I dry fast regularly (no water, no food). At about day 6 my dreams are so lucid and vivid that I can basically control them if I wake up in the middle of the night (and when you dry fast, waking up and being pretty much alert is common around days 3+ of a dry fast, at least for me). It's pretty crazy and one of the things I look forward to the most each time I dry fast (about 5 times a year, 7 days or so each time).
I agree no one should try this as their first fast. I've been dry, water, and grape juice fasting for two decades and can handle 7 days of dry fasting without an issue.
Despite the title "Choose What to Dream Tonight", "Just 10% to 20% of people are regular lucid dreamers".
Lucid dream, "is when a person is aware that a dream is happening and can sometimes influence events within it."
But you "could" lucid dream if you try,
a) setting an intention
b) writing it down and repeating a mantra before you sleep
c) If you catch yourself lucid dreaming then remind yourself what you wanted to do in your dream and
d) after you wake up, write down your dream.
Seems like a fun experiment but there is no suggestion of any significant health or other benefits.
When I was a teenager, I used to have plenty of lucid dreams. Also I had some sleep paralysis events. I remember once "waking up" on my bed, looking around, unable to move. I recall that my window blind looked a bit odd with all the holes forming an "X", at some point I decided to go to sleep. After that I woke up and I was back to my regular bedroom. I would love to have experiences like that, particularly I would love to experience OOBE, but looks really hard to get that. Maybe I can try this way.
Go check out r/astralprojecton it has a lot of info on how to have an OBE. I've been trying for a couple of months now and had one for sure and a couple of close ones.
Yes, thank you. I've been trying, read a couple of book (one with esoteric nonsenses) there is another book more promising, called "The phase" with exercises, but for the moment didn't work for me.
I’ve rarely had sleep paralysis but I had it a few times this year when I was taking bobinsana for a week. I’d come in and out of layers of dreams, like you’re describing. I was here: https://www.epicenterayahuasca.com/
I actually believe there is a benefit, at least there was in my life. I was trying different herbal supplements that were supposed to improve your sleep quality, and hit on a mixture of ashwaganda, green tea extract, and magnesium that let me lucid dream almost nightly.
I found that, because my dreams were so much fun, I looked forward to sleep, slept longer, and had a better overall quality of sleep. I'm not sure how much was the "behind the scenes" work of the supplements, versus the fact that I was genuinely having a good time in my dreams.
Either way, I was better rested when that was happening, and essentially living two lives. It was super cool.
Like all things, moderation is key. I am very cautious with anything for sleep now, other than natural methods such as controlling activity, caffeine, and light before bed.
It is too easy to become dependent on anything when it comes to sleep patterns. The problem with being dependent on anything for sleep is what happens when you run out.
Don't waste your time with a mantra, easiest way of lucid dreaming is the nose method.
In your waking reality, make the habit of shutting your nose close (pinch with fingers) and trying to breathe every 10 minutes. Thing is while dreaming if you shut your nose and try to breathe you'll notice that it works. If you make it a habit in your waking reality then it'll also carry over to your dreams where you'll notice that you can actually breathe with your nose shut and instantly be awakened into a lucid dream.
Interesting read. I dream a lot, and almost all my dreams are very happy (I'm on a nice trip with my family, hiking in a beautiful place, etc.) Some dreams are based in the future, e.g. celebrating 50th wedding anniversary with my wife, etc. However, I'm not aware that I'm dreaming, and have never been able to control my dreams either. When I wake up, I go, "that was interesting."
Question: other than the entertainment aspect, is there a benefit to being able to control one's dreams?
I sometimes become aware I'm dreaming during nightmares/unsettling dreams and then I'm able to "switch topics" to something more pleasant. I generally forget what I dream about next. I think being able to escape nightmares is a good benefit, but if you don't have nightmares then it's probably not very useful to you.
