Messages

you can enter a dream without ever "falling asleep" but you're still asleep.

meaning you are so relaxed from sleeping so long that you just INSTANTLY enter a dream the second you lie still... it's happened to a me a few times, and it's really odd

like i'll lay on my side... and a few seconds will pass... and i think "is this a dream? why would it be, i haven't fallen asleep...." and then I think a bit longer and I decide to do a reality check and I AM DREAMING... and i'm like "whoa!"

It's cool.

Just as you can instantaneously enter sleep paralysis during the night if you wake up and then lay back down and keep your head kind of clear, you can also instantaneously and smoothly pop into a dream about being in your room, lying down, and never even realize that you have fallen asleep.

So you did fall asleep really, you just stayed awake while it was happening.

PM sent...

*bump*

so... anyone else? I'd be interested if the same people that have the problems I have, have general sleeping problems too (falling asleep, staying asleep, waking up a lot... low energy during the day?)

Or... what... because this carries over into when I just want to GO TO SLEEP... if I do my various methods where I try to accelerate the falling asleep process, I'll jolt in/out of consciousness many many many many many times, but will not be able to fall asleep for the life of me, unless I quit and just lie there trying not to fall asleep once I get deep enough..

So it's like... well, if I have to quit after all that work, it's almost just as efficient to lie there and daydream until I fall asleep than it is to get there within 5-15 minutes, but not be able to actually STAY THERE by using the methods I've found.

actually learning to do things with your opposite hand is helpful in establishing new neural pathways, which prevents alzheimers and various degenerative brain problems....

supposedly it's a good way to efficiently rewire your brain as well as perhaps create/strengthen neurons....

which makes me wonder... if you spend a while getting good at being left handed, then abandon it for a long time, then re-start it.... does that perpetually create and excercise the brain, neural pathways, etc?

Because how many times can you really learn something so drastically new for everyday usage? You know? If you start out young by the time you get old what left in your life will you have to alter slightly in attempts to keep yourself from becoming senile?

Or.. you know.. whatever it is that learning to do things with the other hand accomplishes.

I know it's something positive for the brain.

So what I wonder is...

providing this happened, what if someone had killed you while "out of body" it sounded kind of like "bi-location" to me, but I've never heard of interacting with physical objects....

Assuming this is possible.... are there dangerous applications? Such as trying to fly and killing yourself (or one of yourselves?) or.... killing someone else (on accident? on purpose? psychic assassins?)

Hm.

well it was an interesting story, definitely.

enjoying fear doesn't make you masochist the way i understand masochism

i mean.... fear is not even remotely the same as pain....

you know? I dont' see riding roller coasters and sky diving and whatnot as activities of masochism.

while in SP imagine something you are afraid and it'll show up... usually...

if you aren't afraid of anything in terms of phobias then well, it won't work.

i wonder why we can usually hear it better in the left

i read something about EAR IMPLANTS that concerned me... well actually it didn't say much.. it just said "ever wondered why you have a ringing in your left ear?"

You could make up all sorts of theories and conspiracies about it though... but it just kind of concerned me a bit... as a child I ruptured my left ear drum and had to have it patched up.... and well.. I've had "tubes" put in my ears as an infant... so definitely there is the possibility that something could have been implanted in me on numerous occasions... I even had my sinuses widended while having the ear worked on, which really didn't do a damn thing for me....

So.... it's a bit concerning... I am certainly not having any ear surgery unless it's a last resort, no matter what they say is wrong with them.

I also ruptured my right ear drum while diving 2 years ago... I had a lot of ear pressure going on immediately before hand... so I think something is definitely up with my sinuses/ears.

I don't want surgery though.

""there have also been reports of people "fighting" dream assailants, and sadly when they "come to" or awaken, they find out they have hurt or even killed their housemate or spouse. this is rare.""

Where did you get that from?

I can envision myself doing that... if I ever had a woman... which well, I probably won't.

You know sometimes I wake up hitting things that aren't there... so like if I slept next to someone, woke up, saw them all evil and whatnot and attacking me... i'd probably start attacking them... but then if I broke free of paralysis I'd probably stop..... ?

