Lucid Dreaming

Put simply, a lucid dream is a dream in which you are aware that you’re dreaming. There are two types of lucid dreaming.

DILD – dream-initiated lucid dream: a normal dream in which the dreamer eventually concludes it is a dream.
WILD – wake-initiated lucid dream: dreamer goes from a normal waking state directly into a dream state, with no apparent lapse in consciousness.

I’m very sure that most people have had a DILD at least once in their lives. Many years ago I had a dream that I was exploring some caves and found a huge jewel. After I started running home with the huge jewel, I realised I was having a dream and tried very hard to control what I was doing in the dream. I had to hide this jewel where no one would find it. I put it in my desk drawer, at which point I woke up and looked in my desk drawer… only to realise the jewel was not there and had only existed in my subconscious. Many other times I have been in control of my dream after realising it was a dream, but unfortunately woke before the dream properly ended.

I know James looked into WILD before, and it got me curious as well. There are apparently techniques to making yourself have a lucid dream, which you can easily find on the internet. I tried it a few times but failed, while James told me a couple of stories about his experiences which I could be jealous about. However, a few days ago, most likely due to the effects of my medication, I was still very tired after I had woken up and I just lay down on the couch for a bit.

I was watching television – The Morning Show, to be specific – but I was really tired and my eyes kept on shutting so I decided to just try and sleep for a little while. I was actually having trouble doing so, and I had my eyes shut for a few minutes and could still hear the television. Then I started having a dream.

I can’t remember exactly what happened but I had been holding some toast, and I was in a shop talking to some salespeople. I couldn’t control it, but I was completely aware of what was happening. At the same time, I could hear the television. I could recall everything that was discussed on the show while I had my eyes shut – they were discussing Australia’s best psychic, and the movie When Harry Met Sally.

Earlier today I was reading a book, and began to yawn. I felt a bit tired and thought I could power nap for a few minutes. I’m pretty good at power napping. I’ve done it on the train for several minutes, without the need for an alarm to wake me up; I’ve done it when I arrive home after a long day; I’ve done it at work for several minutes in front of the computer. :P So I thought I’d power nap while sitting in my reading/studying chair.

Except I couldn’t actually sleep. And right then and there I found myself having a WILD. I just remember walking in a field and everything happening rather slowly, but I could still think in my conscious about how I was holding my book at the page I was up to. I could still hear children outside (neighbours) squealing, and the sound of my fan and the wind coming through my window. But I felt like I was sleeping.

When I decided to open my eyes I felt rather refreshed. It’s so weird. I’m starting to blame everything weird on my antidepressants now. In case you weren’t aware, five days ago I was put on antidepressants and I’ve been experiencing side effects. Now it doesn’t make me sleep so easily, but I think it is interrupting my sleep because I still keep waking up in the middle of the night. I’ve also lost weight and I can’t stop shaking my leg, but other than that, the worst of it seems to be over and I think I’m getting used to it. My doctor said it would take up to a week to get used to it, after all. :)

Comments on this post

Ho u. It’s pretty exciting /bounce but it takes a while to start doing stuff in it without waking yourself up. huhu

Dild is hard because you have to make constant checking of your state of consciousness a literal habit; like every minute or so. And well, that’s hard to break yourself into D:

Wild is hard too; but it is significantly easier when you’re very tired, like you on meds :3

(Y)

I’ve had that WILD stuff (lol “wild”) happen to me before, but I usually wake myself up because it freaks me out. I can’t remember a specific example, but I know in general, when I have a waking dream like that, the dream part turns into an “extension” of reality. It usually distorts reality and it’s really not cool. :P

It isn’t the same thing, but this reminds me of that time I drifted off in econ class, I heard my teacher make a comment about how he had put me to sleep, and then I sat up and said I wasn’t sleeping. :X And this morning when my alarm was going off, my mom was like, “Rachel, your alarm keeps going off; this is the second time,” and I woke up and said, “I know.” Then I thought about it and was like, “Wait, no, I didn’t know. Thanks.” xD

i used to be so into dream stuff. way back when people had subpages on their sites, I had one dedicated to dreaming :P definitely the best time for lucid dreaming is nap time. especially if you find yourself in sleep paralysis, which happens to me all the time if I nap too long.

I’ve had way too many lucid dreams of the first variety (DILD) for the past few months. I’m not sure what triggers it as I haven’t looked much into it, though I’m curious as to why it happens and so often. I’ve also had the second variety but not as often. It’s interesting stuff, to say the least.

I’m amazed you can power nap like no one’s business. XD I’m horrible at best. It reminds me once of a teacher back in high school who told the class that if you remind yourself of an event you’re supposed to do the next day before you sleep you’re likely to wake up on time. The power of the mind I tell ya.

