Uncertain about the level of detail of my dreams

I had a LD this moning; I was using the kitchen sink to rinse my mouth when I noticed the details nearby. I swear I thought I couldn't differentiate the surroundings (of the sink) from real life. I went out of the front door to have a look at the neighborhood but it was a bit blurry. At that point the dreamscape faded and I woke up.

I don't know if this uncertainty is due to dream recall, since the dream is the third of a series I remember (albeit not in full detail, the first was a bit lengthy) and the last two of them were lucid. Did you experienced dreamers who now have real-life-like-dreams faced the same doubts when having your first quality lucids?

Are you doing a reality check?

Your mental state is the best indicator. The scenery can look detailed and convincing, but to be fully functional while dreaming, without waking yourself up, is like trying to bend your pinky finger without moving your ring finger (without using your other hand or w/e), lol.

01/09 I fail to RC because it seems so real.
0?/09 I realize I'm dreaming.
06/09 I realize I'm dreaming.

Unfortunately I'm not disciplined enough to stick to RCs. I'm still trying to pinpoint the cause of this change; I rarely have spontaneous LDs. On the funny side, during the second dream I was doing pull ups, counting out loud to stabilize the dream. My biceps felt sore, but not upon waking (which happened minutes later). I'll add that more I observe RL, the more I think the experience wasn't that great.

Hey there,

I've found that ironically, the easiest time to have lucid dreams is also when you're closest to awakening, something so close that your sleep (and consequently also your dreams) are really shallow. It's possible your spontanious lucid dreams might have been in a similar 'right at the edge of waking' state.

The easiest way to get more detail in your dreams though, is to take a moment to 'ground' yourself in the dream when you realise you're dreaming. Look around, take in the details you can see, listen to the sounds, touch some things and feel them. For me, by shifting my attention to the dream like that, it will usually pull me deeper into sleeping/dreaming again, and the dream will become more stabilized and more detailed.

Just my 2 cents,

-Redrivertears-

This is a very interesting feeling, isn't it?

A few days ago I constantly said to myself "ok, when I lucid dream, I'll focus hard on my hands, take in every little detail." After a few nights I had a lucid, and I remembered to really focus on the details. I grabbed a nearby dude's face and looked at it intensely, and while I did it I was thinking to myself "this is amazing, it's like I'm awake, don't forget how clear it is." When I woke up I didn't feel like it was clear, but I strictly remember thinking and saying to myself over and over again that it was very very real, so I decided to trust myself.

I think we expect too much from lucid dream memories. For instance, when you remember or think about something that you saw in awaking life there is always a little fuzziness to the image, but in this case, you don't really expect or demand to remember every little crease on someone's skin. I feel we think of dreams that way because we are still so insecure about the subject (the more inexperienced people like me at least). We feel the need to really hammer down that we had a lucid dream and how it felt and looked, and it becomes frustrating when we can't. Of course this is all speculation, but if it has a bit of truth in it, it might mean you should expect not to remember everything you dream, if you also don't remember everything in a waking memory. Do this: think about an event that happened in awaking life and one that happened in a dream. Compare the level of visual detail you remember from one and the other. Of course, you'll remember the girl's beautiful blue eyes (and visualizing them in your head is a whole different story), but you probably wont remember every little eyelash. I get frustrated myself with this, but I'm starting to feel more and more that maybe we're overreacting.

I feel that memory is a big part of it. Practice dream recalling, but instead of only thinking about detailed events involving vague shapes and objects, think about those objects hard. Focus on them, how they felt, behaved or looked. Hell, maybe even make simple drawings. I've never done this myself (at least not yet), but I don't think it is that big of a leap to think this would help a lot. Also, do visualization exercises.

Hope this helped a bit.

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Originally Posted by Redrivertears

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Thank you for your suggestions!

01/09 Night.
03/09 Morning nap.
06/09 Morning.

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Originally Posted by RaveCrazedDave

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You nailed it! It's exactly how it feels. What I'm doing now is learning to draw. I plan on drawing pictures after having seen them for a definite number of seconds. This will give me for sure a better visual memory.

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Originally Posted by RaveCrazedDave

I think we expect too much from lucid dream memories. For instance, when you remember or think about something that you saw in awaking life there is always a little fuzziness to the image, but in this case, you don't really expect or demand to remember every little crease on someone's skin.

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That's a good point. I think this has also been said about dream recall, i.e. that you have to have good dream recall to remember your LDs, but I think that has to be put into perspective.

In real life, look at a complex scene. It's got all the detail and you can scan around and take in all that detail. But now close your eyes and try to conjure up that detail as a memeory. The result isa huge drop in the perceived detail. This is just what rememebering a dream is like (dreaming is like RL!).

In the vivid LDs I've had the detail has been spectacular, just like RL, but I don't expect to remeber it to any better degree than I would a RL scene.
The big difference for me is that most of my vivid LDs have been really easy to remember as a narrative, but partly because most have been short!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RaveCrazedDave

This is a very interesting feeling, isn't it?

A few days ago I constantly said to myself "ok, when I lucid dream, I'll focus hard on my hands, take in every little detail." After a few nights I had a lucid, and I remembered to really focus on the details. I grabbed a nearby dude's face and looked at it intensely, and while I did it I was thinking to myself "this is amazing, it's like I'm awake, don't forget how clear it is." When I woke up I didn't feel like it was clear, but I strictly remember thinking and saying to myself over and over again that it was very very real, so I decided to trust myself.

I think we expect too much from lucid dream memories. For instance, when you remember or think about something that you saw in awaking life there is always a little fuzziness to the image, but in this case, you don't really expect or demand to remember every little crease on someone's skin. I feel we think of dreams that way because we are still so insecure about the subject (the more inexperienced people like me at least). We feel the need to really hammer down that we had a lucid dream and how it felt and looked, and it becomes frustrating when we can't. Of course this is all speculation, but if it has a bit of truth in it, it might mean you should expect not to remember everything you dream, if you also don't remember everything in a waking memory. Do this: think about an event that happened in awaking life and one that happened in a dream. Compare the level of visual detail you remember from one and the other. Of course, you'll remember the girl's beautiful blue eyes (and visualizing them in your head is a whole different story), but you probably wont remember every little eyelash. I get frustrated myself with this, but I'm starting to feel more and more that maybe we're overreacting.

I feel that memory is a big part of it. Practice dream recalling, but instead of only thinking about detailed events involving vague shapes and objects, think about those objects hard. Focus on them, how they felt, behaved or looked. Hell, maybe even make simple drawings. I've never done this myself (at least not yet), but I don't think it is that big of a leap to think this would help a lot. Also, do visualization exercises.

Hope this helped a bit.

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You nailed it man! Exactly my thinking. I absolutely remember me thinking in different LDs "omg so amazing this is absolutely real, don't forget just how insanely real this feels/looks!" or even "this is even more detailed than IWL"... and now I can still remember the dream, the scene etc, but my memory of it is more foggy. Just like waking life memories... :)