Thread: Lucid Dreaming Fundamentals -- With Q & A

Excellent thread + post, Sageous.
Could you go into further elaboration on awareness?

Self-awareness is nothing more -- or less -- than being aware that you are here, that you have an effect on everything around you, and everything around you has an effect on you.

How do you keep this awareness up? Do you consistently think of the outcomes out how you influence your environment and society?

Originally Posted by fOrceez

Excellent thread + post, Sageous.
Could you go into further elaboration on awareness?

How do you keep this awareness up? Do you consistently think of the outcomes out how you influence your environment and society?

At the risk of sounding like I'm dodging the question, let me offer up this dodge:

Self-awareness is not something you keep up; it is something you adopt as part of your life. No, I rarely think of the outcomes out how I influence my environment and society*. That would invite intellectualizing -- and therefore consciously overstating -- my participation in reality. That would be a bad thing, and it would both empower my dream-character-me to lucidity-busting levels of arrogance, and annoy my waking life friends and family. No, self-awareness is more of a condition than a pursuit. Better yet, it is recognition of a condition -- basically the knowledge that "I exist, and my exist has an impact on reality, and reality has an impact on me."

It's not a case of considering outcomes. Rather it's a case of understanding that outcomes will exist, even if my basic instincts don't care about that fact. To leave the "Here & Now" and start predicting outcomes would not be helpful for self-awareness in general, and I think would cause damage to successful LD'ng (if you get in a habit of predicting outcomes, that attitude might manifest in your dreams as a sort of expectation mapping system, removing surprises and any real growth).

Dodgy enough for you? No? How about this: there is no real technique for building self-awareness. At least not that I know of. Any suggestions I make are simply some things that worked for me, and might not necessarily work for you. This is because self-awareness, and awareness in general, is not a mechanical skill set or a thing that your brain can be easily rewired to accept. It's a condition of existence that all sentient creatures are bathed in constantly, but rarely recognize. In a sense, keeping up self-awareness is just a matter of keeping your mind's eye open at all times. Very simple to say; very hard to do. Okay...maybe not so simple to say!

Bottom line: I am afraid that this answer was no help. But if this thread survives, I'll likely have opportunity to try to address it again, and hopefully by then some magically clear, dodge-free explanation will have occurred to me. It's weird; I sit here with a clear viewpoint of self-awareness -- and its importance -- but it is such a bitch to find the words that describe it beyond being aware that you are here, that you have an effect on everything around you, and everything around you has an effect on you.

* As an aside, consistently thinking of the outcomes out how I influence my environment and society is a very good, mature, thing to do on a social level. If everyone practiced it, the world would be a better place. And, though it is certainly a happy byproduct of self-awareness, this activity is not a way to actually build or maintain the condition. I thought this needed to be pointed out, because the difference is significant.

great answers, Sageous! have you had a dream guide or smth like that?

Originally Posted by ekspresis

great answers, Sageous! have you had a dream guide or smth like that?

Thanks! And no, I've always been pretty much on my own.

As far as I know.

But if someone's been guiding me, they've been pretty damn quiet about it, and are sure taking their time!

This sure is a great thread and I shall definitely take my time reading through the first two pages.

Originally Posted by fOrceez

This sure is a great thread and I shall definitely take my time reading through the first two pages.

Thanks... I truly hope you find some value...or at least something useful...in all those words!

This thread is pro.

Sorry for the minimal contribution, but Sageous is covering all his bases and doing an excellent job at revealing the major problem that exists nowadays for up and coming LDers. If you take a look at the best of the best from the community at large, (such as Naiya, Hukif, and quite a few others you've probably never heard of) you'll find two things in common:

1. They all learned the art their own way, forged their own path, often without even discovering online LDing communities until much later on.
2. Each of their methods are based upon the fundamentals presented here: self-awareness and memory.

And again, we have Sageous, who didn't follow the "traditional" approach that many newbies are being shown. Yet his success and experience is evident.