Ah, the shaking leg, a common side effect :P Shouldn’t last too long…

I’ve had some lucid dreams, but never a WILD, as far as I can remember. Never been one for power napping… I always wake up more tired 😒

Thanks lovely! It’s good to be back, after such a long time. It feels like it has been forever if I’m honest.

And I know what you mean. Like with brokenfusion.org, opening the site was the hardest thing. Because I know I could be inspired and motivated to work on the site once it’s open, it’s just opening it first that’s the hard part. And oh my god, I know what you meannn. I have so much homework right now, and I have to start revising because I have exams in January.. as if school doesn’t take up enough of my time already but it has to come and eat more. :l

And thanks for the suggestions. I love making textures and icons so I’ll try and make some of those. I went out for a walk last week and took some photographs which can be used as light textures, so. They’re all lovely lovely. But I have to separate them into which ones for the site & which for school, because I’m taking photography at school and I don’t want to mix the two up. c:

I’ve heard of lucid dreaming before. It’s interesting. But I’ve been too lazy to go read up about it.. sigh. Lazy Meera as usual. But I have had plenty of DILD type dreams. It’s kinda weird. How you’ll dream and wake up knowing you had a dream. How do you now it’s a dream? But then I have these sort of dreams when I don’t know I’m dreaming, and somehow it happens in real life, and then when it happens in real life I realise I dreamt about it. Kinda creeps me out.

I’ve heard about ways of trying to put yourself into WILD and I try it but I think it has never actually happened to me. But I hope you get use to your anti-depressants.

I remember I researched lucid dreaming briefly after I heard the song “Lucid Dreams” by Franz Ferdinand. I just remember what I read was really frightening. The article focused on the WILD type and described how to induce the dreams. Apparently a person entering a WILD could experience extreme chest pain and, if he opens his eyes, might hallucinate. Before I read that, a friend called me in the middle of the night, freaking out about something that sounded exactly like the description I read. It was all very unsettling.

But based on your descriptions, I feel like I’ve definitely experienced both. I actually think the majority of my dreams are DILD. I always have some sort of control towards the end, and I’m usually aware of my surroundings (although some of it is distorted).

Dreams are just so fascinating, gah. I could read about this stuff for days.

i had half of a DILD dream before…once i realized i was dreaming i woke up =_= LOL anyway, lucid dreams are fascinating i agree! wow your experience sounds pretty awesome (minus it being the side effects of medications). pretty crazy! reminds me inception, literally! i have yet to experience one…i really want to TxT

That’s really interesting. I’ve definitely had DILD many times before, but I never knew it had a name. Dreams are so awesome. They’re like this sort of extension of a person’s subconscious or a deeper glimpse into a person’s mind at its most raw, basic state.

I started taking antidepressants several weeks ago. I haven’t noticed any obvious side effects, what do you take? I take fluoxetine.

Your site is really cool. ^_^

I haven’t a clue whether I’ve ever had a lucid dream or not. I’ve always been one of those people who forgot all dreams five minutes after waking up. Perhaps that is a blessing.

WILD lucid dreaming sounds like it’d be fun to try once or twice and it also sounds like it’d be tiring. Like, your brain is very active when you’re asleep, but my own intuition says that the conscious functions of your brain should be completely dead while you’re sleeping… and lucid dreaming seems like it’d be using your consciousness and your dream functions at the same time.

Did I miss something? Why are you drinking antidepressants, Georgina? Well, as far as I know, it does stimulate some part of your blood sugar which will make you a little bit more energized than the usual – does making you happier. I guess?

I’ve been experiencing a lot of dreams in my past. One of which is a WILD turned DILD dream. Wild because I think I was able to encounter Insidious. If not, the story of my dream is a lot similar. I lay in my bed, then at the middle of the night, I feel that I woke up (but actually just dreaming) then I’ll stand and experience the strangest thing ever. Like my soul if detaching away from my earthly body. I can really see myself, sleeping. It’s scary. I even wake up with a black man staring at me. Pushing me so hard that I can’t breathe. After some time of repetitive “attacks” during the night, my WILD dream turned to DILD dream because I began to take control of the situation. And even before I’ll be in a danger zone of fighting against the said black man, I’ll be able to shake free & wake up. It’s scary.

I guess you’re right. That poem simply means that I don’t regret anything. And you’re idea is a lot better, I would rather tell myself that everything’s going to be better than ruin a perfect moment that will turn out to be imperfect. Thanks! <3

That sounds weird! My friend has been trying different things with lucid dreaming but I just can’t do it!
I wonder why you were holding toast in your dream? That’s a very specific thing to remember, I never remember specifics like that, just general “storylines”. Is that a result of the WILD or do you just remember bits of your dreams like that anyway?