It kind of concerns me though... in the off chance I sleep with someone I'd maybe better warn them of that.

"I've tried ignoring the feelings and holding on to whatever imagery is still hitting me but at that point the imagery gets weak and the feelings go away and I'm just left there in the same mind/body state as I was when I first laid down. Its like starting all over again after those feelings come and go."

I know what you mean.

The fine line between being awake and asleep... well.. i've worded this badly, but it's a very FINE line....

Like... you have to be on the threshold of almost losing control, almost being asleep..... I think.

I have similar problems to you, I find that I either am too alert, or not alert enough (falling in/out of images and jolting awake over and over and over and over again)

i'd say yes

tinnitus is supposed to constantly be there...

this noise is only there if i listen for it, or try and make it there

sometiems it intesifis beyond what could reasonably be "hearing damage" and then i can make it subdue.. it doesn't really seem like it'd be from too much loud noise.

according to snopes, the tryptophan available in foods is not enough to affect you at all...

as for melatonin, i've taken a TON of it before bed, nothing, nothing at all..... no tiredness, no better sleep....

it seems ultimately useless....

so anyway, is it true then, that lucid dreaming could make you depressed, due to decreased amount of seratonin since you stay in REM so much?

I thought REM itself produced seratonin.. hmm.

people always almost get hit by cars, and houses always burn down

who almost got hit, someone you know?

and did you know the house that burned down? How did you know it was the same one?

Sometimes just thinking about ESP a bit can make you have those kinds of things/dreams happen to you... at leats for me it can.

quote:Originally posted by Comokisadore



What you need to do is lie in bed every night for an hour or as long as it takes your body to release melatonin, which will paralyze you during the vibrational state.

You will know when the melatonin is workin its way around your body and the sleep paralysis will slowly creep over you.

this is the only technique I use at night and it is very easy and effective, no need for visualizations etc, all that is required for you to do is figure out how to leave the body while its paralyzed.

umm... no... that is the hardest thing in the world, becuase you tend to be UNCONSCIOUS far before your body ever paralyzes you (which is when REM starts)

so.... nope... not at all, not for me anyway.

so anyway... me... well.... i can get there in 15 minutes on a good day.... but you know.. I'M FALLING ASLEEP what am i to do to say "hey okay, body, keep falling asleep but leave my damn mind alone.. I just want to sit here and observe it..."

if my body goes to sleep, my mind goes with it... see say i'll be counting down from 5 over and over again... well pretty soon ONE thought enters my head, and since i'm about to fall asleep that thought becomes a voice which spars some sort of mild hallucination in my mind... and i get off track... and when this happens, I know it's happening, I know i need now, more than ever, to focus, but you know i'd might as well be drugged... becuase I'm just overflowing with mental.... death... mental sleepiness...

even during the middle of the day.

i'm triggerring the sleep mechanism, I just cannot keep my mind awake without waking me all the way up... i can't fight it without ruining it....

[please read this]

"
The most amazing thing I found the next day was that this experience had caused some physical symptoms, for most of the day I had a fluttering sensation in my eardrums similar to when you get water in your ears at the swimming pool, but not quite as bad."

please read this

I get this too... except I have problems with my ears... I don't know what... I recently got cat scanned and they think I have a "pollip" however it's spelled, in my sinuses, which may be the culprit though it doesn't seem to be blocking my ears.

What I feel, usualy, is that my ears are constantly clogged up.... heavy anti-biotics and deoncgestants, help, a little... but well, they aren't worth it and i obviously can't be on them forever.

It's affected my hearing to a degree, I feel like I need to pop them, but no matter how much I do, nothing happens.

So a few months ago I figured wtf, i'd might as well run energy through them... when I do this... I get the vibrating ear drums, it is REALLY CRAZY... what I feel... is i feel stuff draining out of my ears, it can almost be too much to bear at times... but if i stick my finger, or a kleenex, in them... there isn't really antyhing at all that I can discern that has actually left my ears... it baffles me...

maybe i'm stimulating my ears to produce earwax or something.. i don't know.

but anyway, definitely, this happens to me... I really really want to know how your hearing/ears are, and if you feel pressure in them a lot, like it's clouding your hearing.

