Are you dreaming?

[cos]

Are you dreaming right now? Or are you actually awake, reading my LJ post?

I've heard that the trick to having more lucid dreams is remembering to check, every once in a while, "am I dreaming?" It worked for me once - I thought about it, and realized that I was, and managed to avoid waking up for a while longer. But how often do you just randomly think to think about whether you're dreaming or not? My problem is getting into the habit. Usually, it only occurs to me when the topic of dreams comes up - ironically, not something that seems to come up often in my dreams.

...

I had recently spent a few days in Portland, OR, unfortunately a week too early to join yix for something, so we thought I might fly back there the following weekend. I suddenly realized that my plan meant flying tomorrow, Sunday - meaning I'd have to miss the concert on Sunday afternoon that I had just found out about the other day and had been inviting several friends to. I'd miss it, and they'd wonder where I was. Except... I hadn't actually bought the tickets, or made definite plans with yix yet. Oops! So I called her, and we decided it was too late and this wasn't going to work.

So I can go to the concert after all. It's early Sunday morning, the show is this afternoon... but Boston is too far from here (Portland) to get there today by bus, train, or car. I zip off to PDX airport to see if I can get a standby flight. The woman at the desk tells me to wait while she goes back to check, and I realize that I won't have time to go back to my friends' place to grab my clothes and things for the trip - if she finds a flight, I'm gonna have to get right on it, to get to Boston in time. No problem, I have clothes and stuff at my apartment in Boston, all I need is my key (I check, yup, got the key) so I can go there to resupply. Okay, I'm all set, I'll just take a quick trip with my one carryon bag, see the show, come back tomorrow.

If you're confused, you've spotted the glaring plot hole. Huh, I thought, howcome I'm in Portland? If I didn't fly back out here to see yix, shouldn't I be in Boston this morning? Didn't I fly back to Boston almost a week ago? When I woke up I thought I was in Portland, but can merely thinking I'm there cause me to be there? *ponder* No, I conclude, it can't. I shouldn't be here. This must be a dream. And yet... I look around... it's all so realistic.

*poof* I'm awake. No jolt or feeling of transition, I'm just lying peacefully in bed, eyes closed, but awake, thinking it over, realizing it was a dream, and I am in Boston. On reflection, it wasn't very real - it all just faded away instantly.

Some things I didn't think of:

• yix doesn't live in Portland anymore.
• It's been two weeks since I went to Portland.
• The concert is on Saturday.
• How could I get to PDX so quickly if I didn't have a car there?

If all my dreams had huge plot holes, perhaps I'd notice. How do you tell whether you're in a dream or in real life?

Comments

[catness.livejournal.com]

Ha. My dream life is *much* more exciting and useful than my real life. That's how I can tell.

[coraline]

ha. my LIFE often seems to have glaring plotholes...

[tshuma]

My thought exactly.

life plot holes

[cos]

You and tshuma both: If you've had life plot holes of the same magnitude as being transported 3,000 miles by mistakenly thinking that's where you are when you wake up, please tell the story (stories) ?

Re: life plot holes

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

I seem to recall being an anarchist baby-dyke, eschewing all roots and ties. Now I'm married to a man and have owned a house for ten years.

I'm sure there's a giant plot leap in there somewhere.

I also seem to be turning 40 this year. How the hell did *that* happen?!?

[darxus.livejournal.com]

I used to do this. Just think about it a couple times a day, particularly when you experience anything weird (possible dream sign). And write your dreams down when you wake up - helps you remember.

[cos]

Does that help you figure out that you're dreaming when you actually are? And if so, can you then stay in a lucid dream, or do you just wake up?

[darxus.livejournal.com]

Yes. Yes, doing it more makes it less surprising so you have a better chance of staying with it.

I've had a number of dreams where I've had a conversation much like:
"Huh, this is a dream, isn't it?"
"Yeah, I guess it is."
"Wonder who's."

Of course, each time it ended up being mine :P
And I assure you I have much more fun after that point in the dream.

