[HN Gopher] Lucid dreaming app triples users' awareness in dream...
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Lucid dreaming app triples users' awareness in dreams, study finds
Author : mikhael
Score : 62 points
Date : 2024-11-17 18:24 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.psypost.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.psypost.org)
| grugagag wrote:
| I wonder what are the benefits from lucid dreaming. I read some
| claims that it's possible we could gain access to some 'hidden
| registry' figuratively speaking by using methods such as lucid
| dreaming. However, I had a few lucid dreams in my life, all
| without any deliberate effort, they just happened and it's nice
| to have them and all, but I don't see myself getting out of my
| way to have lucid dreams. Does anyone get any substantial benefit
| from lucid dreaming out there?
| MailleQuiMaille wrote:
| I don't know. It just feels nice to fly, for once.
| danielbln wrote:
| There is a significant recreational benefit. Flying feels
| amazing, and while I don't lucid dream anymore due to THC
| supplements for sleeping, I remember being fascinated and
| endlessly entertained by how _real_ it felt. I also remember
| quickly waking up upon the exciting realization that I'm
| dreaming. Rubbing hands together to stabilize the dream as you
| feel it slipping is a strategy I remember using. Or skipping
| inadvertently back into that gullible state where you take the
| most outlandish stuff at face value and outright forget that
| you're dreaming.
|
| Pretty amazing when is works, though
| tomohelix wrote:
| It is incredibly entertaining. It is the closest thing to full
| dive VR we can get right now and I doubt we would ever get the
| "realness" as close as lucid dreaming without some physical
| hijacking in the brain.
|
| The world is your oyster when you are dreaming and in control.
| That alone is enough of a draw for many people.
| nikisweeting wrote:
| MXE/k holing is slightly closer to feeling like reality, and
| much higher resolution if you get good at controlling it.
| vernon99 wrote:
| As other commenters have pointed out, the question itself might
| be pointless. The article makes the same mistake, trying to
| frame lucid dreaming around some supposed benefits it provides.
| But this craving for benefits is just a product of the ego.
| There's a deeper layer to it--simply experiencing reality is
| already profound enough on its own. And being more aware of
| this beautiful reality during your lifetime, instead of
| literally being asleep at the wheel, is pretty amazing.
| grugagag wrote:
| I do experience lucid dreaming ocasionally without any effort
| of my own and without paying for an application either. I'm
| trying to understand whether doing more of it benefits me in
| any way beyond the ocassional episodes that come naturally.
| Why is this pointless to you?
| PittleyDunkin wrote:
| I actually dislike lucid dreaming; it's not as restful and it's
| often difficult to return to restful sleep once you're aware.
| prophesi wrote:
| I enjoy it a lot, but this is definitely a downside people
| should be aware of if they'd like to lucid dream. It's very
| easy to wake up immediately once you realize you're lucid, or
| take forever to slip out of lucidity.
|
| My first thought when I saw this study is that now you can
| seek out lucidity on nights that you know you can afford
| disrupted sleep.
|
| I first sought out lucid dreaming because it helped with my
| sleep paralysis. It's still difficult to keep calm, but if I
| do manage it during an episode, it can become a much less
| unpleasant experience. I also haven't had nightmares in a
| long time as a side effect.
| marklubi wrote:
| When it happens nearly every time you go to sleep, it gets
| rather tiresome (I'll show myself out)
|
| Seriously though, I wish I could turn it off. Almost every
| single night. No thanks.
|
| Edit: When it gets to be that common, it really starts to
| mess with your memory of things.
| petee wrote:
| When I was little I had a reoccurring nightmare, but one night
| something seemed familiar and jarred me into lucidity. I made a
| conscious decision to go left instead of right and it ended
| uneventfully, never to return. A couple times since being
| somewhat lucid helped end a nightmare, though I had practiced a
| little using the 'Waking Life' technique of testing light
| switches
| techjamie wrote:
| My mind eventually started becoming half lucid during
| nightmares by itself. Any time I have a nightmare where
| something is about to hurt me, a slight lucidity kicks in and
| whatever threat gets nullified. Most clear example was
| Jurassic Park-like and I was about to be attacked by a raptor
| when walking into a room. My mind anticipated what it was
| about to do and turned the threat into a cute dog.
|
| Been hoping I can turn that into full lucidity at some point,
| but that type of nightmare where it happens is rare.
| enasterosophes wrote:
| That's how lucidity started for me. I was having recurrent
| nightmares, and gradually built up my confidence at
| repelling the threat with telekinesis and fire. Those
| "skills" evolved into having lucid dreams about once a
| month, for a while.
|
| I remember in one dream, it started off on a nice beach,
| when awareness hit me. I looked around and marvelled at how
| real it all looked. I was near a wooden railing and touched
| it, wondering how could I ever tell the difference between
| a dream and reality, since it all looked and felt so solid
| and vibrant. Then I noticed a truck parked nearby,
| levitated it with my mind, and hurled it hundreds of meters
| down the beach.