I've heard that certain people will use lucid dreaming to solve problems. Basically ask themselves to come up with solutions to things they are working on. Salvador Dali (and other famous people using similar methods) apparently used to fall asleep with a spoon dangling in his hand such that when he fell asleep it would drop and wake him up immediately. The idea being that you would awake in an altered state of increased creativity - apparently it works[1].
I also dream often and vividly and some of the dreams I have had have been so realistic and fulfilling that I wake up in a state of awe, feeling as if I have just lived a wonderful experience inaccessible to waking life. For example, I once had a dream where I traveled to the moon where I woke up feeling, as silly as it might sound, as if I had just returned from the moon - hard to describe how wonderful this experience actually was.
So to answer your question, I think there is benefit in altering your state of mind through dreaming to re-align your perspectives and to get a different view on life. I don't think this requires controlling the subject of one's dreams, but having some control over the quality certainly would help.
It's not such a good idea to choose what you dream. I hold a bit of a niche view on the functionality of dreaming, although I believe eventual research will hold me in good stead.
When one looks at the neurology of REM sleep, it is hard not to reach the conclusion that dreams are a form of "inverse anxious mind-wandering". As in the neurology of mind-wandering is activated, however the brain is (surprisingly) in an extremely relaxed state.
Norepinephrine (the fight or flight neurotransmitter) levels are 80% below base waking levels (Norepinephrine spikes when you are in a stressful situation), and the amygdala (threat detection) is inactive.
When we are awake and performing anxious mind-wandering (with Norepinephrine levels raised and our amygdala active), our mind-wandering has a focus/direction. It imagines the worst and this encourages us to take avoidant action; for example, you might wish to bring something difficult up with a friend, however you brain will imagine all the ways that it can go wrong so you avoid the potential confrontation. From a survival point of view, it is pretty useful for the brain to have a bias towards avoidance when awake.
I posit that during dreaming, the brain creates situations in which it would be wise to be unavoidant. However, typically, despite the situation we imagine quite clearly calling for unavoidant behaviour, we take avoidant behaviour. This is because our emotional/episodic memory areas of the brain are activated during REM sleep, and we automatically take the anxious behaviour we have been "trained" to take (our neuroses).
This, in my eyes, is the function of dreaming. To highlight our neuroses/unconscious redundant anxieties. For this reason, controlling the content of your dreams would remove their primary function.
I wrote a paper on this topic which contains several examples of dreams that fit this structure. (I'm afraid I do not have the time to type an example out now.)
> This, in my eyes, is the function of dreaming. To highlight our neuroses/unconscious redundant anxieties. For this reason, controlling the content of your dreams would remove their primary function.
A large percent of people are lucid dreamers up until their 20s, so there likely isn't any hugely detrimental impact over some level of control over one's dreams.
> I posit that during dreaming, the brain creates situations in which it would be wise to be unavoidant.
For the longest time, my dreams were on the exciting / dangerous side. Lots of getting shot at, lots of fighting, lots of fun, but high stress situations. I had one dream that always stood out where I was actively terraforming worlds over the course of thousands of years in an attempt to create sentient life that could fight off a slowly progressing alien wave that was sweeping through the galaxy. Lots of fun, at least for my definition of fun.
Also had a dream that took place over hundreds+ of years where I was stuck on a spaceship that thanks to relativity, had long since outlived the rest of humanity. That was a rather lonely dream.
I've also watched plenty of movies in my dreams, and listened to some amazing concerts. I always wished I knew enough about music so I could transcribe the songs after I wake up. :(
One thing that I miss now that I'm older is some of the plot lines from my dreams that had been going on for decades. It sucks to lose contact with some of the characters and places I used to visit.
> I had one dream that always stood out where I was actively terraforming worlds over the course of thousands of years in an attempt to create sentient life that could fight off a slowly progressing alien wave that was sweeping through the galaxy. Lots of fun, at least for my definition of fun.
I am super jealous. I don't think I've ever had a lucid dream, or even really any fun ones. Definitely not any I'd call useful. In fact it's a huge pain point for me that it's so hard to use my imagination...
