Learn to Lucid Dream enLIGHTenUP Podcast.

I recently did a podcast interview on Lucid Dreaming. I've been a very active lucid dreamer now for 32 years, clocking over 10 years worth of conscious run-time in the wonderful world of dreams. I thought I would share the interview because we go quite deep, probably one of the best interviews rich in our unlimited potential as a self-aware, self-realized consciousness expressing itself in many altered states of consciousness. Enjoy!

a reply to: YouAreDreaming

The industry I work in had some ladders to climb, some obstacles to take on in order to get a decent position.

I am a structural welder, and when you first start off in that world it's insane hours, long hours, odd hours, it involves sucking it up and doing what is needed to be able to essentially work a 'normal' shift.

One of my first jobs was building rail cars, and in a crunch the company decided to implement 10 hour days, four days a week. Not bad, but the catch was this; it was rotating weekly. One week 6:30AM - 4:30PM, next week 8PM - 6AM... I did this for about eight months.

I think I got about a solid four hours of sleep when I worked nights, but I learned a skill that I now use all the time. Power naps. I can close my eyes, concentrate enough on even just the wind blowing and have lucid dreams. It's a sort of fast tracked meditation, and I feel refreshed and ready to go.

When I am in a deep, deep sleep at night now I wake up sometimes thinking my dreams are reality, it's the strangest thing. Shift work really messes with your brain.

originally posted by: strongfp
a reply to: YouAreDreaming

The industry I work in had some ladders to climb, some obstacles to take on in order to get a decent position.

I am a structural welder, and when you first start off in that world it's insane hours, long hours, odd hours, it involves sucking it up and doing what is needed to be able to essentially work a 'normal' shift.

One of my first jobs was building rail cars, and in a crunch the company decided to implement 10 hour days, four days a week. Not bad, but the catch was this; it was rotating weekly. One week 6:30AM - 4:30PM, next week 8PM - 6AM... I did this for about eight months.

I think I got about a solid four hours of sleep when I worked nights, but I learned a skill that I now use all the time. Power naps. I can close my eyes, concentrate enough on even just the wind blowing and have lucid dreams. It's a sort of fast tracked meditation, and I feel refreshed and ready to go.

When I am in a deep, deep sleep at night now I wake up sometimes thinking my dreams are reality, it's the strangest thing. Shift work really messes with your brain.

I hear you, I've had years of 4 hours sleep nights and same, I learned quick to lucid dream regardless of how little sleep there is. Anytime we fall asleep, we have that potential to become/remain conscious. The result... more time to exist, more things to experience.

As for dream bleed, it happens. Dreams can be just as real as our waking life, they may not be this reality, but they are a very real experience.

a reply to: strongfp

Shift work really messes with your brain.

Not just the brain, but it knocks all your metabolic hormones out of balance. That's a good way to get sick.

I went through a 6 month stretch of non-stop lucid dreaming, astral projection, and sleep paralysis. It finally let up, but to this day, I don't know of any physiological trigger for it. At the time, I was going through a lot of spiritual changes.

a reply to: BELIEVERpriest

I had sleep paralysis as a kid. Classic old hag, but it was ET from the movie. Terrified me.
I've had a 'connection' with sleeping and dreams my whole life, to the point I actually enjoy sleeping or can't wait to fall asleep even tho I had a rather unpleasant experience with it.

I think I have a sort of ying and yang relationship with sleep.

Lucid dreaming would be a type of hallucinating technically, right?

To break it down, your brain is releasing certain chemicals and by practicing it, they release more readily and in greater amounts, resulting in the amazing dreams that are all created by your brain for you as entertainment. Is that a fair assessment of it? To put aside all of the benefits and spirituality stuff.

Very healthy and positive hobby by the way. At least it isn't using a drug even though proponents of said drugs would adamantly say that they're natural so aren't drugs. The morphine in poppy plants is natural too.

originally posted by: BELIEVERpriest
a reply to: strongfp

Not just the brain, but it knocks all your metabolic hormones out of balance. That's a good way to get sick.

I went through a 6 month stretch of non-stop lucid dreaming, astral projection, and sleep paralysis. It finally let up, but to this day, I don't know of any physiological trigger for it. At the time, I was going through a lot of spiritual changes.

The sleepers paralysis is something interesting, took me a while to get used to it but now I realize it's my body that has fallen asleep and I am actually conscious and ready to dream, it often is more linked to OBE because I need to roll and pull myself out of my body.

originally posted by: strongfp
a reply to: BELIEVERpriest

I had sleep paralysis as a kid. Classic old hag, but it was ET from the movie. Terrified me.
I've had a 'connection' with sleeping and dreams my whole life, to the point I actually enjoy sleeping or can't wait to fall asleep even tho I had a rather unpleasant experience with it.

