How Realistic...

[xyyme]

How realistic are the lucid dreams that people have? I don't want theories, I want to know from people who have had several lucid dreams. How close to reality do they feel? Not how close to reality are the memories, but how close to reality do they feel as they are happening?

[IrbidProdigy]

Not in memory, 100%. It actually surprises me everytime lol. And sorry but this wasn't posted in the right catagory, try something more like Exploration of the dream world

[Rik]

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I've moved your topic to the appropiate category.

To answer your question, that really depends on the quality of the lucid dream. I've had lucid dreams were I felt as if I was drugged and couldn't think or see clearly, but I've also had lucid dreams that were hyperrealistic. More real than life itself, so to speak.
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Quare? Quod vita mea non tua est.

[jrel]

Amazingly real.

In one dream, I was standing outside in the sunshine on a sidewalk when I realized I was dreaming. I knew in my dream that I was sleeping shirtless. But in my dream, I had on a button up shirt. I tried to see if I could feel the shirt on my skin, or maybe if I was feeling the sheets of my bed. I compared the two, as I breathed in and out. I was amazed at how realistic the shirt felt and behaved on my body against my skin. Completely indistiguishable from a real shirt. No evidence that it could be confused with the bedding that my real body must be wrapped with.

Also, I've experimented with gravity. In my dreams I realize I am sleeping horizontally in my bed, but standing in my dream. I then test to feel which way gravity is pulling me. But in my dream the gravity is consistent with my dream orientation and not with my sleeping body orienation. I can not feel the bed pressed against my back, and I have not been able to determine that the dream reality is any less real by examining the physical evidence around me.
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[dansofe0r]

I had a false awakening once and immediately became lucid by doing a hand check. I woke up with the express intention of seeing how real the dream environment was.
I touched a pair of jeans that was hanging on the headboard of "my" bed and took the cloth between my hands to feel the texture. It felt absolutely real and looked very real too down to the thread count.
When the focus moved away from the pants, I realized that maybe the increased attention paid to them took away from the surrounding environment and it became inconsistent and dark. Lucidity was lost.
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"I and me are always too deep in conversation: how could one stand that if there were no friend? For the hermit the friend is always the third person..."

[Conor12]

The most consistently commented upon realistic sense in the dream is texture. A large amount of first-time lucid dreamers have reported that upon gaining lucidity, colours and image brightened and crispened, and that they were amazed by how real everything felt. I think that this is due to the fact that the sense of 'feeling' is what is anchoring you in the dream, so your mind replicates it to an incredible degree. Much of the realism varies to person to person, but my LDs are usually impressively vivid, although some seem to have a more 'dreamy' quality, similar to normal dreams. Many people rub their hands together upon gaining lucidity and note a sharpened sense of texture and visuals.
I would say that on average, an LD comes close to real life, far closer than normal dreams, only missing the crisp, cold, sharp awareness that is usually experienced in the waking world.