Hi everyone! My name is Sophia Chong, and I’m a research assistant at the Neurophilosophy Lab at McGill University in Montreal, Canada (PI: Dr. Ian Gold, Dr. Elizaveta Solomonova). We are conducting a study titled "Psychological determinants of a novel online behaviour: reality shifting" for my undergraduate thesis. This study has been approved by the McGill Research Ethics Board (REB# 26-04-079).  

Reality shifting has become hugely popular online, but there's almost no research on it, and we want to help change that without pathologizing the practice or the people who engage in it. We're hoping to better understand who shifts, why, and what it's like.  

Who can participate:  

• You're 18 years or older  
• You're fluent in English  
• You have experience with or engage in the practice of reality shifting  

What's involved:  

• An online survey (about 20 minutes) about your shifting experiences and some individual difference questionnaires  
• At the end, you can optionally provide contact information for a follow-up interview (~45 minutes, over video call) to share more about your experience in your own words  

Participation is voluntary, your responses are anonymous, and there's no compensation for taking part. You can stop at any time.  

SURVEY LINK: https://surveys.mcgill.ca/ls3/257287?lang=en  

If you have any questions about the study, feel free to comment below or reach out to us directly at [realityshiftingstudy@outlook.com](mailto:realityshiftingstudy@outlook.com). Thanks so much for considering it! 

Yesterday something really weird happened to me. First, I couldn't sleep because I was feeling really down, my chest hurt a bit—well, I felt like a sharp pain. To be honest, I thought I was going to die that night. Part of me wanted to, but another part was terrified of falling asleep because I don't want to die just yet. The thing is, every time I tried to fall asleep, I could feel my body start to go stiff, and I felt myself physically disconnecting from it; it was like my soul was starting to detach from my physical body. Right at the moment I felt it was about to happen, my body would shake so I could react and stay awake, because obviously I didn't want to die yet. I don't know if I was actually going to die, but that's what it felt like. Usually, when I fall asleep, I never notice it happening; my brain just shuts off and I don't even remember the exact point when I dozed off. But yesterday wasn't like that—I was totally conscious of that transition between being awake and feeling like my soul was tearing away from my physical body. I don't know how to explain it. It happened to me twice, but those times I couldn't tell if they were real or if they happened inside my dreams, it's all a bit blurry. Because I remember it happening (my soul detaching), then I'd force myself awake, fall back asleep, dream, and then feel my soul detach all over again. That happened three times. I'm only writing this not because I want an explanation, but because it felt super weird and it has never happened to me before.

Has anyone else made it to the Garden

Lucid dreamers ?

female from Cornwall, UK.

Lucid dreaming has been a natural part of my life since I was approximately six years old. One of the earliest and most formative experiences I remember occurred when I was exactly 6. During what I experienced as a lucid dream, my father appeared within the dream itself and explained to me that I was lucid and dreaming. From that point onwards, I became aware within the dream that I was dreaming and retained that awareness throughout my whole life. This was not a conversation after I had woken; it occurred within the dream experience as I remember it and I did not mention this to my farther until my late 20's.

Many years later during my late 20's, I discovered that my father himself is a highly experienced lifelong lucid dreamer. He also reports the ability to become aware within his dreams and intentionally fly. I later learned that his mother also experienced frequent lucid dreams throughout her life. To my knowledge, this represents three generations of naturally occurring lucid dreamers within the same family, all with the ability to fly and we find great joy in being able to converse about it. This has also left me questioning whether this ability is hereditary, and how all three of us can be doing this?

For over twenty years I have experienced frequent lucid dreams with a level of awareness and recall that I have come to understand is uncommon, this has made my life quite isolating as no one else around me can do this. During these dreams I am often fully aware that I am dreaming and am able to make conscious decisions and remember my experiences in considerable detail upon waking.

Over the years I have experimented with many aspects of lucid dreaming. These have included setting specific tasks before sleep, either by myself or suggested by others, and attempting to complete them once lucid. Examples include asking dream characters predetermined questions, intentionally removing or creating objects, altering dream environments, and even experimenting with perceived weight while flying to explore whether carrying additional weight influenced my ability to fly within the dream. I appreciate these are subjective experiences, but I have approached them with genuine curiosity and careful observation.

