing what I've already suggested. Perhaps working with it while you're awake could help as well. Positive affirmations or mantras have a history of success when it comes to lucid dreaming. Using typical dream control mantras while visualizing yourself doing things that the dream normally won't let you do could help solve the problem.

Originally Posted by Lancell

These are the exact rules I'm talking about.

I had a dream about 15 years ago where I had to do certain movements to fly in certain directions. When I awoke, I thought the rules for flying were always going to be like that in dreams, but it was just for that dream, like that dream had its own physics, different from other dreams.

A thing I left out from my original post is that I also had dreams (sometimes with waking awareness and often not) is that I even had dreams discussing the rules with others in the dream, or everyone is simply aware of what things you can do or not if you don't want bad things to happen.

Also I'm going to write about a weird phenomenon I had when I was a teen that have a lot to do with the rules, that is kind of what I do now with Sleep Paralysis and my WILDs. It all began with me staying home from school just not in the mood of going to school, so I called in sick. I had been sleeping all night but I was still tired, and then I decided to sleep on the sofa. So this is kind of the first time I woke up with this kind of feeling and Sleep Paralysis, the kind of feeling I'm talking about is hard to describe, but you head is kind of pounding and your body feels kinda numb. So I don't know why, but I thought of dreaming something, and the exact thing I wanted to dream was happening, and it was about the girl I loved and me being in my room. The dream by the way wasn't like a Lucid Dream, it felt more clearer, but it was still 3rd person and it didn't feel like that perfect hallucination like a Lucid Dream always does. So anyway in this I thought of flying too, why I don't know but since I had control I guess it was something I wanted to do then. And I did fly but the dream immediately threw me out into the paralysis again. So now I understood that I could dream whatever I wanted, so I thought of the exact same dream, and I realized the dreams I had was really unforgiving what I was doing, I really had to act exactly like I was like if I was awake and had to stay on topic at all times, or else it threw me out into the paralysis. So well all dreams I decided to dream was all about girls, and I had 9 of them until I woke up normally. All was mostly the same thing, me being nice to the girls because I tried controlling them being more ''into me'' but the dreams threw me out of doing something I could not do in real life, so it just kind of went on of me talking to the girls as I would have in real life.
This is the only time I experienced this, now with my lucid dreaming and WILDs it's a little similar, but now its basically me realizing something in the dream, or I get a hold of a certain feeling, or simply waking up to the paralysis and in the paralysis I always have to get deeper into it (to get deeper I repeat the same word as fast as I can in my head, the word 'ball' works best), then as I get deeper into it hear hallucinations always appear and risks of phantom pain increases, then it's always random if I get into a Lucid Dream or not and the Lucid Dream is also always completely random.

Originally Posted by LolaTheLoner

Hmm, I see what you mean. I know how strong suggestions given by the dream can be, though I'm not sure of a better way to overcome such things other than practicing what I've already suggested. Perhaps working with it while you're awake could help as well. Positive affirmations or mantras have a history of success when it comes to lucid dreaming. Using typical dream control mantras while visualizing yourself doing things that the dream normally won't let you do could help solve the problem.

I read up on flying in the link that dream control provided, and I will test the tip it gave me (gravity is always lighter) it next time I have full control of my body in a dream. I will also try and use mantras too as suggested.

Originally Posted by WakingNomad

I had a dream about 15 years ago where I had to do certain movements to fly in certain directions. When I awoke, I thought the rules for flying were always going to be like that in dreams, but it was just for that dream, like that dream had its own physics, different from other dreams.

This is exactly what I'm talking about, if the rules was always the same it would not have been a problem for me, it's always since the rules are different that makes it harder.