Thread: Hello, I'm new here and looking for some insight on my dreams....

Hi KatMarie, you came to the right place!

What you describe sounds like a couple of fairly common characteristics of being a little too awake or aware in your dream. A couple of questions - does this happen in all your dreams, or most, or half, or just occasionally? Are there any other symptoms, for instance how's your vision in those dreams? Do you ever seem to be paralyzed or very weak in them? Also, are you sometimes very passive in them, just laying or sitting there watching things happen without getting involved in them? Hear sounds like voices or music that seems to have no particular source?

For me these elements all combined describe the dreams I often have when I take a dream supplement called Galantamine. It's made as an Alzheimer's treatment, and what it does is increase mental awareness - that helps with memory if taken in the day, but if taken after a few hours of sleep it helps you to become aware in your dreams (lucidity). From what I've read, these same symptoms are also very common among people who use a lucidity technique called WILD (wake initiated lucid dreaming), which involves falling asleep while remaining consciously aware the entire time. It's a tricky technique, you have to be really good to achieve it, and personally I haven't been able to do it yet, but the people who do report symptoms very similar to what I listed (and what I experience on Galantamine). Not always, only sometimes, and some people get it more than others do.

One good thing about it - if you're interested in learning how to lucid dream, you might already be very close to it or have even done it at times (maybe without knowing). Do you ever realize that you're dreaming in these dreams, and can you control elements of them? Your own behavior for one - can you decide whaere you want to go or what you want to do, or can you make things happen the way you want them to?

** Edit:

Here's a recent entry in my dream journal to demonstrate what I mean: http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/dark...21-2011-43113/
It was a Galantamine attempt and included lots of drunken-type effects. But I was able to stabilise the dream by the technique of running my hands over the textures of the walls and feeling them, plus (this is going to sound really weird.. ) eating some glass I broke out of the window. Heh I know, if you're new to the idea of lucid dreaming this all sounds really crazy, but this is how things work in the dream world.