My brain does NOT want me to lucid dream

[glaive]

Short list of scenarios I've had:

• I often have anxiety dreams where I'm missing too much attendance in a class. Two times in a row I thought "wow, I usually dream about this, then wake up and realize I don't need to be anxious about it. Too bad this is ACTUALLY the real world!"
• My anxiety dreams often linearly progress through the semester, corresponding to the waking seasons (though I'm not in school). If I try to think of the past, I will remember a scenario in a (real) past dream I had.
• I frequently remember things in my dreams that happened recently in real life, and will think my dream scenario is just the "current" time, whatever the waking day is. (Mentioning this because I saw that remembering was a method for lucid dreaming given in the stickied post.)
• I will read something in a book in a dream, then when I look back and see the writing changed, think, "Oh, I must have misremembered" or "Oh, I picked up the wrong book."
• Last night I dreamt I was in the downtown of my city, and thought, "While I'm here, I should visit [the brunch restaurant that only exists in my dreams]." I feel like I subconsciously recognized I was in a dream, but I wasn't able to actually act or have control over anything. So weird!!!

Anyone have any thoughts?

 

[Robert Ramsay]

I sympathise. I've had a few lucid dreams over the years, but can probably count them on the fingers of one hand. My problem is that normally, when I (rarely) realise I'm dreaming, I immediately wake up. Only a couple of times have I actually managed to remain in the dream.

 

[Morell]

Waking up to realization inside a dream is nearly impossible for me too. Once IO tried different approach that worked very well for me. Might try it again someday.

My working hours and habits cause me sometimes slight sleep deprivation. Then, when I meditate I start falling asleep and into dreams. So one day I had briliant idea and enough time to test it. In these states when I start falling asleep during meditation, my body is simply ready to drop and sleep. So I just got into comfortable position for sleep, covered myself with blanket and started imagining a place. Crazed body fell asleep in a minute while I was in lucid dream, consciously moved there without any chaotic transition and I kept an hour long lucid dream, though it felt like 20 minutes and I was occasionally even getting out of body, so I needed to consciously keep the dream going. It was quite a trip that I later interpreted with help of a friend because my unconscious mind had a lot of images and symbols for me in that dream... Oh and when the dream was fading and I was looking at my body, I saw myself having wings. That was strange, but that wasn't a dream.

 

[glaive]

Waking up to realization inside a dream is nearly impossible for me too. Once IO tried different approach that worked very well for me. Might try it again someday.

My working hours and habits cause me sometimes slight sleep deprivation. Then, when I meditate I start falling asleep and into dreams. So one day I had briliant idea and enough time to test it. In these states when I start falling asleep during meditation, my body is simply ready to drop and sleep. So I just got into comfortable position for sleep, covered myself with blanket and started imagining a place. Crazed body fell asleep in a minute while I was in lucid dream, consciously moved there without any chaotic transition and I kept an hour long lucid dream, though it felt like 20 minutes and I was occasionally even getting out of body, so I needed to consciously keep the dream going. It was quite a trip that I later interpreted with help of a friend because my unconscious mind had a lot of images and symbols for me in that dream... Oh and when the dream was fading and I was looking at my body, I saw myself having wings. That was strange, but that wasn't a dream.

That's very cool. I found out I stay conscious for a long time while falling asleep but if I try visualizing during that time. there's a clear point between awake (visualizing consciously) and asleep (visualization becomes fragmented and impossible to control). It's something I want to explore more though since I sleep a lot.

My problem is that normally, when I (rarely) realise I'm dreaming, I immediately wake up.

I've had this issue too! Also once in a nightmare I had the opposite, where I tried to wake up, but just ended up doing the thing that was supposed to wake me up inside of the dream. Freaked me out!

 

[taschr]

You might find Tibetan dream yoga beneficial. When I was younger I had similar experiences of bouncing off of dreams as soon as I realized I was dreaming. Making an effort to establish and sustain meditative concentration while in bed has resulted in awareness persisting through sleep and dream at a subtle level, where I've found it much more natural to rest inside of a dream with greater clarity. There are lots of books on this, The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep is a classic, but even just a 30 minute Yoga Nidra meditation on YouTube is enough to establish the foundations needed to work with.