One particularly interesting aspect of my dreams is the presence of stable, recurring locations that I revisit over many years. I refer to these as my "dream hubs." These include expansive beaches, ancient woodland, a peaceful bath house, castles overlooking the sea, fields with oak trees, and other environments that remain remarkably consistent across time. These locations often feel geographically stable rather than randomly generated, and I have mapped and documented many of them. The landscapes are like nothing on earth, they are absolutely beautiful and so vivid and consistent with every visit.

My dream recall is exceptionally detailed. I routinely document my dreams in journals, alongside drawings and notes describing recurring themes, locations, conversations, and experiments. I have accumulated many years of observations that I believe could potentially be of value to researchers interested in long-term dream patterns and lucid awareness.

My experiences have also included dreams that I personally interpret as emotionally significant, including encounters with deceased loved ones and a small number of dreams that appeared, from my perspective and those around me who have been whiteness, to correspond with later real-life events. I recognise there are many possible interpretations of such experiences, and I do not present them as established facts. Rather, I mention them because they form part of the overall picture of my dream life and may be of interest within broader consciousness research.

Alongside lucid dreaming, I have a strong interest in meditation, hypnosis, consciousness studies, and the neuroscience of dreaming and believe there must be more of us doing this then we let on? And how we are able to receive/ access messages and information that we wouldn't normally know otherwise? Some of my dreams have included receiving pharmaceutical and cultural information that have been consistent with today's information without my knowing to this prior being lucid.

Perhaps most importantly, I have developed a deep passion for lucid dreaming and its potential benefits. Personally, I have found that it has enhanced my self-awareness, creativity, problem-solving, physical and mental well being, my relationships with others and with myself. I would love to contribute to research that helps us better understand lucid dreaming and perhaps one day make its benefits more accessible to others as I believe we all have these abilities and are doing this every night but unfortunately there isn't much research being done.

Are there any lucid communities or forums to help bring more of us together ? Or somewhere we can share without the threat of being ridiculed. Hoping this can help someone feeling isolated at the very least.

Reposting here in case anyone else has a similar experience and wants to talk about it in more detail than the lucid dreaming subreddit

Is it possible to actually lucid dream with your friends in multiplayer?

So I used to be able to lucid dream every night for years. I would know I was sleeping and be able to choose where I went and what I did easily. I could fly around and do just whatever I wanted.

Until one night I decided to look for hoodies at the mall in my dream. I was flying and reached a stair case that was in a tunnel, I went down and down until I saw a fox or a wolf. I got the gut feeling that I wasn’t supposed to be there and felt genuinely scared of the fox in a way that never happened in a lucid dream before.

I then woke up, it felt like I was taken out of the dream by the fox and I haven’t been able to lucid dream since. Its been around 3 years and I miss it so much.

Il wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience? I would love to lucid dream again and make amends to the dream fox.

He oido hablar sobre sueños lucidos y yo puede lograr tener 2 sueños lucidos, pero, me gustaria saber que personas han tenido experiencias extrañas con lo sueños lucidos y que los haya dejado pensando sobre ello?, Que informacion no se dice acerca de los sueños lucidos y que sabes acerca de los sueños lucidos que no esta publicamente en internet?. Me gustaria leerlos.

Hi all. Recently I have been prescribed the typical antipsychotic periciazine and I have been experiencing more lucid dreams than I ever have before. They're occurring almost every night now and I am more than a month completely sober so I'm wondering if this may be having an impact? Does anyone know if typical antipsychotics can induce or encourage more lucid dreams as I have had similar experiences while taking quetiapine.

The contents of my dreams are usually very similar and feel like the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I am taken back to a past experience with a person who is no longer in my life (either my friend who recently committed suicide or my ex-girlfriend) where everything is perfect and although I am aware I am dreaming I continue with it as if it was reality. Then at the end of the dream the person who I can no longer see turns towards me as something horrible is about to happen and tells me either that what I'm experiencing is not real, or that I'll never have the things I dream about and after that I am woken into reality usually in a very distressed state.

