Thread: How do you know your not just dreaming that your lucid dreaming?

How do you know if your really consciously aware in your dream, or if you were just dreaming that you were consciously aware in your dreams?

Hi Dreamo it's all personal experience - in a lucid dream you are very present and aware as you are in waking life - there's no doubt you are there as aposed to just dreaming - you feel the difference 100%

Also you might be thinking of the ToTM or anything else in waking life, and when waking up from a regular dream, you'd usually say "cool dream" or anything like that but when it was lucid you react way different (I do anyways) and yeah like Patience said, it feels different and you just know it.

The same way you believe you're consciousness now while awake, and not just dreaming you're awake and consciousness.

Does it matter though? When all is said and done that's just 'semantics'. Its the experience that counts. Whether you call it being conscious or dreaming you're conscious doesn't really change it.

Just my 2 cents,

-Redrivertears-

As the others said, you are completely conscious when you LD and can tell that you are present. Imagine doing a reality check right now and finding out that you're dreaming, that's what it is like, you just know.

I've never heared something so descriptive yet, small in text.

Thank you - I have more insight about what it would be like to lucid dream (I'm on my journey)

I'm aware that lucid dreaming is indeed real, it's been proven using an FMRI. I always believed that I had had lucid dreams but this article on Wikipedia really tripped me up. Professor Norman Malcolm describes lucid dreaming as absurd and impossible, recalling as an example, "I dreamt that I realised I was dreaming, dreamt that I was affecting the course of my dream, and then dreamt that I woke myself up by telling myself to wake up." He's a philosopher by the way. Anyway as someone scientifically minded who cares a lot about truth I'd like to hear a counter argument to this.

^^ The trouble is, a counter-argument to that is very difficult to supply -- especially by the scientifically-minded. LD'ing is an almost uniquely subjective experience, and the proof of whether you had one depends upon your own memory, experience, and personal honesty.

Your question in the OP is a bit tougher -- and a bit more important -- to answer than I think the good people on this thread have implied. For a variety of reasons, I for one do not think it is a good idea to subscribe to the notion that if "I think I had a LD then it must have been one." I think that it is very easy to believe that you had a LD when you were perhaps just dreaming about having a LD, and I have a feeling that this happens more often than we might think...LD's, after all, exist entirely in memory (unlike pretty much every other waking-life event we have, which can, say, be recorded or corroberated by others), so all we have to work with is our memory of the event... and memory is a hazy tool at the best of times. So proving to yourself that you had a LD can indeed be difficult to manage -- especially if you were not lucid.

Here's a tip, though: upon waking with the feeling that you were just lucid, take a moment and think about how you remember your LD. Since they are waking-life consciousness events, actual LD's will tend to be recorded like any other waking-life event, and, since LD's tend to be interesting, they'll likely be recorded pretty well. So, if your memory of being lucid is very clear, steady, and you are able to remember your dream as though it was a real thing that just happened, it may have been lucidity. Non-lucid dreams tend to be very difficult to remember in general, because your brain discards dreams as soon as you wake, probably so that your recent dreaming life doesn't interfere with your waking-life. So, if you were dreaming that you were lucid, the memory of it will likely be sketchy and fade quickly. There are of course exceptions to this on both sides (i.e., nightmares can be eventful enough to be remembered, and some people have excellent recall regardless of whether lucid or not), but the quality of your memory might be all you need.

If you are interested, I did a thread on this subject years ago called A treatise on Proof, where I (and others) went on bit more, and probably a bit more clearly, about this subject. For possibly obvious reason it wasn't well received, but I think you might find the conversation there interesting.

^ Thanks for the link! I like the idea of using memory quality as there is definitely a difference between recalling dreams and waking life. Perhaps if I have a " Lucid Dream" I should not write it down and wait to the end of the day and see if the memory fades. Basically don't use a dream journal for LD's until the end of the day.

Originally Posted by Dreamo28

^ Thanks for the link! I like the idea of using memory quality as there is definitely a difference between recalling dreams and waking life. Perhaps if I have a " Lucid Dream" I should not write it down and wait to the end of the day and see if the memory fades. Basically don't use a dream journal for LD's until the end of the day.

Actually dreams that you are aware throughout, feel way more like real waking memory's. And they do stay with you even if you don't write them down (in my experience anyway) I am really lazy when it comes to dream journals, and have never kept a serious dream journal. So if my Lazy ass remembers lucids vividly at the end of the day, without any extra effort I can't see why others wouldn't.

^^ That's not a bad idea -- as long as you're okay with losing the dream should it have been a NLD.

I sort of do the same thing myself, in that I usually write down my LD's when I get around to it -- which can be as much as a day or two later (they tend to be very long, so I have to set aside a good hour or more to record them) -- and am fully confident I'll retain them, but if I have a good NLD I grab my journal right when I wake up, because I know it'll be gone very soon.

