mariasabina said:

very cool thread, shroomism 

i don't think i've ever had a lucid dream, where i was conscious that i was dreaming. i'd like to learn how to do that, and gain a better grasp of dream control. does anyone have any insights or tips on how to lucid dream for someone like me who has never had such an experience before?

my dreams usually don't make sense, although while i am dreaming, it makes sense to me. after i wake, i can sometimes see symbolisms and meanings in the dream, but the stories themselves are usually whack, like if i wrote it down on paper, it would seem a bit... schizo or something. 

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Yeah dream logic and reality logic are pretty far apart. The other night I was explaining to my wife that in one of my dreams I had at the age of about 5 I was on the battlestar galactica and we had to get onto this desert. The "rules" of the dream dictated that you had to jump off the spaceship (from orbit) and try and bounce off sticky tape on a dispenser before you landed on the sand. Seems ludicrous now, but made perfect sense at the time.

There is heaps of information on lucid dreaming out there on the web. A very brief summary:

- Write down your dreams. If you get into the habit of writing them down your dream recall improves greatly. (Remembering more dreams / night and in a lot more detail). You may have already had many lucid dreams but you just haven't been able to recall them.
- State your intention of having and remembering your dreams and to realise you're dreaming as the last thing you do before you go to sleep.
- Try and remain conscious as you fall asleep. This is very hard to do. (I've never done it, but feel I'm getting closer). A lot of people report success after going back to bed after getting up and doing something creative for half an hour after 4 or 5 REM cycles (roughly 6 or 7.5 hours of sleep) and then going back to sleep.
- Constantly do "reality checks". Check that you're sure you're awake by doing things such as:
--- verifying watches / clocks and street signs (or other written material) make sense and the text hasn't changed after looking away and back at them again
--- you have 5 fingers on each hand, and can't push fingers through your palm
--- you can't successfully levitate even an inch off the ground
--- light switches behave normally (i.e. the light goes off).

I've never managed to maintain lucidity for very long, but its always amazing when it happens!

Increased interest in lucid dreaming can by itself invoke a lucid dream, so if you're very lucky you might have on in the near future after reading this post!

Also - check out the movie Waking Life.