The results are clear: to be a truly successful LDer, you need to dig deep and focus on the fundamentals. What's more, it's going to take you years of hard work to pull it off, and the only true shortcut is being given the understanding of how to get there.

Great thread, Sageous. Do you think you could expand a little bit on what you mean by 'memory' in the context of dreaming? I'm not quite sure I understand.

Originally Posted by 1234567

Great thread, Sageous. Do you think you could expand a little bit on what you mean by 'memory' in the context of dreaming? I'm not quite sure I understand.

Sure. In the simplest of terms, memory in the context of dreaming is the same as memory in the context of waking... sorry; that sounded way cooler in my head.

But it's still true. When I speak of memory, I'm talking about remembering, during the dream,* that you have a waking life existence, that you consciously stepped away from that existence a few minutes ago, and that you still have a sleeping body right where you left it. This might seem a little silly at first glance, but it is critical toward drawing your waking-life awareness into your dream. This is the case for two major reasons (and plenty more, most likely):

First, the core of non-lucid dreaming consciousness is that you cannot remember that the dream started a few minutes ago (most non-lucids have a built-in assurance that the current dream scene is both real and has always been there), and that you are sure that your DC body is the real thing. Remembering that stuff I said above should free you from this core, and allow your self-awareness to assert itself with proper waking-life awareness. This action will redefine the “reality” of the dream, the rules of the dream, and perhaps even the dream itself. So, you can't have true -- or strong -- waking-life awareness in your dream if you do not remember that the DC body you are currently occupying is not your physical body.

Second, once you’ve passed this initial hurdle, you likely will have switched your memory circuits back to the “on” position, from the “off” position that is naturally set during sleep. This will allow you to remember your current dream goals, prolonging techniques, the waking-world histories of the DC’s populating your dream (giving you opportunity to wonder/explain what they’re doing there), and a host of other things. Basically, you will be truly awake in the dream when memory is turned on, and waking-life awareness (aka: lucidity) will have opportunity to prosper.

It is possible to have low-level LD’s without memory switched on, but you’ll never get much further than that initial feeling of “knowing” this is a dream. For instance, you’ll still be surprised by events around you because your dreaming mind is still in control, you’ll have a lot of trouble doing things like flying because you still believe your DC body is real, and you might for the same reason have a tendency to believe that the other DC’s around you are the real things, and not just avatars of people you know (or don’t, as it were)... now for the dream-sharers out there, there’s no reason not to believe that those avatars represent actual people trying to contact you, but you must remember that they are just representations and not the real thing; there is a difference.

It is also possible, with memory absent, to have a non-lucid dream in which you think you are lucid. I get these "False Lucids" all the time, as my dreaming mind obliges my expectations and gives me all the things it thinks I want to fulfill my current LD fantasy. So I do all the cool stuff without a grain of waking-life awareness or control, all because I failed to remember my true nature and condition -- and the fact that this whole world was created just moments earlier.

Bottom line: the memory I speak of here is, I suppose, nothing more -- and nothing less -- than the memory you access during waking life. That it must be present during a LD seems to me to be a no-brainer -- while I’m awake. When I’m asleep, and memory is turned off, the story is much different, and it can take real effort, and strong self-awareness, to access waking-life memory.

Here is one quick hopefully helpful hint to ease that effort: it is a good thing to always include some mention of memory during your RC’s and when you set your intention before sleep. For instance, when practicing RC’s during waking life (and everyone should be doing that!), don’t just confirm that the clock didn’t change, or that your hand still has five fingers, but also confirm that you remember exactly what you were doing say, fifteen minutes earlier. And when you set your intention, add a simple “I will remember” to your stated plans.

As usual, I see that I went on for far too long, and I’m not sure if anything I said is unclear. If it is, let me know and I’ll take another shot…

* Note that the memory I speak of has nothing to do with dream recall. Dream recall is important in general, but for different reasons.

Everything in this thread is absolutely brilliant - sorry for clogging up your notifications by liking almost every damn post!

