Lucid Dreams as good as regular REM?

[Nevermore]

Are they? Does lucid dreaming replenish your mind as well as regular REM?

[SorceressPol]

From my personal experiences, no. Lucid dreaming has usually left me exhausted, and led to a very bad night when I went through sleep paralysis. Regular rem has never caused any of those side effects for me.

[insane_alien]

Lucid dreaming requires greater mental activity which uses up more energy than REM sleep. so you can wake up feeling groggy and its not as good. never had sleep paralysis before, is it common?

[LucidDreamer]

I could see that the time that you are lucidly dreaming might interfere with some of the benefits of REM sleep--to what extent, I don't know. But, generally the amount of time that you are actually lucidly dreaming is short, so it shouldn't interfere much with how much replenishment you get. For instance, if you manage to lucidly dream for 5 minutes each night, I can't seen that it would hurt you very much. I think, but I am not positive, that Steve La Barge, a lucid dream researcher, said something similar in one of his books. However, I definitely see something like sleep paralysis interfering with the amount of replenishment you get from sleep.

[The Peon]

I have not recalled any dreams for about over a year now. Is that a good thing? Does that mean I am sleeping deeper? I mean, I am sure I am having dreams but I never can recall them anymore.. and I have not had a nightmare in many many years.

[LucidDreamer]

It is normal and it is neither good nor bad. You are just out of the habit of remembering your dreams.

[Psion]

I remember many of my nightmares. Killing people. Watching people die. People being put into caskets.

 

I find that lucid dreaming is somewhat more fun than a pitch black screen. It wakes me up with the feeling that I'm still alive one more day to kill everyone on planet Earth.

 

MuAhHAahAHhahhHAHha

 

I think the best dream is a wet dream. When you're in control of those, it's better than pron.

[Nevermore]

Okay, so we've established that lucid dreams are less restful, and that lucid wet dreams > porn. On a more personal and slightly embarrassing note, I will use the MAME technique to induce lucidity, and have found a useful mantra to listen to while I sleep. However, I have an ugly and none to soothing voice. I was um... wondering... If someone could record this :

 

 

Close your eyes and allow yourself to relax. Let all concerns fade away as you breathe slowly and deeply....

As you listen to these sounds and this voice you are drifting deeper and deeper into your own inner world where all your dreams are pleasant, where you can find peace and the solutions to any problems. Here, you, and you alone, are in complete control...

Let go and drift deeper and deeper with the passing of every word. Don't worry if you drift off to sleep - this voice will travel with you so that you will continue to respond to it at an unconscious level...

You are going to drift into a long, deep, refreshing sleep and when you awake you will be revitalized, invigorated and alert with all your cares washed away and replaced by a wonderful sense of wellbeing. There is nothing for you to do but relax... relax...

Now, imagine that you are standing on the terrace of an old house, a country mansion or a cottage perhaps. You can feel the sun on your face and shoulders and a gentle breeze bringing the scent of freshly cut grass and summer flowers...

Looking around you see an elegant flight of steps leading down into a sunken garden. There are ten steps and in a moment we will count down from ten to one together. As we count, imagine that each number is a step down towards this beautiful garden, another step down into an even deeper state of relaxation...

10... take the first step down. Relax and let go...9... Feel more and more relaxed...8... No need to hurry. Take your time...7...deeper and deeper...6... Deeper and deeper still...5...really relaxed now. Letting go...4... Becoming calmer and calmer...3... Feeling safe and secure...2... All the way down to...1...

And now you find yourself in the beautiful garden with borders of sweet scented flowers and lines of tall, elegant trees stretching far into the distance. Feel the softness of the freshly cut grass beneath your feet and smell the fresh, pure air. Listen to the birds singing as you absorb the stillness and serenity. In the distance you can see an ornamental fountain which is bubbling over into a gently trickling stream. You walk towards it and when you reach it you sit on the soft grass and gaze into the cool, clear water. The sound of the trickling water is lulling you to sleep so you lie back on the grass and gaze up at the clear blue sky. As you drift off into a deep sleep, you have a dream, a lucid dream in which you can control the events and maybe even find the answer to a question for which you have been long searching.

