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Comment by Sutanreyu | Hacker News Reader

I used to be able to do the same thing when I was younger; I'm 30 now. I wouldn't ever study growing up, wasting my waking time consuming content --stuff you can't dream up since it's made by others. I would essentially practice what I did know in my sleep (using 'lucid dreaming') being conscious while asleep, as you were. Needless to say this isn't healthy, as now I'm not able to be as conscious while asleep, or seemingly not dream at all, and I'm now a narcoleptic, as I was diagnosed years ago... Essentially asleep while awake, ironically. Something that's not in my favor when I need to get work done. The extra thinking time while your body rests was really nice, though.

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If you are 30 now, maybe you just experienced the typical narcolepsy onset pattern in your early 20s.

I have narcolepsy. The daytime drowsiness started when I was 19 and got progressively worse during the later years of my university study. I pretty much abandoned attending class by my 3rd year.

What you describe as 'lucid dreaming' sounds similar to what I used to call my 'party trick': I would sleep soundly through the compulsory PhD seminars or a few years later my MBA classes, then wake up as the speaker asked for questions. Straight away I would ask a relevant and insightful question! People around me would look stunned: "How could you do that? You were asleep!"

So somehow while sleeping, my subconscious mind was still absorbing the talk. When I woke up, I had no idea what the talk was about, but bizarrely I usually knew what question to ask. Even today, 20-25 years later, my MBA and uni friends remark on it.

I also did a lot of lucid dreaming and seemingly had it very adversely affect my ability to sleep normally and have 'normal' dreams. It does seem that at least some non-lucid dreams may be a requirement for normal functioning. I have gently suggested to a few friends interested in lucid dreaming that they not get into it too much, for that reason.

In my case, I've learned to stop at all controlling the dreams, despite being aware of whether or not I am dreaming, and that seems to have helped.

However, both of us are simply relating anecdotes; we may both have had significant sleep issues arise even without the lucid dreaming (albeit in a slightly different form).

I'm not clear -- you believe your narcolepsy was caused by overdoing (so to say) lucid dreaming in your youth? I've not heard of this but I am very curious.

"Needless to say" lucid dreaming isn't healthy? What?

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