Sounds like an earlier but familiar stage. Keep at it, its fun, harmless and can generate rewards. It can also actually help you fall asleep as one part of your brain try's to instruct other parts.

If I nap during the day it is very likely I get lucid dreams. In those dreams I can manifest what I want usually, but there does seem to be a degree of drunkenness to my decision making as things do get quite bizarre. I find when my dreams reach a point of lucidity when I sleep at night that I realize I'm dreaming and wake up. So becoming lucid at night seems to be a problem where I basically have rested enough that I gain a level of consciousness while asleep but I exit REM sleep and wake up. During the day if I take a nap I'm not really tired just usually extremely bored, so I guess I have a greater level of consciousness in the dream by default.

Isn't there something philosophical that one can state about lucid dreaming? — Shawn

For me, lucid dreaming was more pragmatic than philosophical. Years ago, I had been reading about human attempts to fly like a bird, and also about the physics of wings. So, one night, I consciously imagined my "Self" on a sloping grassy field with a winged apparatus, similar to Leonardo's, on my back. As I slipped into a half-dream, I ran down the hill and lifted off. Then, I flew soundlessly above the tree tops, and heard dogs barking below. It was so cool, I wanted to do it again. It was easy to flap & fly in the dream, but not very practical in real life, for the pectorially-deficient.

Therefore, on subsequent nights, I began to add a battery-powered back-pack, and to redesign the wings themselves, in order to make them more functional. Since, bat-wings were not ideal for my purposes, and I couldn't fabricate frilly feathers -- I told you this was a pragmatic dream -- I used something more like thin flexible over-lapping scales. Long story short, I continued to experience the ethereal feeling of flying, without ever leaving the ground -- or crashing. And I wasn't hallucinating, so the experience was no more mystical than an ordinary dream.

Consequently, my philosophical insight was that sentient dreaming was merely my brain creating fictional stories out of semi-random bits of personal experience and learned knowledge, plus a subliminal desire or remembered intention. If I had been taking a hallucinogenic drug, like ayahuasca, I might have later believed that I had been magically transformed into a bird or a jaguar. But, my bed-bound "trips" were merely mundane fantasies that I had some conscious control over. :cool:

Consequently, my philosophical insight was that sentient dreaming was merely my brain creating fictional stories out of semi-random bits of personal experience and learned knowledge, plus a subliminal desire or remembered intention. If I had been taking a hallucinogenic drug, like ayahuasca, I might have later believed that I had been magically transformed into a bird or a jaguar. But, my bed-bound "trips" were merely mundane fantasies that I had some conscious control over. :cool: — Gnomon

So, imagine similar experiences a few thousand years ago and you have just explained where the details of the majority of all god fables originate. A mix of lucid dreaming and eating some magic mushrooms along with your meat and veg.

The key is steady eye contact.
— Yohan
The key to what? And with whom? — Seeker

Lucid dreaming is full of surprises and this is part of its fascination. We are not the sole creators of a lucid dream; there’s another force there, the force of the unconscious mind, a hotbed of emotions, associations, memories, instinctual drives and symbolic imagery.

The lucid dream is co-created: it’s a mutual dance. This is one reason why it is generally a wise idea to treat all lucid dream figures with respect, in erotic situations as in any other. It’s also helpful to expect the unexpected, remain mentally flexible, and learn to laugh at yourself. With this mindset, we can learn to dance to the creative beat of the lucid dream.

source: deepluciddreaming.con

— Yohan

Thanks.

For me, lucid dreaming was more pragmatic than philosophical. — Gnomon

I also tend to think this way. I started to practice lucid dreaming maybe around 15 years ago, and first encounters were very intense and immediately turned me into some type of idealist. It was clear to me that the reality is a dream of sort. So when we are awake, we just dream a bit different type of dreams, stable and objective dreams. The material that causes dreams is just different, but the mechanism is the same. Anyone how practices lucid dreaming knows that dreams feel the same as the reality, even more so.

This is basically still how I see it. When we sleep, the material of dreams are subjective artefacts and some random brain activity, and when we are awake, the dream material is more stable and objective. I don't really know what to make out of this. It can be interpreted in realist framework, or maybe transcendental idealist framework. Either way, the phenomenal reality is made out of the same stuff that our dreams, there's no difference in qualitative terms. This may sound obvious to some people, but it was a revelation for me.

This is very pragmatic for me, it is just how things are, but I still get very excited with lucid dreams. Nowadays I never try to actively engage with the dreams, I just let them happen and observe.

Lucid dreaming is a phenomenon that I want to analyze. What are your thoughts about it? — Shawn

According to Freud and Jung, aren't the lucid dreaming the evidence for the existence of different types of consciousness?, viz, conscious, subconscious, collective unconscious, objective psyche ..etc.
I have seen some folks trying to make the predictions for their future by interpreting their dreams.

