Peter, I disagree with the assertion that when faced with the odd in dreams, we "think nothing of it," but would when awake. This is the core question that I think needs addressing. Jason and I both seem to agree that we in fact do notice the odd things in our dreams all the time, which speaks to our being sensible creatures whether awake or asleep. Where we fail is in recognizing the true reason for these occurences. I maintain that it's perfectly natural to seek explanations or simply accept what we see rather than question our state of consciousness. Jason believes there is some additional blocking mechanism to becoming lucid and calls it a lack of common sense. I don't believe that there's a need to postulate such a mechanism.

The street magician I referred to above is David Blane. Have you ever watched the reaction of his audience when he levitates on the sidewalk? It's a wonderful demonstration of what happens when faced with the unexplained. Even though they know he's a magician, those people really do believe what they see. One women was so frightened she screamed and wanted to run away. These are normal people who are awake. I'm quite sure that nobody (except maybe an oneironaut) witnessing this "trick" would ever stop to ask whether he or she were dreaming. Now, perhaps an intelligent person would ask, "I wonder how he did that?" The same person, seeing it in a dream, would likely ask the same question. Unless trained in lucid dreaming techniques, though, I doubt he would come up with the right answer. People don't normally question that they are awake when the brain is activated. It takes training to overcome this natural conditioning.

I don't subscribe to the notion that the sleeping active brain is somehow dumber, less sensible, less discerning, or less aware than the awake active brain. I wonder if there has been any actual scientific study of this?

Paul

In my dream this morning.. something I havent done for years I was on a construction site working next to and for an older man who seemed to be the forman. I remember using a very bent shovel to cut down big weeds with.. It was bent that way to use to cut weeds.. my sleeping brain reasoned.. As I worked I aproached a deep pit in the ground..I got too close and slipped and fell in the pit..I remember strugling in something like quick sand! This part was extreemly vivid..But just as soon as I fell in the pit and was in quick sand and was calleing for help..I instantly found myself still standing in the spot I was in JUST BEFORE I FELL IN! Like the whole thing happened in my mind..So I came to the conclusion that I just [DREAMED] that I fell in the pit..So I found the old man and excitedly told him that I just dreamed that I fell in the pit! I also told other dream carectors what I told the old man..None of them seemed to believe me? .So even though I came to the conclusion that a part of my dream was a dream and I told others in the dream this.I dont remember seeing this dream as a dream in general.If the dream carectors would have agreed with me an said yes! this is a dream!I think I would have become lucid! I do remember after realizing I dreamed that I fell in.. That all through the remainder of the dream I had this feeling or belief that kept saying to me that Im dreaming too hard and cant do my work in the dream? ...Tom

Dear Paul, Jason, Peter, et al,

Regarding the question of logic within dreaming:

[From NIGHTLIGHT 6(2), Summer, 1994. Copyright, The Lucidity Institute.]

A FOOL'S GUIDE TO LUCID DREAMING -- by Lynne Levitan

"Knowing that you are dreaming, however, does not automatically guarantee full rationality. Then again, being awake doesn't ensure good thinking, either. Nonetheless, we get more comic relief out of the errors we make in dreams, even lucid ones, than the ones we make while awake. Why do we do stupid things in dreams? One of the possible reasons is that we are less familiar with dreams and how they work, because most of the time in them we assume we are awake and so miss out on many opportunities to learn the ropes. Another possibility is that the dreaming brain is actually less intelligent than the waking brain, at least sometimes. Perhaps there is something about the activity of the brain in REM sleep that, on occasion, makes the dreamer's actions seem like those of a brain-damaged person.