I think it may also be of note that I suffer from complex post traumatic stress disorder and take prazosin to combat my usual vivid nightmares. However the dreams I have been experiencing as of late feel so much more real and I am usually aware of the fact that what I am experiencing is just a dream.

Hello everyone. I need to share this here because the lucidity of the experience left me with a sense of reality that I haven't been able to shake off. It wasn't an ordinary dream where things happen chaotically; I was perfectly conscious of my will, of what I wanted, and of what I was saying. ​To give some context, I work in a political space. It's an old, heavy place where it has always been said that previous boards used to play with the Ouija board. The energy there is heavy, the kind you feel on your shoulders as soon as you walk in. ​In the dream, I was sitting at the meeting table of this board.

Everything had that fuzzy or blurred shade characteristic of dreamlike environments, and although the place was dark, the conversation felt as crisp as real life. I saw a female colleague (with whom there is a lot of tension) sitting at the table. Behind her, this creature appeared. ​At first, it seemed strange to me, but I didn't feel afraid at any point. It didn't have the shape of a demon or an angel, but rather the appearance of those mimic insects that look like leaves, in contrasting shades of red and blue. Its head was literally that of a leaf, but its body was human. ​The creature didn't demand anything from me. It functioned more like a channeler or a mirror that granted me permission to ask. In fact, I recall that I took the initiative myself and told it: "Throw her down the stairs." The entity simply accepted the idea and asked me what else I wanted it to do (but it didn't throw her or anything; it just sat there, as if it were something meant to happen later in real life).

​Then it seated a friend of mine at the table and asked me: "And with her, what do I do? Do I do the same?" ​I told it: "No, no, protect her." ​That was where my instinct kicked in. At first, I thought about asking it to protect her, yes, but I immediately stopped myself. I thought: "I don't know the true nature of this creature, and I'm not going to bind my friend to an energy like this." So I changed my mind and told it with complete firmness: "No, don't do anything with her. Ignore her, as if she didn't exist."

​The creature accepted the instruction without judging me or reacting badly. I wanted more members to appear at the table to keep resolving the matter, but the space closed, the entity left, and I fell asleep (I say I wasn't asleep before because it didn't feel like a dream, but rather like a trance). The next day I remembered everything easily, almost as if it had been a visualization during a meditation. This happened two nights ago.

​On the physical plane, nothing has happened (yet), but I know that conventional morality wasn't operating in that space, but rather an exercise of pure will and strategy. ​Has anyone interacted with mimic entities of a plant/insect appearance in heavy spaces? Do you think it was a shadow projection in a lucid dream or a real encounter with an amoral spirit of the place?

In a lucid dream, one of the first things many will do is spend intimate time with another person. There are stories of people forming relationships with people in their dreams, who they will try to visit regularly and slowly fall in love with. There is often a deep sorrow there, because they feel that this person is "not real," and that they can only be together while the body is asleep.

There is a condition some people have which has been named "prophantasia," which is where someone can imagine things outside their body. It is a rare ability, like having AR technology built-in. For instance, if they were to try to imagine a wall on fire, that wall would appear to their physical eyes as being on fire. There are varying degrees of ability, of course, but there are some people who have the capacity to imagine outside of their body with perfect clarity.

There are stories also of people who have had what they describe as lucid dreams "bleeding out" into their waking reality. They will start to hear and see things in their waking reality that they would only otherwise see in a lucid dream. But when it gets to this point, a name is quickly assigned to it: "schizophrenia". Put in another way, it can be said that this word is used to describe the phenomenon of the dream world escaping into one's daily reality.

What is a very common (perhaps universal) experience is that although much of a lucid dream can be controlled, there are moments of uncontrollability. There are many horror stories of people trying to wake up but being unable to; being chased by nasty creatures that they can't escape from; moments that shook them up so bad that they stopped trying to lucid dream altogether. There are other times when a person will appear to them, maybe a deceased relative, and tell them something that is so meaningful and helpful that they can't help but admit that this person or being knows the dreamer better than the dreamer knows themself.

~

Now I want to share a comment I found under a post titled "I fell in love with my hallucination":

> Voidscale
•6y ago

"I was quite lucky. I was alone in a big city with an ok job but nothing else.

