What's It Like to Be a Natural Lucid Dreamer?


What's It Like to be a Natural Lucid Dreamer?

Chloe is a natural lucid dreamer.

That's to say that all of her dreams are conscious (lucid), highly realistic and incredibly vivid. She can remember these dreams as far back as being a toddler.

That level of mindfulness we regular folk strive to achieve in our dreams is always present in her nightly escapades. Her dreams, by default, are highly intense, profound and acutely self aware.

Recently Chloe wrote on our Facebook page about the extraordinary and permanent nature of her lucidity. I knew this was one lucid mind I had to probe.

"For me its waking in another reality most of the time. I know some people can control where they are and everything around them, but I can only control myself."

How do you remember your dreams?

Chloe: When I first awake, usually I spend a couple minutes laying in bed making the dream a memory. I try to go over every detail in the order that it happened and reflect on the activities that took place.

Another common way for me to remember my dreams is during regular daily activities. Sometimes the activities spur a memory, such as driving under an underpass once reminded me of a lucid dream I was in where I died in a fatal car crash. In this lucid dream, the car collided with a semi-truck while attempting to change lanes while going under a similar underpass.

Other times its completely random. I can be doing a regular activity and I suppose I “freeze up” or “zone out” (or so say people who have been with me while it happens). Often the people who witness me “being a weirdo” snap me out of it, but the memory continues to flood in.

The worst way to remember a dream is by mistaking it for reality. I have talked to people before saying “remember when we...” and when the person looks very confused or says that it didn’t happen I can quickly start relating that memory to a dream memory instead of a memory from reality. I cover myself by saying “sorry, I must have done that with my mom”.

 

I can relate to that. The weirdest thing for me is a flood of vivid dream memories hit me when I lay my head on the pillow at night. I still don't understand why this happens. So when did you discover that your dream life was out of the ordinary?

Chloe: I started having really substantial lucid dreams, and when I decided to look into it online, I wasn’t able to find people who related. When I asked people I knew in person they all said they never experienced a lucid dream.

 

When the initial novelty of lucidity wears off, different people tend to direct their dream pursuits in different ways. What do you do with your lucid dreams?

Chloe: Usually normal things, such as wandering around new areas I have been taken to. A few months ago I found myself in Honduras. I don’t know why - I never even Googled the country before this dream - but I was at this large rock there. It was absolutely breathtaking, and mistaking my lucid dream for reality I began to cry as I was so happy.

A dream character came up and told me it wasn’t real; it's all a dream. So I begged her to let me stay, but she just told me to “enjoy now” so we walked around near the beach, went to some tourist building and waded in the water until I faded out of there. I woke up and immediately Googled Honduras and saw my dream matched the photos I saw.

(In the news that automatically pops up in the search results, it said that day Miss Honduras was found murdered. I’m not sure how to explain this or if it even means anything, but its interesting to say the least and I’m thankful for the time I spent there in my dream as it was lovely.)

 

It sounds like you enjoy a lot of passive lucid dreaming; exploring the dreamscape as it presents itself. To what extent do your lucid dreams shape themselves?

Chloe: They shape themselves in what I perceive as other realities, whether dreams or not. Everything is so real, its like a cruel trick at times.

I remember being with a dream character taking a walk in humid heat. I turned to them looking at the sweat beads forming on their pores and saying: “Seriously, I can see the sweat forming and I can see all your pores! How can this not be real!?”

Whenever I mention something like that, I’m usually hushed, ignored or told something a mother would tell her small child speaking nonsense.

So your dream characters tend to dismiss you when you break the illusion. Can you tell us more about them? Are they ever helpful? Are any of them recurring?

Chloe: One of my frequent dream characters is oddly a college professor of mine from two years ago. I forgot all about him until he started showing up the end of summer 2014 in my dreams. He is actually the man who I questioned about his sweaty pores. He is my friend and tends to just be there with me.

Next is the woman in Honduras, I only saw her that one time but I feel she was trying to explain or teach me something, though I don’t know if it worked.

The last one is this glowing orb, when I was in a world of just light and energy and glowing orbs. It was the most love I had ever felt in my life. I was drawn to a blueish glowing orb and I somehow felt deeply loved.

After the glowing orb world, where I wish I could go back to, I was sent to a shopping mall in human form, a human world-type dream. It was so sudden, I felt completely abandoned. I was screaming the name of the glowing orb like a nutcase in the mall until my throat hurt and was raspy. But the screaming in my dream woke me up in my bed. I felt devastated.

Though having the experience of being a glowing orb and feeling such love was helpful, it also caused me great sadness and I can’t get over feeling as if I lost something.

 

Dreams like that can be real game changers, they can affect the way you view reality forever. Do you meditate in waking life or practice any kind of exercises in mindfulness?

Chloe: I was meditating for a bit in the afternoons, but it quickly begin to confuse and drain me. Reason being, I felt like I was being put in different realities where I couldn’t remember this life I have here. The feeling right before going into another body, another life, was like if you were to go down a roller coaster, that feeling in your stomach and head like you are falling.

For example, I suddenly was a man with blond hair in a living room watching the news on televison. I just knew I was waiting to see my face on there because I had committed a crime. Surely enough, there was my photo flashed across the news. My whole being at the time felt like warm water had been poured over me. I knew my life was over and I was going to prison. It was just a waiting game until the police caught me. I was thinking “there has to be another way out” referring to my thought on just killing myself seeing as I didn’t want to go to prison. Then “wait, I know I have brown hair” I thought, though I couldn’t remember this life.

I closed my eyes and tried my best to remember whatever I could of this life. As I started to remember little things, sure enough I was tipping over another roller coaster and I awoke safely here.

 

Some natural lucid dreamers say they feel like they can never get a good night's sleep. Do you feel rested when you wake from a night of lucid dreams?

Chloe: Usually - unless I was traumatized in the dream.

 

Have you ever mentioned your condition to a doctor? Would you ever seek to change things?

Chloe: Yes, I have actually. Their answer was anti-anxiety medication. I don’t plan on changing anything or taking medication because regardless of what bad happens in my dreams, a lot of it is good. It brings happiness to my life, even if it isn’t real.

My lucid dreams have given me a better understanding of how everything is connected. I take time to try to feel the energy of other people and animals, which before I would have thought to be a complete joke. I used to be an atheist and after the glowing orb dream I’m not sure what I am.

 

Do you have any advice for people who are learning to lucid dream?

Chloe: Here's one tip. I’ve found it easy to achieve a lucid state with binaural beats in short 30 minute naps.


Thanks very much for sharing your experiences, Chloe!

Note: Chloe decided to remain anonymous for this interview. I respect her need to withhold her surname and photo - it's not easy to share such profoundly personal revelations with the entire web!


About The Author

About The Author

Rebecca Casale is a lucid dreamer and a science writer with a special interest in biology and the brain. She is the founder of World of Lucid Dreaming and Science Me.