The "brain damage" theory is plausible, given that the electrical activity of the brain varies tremendously in REM sleep, from less to more than in waking. Maybe our inner experiences change along with that activity, ranging from dull and irrational, to ecstatic and sharp-witted. On the other hand, the majority of mistakes made in lucid dreams are probably the result of "dream naivete," that is, a lack of understanding of what is and is not appropriate to the time and place of the dream world. Until you have accumulated sufficient experience at testing the boundaries of dream reality, and overcoming inhibitions from waking life, then you are likely to misinterpret situations and overlook chances to try something new." Link: http://www.lucidity.com/NL62.FoolsGuide.html

And from Stephen's latest book "LUCID DREAMING: A CONCISE GUIDE":

"It is frequently assumed that waking and dreaming experiences are completely distinct. Dreams, for example, are said to be characterized by lack of reflection, lack of control over attention, and the inability to act deliberately. But the evidence flatly contradicts this characterization of dreams as single-minded and nonreflective. In recent studies directly comparing reports from waking and dreaming, my colleagues Tracy Kahan, Lynne Levitan, Philip Zimbardo, and I found that, compared to waking experiences, dreaming contained public self-consciousness and emotion slightly more frequently, and deliberate choice slightly less frequently. However, no significant differences between dreaming and waking were found for other cognitive activities, and none of the measured cognitive functions were typically absent or rare in dreams. In particular, nearly identical levels of reflection were reported in both states. The fact that dreams contain sudden shifts of characters and scenes of which the dreamer takes little note is sometimes cited as evidence for a cognitive deficiency in dreaming. The presumption is that if this occurred in waking, one would immediately notice and attempt to understand the discontinuity. However, this assumption is unwarranted. Recent studies on "change blindness" have shown that people are far less likely to detect environmental changes than common sense assumes."

So, apparently, we have a range of brain activation in REM as well as a range of awareness during waking. Certainly more study is needed in this area!

Towards more light, Keelin

PS: Peter & Paul: This topic will definitely be addressed at the Dreaming and Awakening program, so more clarity is forthcoming. ;)

Keelin:

Thanks for the post -- at least ONE moderator had the good sense to post that helpful information!

Paul:

Once again I seem to have failed in the clarity department. I tend to agree with you and Jason, and your David Blane example is excellent, on several levels (I thought it might be him!).

What I was trying to say was that Jason's "block" might simply be our occupation in the dream of a dream character persona, rather than our dreaming mind itself. As a dream character, we would react with logic prescribed by by the dreaming mind, rather than our own consciousness.

That occupation can certainly entail complete waking life sensibilities, but those sensibilities are also dictated by the dreaming mind. Once we recognize the dreaming mind (as in waking life we might recognize that this is a magician fooling with our perceptions), we gain real awareness, and lucidity.

And yes, if our conscious senibilities in waking life limit us to believing and/or running away from the floating guy without questioning the oddness, then we certainly would have trouble becoming lucid. Your observation that a person training himself to become lucid would question the floating guy in a different way is right on the money!

I hope this was more clear...

Best of Dreams,

Peter

P.S. I certainly look forward to discussing this at dream camp!

Peter, an interesting idea. I have often pondered over the "layers of persona" mystery. I, the dream charcter, being dreamed by I, the sleeping brain, who is being dreamed by--I, God perhaps? And what about the dream that I'm asleep and dreaming? Add another layer at the bottom. Who are all these I's? Will the real I please stand up? And when awake, the I that I believe I am is also really just a creation of mind, a mental projection, as in the dream. Talk about a problem in logic!

As I thought about this, it became clear that regardless of how many I's were actually countable, there was only one I that my "self" could identify with at a time, and all my cognitive faculty was likewise invested in that particular persona, just as, in the waking state, I invest the mind's projection of myself with self. I have not noticed any true difference in cognitive ability between these personas, as you suggest. In other words, my dreaming mind seems to have the same consciousness as my "own" consciousness.

Interestingly, when I become lucid, I think to myself, "I'm dreaming", but the I that thinks and believes this fact is the dream I that the sleeping mind is creating. Somehow, it seems that I should have more of a sense of a sleeping self in bed witnessing events in the lucid dream, don't you think? But I don't, because, I believe, I can only be one I at a time.

When you become lucid, do you stay identified with the dream character self, or do you feel or sense yourself as the one who is sleeping (I don't mean intellectually aware that you're sleeping, but are you actually it?)

So glad you're coming to dream camp!