I wish... the furthest I've ever gotten is just dreams that include visible "parts", but never gotten to do anything with them. They really are just random casual everyday happenings, just with dream logic.
Yeah not every one can imagine in visual form, for some its text only while for others its sounds and a black void for some.
No need to be jealous as you have other superpowers to balance things out.
This resonates with me, thanks for sharing. It’s always felt obvious to me that dreams are the brain processing. Usually my dreams are anxious, and I’m an anxious person during the day.
What a cool interpretation. I've noticed that I am often less stressed after dreaming, but unfortunately, I dream quite rarely. Does anyone have any thoughts on how to dream more?
It's not that you dream rarely, it's that you rarely remember your dreams. As a general rule, the only times we remember dreams is when we wake up right after (or during) the dream without leaving REM state. For some people this always happens, for others rarely. But you can induce it setting an alarm for a time that you're likely to be in REM state. To find that time, some kind of sleep monitor is helpful. There are also some supplements and medications that have the effect that sleep is lighter in the later stages and it's therefor more likely to wake up during REM. One worth trying is 5-HTP, probably 200mg... this should make you sleep more deeply in early sleep and more lightly when it wears off after a few hours.
Not remembering dreams is quite common. Norepinephrine is associated with long term memory formation, but acetylcholine is associated with your short term memory (e.g. remembering some random digits). When you dream acetylcholine is high. That is why dreams "slip" away from your mind so quickly when you wake, it's the same reason that a random series of digits is hard to keep in your working memory.
I believe this support the interpretation I put forward. Typically our anxious behaviours are reinforced in our dreams (which should highlight their presence if we are paying attention to them). If these were added to our long term memory, they would reinforce the behaviours they are trying to highlight, in order to eventually have the waking you eliminate. It would be counter to this goal if reinforcing experiences were added to long term memory, adding them to short term memory means they don't leave a reinforcing imprint.
It's not so easy to remember dreams for this reason
My understanding is that PTSD quite commonly includes nightmares, which must be very unpleasant even if it has no further consequences. I see that, in your paper, you briefly consider PTSD nightmares, distinguishing them from normal dreams in that in the latter the dreamer's behavior seems odd, while in the former case, it is the environment that seems odd. For what it is worth, in my dreams (non-PTSD not-nightmare), the environment usually seems odd and I am just trying to cope with it as best I can.
This, in my eyes, is the function of dreaming. To highlight our neuroses/unconscious redundant anxieties. For this reason, controlling the content of your dreams would remove their primary function.
it works both ways though. i frequently find my dreams influenced by activities during the day. intentional or not.
the other day i was watching a lot of videos about public transport, and sure enough i was dreaming about that at night.
so at that point my brain is already influenced. does that mean i accidentally interfered with the actual function of dreaming? but if it can happen accidentally, then why not also influence dreaming intentionally?
should my friend keep dreaming about his son who killed himself? it's been years. therapy didn't help and the resulting anxiety is unlikely to go away anytime soon. sometimes an intervention and a distraction from those anxieties seems like a better idea.
> After I told her that I was working on this column, she decided to try to dream about my father, who died last year. For five nights in a row, she says, she looked at pictures of him before bed, whispered his name when she closed her eyes, and snuggled up to “one of his ratty, old T-shirts.” Then she called me, annoyed. “It’s all bunk,” she announced. “Not a damn thing happened.”
Surprised to read this little gut punch of a short story right in the middle of a fluff column.
A friend gave me melatonin gummies.
I don't feel like they help with my sleep, but every time I consume them I become aware that I'm dreaming, and I'm able to control each aspect of my dream.
It's been really fun, but at the same time I avoid doing this on weekdays, because otherwise I don't feel like I actually got the chance to rest.
There was an article about this same topic in Omni magazine decades ago [1]. I followed its recommendations and was never able to get anywhere. I have lucid dreams maybe 10% of the time now.
