Lucid dream experiences

[Pollux]

I am interested in hearing about dreams people have had where they knew they were dreaming and were able to control the dream to some degree.

I looked through some old forum-posts about kucid dreams, and such, and find this particular dream sequence that I posted in the old-old Skeptiko-forum, some 6 years ago. I had almost forgotten all about it. It wasn't a fully lucid dream, but it contains some elements that was quite interesting nonetheless;

"July 4th, 2011"

"One of the surreal dreams I have had seems to indicate that external sensory stimulation, in this case hearing, very quickly found its way into my dream and made "use" of it.
This was not a lucid dream, just your ordinary, average Joe dream.

I found myself in a windy, dusty desert town with some really surreal architecture.
What I can most closely describe it as, was like in a Salvador Dali painting that I actually saw for the first time some years after I had this dream.
The picture here is what comes close to describe the feeling of this place, but it was actually even more twisted.






Anyway, this isn't the important thing. The thing was that walking down a street in this hot, dusty and windy little town I heard a faint harmonica sound fading in and out. I started to walk in its direction because it had a sort of spellbinding sound to it. I wasn't, as I mentioned, lucid here, but just only in for the ride.
The sound got louder and louder and then it tended to fade away again.
At that point I woke up and after clearing my mind a few seconds later I heard through my open window a police/ambulance or a firetruck in the distance moving away on the street from my open window.

While lying there thinking of the dream when it was fresh in my mind I made the connection. The sound of the siren from the emergency vehicle is a bit more rapid, but if one would slow down that sound somewhat, one would come pretty close to what I heard in the dream I believe.
But at the same time I really felt that I had heard this particular sound before. I was trying, the better part of the day, remembering where I had heard this haunting tune before. It is most likely therefore that I remember this dream that well, since I couldn't let this tune go and had it imprinted in my memory.

Anyway, a few months later I was walking past a cloth store and they had a little speaker by their open door, and I heard this sound again.
I halted in my step and turned back to listen to this song. It was the intro to the song so when it kicked of I suddenly recognized it.
I had heard this song when I was younger a few times, but it was never one of my favourites, and I didn't own any recording of this song either.

I want you to listen to harmonica in the first 20 seconds of this song - nevermind the rest of the song >>






Then listen to the part from 30 seconds in, up to around 45 seconds of this clip >>>>






So, what I think happened was that I heard the emergency vehicle while sleeping, and its sound was slowed down, to either get processed, and in some way play a part in the dream. Or if it is that we dream "slower" at some part and any sound we might hear gets drawn out. But it isn't slowed down that much, just a bit.


One thing that would be interesting to do is, an experiment where sound, touch, smell or taste of different character could be exposed to a sleeping test-person while sleeping and then see if they can remember something in their dream that correlates to that sensory input.
Most likely someone have done experiments on this, but i have never read or heard of any."

I looked through some old forum-posts about kucid dreams, and such, and find this particular dream sequence that I posted in the old-old Skeptiko-forum, some 6 years ago. I had almost forgotten all about it. It wasn't a fully lucid dream, but it contains some elements that was quite interesting nonetheless;

"July 4th, 2011"

"One of the surreal dreams I have had seems to indicate that external sensory stimulation, in this case hearing, very quickly found its way into my dream and made "use" of it.
This was not a lucid dream, just your ordinary, average Joe dream.

I found myself in a windy, dusty desert town with some really surreal architecture.
What I can most closely describe it as, was like in a Salvador Dali painting that I actually saw for the first time some years after I had this dream.
The picture here is what comes close to describe the feeling of this place, but it was actually even more twisted.






Anyway, this isn't the important thing. The thing was that walking down a street in this hot, dusty and windy little town I heard a faint harmonica sound fading in and out. I started to walk in its direction because it had a sort of spellbinding sound to it. I wasn't, as I mentioned, lucid here, but just only in for the ride.
The sound got louder and louder and then it tended to fade away again.
At that point I woke up and after clearing my mind a few seconds later I heard through my open window a police/ambulance or a firetruck in the distance moving away on the street from my open window.