I don't want to have tubes put in them... it's not that bad really, becuase due to meditation and stuff i've become a lot more aware of sounds, it hasn't improved my ability to HEAR them, but it's kind of compensated to the decline in hearing quality, due to more focus paid on the sense of hearing.



but anyway... the tone... I usually get it the most in my left ear... but i can get it equally in the right ear too.... one time when i was about to fall asleep i listened to it, and it went insane

if you've heard tool's the grudge, the opening sound effect whir in it (caused by whammy i think) .... that's what it sounded like was going on in my ears, except it was very intense, loud, and disorienting.

the worst of it is, i dont' remember it all that well, i'm pretty sure it happened, but the vividness of the memory is on par with the average dream memory.

so.... i must have gone to sleep after that and forgotten the details.

quote:Originally posted by lumian

Hello, I currently own the Astral Dynamics book and would
like to say it's a treasure for me. I have a problem but
would rather not try to disturb Robert, so I'll ask his users.
Can I even project? I know with any kind of muscle tension(inability
to relax, ect.) it makes it very difficult. But this I just can't change, I have a disorder that litterally causes my lower arms
and hands to draw making use of my fingers extremely hard.
Because of this my hands will always be pretty darn tight.
I get all the feelings you'd get before OBE(REM, energy filling my
body, and alot of tension) but I can never get all the way out
because during it, I end up losing focusing on climbing the rope
and focus on my now twitching and tightening body. I think
also my brain has an extremely hard time accepting that
I can even climb a rope(b/c of my hands) and I end up feeling
my astral hands slipping off the rope or not gripping it.
I'm extremelly frustrated, can someone shine some light on this so I can mentally carrry on? Thanks

I have that problem with rope, and visualizing things in my head... I can't do it... my hands fall off too, usually.... but trying to visualize a ladder sometimes works, but then it just starts spinning.

I'm confident that you CAN project though, there are so many different methods out there, you don't have to be very relaxed at all... for example you can fall asleep while sitting up in a medtiating cross legged position, which is kind of comfortable, but not really very relaxed.... all you have to do is learn what makes you tired, what makes you start falling asleep, and in a while you'll be able to put yourself down there pretty quick, and at that point it doesn't matter whether you are relaxed, or fidgity, uncomfortable, if you just focus pretty soon you forget about your body.

and from there you just need to keep your mind awake, which, i can't specify how to do, becuase i haven't been able to do it yet.

but if rope doesn't work for you, that's fine, a lot of times when i do it sometimes i end up moving my hands... you don't hae to do any energy work at all to get to a trance

you can just say 54321 over and over again in your head, for example, even if your back hurts or something and you feel itchy, with practice you can focus long enough to forget about that and drift semi out of consciousness

so complete relaxation is NOT neeed, it just helps a lot.

and when I say focus... I mean.... well... it's hard to explain, it's more like not focusing, but in order to not focus, you have to have a certain amount of focus.

basically you just repeat something in your head over and over, and let random thoughts and noises overpower the repetitions, and let them go on, but never stop the repetitions... it's fairly natural.

If you can fall asleep each night, you can hit a trance, really, that's all there is to it.. a trance is putting your body to sleep but keeping your mind awake..... and there are a huge number of ways to do it.