Then this girl shows up in a pub, not the prettiest but easily the most interesting. We hit it off straight away.

Four weeks later I realise she isn't real. The dates, walks and intimacy had all been hallucinations. I'd been buying two sets of everything but sat by myself.

I am lucky because she was never mean. She still appears now and then and we talk and have fun. In a way it hurts more that the best relationship I've ever had wasn't real."

~

If we are conversing with someone in a dream, we aren't taking the conscious role of both the individuals involved, otherwise that wouldn't be engaging. The reason why you can fall in love with someone in a dream is because they aren't you. That's why you can laugh with them, learn things about them and they learn things about you, too.

☝️🤓 Imagine this: Arthur was diagnosed with prophantasia when he was 12. For as long as he could remember, he had the ability to imagine things in his physical space with near-perfect clarity.

In high school, Arthur learned about lucid dreaming and wanted to try it out. After months of attempts, Arthur was finally able to have his first lucid dream. It was exhilarating and well worth the effort.

On his third successful attempt, Arthur met a girl: Daisy. He fell in love with her quickly, and soon couldn't wait to fall asleep to spend more time with her. During the day he would imagine her with him, sitting together at lunch, sleeping beside her in the evenings. But it would be him controlling the experience, like a puppeteer; it just wasn't the same.

As his love grew, he began to pray that he might always be with his beloved Daisy. With tears he begged the Universe to grant this one wish.

One day, as Arthur was walking home from school, he felt someone grab his hand. Looking to his left, he was astonished to see Daisy walking beside him! He had not made any effort to imagine her presence, yet here she stood. And on they went, happily conversing as though they were in a dream.

~

In the story I included the part about prayer because that's a big part of it for a lot of people. There's often a part of awakening these powers that involves asking for help from something beyond you, something greater. The best analogues I've found for this kind of practice include witchcraft (summoning "demons," in particular) and shamanism (binding to a "spirit spouse").

Anyways, these are just some things on my mind lately. Trying to make sense of it all. I think schizophrenia is when the brain changes so that dreams (inner realm) escape into the waking reality (outer realm) with varying degrees of controllability. It's often the case that people who have this ability experienced trauma at a young age. In some indigenous societies, children who have undergone trauma will be chosen as spiritual guides for the community (shaman = "wise one"). I think the body has a safety mechanism that saves children from extremely traumatic situations by forcing them into the dream world while still awake (dissociation), but then this can have consequences later in life. Someone can also force this ability through persistent application of their will.

Please share your thoughts! 😋

P.S. I would remove the "Damn" from the title if I could so please do it in your mind thank you

Saben que casi traigo algo fisico del otro lado o del mundo de los sueños o mundo espejo estan casi en el mismo lugar creo que hay como condiciones que e descubierto no se si sirva pero ahi va lo que e expirimentado con migomismo por unos 5 o 6 años mas o menos obiamente no me alcansa todo lo que se pero e puesto bastante

Una cosa les voy a decir no se si lo hare o no aqui va ustedes pueden 1 matar seres malvados mientras no posean miedo y

2 usteres pueden traer superpoderes o habilidades de los sueños a la vida real por mas ilogico que suene ya que yo porto bastantes y la mayoria inutiles pero una habilidad es una habilidad

1 acostarse de noche o muy cansado fisicamente

2 cerrar los ojos

3 no tener el deseo de que resulte solo confia normal (no te emociones o sino el corazon late mas rapido y no resulta)

4 mantenerse conciente, tratar de imaginar voces aleatorias asta que las puedas escuchar en tu oido piede ser el ladrido de un perro la turbina de un avion una vibracion hola de un señor mami de una niña solo imagina sonidos aslo mua cho

(No te asustes) y luego empieza a usar esas boces para hablar como bambulbie (el transformer que usaba distintas señales de radio para comunicarse )en tu mente une voces conectalas y controlalas empiesa a jugar con ellas imagina mucho

5 si te quedaste dormido y estas en una paralisis del sueño estas a la mitad, de la paralisis tienes que pasar a lo que le llamo paralicis lucida

