EP64: The Ebbs & Flows of Dreamwork

As our journey unfolds, we explore how dreams evolve with us throughout our lives, shedding light on the intricate relationship between our dreams and our life experiences. Yet, amidst the ebb and flow of life's journey, our dreams remain a constant companion, offering insight, solace, and inspiration as we navigate the ever-changing landscape of our subconscious minds.

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Transcript

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;27;24
Unknown
Welcome back to The Dream World. Your favorite interdimensional podcast centered around sleep, dreams, lucidity and consciousness. I love talking to honor knots and dreamers of all experience levels scientists, healers, skeptics, even all walks of life. I just want to live in a world where people feel comfortable talking about dreams, where science takes this as a valid area of research and where people see it as something important worth paying attention to.

00;00;27;28 - 00;00;48;03
Unknown
We spend a third of our lives asleep in this other dimension called the dream world, so we might as well make the best of it. For this episode, please welcome my guest, Elaine, who is a lifelong lucid dreamer. So I'll let her take it from here. My name is Elaine. Jesus. I'm 63, so it's been a long journey with dreaming.

00;00;48;03 - 00;01;07;23
Unknown
Pretty much. You know, I was dreaming as a toddler and it was very long dreams. It was like I would go to sleep and wake up and be watching a movie and I would wake up and just started telling my brothers or sisters or my mom, especially my mom, you know, I'm like, my God, you won't believe what happened in my dream.

00;01;07;23 - 00;01;33;08
Unknown
And then, da da da. And she said, I would just go on and on and just want to tell her this big, fantastical story that I just woke up from. And nobody in my family even remembered their dreams. So it became something that I just really stopped talking about at a very young age because nobody else could even fathom what my life was like and my dreams.

00;01;33;10 - 00;01;52;24
Unknown
I knew I was dreaming. I did not have control. I don't think a lot of my dreams or nightmares as a child. I probably say 50% of them or nightmares. And I knew I could wake up from the nightmare if it got to a point where it got too scary for me. So I would be like, okay, this is a dream.

00;01;52;24 - 00;02;17;11
Unknown
Wake up. It wasn't until I was I just turned 17 that was in college that a group of people that were working together on a scientist doctorate degree came to my college at New College in Sarasota, Florida, and chose, I think it was either ten or 12 people out of the 600 students there to do what they called biofeedback on.

00;02;17;12 - 00;02;45;07
Unknown
There was no chances back in 1977. So lucid dreaming really was not a word, a common term at all. So they were put on like stuck on little electrodes measuring our brainwaves, teaching us how to go into meditation. And I still remember that very clearly. I couldn't do that real easily. It's by relaxing literally almost one muscle at a time, going through your whole body.

00;02;45;07 - 00;03;16;25
Unknown
And they measured your brainwaves, going from like, I don't remember the exact order. Alpha, beta, delta. We would do this like every day or every other day, laying in a hammock next to the Ringland school of our grounds, which were absolutely beautiful, and at the same time we would all keep a dream journal. That was difficult for me because my dreams were just so extensive that I did not have time while I was in college to write, you know, a 50 page paper on my dream every day.

00;03;16;25 - 00;03;43;11
Unknown
So we just write down little notes just so I could remember. And then I would just like, tell them about it later. So once we established learning the meditation dream recall I've already established throughout my life, they told us, okay, now you're going to wake up in your dream. I'm like, That sounds like something I could do. So they taught us to look at our hand as we were falling asleep, and they would say, When you dream, you look out like a projector.

00;03;43;12 - 00;04;02;06
Unknown
You never look down at your body. I said, That's interesting. I never noticed that. But I started noticing that was true. But they said, I just stare at your hand when you're sleeping, when you are aware that you are dreaming, bring your hand up and look at it. And I attempted that This study. I'm not sure how long the study went on.

00;04;02;06 - 00;04;24;01
Unknown
I think it was probably about two months and I did that. I brought my hand up while I was dreaming and I don't think I was ever so frightened in my life. It was more horrifying than any nightmare that I ever had. And I woke up immediately and saw I would never do it again. And I told the group about it and they were amazed, first of all, that I did it.