If sleep for you is possible, trance is... so just keep experiment with different things, and try and stay positive, it might come very easily or it might take a while.

for me it's taken a long while.

quote:Originally posted by charlamarstrus

Thanks for the reply Tombodenmann,

They way in which i journey into lucidity is what worries me.
I hope when most people yawn(sleepy) they get a slight numb echoey
sound/compression at the front of the brain, it starts kind of like that but then intensifies on a huge scale i can bring this on naturaly now.
At this point i start to feel my whole body locking/rushing and also i feel some kind of fluid flowing up my spine and linking with the lower back side of my brain.
My body shortly after this is polarised/paralysed, then when all is locked i can really feel the firing of the brain like little electical
ticks or discharges if you like(sometimes slighly painful though and i pull out).
I then get an awesome sense of speed as if my mind is travelling at the speed of light then when i get to the destination BOOOOM i can no longer hear all that activity, it all
goes quite(in lucidity) even though i have started at many strange places its normally as if i haven'nt even moved im in my bedroom thinking i should'nt get up i really need some sleep, but it is the thought of getting up or my astral/soul/auric/body that is now up and about i'm never able to turn and see my real body sleeping though maybe i should work at this.

Hope to cummunicate with you again soon

wow so you can do this at will? or just naturally when you fall asleep?

Not me... I can go into paralysis unconsciously, and then I jolt into awareness but I'm not paralyzed anymore and I feel the paralysis rush in/disappear at the same time (delayed sensory input, I theorize)...

that's it.. even sitting up with my back straight doesn't work, i still fall asleep for a few seconds, and waver in and out and in and out until one time i get deep enough for the jolt to be severe enough to feel fading paralysis.

annoying... very very annoying.

But it's normal, your body shuts down when you sleep, to keep you from acting out your dreams.

keep in mind that Robert Bruce is not some all knowing OBE master.... his viewpoints and observatiosn aren't any more valid than anyone elses... and well....

i don't even think there is an rtz right now, or astral planes, etc.....

i'd love to be proved wrong.

but if you make a habit out of having tons of sex all the time, you'll probably have more "normal" dream/projection envrionments, so that you can find normal people to sleep with...

i think that's about all there is to it.

^ agreed...

but still, I wouldn't be surprised if the government is still at least loosely investigating these kinds of things.

i also wouldn't be surprised if they are working on, or have already implemented forms of mind control.

it's possible to see what someone else is seeing via technology, they did it with a cat a while back, there's an article on bbc.com search for "seeing through the eyes of a cat" or something, it's on one of the last pages, if you want to see.

and i've read a lot of articles about how ELF waves can be used to make people hear voices.... whether it's true or not i don't know, but there's a lot of material about it out there.

what are you afraid of?

if you find some sort of "evil" "presence" in the room.... maybe try and create a happy presence there to counteract it... when you are in a deep enough SP your imagination is extremely strong, a few times I'd just very fleetingly imagine a spider, like... at the foot of the bed... (a giant one :/ ) and then bam I'd feel it's presence there.. and then I"d get scared, and then i'd feel it clamp into my legs (probably just the effects of a deepening paralysis since I just induced a sort of... dream creation to be) and then i'd force myself awake.

I've learned not to do that... but it can be pretty hard when you're scared... so it just occurred to me... maybe just imagination something else there to protect you... like a huge grizzly bear... or a dragon.... or something... or imagine a machine gun just in front of your hands and grab firm hold of it until it feels real and you exit body with it in your hand....

I've never tried anything like that becuase I usually just tend to exit and deal with whatever presence I've manifested... but... that's because the recurring guy in my dreams isn't scary... usually.

Without knowing what it is that has scared you I can't help you a lot, but one thing that will help you overcome your fears is to not read negative experiences about spirits and nightmares and things.

and if you are deep enough to be imagining and feeling presences in the room, exiting is flawlessly easy, providing you aren't scared... it feels just like getting up out of bed.

the other kind of mild sleep paralysis where you are in your room in the morning and want to wake up... I'm not sure how to project from those, sometimes I want to but usually I just want to get up at that point...

So I can't help you there... but if you're deep enough to imagine things and have them come to be, you're deep enough to easily get out.

Deep breathing sounds like a good idea to try and bring yourself to that level.

quote:Originally posted by MajorTom

I've always been very interested in any astral experience that is unique to that state, and shared by different individuals. In particular, those type of experiences that were unexpected and cannot be traced back to expectations.