I also have sleep paralysis, which is a weird kind of lucid limbo state -- I always know when I'm in it, and I have a method for breaking out of it (rubbing my lips together), but I'm very seldom "dreaming" when I'm in that state.
Highly recommend the film Waking Life. Fantastic rotoscoped film, dreamy and through provoking. First time I had a lucid dream was the night after watching it.
I think the mystery and ambiguity of our dreams is what makes them so powerful.
I personally prefer to let my dreams be, and explore them immediately after waking. I write them down in complete detail first, then slowly let their meanings reveal themselves to me. Inevitably the meaning (by that I mean the relation to my waking life) comes through in the details that seemed inconsequential until I actually wrote them all down.
Perhaps if I got to pick the nominal subjects of my dreams, my dream work and exploration would not change that much. But it definitely wouldn't be the same if I were to be able to script everything that happened.
“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake up in the day to find it was vanity, but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.”
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 125 ms ] threadhttps://archive.is/GtkP8
Lucid dream, "is when a person is aware that a dream is happening and can sometimes influence events within it."
But you "could" lucid dream if you try,
a) setting an intention b) writing it down and repeating a mantra before you sleep c) If you catch yourself lucid dreaming then remind yourself what you wanted to do in your dream and d) after you wake up, write down your dream.
Seems like a fun experiment but there is no suggestion of any significant health or other benefits.
I found that, because my dreams were so much fun, I looked forward to sleep, slept longer, and had a better overall quality of sleep. I'm not sure how much was the "behind the scenes" work of the supplements, versus the fact that I was genuinely having a good time in my dreams.
Either way, I was better rested when that was happening, and essentially living two lives. It was super cool.
It is too easy to become dependent on anything when it comes to sleep patterns. The problem with being dependent on anything for sleep is what happens when you run out.
In your waking reality, make the habit of shutting your nose close (pinch with fingers) and trying to breathe every 10 minutes. Thing is while dreaming if you shut your nose and try to breathe you'll notice that it works. If you make it a habit in your waking reality then it'll also carry over to your dreams where you'll notice that you can actually breathe with your nose shut and instantly be awakened into a lucid dream.
And if you want to go off the deep end, try the gateway tapes.
Question: other than the entertainment aspect, is there a benefit to being able to control one's dreams?
I also dream often and vividly and some of the dreams I have had have been so realistic and fulfilling that I wake up in a state of awe, feeling as if I have just lived a wonderful experience inaccessible to waking life. For example, I once had a dream where I traveled to the moon where I woke up feeling, as silly as it might sound, as if I had just returned from the moon - hard to describe how wonderful this experience actually was.
So to answer your question, I think there is benefit in altering your state of mind through dreaming to re-align your perspectives and to get a different view on life. I don't think this requires controlling the subject of one's dreams, but having some control over the quality certainly would help.
[1] https://www.livescience.com/little-known-sleep-stage-may-be-...
When one looks at the neurology of REM sleep, it is hard not to reach the conclusion that dreams are a form of "inverse anxious mind-wandering". As in the neurology of mind-wandering is activated, however the brain is (surprisingly) in an extremely relaxed state.
Norepinephrine (the fight or flight neurotransmitter) levels are 80% below base waking levels (Norepinephrine spikes when you are in a stressful situation), and the amygdala (threat detection) is inactive.
When we are awake and performing anxious mind-wandering (with Norepinephrine levels raised and our amygdala active), our mind-wandering has a focus/direction. It imagines the worst and this encourages us to take avoidant action; for example, you might wish to bring something difficult up with a friend, however you brain will imagine all the ways that it can go wrong so you avoid the potential confrontation. From a survival point of view, it is pretty useful for the brain to have a bias towards avoidance when awake.
I posit that during dreaming, the brain creates situations in which it would be wise to be unavoidant. However, typically, despite the situation we imagine quite clearly calling for unavoidant behaviour, we take avoidant behaviour. This is because our emotional/episodic memory areas of the brain are activated during REM sleep, and we automatically take the anxious behaviour we have been "trained" to take (our neuroses).
