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Dreaming While Awake: Thoughts on the film Waking Life

My thoughts after seeing Waking Life:

“Holy shit - this movie really is all about lucid dreaming!”

“What the fuck was that guy talking about?”

“This is really awesome and yet sometimes really boring.”

“This guy talking about how turning on or off a light in a dream and how it won’t work – I love this scene. And 360 vision – hell yea!”

“This crazy animation style is going to give me a headache!”

“I need to watch this movie again and take notes.”

This isn’t a normal movie with character development, a climax, and so on – it’s more like a philosophical look at dreams, waking life, and reality. It’s about a guy seemingly lost in a dreamworld, wondering from dream to dream, sometimes thinking he’s awake, and sometimes knowing he’s in a dream. He meets different people everywhere he goes, and the ensuing conversations leave you confused, intrigued, and excited.

These conversations cover a lot of ground. For those interested in spending some time with the themes of the movie, the Waking Life script is online here.

This is a rare type of film, both in content and technique, whose shortcomings are made up for it’s ability to get you thinking about something you’ve probably never thought before.

My Favorite Scene

Some Quotes

Doesn’t it make sense that death too would be wrapped in a dream? That after death, your conscious life would continue in what might be called a dream body?”

“There’s only one instant, and it’s right now, and it’s eternity.”

“They say that dreams are only real as long as they last. Couldn’t you say the same thing about life?”

“Did you ever have a job that you hated and worked real hard at? A long, hard day of work. Finally you get to go home, get in bed, close your eyes and immediately you wake up and realize… that the whole day at work had been a dream. It’s bad enough that you sell your waking life for minimum wage, but now they get your dreams for free. “

(More Waking Life quotes)

PS. It is purely a coincidence that this film is called Waking Life and then I come out with a blog called Dreaming Life. I actually came to this name while writing down my dreams and found it to be an efficient term to designate something that happened while sleeping. I wasn’t aware of the film Waking Life at the time.

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Announcing the Opening of Aether Lucid Dreaming Retreats in Tulum, Mexico!

It is with great excitement that I share with you the opening of a lucid dreaming retreat in Tulum, Mexico!

The first official retreat comes up quick on November 1-8, 2007. After reviewing the itinerary of the week-long retreat, this is quite possibly the coolest thing I have ever seen in my life.

Seriously.

Don’t believe me?

Here’s a sample of the included activities:

Classes on:
Dream Yoga
Mnemonic Lucid Dreaming
Sensory Reduction via the onsite Dry-Flotation Tank
Sound and Light Machines
Plant Teachers

Local Trips to:
The Mayan Ruins
Go Swimming with Dolphins (!!!)

Sessions in the Dry Flotation Tank, optionally with the addition of:
Calea Z
Salvia Divinorum
Sound and Light Machines

The retreat is located inside breach-front eco-village in the jungle.

Onsite there is also a spa, yoga/meditation center, and a restaurant. Amazingly, there is even wi-fi access in your cabaña and all over the resort, so you can, say for example, update your blog on dreams & altered states from an ocean-front hut in the jungle after a day of meditation, dream practice, and total relaxation.

Pretty sweet, eh?

Come back to Dreaming Life soon to find an interview with founder of the retreat, where we will discuss his goals in opening up a lucid dreaming resort and what people can expect from visiting.

Check out the official website for all the details, including rates, registration, itinerary details, class descriptions, and more:

Aether Lucid Dreaming Retreats
http://www.aether.org/

P.S. I am tentatively planning a visit in the Spring of 2008.

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Carnival of Dreams, Mysticism, Near Death, and Out of Body Experiences: First Edition for October 2007

Welcome to the First Edition of Dreaming Life’s newest Carnival. I got many awesome entries this time around that I’m psyched to share with you. I was much more selective about what was included and what was not, so rest assured, you’re only getting the best of the best here. Thanks to all the bloggers who submitted such quality posts! Everyone please check them out and be sure to leave them some comments

First up, Will Mitchell presents an Introduction to Lucid Dreams and the Lucid Dream Experiment posted at www.SparkedBlog.com.

This is a well written piece on lucid dreaming, including some interesting historical bits. I challenge the author though on the claim that although lucid dreaming has been scientifically proven, it still resides in the “speculative realm.” The concept and experience of lucid dreaming is far from speculation. Was this a typo or something?

Eric Michael Johnson submitted The Feeling of What Happens posted at The Primate Diaries, a post that’s sure to piss off some readers of this blog and intrigue others (I find myself in the latter camp.)