One of my own has been looking into the eyes of individuals whom I meet during projections. I came across it accidently where I was trying to establish whether the person I met was fully aware of being in the astral. After a brief conversation with this person, and him claiming he was fully aware, I instinctively (without knowing why)focused on his eyes and saw a deep green bright glow in his eyes. For some reason, this satisfied me that he was telling the truth. Many months later, while reading the dream journal of someone else, I read how this OBEer always looks into people's eyes to tell if they are luid or not. If the eyes are "greyed out" and have a hypnotic feel to them, the person is unaware or asleep. If the eyes are bright, and alive, the person is lucid and aware.

Any similar types of experience out there? Those experiences that seem to indicate the astral operates by its own set o rules?

i'm curious as to what exactly you define the astral with, and how you know that you are in it, as opposed to a strict 100% isolated to your mind dream (or maybe no dreams are that isolated?)

i had a girl i know tell me that she can tell i'm lucid by "brackets" or something like that above my head... it didn't really make much sense to me.

the only thing that i can really say for sure that someone is likely to not be a dream creation is when they do really unexpected things like running way faster than I can.... but who knows, maybe there is an unconscious reason for that.

The only way I really know is when I get legitimate information from them, but then I wonder if it's them I'm interacting with, or their unconscious.... or if it's a coincidence....

I don't have a real way of knowing/telling.... I sometimes ask them if they are real... last night my teacher said "I think I am, yes." i think i expected that though, and everything she said reflected my thoughts, but in a sort of telepathic feeling way, not a lifeless way, since she gave me obscure information that I didn't ask for and didn't make tons of sense... but didn't seem like something my mind would want to make up.

I don't know... it's all rather confusing.

edit: if you have addressed this in some of your other posts in here, sorry... I desire to read them but it's a bit too lengthy for me right now.

As for the person who somewhere in here asked about the objectivity of OBEs and seeing a white and verifying it, things like that. From my experience no, you cannot do that, not at all....  I'm happy when my room actually looks like it's supposed to and has most of the items in it in place.

quote:Originally posted by BurningAngel

hypnogogia is one thing.......but what of those who have OBE while walking down the street? this is NOT hypnogogia....you would need to claim they were in fact in a full blown dream while going about their daily life...which is preposterous. some people have obes while jogging...and observe their jogging body below. perhaps i should have been more specific in my original post..... i do believe there is a connection between OBE and lucid dreaming..... but i think it is rediculous to say that the "Lucid Dreaming" explanation neatly explains these states of conciousness. I dont know where you heard that we are "always" dreaming. Even when your asleep your not dreaming the entire time you lay asleep, only at certain times.

i've never heard of people OBEing while jogging myself, and if their surroundings looked real then i'd be inclined to say it was more than an average LD, but they are still more or less on the same principle.

and we can dream during any stage of sleep, not just REM.

i think extreme physical exertion can stimulate dreams, hallucinations, OBEs, and all sorts of different states, though, can't it?

here's what i found about the dreaming thing a while ago.
Ouspensky also discovered that he had a certain control over these states and could alter his 'half-dreams' at will, an ability that many readers of 'lucid dream manuals' work assiduously to perfect. But what is most arresting is Ouspensky's remark that "we have dreams continuously, both in sleep and in a waking state." Had he lived to see it, Ouspensky would have been gratified by the hard, neurological evidence for this fact. According to neuroscientists Denis Pare and Rodolfo Llinas, the brain's simultaneous 40 Hz 'neural oscillations', which are associated with consciousness, also occur during REM sleep. Given this, Pare and Llinas were led to the conclusion that the only difference between our dreaming and waking states is that in waking states, the "closed system that generates oscillatory states" is modulated by incoming stimuli from the outside world. In other words, what we call "waking state" is really an REM dream state, with a sensory topping. Or, as Ouspensky put it, we shouldn't speak of being either asleep or awake, but of "sleep plus waking state."
http://www.forteantimes.com/articles/163_hypnagogia.shtml

you're entering the hypnagogic state

i have the exact same problem though i usually don't get as far as to be inside the "mini dreams" and if i do i usually don't remember them.

you CAN enter the hypnagogic state while being focused and not unconscious and falling asleep... but how to do that is beyond me...

it's so easy to get there by starting the falling asleep process... but a lot of good that does since you can't stay focused.

but by trying to stay focused and slowly bring yourself down, you never really get anywhere... or at least... i don't.