This, in my eyes, is the function of dreaming. To highlight our neuroses/unconscious redundant anxieties. For this reason, controlling the content of your dreams would remove their primary function.
I wrote a paper on this topic which contains several examples of dreams that fit this structure. (I'm afraid I do not have the time to type an example out now.)
It can be read here: https://psyarxiv.com/k6trz
It was previously discussed on HN here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19143590
A large percent of people are lucid dreamers up until their 20s, so there likely isn't any hugely detrimental impact over some level of control over one's dreams.
> I posit that during dreaming, the brain creates situations in which it would be wise to be unavoidant.
For the longest time, my dreams were on the exciting / dangerous side. Lots of getting shot at, lots of fighting, lots of fun, but high stress situations. I had one dream that always stood out where I was actively terraforming worlds over the course of thousands of years in an attempt to create sentient life that could fight off a slowly progressing alien wave that was sweeping through the galaxy. Lots of fun, at least for my definition of fun.
Also had a dream that took place over hundreds+ of years where I was stuck on a spaceship that thanks to relativity, had long since outlived the rest of humanity. That was a rather lonely dream.
I've also watched plenty of movies in my dreams, and listened to some amazing concerts. I always wished I knew enough about music so I could transcribe the songs after I wake up. :(
One thing that I miss now that I'm older is some of the plot lines from my dreams that had been going on for decades. It sucks to lose contact with some of the characters and places I used to visit.
That is amazing
He does an amazing job describing tactics used to fight off grey goo gone wild.
[1] https://tonyballantyne.com/recursion/
That's being able to orgasm just from your mind
The brain is the most powerful sexual organ
"Maybe for you"
at one point i dreamed about eating a sandwich . it was not lucid, but extremely vivid. its the only time ive ever dreamed of food.
if you practice abstinence, you will have dreams too. prettt fun and strong ones.
id recommend starting with one of those to make dreams more "realistic"
My dreams have all 5 senses, so lots of good food. I get a bit annoyed when I'm woken up in the middle of a good meal. :-D
I believe this support the interpretation I put forward. Typically our anxious behaviours are reinforced in our dreams (which should highlight their presence if we are paying attention to them). If these were added to our long term memory, they would reinforce the behaviours they are trying to highlight, in order to eventually have the waking you eliminate. It would be counter to this goal if reinforcing experiences were added to long term memory, adding them to short term memory means they don't leave a reinforcing imprint.
It's not so easy to remember dreams for this reason
it works both ways though. i frequently find my dreams influenced by activities during the day. intentional or not.
the other day i was watching a lot of videos about public transport, and sure enough i was dreaming about that at night.
so at that point my brain is already influenced. does that mean i accidentally interfered with the actual function of dreaming? but if it can happen accidentally, then why not also influence dreaming intentionally?
should my friend keep dreaming about his son who killed himself? it's been years. therapy didn't help and the resulting anxiety is unlikely to go away anytime soon. sometimes an intervention and a distraction from those anxieties seems like a better idea.
Surprised to read this little gut punch of a short story right in the middle of a fluff column.
I also have sleep paralysis, which is a weird kind of lucid limbo state -- I always know when I'm in it, and I have a method for breaking out of it (rubbing my lips together), but I'm very seldom "dreaming" when I'm in that state.
[1] Might be this one: https://www.amazon.com/Omni-Magazine-September-1994-Exclusiv...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edrGozs6W_I
I personally prefer to let my dreams be, and explore them immediately after waking. I write them down in complete detail first, then slowly let their meanings reveal themselves to me. Inevitably the meaning (by that I mean the relation to my waking life) comes through in the details that seemed inconsequential until I actually wrote them all down.
Perhaps if I got to pick the nominal subjects of my dreams, my dream work and exploration would not change that much. But it definitely wouldn't be the same if I were to be able to script everything that happened.
― T.E. Lawrence