For me personally, I sometimes have lucid dreams, and it can be very entertaining in the dreams. When I wake up, and the dream which was so lucid, vivid and entertaining disappears from the mind can give disappointment for the day in real life.

I feel as though lucid dreaming can be enlightening. There is the awareness of a dream and that one can control it? Doesn't it imply that we are all able to dictate how we perceive life? For me, lucid dreaming is an ad hoc assertion of the fact that God might exist. Does the fact that you can dictate what kind of reality you perceive, indicative of the reality that you exist in? — Shawn

Having lucid dreams is not daily events. It seems to be happening when one is more spiritual and mentally active than the normal times. Could it be sign for one's consciousness extending into the Noumenon and attempting to perceive the contents of Thing-in-itself?

There are people who claim to have met God in their lucid dreams. But obviously and unfortunately the claims cannot be verified in objective sense. All minds are locked up in one's own brain, and no one can access to it apart from the owner of the mind.

This is very pragmatic for me, it is just how things are, but I still get very excited with lucid dreams. Nowadays I never try to actively engage with the dreams, I just let them happen and observe. — Olento

The lucid dreams recounted in my previous post were pragmatic and intentional, because I had been consciously trying to solve the obstacles to flying silently like a bird. Human flight, since the Wright brothers, had always relied on noisy machines instead of innate muscle power. Today, electric flying machines with closed-loop propellers are getting close to the ancient dream of flying like a bird.

In my not-so-ancient waking dream, while noiselessly flying above the tree-tops, I could hear the wind whispering, and sounds on the ground, not to mention seeing peripherally, without window-framing the view. These dreams had been inspired in part by the novel sensations of flying in my brother's single engine airplane, where the noise was intrusive, and made communication difficult, and the view was restricted.

Some time later, and no drugs involved, I began to repeatedly dream that I could fly, more like superman, just by pure willpower. And it felt great --- no rackety engines or even flapping wings. In that case, I was no longer trying to solve pragmatic problems, just enjoying the feeling. Now, years later, I still have brief lucid dreams, mostly during a gradual wake-up. But I don't focus on details, just go with the flow. :smile:

PS__ Years ago, I read an article about the use of Ayahuasca in South America, where indians imagined they could fly like a condor and prowl like a jaguar. Apparently, the drug stimulated something like a lucid dream, which was viewed as a spiritual reality by the drug user. Today, it's a recreational drug with spiritual implications, for those so inclined.

Soul Quest Ayahuasca Church
Orlando Florida
https://www.ayahuascachurches.org/

There are people who claim to have met God in their lucid dreams. But obviously and unfortunately the claims cannot be verified in objective sense. All minds are locked up in one's own brain, and no one can access to it apart from the owner of the mind.

I have had such a dream and what I find interesting is how one can experience other forms of consciousness, or other forms of experience than what we are used to.

For example in one dream I was lifted up out of my world by the Christ and as I looked back I could see my life laid out beneath us as though different experiences at different times were side by side, or in separate rooms and my whole life was visible in some sense. The perception I had was as if we stepped out of time and all time was before us like a landscape.

These experiences are difficult to describe as I am trying to relay something inconceivable to us as we are. The explanation I like to think of and which is described in religious text is of being hosted by a higher being. Such that one experiences something of their consciousness.

For example in one dream I was lifted up out of my world by the Christ and as I looked back I could see my life laid out beneath us as though different experiences at different times were side by side, or in separate rooms and my whole life was visible in some sense. The perception I had was as if we stepped out of time and all time was before us like a landscape. — Punshhh

That sounds like a really interesting and meaningful dream. I wonder if you are into mysticism and spiritualism and deeply religious too, although I don't think one need to be committed to any religion for experiencing such powerful vivid dreams.

Freud tends to describe dreams in connection to sexuality and the hidden desires of human mind. But Jung says a lot about dreams in conjunction with the existence of souls, afterlife, life before one's birth, psychological alchemy, and collective unconscious. Jung's psychology is also based on theology and the world spirit.

I have a few books on Jung, and might go back to reading him again. It is an interesting topic, if you are into it, and want to know more.

I’m very much a mystic rather than religious. I had this experience and various others like it in the early 90’s when I was exploring spirituality. I also looked into religions as well and compared them.

Yes I found Jung interesting, I did keep a dream journal and explore dreaming and lucid dreaming in those days. I had experiences like the others in the thread had. As I say I found the more transcendent aspects the most interesting as part of my spiritual journey.

Yes I found Jung interesting, — Punshhh

Saw a good video in Youtube on Jung's psychology of Dreams.