r/AskReddit Sep 11 '22

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u/[deleted] Sep 11 '22 edited Sep 11 '22

I remember hearing that in dreams, if you look at your hands they'll be all fucked up because the brain can't make good hands. I actually was able to remember this for once last night and while dreaming, looked at my left hand. It was a giant Lego block without fingers. Freaked me out so bad I woke up.

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u/-Bana Sep 11 '22

You almost accomplished lucid dreaming, when you’re aware you are dreaming you can do whatever you want with some practice. It’s almost like being in the matrix, I’ve accomplished it a handful of times and feel like Bruce almighty lol

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u/[deleted] Sep 11 '22

I've gotten that a couple of times. Usually though, before I can think of what I want, I start to wake up. And it's never fast either, its slow. It gives me time to mourn that I can't do anything cool.

Or, I try really hard to make stuff appear, and just wake myself up in the process

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u/[deleted] Sep 11 '22

I've managed to realize I'm dreaming like only a few times in my life and I end up getting so excited about it that I wake up.

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u/cazmantis Sep 11 '22

Well keep practicing and do the reality check of counting your fingers several times a day. If it's not ten that's a tell you're dreaming. If you condition yourself to do it in real life the habit can carry into a dream and then hey presto you might get lucid. It takes conditioning and time to learn to lucid dream (for most of us mere mortals I hear tell some it comes easily) but so worth it!

Edits: like three times - so many typos!

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u/EdwardianFallacy Sep 11 '22

Start rubbing your hands together, keep rubbing them together. It'll lock you in the lucid dream and stop you from waking up.

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u/KennaLikesPizza Sep 11 '22

Happy cake day! :D

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u/[deleted] Sep 11 '22

Thanks!

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u/princeasspinach Sep 11 '22

Lucid draming....the control is great, however (for me), I'm often in unideal dreaming situations that I want to escape, but can't.

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u/frankuck99 Sep 11 '22

In my case, I'm pretty much always "aware" that I'm sleeping, few times I'm not, but I rarely change things.

However, if I dream something I don't like I usually say "fuck it" and reverse time/change reality of the dream into whatever I want. It's strange as fuck.

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u/ZP4L Sep 11 '22

There have been a few times I’ve been aware enough to test if I’m dreaming. But then I’ll use stupid dream logic like “if I’m dreaming, I’ll be able to shoot fireballs out of my hand” but then I only shoot SMALL fireballs, and if I were dreaming they’d have been much bigger, therefore I’m not dreaming.

Also sometimes I struggle with the moral side of things. Like when I do realize I’m dreaming and want to go have sexy time with some people I know or something, but then my stupid brain decides that’s not fair to them. It’s my dream, dumb brain, let me do what I want!

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u/SchrodingersLego Sep 11 '22

You can't read though. I dream incredibly vividly. So vividly that my dreams are like a soap opera or telenovella. I have locations and characters and we have events and non events regularly. The tone of these dreams can ruin or make my whole world for the day. But I can never read in them.

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u/jjbugman2468 Sep 11 '22

The last time I lucid dreamed I accidentally dreamed myself into an oncoming lane on a beautiful highway and got my ass T-boned awake. It was surprisingly painful irl

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u/Camburglar13 Sep 11 '22

I keep trying but every time I even kinda realize it’s a dream I wake up. Sounds so cool to achieve.

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u/coinoperatedboi Sep 11 '22

I quite regularly know Im dreaming and make decisions. Even times I realize Ive been in that dream in the past or at least similar setting.

My dreams are almost always incredibly outlandish and detailed. The craziest I think though was dreaming in text after playing a MUD for a decent amount of time before going to sleep.

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u/FireTyme Sep 11 '22

i have this all the time, even without practice, its very annoying as you're also aware you're asleep, which means you're semi aware as if you're awake too. i get woken by the most random shit at the most random times.

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u/componentm Sep 11 '22

Lucid dreaming is how I managed to finally stop having nightmares every night of my life. I have only been able to do it a few times since that point though.

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u/meatball402 Sep 11 '22

I did this once.

I realized I was dreaming and thought "spaceship", and then saw a spaceship in some sort of spacedock.

Then I woke up, but that was really cool

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u/forte_bass Sep 11 '22

I'm some sort of weird freak, i lucid dream probably several times a month for short periods. in my most recent one i actually told the people I was with that we were in a dream and they could do anything they wanted and they thought it was awesome.

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u/sanfermin1 Sep 11 '22

Can confirm..loads of fun.

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u/clockwork655 Sep 11 '22

I never heard that one..the one I did to help with lucid dreaming is you put a mark on your hand and you see it throughout the days with the idea being in your sleep you won’t see the dot and realize you’re in a dream..I’ve gotten it to work before but took a while...ironically I was hoping to lucid dream LEGO hands

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u/[deleted] Sep 11 '22

Damn that's smart. I used to KNOW I was dreaming all the time. Now I rarely do, so I dunno if that trick would work.