Paul

Keelin, somehow a post of mine got misplaced. Anyway, thanks for your right on stuff! It seems that Stephen also thinks that we're not much dumber in dreams than we are awake, which can be pretty dumb. I remember his "change blindness" exercises from dreamcamp, and how truly dumb I felt not to notice them.

"Mistakes made in lucid dreams" is a fascinating subject! I almost always go right on dealing with everything, not as if I were awake, since I know I'm dreaming, but as if everything were real. Maybe that's an important distinction. If I did not accept the dream on some level as real, what would be the point of having lucid dreams? It's a lot like the "willing suspension of disbelief" movie makers talk about. It's necessary to do so to really enjoy the show.

On the other hand, if there is an underlying built-in need to believe what we see, what our minds model, that is operating in our dreams as when awake, it would not necessarily be any less powerful an urge in an LD than it is in a nonlucid dream, in which case it's only a "mistake" in a relative sense, not a cognitive error as such, that is not the result of any lack of intelligence or common sense.

Paul

Paul:

I wasn't talking about pop-psyche layers of projected persona. Persona's are conscious inventions used to enhance external social success, and in my opinion have nothing to do with dreaming. Indeed, now I regret using that word in the name of brevity, because it caused yet another layer of misunderstanding -- Please forgive my bad habit of picking the wrong words. That said, here's one more far less brief attempt at choosing the correct words:

There is only one "I," one single entity of thought that comprises your consciousness, your mind, your brain, etc. Call it upper-case "I," for lack of a better title. When sleeping, this upper case "I" is the dreaming mind, inventing the worlds you explore, the people you meet, and most importantly, the people you are.

Sure, you could be thinking that you are Paul when you are dreaming. But when you're doing that, you are thinking as a lower-case "paul," a character created by sleeping Paul to ground dream images in some sort of perceptual reality. That might sound odd, or conversely a little obvious, but I have had numerous experiences I call "other people's dreams," where my sleeping mind (I, in other word) hiccups somehow and forgets to include a version of Itself in a dream. i, the viewing character, either wander the dream among complete strangers, apparantly fully cognizant yet unable to identify the situation or myself -- and usually uninterested in trying. Or I feel as if I am Peter, but I'm watching a movie very much removed from the action. Strangely (given the inherent "oddness" of the event), I almost never gain lucidity during these dreams. Again, the dream character i in these events is usually fairly thoughtful and by no means more stupid than I am in waking life.

Whoah, I'm starting to stray! Now let me attempt to reboard my train of thought:

In a normal dream, the "I" that you are identifying with is not your dreaming mind, but rather its own projected construct(Not a persona -- I totally take that back!). This projection can certainly contain all that is Paul, but it also might not. One of the things that is usually lacking in the projected paul, the dream character paul, is an ability by to recognize the true nature of his environment.

Perhaps the magic moment the critical question, "Is this a dream?" is attained when the character paul is able to contain most of what is Paul, including some recognition of the true nature of his environment. Perhaps there is indeed a mental mechanism that prevents "all that is Paul" to be contained in the dream character paul naturally. And, perhaps, advanced waking life skills in logic and skepticism can overcome that mechanism.

I'm not sure any of this is making sense -- brevity demands a piecemeal delivery, sadly. But hopefully you'll at least understand that I wasn't talking about personas at all, but rather a single dreaming mind recreating itself imperfectly. And lucidity might simply be the ability to coax your own dreaming mind into recreatiting Itself, perfectly!

Again, and I promise for the last time, my entire point of subjecting you to these rambling paragraphs is that there may be a link between Gordon's ACM and Jason's original question on this thread about absent logic. That link may just be that enhanced logic skills in waking life might help more skepticism be built into our dream characters, thus overcoming an anti-cognizance mechanism.

So, as you stated yourself, Paul, advanced lucid dreamers would also have the skill in waking life to not only question the oddness of a floating David Blane, but to "ground" him with the knowledge that he is simply performing a trick, a projection of a wild idea, with surely some other explanation than magic. There is a good chance that the ability to summon this logic all of the time in waking life might be incorporated into a dream character "i's" cognitive confection, and lucidity would be much closer at hand in any dream.

