Lucid Dreaming 1 of 2

Before I knew what Lucid Dreams were, I was having them. As a child I would fly through the air over miles and miles of trees. I could soar for what seemed like hours and hours. Take off and landing was not much different than Superman, or other super heroes who just jump into the air and fly off.

The term Lucid Dream when I first heard it sounded really neat! I did not know what Lucid Dreams were when I first saw the words. They seemed to happen to only a few people who must of know things I did not.

It was some time later when I came across Lucid Dreaming again and realized I had done this since I was a kid. For me Lucid Dreams have been a part of my sleep time as long as I can remember. Maybe that is part of the reason my sister say’s in people like me, our brains do not work right.

Lucid Dreams are different from normal dreams. In a normal dream, one sort of follows a script which may or may not make sense. In the start of a dream you may be walking through the woods carrying balloons. Without any continuity in the dream you are part of a conversation while seated in a lobby of a building. You also do not realize how unconnected the sequence of the dream is.

Lucid Dreams

Lucid Dreams on the other hand follow a rational pattern. They may take place in situations that are odd, but they maintain a sense of flow. You do not generally jump from scene to unconnected scene in a Lucid Dream. You may make decisions that change the course of your dream. You can control the dream rather than being a passive character int he dream. You are usually aware this is not a normal dream while it is happening. Lucid Dreams are very interactive dreams.

When having a Lucid Dream, you think, act, and make decisions based on the situation and can to some extent control the dream. A common thread to both types of dreams is whatever is taking place may not be something you have ever done, or are aware you have experience with. However in Lucid Dreams you can change the flow of the dream.

In what seems to be about half the Lucid Dreams I have, I find myself around someone with a problem. Whether or not I have any [awareness] experience with their problem is irrelevant. I find myself participating, going from becoming aware I am in a Lucid Dream state to participating in the dream itself.

These are where the unknowable parts of dreams take place. Are these dreams as some have suggested body parts making us aware of something? Are they another person’s dream, someone or something is trying to work out a conflict and we are pulled into their dream? Do they take place in other worlds, as physical as this one where we exist, at least for as long as the dream lasts?

Almost always my Lucid Dreams of late have strangers with problems that need solving. Occasionally these dreams are about me. I am usually with someone else or a small group. The dream situation is mine alone, though it may be odd. The other person(s) with me are usually stranger(s) except in the dream itself.

Why Lucid Dreams are different, and if are they anything special fall into the area of belief and opinion. Some people think they are nothing more than another type of dream. Other people think they are every bit as real as you are reading this post. For me, I hop back and forth over the fence.

Some of my Lucid Dreams are so real and logical. After these experiences I am sure they take place in a different world than the one we live our waking life in. If it were real, and could be felt or touched, I would agree Lucid Dreams are is as real as our awake time. Then due to the lack of aware physical sensation, I hop back over the fence and think Lucid Dreams are dreams with a little more specialized brain involvement.

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Sometimes I Have These Dreams

Sometimes I have these dreams. They only occasionally follow the same scenario. I am of course the main character in them. They are quite real to me and often I wonder upon waking if it was just a dream, a memory of a different me played out in my sleep, or me living in another reality or space time.

Last night in my dream I was part of a large experiment. I am not sure why, but I was looking forward to the challenge. I was not looking forward to one part of the experiment. I had previously experienced that part it caused me to become immediately anxious. The feeling passed through my dream and followed me into my waking state when my alarm went off.

There were a couple of hundred of us. We were all volunteers as far as I knew, though I did not seem to know any of the others. This experiment was supposedly centered on our health and fitness levels. I knew I was in good health and very fit, so I was looking forward to the trial ahead. I could not tell about the others by looking at them.

My body was different than the one I know. I looked quite different. My facial structure, eye and hair color were different. That body was stronger than mine, I noticed when I saw a reflection of myself in some stainless steel panels. The body I was in thrived on physical challenges, and I felt this experiment would really be no challenge. If I had a name, I do not know what it was as I never heard it said.

I was given an old olive green back pack, and told to run to the next building where I had come from while wearing the pack. It was about a mile away. Someone sprayed me with cold water, and pointed me to the path I would take. It was night and wet with cold rain and minor flooding. I went outside into the night as quickly as I could.

Water was flowing towards me, and varied from a trickle to a few inches deep. The water and rain were cold, but did not make me feel cold. I decided I was warm due to the exertion of carrying the back pack with whatever was in it and my fast walk.