Your explanation of memory makes a lot of sense to me - and was how I'd started to have a lot of my lucids. Instead of a sudden burst of awareness and RCing I'd simply be able to notice and feel that everything around me wasn't real - the awareness that I am not awake and am dreaming. I've sort of lost this due to the way school/work/etc tend to take over every now and then.

Have you taken many breaks in your long time lucid dreaming? Do you have any tips for balancing your dreaming and training your memory/awareness with every day life and worries?

Thanks Dark_Merlin!

Originally Posted by Dark_Merlin

Your explanation of memory makes a lot of sense to me - and was how I'd started to have a lot of my lucids. Instead of a sudden burst of awareness and RCing I'd simply be able to notice and feel that everything around me wasn't real - the awareness that I am not awake and am dreaming. I've sort of lost this due to the way school/work/etc tend to take over every now and then.

Well get it back, man! See below...

Have you taken many breaks in your long time lucid dreaming? Do you have any tips for balancing your dreaming and training your memory/awareness with every day life and worries?

I've taken a few breaks -- though rarely on purpose -- over the years. The most major one was an almost-ten-year gap in the late '80's-early '90's when I allowed the "joy" of career and its accompanying dollars and materialism to take a front burner to my dreaming quest, which in turn was put on a small back burner at a very low setting. When I finally "woke up" one day to the fact that I was leaving behind the one thing I wanted to do in life just for the thrill of riding a train to Manhattan every day, I realized, in hindsight, how easy it can be to lose my grip on the esoteric stuff as waking life gets more hectic, complicated, distracting, and above all, comfortable.

I then thought long and hard about just what you are asking -- well then, how can I establish a balance? After a time I realized that you really cannot. Waking reality, especially in the West, is simply not conducive to developing spiritually; the two just don't get along. So instead of trying to balance -- which I had incorrectly thought I had been doing during that stretch -- I established priorities. "Dream Stuff," as my wife calls it, became the project, and everything else was secondary. I stayed at my job for ten more years (got a few promotions, a BMW, a house, and lots of other stuff in the process, so materialism was still quite active), but now I was more focused on dreaming...I blew dust off a book I had started in the '80's, finished it, and then wrote another -- both heavily based on my dreams and my opinions of them; I bought LaBerge's toys -- like, all of them -- and discovered that there was no quick fix in regaining my lucid skills; I read extensively, and ultimately got involved in that newfangled Internet thing in the early '00's. I did more, but my point here is that I got back to dream work while still succeeding at my job and living comfortably.

About 80% of what I term "dream work" was working on my self-awareness (memory came much later). Ironically, dealing with work -- and with being a commuter Zombie -- became much easier as I built my self-awareness and found a sense of Self. In a sense, you find the daily grind much easier to bear when you know that, in the end, none of it matters and it ain't all about you!

I took a couple of shorter breaks in the last few years, especially after I retired (at 42) in '04 to a life of dreaming, writing, and art. Part of the retirement included fixing up the old house we moved into, and that can be extremely distracting. But in time I reset priorities and the dream stuff stayed mostly on that front burner.

Did you see any "tips for balancing your dreaming and training your memory/awareness with every day life and worries?" Me neither, though I was sure I'd included them... I guess the only real tip is that self-awareness is not something you can fit in to your schedule; it needs to be a major part of your life, especially if you want to bring it into your dreams. It is literally an attitude that needs to be a part of you, and not a skill. Regarding memory, which in this case is a skill, there are lots of routines, exercises, and RC's you can jam into your day to strengthen it. I won't recommend anything specific, though if you can get something like LaBerge's P.E.S.T. that I mentioned somewhere above, that would help.

So I guess the bottom line here is that if you want the fundamentals to work for you, you must make them important to you -- more important than short-cuts, techniques, or any of the ancillary stuff they talk about here. Sorry it took so long to say that, thanks for staying with me if you did. If you want me to be more specific on the awareness bit, let me know and I'll try, but bear with me if I keep speaking in circles about it...

