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New research at the University of Adelaide has found that a specific combination of techniques will increase people's chances of having lucid dreams, in which the dreamer is aware they're dreaming while it's still happening and can control the experience.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/10/171019100812.htm

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The ability to lucid dream doesn't guarantee dream control though. I'm still working on that part. I've only ever had very mild levels of control during lucidity.

Edited by sarah_
typo
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 “Tonight in your dreams you must look at your hands,” don Juan instructs Castaneda.

"Ordinary dreams get very vivid as soon as you begin to set up dreaming. That vividness and clarity is a formidable barrier. Don't be distracted from the purpose of dreaming, which is control and power.
      I'm going to remind you of all the techniques you must practice. First you must focus your gaze on your hands as the starting point. Then shift your gaze to other items and look at them in brief glances. Focus your gaze on as many things as you can. Remember that if you only glance briefly the images do not shift. Then go back to your hands.
      Every time you look at your hands you renew the power needed for dreaming, so in the beginning don't look at too many things. Four items will suffice every time. Later on you may enlarge the scope until you can cover all you want, but as soon as the images begin to shift and you feel you are losing control go back to your hands.
      When you feel you can gaze at things indefinitely you will be ready for a new technique. I'm going to teach you this new technique now, but I expect you to put it to use only when you are ready.
      The next step in setting up dreaming is to learn to travel. The same way you have learned to look at your hands you can will yourself to move, to go places. First you have to establish a place you want to go to. Pick a well-known spot--perhaps your school, or a park, a friend's house--then, will yourself to go there.
      This technique is very difficult. You must perform two tasks: you must will yourself to go to the specific locale; and then, when you have mastered that technique, you have to learn to control the exact time of your traveling. You are making yourself accessible to power; you're hunting it and I'm just guiding you."

- don Juan Matus, in Journey to Ixtlan by Carlos Castaneda

http://www.prismagems.com/castaneda/donjuan3.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Dreaming

Edited by purrrpetrator
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  • 3 weeks later...

One of the associated sources revealed this 

Neuroscientists from the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry have compared brain structures of frequent lucid dreamers and participants who never or only rarely have lucid dreams. Accordingly, the anterior prefrontal cortex, i.e., the brain area controlling conscious cognitive processes and playing an important role in the capability of self-reflection, is larger in lucid dreamers.

The differences in volumes in the anterior prefrontal cortex between lucid dreamers and non-lucid dreamers suggest that lucid dreaming and metacognition are indeed closely connected. This theory is supported by brain images taken when test persons were solving metacognitive tests while being awake. Those images show that the brain activity in the prefrontal cortex was higher in lucid dreamers. "Our results indicate that self-reflection in everyday life is more pronounced in persons who can easily control their dreams," states Elisa Filevich, post-doc in the Center for Lifespan Psychology at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150123135112.htm

Two things fascinated me 

i.ve been able to not only lucid dream, and control my dreams, but to construct and create the dreams scapes i want to enter, since i was a child 

Over the years i have had a number of emri scans,  showing a perfectly normal brain  with one exception  I have an enlarged  anterior prefontal cortex which was significant enough to be noted in the documentation received with the scans  

I've also been "abnormally" self reflective and meta cognitive since childhood   ( Metacognition is "cognition about cognition", "thinking about thinking", "knowing about knowing", becoming "aware of one's awareness" and higher-order thinking skills. The term comes from the root word meta, meaning "beyond")

Hence i found this study of great interest. I'd never actually considered a biological or genetic cause for a very significant difference between me and most other people I  come into contact with    

 

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On 01/11/2017 at 5:13 AM, purrrpetrator said:

 “Tonight in your dreams you must look at your hands,” don Juan instructs Castaneda.

"Ordinary dreams get very vivid as soon as you begin to set up dreaming. That vividness and clarity is a formidable barrier. Don't be distracted from the purpose of dreaming, which is control and power.
      I'm going to remind you of all the techniques you must practice. First you must focus your gaze on your hands as the starting point. Then shift your gaze to other items and look at them in brief glances. Focus your gaze on as many things as you can. Remember that if you only glance briefly the images do not shift. Then go back to your hands.
      Every time you look at your hands you renew the power needed for dreaming, so in the beginning don't look at too many things. Four items will suffice every time. Later on you may enlarge the scope until you can cover all you want, but as soon as the images begin to shift and you feel you are losing control go back to your hands.
      When you feel you can gaze at things indefinitely you will be ready for a new technique. I'm going to teach you this new technique now, but I expect you to put it to use only when you are ready.
      The next step in setting up dreaming is to learn to travel. The same way you have learned to look at your hands you can will yourself to move, to go places. First you have to establish a place you want to go to. Pick a well-known spot--perhaps your school, or a park, a friend's house--then, will yourself to go there.
      This technique is very difficult. You must perform two tasks: you must will yourself to go to the specific locale; and then, when you have mastered that technique, you have to learn to control the exact time of your traveling. You are making yourself accessible to power; you're hunting it and I'm just guiding you."

- don Juan Matus, in Journey to Ixtlan by Carlos Castaneda

http://www.prismagems.com/castaneda/donjuan3.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Dreaming

If you learn this a s a child it a s easy as anything you learn while a child.