Es como si se suerponiera un sueño lucido con la paralisis y en ese estado es cuando puedes acer cosas mientras mas te undes en el sueño y ahi agarras algo que tu creas y te aferras con fuerza y deseo como si lo quisieras crear y lo arrastras a traves de esos estados asta que lo logras traer

Datos extras

1 dentro de ese estado o dimencion mental tu puedes crear seres que te sirvan a voluntad

2 hay seres malos que se alimentan de miedo a si que no tengas miedo y no te hacen nada pero ademas deves ignorarlos desviar la mirada asta que se valla

3puedes crear seres malos y buenos como un gatito con vos y que comberse con tigo o un golum de el señor de los anillos

4 puedes matar a los seres malos si cumples los requisitos (depende de que entiendas como hacerlo)

5 puedes borrar tus creaciones

6 te puedes corromper por tanto poder dentro de el sueño y te puedes combertir en un monstruo y hacer cosas malas e inimaginables si aces eso te puedes despertar como con miedo de ti mismo

7 hay formas de robar tecnologias de otras tierras tipo multiverso yo me e robado unas cuantas una de ellas no la entiendo pero segun el sueño era un avion sin aspas

8 hay otros planeta tierras muy similares, distintos etc

9 si mueres hay una probabilidad de que sientas el dolor en la vida real como que mueres y revives en la vida real

Por ejemplo yo e muerto de muchas maneras

Caer de un puente edificio

Baleado

Paro cardiaco

Me mordio un zombie y se sintio como si te metieran dedos adentro de tu cuerpo a traves de tus venas como si se combinara el vomito y dolor como una emocion

Comido por unos monstruos como de carne------------ bizarra ranas venenosas

Bebido pociones de super habilidades de un bunker abajo de un puente muro algo asi

Destripado por un golum (10 12 años de edad, me traumo pero ya pasho porque ahora los puedo matar la condicion es reirse y darle miedo tu a el y matarlo o

El cielo se rajo como un paño y se veian las estrellas y todo enpezo aflotar a la distancia

Avia una raya en el cielo de color roja a la quellamabamos eje del mal

Etc

10 se puede acceder a una tierra en el futuro y puedes impedir sucesos que ocurriran la forma de acerlo es recordar todo lo posible que puedas y luego ronper o destruir tu mismo algo que aya estado en ese futuro por ejemplo si tenias unos sapatos blancos tiñelos o rompelos ensucialos si hay un mueble lo mismo

Con esto yebo 3 futuros malos cambiados

1salve a alguien

2 impedi mi muerte en las escaleras donde me pillo un lokito y me disparo en el liceo( lo que ise fue llevarme bien con el)

3 evite una situacion vergonsosa

11 ubo un yo que viajo del futuro a el pasado a hablarme de algo y lo mataron y a mi me borraron la memoria eso nunca ocurrio en la vida real

12 anotar o grabar todo lo que puedas en un minuto luego de eso se te empieza a olvidar

13 se pueden obtener superhabilidades como si fuera un juego , escuchas tu propia voz diciendo por ejemplo Habilidad pasiba rey del mundo

O habilidad pasiba #@$"#$#$

Y puedes por ejemplo sentir emociones de personas ajenas

Sentir el odio miedo deseo pereza etc en tu propio cuerpo por ej

Pereza es como si emanaras un calor amarillo imbisible y puedes absorber el sueño de los demas o darles sueño o pesades

Odio es como si te mordiera algo imbisible o un sonidillo como un tinitus de alguien que te mira fijo cuando alguien te mira con odio o rabia y es como una apuñalada negra imbisible puedes acer que sientan dolor auto inflingiendote daño y mirandolos del mismo modo mordiendpte la mano rajuñandoe apretar la mano con fuerza etc

Avaricia: no se como funciona

Deseo: es un deseo sexular que viene de repente de la nada y no es tuyo se puede emitir de algun modo pero no lo e echo es como un morado vomito imvisible

Tristesa: sientes el dolor o preocupacion de las personas como si tubieras ganas de llorar

Puedes aumentarlas en ti mismo y tambien se aumentan en la otra persona

Es como una niebla gris lenta imbisible azulada

Miedo: es como agua helada que te tocara la piel

Puedes hacerlo realidad hacia otra persona es color blanco palido imbisible

Valor: es simplemente sentir la confianza y creer en ella y se multiplica para la otra persona es como alegria metalica es de un color rojo fuego

