Levels of Lucidity

I am a little confused on protolucidity, what exactly is it and is it a higher form of lucidity than full lucidity?

No, protolucidity is a bit different than the other types of lucidity, because it doesn’t occur during the dream itself, but during hypnagogic imagery or during sleep. Thus, protolucidity occurs in the transition state from waking to dreaming, or vice versa.
Normally we flow along with the imagery preceding the onset of a dream, and so we flow nonlucidly into the dream state. Whenever we become aware of the hypnagogic imagery we can interact with it in different ways. If we actively interact with the imagery we could wake up, but if we’re fully protolucid we can use the imagery to flow passively into the dream, which is the basic principle of WILD.
Same thing when we become lucid during our sleep. The levels of lucidity can vary as much as dream lucidity, but now there are no illusory sensory perceptions. We could get claustrophobic and not knowing the true nature of our state (non-protolucid or pre-protolucid) or we could be aware of it and just enjoy the show (fully protolucid).
I hope this explains it better :smile:

Yes it does, thank you!

I agree there’s definitely a few levels of lucidity.
My main problem (it’s hard to explain) is that when I become lucid I sometimes forget that my body is actually lying still in bed. So when I move around in the dream I keep thinking my parents will hear or see me. It shouldn’t bother me but I get self concious by the thought of them seeing me stumbling around trying out all the lucidy tests.

I would recommend going someplace where you would never expect your parents to be and to a place you know you’re parents would never go to.

Here’s my own system about the levels of lucidity.
Perhaps that would help you out. :smile:

-Pre-lucidity: You’re questioning your own content and the possibility that the “reality” is all just a dream.

-Low-lucidity: You’re aware that you’re dreaming, but you’re NOT aware that since you’re dreaming, you’re in control… or that everything are fake.

-Average-lucidity: You’re aware that you’re dreaming and you’re in control.

-High-lucidity: You’re aware that you’re dreaming and you’re in control, but more complete in control than average lucidity. The vividness might be increased in that level as well.

-Super-lucidity: You’re very aware that you’re dreaming and everything seems to be oversaluated and very sharp. You might also find that you’re very aware of what is going on around you. You’re very in control.

-Super super lucidity: You’re EXTREMELY aware that you’re dreaming. You’re EXTREMELY aware of what is going on around you. You’re EXTREMELY aware that you seem to be onmipresent in your dream. You’re COMPLETELY in control. Everything seems to be very intense, including emotions.

There ya go. :wink:

Hehe I use something like that too. It’s a bit easier than the one I mentioned above. But I don’t have a “Super super lucidity” category… yet… :wink: Do you have lots of super super LDs DM7?

I have had quite few… I won’t say that I have them occasionally… unfortunately. :tongue:

What about you mystic?

A few super LDs so far, but I’ve never had a super super LD as you describe it… But we’re working on it :happy:

I’d say I get a super-super LD somewhere around 1 to 2 a month, unless I’m really focusing on increasing my lucidity. JUst out of curiosity at what piont does the whole realization that you’re in bed and that nothing can hurt you etc. etc. come in?

Thank you Mystic and DM7 for those lists. I definitely see those stages at work in my LDs.

For some reason in my LDs I don’t have much control, often times I have more control in my non-lucid dreams. With the control factor disregarded, I would say the highest level I have reached on DM7’s scale is “super-lucidity,” although this is rare for me.

I have only had this kind of lucidity when I recognize a false awakening… What’s strange is that I had hardly any control at all… I could barely even move. I’m not sure how to explain this. I think that as I become closer to being awake, my dreams become more vivid, but I lose some of the control in my dream. However, I don’t have a fantastic level of control to begin with in my dreams. The most I’ve done in my dreams is fly and make things appear. Never have been able to change the dream environment or alter anything in the dream LD very much, even when I am fully aware that it’s a dream… probably just need more practice. :content:

Probaby in mmm… in between average LD and super LD. It really depends on how aware you are in average LD. That awareness is for sure in super LD.

About that proto-lucidity, I think I had one of those before. I became lucid during hypnagogic hallucinations. It was this amazing spectrum of colors flying past me in this strange vortex. I had no body or even a sense of touch. I was wondering why I couldn’t do anything with this lucid dream except to merely observe. I don’t remember what happened after I lost lucidity though. It might have led into a dream, but I don’t remember. It was still pretty cool anyway.