While lying there thinking of the dream when it was fresh in my mind I made the connection. The sound of the siren from the emergency vehicle is a bit more rapid, but if one would slow down that sound somewhat, one would come pretty close to what I heard in the dream I believe.
But at the same time I really felt that I had heard this particular sound before. I was trying, the better part of the day, remembering where I had heard this haunting tune before. It is most likely therefore that I remember this dream that well, since I couldn't let this tune go and had it imprinted in my memory.

Anyway, a few months later I was walking past a cloth store and they had a little speaker by their open door, and I heard this sound again.
I halted in my step and turned back to listen to this song. It was the intro to the song so when it kicked of I suddenly recognized it.
I had heard this song when I was younger a few times, but it was never one of my favourites, and I didn't own any recording of this song either.

I want you to listen to harmonica in the first 20 seconds of this song - nevermind the rest of the song >>






Then listen to the part from 30 seconds in up to around 45 seconds of this clip >>>>






So, what I think happened was that I heard the emergency vehicle while sleeping, and its sound was slowed down, to either get processed, and in some way play a part in the dream. Or if it is that we dream "slower" at some part and any sound we might hear gets drawn out. But it isn't slowed down that much, just a bit.


One thing that would be interesting to do is, an experiment where sound, touch, smell or taste of different character could be exposed to a sleeping test-person while sleeping and then see if they can remember something in their dream that correlates to that sensory input.
Most likely someone have done experiments on this, but i have never read or heard of any."

Don't know about particular research but quite sure sound has been looked at. I have had many cases where an external sound was integrated into my dream, which I discovered on awakening.

In terms of visual information I can tell you without question it has been studied.  I actually made use of this capability in the design of a lucid dream inducement device that I built. It blinked a small LED in front of my eye a set amount of time after an infrared sensor detected I had entered REM sleep. The point is to see the red LED in my dream and become lucid. 

The way I saw the LED in my dream is through a type of integration. I would see a flashing sunset or a red flashing light on a fire engine I might have been following on the road. There were numerous other ways the flashing light would appear, but it was nearly always in the context of my dream. This has been studied in dreams labs by people like Robert Waggoner and others.

[Pollux]

Don't know about particular research but quite sure sound has been looked at. I have had many cases where an external sound was integrated into my dream, which I discovered on awakening.

In terms of visual information I can tell you without question it has been studied.  I actually made use of this capability in the design of a lucid dream inducement device that I built. It blinked a small LED in front of my eye a set amount of time after an infrared sensor detected I had entered REM sleep. The point is to see the red LED in my dream and become lucid. 

The way I saw the LED in my dream is through a type of integration. I would see a flashing sunset or a red flashing light on a fire engine I might have been following on the road. There were numerous other ways the flashing light would appear, but it was nearly always in the context of my dream. This has been studied in dreams labs by people like Robert Waggoner and others.

Interesting! Did the flickering light always works as a "trigger" for you, making you lucid in the dream?

I wonder if the same thing can be done with smells for example. Using touch as sensory input could be a bit harder to differentiate in a dream, but smells, or even taste might "transfer". Like dripping some drops of lemon on the tongue of someone in REM-sleep, or expose them to some strong smells.

Interesting! Did the flickering light always works as a "trigger" for you, making you lucid in the dream?

I wonder if the same thing can be done with smells for example. Using touch as sensory input could be a bit harder to differentiate in a dream, but smells, or even taste might "transfer". Like dripping some drops of lemon on the tongue of someone in REM-sleep, or expose them to some strong smells.

No, it didn't always work. Actually most times I found that I only realized what was happening after I woke up. And then there were other times where the blinking would be too bright and would cause me to wake up. 

It 's a tough balance to achieve. Not overt enough, vs too overt.

In the end, I found that other techniques worked better for me, like the "wake back to sleep" method.

I don't know if you've noticed, but most people have little or no sense of smell or taste in dreams. Don't know how this might affect this type of sleep stimulation. Obviously taste would be hard because it requires swallowing. But smell might be an easy and fun thing to experiment with. I bet the major sleep researchers like Waggoner would be familiar with any work in this area, if it exists.

In the end, I found that other techniques worked better for me, like the "wake back to sleep" method.

Powerful time; "wake back to sleep" can be taught to anyone.