Lucid dreaming is the state of becoming aware one is dreaming while still being within the dream. To what end? That awareness may allow one to influence the dream itself, and the possibilities of that are obvious and compelling enough that plenty of clever and curious people have formed some sort of interest in this direction. Now there are some indications that VR might be a useful tool in helping people achieve lucid dreaming.
The research paper (Virtual reality training of lucid dreaming) is far from laying out a conclusive roadmap, but there’s enough there to make the case that VR is at least worth a look as a serious tool in the quest for lucid dreaming.
One method of using VR in this way hinges on the idea that engaging in immersive VR content can create mild dissociative experiences, and this can help guide and encourage users to perform “reality checks”. VR can help such reality checks become second nature (or at least more familiar and natural), which may help one to become aware of a dream state when it occurs.
Another method uses VR as a way to induce a mental state that is more conducive to lucid dreaming. As mentioned, engaging in immersive VR can induce mild dissociative experiences, so VR slowly guides one into a more receptive state before falling asleep. Since sleeping in VR is absolutely a thing, perhaps an enterprising hacker with a healthy curiosity in lucid dreaming might be inspired to experiment with combining them.
We’ve covered plenty of lucid dreaming hacks over the years and there’s even been serious effort at enabling communication from within a dreaming state. If you ask us, that’s something just begging to be combined with VR.
So I am going to ask the question I always ask when this comes up. How do you know in the dream that you are actually lucid dreaming and not just dreaming that you are lucid dreaming?
Read this: https://hackaday.com/2012/06/20/communicating-from-inside-your-dreams/
I’d estimate that at least 50% of my dreams have always been lucid since childhood, and I thought this was normal. Furthermore, I’ve had many occasions, usually when I took a nap during the day, where I was in a dream and felt tired (in the dream) after dreaming for a while so I went to bed in the dream, into another dream, then woke up (in the dream) and thought I was “in real life” again, sometimes I would realize I was still asleep, sometimes I would end up confused or even stressed when physics or other norms were violated in a situation where I expected them not to be. I always assumed that this was normal, but have been told by many that it is not. I still think there is a very significant percentage of people who experience the same thing and also just assume it’s normal. If I take a nap during the day in a spot exposed to sunlight (no idea why this matters) while exposed to some manner of white noise, I would equate some of my dreams to a makeshift version of the star trek holodek. As I grow older it gets better and I need to be careful not to take a nap just because I want this virtual world recreation as I fear that it could lead to some sort of psychosis where I don’t want to be awake anymore… Lol
Another interesting phenomena is that when I am lucid dreaming, and fully aware that I am in a dream state, I am able to hear everything that is going on around me in real life, and I am able to recall these things when I wake up. For instance, if I take a nap while someone is talking in the next room, I am able to recall what they were talking about, and sometimes the subject of their conversation ends up being incorporated into the dream in some way. The brain is a fascinating thing. I hope I don’t get alzheimers.
Use a spinner to check the reality ;-)
Walrus, I can’t speak to lucid dreams, but maybe this can help you figure the sunshine part of your sleeping?
I can usually tell the room temperature by my dreams. At about 69~70 degrees Fahrenheit. My dreams begin to go vivid and increase in intensity with the room temperature. By 75~76 degrees f, my dreams are getting into really bad nightmares.
My sleep is not truly restive until the temperature gets into the low 60’s f or colder.
Wish I could do a bit of dream steering and altering, the rougher of the nightmares often leave me feeling seriously exhausted for the whole day.
I do NOT recommend lucid dreaming. It is great for some people but it can go wrong.
I trained myself for it in college expecting to be like Neo in the Matrix. Instead, I am aware I’m dreaming but any attempt to act on that knowledge breaks everything and turns it into a surreal nightmare. I ended up giving myself a sleep disorder and I’ve been struggling with it for over a decade now. It has been a massive detriment to my mental health.
Can you elaborate? I’m also looking into get into lucid dreaming
Sounds like it might be turning into hypnagogic hallucinations. I can’t find the page, but 20+ years ago there was a researcher who had a set of web pages on Sleep Paralysis, and who mentioned that some people were able to turn sleep paralysis episodes into lucid dreaming. So there seems to be a path between the two states and maybe they are loosely related (both seem to be related to REM sleep with partial wakefulness). IIRC correctly, That web page said some people indicated that trying to mentally rotate their body when in sleep paralysis could turn the hallucinations into lucid dreams. If so then maybe Cad is traveling that mental path in the reverse direction and the treatments for Sleep Paralysis might help him return to a lucid dream state.
