Not that I can think of, but I had a dream this morning that we were calling you guys from Zeitgeist last night to find out where the rest of the gang was and your moms told us who your sock puppets were. And then because we knew all your names, we had to escape on a super secret train that went across the water on tracks that rose up as the train approached and then disappeared below the waves again after it had passed. And the water looked like liquid hematite.

This is why I don't do drugs.

I fell asleep with the light on last night and woke up panicked and confused at about six this morning. I'm half asleep and my eyes burn like coals.

I feel particularly feeble-minded and will probably post nothing but sound effects and cute baby animals for the rest of the workday, which should end a few hours early because it's mid-August and there's naught to do.

Yeah Capn, this sometimes happens when I'm in the mid-stages of meditation. I can see how my thought patterns work: like droplets splashing into more droplets that splash into more droplets...

Incidentally, I've only had one lucid dream, but it was incredible. I could completely choose what I wanted to do, and even talked to another person in my dream about how I was currently dreaming. I asked her: "How does that work? I mean, you're a whole person, right? You think you exist, and you've got this whole history, right? Your life story. But I'm dreaming you! So where are you? Who are you?"

Not being able to read the text in a book is one of the classic signs dreamers use to go lucid, a marker that reminds them they're dreaming. Looking at a digital clock works like this as well. The digits are usually garbled. They appear as strange symbols, impossible numbers, scrolling lights or simply a random collection of static lights on the face - anything but normal. Even looking at an analog watch can be a marker, with the hands pointing to letters or symbols instead of numbers or other weirdness. When I go lucid (rarely now, unless I actively try for it) I try to remember to read a book just to see what it's like but I always manage to get distracted by something else. I frequently end up looking at a digital clock though and the results are so strange. Like you say, it's almost as if you pull back the curtain for a minute on the brain getting to see the little shortcuts it takes, stuff you would never notice if you weren't semi-lucid.

LeeJay, how can you train yourself to go lucid?

Lot's of info here Specklet.

Has anyone seen my apostrophe? I think I accidentally dropped one around here somewhere.

Still trying to reach that library-of-subconscious in a lucid state. I'm always trying to pull back the curtain.

Aside from that, though, only experienced that kind of thing during intense fevers (I am terribly succeptable to them).

Fascinating stuff. I don't seem to dream as much lucidly these days or I'm less prone to wake and remember them. But when you talk about that selfobservation of the inner changes of the mind that reflect our otherwise concious actions, as with looking to the opposite page - that really strikes a familiar chord. This is why I consider taking drugs ;-P

What I did:

1. Kept a dream journal to help me remember as many dreams as possible. After about a month of journaling I was remembering around four or five per night. Keep a notebook by the bed and write down what you remember as soon as you wake up.

2. Used affirmations. As I was falling asleep each night I would repeat to myself "Tonight I will realize I am dreaming" or "Tonight I will go lucid while dreaming". I would try to keep repeating it for as long as possible so that it was hopefully the last thought I had before losing consciousness. No straining or anything, more like a meditative mantra.

3. Read about lucid dreaming before going to bed. If I woke up in the middle of the night I read about it then as well. I really kind of immersed myself in it for a while.

4. Used "checks" throughout the day. Every so often as you are going through your day ask yourself "Am I dreaming?" and check something out to see if you are. Look at a digital clock, try to read something, touch something and see if it feels normal and solid. The idea is to get into the habit of checking so that you will start to do it at night when you're dreaming. Hopefully one night you'll be asleep, ask yourself if you're dreaming, do a check and discover that you are.

5. Morning tends to be a good time to try to go lucid. We're closer to edge of sleep and wakefulness. Some recommend setting your alarm for an hour or two earlier than you normally wake up, getting up and distracting yourself for a little while and then going back to bed focused on lucid dreaming. A lot of people also recommend daytime naps as good times to try.

