Thursday, November 20, 2014

Lucid Dreaming | Virtual reality might have crippled my lucid dreaming capacity!

Hello! I've been practicing lucid dreaming for a while now due to a project I worked on back in college. So here is some background on my problem. When I dream, particularly during nightmares, I perform my reality check which consists of counting my fingers and trying to make something unusual happen. However my dream self seems to get confused with the results. Its hard to explain, but basically I fail a reality check, realize I'm not awake, but cant seem to fully process what that actually means. I will then continue on the dream sequence aware that I can influence everything but not entirely sure why I can do it.



Or even stranger still, I wont perform a reality check, but if something becomes frustrating or scary from within my dream I suddenly acknowledge I have the capacity to take control of or change the situation on command, but my dream self can't figure out why, or what even led me to realize I can influence the world around me in the first place.



But here's the kicker, even though I'm aware I'm not awake, I AM NOT aware I'm asleep! For example when things become not to my liking from within the dream I know I can, and I often will just outright stop the dream and wake up (I'll still be sleep paralyzed however).



So how is this possible..? I mean, if you know your not awake then of course that means your asleep, right? I mean what else could you be? dead?



I have a theory. You see I'm a video game designer and I'm very use to getting immersed in my team's projects and changing the game "on command" in order to design a compelling experience. It doesn't help that the last game I developed was related to dreaming and designed to follow the flow and logic of dreams, and was on the Oculus Rift (virtual reality). Naturally, my dreams began to take place in the space of the game, and during the dream I didn't acknowledge I was dreaming, it felt like I was in virtual reality playing our game! And this is where I think my capacity to lucid dream broke. My mind is still carrying the conventions of virtual reality.



So to tie it all together: I recognize I'm not awake and not in control of my physical body, but not that I'm asleep (virtual reality?) I recognize I can regain control of my body at any time by simply ending the sequence I'm experiencing (virtual reality?) I recognize I can influence and control the sequence to create an ideal experience (virtual reality designer?) Because I worked on a virtual reality project directly tied to the imagery of dreaming, I now cant recognize dream signs as dream signs and cannot gain full lucidity. I'm simply existing in my dream space as one would exist as a virtual avatar in a virtual world. :whyme:



What should I do now?





via Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views - Attaining Lucidity http://ift.tt/1qE1QHB

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