white cloud - space between dreams

Sometimes when we become lucid the dream we are in fades. Often we wake up, but sometimes we can enter into an in between state from which another dream then forms.

I am interested in your descriptions of this state, and whether we can agree upon a name and what this experience is like.

I find that that when dreams fade, my consciousness is left in a bright area with no details or form. I call it the white cloud state.

In contrast, sometimes I have become lucid while sleeping, but not in a dream. This state is more of a black void. Some people say they can find a point of light and then enter a dream from black void. But for me, it has absolutely nothing going on, and I get frustrated and wake up from it.

White cloud usually only lasts about 15 seconds for me and then another dream starts. Often I fall back into non-lucidity.

I have never been aware during the hypnagogic state, but I remember once being aware during the hypnopompic state (transition for dreaming to waking state). Everything was very blurry, but I was mildly aware of what was around me. Thats the best I can describe it.

The White Cloud State, as you call it, sounds like to me a change to another Dream period. We have dream periods every hour or so. The first dream period is about 15 minutes, 6 or so hours later it turns into 45-60 minutes. The time inbetween these dream periods is probably this, “White Cloud State.” Now you might be thinking, “It only feels like a few seconds, not an hour.” Well dreaming is time compressed. An hour long dream could really be a minute IRL. So I think it feels so short because of the lack of awareness during this state.

This black void sounds very much like the period before the first dream period. Otherwise known as the Hypagogic stage.

I personally have never experienced this white cloud, but the black void, very much so.

I have been lucid in the ‘black void’, right after falling asleep, and I can tell you that it is not like Hypagogic Imagery.

I practice WBTB very regularly so I usually know when I went back to sleep and I always check time when I wake up.

For black void, I think it is becoming lucid during non-rem sleep. I have definitely experienced after 4 or 5 hours of sleep. So I don’t believe it is hynpnogogic.

Unfortunately for me, my LDs are not very stable. I often wake up immediately after becoming lucid. However over time I have learned to use the chaining technique to not fully wake-up. I am fairly certain that the white cloud state occurs for me in the middle of one rem period.

I would like to hear from others who experience it. :smile:

I have had few occassions of lucid “black void” experience. It is usually short lead-in for another dream, though in one case I spent about 10-15 seconds in it and I moved my (dream) limbs vigorously.

I only have one experience of “white void” and it happened without any preceding dream – I just became lucid in a white space and I tried to induce a dream from it, but instead I just woke up. It lasted for about 10 seconds or little less. I suspect the void was white because it was during day-time nap and bright light was shining into my eyes.

-NL

I was lucid in a black void once. I thought it was because I was close to being awake, I could feel two bodies at once. (dream and real).

This one time I was lucid in the ‘black void’ and after a while a blue staticy round shape appeared…which to be seemed like a psi ball and then I started to lucid dream normally. At first I was very confused to why everything started out with darkness and nothingness.

well i think ive gotten this before i can remember a couple lucid dreams were this happened, in example, there was this one dream were i was at my old school, then i realized i was dreaming and decided to leave my classroom and willed someone to be waiting for me behind the door.
as i got closer to the door everything starting looking foggy, then i opened the door and everything looked exactly like a cloud, just like you say, it was all white so i guess thats the cloud state?

Stephen LaBerge and Donald J. DeGracia wrote an article about “Varieties of Lucid Dreaming Experience”
lucidity.com/VOLDE.html

On type of experience they describe is Minimal Perceptual Environments
They write:

The article is very interesting. It is written in academic form with complex language. It describes many types of lucid experience you may find interesting.

Maybe instead of referring to black void or white cloud we will talk about MPEs!

Thank you for pointing out this article Asclepius. :smile:

In my opinion, these environments are not “minimaly perceptual”. They are “minimaly visual”. Other senses may be maximaly developed, for instance the proprioceptive sense.