I have a lot of dreams of this type for some reason. Sometimes I am in the Military in a ground operation, just a few of us. Other times, I am on a military base, and I repair equipment. At other times I am in briefings and making plans. Many nights I am roaming through mountainous terrain ensuring all is well within the area of my jurisdiction. One night I was attacked by several dogs while patrolling.

Occasionally, I am talking to a me who is living a different life. The most striking Me I recall was a Me I spoke with who belonged to an outlaw motorcycle club. He was forty-one at the time, and was telling me that he was old and tired. He did not think he would live out the year. He thought it was not a life choice he would make again, although he had no real regrets other than he was old before his time from the rigors and demands of that lifestyle.

One night in a dream I was being operated on. I was awake, and I was in communication with the people doing the surgery. I was face down, and they were repairing my spine, which I had somehow hurt. In another dream I was placing sonic buoys in a lake with a second person, filled with fish as big as me, who apparently had no interest in eating people.

In another dream I was visiting a planet with different life forms. An octopus type creature lived in the water there, and I was there as a tourist to see it in its natural environment. It was touristy family event with a guide, though I was there alone. The guide said the creature’s name, and it was unlike any name I had ever heard before, foreign to my way of speech.

My longest continuous dream lasted over six months, most nights of the week. It was ongoing for so long I started taking notes, so if ever I met those people in this lifetime, I wanted to ask if we shared the same dream. I never met them of course, but eventually the dream had an ending, one I would never have scripted.

These dreams are so vivid and realistic sometimes I wonder if they are me in a parallel life or time. Are there many Me’s living different lives in different realities, all at the same time? Does each major life choice spawn off a different me who continued on living the choices I chose not to make?

If these dreams did not feel so logical and solid, I would not think of them twice. The sticking point with me, is they are not like my average dreams where the flow does not make sense, and the situations could never happen in this life. Those dreams I know are dreams. These other dreams though, they always make me wonder.

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Dreams and Bad Physics

I enjoy it when I remember my dreams. We all dream though not all of us remember our dreams. Some of us prefer not to remember our dreams because they are violent or unsettling in some way. When I was a child my dreams were scary and unsettling, but as an adult most of the dreams I remember are good dreams.

I have three main categories of dreams. My first type is normal dreams where everything is somewhat mundane, or normal. I am doing something, talking with someone I know, or on some sort of quest, usually of undetermined origin and outcome. These dreams are straightforward, and in most instances not too much different than normal waking life.

A second type of dream I have takes on a different aspect. Usually these are teaching or learning dreams. I meet with an individual or group of individuals. These meetings are generally one time occurrences, though I have had them as long as almost six months, and every night. I have a suspicion that these dreams are not dreams at all, but some part of me in a different dimension or reality.

A third and most interesting type of dream I have is a very rare dream, and involves close family members, usually dead. What I find unique about these dreams is the family member I meet with is somewhere that almost mimics our world perfectly. ‘Almost’, being a keyword.

It is almost as if wherever they are, or wherever it is I go to meet them, the same rules of physics apply, but not quite. The differences are subtle. What I find unique about these dreams is I am both a participant and a thinking observer. The thinking observer part of me notices subtle and not so subtle differences in physics between normal awake time and wherever this type of dream takes place.

Movement is a good starting point. If I am moving a short distance, say across a room, or across a grassy area, I am walking. If I am going farther, I may go sit in a car, but travel is instantaneous. Yet in the dream does not outwardly odd that we traveled anywhere from a few minutes to many hours in the blink of an eye to anyone but in my observational self.

Everything they want to show me is across the street or down the block when the dead person is speaking of it. Uniquely, it happens to be. Buildings must shift and morph, and businesses come and go with the situation. We step outside the front door and whatever was there before is replaced by something else.

Situations are also unique. Examples that tie this all in, are in a dream where I was visiting a family member. When I arrived they were not there, but someone was there who explained to me that the house had been built with a lot of planning and foresight to ensure everything as convenient as possible. The house at first was a pretty normal home, but its floor plan and contents changed as events changed.

Going outside is no different. The home when I arrived, was in a rural area with no close neighbors, or other buildings. Yet when we left the house to go eat, there was the main street of a small town right outside across the street with a buffet across the street and over one business.

We went to the buffet and they had their steam table set up with most of my favorite foods on it. When I filled my plate and walked to our table, other diners were eating foods that were not on the steam table. Empty tables were bussed and clean, though there was no sign of anyone picking up dishes and wiping tables, as people came and went.

