Those who dream do not know they dream, but when you wake you know you are awake.
I actually use this fact to enable lucid dreaming. When I’m dreaming, I ask myself, “am I dreaming?” And then I answer yes, without any further consideration, as I’ve realized that the answer is always yes. Because when I’m awake, I don’t ask that question, because there’s never any doubt to begin with. So when I’m dreaming and I find myself unsure of whether or not I’m dreaming, I therefore know that I’m dreaming, simply because the doubt and confusion exists. It’s a method that’s a lot simpler (and more accurate) than trying to analyze the contents of the dream to see if it seems real.
I used to use a similar technique, but found the absence of pain was more reliable; you can start wondering if something is just a dream, but you can’t start feeling pinches in a dream.
Yeah, it doesn’t work for everyone, unfortunately. IIRC a (possibly slim) majority of people can’t feel pain in dreams—it’s probably connected to the mechanism that prevents you remembering pain - you know it was there but you don’t really experience it like other memories. That’s why pinching yourself is the traditional method of proving some thing isn’t a dream. Some people can’t read text or tell the time n dreams, it changes between viewings, is gibberish, blank etc. I can. AFAIK there is no method of lucid dreaming that works for everyone, you have to experiment.
I actually use this fact to enable lucid dreaming. When I’m dreaming, I ask myself, “am I dreaming?” And then I answer yes, without any further consideration, as I’ve realized that the answer is always yes. Because when I’m awake, I don’t ask that question, because there’s never any doubt to begin with. So when I’m dreaming and I find myself unsure of whether or not I’m dreaming, I therefore know that I’m dreaming, simply because the doubt and confusion exists. It’s a method that’s a lot simpler (and more accurate) than trying to analyze the contents of the dream to see if it seems real.
I used to use a similar technique, but found the absence of pain was more reliable; you can start wondering if something is just a dream, but you can’t start feeling pinches in a dream.
I can feel pain in dreams. I’m not sure if I can self-inflict pain in dreams (I’ve never tried), but I’ve definitely felt pain in dreams.
Yeah, it doesn’t work for everyone, unfortunately. IIRC a (possibly slim) majority of people can’t feel pain in dreams—it’s probably connected to the mechanism that prevents you remembering pain - you know it was there but you don’t really experience it like other memories. That’s why pinching yourself is the traditional method of proving some thing isn’t a dream. Some people can’t read text or tell the time n dreams, it changes between viewings, is gibberish, blank etc. I can. AFAIK there is no method of lucid dreaming that works for everyone, you have to experiment.
I can also feel pain in dreams here.