[shibumi]

I was doing this for most of my life until I found out only ten years ago (or so) that there was a name for it.

[GeronL]

I have always been able to control my dreams.

[James C. Bennett]

Lucid dreams are the best.

In my opinion, these will be the next frontier of entertainment, where media interacts directly with the brain, bypassing the sensory organs.

It will lead to a lot of crazies, but it sure will be fun!

[historyrepeatz]

Wish I could learn how to do that. Wish I could learn how to dream, PERIOD.

[shibumi]

"Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"

How about electric hippos?

[Chode]

the two hardest things to overcome are fear and desire...

soon as you think "I hope the plane don't crash" it will, and sometimes the more you want something the harder it is to get it...

[Red_Devil 232]

If the government ever finds out how to intercept my dreams the Secret Service will be at my door - like tomorrow morning.

[A CA Guy]

I never remember dreaming. Maybe twice a year I remember I dreamed.

[timeflies]

I have always had dreams. I can’t imagine not having dreams. As a child I was a sleepwalker. I look forward to sleep because I will dream.

[gitmo]

You could easily see an outrageous event - a fluorescent pink kitten flying past on golden wings, to name but one - without batting a dream eyelid.

Thank God!!! I thought I was the only one seeing those things. They look cute, but believe me they are very dangerous.

[apillar]

I can do this on occasion. The trick is, when you're dreaming, most of the time your don't realize you're dreaming, but sometimes something just seems wrong and you say to yourself “Is this a dream?” Then you have to do something in the dream to prove to yourself it's a dream. What I always do is fall hard to my knees, except in my dream I don't fall but get a general sensation of bobbing up and down like a cork in water. From then on, I know it's a dream and can manipulate it any way I want (which usually involves the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders and a hot tub...but that's probably more than you wanted to know...)

[Exit148]

Why do crazy dreams seem so logical, but in reality are nutty? Like when, in a dream, I asked for a bottle of vinegar and someone pointed to an open closet door, where the bottle was hanging from a wire hanger, right beside clothing hanging on hangers! In the dream it was perfectly normal. When I woke up -— I wondered about my senses!

But so many dreams are like that. Totally upside down in crazy situations, that have nothing to do with reality.

[redhead]

I kept a dream journal for several years, and it was interesting to see just how many of my dreams actually made sense. I can still remember a lot of them, for some odd reason. They are as clear in my memory as actual events, sometimes even clearer, since they never change.

I don't know what good keeping a journal does, but it helped me to focus my dreams and pay attention to them. I never had a "prophetic" dream, but many of them gave me a sense that I understood something the dream was trying to express.

(This is a FWIW post, of course...)

[RegulatorCountry]

Attempting to “direct” a lucid dream can take a surprising turn that is sometimes disturbing, in my experience. The altered “reality” of a dream, even guided, has a logic of it’s own.

I’ve had a repetitive dream since late childhood, of being in a sort of hazy, twilight or dawn place, outside of what appears to be somewhat like a church. I’m surrounded by smaller people that aren’t quite ... people, how I know this is not clear, and they want something from me, don’t know what. I realize I’m dreaming, and start jumping up and down, higher and higher until I take flight. I fly into a large tree, looking down upon these beings looking up ... wanting. Then, one of them, somehow harsher than the others, starts jumping up and down, up and down, higher and higher. He (definitely he, don’t know how I know this but he is) takes flight and pursues me from tree to tree, with those others still looking up, wanting.

What’s disturbing is the sense that I’m not the only one in that dream dreaming lucidly. Try something different, works for a while, then it gets countered.

Weird, I know. I’ve probably dreamed that at least twenty times, never turning out the same way before waking. The worst one was nightmarish, he, it, nearly caught me. Vile thing, whatever he is or is supposed to represent.

[shibumi]

Thanks for sharing your stories!

I posted this because it’s a subject in which I am highly interested, but also to get some relief from the Usurper and his tar-ball mess.

The resultant reading of all your experiences is fascinating!

Thanks again.

[exDemMom]

I think I would rather not remember the dreams, although I usually remember snippets.

As a child, I frequently suffered from night paralysis, which is a terrifying experience. People having that think they are awake, but are stuck between dreaming and wakefulness. Often, the state is accompanied by vivid hallucinations.

One 18th century painting I’ve seen depicts the state by showing a sleeping woman with a demon on her chest.

As an adult, the paralysis does not happen often, but is terrifying when it does. A few weeks ago, I had it happen, and would have been screaming in terror—if only I could have controlled my actions. But I couldn’t move. I still managed to make enough sound to wake my husband, who then woke me.

[wally_bert]

Similar story.