|
| The frequency of lucidity subsided after a while. I don't
| know why my brain only switched on lucid dreaming for just
| one phase of my life. I did have another lucid dream a week
| ago, the first in about four years. I was flying over a
| landscape and entered a surreal city, and once again
| marvelled at how real everything all looked.
|
| I'm with a couple of the other commenters in this thread.
| It's nice to have experienced lucid dreaming at some point,
| and it's fun when it happens again. However, it's also kind
| of pointless. A healthy attitude is to appreciate restful
| sleep instead of craving for some useless thrill.
| echelon_musk wrote:
| > I wonder what are the benefits from lucid dreaming.
|
| Becoming lucid whilst asleep is important within Buddhism.
|
| To my knowledge the Tibetans have developed this further than
| other schools (non Vajrayana) with a big emphasis on 'dream
| yoga' [0]. The idea within the religion being that if on your
| death bead you have learned to become lucid in dream then as
| you are dying you can fix your mind on higher realms and
| achieve a more desirable rebirth.
|
| It would seem compatible with Theravada outlooks at least in
| principle as mentioned in Mahasi Sayadaw's Manual of Insight
| [1]. As well as supported by discourses such as SN 55.54 Gilana
| Sutta [2].
|
| For a slightly more secular approach (but still also from a
| Buddhist practitioner) you can check out Dreaming Yourself
| Awake [3].
|
| [0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62191734-the-tibetan-
| yog...
|
| [1] > "Sleep is a prolonged period of the "life-continuum" or
| "functional" consciousness. This is the same kind of
| consciousness that arises during the first and last moments of
| our lives."
|
| [2] https://suttacentral.net/sn55.54/en/sujato?lang=en
|
| [3] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13151218-dreaming-
| yourse...
| egypturnash wrote:
| Supposedly it is easy to go from lucid dreaming to astral
| travel.
| fancyswimtime wrote:
| unless its one and the same
| carstenhag wrote:
| For me: I used to be a tiny bit good at lucid dreaming, just
| for fun. Now this skill has developed back, but it's still
| enough to be able to wake up from annoying dreams.
|
| Those include: being with persons you no longer want to be
| with, writing exams at schools and failing terribly, repeating
| nonsense calculation/problem solving dreams...
| dunefox wrote:
| Developed for an older android version, so I cannot use it.
| bigyikes wrote:
| Every lucid dream I have becomes a nightmare. When I suddenly
| gain consciousness in a dream I begin to panic and the atmosphere
| turns sinister.
|
| The last time this happened it turned into some kind of sleep
| paralysis where I became aware of my physical body but was unable
| to move as I crossfaded between dream and reality.
| waltbosz wrote:
| Mine have never turned into nightmares, but once I become aware
| that I'm dreaming and try to take control, the dream seems to
| fall apart and I wake up.
|
| I've had the sleep paralysis and crossfade that you describe.
| But it's never psychologically unpleasant.
|
| I've also had lucid dreams where it seems like I get stuck in a
| time loop and keep dreaming that I'm waking up. It feels like
| hours have elapsed and I've even gotten bored.
| emillinden wrote:
| This used to happen to me as well.
|
| This might sound weird but what works for me is once I
| realize I'm lucid and the dream starts falling apart as you
| describe it - I quickly start spinning my (dream) body
| counter clockwise. In most cases this stops the awakening and
| I can continue lucid dreaming.
|
| Waking up in the "time loop" is also recurring to me, but a
| reality check often gets me back on track even when I'm
| pretty certain that I'm awake (I'm not). I usually just look
| at my hand. If my fingers look spooky, I'm still sleeping and
| can induce lucid again.
| xelamonster wrote:
| Interestingly enough I've had the opposite experience. If I'm
| having a nightmare, usually at some point I realize it's a
| dream, and from there I can almost always force myself to wake
| up immediately. It rarely happens for me in a regular dream but
| when it does I can start to control the scenario to some
| degree.
| depsypher wrote:
| I've had both lucid dreams (which was enjoyable) and sleep
| paralysis before. The paralysis was not a fun experience at
| all, and sounds a lot like what you describe.
|
| It's apparently common enough that there's folklore around it:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_hag
|
| I've only had the sleep paralysis a couple times thankfully,
| and anecdotally the last time I had woken up in the middle of
| the night beforehand, remembered something I needed to do on my
| computer, took care of it in a dark room real quick, then went
| back to sleep. I suspect the sudden bright light and a bit of
| stress probably contributed to it happening.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| I we have our own folklore about it too. I believe a good
| percentage of alien abduction experiences are in fact
| attributable to sleep paralysis phenomena. Alien abductions
| are as real to us as night hags we're to our predecessors.
| addicted wrote:
| I would suggest doing a sleep test.
|
| While I believe this can just happen to some people, in my case
| it was a result of sleep apnea. Getting diagnosed for it and
| taking remedial steps has been a life changer for me.
| wileydragonfly wrote:
| When the Apple Watches start monitoring for it, you're going
| to see sleep apnea diagnosis skyrocket.
