lucid dreams

[Derek]

Anyone else have highly vivid dreams where you realize you're in control? I've only had four or five such experiences in my life. Each one has lasted only around 20 seconds or so. I wish they would last longer. Here is a summary of the ones I've had:

#1: I had just watched "Waking Life" the previous evening and had first learned what lucid dreams are. That must have switched something on as I had a lucid dream that very night. I was walking up a stairway and the walls and ceiling and I think even steps were all white, and there was bright white light at the top of the stairs. I was very conscious of the physical texture of the walls, even the steps (I knelt down to feel them) and my breathing, and was feeling quite startled to be having such a vivid dream experience.

#2: I was in a dark cathedral with beautiful stain glass windows. Monks in red cloaks were walking down a hallway nearby. It quickly dissolved into a non lucid dream and the windows swirled away.

#3: I was flying through a futuristic landscape behind some sort of android robot who was also flying. Eventually the robot left and I landed in a tall tower with speckled marble floors and pillars, and dark blue light came in all the windows. I became aware I was dreaming and walked around this beautiful room and touched the marble surfaces. Then I noticed a door in the corner that was open and it was black beyond it. I walked towards the door and became startled and the dream ended.

#4: I was climbing a hillside covered in gravel with some houses nearby. I said hello to a man near his house, who seemed surprised to see me. I continued on the way up the hill, quite conscious of wanting to walk up the hill. I entered a cave, the dream became non-lucid for a while, til I emerged near the top of a mountain, lucid again, and viewed the countryside. This is one of my favorite lucid dreams I've had, probably the longest.

#5: I had this dream last night. Another dream in a room with a lot of marble in it...it almost looked wet like there was water on the ground. And...slightly embarassed to admit this but Mario was there and I said hi to him. I remember walking around and speaking out loud to myself about how I could choose where I wished to go and exclaiming about how vivid the marble floor was. There was bright white light coming from beyond the room.

Most of these only lasted about 20 seconds, but the experience is so vivid it feels like real life. Just like thinking of a memory of what you did yesterday, the memory can't be as vivid as the experience. All you have is the memory of it having been so vivid. I really wish I could have more of these, they're always interesting or beautiful. I have no idea if they mean anything, though. It's just fun to have them. Most other dreams have no stability or organization to them and are just random and often disturbing or scary at worst. I have a lot of dreams featuring storms or tornadoes, or missing a schoolbus, being late for a test, failing exams, etc. and I'm naked in many of those. Oddly, I am no longer a student. I must really feel  I failed as a student!

[outin]

I have always had many different kinds of dreams (mostly too weird to tell), and every now and them I also got those where I know I am dreaming and I'm in control. It's a bit like directing a movie while acting in it

I have also been able to fall a sleep again and continue a dream by will, but that is very rare...

My most unfavorite dream must be the one where I am suddenly in school again, fortunately that doesn't happen too often

I almost never see nightmares, or at least I don't consider them as such. But my dreams are often so full of happenings and going places that I sometimes am pretty exhausted when I wake up.

[vsrinivasa]

I am always lucid dreaming. I have always been able to control my dreams and seem to be unable to let the dream go without becoming lucid.

[ted]

What interests me about this is not so much whether the dream is lucid, but  why the subject matter should be so common. White lights which draw us in, or beings of white light, landscapes of visionary beauty, surreal meteorological events, shiny surfaces, gems with inner light, intensely realistic environments from the historical past, flying or levitating - Huxley and Jung had much to say about them but why are they so commonly experienced ? To take one particular example, Huxley maintained that humans regard jewels, gold and so on as precious, not because of value or rarity, but because they resemble the sources of visionary light seen in dreams and mystical states. To make a similar conjecture, I think that belief in reincarnation might well have sprung from the intense sensation of familiarity in these vivid historical dreams, some of which are overwhelming in their power to remain in conscious memory for a lifetime.

[outin]

What interests me about this is not so much whether the dream is lucid, but  why the subject matter should be so common. White lights which draw us in, or beings of white light, landscapes of visionary beauty, surreal meteorological events, shiny surfaces, gems with inner light, intensely realistic environments from the historical past, flying or levitating - Huxley and Jung had much to say about them but why are they so commonly experienced ?

Are they really so common? Mine are nothing like that, more like surreal complations of simple everyday stuff and things that I know about or have experienced myself. Too weird and personal to really explain to anyone. I'd say the things you mention seem common simply because people hear and read about other people's experiences and they either get influenced by them or simply interpret their own visions by what they have heard...It's part of our cultural heritage.

[rachmaninoff_forever]

Every time I have a lucid dream, I'm like, 'dude this is freaking awesome!' but I can't think of anything cool to do at the time so I do something stupid like turning my hand into a hammer'.  Then I wake up an I'm like, 'damn!!! '. 

I know, pretty lame right?

I have to be more prepared for these things.

[cmg]

Every time I have a lucid dream, I'm like, 'dude this is freaking awesome!' but I can't think of anything cool to do at the time so I do something stupid like turning my hand into a hammer'.  Then I wake up an I'm like, 'damn!!! '. 

I know, pretty lame right?

I have to be more prepared for these things.

I had a dream last night that I was in an upscale department store in Russia and Valentina Lisitsa was a salesgirl behind a counter.  I approached, she smiled and said, "If you buy this set of perfect octaves, I'll throw in this set of double-third trills for free!" 

I woke up a virtuoso!!  But realized Valentina had stolen my credit card!!!

[lloyd_cdb]

But realized Valentina had stolen my credit card!!!

She probably used it to pay for a bodyguard to keep rach away.

[rachmaninoff_forever]

She probably used it to pay for a bodyguard to keep rach away.

What the heck she doesn't even know me!

Besides, mere bodyguads can't stop the power of true love!

[vsrinivasa]

I had a really weird dream last night and it was quite atypical of my normal dreams. I was in a harpsichord shop and Mitsuko Uchida was there, playing Mozart's Sonata in C Major K. 330 on this beautiful fortepiano. So then she offered to give me lessons on playing and interpreting Mozart, and apparently her house was in this store as well. I showed up to my first lesson and she taught me how to play trills better. Then I woke up and played K. 330 all the way through and the trills were effortless. The sonata is pretty easy for me, except for the trills, but now I can play them without thinking about them. But for some reason the trilling technique requires me to consciously think about it for any other piece. It's just that sonata. Weird...