[cos]

I once had a lucid dream where I spent the entire time after I figured out it was a dream, trying to tell someone that it was a dream, so we could have sex (because it being a dream removed the reason we were refraining in the environment we were in). When I finally got her alone and was able to tell her, I woke up. Very frustrating.

[darxus.livejournal.com]

That dream I quoted part of.. the rest of the conversation was "Lets have sex." "Okay." :)

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

I tried keeping a dream-log for a little while. Problem was that I only *thought* I was writing in english, using a known alphabet. Later I couldn't read it at all, even though it did neatly flow across the page in even rows.

[darxus.livejournal.com]

Awesome. Do you still have it? Could you scan it and upload it?

[cos]

That reminds me of how purpleminute would sometimes wake up and the first thing she'd say, still lying down in bed, would be total gibberish, except with English-sounding syllables. I'd look confused or maybe ask "what?" and she'd realize I didn't understand, and "repeat" herself, and the second or third time it would be actual English... but she would always think that she was saying the same thing right from the first time. When I'd repeat back to her what she actually said (as best as I could remember it), she wouldn't recognize it.

[kirin]

That sounds quite a lot like certain speech disorders that you can get when some very localized parts of the brain are damaged. Makes me wonder if those parts are often left idle during dreams (who needs real language when you're just interpreting your own abstract thoughts and concepts?) and just have quite been hooked back up upon waking.

[barking-iguana.livejournal.com]

Twice, when I had been thinking about having a dream in a dream, I had a dream in a dream in a dream.

[mackelzinzie.livejournal.com]

I really hate when this happens. Once I woke up into three different dreams, so when i finally did wake up, I had to get out of bed and talk to someone. I could tell it wasn't a dream because things moved slower, and I could look around more and talk easier.

dream in a dream

[cos]

That happens to me sometimes, even though I'm not thinking about having a dream. Oddly, when I "wake up" into another dream, I don't think it has ever occurred to me to wonder whether I'm still in a dream, until I wake up again.

[mackelzinzie.livejournal.com]

I think you do have to be a little awake for lucid dreaming t occur. Either that or so deep into your sleep that escape is impossible. BUt that rarely happens. And I dont think its nessesarily desirerable.
I often get confused if I've slept too often in a period of time, I no longer am sure what has actually happened intill I think about it and weed out the plot holes.

[cos]

How do you know to look for plot holes to weed out?

Sometimes, they linger with me for hours or even days.

Usually not, because usually I don't remember my dreams. I was remembering more dreams this week because I had a cold and took Nyquil a few nights :)

[mackelzinzie.livejournal.com]

well, I dont look for it. I don't think about my dreams unless I am reminded of it (like most memories, exept that time can trigger the real ones, where as since dreams don't have a place in real time other things have to trigger them).
For example I'll be reminded of a conversation, and I'll think, when did this happen? Who was this with? And when zi can't think of when it could have possibley happen I suspect I've dreamed it. Or Earlier I was singing the theme of the song I am writing, and I remembered hearing it on the radio or something while in this store. Well there are a lot of reasons that that does not make sense, so I quikly realized it was a dream. Also I walk through my day, and only accept the memories that could have had time to happen as real, and the rest are dreams.

[cos]

I think you experience this just the way I do. All of this is very familiar sounding.

[mzrowan.livejournal.com]

I usually get tipped off by some element of myself that is wrong -- I have long hair, for instance, and having short hair is enough of an integral part of my self-image that it jars. Or I recognize a recurring theme from other dreams, such as not being able to find a toilet when I desperately need to pee.

[cos]

Ahah, you were dreaming all through that first party at Something Interesting I took you to! :)

(I think you look hot in long hair, though. Hmm, or dreamy?)

[petra-quince.livejournal.com]

Once upon a time, I desperately wanted to read a book in a dream. I was convinced my unconscious mind would generate a literary masterpiece, but somehow I never found myself reading in ordinary dreams. So I tried lucid dreaming. My method was to periodically trace my day back to waking up. I would do this a couple times a day.

