Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Avis-Mergulus]

Was always interested by this topic, and had several lucid dreams by accident - they were pretty short, though. May try WILD, since MILD doesn't seem to work for me.
I would like to ask, though, are hallucinations during sleep paralysis common? Thing is, when it comes to primal fears, my subconscious can be extremely unpleasant. Like, "get bouts of paranoia and terror for weeks after having a nightmare, even during daytime"-level unpleasant. Hallucinating carnivorous shadow owls while paralysed may well scare me shitless in a literal manner.

[wobbly]

What if lucid dreams are merely dreams remembered which gave the illusion of control over them? How would you tell?

Not sure whether that was a serious question, or just poking fun, but I will mention they tend to feel different to normal dreams, they feel more "real" for lack of a better word. Whether that makes a difference or not to your question I'll let you decide.

Oddly enough the most intense lucid dream I've ever had came from falling asleep in a dream. Was having a normal dream, lay down on a bed in the dream & went in to another dream where I was levitating a few inches of the ground with this amazing feeling like lightning was coming out of the ground, shooting up my spine & coming out of my head. So kind of like a dream with-in a dream. I tried for ages to have another dream like it, but no luck. Pretty frustrating, was an amazing sensation.

I would like to ask, though, are hallucinations during sleep paralysis common? Thing is, when it comes to primal fears, my subconscious can be extremely unpleasant. Like, "get bouts of paranoia and terror for weeks after having a nightmare, even during daytime"-level unpleasant. Hallucinating carnivorous shadow owls while paralysed may well scare me shitless in a literal manner.

Yeah, they're pretty common. Mine have always been relatively mild, burglars coming through my window, stuff like that. A flatmate of mine got sleep paralysis a few times from abusing drugs & she was seeing demons & I won't go in to the details, but what she described to me was some pretty horrific stuff.

[Loud Whispers]

I would like to ask, though, are hallucinations during sleep paralysis common?

Absolutely. I saw Chinese demons and rainbows.

Not sure whether that was a serious question, or just poking fun, but I will mention they tend to feel different to normal dreams, they feel more "real" for lack of a better word. Whether that makes a difference or not to your question I'll let you decide.

I concur, and also believe myself to have had lucid dreams. Yet I have also had dreams that deceived me into believing they were reality whilst knowing decidedly they were not lucid dreams, similarly I have had dreams where I was acutely aware of their dream status yet was completely unable to affect its progress. Considering dreams are alterations and new conceptions simulated within the consciousness, it would stand to reason that the brain would also be able to simulate lucid dreams within actual dreams. What better way to trick yourself than have your own brain play the part?

[freeformschooler]

I concur, and also believe myself to have had lucid dreams. Yet I have also had dreams that deceived me into believing they were reality whilst knowing decidedly they were not lucid dreams, similarly I have had dreams where I was acutely aware of their dream status yet was completely unable to affect its progress. Considering dreams are alterations and new conceptions simulated within the consciousness, it would stand to reason that the brain would also be able to simulate lucid dreams within actual dreams. What better way to trick yourself than have your own brain play the part?

I get what you're saying, and why you'd believe it, but again, that's been debunked. You don't need to "believe." While it's certainly possible for a dream to trick us into thinking we have control, we actually have scientific evidence showing lucid dreams "exist" and are neurologically different than normal dreams.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2737577/

If you're simply saying that lucid dreams exist as well as non-lucid dreams that trick us into believing we're lucid then that is true, but the latter would appear as a normal dream on an EEG whereas the former would not. That is the true difference.

[Orange Wizard]

I sometimes have lucid dreams, but not often enough, and not lasting long enough, to contribute anything notable. Sleep paralysis is good fun, though, I must say.

[Shakerag]

Wait, you get sleep paralysis WITHOUT trying this stuff every night?

Ya.  I believe it's part of my narcolepsy package.  Seems to come and go.  It won't happen for a while, and then it'll happen several times a week.  It's at the point now where I don't even freak out about it when it happens; I just get kind of annoyed until I can move again.

I would like to ask, though, are hallucinations during sleep paralysis common? Thing is, when it comes to primal fears, my subconscious can be extremely unpleasant. Like, "get bouts of paranoia and terror for weeks after having a nightmare, even during daytime"-level unpleasant. Hallucinating carnivorous shadow owls while paralysed may well scare me shitless in a literal manner.

I get semi-frequent sleep paralysis and outside of -maybe- the very first time I've never had hallucinations.  And this is coming from a person whom (when I can actually remember dreaming) has nightmares 90+% of the time. 

[Samarkand]

Wait, you get sleep paralysis WITHOUT trying this stuff every night?

