• SubArcticTundra@lemmy.ml
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      4 months ago

      The other day I thought I was in a dream because my torso was missing when I saw my reflection in a window. Even when I moved. It legit made me jump. Turns out the middle section of the window was open so it was reflecting light from someplace else.

      • Redjard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        4 months ago

        If you feel like you can think clearly and are questioning if you are dreaming but are unsure, you are not.
        All methods of lucid dreaming aim at making you think clearly and question if you are in a dream. With that thought, it should be quite obvious to confirm you are in fact in a dream. Dreams are really not that good, sleeping is just kinda like a heavy suspension of disbelief.

        • leftzero@lemmynsfw.com
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          4 months ago

          This must depend on the person.

          Dreaming is dreaming and being awake is being awake.

          Completely different experiences for me, can’t imagine how someone could confuse them, though people obviously do, so they must be experiencing it differently.

    • booty [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      4 months ago

      These tricks have never worked for me, I wonder if that has some implication. I can see working clocks in dreams, both the digital and analog kinds. Reflections look normal. Hell, I’ve looked directly at myself (or a doppelganger?) in dreams before.

      • Redjard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        4 months ago

        Yeah. It is not like you can perfectly recreate them, but as long as you don’t see a problem with whatever your brain fabricates it’s not gonna do anything.

        What I used to do was try to breath through my nose. That is a different mechanism, where probably for safety your body doesn’t “disconnect” your breathing. If you hold your nose shut, you will still be able to breathe in a dream.
        It is something you can easily make a habit, as just quickly pinching your nose doesn’t look weird, and then you will naturally do it in your sleep too and become lucid.

        All you really need is a moment of doubt, and if you have experienced a few dreams you will always be able to tell if you are dreaming or awake at a thought, at least in my experience.

        I have stopped lucid dreaming a while ago, but I think I am still always aware when I sleep based just off of how I sleep. Ever since then it feels more like I am just going along with my dreams most of the time, and occasionally I just decide a nightmare sucks too bad and change it or wake myself up.

        • AlolanYoda@mander.xyz
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          4 months ago

          As an extra advantage to the nose pinching trick, I no longer turn every dream into a nightmare from seeing my distorted figure in the mirror!

    • SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      4 months ago

      However I have a slight problem in that I struggle to connect to my mirror image even when awake and sober lmao

      Then again, sometimes it does feel like I’m dreaming when awake and sober so

    • howrar@lemmy.ca
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      4 months ago

      Wherever I see weird things in a dream and I’m lucid enough to notice, I just panic thinking that something’s wrong with my brain, followed by doing anything I can to get to a hospital.

    • leopold@lemmy.kde.social
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      4 months ago

      Is this really useful? Like, is this something people ever need to do? I don’t do lucid dreams very often, but the rare times a dream has lead me to the thought of “hold on, am I dreaming?” were basically immediately answered by just, uh, vibes, I guess? Like, it’s always just been instantly obvious that I’m dreaming the moment I’d start questioning it, no tests necessary. At worst I might have to try to remember what I did the day before and what I was supposed to be doing that day and see if that is at all compatible with the scenario I’m dreaming about, which it usually isn’t.

      • Riven
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        4 months ago

        I think the idea is to build a habit of checking, so you don’t even need to have that “hold on, am I dreaming?” moment. You just habitually do that thing you always do, and then “oh it seems I’m dreaming. I didn’t notice”

        • leopold@lemmy.kde.social
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          4 months ago

          I see. Will avoid, then. I don’t like lucid dreaming, always wake up right away. Whenever I notice I’m dreaming it becomes hard not to notice that I’m in my bed and that I can feel my covers and by that point it’s all over, so whenever I notice I’m dreaming I just cut the crap and open my eyes for a couple of seconds to wake myself up and then close them again so I can get back to proper sleep.