I think I have a sort of ying and yang relationship with sleep.

I've been through all the sleep paralyis and of course old hag, goblins, shadow people, demons until I realized they were just manifestations of fears within my subconscious. Nice when you have it, and instead it's just calm blissful peace.

originally posted by: FlyingSquirrel
Lucid dreaming would be a type of hallucinating technically, right?

To break it down, your brain is releasing certain chemicals and by practicing it, they release more readily and in greater amounts, resulting in the amazing dreams that are all created by your brain for you as entertainment. Is that a fair assessment of it? To put aside all of the benefits and spirituality stuff.

Very healthy and positive hobby by the way. At least it isn't using a drug even though proponents of said drugs would adamantly say that they're natural so aren't drugs. The morphine in poppy plants is natural too.

When we are untrained, it can appear very much like a hallucination. However, it is a form of thinking, a language between your waking self and your unconscious self. For me, I've trained my dreams to be more of a solid virtual reality simulator producing the types of adventures I want to create. Now it's just an artform of self-expression and fun.

originally posted by: YouAreDreaming

When we are untrained, it can appear very much like a hallucination. However, it is a form of thinking, a language between your waking self and your unconscious self. For me, I've trained my dreams to be more of a solid virtual reality simulator producing the types of adventures I want to create. Now it's just an artform of self-expression and fun.

Sounds awesome. My vivid dreams always seem to be extremely bad from worrying about something that day and/or thinking about it before sleep. Typically, if I'm bothered about the next work day when I'm going to wake up, if I know it's going to be hard or heavy, I'll have a bad dream about work. They're very realistic, I wake up thinking I missed my alarm after the first minute of getting my bearings and realizing it didnt happen. Being late in the dream then waking up thinking I missed the alarm for example, but the dream plays into worse things happening from there.

originally posted by: FlyingSquirrel

Sounds awesome. My vivid dreams always seem to be extremely bad from worrying about something that day and/or thinking about it before sleep. Typically, if I'm bothered about the next work day when I'm going to wake up, if I know it's going to be hard or heavy, I'll have a bad dream about work. They're very realistic, I wake up thinking I missed my alarm after the first minute of getting my bearings and realizing it didnt happen. Being late in the dream then waking up thinking I missed the alarm for example, but the dream plays into worse things happening from there.

It's a lot of fun, I do something called Genre Specific Lucid Dream, and re-create fantasy, sci-fi influences like Star Wars, Game of Thrones, Fallout 4, Skyrim and the list goes on. Just started experimenting with video dream logs, so here is one where I talk about a D&D dungeon crawl dream. I just try to make fun and interesting so I have something to look forward to when I go to bed.

a reply to: YouAreDreaming

An interesting dream related fact:

There is a direct connection between cannabis and dreams. Here is how Dr. Hans Hamburger, a Dutch neurologist, somnologist explains it in an interview with VICE:

“Every night, you go through … a series of sleep cycles. Each cycle takes about ninety minutes, during which you go through different phases. There’s superficial sleep, deep sleep, and finally REM sleep. During that REM period, you have most of your dreams. You don’t usually remember your dreams if you continue sleeping. The last REM period just before you wake up takes the longest—and you’ll only remember the dreams you had in that time if you wake up during it. If you don’t wake up during the REM period, you won’t remember a thing.”

Cannabis interferes with the REM cycle, meaning you awake without remembering what was going through your mind while asleep. It’s not necessarily a bad thing for many people. For PTSD sufferers, cannabis helps remove negative or harmful nightmares from sneaking into your consciousness.

According to Dr. Hamburger:
“By smoking weed, you suppress the REM sleep, and with that you also suppress a lot of important functions of that REM sleep. One of those functions is reliving the things you have experienced and coming to terms with them, as it were. Processing all kinds of psychological influences is something you do in REM sleep. You also anticipate the things that will happen the next day or the days after that. While you’re sleeping, you already consider those and make decisions in advance.”
www.thegrowthop.com...

You obviously dont use it lol. People who "astral project" don't count because all that they're doing is what you do except while awake with their imaginations. Making up a cool story as they go along, basically.

Only, in reality, that’s just your opinion, not a fact. Basically. There might be people more in tune with... something, that you’re just not aware of. Im not aware of it either but that doesn’t mean it’s not happening. I’ve read some people train hard to finally reach the goal of astral projection, im guessing if it can be done it wouldn’t be easy, not much worth doing usually is. No different from training hard to achieve any difficult skill. It’s easier to think ‘well I cant do it, so it can’t be done...’ this too is just my opinion. a reply to: FlyingSquirrel