To give you an idea of where he’s going with this, I’ll give you some quotes:

“It’s not too much of a stretch to link such phantom limbs with a feeling for God. What’s more likely? That an invisible world exists that controls our destiny (but that people around the globe interpret in vastly different ways) or that all humans have similar neural networks that, under certain circumstances, engender a feeling of the divine?”

And this one below is a great talking point. Interesting how he uses the word “trick”…

“A further argument in favor of the view that the divine is an internal state is that people in cultures all over the world shock their systems through fasting, rhythmic prayer, chanting or even with hallucinogens in order to trick their brains into a mystical experience.”

At the other end of the spectrum,, we have a story about an out of body experience titled My Astral Encounter With a Tribal Shaman posted at Season of Shadows Blog, by John Wolfe. John submitted this entry saying, “A story of my out-of-body encounter with a Native American healer, during (what was possibly) the 19th Century.”

I don’t know what to think of OOBE, but I love to hear about them from all perspectives; the personal subjective perspective, as above, and the neurological happenings of the brain, too.

In other strangeness:

Dream precognition weirds me out because doesn’t it pre-suppose that there’s no such thing as free will? If that’s the case, I guess I have no choice but to share with you Tristan Sullivan’s account at Imagine, titled simply Dreams.

Next up we have a clevel post by Dr. Martin W. Russell called The Quicksand Guide To Professional Help. Martin invites us to post a “NDE” take on the scenario he’s presented. (It’ll make sense when you read it.) Check it out and give it your best shot.

Don’t stop reading!

These last two entries are certainly worth your awhile.

Both posts come from Erin Pavlina (partner of famous lucid dreamer and blogger Steven Pavlina), posted at Erin Pavlina’s Blog, and address different aspects of lucid dreaming.

In Enhancing Dream Recall, she shares the skills she uses to remember her dreams, including the clever act of remember a dream by becoming lucid and talking about it with a dream character in the dream that follows.

In this post she also mention the lucid dreaming podcast posted on Steve Pavlina’s blog. This podcast is free to download and has some great info on lucid dreaming. (While you’re there, check out the other podcasts, they are awesome.)

Finally, Erin hits us with an awesome story of how she “used lucid dreaming to conquer a major fear,” in Embracing Your Fear.This is a fascinating account of being haunted by the popular horror figure from Nightmare on Elm Street! Erin relays how Freddy haunted her - even in her lucid dreams! - for nearly a year, how she tried to stop him, and ultimately, how she was able to succeed in conquering her fear.

A fascinating account of dream symbolism and the personal growth made possible through lucid dreaming. (And probably my favorite link in the whole carnival.)

…

Hope you enjoyed this edition of the carnival. The next one will be coming out before Christmas (Yikes! Guess what - Christmas isn’t all that far away now is it!)

If you found something here really interesting, let me know by leaving a comment below with your thoughts.

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What’s the Point of Lucid Dreaming?

My wife casually asked the other day:

“Why do I want to have Lucid Dreams?”

“What’s the point?”

I had the hardest time trying to answer her in a way that would convince her. It got me thinking about it and so this post is my own answer to these two questions…

My Gut-level response:

“What do you mean? The feeling of becoming consciously aware that you are dreaming, while you are dreaming, is fucking awesome!!”

My elegant response:

Imagine whatever it is you’re doing right now – look around at the people near you, the walls surrounding you, your hands – and think of what it would mean to you right now if this was a dream. What would you do?

Knowing our minds are capable of creating such an experience is of infinite intrigue to me. The immediate coolness of just experimenting in the dream world – flying, moving through objects, moving things with your mind, exploring the dreamscape, talking with dream characters – this is all awesome and why I’m interested in lucid dreaming, but it’s only half the equation.

The other half is this:

I want to use lucid dreaming as a means of understanding consciousness, the mind, and how our brain/mind works to process experiences into reality.

If we can become conscious within a dream and experience this world just like we experience waking life, what does it mean then about who we are and our source of awareness? What can the dreaming mind teach us about how we process and understand experiences? What do dreams tell us about reality?

Beyond this philosophical approach to lucid dreaming, there are a few specific reasons I do want to have lucid dreams. Here, I present to you my lucid dream to-do list.

Meditation and Mystical Experiences. I’ve read that people who meditate in waking life have had intense experience become lucid and then meditating in the dream. They report seeing fantastic colors and a sense of ballooning awareness, ego loss, and other mystical sensations. I want to experience this.

