Yeah that's exactly why I never actually got deep into these techniques, I dunno about any diagnosed mental conditions but I used to have the sleep paralysis thing just as like what felt as my brains last resort to knock me out or something, and sometimes it would flip me into a lucid dream while others I'd just have like intense nightmares where I'd get sucked into a black hole appearing in the sky or creepy faced creatures from beyond would show me future technologies. It just felt way too close to insanity lol
I remember a friend of mine saying how he went manic and hadn't slept for days after trying some stuff he read in a book about 'dream yoga'. Always honestly left the impression that you can fuck this up just like you can pulling a muscle in your leg, except this is your mind you're talking about
I like the analogy to pulling a muscle. You also got me reading about dream yoga, which I hadn't encountered before. Going to try that! I've done dream math and dream poetry/freestyle before, but I haven't tried dream meditating. Fascinating idea.
The "getting sucked into the sky" dreams are always incredibly exhilarating. Had some like that.
I had an extraordinarily rare moment a few years ago wherein I actually had one single 8-hour interrupted sleep session. For the entire 8 hours, I was sucked in a single, continuous lucid dream that took place over a full day of school. I was completely convinced that I'd died or was dying in my sleep and was experiencing an extended DMT-fueled hallucination.
I was literally running my hand across surfaces and studying reflections in the CRT monitors trying to find imperfections or proof that it was just a normal dream. But everything was hyperrealistic and vivid and continuous. The dream even started out with me waking up, getting ready, getting on the bus and arriving to school. Even the clocks were behaving.
During the dream, between classes, there was a hole in floor of the main hallway which just got bigger and bigger each time I saw it. And each time, there was a larger crowd of people surrounding it. Eventually, I saw someone jump in. Towards the end of the day, there was a full-blown hole cult worshiping and praying to the hole, wearing religious garb, making offerings, etc. It took a few weeks to recover from that dream.
Yeah just be careful with all this stuff. People end up doing these things and having experiences I barely understand like 'kundalini awakenings' which to all appearances to me just look like mania or light psychosis, these aren't particularly enjoyable experiences to go through and alot of the time I see people who seek that kind of thing out, they end up going through it for like a whole year or so before getting back on their feet. You can lose your job and all sorts of other life disrupting side effects which is why I'm pretty sure there's religious infrastructure to handle people who take this path in life in cultures where doing this kind of thing is normal. Maybe start with reading a book or some meditation classes or something before jumping into the advanced techniques right away I think is the wise way to go with anything that requires discipline
Thanks for the advice. I'm mainly curious if some of the neurological or psychological benefits of yoga or other meditative techniques might still exist or at least be simulated during a directed dream.
For example, I once had a dream that I smoked DMT and had a full-blown psychedelic experience during my dream. I then woke up and felt "high", in some kind of altered state, for over 12 hours. Under the right circumstances or simulated environment, the brain seems able to induce a variety of sudden or gradual psychological and neurological changes.
Imagine someone without control of their limbs being able to benefit from practicing tai chi or yoga in their sleep. Obviously, feedback from an instructor is important, but imagine a distant future where we are able to record and decode our dreams and allow instructors to review footage.
Similar story happened to me once: I had recently got my drivers license, and one day went to bed early (completely sober). In my dream that night I got drunk, took my dads car and wrecked it. When I woke up next morning, first thing I did was to take dads car to pick up a friend of mine. I felt so hung over, and was driving like I was "still drunk". I had that feeling the whole day. Still remember it well today, even 20 years later.
I kind of figured we already had that on a basic level [1], no idea how accurate it is or if it's just some nonsense but I seem to recall research even like ten years ago which was around these lines, also from Japan, on way earlier iterations of the technology [2], this is just through stable diffusion now...
I remember a friend of mine saying how he went manic and hadn't slept for days after trying some stuff he read in a book about 'dream yoga'. Always honestly left the impression that you can fuck this up just like you can pulling a muscle in your leg, except this is your mind you're talking about