   However to note my post, above. I thought everyone dreamed like this when i was a child  and had never considered it might be a function of brain structure  which made it so easy and natural for me. 

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I have recently begun to add lucid dreaming exorcises to my everyday routine. I haven't had one yet, but my dream recall has improved a lot. My question is how do you think to look at your hands in a dream, if you don't know you are in a dream to begin with? Now that I'm getting a good look at my dreams every morning, there is very little about any of them that are realistic. Yet somehow I never figure out it isn't real.

I literally walked side by side with my son who was riding on a elephant down into my driveway (I have a long driveway), and it never occurred to me while it was happening that there was a reality problem. A least till I woke up. lol

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There are more options according to my current interest.

1/Meditation about a journey before sleep to see distant places .

2/Meditation -  focus my mind on the next day what I will do, to see future events

3/Meditation on my wish. ... etc.

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I was always able to jump out of horror dreams. When such a dream occur I`m aware of dreaming and I force myself to wake up.

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9 minutes ago, toast said:

I was always able to jump out of horror dreams. When such a dream occur I`m aware of dreaming and I force myself to wake up.

You still do that now?

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Just now, preacherman76 said:

You still do that now?

Yes.

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7 minutes ago, toast said:

Yes.

You should do an experiment and see if you can change the dream to whatever you want once you realize you have control, instead of getting out. I almost never become aware I'm dreaming. The few times I have though I instantly, just naturally change it, even if it was a cool dream. Those ended up being the best dreams I've had.

Anyhow, it was just a thought. Believe it or not that's a pretty rare ability to have, especially without having done some daily exorcise like dream journaling, and stuff like that.

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34 minutes ago, preacherman76 said:

You should do an experiment and see if you can change the dream to whatever you want once you realize you have control, instead of getting out.

I cannot change the scene but I can influence the scene sometimes.

Quote

Believe it or not that's a pretty rare ability to have, especially without having done some daily exorcise like dream journaling, and stuff like that.

But I cannot make money out of it, thats the problem. :lol:

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I just wake up and go, holy crap. Sometimes in a good way or a bad way. The funny thing is when I wake up and look at the clock it's right around 4 am.  The hard part about dreaming is doing math and spelling I wake up out of frustration. 

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2 hours ago, toast said:

I was always able to jump out of horror dreams. When such a dream occur I`m aware of dreaming and I force myself to wake up.

I havent had one for quite awhile but I used to consciously scream in my dream to wake myself up.

I cannot lucid dream, but I do try to interpret my dreams, for example, I saw 4 white cats playing with some footballs in a garden and then a bigger, mother cat came out of the bushes with another football. That dream and a couple of waking syncrinisities, I interpreted as a 4-1 win for Man Utd today. True story lol!

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2 hours ago, toast said:

I was always able to jump out of horror dreams. When such a dream occur I`m aware of dreaming and I force myself to wake up.

I used to have dreams that monsters were chasing me when I was little.

At about age 10, I was having another one, and I had run down stairs and realized I was at a dead end. 

I just realized I was dreaming, and I said to myself, "Hey...this is my dream. I can make it what I want."

So I turned to the wall and made a door. I went out the door, and that's when I woke up. 

No more monsters chasing me dreams ever since...for the rest of my life. 

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14 minutes ago, Crazy Horse said:

I interpreted as a 4-1 win for Man Utd today. True story lol!

Priceless!

:lol:

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I've had flying dreams that felt incredibly real. I even decided where to go, and which roofs to patter across, hoping to startle the sleeping people. 

Hehehe. 

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18 minutes ago, ChaosRose said:

I've had flying dreams that felt incredibly real. I even decided where to go, and which roofs to patter across, hoping to startle the sleeping people. 

Hehehe. 

I’ve had projections where I was jumping from roof to roof. Felt so real I could feel my feet sliding on their shingles if I came in to fast.

Awesome experience. 

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Just now, preacherman76 said:

I’ve had projections where I was jumping from roof to roof. Felt so real I could feel my feet sliding on their shingles if I came in to fast.

Awesome experience. 

What if we were really there, preacher?

Hehehe. Nifty to think about.

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Careful. They'll be callin you a witch.

It'll be guilt by association. 

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4 minutes ago, ChaosRose said:

What if we were really there, preacher?

Hehehe. Nifty to think about.

There are times I’m so amazed at how real it seems that I have no choice but to believe it’s possible 

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I don't have good dreams. While I was in prison I had dreams that I was home. But they weren't good. Then I would wake up in a living nightmare. I wish I could change my dreams but my whole childhood and younger days was one long nightmare so my mind is too broken. Sucks.. 

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1 minute ago, ChaosRose said:

Careful. They'll be callin you a witch.

It'll be guilt by association. 

I’ve been called worse lol

 

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Just now, Piney said:

I don't have good dreams. While I was in prison I had dreams that I was home. But they weren't good. Then I would wake up in a living nightmare. I wish I could change my dreams but my whole childhood and younger days was one long nightmare so my mind is too broken. Sucks.. 

I wish I could help. I just don't know how I do it. 

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