I suppose the priority is something I've been trying to figure out - do I decide to put dreaming as the main priority or do I let school and work take priority over it? It's a personal choice and I know somewhere down the line I'm going to choose dreaming - it's just a matter of when, for me.

I get what you mean about it being an attitude - when I was in that self-aware mindset it was when I had put dreaming above all else, was meditating every day, working on my DVASA guidebook etc. When it really becomes a part of who you are and is a part of everything you do it just carries over naturally to your dreams! It makes a lot more sense now

And don't worry about typing out long winded explanations! I don't think there's any short way around gaining an understanding for this other than experience or reading lots, and lots, and lots and lots.

I reckon all of us wouldn't mind retiring at 42 'to a life of dreaming, writing and art', sounds awesome

I think the balance between daily life and dreamwork is an issue that worries us all. I know what's usually on my mind when I should be thinking about study...

Originally Posted by Dark_Merlin

I suppose the priority is something I've been trying to figure out - do I decide to put dreaming as the main priority or do I let school and work take priority over it? It's a personal choice and I know somewhere down the line I'm going to choose dreaming - it's just a matter of when, for me.

Yup.

I get what you mean about it being an attitude - when I was in that self-aware mindset it was when I had put dreaming above all else, was meditating every day, working on my DVASA guidebook etc. When it really becomes a part of who you are and is a part of everything you do it just carries over naturally to your dreams! It makes a lot more sense now

Yup.

And don't worry about typing out long winded explanations! I don't think there's any short way around gaining an understanding for this other than experience or reading lots, and lots, and lots and lots.

And Yup! Thanks for understanding!

Originally Posted by Ctharlhie

I reckon all of us wouldn't mind retiring at 42 'to a life of dreaming, writing and art', sounds awesome

I think the balance between daily life and dreamwork is an issue that worries us all. I know what's usually on my mind when I should be thinking about study...

Well don't stop thinking about study... I sure didn't retire early on dreams, and neither will you...of course if you do, let us know how you did it! Oh, and get that other stuff off your mind... You're supposed to be studying!

Just keep those long-term priorities -- and the fundamentals -- somewhere in your head at all times, and your path will be of your own making; whatever you choose!

You mentioned that device called PEST. I decided to try something and wanted to post the experience here to see you're opinion on the exercise:

- Alarm every 10minutes 78 rings a day. Basically whenever it rings I try to stop whatever I'm doing and look around. But it's hard. For example when I go from home to work, I use that mnemonic video I posted and let's say, each picture is related to an alarm's ring. For example 8:30 alarm is a tree with orange light, 8:40 is a tv serie character laughing, etc etc. So while I try to practice being aware, I also recall these "simbols" and try to expand my memory of what my surroundings were like.
I get now: it's freaking hard. It's easy to focus for let's say for 5 alarms (not being surprised when they come), but can tell you that I reach the 20th already "huh? oh right the alarm! erm, focus!" I do have a mindset problem, that relates to the awareness you made:

If we prioritize the questioning of whether we are dreaming or not, by making rc's, asking ourselves what we did in the last hour, where does that leave space for being aware of our surroundings? Do we go for details? Or is the big picture that we need to focus on? Also (this might sound confusing) sometimes I read one of your replies and get "my" idea of being aware, but then it slips away! Not to mention sometimes I'm having such big discussions about a subject that I wonder later how could I focus on my task and in awareness at same time. Would we be talking about expanding your perception as well?

It's really painfully, but so far haven't skipped a day without hearing those 78 alarms xD

Originally Posted by zoth00

You mentioned that device called PEST. I decided to try something and wanted to post the experience here to see you're opinion on the exercise:

- Alarm every 10minutes 78 rings a day. Basically whenever it rings I try to stop whatever I'm doing and look around. But it's hard. For example when I go from home to work, I use that mnemonic video I posted and let's say, each picture is related to an alarm's ring. For example 8:30 alarm is a tree with orange light, 8:40 is a tv series character laughing, etc etc. So while I try to practice being aware, I also recall these "symbols" and try to expand my memory of what my surroundings were like.
I get now: it's freaking hard. It's easy to focus for let's say for 5 alarms (not being surprised when they come), but can tell you that I reach the 20th already "huh? oh right the alarm! erm, focus!"