There was a trip to an ‘okay’ donut shop ‘close by’. It was right there the next to the buffet. We walked past it without seeing it?  There was a counter and with about eight seats. We all asked for coffee and the people with me asked for their favorite donuts.

The women serving asked me what I wanted. I said nothing except coffee because I am a celiac and can not eat donuts. The woman said they keep some special pastries ‘on hand’ for their celiac customers (who were nowhere in sight). She reached into the corner of the pie case and took out a familiar pastry that looked like it was filled with jelly.

I said I did not think I could eat it because it would make me ill. The woman said smiling, “Why don’t you go ahead and try it, you may be surprised?” I was skeptical, but I took a bite anyway. It tasted like a fresh baked sweet crescent roll, with some vanilla type pudding inside. She smiled and asked what I thought. Of course it was the best pastry I ever had and I told her so. She said it was gluten free, and it was fine for me to eat.

When it was time to leave for home I wanted to take a shower. The shower was right where the closet I put my suitcase in two days before. I reached between the shower curtain and wall, and turned on the hot water. When I started to get in the shower I saw my dirty clothes were in a bag on the closet/shower floor getting wet. I reached to take them out when the person I was visiting saw them and picked them off the shower floor.  After a minute or so of water raining down on them, when I touched them they were almost completely dry.

Before leaving I needed to put some items in a plastic bag so I could take them with me. The family member I was visiting said there was a plastic bag on the shelf to my right. Ok, a few seconds ago there was a door to another room on my right. I took the bag, put my stuff in it and brought it to the car.

I said my goodbye’s, got in my car, and started the engine. It was early in the morning and the sun was about to rise. In an instant I was in bed waking up enough to look at the alarm to see it was about one minute until my alarm would go off.

These are always the most interesting of dreams.

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You failed, who cares

I am always fascinated by the people who are so cemented in themselves, they end up in a repeating spiral of misery and frustration, trying to do something which they were not meant to do, and will never do acceptably no matter how hard they try and want to.

The one thing that is keeping them from becoming what they want is they were never meant for what they desire to start with. Everyone early in their lifetime should sit down and evaluate who they really are, and what their purpose in this life is. It really is not that difficult; if we are only truthful with ourselves it is quite easy.

For example, once I wanted to be a sprinter. I wanted to pound my way down the track and feel the wind rush by on my face. The best I ever did was a seven minute mile. At that speed there is nothing really rushing by you except the people who were built to be runners. The same end result occurred when I wanted to play in a band. I played an instrument for over a year, and never really should have been moved from the last and third chair. When the band director had a bad day, I made it to the first chair, for about fifteen minutes. I had about the same result with Art class, and Spanish class. There are some things I will never be.

I can accept this and move on. Someone else will sprint, make music, do impressive artful things, speak two or more languages, and so on – I won’t be one of them though. In the world of belief systems, I will never be world class either, but I can live with all my faults. I am what I am, and that is good enough for me. I see no need to torture myself over something I will never be or was never meant to be.

I am not advocating being a quitter, I am suggesting once you give something the best you have, and you do not make your own grade, rather than punishing yourself, perhaps it is time to think about what you are trying to accomplish? In all things, someone has to be first, and someone has to be last. Most of us end up somewhere in the middle. That is where I ended up with my skiing. I skied once in an official race, a downhill slalom to be exact, with real prizes. I was not last, but I also was a long away from being first.

I enjoy doing these things I mentioned, I did not get frustrated and whine because I am not the best. Perhaps I should have thrown some items away though. I remember an oil painting I did in art class. I brought it home, and my Mother asked me what it was? I said it was a waterfall, the one at a favorite river we used to trout fish at. She said, “Oh yes, of course”, and hung it on the wall upside down.

Whenever you find yourself trying too hard at a specific thing and not achieving the results you want, maybe it is time to stop and think about it. Only a very few are almost perfect at anything. Most of us are okay at many things. There are a few things we will never be any good at no matter what. If there is a dream you have wanted all your life, and you can not seem to achieve it, maybe it was intended to stay a dream? Maybe your example of giving it your best is all that was intended for you to do?

Accepting your faults is not quitting, it is being human. In many ways it is letting opportunity in, because once you have let something go, you open yourself up to possibility. Possibility may lead you to your true nature, where you will excel at what you were meant to be.

There will always be people waiting to tell you how bad you are. You do not have to join in with them them. Be your own cheering section! Focus on those things you are good at and be happy!

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