"How do you know if your really consciously aware in your dream, or if you were just dreaming that you were consciously aware in your dreams?"

Trust me, once you have some deild's, and wild's where you remember thing's leading up to, before, during the dream, and when it collapses. You will undoubtedly know you were consciously aware. I love chaining together multiple lucid's through deild. You start to get used to certain things, you can sense when the dreams going to end based on consistent quarks, physics, and dream logic, quarks that you would have to separately dream every time in a consistent observable fashion for it to not be real awareness. Things get fuzzy and you remember what worked in the past, and when to get defensive to try to stabilize, or end it to try deild. If I was just dreaming of Consciously being aware, it would be one of many random dream plots with no continuity on rational thought.

I would have to coincidentally dream of not just being aware, but also all the thing's one notices when they are aware. Like how the coolers fade near the end, how mirrors look and feel, how consistent the world feels each time. My feelings on this can probably be better said in a single sentence. Strict consistency and normal dreams goes together like fire and ice. Almost all lucid dreamers have the same experience with awareness. This goes against the very core of a normal dream. The more awareness you have the more consistent, and controllable the experience becomes.

Adding on to the discussion I would like to say that the amount of time you were lucid and its importance can determine whether you recall it or not. For instance I can know I was lucid than lose lucidity and if it was for only a short amount of time it wont last in my memory. The ones that usually stay with me are the ones that I'm lucid for a decent amount of time or the ones I find important. If I find other things happening in my daily life that are more important it easily gets forgotten. If not written down that is.

Ha think I had one the other night, another flying dream even though I haven't been actively practicing for a long time, just been reading the forums here lately. Felt like I was made of helium. Didn't write it down although I remember some dreams where I wasn't aware either so not sure if my idea was really so good after all. Again are false Lucid's possible? This is a question that really needs an answer. Someone needs to study this.

^^ I think the general consensus in the LD'ing community (and on this thread) is that false lucids are indeed possible, and do indeed happen. I doubt a specific study will ever be done, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if dreams about being lucid have turned up in lucidity studies in the past.... they are likely that common; especially among study subjects who are obviously focused on having LD's.

The concept of dreaming that you are lucid -- especially if lucidity is a strongly held goal -- seems fairly clear to me: our unconscious minds tend to gather much of the the substance of dreams from our waking-life thoughts and actions. So, if our waking-life includes lots of thoughts and actions (like RC's) about lucid dreaming, then our unconscious minds might include a dream about lucid dreaming. Regarding those study subjects, here I imagine is a place where false lucids not only appear in studies, but are deemed actual LD's by researchers who are willing/obliged to accept the subjects' reports, even if there might be hints that the dreams weren't lucid (like quickly fading memory of them).

The question, "are false Lucid's possible?" has probably been answered by most, if not all LD'ers, because if we are truly serious about LD'ing, then our unconscious minds will very likely assemble the occasional dream that reflects that interest.... I believe that you are experiencing such a personal proof right now, as evidenced by your posts... I'm just not sure about why, when you seem to have a feeling already that you were not lucid, you still are wondering if false lucids are possible.

Keep in mind that you can dream about flying without having to be lucid, and without having to be dreaming about being lucid. Flying is a cool thing to do during lucidity, but it does not only happen in LD's.

Also, you can certainly remember NLD's clearly on occasion, so it is not a great idea to assume that any dream you can remember easily is a LD. If you know for sure that you were not lucid, then you very likely were not lucid, and are just remembering a special NLD (there is nothing wrong with that, BTW!)... your plan of delaying writing suspected LD's down until later might still be a fine one.

Finally, if you are practicing your fundamentals and building a strong sense of self-awareness during waking-life, eventually false lucids will just become a minor nuisance, and not a burning question.

I think the bottom line here, Dreamo28, is that you might simply need to have more actual LD's to finally learn to recognize false lucids, and appreciate actual LD's; experience should make it easier to differentiate between the two. You will probably still have false lucids (I do!), but upon waking you will more easily be able to remember which ones were true LD's, and which were false -- as long as you allow yourself to do so, of course; because it can be very tempting to call them all LD's, just to feel you're succeeding at the art (this is not a good idea, though, because it can lead you to more dreams about LD's than actual LD's, and you might miss out on the wonders that actual LD'ing provides).

tl;dr: Again, yes, false lucids are certainly possible...even probable. Learning to identify (and live with) them simply takes experience, a good mindset, and a decision to accept that some of your dreams might not have been LD's.

Thanks your right, I definitely need more experience, I have had a fair few lucid's ( ld count is inaccurate) but I certainly cannot have them whenever I want it's mostly luck. One sure-fire way of knowing would be wilding which I would love to be able to master. Never been able to do it haha, damn it's hard at least for me but I know I should probably get good at the easier stuff first. I just don't like the idea of thinking I've had a ld and it being false is all, as I'm quite opposed to wishful thinking, a cognitive bias that a lot of people seem to exhibit.