Ya.  I believe it's part of my narcolepsy package.  Seems to come and go.  It won't happen for a while, and then it'll happen several times a week.  It's at the point now where I don't even freak out about it when it happens; I just get kind of annoyed until I can move again.

I would like to ask, though, are hallucinations during sleep paralysis common? Thing is, when it comes to primal fears, my subconscious can be extremely unpleasant. Like, "get bouts of paranoia and terror for weeks after having a nightmare, even during daytime"-level unpleasant. Hallucinating carnivorous shadow owls while paralysed may well scare me shitless in a literal manner.

I get semi-frequent sleep paralysis and outside of -maybe- the very first time I've never had hallucinations.  And this is coming from a person whom (when I can actually remember dreaming) has nightmares 90+% of the time.

According to a study I read sleep paralysis is a common side effect of anything which disrupts sleep cycles. So yeah, narcolepsy could cause it.

[Yoink]

I'm not sure if I've ever had a lucid dream or not. I'm unsure just what the criteria are.
When I was a kid, I know I used to have terrifying nightmares every. Freaking. Night, and I eventually taught myself to wake up out of them by sorta... rolling my eyes back into my head.
Not sure how that worked or how I figured it out, but I remember aborting a few dreams with that method when shit hit the fan.

And then, I'm guessing when I was a bit older (and had probably played Super Smash Brothers?) I started having an issue where I would constantly fall through holes appearing in the floor of my dreams, into identical rooms below. I dreamt up an ice climbers-style throwing ice pick to pull myself back up and continue. Not sure how long that sort of dream went on for.

Neither of those sort of things have happened in a long time as far as I can remember, and the only "lucid" part of any of my dreams in recent years is where occasionally my dream-self goes, "Oh hey, this must be a dream. Cool beans, let's keep going." I am quite sure that that is my dream-self rather than my real-self, though.
Definitely interested in trying some of this, although I need to focus on fixing my sleeping patterns first.

[Tawa]

Alright. Here goes nothing, going to give it a shot tonight.

How freaky do the hallucinations get? I've been terrified out of my socks pretty easily before.

[freeformschooler]

Alright. Here goes nothing, going to give it a shot tonight.

How freaky do the hallucinations get? I've been terrified out of my socks pretty easily before.

Depends on which you get. Hypnagogic stage hallucinations are not so bad (I've jotted them down for monsters in forum games before), but the Internet says SP can be worse than nightmares. It seems worth the effort just to see.

A WILD tip since you're starting with it: moving your limbs to scratch an itch will reset your progress, so just ignore any itches. Swallowing is not bad, so swallow if you have the need. Try to stay cool and not get psyched up before entering a dream.

[Tawa]

Alright, fair enough. I think I've actually seen the hypnagogic ones while trying a facsimile of self-hypnosis (they're the weird ones that look like stereotypical acid trips, right?), so all I have to worry about are the SP beasties. I can probably handle them.

[freeformschooler]

I think I've actually seen the hypnagogic ones while trying a facsimile of self-hypnosis (they're the weird ones that look like stereotypical acid trips, right?)

Yes. They tend to grow out of vague lines or shapes in the darkness of your eyes.

You can actually do this any time. It takes me fifteen minutes of solid meditation to start seeing them.

[Tawa]

Sweet.

See you from the other side, maaan.

[freeformschooler]

I don't have enough experience with meditation to write anything fancy about it. Everything you've heard about it makes it sound more complicated than it is. You don't need a DVD or Youtube or a book or a Buddhist or whatever they're telling you. Just sit down or lie down, close your eyes, and focus on one thing. Many choose the feel of their breath and simply ignore their thoughts. Slowly, you lose your sense of feeling, first in your hands, second in your feet, third in your chest -----

Everyone says different things about their experience. When I sit down, close my eyes, and focus on my breathing, it slowly starts to feel like the chair, and even the world, breathes in and out with me. This isn't poetry. That's literally what it feels like under the spell. Who knows what the Dalai Lama experiences in his four straight hours every morning? It's not surprising the practice so often gets mixed up in spirituality.

The best part is, after fifteen minutes or more, you can open your eyes, stretch your legs, and feel that rare "healed" feeling you get after a good night's sleep.

[Baffler]

I, too, used to have horrific nightmares. I eventually taught myself to realize it was all fake, or impossible in some way, which simply brought me on to the next one. And how to wake up by force if that didn't work. The result of that was rarely, if ever, remembering my dreams. When I do though, I'm usually in control of myself but not my environment. Sometimes it's nightmares again, but either way I can remember a lot of detail even several hours after the fact.