Best of Dreams,

Peter

Paul:

Also, you asked:"When you become lucid, do you stay identified with the dream character self, or do you feel or sense yourself as the one who is sleeping'?"

When lucid I know that I am the one who is sleeping (the creator of "all of this," as it were). That's how I define lucidity for myself. I usually abandon the dream character "me" at pretty much the moment of lucidity and go about my own explorations, forgetting the original dream. (As an aside, when I attempt to "go with the flow" I strongly risk falling back into my dream character, losing touch with my "I," and thus losing lucidity).

In fact, I believe that feeling you are lucid while retaining all aspects of your dream character might imply a state of false lucidity. I have had numerous dreams where the dream character "i" actually believed it was lucid, and wandered about the dream telling everyone this was a dream. But in those dreams I never knew I was the one who was sleeping. The universe I wandered was real to the dream character me. Of course I could only figure this out upon waking.

Best of Dreams,

Peter

P.S. Do a keyword search for "false lucid" if you want to read plenty of interesting, and more complete, posts about this phenomenon

Dear Peter and Paul!

So delighted to know you're both coming to DreamCamp again (along with several other alumni!).

As usual, the topic of "who am I?" (or would that be "who is I?"? :?) will be discussed there, and your obvious willingness to explore in depth will lead the group into fascinating territories for discussion.

See you soon 'neath that old Hawaiian moon, Keelin

PS: Can you tell me more about the missing post? (I've not moved any recently, have you Peter?)

Keelin:

It sure looks to be an interesting Dream Camp indeed! Reunions, meeting alumni like Paul, chatting about subjects like this and, and... oh, yeah, lucid dreaming!

Mahalo,

Peter

P.S. Nope, I haven't moved a one!

Peter, I'm still not quite sure I can distinguish the dreamed self from the dreaming self while I'm dreaming. For me, knowing that I'm dreaming does not necessarily equate to identification with the sleeping self. I don't consider this as "false lucidity". For me, the dreamed self and the dreamer are one and the same.

I see a dream as a time when the body is asleep but the mind is fully awake, at least physiologically. An awake mind does what it does, even when the animal is asleep. It models the world as best as it can.

One of the things the mind projects continuously is a body image. The self sitting here typing is a body image created by the mind, into which it invests the sense of self. I don't see any difference between this self and the self projected in a dream, lucid or otherwise. I can sit here and think "I am awake", or, in an LD, think "I am dreaming", but I never really abandon the current body image as I do so, as you suggest. Therefore I remain the dreamed self even when lucid, and experience the dream through that self.

When I spoke about layers of personas I was describing what I think we have all experienced, namely the peculiar state of being a self, who's dreaming a self, who's dreaming a self, etc. Yet, aren't we always viewing the "world" through the eyes of the last self on the list?

Paul

Paul:

Sure, we're viewing the "world" through the eyes of that last self, but as all the other "selfs" pass through its filter, don't you think something might have been lost from the original, dreaming, self?

Your post does beg one more question: If your mind is fully functioning when you're dreaming, and you are always "one" with your dreaming self, then why can't you become lucid whenever you feel like it?

Sorry to be a bit facetious there, but to me recognition of Self is one of the primary problems of achieving and maintaining a lucid dream. And by "Self" I don't mean a "current body image." I also do not define my self in waking life as a current body image, and I have a feeling that you do not either.

By Self I mean my mind, the mental activity that is me. I'll avoid spiritual catch-phrases here, but suffice it to say that the dream character that your Self is portraying as you at any given moment does not cut same mental profile as your actual Self. If that were true, then there would only be lucid dreaming, and normal dreams would not exist.

And, to wax philosophical about this, the current body image I am experiencing while typing this is not my Self, either. It is merely an interpretation of the position and activity of my Self's container in physical reality. To define my self by my body's current position in space would be disingenuous at best, and woefully incomplete by any but the most superficial, even primitive, measure.