https://www.sleepfoundation.org/parasomnias/sleep-demon
Sleep Paralysis and lucid dreaming are both linked to REM Sleep dysfunctions. There was a researcher page from about 30 years ago that mentioned that some people undergoing sleep paralysis could imagine rotating their bodies and turn the SP episode into a lucid dream. Perhaps Cad the Mad is doing the reverse. Here’s a page that discusses sleep paralysis.
https://www.sleepfoundation.org/parasomnias/sleep-demon
I had issues with sleep paralysis in my 20s and also was probably dealing with OSA, which has since become more severe. At one point I had this happen repeatedly in a single night and, frustrated at being unable to sleep, I broke the paralysis by sleeping on my back and straining to reach for/fight the perceived presence. Perhaps that helped re-establish conscious/REM boundaries as I haven’t had other episodes since.
I don’t know what problems Cad is experiencing, but perhaps he should look into whether OSA might be a factor for him, and if treatments like BiPAP might help. And yeah, I can understand having mental health concerns over sleep paralysis if he’s dealing with a variant; the hallucinations are very vivid and the feeling of loss of control is very disturbing.
I find that interesting because when I am dreaming I am often aware of sleep paralysis. I know that moving my limbs is very difficult and I can only speak with difficulty. If I do manage to speak I end up awakening and speaking in real life.
I don’t know if it is technically a sleep disorder, but I basically made myself unable to sleep restfully because once I’m aware I’m dreaming then I am stressed trying to make sure I am playing my part right so the dream doesn’t sour.
Meanwhile during the day I am constantly checking that things are real, and I can’t just STOP because I end up worrying that I’m dreaming.
anecdote to answer this question came to me…
early this morning i was working for my electrician friend at a customer’s house. we finished up the job, and i guess i had taken off my shoes so as to not track mud into their house, and i went to their front door but i could not find my shoes where i thought i must have left them. i decided to look for my shoes just outside their house, but i didn’t want to step on the outside with my socks. knowing my lifestyle as i do, i could tell it must be a dream, so i picked up my feet and folded them up under me like i was sitting cross-legged, without falling to the ground, and i floated around their front yard looking for my shoes. the knowledge that i was dreaming already made me almost wake up and then i went into the problem-solving / fire-putting-out mode that dominates so many of my waking hours as a parent, and woke myself up all the way. upon waking, i had a mild unease from having lost my shoes.
i would have rather not woken up. i would have rather not engaged the self-reflective part of my mind with this task of finding dream shoes. i blame this common and undesirable outcome on having trained myself, 30 years ago as a teenager, to do frequent reality checks so that i could learn to lucid dream. flying in a dream isn’t actually awesome and trying to decide consciously what to do next in the dream is all downside imo.
haha i hope this made sense
Thinking you’d be neo means those problems already existed
haha yes this is my exact advice as well.
you don’t need a vr helmet to learn how to lucid dream…just think about your dreams, write a dream journal. very quickly i learned how to recognize the characteristics of a dream and once i was thinking about it it became easy to determine if i’m dreaming or not. but i don’t think that’s a good idea. you don’t want to be asking yourself if you’re dreaming. pandora’s box isn’t always filled with treats
I would have to agree. I remember going down the road of lucid dreaming by writing my dreams down in a notebook.
Somewhere along the line your dreams become more vivid and real as you become more aware of them. This unfortunately makes nightmares seem more realistic and they can totally ruin your entire day before you manage to control them. I’m taking about nightmares where you wake up and have to sit in the shower for an hour to clear your head.
The good news is I now have sleep apnea from failed orthodontics and I never dream anymore and usually only get 4 hours of sleep on any given night. Take that, nightmares!
I’ve had this ability most of my life. The best thing about it is that when in this mode, while designing and working on a project, I can see the machine in the process of being made. I can walk around and inside it. Being small gives me a whole new way to think about ways to improve. Best thing is that I remember most of the dream in the morning. Having another point of view is very helpful. Most people don’t believe me but that’s OK. We all work differently.
Some don’t recall a bit of it so there’s that. Also, some can visualize in the daytime in a CAD fashion so that makes up for that.
Me too. And, I can control the dream if I want to. When it gets scary, I just tell the monster (or whatever) to go away and it works. I also work through planning stuff in my dreams. Gives me ideas for when I am awake. It wasn’t until I was in my 40s that I realized not everyone does that. I think of it as my superpower. lol
I don’t enjoy experimenting with lucid dreaming because, for me, it can trigger sleep paralysis, a condition I first experienced around the age of 6 or 7. Fortunately, it’s somewhat under control now. For those who may not be familiar with sleep paralysis, it’s when you wake up partially—your eyes may be open, but you’re still extremely tired, and you can’t move your body, except for sometimes your fingers or feet. During this time, controlling your breath becomes crucial, making the situation quite unsettling and complex.
