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I agree that your experience should not be considered to be "lucid dreaming" or even a necessary part of the lucid dreaming experience.  You quite simply were almost in a trance state. We have to differentiate, because being in a trance state has broader implications than being in a lucid dream state.  You can do many different things from a trance state, and no one really knows all the abilities available from this state.  The abilities could include:  astral projection or obe, lucid dreaming, channeling (if you believe in such a thing), telepathy, remote viewing, and on and on and on and on.   Lucid dreaming, to me, is quite specific.

I said that your experience may not even be necessary for lucid dreaming, because many of us often enter lucid dreams without being awake.  It sounds like you were obviously awake.  If your goal is only to lucid dream, you should follow the "tried and true" methods that eveyone talks about.  Trust me, they do work.  However, if you believe that you can repeat your experience you could be open to experiencing a more broad range of ESP.  

I've personally gone through both routes.  I find that entering trance states and then other ESP states is quite a task when compared to lucid dreaming.  Lucid dreaming is suprisingly easy (and very rewarding) when you strictly follow the procedures as outlined by more experienced lucid dreamers.

That's my two cents.

Kozzi

link doesn't work...  thanks anyways.

Kozzi

Dreams are not f**ing symbolic man!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   Damnit.  you probably have about as much experiencewith this as I do with the social interaction of peoples inhabiting Mars.  Ok, sorry.  With that said.  Nay, you're the man.  That's one of the best ideas I've heard in a long time. A digital recorder perhaps?  What a great idea.  Thank you

Kozzi

[Pssst, please stop with the "F" word...I don't want to have to keep following your posts around. []]

yes, thinking about something before you go to bed will most likely influence your mind so that your dream reflects those thoughts.  When you become more aware of your subconcious during waking hours, you'll notice that a lot of your dream material actually has it's beginnings in real life.  Becoming more aware is the key to lucid dreaming.

how do you actually become aware of subconcious thought?  here's how:  stop playing the "cool game" in life.  stop worrying about things and about what people think.  stop reacting.  the key is passivity.  In fact, the best way to OBE or lucid dream is to passively observe.  Once you try to take action the body responds.  the truth is that passive observation is the key to entering the mind's eye.  I don't know what the f***ing mind's eye is...  I just know it exists, and I know how to experience it.  One of the easiest ways to do this is to sleep a regular night of sleep.  Wake up naturally, and then do something that doesn't take a lot of energy for about 2 hours.  Then, either get back in bed or better, lay on your couch on your back.  Just lay there with your eyes closed.  Just think, but don't think about things you need to do.  Don't think about things you COULD do that would excite you.  Just observe, but don't try to sleep.  YOu'll experience something.  Trust me.  

Kozzi  

Pssst, please stop with the "F" word...I don't want to have to keep following your posts around. []

You know what Wisp...  I read some of yours and others responses regarding dream interpretation in other threads and I give up.  

Hey rational people out there, read a dream interpretation dictionary and tell me it's not absolutely ridiculous.  I'm wasting my time with you, Wisp and others like you.  

Hey, the sheep are running away!  You better catch up!!!  

Kozzi

This experience happened fairly quickly for you right?  It sounds as if it did.  Anyway, the only thing I would suggest is that you make it a habit to really focus on your environment.  Not only should you simply be aware of the fact that you are aware, but stop!!!  Stop and examine things, especially if something's not right.  My advice is to take advantage of this.  Wow!  If this happens regularly you should be able to do a lot with it.  Stop and examine.  Don't just rush past it into another experience.

Kozzi

Wisp, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that I'm through with you.  I welcome anything you have to say about this topic but please understand that I absolutely despise the typical mystic follower.  I hate religion, and I hate dream interpretation.  These things are ridiculous to me, because I followed them at one time and I now know that they are not helpful.  Being objective and honest is such a wonderful tool.  We all too often spout things we've heard from other people, but not enough of what we really feel or know.  Watch yourself during the day.  Be honest and notice how often you act as if you were in a movie.

Kozzi

Wisp, I appreciate your enthusiasm.  Unfortunately you and I are on different levels altogether.  Have fun with your dream "interpretations".  I'll no longer assault them any longer.  

For the others out there that are reading this thread and are interested in a more "down to earth" point of view, I will continue with an example of how and why dreams are literal rather than symbolic.  