Also, to have that definition of self could also welcome false lucidity: If you always assume that your dream character is You, then on those occasions that your dream character is programmed by your mind to be a lucid dreamer (something that could happen if a person thinks about lucidity often in waking life), you will be obliged to believe that you are indeed lucid, in spite of the fact that you are merely being shown another "world" by your waking mind.

So of course when dreaming you are always in contact with your dreaming mind, as when wandering through a dense forest you are always in contact with the forest. However, when in that forest you can only see and feel a couple of trees at a time; do you in that case believe that the entire forest is those few trees, or do you remember that there are many many more of them, also waiting to be seen, touched, and explored? Both choices exist in both the dreaming and waking worlds, and both choices offer their own rewards (and I'll take rewards like growth and adventure from the latter choice over the confidence and security offered by the former.)

Best of dreams,

Peter

Peter, I like your forest and trees analogy.

First question. Is anything lost in the filtering? Well, I don't think it's a filtering process really that goes on. It's my belief that my true self is actually dreaming the self I think I am right now, the true self being consciousness itself, not the thinking or egoic mind, which is only a small part of consciousness. This dream of self can then dream a self, and so on. The same consciousness dreams me in sleep. Having dreamed me, it then identifies itself with the dream, or the dream of a dream, hence the illusion of identity. BTW, yes, I do go through life trying to remember that this self, body and all, is only a dream of self, a body image, so I don't identify with the illusion completely. So much for philosophy.

The second question is more pertinent. Here's my answer: I CAN become lucid whenever I feel like it, and so can anyone else. Of course, the trick is to "feel like it" while dreaming, which is something of an oxymoron or a logical absurdity, since if I feel like becoming lucid while I'm dreaming, I must know I'm dreaming, and therefore I'm really already there!

On the other hand, if you mean "when I feel like becoming lucid the NEXT TIME I'm dreaming", then the problem is one of remembering the intention. As we all know, this is no easier when fully awake than it is in dreams, unless we practice. Therefore this doesn't reveal any deficiency unique to the dreaming brain or reflect on which self I identify with.

Third, I don't believe there is such a thing as false lucidity. No matter who is dreaming who, as soon as I realize I'm dreaming, I'm lucid! It makes no difference if the I who realizies it is being dreamed by an I dreamed by an I, because that is my self at that moment. Now, I could dream about lucid dreaming, or have a memory during a dream of having been lucid in a dream (a great dreamsign, BTW!), but that is not the same thing. That's an LD experience schema my brain produces, like any other schema.

Nice discussion! Keeps the little gray cells from decaying!

Paul

I'm glad I finally have had time to review some of the recent posts. A highly interesting topic!

Are we illogical, lacking in common sense, or totally inattentive when dreaming? Or is something else happening? One thought I would like to throw out for contemplation is how this confusion could arise when the brain uses it's memories differently when its awake compared to when it's asleep. The simplest way for me to begin is by a thought experiment. Imagine your friend gives you a beer from his six-pack. You gratefully take it, open it up, and take a swig. He watches you violently spew out the brew, cough, and cuss him out in no uncertain terms. Why? The beer can had been filled with orange juice. Do you hate orange juice? No, you loved it at breakfast. So why was there such a violent reaction? Your brain's expectations were violated.

Here is a scenario of what may happen. Your eyes see a person hand you a metallic cylinder. The visual input is interpreted and compared to existent memories in the brain. A match is found for both the person and the object. It's your friend Bob, and it's a Bud. Immediately, memories associated with Bob and the beer become more easily retrieved. As you pick up the beer your brain predicts its weight, texture, and range of normal temperatures by comparing it to stored memories of previous Buds you've held. As you think of drinking it your brain already has predicted its general taste. When it receives a radically different input from what was predicted an alarm bell goes off in your head. Something is very, very wrong!

Let's assume that the brains ability to make such unconscious predictions lies with ability to compare its sensory inputs to the same memories we experience when dreaming. Seems reasonable doesn't it? After all, when I dream of Bob it sure seems like Bob. The difference is that when we are dreaming we don't have the incoming signals. Nothing is being compared. At least not in the same manner as when we are awake. We could retrieve other associated memories that could give us an idea something is wrong, but it wouldn't have the same effect. It wouldn't really shock us.