Tripping. I’ve had dreams where I took acid, been drunk, and been stoned. In each instance I was not lucid – it was just part of the dream. Each time, the resulting experience was much of what it would have been in waking life had it happened for real. Being able to have a realistic and mind-blowing psychedelic experience in a lucid dream has been confirmed to me by numerous people; somehow, our mind can recreate these experiences if we simply dream it up, consciously. This is amazing and I want to experience it.

Moving my sense of awareness beyond my body. I would very much like to attempt to ‘deconstruct’ my sense of awareness within the dream, becoming less and less of my body, and seeing what happens. I’ve heard about 360 vision – is this possible? This sounds morbid, but I wonder what would happen if I plucked one of my eyeballs out and tried looking around with it? What if I ripped my head off and held it with my own hand? It’s funny, because I know it’s all an illusion that my sense of awareness is coming from my dream head – how can I get past this? Could I project my awareness onto an object in a dream? Another character? Could I merge with another person? If I’m having a lucid dream, I understand that everything I’m experiencing is a projection of and contained within my own mind; how can I take my sense of awareness and expand it accordingly?

Flying & Soaring through the universe. Flying is a fantastic experience. What more is there to say?

Calling myself on the phone. Could I have a conversation with myself? What about other people?

Out of Body Experiences. While I am skeptical of OBE, there is an obvious connection to lucids and the OBE. I want to explore this connection and experience what is known as an OBE, even if it’s just taking place in my mind.

I’d like to know what you think.

Are my reasons similar to most? What’s the point of lucid dreaming for you personally? Why do you bother?

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The Most Fantastic Lucid Dream Of My Life

“Just had the longest, most extensive, lucid dream of my life”
-from my dream journal, 2:50am, August 24, 2007

A few nights ago I had the most fantastic lucid dream of my life.

This experience was far more fulfilling than any other lucid dream I’d ever had. I’ve never had a dream anywhere near this long, with this much control, with so many different dream characters, with so many different dreamscapes and experiences, and all of it with so much clarity of mind.

It was incredibly long. I estimated, while still dreaming, that about an hour had passed.

I became lucid after noticing my face itched strangely and felt funny; I did a reality test, and realized I was actually dreaming. Before I went to bed, I mentally set the intention that I would have a lucid dream.

Upon waking, I was able to recall up to 13 different sequences or “dream scenes.” Here are the more interesting details from the dream:

• I sent myself two emails from within the dream. I’m not sure why – I didn’t ever think it would work, but maybe it just seemed fun to do. It wasn’t all that hard to type, although I do recall the typo I made on the second email, where all I wrote was “deram tsest” and hit send. Later in the dream, I stumbled upon a conversation with others who were discussing this idea of emailing yourself from a dream. I told them I had actually already done this and they got all excited, but I tried to explain it’s not going to work because it was just dream computer, and dream internet!

• Flying! Oh my god, I’ve never flown so well in a dream. For a moment, I had a hard getting off the ground but I thought about the advice I got from visitors to the blog – basically, don’t try so hard! – and it worked. I flew through the sky at the treetops. I purposely allowed my skin to graze the leaves, and I vividly recall the feeling of the leaves as they brushed against my skin. I used the trees as a sort of “mental grounding” to propel myself through the air, from one tree to the other. It was fantastic.

• Discussing with another dream character the idea of awareness in a dream. Where is this awareness? This isn’t my hand, this isn’t my body… where is this all coming from? I felt that the only “real” part of my dream body was my brain, which was connected to my real brain, sleeping on the bed. This is some shady thinking, as my dreaming brain is no more real than anything else in the dream. The question remains though, what is it that’s aware in the dream? Where’s that point of awareness coming from?

• Laughing with my wife after purposely punching a wall and then shying away from purposely causing pain. I thought I would welcome dream pain because I’m simply curious to see how the dreaming mind makes everything so real. I thought about Mad Hatters post on dream pain and laughed – I didn’t want to feel pain, even if I knew it was only “dream pain”!! When you’re feeling it, dreaming or not, it feels real. This was a really interesting moment for me in the dream. I also recall looking at my wife, smiling and laughing at the situation because I knew she was just a dream character.

• Getting into a group conversation about Hardline because a dream character asked me to explain it. Before getting into I thought, “I can’t believe I’m getting into this in a dream…”

• Constant reality tests. I would put my arm into the wall all the way up to my elbow. I was able to do this to a mirror too, which was much harder to do than a wall. In 2 parts of the dream, other characters were doing the reality tests with me. I can easily recall the feeling of having my arm submerged into the wall. It reminds me of the feeling of having my arm submerged into water. The next day I kept looking at the walls at work, thinking of this experience. I also merged my entire body with the structure of the house, moved upwards through the ceiling and onto the roof, and mentally collapsed the house together, with the intention of adding onto it.