I get tired of typing, but here's a small and incomplete precursor to my point of view:

Many great and wonderful miracles are said to have happened in our distant past.  If you've read any great books of the distant past, i.e. the Bible, the Baghavad Gita, the Koran, Illiad and the Odyssey, etc. you'll understand what I mean.  However, where are these miracles now?  After the beginning of the "Age of Reason" and the advent of Science miracles have faded into our memories as "fairy tales" or myths.  To look back on this, however, we can clearly see how the human mind has evolved into a more rational, objective tool.  We no longer attribute mysteries to God or supernatural powers, but rather we study mysteries and learn how it is possible for them exist.  Dreams and other seemingly unconscious activity are one of our present mysteries.  For ages, dreams and the mystic "dream interpreters" created the myths and legends we still carry today.  However, great archaeologists and objective thinkers are uncovering this mysterious past and shedding new rational light on these supposedly mystic events.  Now Wisp, I know you're going to snip and cut little bits out of my last few statements and post it in a later revised version in your reply to me, but that's ok.  I'm done with you.  For everyone else:  The "Age of Reason" is not an averting of the eyes from our mystic side.  Rather, it is a real objective immersion into the truth about what we, as humans, really are and what we really can do.  

What the hell are we?  What is this experience we call "dreaming"?  If you can truthfully answer that one I'll give you everything I have (and let's not have ridiculous new age, but actually re-hashed mystic garble from you weirdo "dream interpreters" as an answer....   get your own voice guys)  sorry....  I said I wouldn't do that.  Anyway, I have some bad dreams.  I dream that I can't get away from pursuers sometimes and that my feet are too heavy and I just can't run fast enough.  What does this symbolize?  Nothing!!!  It doesn't "symbolize" anything unless I'm not really paying attention.  What it means is that I'm not fully aware at the moment.  When you're having this type of deam, and probably everyone has had one, you're simply more aware than at other times, but not fully aware.  We want to run faster, but we're only partially in control of our "dream bodies" therefore it doesn't respond as you would like it to respond.  Nightmares are essentially the same thing.  People tend to remember nightmares rather well.  This is because they were basically lucid and yet in denial.  After having as many lucid dreams as I've had you'll run into this every once in a while.  I tend to turn faces into horribly twisted monsters.  I like it for some reason (I know why, but I dont' have time to explain it), but it scares me at the same time.  I'm not going to say anymore, because I'm tired of typing.  However, if anyone has read this and had a flash of awareness or revelation please respond and I'll continue with more examples later and get more in depth on the subject from my point of view.

Kozzi

Wisp writes:

I somewhat get the point of what you and kuzzi are saying. There is more than one way to look at your point of view.

1. Overtly, there is a better way. Okay, what is it? Show me something.

2. Passivity is better than action.

3. It is better to keep these things unexplored.Some would classify this as denial.

My answer is that Yes!!!  There is an overtly better way to use dreams.  Typically symbology is used to disguise ignorance.  Being more aware of the events taking place and how they specifically relate to your state of mind is how dreams should be used (not interpreted).  

Passivity is the opposite of what I'm striving for!!!  In fact, symbology and dream interpretation is a passive state of dream "observance" rather than participation.  My goal is to become more aware.  The more aware you are the more obvious it becomes that you are creating the world around you for your own purposes (in dreams and life as well).

Denial?  I don't see where you got this.  I live for exploration and discovery.  You must not have meant this for me.

Kozzi

Dungeons and Dragons is a fantasy role playing game that a lot of younger people like to play.  In the town that I grew up in these people would allow this game to become reality, and people actually died from the games influence.  So, I have a strong emotional reaction to concepts similar to those held by the kids I knew that played that game and went to medieval festivals.  They thought they knew everything and that they were the masters of an "Astral landscape" but they were simply living in a world of fantasy.  To me, and I could be wrong, your's and Shaman's responses have sounded like these Gothic psycho-freaks ideas.  There's nothing at all new with what you're saying.  People have been trying to interpret dreams for millenia.  They've never been very helpful.  I'm simply trying to get everyone to be objective about the pure experience, and not add any pre-influenced rhetoric.  Again, I'm sorry for being so blunt, but try to understand that I believe there is a better way to understand our consciousness in dreams other than the generalities afforded by so-called "Dream interpretations".  Be literal.  Be scientific.  

Kozzi

I don't mean to be offensive Wisp.  I know it sounds that way, and please understand that I probably just let my emotions get too much in the way at times.  However, I still think that the "interpretations" usually provided by a definate certain type, that you and Shaman have tended to portray in your responses, are vague.  Vague general associations with events or objects in a dream are not very practical or applicable.  Dreams are literal.  They represent things that have been on our minds during our lives.  With better awareness we can understand this, and then we'll learn that dreams are not meant to be purely symbolic.  Dream symbology will become an antiquated device once we all learn to be more aware of our conscious and "seemingly" unconscious thoughts.  Forgive me for my bluntness, but I'm simply being as honest as I believe you would want me to be.

Please stop making up stuff.  It doesn't help.