One day I couldn't remember waking up, and I couldn't figure out why I was in an airport (like your dream,weirdly enough.) Yahtze! I made a beeline for the bookstore, grabbed a paperback...

...And was confronted with page after page of gobbledegook. It was a word salad, and not even an interesting, Stein-ian Tender Buttons kind of word salad, but a really dull one, like reading an expense report backwards. (It wasn't any better backwards, though, I checked.)

I'm still interested in lucid dreaming (one of my earliest nightmares as a kid was knowing I was in a dream and being terrified that I couldn't wake up, Nightmare on Elm Street Style,) but I haven't tried it since.

[darxus.livejournal.com]

The one dream I remember on the subject of reading was a backstory for a D&D character of mine (that character never existed, hadn't played in years). It was a page long, and part way through I realized I was dreaming. And I knew it was supposed to be near impossible to read while dreaming, which of course made it a lot harder. And I wanted so badly to remember it because it was excellent writing which I've never come anywhere near while conscious, but I didn't.

[empty-fork.livejournal.com]

heh. I put your answer in my own journal. so there!

also, I've had at least one very bad case of the know-I'm-dreaming but can't-wake-up. it was horrible. every attempt to wake up incapacitated me further in the dream world, as my physical awareness shifted more and more into my shut-down, sleeping motor system, but my known surroundings DIDN'T. they were some intensely realized surroundings, too. when I finally did wake up, it took an hour before I was sure I had, that's how solid they were. also, it was a nightmare in the everything-is-impossibly-terrifying-for-no-reason sense.

happy to say, a few years later I had another one pretty much just like it, didn't try to wake up, just observed the terror interestedly, and got along much better. thank you, practice of letting chaos reign.

[jes5199.livejournal.com]

my dreamsign that I never manage to recognize: telephones! If you spend more than ten minutes trying to get the damn phone to call the right number: DREAM.

[yix.livejournal.com]

I'm just in skimming LJ and I got all excited. You are a big tease.

;P

[soffistique.livejournal.com]

Some tricks that have been suggested for me, interspersed with ones I just made up and like the way they sound:

• Imagine something specific and noticeable. For example, a bright red, square sign with a green circle in the middle, at the door to your workplace. Imagine it clearly and graphically each time you brush your teeth. If you ever see it in real life, you're dreaming.
• "Get in the habit of asking yourself if you're dreaming" doesn't need to be random... just pick a reminder that sometimes appears inside dreams as well as out. For example, you might ask the question of yourself each time you can't find your way somewhere ;)
• A friend of mine who grew up in Yaqui culture used to jump up and down a lot, trying to fly. When he was dreaming, it would usually work. I pointed out to him that this is harder to do as an adult.

[cos]

Ooh, I should've asked 477150n if she checks by jumping up and down :)

Do any of these work for you?

[mackelzinzie.livejournal.com]

I've definatly had dreams like that.

Are you dreaming?

[awhyzip.livejournal.com]

Getting from one place to the other without the traveling in between is my best marker for dreaming.

Sometimes realizing that I'm dreaming will knock me out of the immersion and end the dream, but othertimes not.

I have had dreams where I even think to check if I am dreaming, and conclude that I am NOT. (This is bad when the dream is an anxiety-dream of mistaking the day of the week and being late for work.) After I wake up, I think back on bizarre elements of the dream and wonder how could I have missed that?!

But asking myself "how did I get from [scene 1 location] to [scene 2 location]?" will usually work, even in-dream.

Re: Are you dreaming?

[cos]

You know, I have no idea how how I actually got from tornadogrrrl & keturn's place to PDX. It was quick, I thought I drove, but I hadn't driven my car out to Portland, and didn't have it there... did I get a ride? I really don't know. Good point!

[477150n.livejournal.com]

I check for flying. If I can fly, I'm dreaming.