00;04;24;01 - 00;04;49;21
Unknown
So quickly. And then they were saying, well, push through it, push through it. You know, just keep trying. And I think I just stopped. I now I don't really want that feeling again. And interestingly enough, at the same time, I was I was taking a quantum physics course for the sociology student, which was a new class. And I found that incredibly interesting.

00;04;49;26 - 00;05;12;01
Unknown
As a social psychology major, I wanted to delve deeper into physics at that point in my life because I learned about quantum physics in this class. But I didn't. Going forward, I kind of tried to put it out of my mind. I did not want to to go deeper into my dreams. I was then turning, you know, in my twenties out of school.

00;05;12;02 - 00;05;35;18
Unknown
It was the eighties. You can imagine. If you can't imagine, it was a while back then. It wasn't until I was in my twenties when I was I would read novels going to sleep all the time and I would have two or three at my bedside and I would just grab one, pick it up where I left off from the night before, a couple of nights before, and just read until I fell asleep.

00;05;35;21 - 00;06;04;15
Unknown
I started noticing that every time I picked up a book when I was going to sleep, it wasn't making sense because my memory was like three or four chapters ahead of where I vote. Mark the book. So I would read through. I'm like, Well, this is how it goes. Like, I remember this going differently in this book. So I started monitoring that and I was basically writing the books continually in the book in my dream almost every night.

00;06;04;22 - 00;06;30;24
Unknown
So that got very confusing because it made me really not want to read novels anymore. And then in my twenties was when I really started lucid dreaming. And I mean, I could always fly my dreams ever since I was a child. Different degrees. But then in my twenties, I really started letting my brain go into this area that I was kind of trying to stop it from.

00;06;30;24 - 00;06;51;09
Unknown
And then I just started dreaming, lucid dreaming. Almost every night I'll stop and let you ask me questions because I could go on and on about this. It's been decades that this has been happening to me. When you saw your hand and when you got scared when you were in college, can you describe that to me? What was so scary about it that that made you want to kind of take a step back from dreaming?

00;06;51;12 - 00;07;15;22
Unknown
I've really thought about this because it's something that baffled me. It was after so many years of remembering my dreams, knowing I'm dreaming to actually see a part of my body and knowing I'm dreaming. I think it was just because that was doesn't happen. And it's just I don't know. It was so weird flying. It was no problem, though.

00;07;15;27 - 00;07;34;03
Unknown
It was like the knowing that you're in a dream and seeing your hand like, Yeah. And it just freaked out. Even though you had already had some lucid dreams before without knowing what it was. Yeah. I mean, obviously, like, I remember, you know, flying all the time in my dreams, knowing that I must be dreaming because I understand I can't fly.

00;07;34;08 - 00;07;54;01
Unknown
And I would mainly sleep very high if I was having a nightmare, was falling off of a building or something. I knew I could slow it down and of milk I would either wake up before I hit the ground or I eventually learned, okay, slow down, slow down, slow down. And I would land and I would be fine.

00;07;54;01 - 00;08;18;03
Unknown
And so I knew I was dreaming because obviously there's gravity. I don't know. It's hard to explain without anybody to talk to about this. As a young person, you kind of have to figure it out by yourself. And that's difficult nowadays. I mean, we have the Internet books and, you know, classes and how to's. And just back then it was just it was kind of throw me into the walls and let me figure it out.

00;08;18;09 - 00;08;43;17
Unknown
Now, I can imagine. Yeah. Without having any idea what it is. That's definitely freaky for a lot of people, but I'm glad you pushed through and now you're kind of regaining that interest for it. I got married when I was 30, and he was my childhood sweetheart. We had not seen each other for, well, 12 years. So that was just I was married to him for 12 years and that was the first time I actually had somebody where I was like, my God, that's what I dreamt about.

00;08;43;18 - 00;09;08;20
Unknown
When I first when I first woke up, there was somebody there orchestrated around about last night, you know, loving me. He was like, okay, I'll I'll deal with this craziness. He'll remember his dreams. But he found it very fascinating. It was like, My God, you ever did your brain just ever thought, It doesn't feel like that. But he would listen to my dreams and actually we would have arguments sometimes about what happened.

00;09;08;27 - 00;09;30;00
Unknown
I'd be like, Don't you remember our conversation from the other day when we talked about this, this and this? And he's like, No, and that did not happen. You know, I would explain to him what clothes he was wearing and what the weather was like, the exact conversation and so detailed. And he just would be like, no, it was one of your dreams.

