While re-reading some of the classics, such as Lucid Dreaming - Plain and Simple by Waggoner and McCready, I was intrigued by the vivid explanations of the authors of the phenomenon of actually becoming lucid.
Trying to integrate this understanding with the teachings of other LD-/Dream Yoga teachers, I came to wonder further on the question what defines lucidity in its essence.
The classic definition of what constitutes lucidity in a dream is well known, i.e. when dreaming, knowing that one is doing so.
Many teachers take it further and define it as a state of mind, a critical awareness as to what is going on in one’s field of experience.
For me I find it quite intriguing to explore one level deeper still as to the energetic qualities in moments of becoming lucid:
For example, it is well known that when doing a reality check effectively, it is important to really take it seriously and openly allow for the possibility that it may really be a dream.
In my experience, this daytime practice kind of “jolts” me out of a subtle mental dullness. Like being “zapped” by an electric current and subsequently being really awake and en garde.
Over time, these mini shocks of being jolted awake softened a lot, but the shift in wakefulness remains.
The thought arose, that this wakefullness is actually one of the natural qualites of underlying awareness; but in a relaxed fashion, so without the electric jolt prelude quality.
Some traditional teachings speak of dullness (and agitation) as obstacles to meditation, that may sometimes arise and cloud the experience.
A question to the community: how do you experience lucidity and how would you describe its experiential qualities?
Not very often, and I experience it as awareness that I am aware. There have been a few times I’ve felt that same awareness when I was awake. I’ve asked for some things in dreams and remember being refused and surprised, as I have had happen occasionally in the daytime—and I have sometimes found myself aware but confused, which happens if I think about things more deeply than I need to. My school yearbook labelled me The Thinker which was not necessarily a positive thing in those days (1950s), not in that school. Last night I was briefly lucid and looked into a mirror and saw my face was blurred out, like one of those photos in the local paper that can’t show a juvenile’s face. That was confusing.
When I experience lucidity, in a dream I also experience it as the awareness of being aware. The most prominent experiential quality during the lucidity in a dream is excitement. Probably this is because I am a beginner in lucid dreaming.
During day time when I experience lucidity, or really truly question if I am awake or not this has a number of experiential qualities. The senses become much more alive. I am much part of everything I experience and less in my head. Also there is a sense of spaciousness/ wholeness. This happens only occasionally however
There are times when I feel truly amazed. “I’m in!” I remember thinking once, and at other times, “This is really real.” Emotionally, it seems to go from dullness to excitement to calm which often carries into the day. Sometimes, when I’m not lucid I’ll just try to hook into that calm and use it as if I was lucid or had great dreams last night. Like now, I just received a huge water bill that is way over the top. My Heart Math still is in the Blue and Green.
I remember that feeling excitement. As @_Barry said, “Wow! I’m in!”…but with little time to appreciate it back then.
Since then I have worked on experiencing the dream state exactly as I am experiencing the waking state. I want to carry an unbroken continuity of consciousness from one to the other so that what I “learn” in the dream remains a part of me when I wake up.
I experience it as a wakefulness, a sense of just being me. It feels calm and under control, as if I have just walked out my front door on a Saturday afternoon walk.
its like you have a whole memory from a movie where all the characters had to adjust to a culture do certain things to get anything to work and your introducing it to your other culture… this one… the feeling of intermixing happens and the other side has different rules that only for a little while make sense like these ones until you make a whole glossary out of habit you will probably feel this again and again. the glossary is a roseetta stone lke translater that forces anything to come back to you in cause action and effect labeled English and uses the memory of the other sides use of other terms to tell more easy to intervene stories.
One of the ways to experience lucidity is to prefab a long apology for a long list of items of when you arrived the feeling will placebo a sort of introduction and make you jump past that scared feeling that knocks you out of the box when you first feel like integrating with your environment Super Glad to help! Super Glad to hear other people experience this too =)
I first started controlling my dreams as an adult after playing Quake It scared me so much i reset dreams again and again. till happy other than that i remember having to figure out how to wake up sitting on a park bench in a dream when i was a kid.