What makes a dream different?

[Korpo]

I wonder why lucidity checks work. Let's say nothing is extravagantly different about your surroundings - how do you know it's a dream after you remembered to do the check?

I had dreams where I ignored the most extraordinary things or "explained them away" - believing my own bogus explanation. I started doing some checks on my walks with the dog, wondering when looking at everything how I would decide it's a dream or waking reality.

I have also experienced the opposite - becoming lucid in a dream and then starting to check or look at my hands or whatever.

I was reminded of all this by reading some small articles on dream yoga. I wondered how looking at physical reality and seeing it as illusion actually helps manifesting lucidity?

Physical reality seems to have continuity. I remember most things I encounter to have some roots in my past, and I have memories of the people I encounter. When dreaming or having other experiences I seldom stop and wonder who all these people are, how I got there or how this relates to the rest of my life. I guess state-specific memory plays a role.

But what makes a dream different?

Oliver

[CFTraveler]

Well, with me, continuity used to be a biggie. But the more 'conscious' I became the less a difference I could see, because I visit so many recurring scapes, that carry their own 'previous memory' that creates a 'different' sense of continuity giving dreamtime it's own reality. It's like living in two planets at once, one having a different timeframe or something.
So I'd say the biggest difference (besides physically impossible scenarios) is the way time works "over there". Or should I say "Otherwhere"?

[Neil Templar]

I wonder why lucidity checks work. Let's say nothing is extravagantly different about your surroundings - how do you know it's a dream after you remembered to do the check?

i guess your stream of consciousness remembers falling asleep, or perhaps setting your intention to become lucid, while still awake?

I had dreams where I ignored the most extraordinary things or "explained them away" - believing my own bogus explanation.

Hehe, yep. strange that leaping from a skyscraper can seem so normal in the moment eh?

I started doing some checks on my walks with the dog, wondering when looking at everything how I would decide it's a dream or waking reality.
I have also experienced the opposite - becoming lucid in a dream and then starting to check or look at my hands or whatever.

the higher self always knows "where" the focus of consciousness is at. it's only the conscious mind that needs to be trained to "see".
it's funny, we become lucid, then remember we were supposed to be checking reality to get us there...hehe, kinda like the newborn chicken looking at the egg, and thinking "i must remember to get out of that thing

Physical reality seems to have continuity. I remember most things I encounter to have some roots in my past, and I have memories of the people I encounter. When dreaming or having other experiences I seldom stop and wonder who all these people are, how I got there or how this relates to the rest of my life. I guess state-specific memory plays a role.

i dunno. it's often my memory of the person/place/whatever, and it's relation to me that brings me to a state of lucidity. e.g. - two people being in a dream, that wouldn't normally be together in any situation in waking life... or being in a place and remembering that in real life, a new building has been built there...

i think the key is simply to keep on with the reality checks, and setting intention for lucidity before sleep... i rarely did the reality check thing tho. just setting intentions before bed has been really useful for me...

But what makes a dream different?

different rules for physical and non-physical reality?

[wstein]

The very fact that you DO explain them away is a difference. Do you look at a building and think anything other than some workmen put it there? OK, sometimes odd things happen in say road repair but I usually am unable to explain why they are doing it in that odd way.

There is a difference in the quality of the persistence of waking reality. Even though it may actually be an extremely vivid form of dream , it does differ from the standard night dream. People often describe this as physical reality being ‘dense’.

I have also noticed a sense of things in physical reality as having a character distinct from my own suggesting that I was not the originator or creator of most things. When I make something, I would do it in a characteristic way. This is similar to the way you can recognize the work of a particular artist. There a some good fakes but for the most part you can tell that something was make by another artist. I use this same sense to judge how much the current environment is ‘from’ myself (a lost suggests a night dream).

The way the environment responds to my actions also can (not always) give away the nature of a place. How often do physical object change in the physical world because you want them to?

[Alienor]

I wonder why lucidity checks work. Let's say nothing is extravagantly different about your surroundings - how do you know it's a dream after you remembered to do the check?

One of the most reliable checks is to hold your nose closed and try to breath through it. When you can still breath, you are dreaming. The surroundings do not matter at all in this.

As reality checks can fail, it is usually recommended to do a couple, just in case, if the first check(s) seemed to indicate it is not a dream.

Here is a very good intro to lucid dreaming and also writes about what are good reality checks and how they work.
http://www.dreamviews.com/f20/beginn...eaming-116237/

[Beekeeper]

I’m only just beginning to toy with an idea. I’m thinking that having a real life persona that is more aligned with the authenticity of the psyche might in fact be a path to lucidity. It’s just one aspect of being lucid while awake contributing to lucidity while asleep. Since I haven’t considered the implications of the theory or developed it, perhaps I shouldn’t have said anything about it yet.

I do think aligning psyche and persona is a dream function. Perhaps by becoming more conscious of this, we can more consciously explore what is required of the psyche from within the dream.

[psionickx]

But the more 'conscious' I became the less a difference I could see

I’m thinking that having a real life persona that is more aligned with the authenticity of the psyche might in fact be a path to lucidity

I have nothing to add here except that i couldnt help but notice how well the two theories go together.

[Beekeeper]

Yes, I see what you're saying psionickx.

[Neil Templar]

i also think developing the practice of conscious intending in daily waking life, as taught by Abraham-Hicks as a means to master the Law of Attraction, will no doubt develop dream lucidity.
if we consciously set an intention for each segment or activity of our day, we soon get into the habit of being in "co-creator" mode, all the time.
i don't think it's so important to know you're dreaming, but to know you are able to create what you want in the moment.

[poème]

I wondered how looking at physical reality and seeing it as illusion actually helps manifesting lucidity?

I wouldn't exactly see physical reality as an «illusion» because this word gives the impression that what is experienced is not «real», and yet it is, just like what we experience in dreams is really felt and experienced. However, I certainly would see physical reality as another kind of dream, hence why we speak of «awakening» (from this dream). In this dream, the counscious self learns how to decipher the hidden meaning laying beyond the appearance of things. The persons met, the events put on its way, all contribute to make it learns to come in touch with the unseen, and with its hidden self (uncounscious?).

Then surely, it is as Beekeeper said; when one learns how to become lucid in the waking state (the counscious self learns how to come in touch with its hidden self), one also learns to become more lucid in the dream state because it is then more in touch with its hidden self, therefore more in synch with its realm (the dream state), making it easier to recognize for the counscious self. Then I suppose the characters met when lucid in a dream would be no longer unkown, and the memories of both realms (waking state and dream state) would be shared, just like CFTaveler mentions.

The waking state and the dream state appear like two completely separated worlds, but maybe they shouldn't be seen as such...