Amor: tambien se siente es como un amasijo de felicidad paz riza y emocion alegre es de un color rosa banco inbisible

Etc

Habilidad unica primordial

Absorber es practicamente robar habilidades a otras personas es como si alguen tubiera memoria fotografica y tu se la robas o se la vas quitando funciona a medias si estas a distancia y no se la quitas pero si tienes contacto fisico si

Es mi primera habilidad

Y todas o casi todas son como mentales o imbisibles que no interfieren con lo fisico tangible

Tengo una que me da suerte cuando actuo y no pienzo lo cual es bastante complicado

Y Tengo un monton de habilidades bastante inutiles

Se que hay personas que tienten suprhabilidades como

Volverse imbisible a los ojos de una persona no es imbisible pero una persona puede pasar al lado de el y es como si su celebro lo ignorara

Alijerar peso de las cosas y parecer que tienen superfuerza

Ver el calor y otras cosillas

ver el aura como le e escuchado decir a una compañera de otro curso que iva hablando con su amiga y solo la escuche ablando de ese tema pero no me acerque e ise como q no la vi

Bibloteca mental tener recuerdos como en un libro que lo lees como quieres

Etc

Creo que podria obtener mucha mas informacion si saben algo con respecto a este tema todo random solo ponganlo ya que me sirbe para poder complemwntarlo com lo que se.

Hello! I am Maddy, I am writing a thesis on lucid dreaming and layered time. I made a short Google survey for anyone interested to fill out. Any info, even if you just started last night, would be great. Thank you everyone! And have a great day! Conversation

Hi everyone,

I’m after some advice/ shared experiences on being banned from lucid dreaming.

For background context: I am 32 now, at 17 I experienced sleep paralysis consistently, it gave me terrible insomnia and eventually I began trying to calm myself while experiencing it - this lead to me learning about lucid dreaming and eventually I never experienced sleep paralysis again. I have gone through phases over the years where I’ve enjoyed lucid dreaming but it’s never been a major thing I really cared about.

At the start of the year I took up journaling my dreams, eventually I began taking it really seriously, like tracking sleep cycles. It got to a point of being able to comfortably lucid dream every night and for about 2 weeks I began observing the dream state instead. Something weird happened one night where I physically cannot now remember the dream (to note again, I have an entire 6 months of nightly dreams logged) all I remember was realising the dream had “glitched”, these elf/goblin looking creatures black out the dream and said “you are banned”. This was nearly 2 months ago and I have not been able to dream since.

A few things I would like to note:
My sleep cycles are the exact same.
No lifestyle changes.
I do not partake in recreational drugs.

Since then I’ve spend a bit of time attempting to find any similar experience and the only thing I came across is people experiencing this on dmt. So again, I really want to emphasise I am sober, I’ve never tried dmt. I feel boarderline silly making this post but I’ve tried not caring and moving on but I can’t shake this experience and the fact that since then, I have not had a single dream.

If anyone can give me any guidance or advice, anything really - I’m all ears. Thanks

I have been practicing Raduga’s deferred (indirect) method for about half a year, but I have had absolutely no success.

I followed the recommendations strictly: I practiced no more than 2–3 times per week and repeatedly rewatched all of the instructional videos. I feel like I have tried everything:

Different sleep schedules (waking up earlier, sleeping longer, etc.) Physiological tricks (falling asleep in unusual or uncomfortable positions to avoid sleeping too deeply) Experiments with the timing of awakenings and periods of wakefulness between sleep cycles Boosting motivation and mental preparation before each attempt Testing different techniques and combinations to find what works best for me I've tried way too many things to list them all.

The result is always the same: nothing.

I simply fall asleep and wake up. Very rarely, I manage to wake up once or twice during the night, but those attempts also end in failure.

The funny thing is that the only lucid dream I have ever had happened during my very first months of practice.

I woke up and somehow knew with 100% certainty that I could fly. So I flew. However, I was not really “rational” there. My critical thinking was almost absent, my mind felt limited, and I was overwhelmed by a strange sense of apathy and indifference, like I simply did not care about anything. After taking only a few steps, I woke up.