Thus I think there are two differents states, the one were visuals is optimal and the one were proprioception is optimal. This “3D black void” state has been noticed many times and people felt the need to classify it: Monroe calls it the C21 focus :spinning:))) ) if I remember well. Ghibellini calls it the “intermediate state”. There was also a Popov’s discussion about this on the forum, some years ago. A lot of people everywhere aournd the world call them black void, white void, 3D void, etc. So I don’t like this MPE acronym at all cause it’s false IMO.

Supposing the perception is minimal (which is wrong) tends to emphasize the visual sense so that we just think this “void” is not important. Curiously, Ghibellini thought that this state was the most important and other LD’ing experiences had no interest comparatively to it. Kepple also says that this state is certainly more interesting that it sounds like at first sight and there are possibly many things to be discovered here (or something like that).

About the color of this void, I’ve had different experiences: it was sometimes black and sometimes white. Ghibellini thinks this color is a “construction”. According to her, it is not black because there is nothing, it’s black because this nothing is somewhat “painted” in black by the mind. I remember that someone here had once a “yellow void” so it may be possible.

Now I had a green void once, but I think I recall seeing myself from the 3rd person.
The only way I could describe it was like being underwater in a really dirty lake and opening your eyes, except everything was dry. The void makes more sense though.
Would this be a seperate occurance?
(It lasted about 10 seconds)

Basilus, I am interested that you experience proprioception in these states.

For me, I have felt like I just had a point of consciousness. I had no awareness of a body (dream or physical).

I have read that some people in the black void ‘see’ a point of light and move towards it to enter a dream. But I have not been able to track transition between void states and dreaming.

The white cloud state for me is extremely unstable. I either move through it rapidly en route to waking up. Or my dream fades into it, then after some stillness new dream is occurring.

I wish I could read some Ghibellini, sounds very interesting!

In some cases, the dream “explains” why this disappearing of visuals occurs (for instance, people think they close eyes, someone put their hands in front of their face, etc.) So I think it’s the same thing. Does this answer to your question?

The most common case is being able to move one’s hands and rub them or grasp an object (for instance the ground). Many people who practice WILD have problems with visuals and they can move in the dark. For instance, one people said that after his “projections”, he had to crawl until he’s far enough from his bed and the visuals come back. I also remember a LD account here when a girl said that she often lose visuals and feels herself freely floating in the 3D void, what she found very pleasant. So I think proprioception is very common in this state.

Now I think there are two kinds of black void. The one you get when relaxing deeply before a WILD and suddenly you see the dark in front of your eyes as if it was in 3D. And the dark void between two dreams, when you lose visuals. I’m talking here about the second one. The first one is closer to hypnagogics IMO, in the second one, you’re between two visual dreams but you’re still dreaming. LaBerge and De Gracia were also talking about the second one in their article.

Generally, in my dreams, it’s black. I’ve experienced once a white void. I happened curiously. Suddenly, I felt as if I was sitting into a white box (now I saw nothing but white). I recognize this as a loss of visuals, thus I rubbed my hands so that I didn’t lose consciousness. After a while, it came into my mind that I just had to open the box and there was a landscape again.

I think it’s generally an instable state. Images tends to appear after a while. Did you try to move though you don’t see anything, in order to maintain your dream awareness and not wake up? Now in some cases, it’s also possible that you were just waking up and it was a normal fading. Then there are some solutions, the most classical being “dream chaining”. Another solution, less common, is moving your eyes randomly when it occurs: it was an Alan Worsley’s technique.

Rather curiously, Ghibellini experienced quite systematically vibrations in the 3D void. As for her, those vibrations were energy (ki). So that she was practising ki or meditation exercises in this state. She thought that this energy was either outside the dreamer (then the dream was visual) either inside the dreamer (then the dreamer was feeling streams of energy and could act on them). That’s the reason why she thought that the 3D void was more important than the visual dream state.

Whenever my lucidity fades away, I always wake up. It kinda feels like I’m lying in bed and I can see everything before me as it plays out in the dream. My whole body feels itchy, and I can “feel” the outline of my nose and face and body.

It’s kinda like you’re lying in bed with a giant TV hovering above you showing everything you’re dreaming about, and you’re watching it through half-closed eyes. When you open your eyes, the TV vanishes.