Kozzi

Sounds to me like you had what people are calling a WILD or wake-induced-lucid-dream.  My first lucid dream was of that type.  I had intended to have an OBE and had never even heard of lucid dreams.  As I was lying there, I began to hear loud static-like noises, and thought I was seeing flashes of light.  I suddenly twisted into a lucid dream.  Honestly though, I don't know if I would differentiate between the two.  OBEs and lucid dreams can have many of the same sensations, but with OBEs you generally feel yourself seperate from the physical body and then you see the room that you are in.  However, because not much is known about the experience I would tend to believe that they are in fact the same phenomenon.  Where instead of being conscious of the seperation, in a lucid dream, you become aware later.  I've even had experiences where all the aspects of an OBE are present and yet I'm not seeing the room as it really exists.  

I've got a suggestion for all of us who questions the nature of these experiences.  Let's not get too caught up in defining anything until we really do understand our own experiences well enough to differentiate.  I think too many people want to believe certain things, and they do not allow their objective minds to truly and honestly define the experience.  Don't let other people really tell you what your experience was or wasn't.  There are too many people in this realm of experience that allow their imaginations to become so-called established "facts".  The best help anyone can give about this stuff is not going to be theoretical ponderings on the existence of an Astral Plane, but rather clear, concise, and practical advice.  Ask some of the "astral travelers" or "dream interpretors" how much Dungeons and Dragons they play or how often they go to medieval festivals to get their palms read.  Not that I don't like those things, but they're just fantasy and not reality.  

Kozzi

Were you aware of the fact that you were dreaming during all of this?  Think hard about it.  Do you really remember being aware that it was a dream at the time, or do you just remember having a vivid dream?

Kozzi

That is a very interesting experience.  It raises questions about the nature of "sleep paralysis", and I believe the solution to your "possesion" could be found in understanding more about the phenomenon of sleep paralysis.  I have theories about sleep paralysis and it's relation to a lack of awareness in dreams.  I believe that it is possible to be awake in the world as you are usually in a dream, but as only a passive observer.  usually, it is your "ego consciousness" that is "aware" of events taking place in reality.  I use the term ego-consciousness simply as a way of discerning the differnce between psychological gestalts.  (Use a dictionary if you think I'm getting ahead of myself)  The ego is the upper-most level of awareness of self.  This is the gestalt in which we recognize that we exist and are aware.  I believe that, just as in most dreams, we can be awake in reality but our ego-consciousness is not quite fully aware and in control.  Now here's the catch.  No one knows the nature of dream psychology.  There is no scientific study (other than very few institutions) available to truly define the difference between "waking consciousness" and "sleeping consciousness".  I believe that they are vastly different.  I've had a similar experience to yours in my life.  I absolutely do not recommend using drugs to anyone.  However, I did experiment with drugs when I was younger.  Once, I used mesculin, speed, and acid, and my friends and I passed each other out.  When I was coming to, I would go through a stage of consciousness in which my body was doing things which I had no control over.  I was even talking to people and just listening, helplessly, as I said things to my friends.  I do not believe this to be possesion.  I believe that there is a truly scientific way to explain this phenomenon, and the key to explanation lies in defining the differences between "waking psychological gestalts" and "sleeping psychological gestalts" and our level of interraction with reality and awareness during those experiences.

Kozzi

shaman, you're killing me...   really.   You're killing me.  APguy, only you can really tell if you are experiencing "dream sharing" or what I like to call "having a dream with another person"  (I hate "buzzwords").  Nothing in your dreams "represent" anything other than what you have the power to discern yourself.  Do not, and I say again DO NOT  let these uber-freaks tell you that something in your dream means anything.  They do not know you.  Only you can know you.  Practice naming, to yourself, the different things you are aware of during the day.  A car honks its horn, a light flashes in the corner of your eye, etc.  The conscious practice of this will increase your awareness, and with a desire to lucid dream you will naturally become more aware in your dreams (to the point of lucidity).  Then, with more awareness, you'll recognize the fact that you knew already what an event in your life meant to you and that your dreams only help to literally portray those meanings in a vivid and wonderfully sculptured dream-landscape.  Have fun, be honest with yourself, and be objective about reality.  Don't let these "Goth-freak-Dungeons and Dragons-morons" turn this into some subjective unreality.  God I'm so tired of them.  Really...  I am.  

Kozzi

Oh yeah, and Mrsix, you had a lucid dream.  Think about the things that have been on your mind in your life recently.  Most of the time we start to think about something that interests us, but life matters get in the way so that thought goes on the "back burner" so to speak.  However, just because it's not on your priority list doesn't mean that you're not still thinking about it or meditating on the subject.  Meditation in this case means to simply run through an idea and to hopefully exhaust all possibilities.  If that makes sense to you.  These guys telling you about general object or scene associations are full of it.  Again, dreams are literal representations of your mind.  Of course, I can't prove to you that there will be no flood in your area anytime soon.  And don't let the weirdos tell you that "Ah ha!!!  A flood happened in Yemen today, that was it!"  They're retarded.  Try to make yourself more aware of your everyday thoughts.  Try to become more aware...  period.  This is the key to lucid dreaming and eventually OBE.  Trust me...   I know.