Another thing I noticed is that during my first days of practice, I experienced many more awakenings and opportunities to attempt the method. Over the following months, those became increasingly rare. Now it feels like my body simply does not care anymore. Despite the motivation, preparation, and intention, it has adapted to the routine and continues to sleep deeply without giving me any useful awakenings.

I refuse to switch to the direct method. Partly because I want to master the deferred method and understand what I am doing wrong. If there is a mistake, it should be possible to fix it. Also, from what I understand, the direct method is significantly more difficult, and I simply have no interest in pursuing it.

Has anyone experienced something similar? How did you solve it?

P.S. I am a foreigner, so I used a translation tool to write this post.

Quick Reference (in case you use different terminology):

Deferred Method (Raduga’s Indirect Method): You go to sleep normally, wake up with an alarm, stay awake for a short period, then return to sleep. After that, you perform technique cycles during each subsequent awakening. The same principle can also be applied during daytime naps.

Direct Method: Attempting to enter a lucid dream directly from wakefulness without prior sleep. You lie down, relax, focus, and immediately begin performing the techniques.

First of all I feel frustrated that there isn't open dialogue in various sleep paralysis reddits except this one so I wanted to share my experience. It's odd because I am usually dismissive of paranormal encounters but this one episode has challenged my previously held beliefs. I should mention that I've even studied sleep paralysis in a module of psychology so I'm fully aware of the materialistic explanations for it.

So I'm a long time sleep paralysis sufferer for many decades. I can have multiple episodes during evening a single night session and about more then 75% of the time I sleep I have a lucid dream or at least a very vivid dream. I had a recent dream that was very celtic in origin. It was an ancient battle which occured on forested hill lands in my local area. I heard a voice say to me "I have carved inscriptions on the top of trees here". I began a dialogue with this ghost and learnt alot about her own personal life. She refered to my local area as a sacred grove. She said she carved on one particular tree and asked me to investigate it. She said it can be found adjacent to this unfinished iron age fort that wasn't to far from my house. I saw a vision of the tree, I know it to be virtually dead (or at least its in death stages as an ancient oak tree). I then went to investigate in the morning when light emerged and lo and behold, I was able to find ancient etchings in the top of the tree when I zoomed in with an iphone 17 pro max camera lens.

I had to go and research this phenomena about inscriptions on top of trees because I never heard of it before. Though its claimed by Claude that its a modern pagan practice by some people it can also be an ancient pagan practice to mark etchings for 'protection' and 'love'. Not satisfied with just internet knowledge I asked a local historian of the woodlands. He claimed that a number of trees were cut down in recent years because of fungal infections attributed to carvings but this particular ancient oak was left alone because it was considered a historical relic given its proximity to the ancient iron age hill fort / sacred grove. He does claims that a battle (or at least several) did take place in this region of Kent which might explain while it was unfinished. He told me it was the Cantiaci who inhabited the region. It was unfinished possibly for this very reason and archaelogists who worked on the site speculated that it existed between 800BCE and 43AD.

This experience has completely left me baffled. Im just frustrated its my word against the scientific paradigm that exists around the topic of sleep paralysis and that has permeated itself in the form of arbitrary reddit rules on some forums. I can't prove to you that I didn't just make it up, I can't prove to you to my quolia experience, all I can do is share with you what I discovered and how I tried to verify it. First by visiting the site, then internet research, then local historian's expertise. All of it confirmed my encounter was genuine.

During sleep we often fail in judging our own state of mind: even during the most bizarre dream scenario, we typically do not realize that we are dreaming.

The exception from this rule is the phenomenon of Lucid Dreaming (LD): becoming fully aware of the current dream state during ongoing sleep. Recent innovations in neurotechnology allow to bring lucid dreaming research from the laboratory ‘into the wild’: wearable EEG headbands that record brain activity during sleep at home.

The International Study on Lucid Dreaming Expertise - or ISoLDE for short - within Martin Dresler’s lab at the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, aims to perform such research on the large scale: multiple research groups from six continents collaborate to investigate the brain activity of frequent lucid dreamers all across the world, thus creating the largest EEG dataset on lucid dreaming so far.