Now I don't drink beer in my dreams, but I have had people transform from one person into another. If I saw Bob had changed into Jane while I was awake and drinking a Bud I would probably have choked on the beer just as violently as if it were orange juice. But in a dream I wouldn't care. I can't directly compare the memory of Bob to the memory of Bob. He just is. I could remember, "Gee, wasn't it Bob that gave me a beer?' But I doubt it would shock me. If I was lucky, it might make me lucid.

My time is up for the night. Let me know what you think of this idea.

John

John,

You gave a great example of schema. And I think you're on to something. In waking life, schema,or a very broad definition of expectations, is constantly interacting with the sensory input we're receiving. In fact we complete a great deal of what we perceive with schema. Since dreams are made up almost entirely (or possibly entirely) of schema, it would make sense that since there is no interaction or comparison with external perception, we simply accept things that we would normally question. In short, the checks and balances system of comparing the world with our inner model is not active because input from the world is not present.

I've heard this as an explanation of why dreams are weird, but never as an explanation of why we don't question the wierdness.

I'm willing to accept this as true. The next question is: does this insight provide us with any tools that will aid in becoming lucid? I know what I'll be thinking about on my drive home from work.

Paul:

Just one quick clarification so we can make room for John's idea to be conversed:

I'm not sure you understood what I meant when I used the phrase "feel like it" above. I wasn't offering wry semantics; I'm not that bright. What I meant was that, according to your belief, at any given moment in a dream you can become lucid simply because you know you can. After all, if you the dream character retain all of your waking conscious faculties, why wouldn't you recognize at the onset of every REM that you're dreaming? With those faculties intact, lucidity would come about almost automatically, and certainly at will within the dream: no need to remember any intentions, because the knowledge is already in place. For example, if I walk onto a baseball field in waking life, I understand that it is a place for baseball, and not for, say, swimming. My Alzheimer's would be fairly advanced if I couldn't make that association!

Okay, that's it, for now...though I wouldn't mind the subject coming up over lunch at Kalani at all!

Peter

Peter, time out agreed. We'll leave it for the experts to explain at dreamcamp.

Paul

John, according to Keelin's post above, where she quotes Dr. Laberge, these bizarre dream transformations don't go unnoticed. Apparently we can be just as surprised in dreams by such events as we are in waking life, if I read him correctly. If we carry expectations into dreams, this would make sense. As I have said, I believe the brain's strong natural tendency to believe what it sees is probably the overpowering mechanism that keeps us from becoming lucid in dreams, perhaps because lacking sensory feedback, it has little choice.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Paul, I was skimming through "Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming" and found this in "A Model of Dreaming" section:

"Ordinarily, if you were to see something that wasn't really there, contradictory sensory input would rapidly correct your mistaken impression. Why doesn't the same thing happen during dreaming? The answer is because there is little or no sensory input available to the brain for correcting mistakes."

So, there doesn't seem to be much difference in what I was trying to get at and what LaBerge had already written. I was postulating the brain compares sensory input to it's internal long term memory of the input and then checks for discrepencies, and that this region isn't active during sleep.

My experience with sleep paralysis and OBE showed me that the brain appears to continuously model the external world in great detail. Often at the onset of my OBE dreams I can't even tell at first if I'm awake or in a dream. I seem to be flickering back and forth between the two different states and between two bodies, my physical one and my brain's memory based model of the real one. The dominate one at any given moment is the one the brain accepts as "real."

John

John, I understand that lack of continuous reliable sensory feedback is the cause of modeling errors and is what creates bizarre happenings in dreams.

However, close inspection of Dr. Laberge's phrasing reveals a logical flaw. If I indeed "see" something, whether or not it's really there, what contradictory sensory input might we be talking about? I see it, therefore there is no contradictory input. Isn't this why schizophrenics believe that their hallucinations are real?