So I can't really help you... the one thing that seems like it might work is to SIT UP when you feel you are about to lose it, or have lost it a few times are a really drowsy.. and move around some... walk a little bit maybe.. take deep breaths, enough to get yourself a little be refocused... then just sit/lie back down and try deep breathing breath awareness to stay focused and maybe you can make it in without falling asleep.

I haven't...

well I think the answers are

1) the mind NEEDS rest, we die if we don't get enough "traditional" sleep.
2) we are conditioned to associate lying in bed at night with losing consciousness and sleeping.... I mean I think that is why some people claim that they never dream... they just associate the bed with sleep, associate sleep with.... you know hmm i'm tired... BAM... i'm awake it's morning (i wish i could do that sometimes) and so they don't ever periodically wake up to recall any dreams they have unless they were nightmares or something.

So we have to break away from the association of sleep with unconsciousness, but even then, you really do need to get a restful nights sleep... at least a handful of hours, before you should really mess around with LD and OBE... which kind of can disrupt the sleep cycle....

So I'd venture to say you want to be going down into theta consciously (don't ask me how) during the day, once or twice, like in the afternoon after school or something... to refresh yourself.. and leave most of the sleeping to your mind until it's early morning and you've been through your normal cycles.

I think that is why we can't normally transition into a sleep paralysis right when we lay down, becuase our mind needs that sleep to do things, go over neural pathways/memories, etc.

Mediation is the key to fading into theta consciously.....

[or]

quote:Originally posted by BurningAngel

ok, am i the only one that would rather be punched in the throat than hear another person on lucidity.com say that an OBE is a Lucid Dream.....im a huge genius watch this...if OBEs were LDs why do you have them during cardiac arrest, or why do you have them when on drugs, or why do runners sometimes get them when running.
 I have news for you, these people arent asleep.

conclusion: OBEs are NOT LDs
(anyone who thinks otherwise) <--stupid

who made you the authority on the subject?

It's been implied that we are always dreaming (something about dreaming and waking operating under 40hz brainwaves, or something) but we are just tuned into external senses while awake.

and anyway, you can have hypnagogia while wide awake supposedly, and hypnagogia is widely associated with dreaming.

consider also that you can OBE or LD from sleep paralysis, and sleep paralysis stems from REM, which, guess what, is a stage you dream during.

is there a fundamental difference other than how it is induced (exit sensations), not to me based upon MY OBSERVATIONS, does that make me stupid?

"We can bring back verifiable info, we feel and sense that we are in touch with, interacting with an environment wich is real, not "created" by the brain, our presence is sometimes sensed, etc."

Who is we? A lot of people (like me, and others here) cannot do one thing by a traditional OBE that we cannot do in a LD as well.

There is no ultimate answer or truth to this. I can get info from LDs that is losely, or sometimes LARGELY verifiable in reality... and... sort of with OBEs.

Though I think relative realisticness may be ultimately determined by what stage of operation your mind is in rather than whether you are LDing or OBEing..... as for total separation of body and mind I don't know, I would think that if that were to happen it would be an NDE, not an OBE.... and that the mind would have to think it was dying, and that you would be in a profoundly different level of consciousness/mental operation than a traditional OBE, myself.

you're talking about the anima/animus... joining of female and male...

Jung believed the males have a repressed female side (anima) to get in touch with and vice versa for females (animus).... or something like that.

And tool has an album called Ænima.... which has lots of references to Jung and his ideas....

anyway... I'm not sure where you draw the female connection here.... I guess with the ambigous people I have sex with sometimes? That could be it.... I had never thought if it that way before.

I do feel I've become more "feminine" yet, I'm also taking up weight lifting... so... I don't know.... maybe the two are fighting each other and trying to find an equillibrium.