00;09;30;01 - 00;09;54;05
Unknown
And I don't still to this day were friends. I still don't know if he was messing with me or not. We would have one of those arguments probably every six months where he just says, Now this that did not happen. I actually did not keep her dream journal until about a year ago. About a year ago, I got to the point where I just want to sleep without dreaming or without remembering my dreams.

00;09;54;05 - 00;10;17;22
Unknown
I just want to sleep. So I started listening to brown noise on my iPhone and after going through different colors, brown noise was the one that all of a sudden I was like, I would wake up. I would be like, Wow, it's morning. I slept. I don't remember anything. This is wonderful. I did that for probably two months and I started missing the lucidity.

00;10;17;26 - 00;10;35;23
Unknown
It was the strangest thing. So I'm like, okay, well, I will go back to sleep, turn the brown noise off, go back to sleep. And then I would be fully lucid every almost every single morning. And being semi-retired, I didn't have to get up at a certain time to go to work. So I just lay there and go, okay, I go back to sleep.

00;10;35;28 - 00;10;55;25
Unknown
And that came back full force. So what percentage of dreams would you say that you are lucid throughout your life? Is it most of your dreams? All of them. Some of them like Do you ever have non lucid dreams? I'm sure I do like just a normal dream and I wake up and I go, isn't that a nice dream life, that type of thing?

00;10;55;25 - 00;11;11;18
Unknown
Yeah. Like lucid being just that you're aware of the dream while it's happening. You're like, I'm in a dream right now. And then a non lucid dream would be like, you know, you think it's waking life and you think that this is actually happening in real life. And it's not until you wake up that you're like, that was a dream you got.

00;11;11;18 - 00;11;30;00
Unknown
I'm saying I'd say 90% are lucid. wow. That's really a high frequency compared to most people. That's great. Like, I mean, you're you're very natural at it. So I could see how that would be exhausting. I mean, you had my other episode where I was talking to somebody who's considered an Omni, meaning they're lucid in every dream ever.

00;11;30;00 - 00;11;47;24
Unknown
They don't even know what a non lucid dream is, which is mind blowing to me. Yeah. The point I was thinking is if I don't remember my dream, maybe I did have a dream. I just don't remember it. And maybe it wasn't lucid. But if I don't remember it, how would I know that's true? I mean, I've had lucid dreams where I've forgotten them too.

00;11;47;25 - 00;12;09;12
Unknown
Even if you are lucid, the dream recall is one skill. Lucid dreaming is a separate skill and then dream control is a separate skill. So they're all three things that have different levels of dream control is the most amazing thing in the world. I'll never forget learning to start in a dream. It's like just start time and look around and explore.

00;12;09;13 - 00;12;26;08
Unknown
And I've done it many, many times since then. But the first time I did it, I'll never forget. And I was just I would just float. I was in a room and I would just float around and thought a particle would move and I'd be able to examine every single detail about the dream. And I was just fascinating.

00;12;26;12 - 00;12;49;14
Unknown
I don't know, people that actually talk about it that much, but stopping time in a dream, I rewind and fast forward all the time. Okay, so I do play with Sanderson sometimes I'll split my dream up into like two dream simultaneously, which is so hard to describe, but I'll literally be dreaming two dreams at the same time. I'm going to try and posit one of these days, now that you said that, it sounds like a fun thing to try.

00;12;49;18 - 00;13;08;15
Unknown
It is. I've had sleep paralysis. Not since my twenties that was probably had three or four of those. Those were horrible. Yeah, I had a lot of those too, until I got used to it. I got so used to it because I had them so often that I was like not even scared anymore. I would just turn it into a lucid dream.

00;13;08;17 - 00;13;26;28
Unknown
wow. I just stopped it. Like, I don't want to do this anymore. I'm like, What's next on the agenda? Because I don't want to do this one anymore. Yeah, but waking up from one dream to another dream to, I mean, waking up within a dream, realizing you're dreaming and then waking up again. I don't know what they call that.