It's really painfully, but so far haven't skipped a day without hearing those 78 alarms xD

Right you are, it can be freakin' hard at that! Your alarm plan sounds like a good one, but can I offer a couple of suggestions?

*First, every ten minutes might be too frequent -- you run the "snooze alarm" risk here, where you hit the "snooze" button on your bedside clock and then sit there for ten minutes doing nothing but anticipating the next alarm. That's fine with an alarm clock, but it might not be something you want to do 78 times per day! You might be either consumed (in a ad way) by the routine or, worse, simply convert your RC/memory exercise into a rote routine that sure you'll religiously repeat, but in the process you might let go of the meaning behind it all.

* I've found that random times between alarms works very nicely, usually with gaps that range from 20 minutes to one hour. Being random, you won't come to expect when the next reminder is coming, and you might react in a better way...especially after many days of doing it. This is what that P.E.S.T. did, and why I believe it was the most valuable of LaBerge's toys (and it cost the least; go figure). Though the P.E.S.T. is long gone, the guy who originally built it for LaBerge still sells a version here; I'm in no way endorsing this particular product, but it might be worth a look just to see what the basic functions should be. I think I've also seen watches that do the same thing... the more random and less intrusive the better.

* In addition to varying the time, you might also change up the routine as well, just to make that focus work better for you. For instance, maybe spend one day asking yourself if this is a dream; another day carefully regarding where you are standing, why, and if doing so is having an effect on the world, or it on you; and maybe another day asking yourself what exactly you were doing fifteen minutes ago.

* Finally, you should be careful not to make things too complex. Your mnemonic exercise is likely helpful on a lot of levels, especially in waking life, but I think in the end just the conscious act of remembering is all you need to master to get that "switch" to turn on in your dreams. So, if you find this particular routine cumbersome and want to stop, doing so likely won't hurt your LD'ing memory development (as long as you're sure to still "just remember" during RC's, of course!).

I do have a mindset problem, that relates to the awareness you made:

If we prioritize the questioning of whether we are dreaming or not, by making rc's, asking ourselves what we did in the last hour, where does that leave space for being aware of our surroundings? Do we go for details? Or is the big picture that we need to focus on? Also (this might sound confusing) sometimes I read one of your replies and get "my" idea of being aware, but then it slips away! Not to mention sometimes I'm having such big discussions about a subject that I wonder later how could I focus on my task and in awareness at same time. Would we be talking about expanding your perception as well?

Excellent questions all!

* Regarding prioritizing RC's, I sort of already said it above but I'll repeat here that I think that if you reduce the frequency a bit between alarms -- and try for randomness -- you ought to find more time to consider that much bigger question of awareness. Keep in mind also that the very act of doing a RC helps you build your awareness, and you can add to this by setting your "attitude" toward awareness whenever that alarm goes off. Yeah, that made sense. In other words, do whatever you planned for each RC, but at the same time try to wordlessly -- even emotionally -- remind yourself that your are here, the world is here, and you both effect each other. That second RC exercise I suggested would do this verbally, of course, but even when using that RC it still would help to literally set your mood to wondering about your state. This is tough to describe but it is important, so if I failed to be understood, ask again!

* I'm not a big fan of details, so my answer here might be biased. That said, don't get too caught up in details; examining your surroundings could involve little more than touching a doorway, or sniffing the air, or wondering what that kid is screaming about out on the sidewalk. You don't need to absorb everything, or much of anything: It's the act of absorbing that matters, not what is absorbed. You're trying here to develop a constant sense of your own presence in the room, and this can be a very global condition. Also, if you get caught up on details you run into the whole "not seeing the forest for the trees thing," and that might be very burdensome.

*So yes, in my opinion it is definitely the big picture we should be focused on. Period.