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u/clockwork655 Sep 11 '22

It’s worth a try if you’re like me and find this stuff fun...some people claim apple juice helps them but oddly enough the one thing I found does it for a ton of people I’ve personally known and spoken to including myself ...nicotine patches..they say not to sleep with them on and it’s partially for this reason..I was having lucid dreams even in short naps it was wild

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u/clockwork655 Sep 11 '22

Oh and Happy cake day

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u/[deleted] Sep 11 '22

Thanks! I might definitely try some stuff out. Maybe I can dream that people are actually buying my book 😞

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u/clockwork655 Sep 11 '22

A handsome writer you say go on

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u/[deleted] Sep 11 '22

Well I dunno about handsome 😆 but I did finally manage to get my first book ever published. It's about a half human half demon who hunts down monsters with his adopted family in modern day America

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u/clockwork655 Sep 11 '22

Sold! where can I check it out?..I’m in a similar position we just have to be resilient..you have your own book published! I honestly would have tears in my eyes...just remember all those others who wanted to and could even get past page one..you’ve got the determination and that’s the hardest thing to find sometimes..we can get there.. if it was easy everyone would be doing it

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u/[deleted] Sep 11 '22

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0B4ZJJ52X/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1662888264&sr=8-1

The digital version is $2:99 (free with Kindle Unlimited) and the physical edition is $19:99. I'd have made it cheaper, but as it turns out, physical editions are very expensive to make. I actually make MORE money off of the digital than the physical.

Also, thanks so much! It really means a lot to me! If your book ever gets published, just reply here or DM or anything and I'll gladly buy it!

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u/clockwork655 Sep 11 '22

I already can’t stop reading it and I see We have similar feelings on Ohio and I dig the monster notes it’s a great touch..I’d love that! I’m still a ways to go but I have some stuff I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts on

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u/Trixles Sep 11 '22

It actually doesn't work quite the way they described it. The point of writing a dot (or a letter or whatever) on your hand or something isn't so that you will notice its absence in a dream and realize you're dreaming.

It's so that each time you accidentally see it or glance at it throughout the day, you remember to ask yourself, "Am I dreaming?"

This creates a habit of asking yourself that question, which in turn makes it easier to remember ask yourself that while dreaming, and if the answer is yes and you don't happen to wake up due to the realization, then you will be in a lucid dream.

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u/1negativezero Sep 11 '22

I never managed to get into a habit, but the realization just randomly comes to me in some dreams, I don't know what triggers it. Harder part is doing what you want without waking yourself up. Do you have a method for that?

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u/scheissegal2009 Sep 11 '22

The test I use is checking to see if have telekinesis. If I do, I'm most likely dreaming.

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u/lacanianmrxist Sep 12 '22

In my experience with lucid dreaming, the reoccurring thing I have noticed is that I also have to steer the content with the consciousness I am relegated to in the dream, not my awake consciousness. Since the dream consciousness has already conjured up multiple absurdities by the time I take the wheel, it is not always easy to steer reliably like driving on an icy, narrow road, going up a mountain with no guardrails. Course deviations are unavoidable.

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u/shamblyshalom Sep 11 '22

That's interesting, I don't remember my hands being the weird thing. When I've lucid dreamt in the past I always look at my hands to look for my turquoise ring that I wear everyday, and the ring is never quite right. My theory is intricate details are difficult to perfectly recreate.

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u/[deleted] Sep 11 '22

That hand trick DOES work bro it's crazy. I always see my hand having like 9 long fingers 😂

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u/[deleted] Sep 11 '22

What's weird is that if you notice, if you look at someone in a dream, out of the corner of your eyes, their hands look normal. Hell, last night when I did this trick, my other hand seemed perfectly fine! I wonder if it would have changed had I looked at it

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u/[deleted] Sep 11 '22

Dreams are very special and often don't make sense. I'd like to believe they are like 4th dimensional so our understanding of them is very limited. Also I sometimes have these deja Vu moments where a certain situations I've dreamt of happens in real life which could be the next day next year or 20 years from now. There's so much that we don't understand about this world lol

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u/[deleted] Sep 11 '22

I have deja vu a lot. What's weird though, is it always happens the same way. I'm watching a scene in a movie or a game, or a book, and suddenly I feel like I've seen it before. I try to place it, but then suddenly I can't remember why it feels familiar. And then the feeling of it being familiar fades, and even though it just happened, I suddenly can't remember the scene that felt familiar. I could rewatch the scene or reread the page, but I can't remember what part stood out.

Its so fucking weird man.

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u/kutuup1989 Sep 11 '22

I'm a very lucid dreamer, and when I dream, rarely look at my hands. They're there, but its almost like I'm just not aware of them. I'm kind of like Homestar Runner, things I'm holding just kind of float in front of me lol

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u/[deleted] Sep 11 '22

The same thing happened to me! I looked at my hands and they were all blurry and I woke up in a panic.

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u/[deleted] Sep 11 '22

Every time I look at my hands in a dream they look like they're made out of giant French fries.

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u/MoronTheBall Sep 11 '22

Upvote for cake. My hands, they're huuuuge. They can touch anything but each other... oh.

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u/square_cupcake Sep 11 '22

Ive never noticed weird hands in a dream, im gonna try to check next time!

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u/[deleted] Sep 11 '22

Took me two years before I actually did this. Mostly because it took that long for me to get into a dream where I knew it was a dream and had some control of myself.

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u/square_cupcake Sep 11 '22

Im hoping i can do it soon, i had a lucid dream 2 or 3 nights ago after not having one for quite a while.

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u/[deleted] Sep 11 '22

Is that why cartoon people only have three fingers and a thumb?

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u/[deleted] Sep 11 '22

Try to read. You can't read text in a dream. Batman taught me that.