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Comment by mkoryak | Hacker News Reader

Recently I found a way to induce lucid dreams nearly 50% of the time I try. I start by closing my eyes and looking at the blackness. Usually there is something else there, like a field of dots. I will the field of dots to uniformly move or become a tunnel. After a while more objects form, I try to control them in some way, or just observe them. Eventually this turns into a lucid dream or a deep meditative state where I am aware of my body but time passes faster.

It does not work when I cant get any images to form because I am not tired or distracted. It also requires a fair amount of attention to redirect yourself to 'keep looking'. Its easy to drift off and do normal sleep.

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Wow! I thought I was the only one who did this. Never to accomplish lucid dreaming - but I noticed in classes in highschool (why was I closing my eyes in class?). When closing my eyes for a little bit, I'll see patches of glowing, slowly churning colors. Usually a paradoxically dark neon. Sometimes it's the afterimage effect from looking at a light - but I think some of it is just your eyes trying to make sense of the darkness.

When focusing on these for a while, and trying to force my mind to make sense of it, eventually these blobs turn into oddly abstract shapes with intricate patterns on them, that are very visible. I've never gone that far with it - very interesting.

Do these patterns and transitions get more intense with music, like a mid-2000s music visualization, or is that just me?

Is this the ganzfield effect?

You're definitely not alone. It makes sense on an intuitive level. Even when you "close" your eyes, you can't stop yourself from seeing. You're simply staring at the inside of your eyelids.

EDIT: I had not heard of the Ganzfield effect before, although I was familiar with the phenomenon itself. It does seem like this a manifestation of what they're referring to. As a side note, in sensory deprivation situations you also become keenly aware of the sound of your heart beating and the sound of your blood circulating in your veins. It's very odd.

> Never to accomplish lucid dreaming

Two easy techniques -

1. Ask yourself continually through the day "Am I dreaming?", which primes you to become self-aware while dreaming.

2. Wake up two hours before you normally get up for 10 mins, then go back to sleep.

I also find that a Magnesium and Zinc vitamin tablet before bed assists with dream recall, however I have no science to back this up.

I already do step 1, if I do step 2 I worry that all my lucid dreams will involve meetings with management.

I've never done it intentionally, but as someone who occasionally has lucid dreams #2 definitely seems accurate. Much of the time I lucid dream it's when I'm sleeping extremely lightly right before I wake up.

In fact, I know that I'm dreaming and that if I open my eyes (somehow separate from opening or closing my eyes in my dream) I will wake up. Sometimes I might shout or say something in my dream and I actually say it out loud and that wakes me up as well.

Seems more like you are describing what is called the hypnagogic state (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnagogia)

That is interesting, I also experience some strange state of consciousness before getting to sleep, however, every time I lose awareness after a while. Maybe that just works for people that have a REM cycle at the beginning of the night. But I will try harder knowing now that such practice leads somewhere.

Try doing it when not going to sleep, like maybe when you have free time and might take a nap.

When I do it before bed, I often fall asleep before getting anywhere interesting. Napping works better for me because there is no pressure to get sleep. Maybe as I become better at this I'll have more success doing it before bed

I believe this is called Wake-Induced Lucid Dreaming (WILD).

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