00;13;26;28 - 00;13;47;28
Unknown
Like waking up twice within one dream until you finally wake up. Yeah. those are horrifying. I call them nested dream sequences. And sometimes they're not even nightmares for me. But I'll go to sleep in a dream and wake up again in another dream. Sometimes not lucid anymore. Or I'll like the dream will, like, change into different scenes in a way where it just feels like so many dreams within one.

00;13;48;01 - 00;14;10;01
Unknown
I had one the other week. I was. I can't remember what I was dreaming about, but there was a problem. And the dream and I'm looking at it and analyzing it. And then there's something wrong with this dream. I can't remember exactly what it was. And then I changed it. And it was 100 years earlier on Earth, so I changed the time from that current reality time to 100 years ago.

00;14;10;01 - 00;14;29;15
Unknown
And I was like, okay, problem solved. And I woke up. I'm like, that was cool. Yeah, I didn't change the problem. I just changed the time of the scene. And then the problem wasn't there anymore. I thought that was interesting. So other than manipulated in time, what other kinds of things you do while lucid? I know you said you like to fly.

00;14;29;15 - 00;14;49;07
Unknown
Is there any other, like, fun things that you like to try when you're dreaming? Flying is probably my favorite thing. I lived on an island for 30 years and my main form of transportation was a scooter, like a moped. And it's been four years since I've ridden my scooter. And the other day I'm like, I just. I really miss that.

00;14;49;07 - 00;15;15;06
Unknown
I really, really miss my scooter. And at night I fell asleep and instead of riding my scooter, I was flying on my scooter. And this is in Key West, which I really miss tremendously. So this is Old Town, Key West, and I'm flying on my scooter around Old Town, and I'm like, This is even better than flying. I would come up to like a wall go down, which is where I no such thing there.

00;15;15;06 - 00;15;33;18
Unknown
And I'm like, I'd stop. And I'm like, okay, how am I going to get the scooter down a steep, like a 90 degree angle without crashing out? Like while I'm flying, I just fly like, so I never really touch the ground. I just kind of like I created my steps in front of me so the scooter could not touch them, but of the distance.

00;15;33;18 - 00;15;52;13
Unknown
But not as high of a distance off the ground. So it's kind of like going down bumps on my scooter in the air, and then I get back up over the buildings and that was heavenly. I did have a nightmare. Once I was on airplane and it was crashing and I was with my stepsister, who I haven't seen in decades.

00;15;52;13 - 00;16;12;15
Unknown
And we just looked at each other and we both said, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, because we knew the plane was crashing. And then I just stop. Wait, hold on. And I just took control of the plane and just with my will, flew the plane up back into the right altitude and everybody was fine and stuff like that.

00;16;12;16 - 00;16;31;01
Unknown
Like what? What did you notice? It was a dream in that dream. Or did you know right away? The whole time? I didn't know. It was it was very scary. It wasn't until we said, I love you several times and it just clicked in my head. I wait, this is a dream. The plane's not going to crash.

00;16;31;01 - 00;16;53;09
Unknown
I can't fly the plane or you know, use my energy to fly the plane. That's that takes a lot of energy. And physically it feels like I don't know how a sight lifting a plane or. Yes, it's very difficult. I flew with a horse on my back one time and I was saving the horse and it was a big horse.

00;16;53;09 - 00;17;13;02
Unknown
And I'm five foot one and I just look behind it. I said, You have to help me. I can't get you out of this predicament by myself because you're so big. Just please give me a little bit of your energy and then boom, we're flying at the side of a building. I saw God. Thank you. You're heavy. That's a creative dream.

00;17;13;02 - 00;17;31;19
Unknown
Control right there. I notice a lot for me, too. And I tell people this when it comes to nightmares and, like, scary situations like planes crashing and things like that, that emotion of fear and like, panic can be used as a trigger for lucidity because you're like, I never get this horrified in waking life. So, you know, it just kind of clicks like, it's a dream.

00;17;31;19 - 00;17;48;08
Unknown
Like, I never am in these crazy situations. So that happens to me a lot, too. Are you usually lucid right away in the in dreams in general, or is it something like that or like a weird dream sign that triggers you in the middle of it to say, this is a dream, and then continue on? I can't say for sure.