• INCREASE LUCIDITY NOW. I shouted this a few times in the dream when I felt the clarity of the dreamscape fading. I tried this before in a lucid dream with no success but this time it worked. I would shout “Increase Lucidity NOW!”, and maybe punch a wall at the same time, and things would snap back into focus.

• Discussing with 2 friends within the dream how much time had passed so far and that maybe it was time for me to wake up. We came to the conclusion that about an hour had passed, and that it was time for me to get up. I flew through the air and passed a building, emailed myself one more time from the side of the building (strange, I know), and then promptly woke up.

…

Normally, if I have a lucid dream it’s the first thing I talk about upon waking up.

But this time, the experience was so great that I kept it to myself until that evening. When I talk my wife about it, who is at best only vaguely intrigued by lucid dreams, she asked me “What’s the reason for lucid dreaming? What’s the point of it?”

Such a simple question, but I struggled to answer it! I couldn’t really express my reasons to her at the time.

Naturally, this got me to thinking about why I want to have lucid dreams and what’s the point of it for me. Later this week I’ll be posting my thoughts on the answer to this question.

“I have tingles now, like I took too much B6.”
- Last entry into the dream journal before going back to bed

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12 Free Software Programs for Lucid Dreaming: Train Your Mind To Have a Lucid Dream!

What is a Lucid Dream?
“A lucid dream is a dream in which the person is aware that he or she is dreaming while the dream is in progress. During lucid dreams, it is often possible to exert conscious control over the dream characters and environment, as well as to perform otherwise physically impossible feats.” (wikipedia)

Have you ever wanted to lucid dream? Maybe you’ve always been curious but didn’t know where to start? Maybe you’ve done it before but are having a hard time getting back into it?

Whatever your situation, if you’d like to have a lucid dream, the time to start is now. Below you can learn about and download every FREE lucid dreaming software program there is to help you on your journey. Feel free to document your experience by leaving a comment on this post

Happy Dreaming!

Free Lucid Dreaming Software Infinity Paradiso Lucid Dreaming Digibook LucidWarp Lucille 2.0 Reality Check BrainWave Generator You Are Dreaming Lucid Weaver Daldom Discreet Reminder Lucid Dreaming Assistant

Click Here to Subscribe to the feed!

Infinity
Download: Click Here to Download!

DreamPort Home Page
Official Description:

“The purpose of Infinity is basically to allow the user to have lucid dreams in the time frame of 1 to 2 weeks. The idea is for people to use this to get out of dry-spells or for new-comers to use this to have their first lucid dream. ”

“It’s a day to day plan where you basically keep adding on more and more activities to a routine that you establish. The idea is to put your mind on over-load so that you have a lucid dream no matter what. By no means will this program give you the ability to lucid dream at will; however, it might put you in the right direction. By using this training software to have much needed lucid dreams, you’ll obtain more motivation and will be much more fit to persue the art of lucid dreaming on your own. Think of this as a powerful kickstart to get you going.”

Note: The Goods must be installed on your computer for Infinity and Paradiso to work. You only need to install it once. You need to have Adobe Flash Player.

Download Infinity!

Paradiso
Download: Click Here to Download!

DreamPort Home Page
Official Description:

“Have you ever wanted to construct your own dreamscape, full of anonymous objects and pleasures all from your choosing? Not only that, but would you want to have that dreamscape appear whenever you wanted to, whether you were lucid or not? Well, I’m hear to tell you that this task is not an impossible one, but rather a simple and fun one.

As more and more lucid dreamers enter this realm of dreamscape creation, many others are desiring the same satisfaction of being able to construct their own world. The problem is, many don’t know how, or where to start. Thus, I’ve created Paradiso, which provides descriptions, techniques, and advice on how to make all of this possible, leaving the user with one awesome result.

With this, you can create your very own extensive environment, and you can put anything you want in it. You could even put dream characters and signs up that have the sole purpose to tell you that you are lucid. Start the dream out in this environment all the time, then you can guarantee paradise and lucidity right from the beginning!”

Note: The Goods must be installed on your computer for Infinity and Paradiso to work. You only need to install it once. You need to have Adobe Flash Player.
Download Paradiso!

Lucid Dreaming Digibook
Download: Click Here to Download!

DreamPort Home Page
Official Description:

The Lucid Dreaming Digibook “is a compilation of all techniques popular and unpopular for the sole purpose of allowing the user to have a solid reference when needed.”

Download Lucid Dreaming DigiBook!

