Thread: Losing The Edge?

I've noticed a weird thing about my lucid dreaming.
When I just started there was a distinct borderline between dreaming and waking states. I experienced WILDs and had very defined FAs. Sometimes the FAs would involve voices of my family (damn realistic) urging me to wake up (all fake). That was ~2.5 years ago

Then I was able to wake myself up from both normal and lucid dreams at will. ~2.25 years ago

Then my WILDs changed - there's no more transition phase, I can slip in LDs from awake state but it's soft, there's no hallucinations whatsoever. ~2 years ago

And finally my FAs changed - I experience "softer" false awakenings. Before there was a very sharp snap from dreaming to false awakening - I would get up from the bed, take my DJ and write down my dreams (as real as RL). Now it is a lot softer and not real at all - more like a feeble dream where I see myself writing down my dreams (very dreamish)....~1 year ago


Anyone experienced something similar?

Yep,

It's my theory that it has to do with the continued integration of both your waking and dreaming minds. Wouldn't it be nice to get to the state sometime when you could effortlessly change from one state to another?

Of course, along with that, you would also need a very hightened sense of reality so that you didn't do something dumb like trying to fly while awake

Question: How can you wake yourself up from non-lucid dreams at will if you don't even know that you're asleep at the time?

Originally Posted by DuB

Question: How can you wake yourself up from non-lucid dreams at will if you don't even know that you're asleep at the time?
[/b]

Well, I remember always instinctivly looking for a place to jump from to end a dream that was unpleasant as a child. Of course during those times I knew on some level it was a dream, but I believe there were also times when I just would go jump of something to end the experience, but I had trained myself to do so even though I might have not really known that it was a dream exactly. Perhaps this is what is being refered to.

Originally Posted by DuB

Question: How can you wake yourself up from non-lucid dreams at will if you don't even know that you're asleep at the time?
[/b]

Well, I remember always instinctivly looking for a place to jump from to end a dream that was unpleasant as a child. Of course during those times I knew on some level it was a dream, but I believe there were also times when I just would go jump of something to end the experience, but I had trained myself to do so even though I might have not really known that it was a dream exactly. Perhaps this is what is being refered to.

Originally Posted by Ev

Sometimes the FAs would involve voices of my family (damn realistic) urging me to wake up (all fake). [/b]

Is that like your lying in bed and it feels like the person is right behind you shouting in your ear? I usually get that but they shout my name out and not tell me to wake up.

Originally Posted by DuB

Question: How can you wake yourself up from non-lucid dreams at will if you don't even know that you're asleep at the time?
[/b]

This is a good question. It just happens. Sometimes I'm able to "reload" the dream if something goes wrong. The best explanation I can give is: there's a tiny speck of everyday awareness overlooking my normal dreams. Like 99.9% of me is acting in the dream and 0.1% is floating above the surface observing. Lol, maybe this should be called " a dream remote"

I can see an analogy with a videogame player - it's possible to play a game and do something in RL at the same time, splitting the awareness between the two activities at once. The split is very uneven, I can hardly think of any other activity where a person would be so split up...


Until recently this tiny speck of awareness allowed me to wake up at will, reload and sometimes reenter dreams, but this summer I wanted to ask DCs some questions like "why am I in this dream?" And on 3 separate occasions I just turned to the DC next to me and asked the question causing instant lucidity....

Originally Posted by DuB

Is that like your lying in bed and it feels like the person is right behind you shouting in your ear? I usually get that but they shout my name out and not tell me to wake up.
[/b]

It used to happen somewhat often. Pretty much I would be laying in bed and suddenly 1000% realistic voice of my mother or my sister would urge me to wake up. They were saying all kinds of things like "You would be late for work" or just "wake up" and so on. Initially I was fooled by this but then I was able to pull through this without interruping the LD/WILD onset...

My WILDs have gone from realistic OBEs to incredibly low level lucids once I roll-off my bed (past 3 or so have been like this)

My WILDs have been like this (they always begin in my room so I classify them as OBEs)

1-6: Very realistic OBEs
6-12: Begin as realistic OBEs then turning into low level lucids
13-16: Just plain retarded now

My first few WILDs I was hyper-aware, and there's my problem right there. I need to maintain high awareness for a good amount of time in that state. It was easy at first because of the pure amazement I had. Now it's becoming routine so I guess that's why. I better start practice being more aware during routine things if I can't fix this.

Or maybe I'm having a semi-dry spell here.