I too think that I have had proto-lucidity a few times. I see some sort of HI almost every night. Some nights when I think about something it suddenly starts looking a lot more real. It’s almost like a dream, but I’m more like an observer.
Sometimes I can feel my brain wandering away and I start seeing different objects and somehow I sort of wakes myself up a little and I look at the objects.
So far I have always snapped out of it a few sec after realising it. Would this be proto-lucidity?

I’m having a lot of ‘tacit’ lucidity lately…
However now I even have had some dreams with the mention of ‘lucid dreams’ or ‘ld’ even though I don’t recognise it is a dream. I think I’m getting closer once more…

It seems so :smile: Two nights ago I had a series of low level LDs combined with proto-lucidity… all of this during the first hour of sleep. Proto-lucidity is sometimes hard to distinguish from real lucidity, because HI can get extremely vivid. Nevertheless, I think there’s a general distinction between the feeling you get from HI and the dream feeling. But it takes practice to feel it clearly.

Perhaps you haven’t developped the critical faculty enough, which required to become lucid effectively? Which techniques do you use?
But yeah you might be getting closer :smile:

no… protolucidity would not be jolting awake during the middle of it, or trailing off consciously.

it would be staying “awake” while your body goes to sleep.

it can be done i guess, but i can’t do it yet… i try every night almost and i just eventually stay TOO awake and don’t drift off… or i drift off too far and get really tired of jolting awake 5-6 times and give up.

what i find very interesting, is after you get deep enough, usually after a few times of jerking awake… you can be … like… right on the borderline of light sleep, but you won’t be tired… you feel like “Man i’m so far away” but if you just try and see imagery for half a second, you lose complete control of your mind and start falling asleep.

I don’t know what do with this state, it’s like, you’re right there, you can go back in easy, you aren’t tired or groggy, but… as soon as you go back in just BAM you’re out of control and you eventually jolt awake.

In this conscious borderline state, right on the line between alpha and delta I guess… you can’t be in it for too long… if you keep wavering in/out it’s going to break, and it’ll take you forever to start falling back asleep… but the thing is… you can’t interact with or hold onto the imagery at all at this point.

But you can when you very first lie down and start the falling asleep process…

I don’t really get it… maybe it means I’m close though.

i think all my LDs have been semi-lucid…i realize im dreaming, and tell myself im lucid, and stand around trying to remember what i told myself to do when i get lucid next time, usually i can remember 1-2 things, and focus on doing 1 thing…but usually the things i try dont work as i want them too…i managed to make a streetlight go out, and made a star get bigger, i managed to make tatoos on my arm, but they were always green and uggly, and not what i wanted…
and i can fly for a bit, but then i start falling.
I tried spinning around once, but got so dizzy i just tumbled around, and then woke up :smile:
But im getting better and better control, so far i have had 10 LDs or something…this year :smile:
3-4 this month.
I was quite successful with WILD the first time i tried it out. i managed to get to the electrical jolting part, but not much happened after that.

The level of awareness and level of control don’t seem to correspond for me… Last night, I became lucid within a dream and decided to try to put my hand through a wall as I’ve read of loads of other lucid dreamers who just walk through walls/mirrors etc with no problem - but I couldn’t put so much as a finger into the wall. I thought to myself, “this isn’t a real wall, it’s just an illusion that I’ve created” but I still couldn’t do it. [I then decided to go to another spot in the room and decided that the wall there would be made of a more flexible material (you know, like on an armchair or sofa, where you can at least push a finger into it slightly even though you can’t push through it) and, starting by doing this, I managed eventually to push a few fingers through it.]

The thing is, I was aware that the wall wasn’t real and that I should be able to put my hand through it but I still couldn’t do it. Does that mean part of my brain was lucid but another part was too used to RL situations and couldn’t quite believe that I could do that?

Yes I think so. The mind still makes too much associations with waking life, so it’s pretty hard to convince the mind otherwise. But the more experience you gain, the more flexible your mind will become, and the more easier it will be to overcome these mental blockages. Just keep practicing :content:
A few days ago I had the same problem: I tried to unscrew my arm in a LD, but I only felt pain, just as I would have felt it irl. Nevertheless, I was fully convinced of the illusionary nature of my arm. But this didn’t help.