A rather unpleasant experience which sometimes have to fight.
I dont just “lucid dream”, I wake up with actionable solutions to my current situational challenges, plus mull over any other considerations and/or dilemas.Can also just go crash out at any time I am wiped, and do a short power nap, with similar characteristics, buuuuuuut I am.also inured to the bizzare, and if I get too wound up, a little melatonin will clear the subconsious plumbing in spectacular fashion.
obviosly not for everybody
Hey don’t forget the shadow people! I remember a dream when I find myself with 3 of them, an old man a, girl and some kind of chinese ninja, and someone said: guys, do you realize we are about to wake up? and then the girl said; this is the last time we will see each other!,lets see who is the last to wake up! and everyone was laughing and like go! go ! go! , one by one the guys were desappearing until it was only me, I was kind of sad at this point, so I had a final glimpse of the landscape, sighed and said: it’s OK. Then I simply opened my eyes.
The notion of “dreaming” is strange to me, especially “lucid” types. My sleep is fine: I go to bed, wake up well-rested in 5-7 hours with no alarm, and have no recollection of any dreams. I do recall having dreams and even nightmares when I was a child, but nothing I’d call a dream since I was a pre-teen.
When people tell me in great detail about a dream they had the night before, I don’t know whether to think I’m weird or they are.
Not everyone dreams the same way of course. I can recall mine just fine but they’re never anything really special, just absurd and with locations and people based loosely on real life.
I imagine a lot of people dream like that but I could also be considered just as crazy.
Point is that some people won’t shut up about what they’ve dreamt about even though no one cares lol
So maybe I’m getting this totally wrong, but from what I can tell, lucid dreaming is just a method to control dreams. I’ve always (as long as I can remember) been able to do that partly. I can stop bad dreams when they happen or change them in my favor. I can stop them by thinking about different things to dream about. When I have a nightmare I can instantly change it to a scene from the video game shadow warrior from 1997 and I’m suddenly in a field with rabbits, holding a gun. I have no idea why my mind goes to that game.
A big problem I have when sleeping is the sound of a gun going off. Doesn’t happen every night, but often when falling asleep, it’s sounds like a gun going off right next to my head. On rare occasions it’s a bell, like a handbell. I know it’s not real but I do hear it and my adrenaline wakes me up instantly. I wish that only happened when my alarm goes off.
I’m going to say this is not the greatest idea.
Then again, a sample size of one isn’t a good way to make decisions.
I learned about lucid dreaming in my tweens (long enough ago that they weren’t even called that yet).
I practiced until I could do it pretty reliability by the time I was 15.
I would lucent dream 2-3 nights a week at that point.
It took a long time to realize how much less restful this type of dreaming is.
It then took YEARS to undo the training and mostly stop, because the “habit” of checking things to “break out” of a dream is just that, a habit.
I still have pretty screwed up sleeping patterns decades later, and have had to learn to “restart” dreams I have accidentally taken control of.
Also, it may or may not be a contributing factor to my “forever dreams”, which I have had a handful of.
What I have come to call a “forever dream” usually starts as a lucent dream.
Sometimes, giving up control of the dreamscape works, but I maintain control of my dream-self’s agency. I have to follow the dream rules, just like a waking person has to follow the rules of this reality.
After a while, I forget I’m dreaming, but I’m still controlling my dream-self.
And that’s where the idea of “dreams” breaks down.
I call these “forever dreams”, because they just keep going.
The 4 I have had have lasted decades subjectively.
I also remember them pretty clearly. For weeks or months afterwards.
The first time it happened my dream-self finished school, went to college, met a partner, had kids, and more. It ended when I was killed in the dream.
I was asleep for about 45 hours and awoke confused, incredibly hungry/thirsty, with a pounding headache, and physically tired with sore muscles.
It took me days to fully situate myself back into the real world.
What were we doing in that class 35 years ago? Oh yeah. Test on Friday.
Where did I put my keys? Oh right, I don’t have a car, because I’m 15.
I should call (daughter) to see how her second semester is doing. Oh. Right. I don’t have a daughter. Or a partner. Or a job.
The “forever dreams” do eventually fade from memory. They get fuzzy like real dreams do, just much slower.
With the perspective of real decades, and real lost family members, I feel shockingly similar feelings for these imagined dream people.
I used to feel really guilty that I missed my dream partner more than I missed my real uncle who died about 3 months after my first “forever dream”.
Anyway…that became a ramble.
Possible lessons?
Let’s be careful screwing with our dreaming…