*Yup that last question is confusing, but here: I'm not sure if your loss of your idea of awareness by reading my replies is a good thing or not. If it is not, then stop reading! Just kidding... the fact that you had an idea of awareness to let slip away in the first place puts you way ahead in this game, so try not to be disturbed. Also, don't be disturbed because that idea -- or perhaps a better one -- will come back; they always do, whether we like it or not.

*This will sound very odd, but try not to think too much about all this stuff -- especially while you're doing it. Sure, intellectual conversations full of complexity and new ideas are fun and often deeply educational. But all those words, terms, and high-end thoughts only become so many obstacles to be avoided when you are actively seeking self-awareness or trying to remember. Keep things simple, always.

*And yes, being able to hold onto your self-awareness while simultaneously doing a RC and perhaps a memory exercise will no doubt expand your perception. Mastering all this will likely improve your perception skills dramatically. For me that's a by-product of the whole deal, but I could see how it would be appealing!

I hope all this helps. Thanks again for the excellent questions, and your interest. I think you're setting yourself a nice mental base camp for the lucid mountains you'll surely be scaling!

Hi Sageous.

I posted a while ago that I had a few questions, all of which I could probably find some way to babble on about for quite a time but I have decided to just make a short post with a few simple queries to begin with.

When you speak of memory and how important it is to ask yourself "what was I doing 15 minutes ago?" or something similar, do you think it is enough to just acknowledge that you werent asleep and didnt go to sleep any time before that? or do you believe that specifics are important, eg, I went to the store, bought some bread, walked home and saw a black cat along the way? I know you said the bigger picture is the best (for you) when it comes to awareness but may there be a difference when it comes to memory? I ask this because our sleeping mind is obviously superb at making up scenarios.

I have been meditating every day for the last month and have definately noticed an increse in my awareness, although not a drastic one. more of the sort - oh crap im daydreaming again, damn. and then I generally lose it again within a few minutes. This said I kind of feel like I have a 'background' awareness which is growing. Just how intense is your awarenss as it stands currently? 24/7 living moment to moment or more of a stong background knowledge that you are certain of reality? (geeze after writing this I understand how hard it is to exactly pinpoint what awareness is)

I have definately had an increse in Lucids but most often I can't seem to make them last for more then a few minutes, sometimes even seconds. Even when I am TOTALLY aware I am dreaming. This is extremely frustrating as I have tried several different things, from running around touching, smelling and tasting everything to simply remaining still and aware. Each time my dreamscape 'pixelates' and blends and I wake up - truely awakening.

I also thoroughly enjoy writing and art. I wish was musical but cannot even sing a note to save myself. Do you believe that lucid dreaming has helped to improve your visualization skills when it comes to art? As it stands I can sketch things really well if I have an object of reference but not so well if I am drawing from memory (unless it is some crazy fantasy monster thing that doesnt obey normal human aesthetics), I would love to be able to stamp a picture in my mind and use that as a reference and have heard that lucid dreaming can drastically help improve this. however I get the impression it is more of a combination of all these techniques that would help, and lucid dreaming would be more of a by-product of visualisation and memory training. any thoughts?

Great thread, havn't had the time to crawl through it all yet though, just a quick question - How much sleep do you usually get a night? Do you find waking up and getting out of bed will give you more lucids, or more vivid ones?

Zoth can I suggest a method that I've seen suggested by a contributor to Robert Wagonner's (if you haven't read 'Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the inner self' do so, now!) lucid dream exchange newsletter (here) that is very similar to what you do now. You basically set alarms throughout the day that coincide with your sleeping circadian rhythms, with the thinking being that if you set an alarm every 90 minutes then you're gonna hit dreamtime at some point. Follow the link and scroll to 'Becoming lucid, the Rogers technique', I think it would work a lot better, I find 5+ RCs a day to be mentally taxing, let alone an alarm reminder every 10 minutes.

