A friend of mine trained himself to be able of lucid dreaming, but stopped with it when he began to have "nested" dreams - he thought that he woke up, but found himself in another dream (and that multiple times). That made him frightening.
That's extremely common and I never found that particularly frightening. After my very first lucid dream (that I can remember) I woke up and started writing it up in my dream journal, but the ink kept dissolving as I wrote, as if I was writing on fresh tippex. Took me a while to figure out that I was still dreaming. Then I woke up properly.
The dreams aren't so much nested as in sequence. You have a dream, you become lucid, you get excited, you think you're going to wake up, and so you dream about waking up and become un-lucid again.
Took me a while to figure out that I was still dreaming. Then I woke up properly.
Or not.
EDIT: Having read through a lot of the book now, it's very interesting to consider what's going on and the metaphysical implications are intriguing. I digress, what I'd like to know is how do you know that you have not simply dreamt that your dream was lucid. How can you really know you have control as opposed to having dreamt you have control; this question finds an analogue in the question of freewill in [wakeful] life.
Of course, you could try arguing that I just dreamt that I was making conscious decisions, but that's just splitting hairs.
That's exactly what I was intimating. Some believe that freewill is a similar illusion. There is no clear way to know, except that within the restricted arena of your dreams, assuming you're an honest person, then we can ask you to dream a certain thing in advance and see if you can.
That doesn't rule out the dream being a created memory that doesn't occur until you come to "remember" it however.
It's a weird feeling when you recognize what it is, and horribly frightening when you don't know about it and think you've been visited by aliens, ghosts, or demons. This is made even worse by thinking you're going nuts and being afraid to tell anyone about it; people spend a lifetime with their secret trauma, when they could have just told someone and found out that it was nothing more than a fairly common effect of waking up at the wrong part of the sleep cycle.
The trick is to ask them to read something twice; if it comes out the same each time, they're really there. Otherwise you're experiencing sleep paralysis. Or they're just messing with you.
A friend of mine trained himself to be able of lucid dreaming, but stopped with it when he began to have "nested" dreams...
I experience that with normal dreams. I suspect it happens to anyone who has a vivid dreamlife. I wouldn't let this scare off any would-be lucid dreamers.
Comments
A friend of mine trained himself to be able of lucid dreaming, but stopped with it when he began to have "nested" dreams - he thought that he woke up, but found himself in another dream (and that multiple times). That made him frightening.
That's extremely common and I never found that particularly frightening. After my very first lucid dream (that I can remember) I woke up and started writing it up in my dream journal, but the ink kept dissolving as I wrote, as if I was writing on fresh tippex. Took me a while to figure out that I was still dreaming. Then I woke up properly.
The dreams aren't so much nested as in sequence. You have a dream, you become lucid, you get excited, you think you're going to wake up, and so you dream about waking up and become un-lucid again.
Took me a while to figure out that I was still dreaming. Then I woke up properly. Or not.
EDIT: Having read through a lot of the book now, it's very interesting to consider what's going on and the metaphysical implications are intriguing. I digress, what I'd like to know is how do you know that you have not simply dreamt that your dream was lucid. How can you really know you have control as opposed to having dreamt you have control; this question finds an analogue in the question of freewill in [wakeful] life.
Pretty easy:
1) I was dreaming
2) I had the conscious thought "hey, this stuff doesn't make sense. I am dreaming. Wow, I am aware that I'm dreaming, even though I'm dreaming."
3) I then took conscious steps to alter my dream, for instance, stepping out of the car within which I was and flying away.
Of course, you could try arguing that I just dreamt that I was making conscious decisions, but that's just splitting hairs.
Of course, you could try arguing that I just dreamt that I was making conscious decisions, but that's just splitting hairs.
That's exactly what I was intimating. Some believe that freewill is a similar illusion. There is no clear way to know, except that within the restricted arena of your dreams, assuming you're an honest person, then we can ask you to dream a certain thing in advance and see if you can.
That doesn't rule out the dream being a created memory that doesn't occur until you come to "remember" it however.
The only freightning thing I experienced is sleep paralysis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnagogia#Sleep_paralysis). But this too presents no dangers, it is just a weird and uncommon feeling =)
It's a weird feeling when you recognize what it is, and horribly frightening when you don't know about it and think you've been visited by aliens, ghosts, or demons. This is made even worse by thinking you're going nuts and being afraid to tell anyone about it; people spend a lifetime with their secret trauma, when they could have just told someone and found out that it was nothing more than a fairly common effect of waking up at the wrong part of the sleep cycle.
But it helps if you're visited by aliens, ghosts, or demons, because you can mistake that for sleep paralysis, making it not very frightening.
The trick is to ask them to read something twice; if it comes out the same each time, they're really there. Otherwise you're experiencing sleep paralysis. Or they're just messing with you.
A friend of mine trained himself to be able of lucid dreaming, but stopped with it when he began to have "nested" dreams...
I experience that with normal dreams. I suspect it happens to anyone who has a vivid dreamlife. I wouldn't let this scare off any would-be lucid dreamers.