| lairv wrote:
| Personally every time I lucid dream I wake up a few seconds
| later. As soon as I realize I'm conscious, I directly remember
| the existence of my physical self, the feeling of my arms, my
| legs in my bed which directly wakes me up
| m3kw9 wrote:
| I just want some good rest, not to experience a different reality
| doing bs work in my head
| travisp wrote:
| It seems very likely that it's possible to force people into
| lucid dreaming. However, it seems that any external methods rely
| on external cues during REM sleep and I'd worry that in doing so
| you might be subtly reducing quality of REM sleep.
| yeetusus wrote:
| I've wanted to make my own 'app' for a wearable device that i can
| trigger to vibrate for X seconds at Y intensity every Z
| minutes... to find the sweet spot for lucid dreaming. I only dig
| a quick look but didn't see any easy mode APIs for the wearables,
| for the vibrating feature
| llamaimperative wrote:
| If you do this, please sell it as an intensive sleep retraining
| device, a la the Thim.io device except not garbage.
| ortichic wrote:
| App the article is about:
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.neurelectr...
| Doesn't install on recent android versions though
| carstenhag wrote:
| Another argument for every public funded thing should be open
| source.
| bdjsiqoocwk wrote:
| I once met a guy whom I told I some times had lucid dreams. He
| replied matter factly - lucid dreams don't exist, with the same
| of contempt you'd tell a creationist that God doesn't exist. I
| said they do exist because I've had them before. At this point
| from his look he must believe I'm perhaps trolling him, like I'm
| claiming that I can fly or become invisible. After a lot of back
| and forth and a lot of condescension from him, he eventually
| admits he doesn't know what a "lucid dream" is. So he just
| thought it meant something like "I have visions in my dreams and
| they predict the future", and assumed that's what I meant without
| even bothering to check.
|
| You wouldn't believe the kind of stupid people you meet at
| physics conferences.
| if8f9f8wjw wrote:
| My experiences in lucid dreaming and "astral travels" are a bit
| like Lovecraft's Hypnos story, since in this altered state of
| lucid dreaming I could turn to have an experience of spiritual
| search, looking for those dark places that nobody wants to visit,
| like feeling invisible barriers that I would not dare to do
| again. In short, when this becomes a habit, you can control the
| experiences emotionally to force yourself to have a more hyper-
| realistic experience sensorially speaking, but the side effects
| are to feel a strong neural connection, so it is common if
| something goes wrong to have dream paralysis and experiences
| totally full of glich, but once you wake up you know that this is
| fantasy, although in the dream state it is impossible not to
| believe it.
| nkrisc wrote:
| That's way more deep than my lucid dreams which are exactly
| like my regular dreams, except I can control what happens in
| them, like being in a movie I'm also directing and writing.
|
| Usually it's just something like I'm at a restaurant but I can
| just eat whatever I want because I know it's just a dream and I
| can make it a different kind of restaurant instead if I want. I
| certainly never had anything spiritual about it.
|
| I think a good way to describe my lucid dreaming is it's just
| like day-dreaming, but immersive because it feels like I'm
| actually there experiencing it instead of just thinking about
| myself experiencing it.
| AI_beffr wrote:
| i want to do a data dump here. did you ever wonder how its
| possible that you can experience vivid, real-time non-scripted
| (so to speak) events that are totally lifelike? how is it
| possible to do that without sensory input generating the images
| and sounds? i thought about this a lot and there is only one
| answer that fits: the human mind generates a model of the world
| and everything in it, your experience of the world is actually
| happening inside of this model. when you are awake, your mind
| looks at the world thru sensory organs and updates the model
| accordingly which gives the illusion that you are directly
| experiencing the world. but in reality there is a middle man.
| this is why so many aspects of the dream world kind of half-work.
| like clock hands changing position. your mind isnt designed to
| operate without having information fed to it, so it can only
| predict so much and you get a kind of semi-logical state of world
| within this internal model. most of what you experience is not as
| real as you think, although the minds model is designed to track
| and predict reality as well as possible.
|
| but theres more to the story. there were reports of people using
| a drug called ISRIB, russians mostly, a few years ago. its a drug
| that impacts the latency of cells, turning on cells that have
| gone latent due to injury... or for any other reason, reasons we
| may not be aware of. this drug is basically used in labs in
| cultures and is very new. people arent supposed to take it. but
| some people had it synthesized and they tried it anyway of
| course. most of them reported extremely life-like dreams. one
| person reported having waking dreams that were so real that even
| while totally and completely lucid, she was not able to tell that
| she was dreaming. she was pretty shaken up by it based on the
| chats. i think she described it as experiencing total insanity.
| but this tracks. when you are asleep, your model is not firing on
| all cylinders. part of the reason why the world is "unrealistic"
| is because your brain is not working as hard as it could to fill
| in the model in a coherent way. think about the experiences that
| schizophrenics have, seeing in full fidelity people and things
| that are totally non existent. all of these considerations
| together point to the fact that we inhabit models of the world
| rather than experiencing sensory stimuli directly.
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