@Sageous; on a similar note, I find it much easier on a school day to have rudimentary sort of lucid dreaming 'routine', I'm much more likely to focus enough to work RCs and awareness of my perception when I have a school timetable to adhere to, but at the weekend and on holidays this all falls apart but, paradoxically, I may well end up being more successful.

Another bemusing thing I've observed is that it really does not matter what sort of technique I practice, as long as I practice something. By far my worst month of lucid dreaming was August of this year when I was on summer holiday and I sort of tread water, I tried WBTB almost every night (and became exhausted and disillusioned) but I wasn't getting anywhere because I really didn't know what it was I wanted to do. Previously I had tried a variety of techniques with varying but moderate success and when at the end of the holiday I discovered the joys of MILD my success rate shot up from 3 in August to some 25 between September and October. Thing is I'm fairly sure I could have tried anything that promotes memory and awareness with similar results. 'Wanting' doesn't seem to be enough for lucid dreaming. Were it a purely sub-conscious process then I've no doubt that just desiring lucid dreaming would get you results every night (and I suppose that's why auto and post-hypnotic suggestion work), but since the conscious mind muscles in it seems to require some consciously performed technique as a 'buffer' for the underlying unconscious mechanics.

I believe that any 'technique' is simply an indirect way of putting your fundamentals into play.

Hey Sageous, I have another question: What was your most vivid lucid dream, and how did it compare to waking life, in terms of the involvment of your senses (as well as emotions)?

Originally Posted by 1234567

Hey Sageous, I have another question: What was your most vivid lucid dream, and how did it compare to waking life, in terms of the involvement of your senses (as well as emotions)?

Sorry for the delay in responding, 123; Christmas sort of got in the way. It did give me some time to think about an answer, though, and how difficult to impossible it'll be to give you one.

This is because these days my most vivid, and most treasured, LD's have very little to do with my waking-life senses -- I never even have a DC body in full-on LD's anymore, so senses wouldn't make much, um, sense. They have to do with an intensity of energy, emotion, and spiritual input that literally transcends waking life experience (and I hope one day, known human experience itself). The trouble with all that is the best descriptions of the dreams I can come up with are things like "floating in blackness," "feeling my spiritual essence drift among swirling gray vapor," or maybe "drifting gently over an endless purple plain, facing the avatars of my body, mind and spirit (which I haven't completely managed yet, as far as I know)." I imagine that none of those would seem too terribly vivid to you! But trust me, they were, though I lack the words and metaphor to describe them well, if at all -- even to myself. So, though I know in my heart they were far more awesome than any human experiences I've had, there are simply no verbal tools for comparison available. I know all that sounds like a very lame cop-out, but it is the truth. I guess for me vividness in the classic sense is just not that important. I might be confused, and perhaps wrong, about this, but it's the way I am!

But since I do understand what you're looking for, and to prove that I'm not totally insane here, let me share a few choice snippets from some very vivid LD's from my past, which I hope will make more sense (bear with me, this might take a minute):

* First, amazing-technicolor-out of this world-vivid: I was at a lowish-level of lucidity, exploring a house that I knew belonged to someone very important, but I had no idea who or why he mattered. I was traveling with a young woman, a stranger, who had a habit of pulling me away from the rooms I wanted to visit. Suddenly she panicked violently, and tore herself from my grip saying, "It's coming! It's coming!" She left the room, leaving me alone to defend the fifty or so refugee-like people crowding it. And old man nearby leaned my way (he smelled awful), and told me with rancid breath: "The 6:59's comin' through real soon." I knew that 6:59 was the time my waking-life commuter train arrived every morning, and I knew something real bad was going to happen to these people -- I also knew it was my dream, and that I could do something about it. So I did (here comes the vivid part):