(Long Pause)

In the future, when you sleep, you will be able to take full control of your dreams, just as you are doing now. From the moment when your unconscious mind realizes that the events you are viewing are only part of a dream, you will say to yourself that this is a lucid dream and you will become aware of the limitless possibilities it offers for problem solving and self exploration. Whenever this happens, you will be in full control at all times. You will be able to do anything you want and go anywhere you please and to awaken when you choose. You will only ever have pleasant, uplifting dreams. If you choose to find the solution to a problem for which you have been seeking an answer, you only have to step into that problem to find the solution. Your unconscious mind will guide you so that you can evaluate and try out as many of the solutions as are nessesscary. When you find the answer that both your conscious and unconscious minds believe is the best solution, you will feel completely satisfied and drift into a deep, comforting sleep. When you awaken in the morning you will have a full recollection of that solution.

From now on you will look forward to going to sleep as you will find it easy to recognize your dreams and become fully lucid whenever you want. You will find solutions to any problems, giving you more control of many aspects of your life and making you feel more positive and optimistic for the future.

Now go into a deep, deep sleep...

 

 

I realize that this is an extraordinary request and is unreasonably demanding, but if any of you have the time, please record it.

Seeing as this will be a large file, it can be uploaded here: http://www.yousendit.com/

My email is shaviland1@comcast.net

[Royston]

Do I hear distant pan pipes ? That's all very nice, but my preference is to eat some cheese (only a small amount) maybe a raw or pickled chilli, and quaff some red wine before going to bed...I hasten to add I don't do this every night, but it has 95% success with me.

 

The dream always starts nightmarish, say I find myself in a dark house with rotting walls, and there's always this foreboding fear that something is really not right...usually friends and family are involved and are in some kind of peril.

 

Then I step in with all my lucid capabilities and always have the ability to fly, have incredible strength or dexterity, am telepathic and have the ability to move huge objects with my mind...it even goes to the point in my dreams that I'm omnipotent and start shaping the environment to help the people who are in trouble (as though I am the environment and nothing can touch me.) I always seem to defeat whatever lurking fear is in the dream...and I always make the enemy in my dreams more disturbing and awesome looking as the dream progresses...as though it's constantly morphing to outdo me.

 

Occasionally I can't control the dream from the outset and have had a couple of waking nightmares where I can't shake the atmosphere of the dream for a good few hours after waking up. There were a couple I recently experienced that were so disturbing that I wondered how my brain could conceive such horrible events, they also flowed like a well scripted dialouge (as opposed to a jumble of disjointed events where the cognition of your surroundings fills in the gaps), and made films like The Ring (off the top of my head) seem as ominous as Toy Story 2.

 

I do have many pleasant dreams, some are so topical and dull that I chuckle when I wake up...like dreaming of brushing my teeth. I find it interesting how such a simple thing as eating a dairy product has an almost psychoactive response when unconcious...albeit not everybodies cup of tea. I guess I enjoy the experience of being totally invincible which is funny because I consider myself anti-macho.

 

I clearly feel exhausted after lucid dreaming as already noted, but it's not so much the duration of the dream that tires you out, but the amount of activity the brain is enduring. Dreams are fleeting, if you piece your dream together you could probably only recollect a handful of brief scenes that loosely connect to each other...in most cases.

 

I used to suffer from sleep paralysis when I used to have afternoon naps in my teens...my experiences are very similar to other accounts I've read. I'd feel my body relax, and breathing slow until I was paralyzed and would dream with my eyes still open. I could see my room and there would always be a figure on my bed, or hands coming out of my bed which would grab hold of me and I would concentrate on my arm or leg to move, to break out of the paralysis. It was quite scary at first but I learnt to enjoy sleep paralysis.