Kozzi

Wow wisp, you didn't notice that Shaman was completely wrong and you still say you agree with his "interpretation"...   You guys don't give up do you?  Dream interpretation is retarded!!!  Dreams are literal, but you have to be aware enough to understand what it is you're saying to yourself with whatever imagery you conjure or whatever situations you're putting yourself in.  Stop interpreting and start paying attention.

Kozzi

p.s.  sorry, I just get tired of all this hocus-pocus bullcrap that new-age-pseudo-philosophers try to push.  It really gives serious, objective lucid dreamers a bad reputation.

You need to verify in the "real world" whether this person was making contact with you.  I believe it's possible, but not likely that the person in question would agree with your perception.

Kozzi

What truth do you believe you're searching for?  The reason I ask is because if you believe that you will find any Universal truth through lucid dreaming or astral, mental, causal, or etheric projections (and other types of projection) then relax, because it's not going to happen.  Sure, many believe that it has happened, but in most honest cases they later find that this is not true.  I believe the reason for this is that the "truth" always grows.  

Just take it one step at a time and learn the basics.  Learn to lucid dream or have OBES at will and you'll have plenty to keep you occupied for quite a long time.

Kozzi

Mental conditioning.  That's the formula.

Kozzi

An interesting side note about Rumi is that one day he and some friends were sitting on the roof of a house or hut.  His friends witnessed him meditate himself up into the universerse and back again.  Sounds like folklore to me, but interesting nonetheless.

Kozzi

No, I didn't mean that one would have adverse effects over an other, but simply that it's easier and less elusive to achieve OBEs.  When I say less elusive I mean that when training to OBE you can do specific things and expect results.  In my experience, in other words, lucid dreams have been kind of a hit or miss experience while OBEs are more likely to happen when doing the exercises correctly.  Does this make sense?

Kozzi

quote:The tenth chakra connects with the solar system, the eleventh with the galaxy, and the twelfth with a place in the universe.

A place in the universe?  Why couldn't this advanced being come up with a more descriptive phrase than "a place in the universe"?  Could it be that this channeler only knows just enough to be dangerous?  Maybe she should have read some Stephen Hawking, and then she could have found a way to incorporate string theory...  that would have been interesting.

Sorry, not buying it.

Kozzi

You're not going to listen to me, but I'm going to give you my insight anyway.  You are letting your fears rule your experience.  I don't believe dreams have any hidden, mystical meanings, because I know myself very well.  It took a lot of work to rid myself of the superstitions the world has tried to place on me, but now I see clearly.  What, at one time, appeared to be symbolism in my dreams became clear reflections of my state of mind.  We play with a wonderfully moldable world in our dreams which helps us work out our daily frustrations and fears.  Be careful not to read too much into them though, because you are creating that world and only you can tell us what they mean.  Fear and superstition rule the world right now.  I used to think I felt spirits around me, and I used to cower in fear in the dark.  There's nothing out to get you, and there is no boogy man.  Only when I released my fears did I finally see Truth.  It's not what you want it to be though, because you probably want the world to be mysterious and mystical.  It's not though.  In fact, it's so much more wondrous when seen in it's incredible simplicity.  Most people live in a dangerous web of lies, superstitions, and religions.  If you're Christian you're probably afraid to consider the statement I've just made.  That's fine, because things are going to be ok.    We're all going to be ok.  By the way, when you die you're going to see this life for what it truly was and you're going to be sorry if you've lived it under the mindless control of a religion or superstition.  Trust me.  When you realize you've just died but you're still thinking, and when you adjust to the place you're in after death and you start to converse with others around you, you're going to laugh at yourself.  You're going to see that life happened in a blink, and you wasted a lot of it by worrying about silly things, but don't worry too much about that either because everyone will have done the same thing.  You don't have to believe me, because it doesn't matter so much anyway.  Everything is going to be just fine.  

Kozzi

I have a suggestion:  Before trying to lucid dream, why don't you learn to have an out of body experience?  I think it's easier to achieve.  I read "Soul Traveler" by Albert Taylor, because my dad had it and let me read it.  I had never heard of out of body experiences before I read the book, but after the first several pages I was completely entranced.  The book has techniques at the end.  I think it took me a couple of months of trying every night for a couple of hours before I actually had an out of body experience, but to me it seems to be more "hands on" than lucid dreaming.  Basically, lucid dreaming seems to be more elusive than the OBE, because I know for a fact that you will definately have an OBE if you only follow the procedures outlined in "Soul Traveler".  Some people will tell you (and they may post it here) that not all techniques work for all people.  I believe that's mostly because the person gave up on it before it could work.  It's easier for some to OBE than others.  Just keep to it, and I guarantee you that you'll lucid dream easier once you've OBE'd just once.

Kozzi