00;17;48;12 - 00;18;13;02
Unknown
Maybe half the time I when I'm dreaming within a very short period of time, I know I'm dreaming. Sometimes it takes the plane crashing, sometimes it's, you know, just noticing like a window is there and it shouldn't be like, okay, that window doesn't belong there, and then I'm okay. That's a reality check. If you could take this. It could be very little things or it can be, you know, the plane crashing or it could be.

00;18;13;02 - 00;18;33;15
Unknown
Now that I've gotten older, it's people that have passed away. I dream of them all the time. And then that's that's my trigger. It's like, you're dead. Yeah. Hey, we'll be here. Like, I try to keep them in the dream just because it's a There are always people that I've known and loved and missed, but sometimes they go away.

00;18;33;21 - 00;18;57;11
Unknown
And I also dream of my pets. I've had pets my whole life. So as soon as I realize, there's a dog I had, as you know, a four year old, that that will be a trigger. I want to know, like, since you're so good at recognizing these dream signs, which is basically what people try to train themselves to do in order to practice lucid dreaming, I'm curious, like, what is your awareness like in your waking life?

00;18;57;11 - 00;19;23;25
Unknown
Are you mindful and aware all the time? I know you mentioned you do some meditation, but do you feel like your waking life mindfulness kind of carries over? extremely, yes, very much. I practice stopping and looking in different directions, even if I'm just like sitting out on the deck and watching a movie. I'll pause, look out at the trees, notice the leaf, you know, notice a squirrel.

00;19;23;25 - 00;19;46;25
Unknown
I live in beauty and I don't know if that makes any difference. I live by the beach most part of the year and then I live on top of a mountain part of the year. And then I guess I spent 30 years in Key West, which is no matter where you turn, there's interesting things around. So I don't know if that has made a difference or not, but I'm yeah, I'm always mindfully looking around me.

00;19;46;25 - 00;20;08;25
Unknown
I'm paying attention to life. I think probably to a degree. All my life I was the weird child that, you know, everybody else would just go ahead and do things. And my my mother said I was the one that always said, why, you know, explain everything to me. Now, don't tell me to do something without, you know, telling me why I'm doing it, because that won't make sense to me.

00;20;08;26 - 00;20;32;20
Unknown
I went through school getting in trouble for doing homework from a previous class while I'm in our current class, and they were constantly like Elaine, what are you doing? I'm just doing homework right now. You need to pay attention to what is going on in this class. So come up and come up to the chalkboard. You know, write down this math problem that I'm trying to teach you.

00;20;32;20 - 00;20;52;18
Unknown
And I would go up and I like I heard what she was saying. I just happened to be doing my English class at the same time. So I would go up constantly. I get get it right. The teachers are just baffled by me. I'm like, Look, I can pay attention more so than other kids. So I'm talking like, you know, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth grade.

00;20;52;21 - 00;21;30;17
Unknown
I could focus more, I think, than most kids. Yeah, that's a huge factor of, I think, why you're so lucid and there's a lucidity technique basically is that it's called all day awareness. And the more mindful you are, the more lucid awareness you have. I mean, lucidity in our waking life is being aware. And the omnis that I've talked to people that are lucid in almost 100% of their dreams, they also say that which is like I am aware constantly throughout the day of everything happening 20 things at once, which is hard to do, you know, like I could be mindfully aware, but I can focus on maybe small things at a time, you know,

00;21;30;17 - 00;21;51;11
Unknown
but something that takes so much effort, like doing your homework and being in the class at the same time, that's really impressive. Honestly, I have ten brothers and sisters, you know, different sets of parents and all within a very close age group. And my parents are like, Why don't you have homework? And like, I would come home and all the other kids would have, yeah, a couple hours a day of homework.

00;21;51;13 - 00;22;09;28
Unknown
I did that at school. So school's for and I have straight A's. Never gotten anything less than an A but, you know, with all these kids, I'm the only one with our homework. I'm the only one getting straight A's, and they kind of just let me alone for like, okay, most of my life I work for two jobs simultaneously.

00;22;09;28 - 00;22;29;29
Unknown
I ran a real estate company and I work for a chain of radio stations full time, and I would have two computers at my desk, one for radio and one for real estate. And I would just I had to kind of keep them separate. That's why I had two computers, even though I didn't have to do that. To me, that was like, okay, keeps me focused more on each one.