About one second after I realized what was to happen, the whole place began to shake violently, and I was deafened by the thunder of the approaching train. The refugees scattered, leaving room for a giant freight engine (blue with yellow trim) that crashed in through a nearby wall, moving at a good 30 mph. I smiled and jumped towards its nearest access ladder and held on tight. Its metal rungs were the coldest things I had ever felt, and the wind and noise were impossibly strong, but I held on, because I simultaneously knew this was a dream and that this train deeply threatened many people. Without effort I planted my feet back on the floor, and with a gesture flipped the engine over my shoulder and out of the house. The noise, smells, and sheer sense of mass from the train were something you really had to be there to appreciate, but definitely at the tops of my vivid scale! Also, this was as real as anything in waking life that I've ever experienced. (When I was next on my waking life train station platform, I did reach out and touch the train engine as it passed, and it just wasn't the same)

* In the "Holy Shit This can't be happening" category: Many years ago I was in the midst of a strong lucid dream. I had been working to leave the scene I was in for another I had planned, so the scenery had faded and I was on a rocky, tundra-like plain, struggling to concentrate. Suddenly a man appeared a few paces away from me. He was dressed in black, had no face, and held a very large sci-fi-like rifle. Without pause he aimed at me and fired. As he did so, I reminded myself that this was just a dream, and he couldn't hurt me. That went well.

Nothing came out of the gun that I could see, but I felt an odd pressure in my feet (in those days I still had a DC body). I looked down at them, and watched incredulously as they dissolved to dust. Then came the pain (and the "vividness" qualifier for this dream). Try to imagine what it would feel like if your body were aggressively ground to dust, from your toes on up; well, that's exactly what I did, and the pain I felt was right up to expectation -- so was the image of my body disassembling while I watched. I kept track of the attack until my chest joined the dust cloud, then closed my eyes to fight off the inevitable by attempting to actively ignore it. But I had already given in to the pain, and knew I had no time to erase the dream, or this image. When I felt my chest suddenly loosen to nothingness, I was sure I would die. Talk about vivid!

Finally, I felt nothing, and was sure my dream body was dead. There were no bright lights, no tunnels, no dead relatives, for those who are curious; just a very unfriendly emptiness that threatened to absorb my consciousness into it. From that I reflexively experienced a very high level of lucidity, and was able to simply decided that dead was not cool, and something had to be done. Unable to wake up or think of anything better or different, I breathlessly (literally) focused my attention on being alive, and began reforming my dream body, from head to toes. I opened my eyes when I had them again, and watched the action. Repairs were much less painful, and I was able to wake up shortly after (I stayed awake for at least one full day after that one). Though I haven't died horrifically yet in waking life (duh), I have a feeling that this experience felt as real as anything reality could throw at me, and the emotion it drew from me (mostly fear and a sense of powerlessness and loss) were the strongest I've ever felt in those categories, awake or asleep.

* Finally, the feel-good dream of the year: I won't go into detail on this one, but I once had a medium level LD in which I spent at least an hour wandering what I decided was a Dreaming Bazaar, packed with booths stocked high with magical, arcane, scientific, artistic, and just-plain-beyond-imagination dreaming paraphernalia. All my senses were on full alert, including taste and touch, which made the food court very interesting. I wanted to bring everything home with me, and began to lament that I would fail if I tried (tho I did try later, BTW ). When I paused I felt a tap on my shoulder.

I turned and saw that it was my father, who had died two years earlier. Beside him was my mother, who we lost over 20 years before that. Both appeared to me as they looked shortly after they were married, which was obviously long before any living memory I had of them. They were holding hands and both smiling broadly. My eyes blurred with tears both at seeing them and knowing, for the first time in a dream, that they were both dead but here visiting anyway (normally when I dream of my parents I fail --refuse, maybe -- to remember that they are dead). We chatted for a time, had hugs all around, and then they turned and walked into the crowd of the Bazaar's midway. I stood for a moment, weak-kneed, and then continued my wandering, lucidity diminished but emotions increased. I didn't get to take away any "dream stuff" from this dream, but maybe I got something even more real!

So that's what I got...sorry if I disappointed!

So that's what I got...sorry if I disappointed!

No, you didn't dissapoint, it was really good. Thanks for sharing!

Not willing to let this thread die!