And you say you felt refreshed after it? Well that’s good then! As long as you;re rested =]

Antidepressants will mess your sleep up for a while, it’s a shame. I hope they help you though!

In my psych class we talked a lot about dreaming, Which I think is really fun. I always have lucid dreams, but I think that might be in part because of my overly critical mind. Or the Ambient that I’ve been on lol. I remember we talked a lot about the different ways to induces these dreams…It would be really cool to study these dreams as a research project.

Anyways, what antidepressants are you on?

When I saw the title of the post I knew I was going to love this XD. I love anything related to dreaming :D.

I have had DILD before but it wasn’t as good as yours lol. I try to see more such dreams but sadly unless I sleep longer I don’t see dreams :(

Ohh…WILD sounds interesting…never even heard of it before hehe. WILD seems more like day dreaming where you are conscious yet dreaming?

I guess it would take some time getting used to it…but wait…why are you on anti-depressants? What caused your depression? *hugs* I guess I have been away from the blogging world too long T_T.

Sorry for such the late reply. This is going to have replies from the “goals” post and the “faith” post as well as a comment to your post, so this may get a little bit confusing. Sorry in advance haha.

I tend to like short term goals as well, but with those short term goals, you need to have long term goals in mind as well.

Yea, I think being rich is something almost anyone once–even if it’s not an “enormously rich” type thing, everyone wants a little money to spend, save, or flaunt around.

I’ve never blamed God for anything big, but I’m sure I’ve blamed Him for some little things that have happened in my life that I just don’t remember anymore. My beliefs aren’t “in sync” with the Catholic religion, but I do believe you can communicate with Him. You just have to want to talk to Him and really try. I don’t think He replies in a word manner, either. Meaning He replies through people in your life or something like that–if that makes any sense.

And yea, I get what you’re saying. Since God gave people free will, your mom can do whatever she wants and I’m not sure what the Catholic religion thinks, but I don’t believe He really interferes with that free will.

If you really want to reconnect, I’d try going to some convention or something for Catholics or get re-confirmed. I think being with other Catholics helps more than trying to connect to Him by yourself…it gets you more motivated to connect with Him.

I’ve never really had a dream I knew was a dream before I awoke. I mean, right when I woke up, I obviously realized how weird the dream was and that it was in fact a dream. Other dreams I’ve had however, I honestly think it’s real for the longest time (sometimes like four hours or something).

That is so weird–and awesome! I’ve never done that but I hope one day I do. I’m definitely going to research them and try to perform one on myself haha.

Anyway, good luck with your antidepressants and such–I really hope you get better.

I definitely have a lot of dreams in which I know I’m dreaming. They’re mainly dreams in which I know something bad is going to happen; I know (in the dream) to start blinking my eyes really fast… and then I wake up. It’s pretty cool, actually. XD

I see a lot of things about lucid dreaming on Tumblr. There’s a bunch of posts explaining that you have to lay completely still for about a half hour, and then your body starts to think you’re asleep when you’re not…? I don’t know, it seems kind of confusing. I’d be scared to try it in case I get stuck that way and can’t “wake up” from it.

That’s pretty cool that you were half in dreamland and half awake! That sometimes happens to me when I’m waking up in the morning, but I’m still really tired. I’m also pretty good at power napping; I used to be able to go to sleep around 11 pm and wake up again around 3 am. (It was to talk to someone in a different time zone. :P )

Yeah, antidepressents can have some strange side effects. I’ve been on a bunch of medications, but the most recent one has been making me feel really weird. :( It’s an anti-psychotic though, not an antidepressant.

Oh yeah! I know what you mean about the whole thing with buying a domain. Its so fuking exspecive and it really makes my wallet cry but its worth it. I’m so happy to have my own website.

Yeah, My friend Joel is great. I don’t know if you got my link from there or not, but Yeah. Im slowly working to get my website popular like it once was. /ho

In the mean time. Lets chat, yes?!

I don’t think that I’ve ever had a lucid dream of any kind, sadly 😢 😢

I’ve had some weird dreams, but never ones where I could control what was going on, but I want to! That sounds so interesting/weird/fascinating (I couldn’t pick one!)

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Thank you for the kind wishes! My group finally got their act together and met up with me in the library and we put together a pretty solid powerpoint along with printed out, fill in the blank note packets. (Y)

P.S. I am also an expert in the art of the power nap :)

Hm I did not know that there was a name for such dreams.

I remember dreaming about my relatives who are from another country. I managed to convince them that I was indeed having a dream – they all laughed. Then as I was holding some souvenirs, vigorously shake my head till I woke up.

No souvenirs, but I woke up in another dream. This time I was on my bed, so I was somehow “tricked”. My first thought when I realised that I woke up in another dream was “oh man!”