00;22;30;02 - 00;22;47;01
Unknown
People are like, How do you do that? How do you, you know, and I left the radio stations. They really like, you know, we want you to do all these reports, all your accounts, blah, blah, blah. I guess if I had no really want all the details like of all, you know, your 100 and some accounts, it's all in my head.

00;22;47;01 - 00;23;07;29
Unknown
I don't know how to give it to you. That's a super power. It's crowded in there. How do you calm yourself down? I know you mentioned brown noise. Helps with the dreams, but do you still, like, meditate or what helps you ease it out? You know? And 2020 is when I moved temporarily to the mountains from the islands.

00;23;08;06 - 00;23;36;01
Unknown
And I was at that time, I started having a lot of problems. And the main thing looking at a computer screen was this was and is still very painful. So I've been through experimental treatments on my eyes to get them better. So I kind of was forced into a semi-retirement and I can use a computer screen, but maybe only like 5 minutes, and then I have to take a break for like 20 minutes.

00;23;36;01 - 00;23;58;25
Unknown
Try to work without a computer is difficult. I just sleep more. Unfortunately, it's a blessing and a curse because that kind of now I'm okay. I can sleep more so I can dream. Especially when they told me I was going blind last April, I freaked out a little bit. I started noticing while I dream, I lost my vision and I look, I can see perfectly like, Well, that's a blessing.

00;23;59;01 - 00;24;22;24
Unknown
If I do go completely blind, at least I'll be able to see in my dreams. But my vision is getting better. So let's go to here. I know it might sound silly, but in your lucid dreams, give yourself some healing energy towards your eyes. I actually did that with my back. I have a sciatica and I started. Somebody suggested that I guess there was a week or so ago I kind of got upset with and they're like, Well, I feel a problem.

00;24;22;24 - 00;24;42;18
Unknown
You should be able to fix it. That kind of made me mad because if you knew the type of pain and the pain of the treatments, the experimental treatments and you know, I've been to the eye doctor since April nine times and I'm getting ready to go back again. And they poke and prod and surgery and this and that.

00;24;42;18 - 00;25;06;21
Unknown
It's like, trust me, if I could fix this a dream, I would. But I my sciatica has been really bad. Let me see if I can at least fix my back. And I would say I'm probably 80% better within a week. I don't know. I mean, literally, I don't know what happens to my back. It doesn't hurt anymore, you know, And that's really interesting and not at all to undermine the pain of what you're going through because, you know, these things are very real.

00;25;06;25 - 00;25;27;08
Unknown
I am so going to try to fix my eyes. Fixing my back just happened like in the past ten days. So I don't know what I did. Have you been doing other therapy or anything on it? No. I stopped where I would have to wear, like a back brace around my back. I was putting like, you know, heat patches.

00;25;27;08 - 00;25;45;17
Unknown
I have a heating pad when I'm on the couch, you know, all these things for sciatica. I just gave them all up and just said, I'm just going to see if this works and I'm going to dream. I don't have any pain in my back and like that. And they took me a couple of days to realize I wasn't in pain.

00;25;45;19 - 00;26;04;25
Unknown
I couldn't bend down and look underneath the couch for my dog's ball without crying. Like I said, something was going on my back. I'm not even doing anything. It doesn't hurt anymore. Wow. And what were you doing in the dream? I was just certain tension. Before I go to sleep, I'll just fill it out. Let me dream the back pain away.

00;26;04;27 - 00;26;25;21
Unknown
I didn't really do anything with that. And I. And I stopped babying it. And I with the wraps and the heat and the stretches and the, you know, all the things that doctors are telling me to do. I just kind of, like, tossed it all and said, Let me see if I can heal myself with this. My eyes might take a little more time, a little more work.

00;26;25;23 - 00;26;44;02
Unknown
You know what? I know that it sounds crazy, but I believe that it's possible. You know, like people say all the time, that we have the power to heal ourselves, and it works so far. That's cool. It's kind of a miracle to me. Do you usually feel tired after doing so much conscious work in your dreams, or do you wake up refreshed?

00;26;44;02 - 00;27;06;18
Unknown
I would say it's changed over the decades. Like obviously it was different in my twenties and thirties I was married. It was different. I pretty much woke up refreshed. Then the forties, as I heard that Einstein took like 20 minute naps in my forties is like definitely when I was working two full time jobs. But I just like, you know what?

