Thread: Changing Scenery & The Difficulty of Dream Control

Mind you, most of the reasoning for this post was done within the dream, so I'm not sure how logical it is, but...

I realized this in a recent LD while practicing walking through barriers: Familiar or fully visualized surroundings make lucid-dream tasks easier.

Fact one: Before you see it, dream imagery has to be generated by your brain.

Fact two: Walking through a wall involves creating a whole new scene in front of you.

It is easier to walk through a wall (or ceiling, or whatever barrier) if you know what's on the other side.

I've had problems with walking through walls lately; and in a rather nice long LD I had today, I realized this fact (I figured it out during the dream, mind you; I must've been thinking quite clearly) and visualized what would be on the other side of the barrier (in my case, a ceiling) by looking through the cracks between the planks of wood wood that made it up. I flew through the ceiling and into a top floor, then through the attic, into the roof, and out of the house. I tried it again with a wall, but simply ended up creating a door and pushing it open. Whoops.

So I decided to apply this idea to flying...
Flying is similar; your brain has to create a panoramic view that you're not used to seeing--beneath you, a place where you're only used ot seeing floor. Same LD, I tried flying; and the landscape was dark and ill-defined (though I was quite well-controlled, an oddity these days). I wondered whether it was because my room, in which I was sleeping, was dark; and then I thought it might be because I had not seen this scenery before (i.e., my brain was doing a shoddy job of generating it because it wasn't used to doing this sort of work.)

(I also felt wind rushing past; and wondered whether that might not be the fan I had on in my room; but as it turns out the fan was facing away from me while I slept; so the sensation was purely a part of the dream, though perhaps I had heard the sound of a fan.)

I tried flying in my room, and I remember thinking the familiar surroundings, which were bright, detailed, and well-lit, apparently helped me to fly more easily; and I bounced from wall to wall very quickly, with a speed I had not been able to acheive outside. Oh, by the way, I saw myself sleeping in the bed, like you do in an OBE. Pretty weird, seeing yourself from the outside like that.

A recap:
--Dreaming that you are in familiar surroundings (or teleporting yourself to them) makes many dream tasks easier, since your brain can just pull on memories and not worry about generating new scenery.
--Imagined landscapes, if they are detailed enough, might actually be as good as real, remembered ones. I've been out in the solar system three times since November's task now; and I don't think I could have managed it at all (I'm a really poor flyer normally) if I didn't use the solar system and its planets as a visualization exercise for when I can't sleep and need to relax!
--Passing barriers is easier if you expect a certain thing to be on the other side. It helps to look through cracks, windows, et cetera.

Oh! And I shapeshifted for the first time during that dream, too. I turned myself into a bird in order to fly better. I could actually feel my body changing... it was kind of weird. Cool, too, though. Now I'll be able to describe to the other players in my D&D game what it feels like to wildshape!

Sorry about the scattered nature of this post. I just woke up

Oh, by the way, in the non-lucid part of the dream, before I realized I was dreaming, I got these concepts and was told they were a riddle, to find the connection... "Bordeaux, Girardeau, many tiny, strong things on a team, inside a bottle." Any idea what the connection is? If there is one?

Originally posted by Callista

Oh, by the way, in the non-lucid part of the dream, before I realized I was dreaming, I got these concepts and was told they were a riddle, to find the connection... \"Bordeaux, Girardeau, many tiny, strong things on a team, inside a bottle.\" Any idea what the connection is? If there is one?

Bordeaux means both a kind of Wine and it specifies a certain very good Wine Country in France, and then, oddly enough Girardeau is referring to a small bilingual community in the American State of Missouri, where there are also some vinyards, as well as a very reputable furniture manufacturer. But I think we are talking about Wine. The many tiny small strong things involved with Wine refer to the fermentation process -- the conversion of the grape sugars into alcholol. I looked it up, and yes they do use what they call "active live dry wine yeast" in order to start the fermentation process in wine. One disgraceful site I searched up actually tosses Fructose into the wine vat to kick up the alcohol content, but the Asian Wineries have no sense for the integrity involved in the makings of the finest wines, but the cheap wines with a kick have to come from somewhere. Anyway, we could be talking about Wine Making and Yeast.

Hmm, quite possible. I wonder what made me dream about that... I don't drink, y'see, and know nothing about wine! Ah, well; I must've heard about it somewhere.