Also I'm about to die a lot in my dreams, enough that the sequence that used to go "about to die->die->wake up->realize it's a dream" now often goes "about to die->realize it's a dream->die->wake up." Which is much less terrifying.

[cos]

Hah! I had something like that for a few years. It started when I got on a car accident - no real injury to me, but a lot of damage to my car. I started having dreams of car accidents. Most of them were annoying, sometimes even absurd; few of them were really serious. But eventually I figured out that this was a pattern, that if I got in a car accident what I should do was try to wake up, and it worked. Every time I had one of those stupid accidents, I immediately woke up.

I suppose I could've stayed in for lucid dreams, but they would've been no fun!

P.S. I bet checking for flying would work well once I already suspect I might be dreaming, and it's not the sort of thing I think I can get myself into the habit of checking for just at random, without first thinking "am I dreaming?"

[regorfa.livejournal.com]

Huh. I've never had a hard time telling my dreams from reality. In dreams, everything seems very far off, very distant.

[barking-iguana.livejournal.com]

How old were you when you started watching TV (or regularly going to movies)?

[regorfa.livejournal.com]

Pretty young. I grew up on Sesame St. and the like and watched endless amounts of cartoons in elementary school. Does that have an affect you think?

[barking-iguana.livejournal.com]

I don't know. When I was a kid (I was born i 1960) I read that most people dreamt in black and white. Later, when I asked people, only a few said they did. In the years between those, most TVs went from B&W to color.

[cos]

I watched a lot of TV when I was young, starting with cartoons sometime around age 2 or 3, and didn't stop watching a lot of TV until my early 20s. My dreams do not seem far off and distant. Also, I only saw black and white TV until we moved to the US when I was 7, because Israel didn't have color TV yet then, but I'm almost sure my dreams were in color.

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

If all my dreams had huge plot holes, perhaps I'd notice.

The problem is that a lot of my waking life has plot holes in it, too, so that wouldn't help me make a positive ID.

[charolastra00.livejournal.com]

I also have never not known I was in a dream and I can control my actions in most of my dreams. In fact, what makes a dream turn into a nightmare is when I cannot control my actions. Things can be completely normal but it's terrifying and I wake up in panic attacks because I couldn't control myself. Guess that's indicative of my personality, eh? There are literally only a handful of dreams that I was not aware that I was in a dream and they were all my spirit animal dreams- which is almost the sole reason why I believe so strongly in it. Whenever I'm really stressed, I still have dreams about elephants where I wake up expecting them to still be there, but that's the only instance.

I also dream in multiple languages. I can't count the amount of times I've dreamed in French when I barely remember what French I learned and dreamed in Portuguese though spoken as if it was Spanish (as I've only read Portuguese).

My dreams also vary in what colors they are. I didn't watch TV until I was in middle school with the exception of CNN and local news so my dreams weren't affected by that. I distinctly remember dreams where everything was shaded pink or red, black and white, sepia, or just normal colored.

[kythec.livejournal.com]

Jealously. I almost never recall dreams. When I do, it is almost always boring in plot, bound by real-life constraints, and perhaps only unrealistic in that when I'm somewhere I haven't been in real-life, I will generate new real-looking places. The only thing that I've noticed about new places is that they have the floor plans of similarly-themed places I've been to in the past, but with different walls or floors or something like that. The last time that I had anything resembling what most people seem to experience as unrealistic dream was over 5 years ago. Like I said - jealousy.

[agdjenn.livejournal.com]

Clocks.

Clocks in dream-time are WONKY, always. Look at one. Look away. Look back. Wonk=you-are-dreaming.

:)

[cos]

Hey, I just noticed, months later, that I don't recognize your LJ name - though we seem to have one friend in common, in Colorado ... and then I wondered whether I was dreaming LJ comments from mysterious people, and looked up at the clock on the menu bar, which is acting normally :)

[agdjenn.livejournal.com]

Hehehehehe!

I *may have* been reading friend-of-friend entries. *G*