00;27;06;21 - 00;27;26;23
Unknown
Experiment with a nap in the afternoon. So every afternoon I would stop and I would get undressed, get under the covers, not lay on the couch, like go to bed in my bed. And I would sleep. I would go to sleep within minutes and I would sleep for 20 minutes to 25 minutes. Exactly. And wake up and I would lose the dream.

00;27;26;27 - 00;27;52;25
Unknown
I'm like, okay, this is getting weird because they say it takes 90 minutes to go on a REM sleep and all of this. I'm like, No, I was doing that. Almost all of us every single day. I would be lucid within that 20 minutes. I would have a very interesting dream. Wake up, go back to work. I kind of switched around my dream time or dream habits and sleeping habits throughout the years, so I don't know which is better, which is worse.

00;27;52;25 - 00;28;21;03
Unknown
It's just, well, what I've been doing forties and fifties were really interesting. Sixties now are things I dream lucid, dream differently now that I'm older, maybe I'm just so used to it. I'm actually quite interested in the idea of how dreams change and evolve with our life as we age. And I'm almost 30, and even in those years I've been lucid dreaming since I was eight and I've noticed all my dreams evolve and like vividness, lucidity, it goes up and down, you know, like phases which makes sense.

00;28;21;03 - 00;28;39;22
Unknown
You know, we change and grow and we're ever evolving. Sex dreams don't happen as often. I think my lucidity dreams are shorter. Like they don't last for hours at a time. Like I'm trying to think, had last night. I want to just. I know you're going to call like, okay, I want to remember my dream, set the intention.

00;28;39;22 - 00;29;02;25
Unknown
And then I couldn't shut my brain off. So I laid there for half an hour going, okay, I just activated my brain right before going to sleep. So I turned on the brown noise, slept through the night. I woke up and I'm like, But I still remember. I wanted to remember I I don't remember dreaming. That's one thing is once you wake up, if you want to remember, do not move a muscle.

00;29;02;29 - 00;29;26;08
Unknown
Do not open your eyes, Don't cough, Don't try not to move a muscle And you'll remember something. So I remembered I was filing I okay, filing. Like who even does that anymore? And I just lay there. I'm like, okay. I remember having something that was kind of like an album, like a record album, and I was pushing down to see as buoyancy.

00;29;26;08 - 00;29;46;20
Unknown
Okay, this is weird. Filing buoyancy. I was checking the weight, I was trying to file my dreams. I finally went back enough into my dream after peeling layers back on like I was trying to file my dreams because that's when I set my intentions for was to remember my dream, even though I knew I was turning the brown noise on.

00;29;46;20 - 00;30;11;22
Unknown
Like I still want to see if I remember. I did. And it was like it all came back to me. I was filing what I considered my dreams into this box of water. I know that doesn't make sense. I woke up after I went back and peeled the layers back off of this dream. I really couldn't remember. I then got up and I like that was interesting because I've really wanted to sleep, but I did dream, took me longer to remember.

00;30;11;25 - 00;30;37;08
Unknown
So then I went back to bed and then I went completely loose. And things maybe don't make sense when you're talking about the dream, but in the dream it makes perfect sense. And like, all these random components just kind of have a logic to them. And that's a funny thing about dreams that I love. It's almost like I was reading a book that was kind of explaining how, you know, we go on all these wild adventures in our dreams and travel and all of that, and things happen inter-dimensional that are not easy to explain.

00;30;37;08 - 00;30;57;07
Unknown
And like human 3D reality terms. So our brain finds ways of translating it, you know, like a different language, translating it into symbols and plot lines that we can interpret and remember and understand when we wake up as a dream. So I've kind of always thought about it that way, Like my brain is just trying to make sense of all the things that my soul is doing in the dream world.

00;30;57;07 - 00;31;16;18
Unknown
And this is the story that I came up with to translate to me. And it's interesting because if you sit with something like that long enough, it can make sense. That takes patience, don't you think? Definitely. And I think that's why a lot of people, you know, they're rushed, they get up, their alarm goes off, they jump up, they get out of bed.