I had to work pretty hard to go lucid the first time. After that they came easier although I still had to focus to get them to come. You may have an easier time of it considering you already had a pretty complex spontaneous lucid dream. There is a ton of info available on the web on lucid dreaming techniques. A lot of it is all mixed up with a bunch of new age gobbledygook. I just read as widely as I could, picked a few of the most popular methods, stripped away the new age nonsense and stuck with it until I got results.

Last night I had the strangest dream. I sailed away to China, in a little rowboat to find ya. You said you had to get your laundry cleaned. Didn't want no one to hold you. What does that mean?

/end non-helpful 80's song quote

What does that mean?

It means I will have that song in my head for the rest of the day.

Breaka my stride! Breaka my stride! BREAKA MY STRIDE! makeitstop

Ha! I love that song! Love the hair, too. Oh the '80's...what a crack up.

What the hell is he wearing? At first glance it appears to be an ill-fitting vest of some sort. But it snaps over one shoulder like deformed overalls. Do you think it's a full body thing, like there are pants connected to it? I bet he's wearing a belt too. A fabric belt.

It's interesting that the wikipedia article comments that lucid dreams are often compared to a spiritual experience and hyperreality. I don't recall ever having struggled to dream lucidly and they are definitely more intense than normal dreams, but when I've been under the influence of certain prescription medications - Ambien, for example - the dreams were so powerful, physically engaging and emotionally fulfilling that I actually felt as though I experienced a level of separation anxiety throughout the day. Distractraction and profound longing to be back in that state or place that was offset by a certain euphoria at having experienced it and a giddy excitement to do it all over again. I can still conjure the feelings of happiness, beauty and well being that defy description.

I'm rereading the words now and they utterly fail to convey and yet the memories are as powerful today as the were years ago. It fits every definition of being a peak experience, however, it also sounds a great deal like a description of how addict relates to their addiction in the early stages. In light of that, after experiencing the same thing each time I took Ambien, I stopped taking it.

I've found myself wondering if I there isn't an internal 'guardian' of sorts that I've cultivated who maintains a cap on the intensity of the lucid dreaming that I do and if this gets undermined when I'm physically under the influence of certain drugs. I'm not sure if that makes any sense, but there's a sense that if I can make things too good in my dreamstate, I'll stop being as present in my waking state and start to check out before I'm done living life.

There's also the possibility that I'm stark, raving mad.

I don't think you're mad but then I'm not the best judge. ;)

Ever hear of ESB, Frisbee Girl? Electronic-Stimulation-of-the-Brain. Used by psych researchers on rats, et al, as a reward in conditioning trials. Food pellets and the like don't work as well because rats get full (similarly, other desires can be sated). But ESB is direct stimulation of the "pleasure centre" of the brain, and rats will do anything to get it -- and never stop. They'll ignore plight of offspring, ignore available mates, and ignore food and water till death.

I mention this because, oh way back when, I did a little drug experimentation and -- always pushing the envelope -- got very interested in playing with the controls, you might say, of my brain. The things that are usually on automatic. After all, the heart is still considered an "involuntary" muscle, yet we can learn to control it. Why not other autonomic functions? And at one point, I stumbled on the ability, under certain hallucinogenic influences, to bring about something much like ESB. I got very good at it, in fact. There would be a lot of light, and something like an orgasm -- and I could make it happen at the drop of a hat. As many times as I wanted. At first, this worried me, because I knew all about ESB from psych studies (I did some work in psych experimental design) and I figured that it was going to be an impossible habit to break. But for whatever reason, it wasn't. It was hilarious, actually, to be able to summon it at will, in an instant, and, well, it was great, but I never longed for it afterwards and as far as I can tell has had no lasting effect on me at all.

If you read much hardcore lucid dreamer material, though (the religion and new-agey factions mentioned above, especially), you'll see a lot of what looks like addictive behaviour and obsession. The few times I've come across the sci-fi motif of a civilization addicted to dreaming, it rings true to me. (and truth be told, I'll waste away entire mornings if I'm in REM-rebound, one dream after another after another...)

There's a fullon website with forum about lucid dreaming here.