07-02-2025, 12:28 AM
(07-01-2025, 09:38 PM)NobodySpecial268 Wrote: I got a letter yesterday from the young lady who lucid dreams.
She had another lucid dream and described what she calls switchback lucid dreams.
What she described is switching between lucid dreams. The switchback has a a certain event happen when switching. In her lucid dream, her eyes suddenly become very heavy. Then she awakens in a different location in another lucid dream. The other night she did this a few times.
She is also learning to use multiple devices, her iPad in addition to her phone. She can read the numerical time on the iPad, and also hear the music playing within the lucid dream.
She also uses the term NPC, which is a gamer term for Non Player Character. We use this term for people who match the NPC description in the lucid dream. This differentiates them from known people such as her mom.
Can anyone share insights on the switchback?
The switchback sounds a lot like moving through portals, which is something I was taught (self taught, really) to do when getting familiar with the space. I say "the space" because it wasn't spontaneous lucid dreams, which I consider to bit different to the directly induced states I learned to portal in. When you're getting into the meditative sandbox learning to move through portals is one exercise that helps you learn to remain conscious as the altered states shift.
She's a novice, but has strong aptitude. To me is seems like she's remembering things that would probably not be remembered by most people. It results in an even more confusing memory than just having gaps in a single dream narrative.
Portals can be spontaneous things and aren't always just an oval that looks like a mirror. It can be objects that draw your attention and, ultimately, draw the entirety of you in. Not so much you walk into it, but as your attention focuses on a portal you can feel yourself falling into it. The heaviness of the eyes can be a manifestation of that, I would guess. Heaviness in the eyes is also a possible reaction to resistance. If she's not terribly coherent, with her "I AM" and consciousness firmly established, then the effort to resist being drawn into a portal could trigger the heavy eyes (for me it manifests as blindness) and ultimately the collapse of that particular lucid session.
It's possible to simply divert your attention from these portals, but if you have a tenuous grasp on full lucidity then it's easier to just flow with it and see where it pops you out. You can also try to shift the destination by sending intent and will into the portal once you recognize it. If it helps to imagine literally shooting her will at it, that works. It's not necessary though, once you understand that will is the entirety of the mechanism. There is nobody that you need to explain it to, no need for words, just will and intent. If imagining it as an arrow provides the catalyst for completion, it works. Imagine it as lightning bolts of thought, whatever. Once she gets her will and intent to work, however it works, then she can simplify the process further.
The alternative is creating portals. If she finds these switchbacks disruptive she could learn to portal back to whichever place she prefers. It may just end up as a pissing contest between the conscious and subconscious though. If she's pretty friendly with her subconscious it may get the message and stop sending her to where she doesn't want to be.
Creating a portal is pretty much just a matter of focused will and intent, but to gather it requires you have a solid footing in the space. If you try to do this while in a weak or incoherent state of consciousness then it's likely to just collapse the whole thing. She may not have as much risk of collapsing the state since she's a naturally gifted lucid dreamer. She may be able to pick it up fast. Like mentioned above, she can use a crutch if it helps. She can imagine a portal stone or some object, a motion, or whatever, that facilitates a portal. As long as she's sufficiently connected the object and creation of a portal in her mind, she needs only to direct her will and intent toward a location she wants to go and then imagine/conjure the object. Once she's done it a few times it will probably become easier and she may not need props to do it.
I don't think the jumping between dreams is uncommon. Remembering the jumps, even remembering most of the dreams, is uncommon. She seems to be figuring things out though. This topic is probably part of what should be covered in part IV, but I still have to figure out what else should be in there.