Consider the professor in "A Beautiful Mind" None of his associates were really there. Where was the contradictory sensory input? There wasn't any, until he finally became "lucid" to his true condition, and even then he continued to see them.

Dr. Laberge also points out that we don't have multiple body images, awake or asleep, only one, and it too is a model of reality. Your "physical one" is no different in this respect from the brain's memory based model. It is your memory based model. It is the same model as in your dream. Hence the confusion in telling them apart.

Paul

Paul:

I think Dr. LaBerge was indicating that if, say, in waking life you see a ghost in the corner of your room at night, the contradictory sensory input would be a coat thrown over a chair. Your waking mind can find that input, and refresh your perception, because it remembers the coat is there, and the coat actually is there. In a dream, there is no coat, or memory of the coat, to override the perception of a ghost.

Peter

Hi,

I know this is slightly off topic, but is something I've been wondering for a while and perhaps someone has already put this to the test. What happens if you close your eyes in a dream? Would you continue to see or would you experience darkness as you would in waking life? I ask, because I was thinking this may be a reality check worth persuing. If indeeed you can see with your eyes closed, you could be certain that you are dreaming..any thoughts?? I once closed my eyes in an LD and the moment I shut them I awoke and I don't know if the vision dissapeared because of that or it just happened to be coincidence???

Thanks guys!

-Stefan

hi stefan, i think that if you closed your eyes in a dream, you would see what you expect to see based on your beliefs and expectations. For most people, that would be blackness. I take it that you are asking if this would be an effectice reality test. Here are my thoughts and experiences with this- if you are lucid enough to perform a reality test, you are already pre-lucid, which is a mild lucidty, right? If you are lucid and close your eyes(in my experience anyway), you loose your lucidity because you are disengaging with your percieved dream environment. Lucidity rides on that fine balance between being engaged with your dream and not letting your excitement get carried away. Therefor, I find that closing one's eyes once lucid either causes you to wake up or drift back into a non-lucid dream. However, I have not tried this as a reality check, so your experiment might result in a different outcome. I tried closing my eyes to practice "meditation" while lucid, with the outcome I explained above.

Stefan:

Interesting question -- and not too far off topic, I'd say!

I agree with Calmplex in that the outcome of closing your eyes in a dream is directly related to your own expectations, and not subject to any specific, um, dream rules.

I've closed my dream eyes often during LD's; for me the sensation is just like closing them in waking life. It was reopening them that intrigued me!

Reopening my dream eyes yielded varying results ranging from no change at all in the current dream to the revelation of a whole new dream scene (which at the time was my intention). I've even had occasion where I closed my eyes, which that time was like closing them on a bright sunny day, but when I opened them the scene (the backs of my eyelids, basically) didn't change -- don't ask me how I knew they were open!

Bottom line, though, I think that if you can incorporate closing your eyes into your dream as a successful reality check, then go for it.

Best of Dreams,

Peter

When I close my eyes in a dream, I see nothing, as when awake. I do this when I dream spin. More interesting to me is being totally blind with my dream eyes open, which often marks the beginning of my WILDs, and is talked about a lot in the OBE/astral projection literature. Somehow I can still sense what's out there, although I can not see directly. Anyone else had this experience?

Paul

Hi guys,

Thanks for your insight and feedback regarding dreaming with your eyes closed, it seems quite evident that one would expect darkness when doing so. Perhaps that is why I woke up when I did it once, no visuals may have led to the loss in lucidity.

Paul, I did experience what you are talking about a couple of weeks ago (I think). I had a false awakening (with vision) where I went to the bathroom and resulted in me floating up to the ceiling..which I was not prepared for and I kind of panicked a bit and then woke up in bed. When I slipped back to sleep shortly after, I had an onset of SP and right at that moment I felt my whole body sit up on the bed and hold on the nightstand, I then sort of fell back over the bed and started floating above it while going in circles, I remember trying to get a hold of the covers. This went on for a few turns and then I awoke lying in the same position as when I laid down. The whole time I was blind and could not see, but was quite aware and truly "felt" the sensations of being in those outer body locations. It was one for the books for sure!

Stefan