LucidWarp
Download: Click Here to Download!

DreamPort Home Page
Official Description:

“ Lucid Warp is a seven day training course that transforms you and your mind to allow yourself to Lucid Dream at will. Many people have called this idea the “Holy Grail” of Lucid Dreaming, and to be honest with you, it is.

You learn to believe and expect various things to happen by experimenting each day with new things. Every day builds up on top of the other, and end up giving you the ultimate power to lucid dream. You will also figure out how to control your mind, rather than have your mind control you, which can help you in so many things other than lucid dreaming.

You know what the best part about all of this is? It is that you only have to do this method ONCE. After that, as long as you keep the same state of mind as you did during the 7 Days, you will have a very successful lucid dreaming career; you could even lucid dream every single night if you wanted to!

During this course, all you have to do is believe, and you will be able to accomplish anything you set your eyes on.”

Download LucidWarp!

Lucille 2.0
Download: Click Here to Download!

Lucille Home Page
Official Description:

“Lucille is a mostly hidden application that pops up questions to help you doing reality tests. The questions can be customized. The look of Lucille can be changed through so called skins.”

Download Lucille 2.0!

Reality Check
Download: Click Here to Download!

Red Byte Home Page
Official Description:

“Use this program as a “random” alarm clock to remind you to do reality checks. This is a free program - share it with your friends. This program may help train you to be more aware of lucid dreaming.”

Download Reality Check!

BrainWave Generater
Click Here Download BrainWave Generator 3.1

BrainWave Generator Home Page
Official Description:

“Want to relax? Meditate? Learn faster? Focus attention? Increase your awareness? Try self-hypnosis? Just put on the earphones and let BrainWave Generator take you to the state of mind you want. The sound and visual stimulation functions of BrainWave Generator help you prepare for stressful situations or challenging tasks, improve learning results, alleviate sleeping problems and headaches and much more! BrainWave Generator generates binaural beats that change your brain frequency towards the desired state, be it relaxation or enhanced attention. In addition to using the more than 20 built-in brain wave entrainment programs, you can create your own programs (presets).”

Additional Info:

Brainwave Entrainment for Lucid Dreaming - A concise guide to tweaking the Brainwave Generator settings to create programs for lucid dreaming, hosted by the DreamViews forum.

Lucid Dreaming / Sleep / Dreaming Presets - User-rated presets from the BWGEN community.

Download Brain Wave Generator!

You Are Dreaming
Download: Click Here to Download!

YAD Home Page
Official Description:

“Hi I made this silly little program I call YAD ( You Are Dreaming ) for Windows-XP. When you run it, you will see the words “You are dreaming” moving across the screen, it’s small and gray so you may not notice it at first, it should be near the top of the screen. To change the Y location of it you can edit the yad.ini file, set a different location, and run the program again. To stop the program, double click on it ( it’s a little difficult to hit it because it’s a transparent window, so you may need to double click several times ) or use the Task-Manager to close it. The purpose of the thing is to subliminally put it into your head that you are dreaming.”

Notes: A bit more info on this program is available here.

Download You Are Dreaming!

Lucid Weaver
Download: Click Here to Download!
(directly to cellphone)

Lucid Weaver Home Page
Official Description:

“LucidWeaver is the world’s first lucid dreaming training software for mobile devices.

Lucid dreaming means knowing that you are dreaming while it is happening. It is a learnable skill that allows you to decide what is going to happen in your dream. LucidWeaver includes Dream alarm with sound cue which can be adjusted to a personal REM-sleep cycle for improving dream recall and lucidity training. Randomized reality tests can be set and it can be used as regular alarm clock.

With LucidWeaver as your constant companion in your mobile phone, learning the art of lucid dreaming is easier than ever.”

Note: LucidWeaver is free to try as a demo and then costs $19 euros.

Download Lucid Weaver

Daldom
Download: Click Here to Download!

Daldom Home Page
Official Description:

“Daldom is a cross platform audio lucid dream induction software.”

Download Daldom

Discreet Reminder
Download: Click Here to Download!

Discreet Reminder Home Page
Official Description:

“Discreet Reminder is a great tool to help you do reality checks, when spending time in front of your computer.”

Download Discreet Reminder!

Lucid Dreaming Assistant
Download: Click here to Download

No Home Page - This is some old DOS software!

Official Description:

“There are two versions of this program. A real existing version that you are (probably) using right now. And there is a version that only exists when you dream!”

Note: After using this program once, I had a lucid dream that night. You can read about the experience here.

Download Lucid Dreaming Assistant!

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