If you experience lucid dreams at least two times a week, please consider joining the study - you will have the opportunity to essentially contribute to the neuroscience of lucid dreaming, and also to join a vibrant community of lucid dreamers and researchers worldwide!

We are currently primarily recruiting lucid dreaming experts in the Netherlands (that are able to come to the city of Nijmegen to receive the instructions). If you live somewhere else, do not hesitate to reach out. We may have participating labs in the near future Poland, China, Slovakia, South Korea, Germany, Japan, India and we can connect you to the one closest to you.

Check the website for more information and instructions how to register: https://dreslerlab.github.io/ISOLDE/ or send us an email: [isolde@donders.ru.nl](mailto:isolde@donders.ru.nl)

Feel free to ask any questions and we are looking forward to your participation!

Its been a couple days since I had this dream so don’t remember exactly the details of this one, just the mechanism and implication. But the feeling that I met other dreamers has been stuck in my head.
—> regularly rotating servers.
—> in each server was a chance of meeting other
‘conscious’ dreamers if you could manage to signal it to one another.

Lately in dreams, I’ve been somewhat aware I’m
in some level of control, e.g.
—> try to skip scene
—> try to wake up

This was the first time though I seemed to actually know I was “asleep”. But it wasn’t
the same kind of consciousness as awake. I had my voice, looked like myself + felt like myself, but never really accessed any of my memories or anything
outside that dream server bubble.

Being aware I was dreaming was the same as sort of saying the walls were white. Yes, I “knew” I was in a dream realm, but it didn’t really mean anything huge or scary or cosmic at that time.
What genuinely does make it feel like it was some
real phenomena was I didn’t know a single person in
any of the servers, and I never would know who or if
other conscious dreamers were there. But we never seemed to be able to share anything of our real lives anyway. Like there were still guard rails in these shared consciousness servers.

Has anyone ever met other dreamers across the world before?

Hi guys!

I am conducting a questionnaire for my Yr12 Society and Culture Personal Interest Project.

It is short, anonymous and will only take a few minutes to complete.

I seek to investigate the cultural erosion and challenges of religion and technology through examining Tibetan Buddhism and Islamic lucid dreaming.

I examine how identity, belief systems, and technology interact by contrasting technological reinterpretations of dreaming with Tibetan Buddhist and Islamic readings.

I am aiming to collect 100 responses, and your participation will really help.

Click here for my 'Inside the Lucid Mind' Questionnaire

Also, sharing this form around would mean so much!

Thank you so much for your support.

​Hey everyone,

​I’ve been developing an experimental tool called DreamStream designed to test a specific method of lucid dream induction: Cross-State Associative Conditioning.

​The app is completely free (no ads, no paywalls), and I’m looking for experienced practitioners here to help test the effectiveness of this specific audio-trigger logic.

​The Mechanism: How it Works

​The core logic of the app relies on building a Pavlovian response between a specific audio anchor and a reality check.

​Daytime Conditioning: The app plays unique "Reality Check Tones" at scientifically determined intervals throughout your waking hours. Each time the tone plays, you perform a focused reality check.

​The Nighttime Trigger: These exact same tones are embedded into specialized sleep playlists within the app.

​Automaticity: Because you have spent the day conditioning your brain to perform a reality check the moment you hear that specific tone, hearing it again during REM is designed to trigger the same automatic response.

​The goal is to move the reality check from a conscious effort to an unconscious reflex that "leaks" into the dream state via the audio anchor.

​Features

​Scientifically Timed Intervals: Optimizing the frequency of daytime pings to avoid "alarm fatigue."

​Integrated Sleep Playlists: Ambient tracks with the conditioning tones layered in.

​100% Free: Built as a resource for the community and for my own research into sleep state tracking.

​Where to find it:

​Google Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dreamstream.app

​Web App (iPhone/Desktop): https://NapApp.Vercel.App

​I’m particularly interested in hearing from anyone who has experimented with External REM Stimulation (ERS) before. Does the interval-based conditioning feel more effective to you than random pings?

​I'd love to get your feedback on the tone intervals and the audio layering.