00;31;16;18 - 00;31;37;16
Unknown
I don't use an alarm anymore because I'm dedicated to remembering my dreams. I wake up naturally and my body just knows when to wake up. And I say, still, you know, and this is scientifically proven exactly what you said. Our brain associate the body position with memory. So if you stay in the position without even doing anything and I don't even write my dreams down, I use a voice activated recorder so I don't even have to move.

00;31;37;16 - 00;31;56;22
Unknown
I just start saying words and I'm half asleep and then I remember it, or I don't even do that. Sometimes I just wait and try to think it as much as I can until I have it in my brain enough to record it. Yeah, I think the recorder would interrupt my recall. I don't know. I guess to me, I do it on my phone once in a while, but I have to reach for my phone.

00;31;56;23 - 00;32;15;26
Unknown
I have to, you know, look at this, you know, in a way that was just like too much. I would lose half the dream. Everyone has different methods and it's good. Like if you can just think about it. And sometimes I'll just wait till I can think about it enough to where I'll remember. But what I use is a voice activated recorder, so I'll turn it on before I go to sleep.

00;32;15;26 - 00;32;32;10
Unknown
And then it just picks up snoring and talking. I don't even have to move. I know that I turned it on and I get used to it. So I know that if I just start saying words while I'm with my eyes closed and sleeping, I'll still wait till I have enough words to form. Because sometimes even getting the energy to talk, it's very confusing.

00;32;32;10 - 00;32;51;25
Unknown
Like I don't know if I'm dreaming or if I'm talking out loud or not. It can be kind of confusing. So I kind of wait till I have enough of the memory. Then I start talking and I try not to talk too much so I don't wake up too much. But it can be really helpful because then then by the time I get up and turn my phone on, if I forgot in the dream, I go back and listen to the recording and then I remember everything.

00;32;51;27 - 00;33;08;24
Unknown
I have to get one of those because when I was married, my husband does say, I talk to my sleep all the time. It's called sleep recorder. They have a free version, but I paid like $20 for the lifetime version. It's worth it because then it doesn't cut off how much you can record. Did you walk in your sleep as a child?

00;33;08;25 - 00;33;31;16
Unknown
No, I don't think so. I would have very vivid dreams, but I never acted them out. I was sleepwalking all the time as a child. It was like every morning. Wake up. Where's Elaine? Let's find Waldo. How do you know you're not going to hurt yourself or, like, run outside and you double stair or associating imagining a parent, You know, here's your five year old standing behind the bathroom door, asleep with their eyes.

00;33;31;17 - 00;33;52;24
Unknown
I freaked out. So do you have kids yourself? I have two stepchildren and two granddaughters. Do you ever talk to them about dreams or and notice anything about their dream? I've learned to keep my mouth shut about it because too many people think it's crazy. I'll ask them if they remember their dreams, you know, stuff like that. But I don't go.

00;33;53;00 - 00;34;16;11
Unknown
My husband was the only one. I really went into detail with, so I'm glad you're finding people that love dreams and you can talk to us about it. I am too. I really started researching it because I wanted to write a book, but then I got so bad and I think I told you this. I when I started researching, I was overwhelmed with like, what people are really talking about lucid dreaming everywhere.

00;34;16;13 - 00;34;36;11
Unknown
And I had no idea. I literally thought, nobody wants to even talk about this. That's only getting more popular now. Interesting. I wonder why. I think part of it is as a community, as like a society, we're all kind of awakening to be more mindful and aware, you know, and spiritually just kind of waking up. So to speak.

00;34;36;11 - 00;34;54;00
Unknown
And at the same time, research is developing. We know more about meditation. We're starting to question consciousness. And I think that kind of affects the masses. So with that type of awakening and awareness comes more lucid dreaming, and the more people that experience it, the more people that are like, my God, we need to talk about this.

00;34;54;00 - 00;35;15;12
Unknown
And then, you know, they form groups and communities and people start making content. And then the Internet, of course. I mean, it's way easier to talk about things when you can search up other people. I think the Internet played a huge role. Yeah, I've started Revolution almost really. I don't know if anyone even makes it to the end of a podcast episode, but I'm glad that you did.

00;35;15;19 - 00;35;46;22
Unknown
Feel free to check out my website for a lot of cool free resources like the ultimate list of things to do in a lucid dream, a list of books and movie recommendations, research articles, and a lot of awesome things on my blog. Other than that, goodnight and sweet dreams.