As for what he sang to me... he sang it because I expected him to perceive me that way.... he's a pretty arrogant guy, especially to write a song like that (the outsider,  by a perfect circle) but his point is pretty valid though.

But... based upon what we were talking about and how the emotions played out I expected him to think that way about me, and what better of a way to express it than by singing those lyrics.

Now what I don't know... is why I perceive him to look so horribly ugly and demon like... I know HE actually looks kind of like Gollum does.... and I've made jokes about it.... but... I'm not sure that would be enough to make it a recurring experience.

Anyway I've been trying to move on past this, and I apologized to all the dream characters I had messed with, and tried to apologize to a specific girl, but could not find her... I then told this demon that I  loved him, and he repeated it to me... like... almost a mirror of myself, saying it in the same phrasing with the same feelings to his voice like I did....

like maybe he was a part of me I guess.

But...

Anyway there is one other thing that bothers me.... fire... I have recurring dreams where someone will seem to spontaneously be on fire... they are usually lucid dreams... and out of the blue a house will be on a fire or a car will blow up or something..... and I always run away and try to hide and get away from it, and the screaming, and sometimes force myself awake.

A lot of times it happens at my grandparents house too, and one time I dreamed they accidentally set their house on fire... and then once that I accidentally set it on fire.

I always yelled at them to get out though, but I wasn't going to go in after them... they eventually got out I think.

this dream kind of explains a typical scenario:
http://dreamjournal.org/dj/index.cfm?do=getdream&dream_id=39234

one other one was that I was lucid in their pool and doing something and a car was in a neighbor's yard (on the other side than the one in this dream was) and it had exploded and they were on fire... so I dumped the pool water on top of them and it didn't do anything... and I got kind of freaked out and woke up.... then I later went back and the same thing happened and I managed to put them out with all my concentration.

fire can be seen as a cleansing force... but I'm not sure why it would happen to random people I don't know....

oh and I think I had the pool dream because I was thinking of how hilarious Goldmember is when Dr Evil's parent's car randomly explodes for no reason in the flashback scene while I was falling asleep.

so MajorTom have you ever been able to validate an encounter with someone in a projection/LD?

I've had two validations so far... both could be coincidences but... I don't know.

In addition to this one I skipped school (hang over) and about 5 minutes before getting up to go to school the next class day, I asked my teacher in a LD about the test... she said it was postponed til tuesday (tomorrow)

I woke up and didn't believe it and figured i'd just wing it on the test like I usually do... but I got there, asked her about it... postponed til tuesday.. she said it in a much similar manner as she did to me in the dream.

So anyway... what I want to know is (your opinion):
Does the person have to be dreaming to contact them?

If they are dreaming, do you go into their dream? Or do they go into yours? Or do your two dream worlds merge? Or does it depend on what type of "plane" you are in by default? Like maybe a large community dream pool.... or something?

If they aren't lucid, does that pretty much mean they won't remember it? If you make them lucid, if they have bad recall will they forget it anyway?

If you can control them and control their asnwers, does that make them fake?

If they don't look right at all, but stil respond to their name being called... is it still them? (I couldn't find another teacher I wanted to say hi to once... so I just randomly asked "Mitch" who was slumped over a table in wal-mart... I called him by the teachers name and he spoke to me, rather gruffly... saying no he didn't want to go to the movies with me. [i was thinking about asking her since i was going to go by myself]) Was it still her since I called him by her name and he seemed to be a lifeless dream character before hand?

Is there a way to access a "default" version of the person... like a "higher self" whilst still relaying info/getting info accurately, so that you do not disturb a person in their sleep but they still get the message or give you what you need to know?

Does just simply saying "are you real and experiencing this right now?" work?

My mind is so tricky.. if I want them to be real they often times lie to me when I'm pretty sure they aren't real.. and if I think they're real I usually am not fully lucid so I don't bother asking them or trying to control them.

well anyway.... if they don't show up despite repeated attempts to find them does it mean they don't want to visit with you? or does it mean they just aren't sleeping?

It's all rather confusing but I do think from my experiences that I have interacted with real people I know before.