What's the deal with hands and lucid dreaming?

I've been interested in lucid dreaming for quite some time now, one of the best methods I've found is, frequently throughout the day, or if something odd happens, to look at your hands an ask yourself "am I dreaming?" This will become normal for you, normal enough that you will even do it as you are dreaming.

This has worked for me many times in dreams, with a few different results.

The idea is that, in your dreams, your hands will never look normal. This has been my experience. Sometimes my hands will look almost like I am viewing them through a kaleidoscope, other times I will have extra fingers, or my fingers will all be of a vastly different length and thickness, a few days back I had a lucid dream where my hand became fractal, and each finger had a hand on the tip, which in turn had a hand on each finger, so on and so fourth. This was the most trippy one, for sure.

There is another method in which, if you believe you are dreaming, you look at a clock, look away, and look back. The time will change drastically, or the numbers will appear mixed up, or somehow just not be "right" I've never experienced this myself, as the "hands" method seems to work great.

Does anyone have any ideas of why this would be the case? Your hand isn't exactly that hard to "replicate" in your dream world, or is it? If I had not experienced this many, many times in my own dreams, I probably would have dismissed it as not being true.

Anyone else use this method for lucid dreaming? Any theories on why your hands are so messed up in dreams? Something psychological I assume?

reply to post by James1982


I'll have to look into this. I always seem to have some vague awarness that I am in a dream world. It just fells different. So much so, that I just know it. The air feels different. Colors/sights/sounds are vibrant slightly more than in my real waking world.

I do know the trick of just asking yourself if you are dreaming throughout the day gets you accustomed to asking this while being in the dream world. In my case, if I were to ask this question alone, I could probably tell.

My lucid dreaming experiences are around 50 or so.

One of the most fantastic experiences I have ever had when lucid dreaming is to fly up to God in the heavens. I have done this 4 times and each time was quite memorable. Also flying out horizontally traversing the planet as far as you can go has revealed some interesting things... at least for me. Talking with others can be interesting and enlightening as well.

I will keep the looking at hands thing in mind and believe I have done this without knowing to do it... so now, I will definitely use it as a tool.

Thank you for the curious thread. Best of luck on you travels.

Royal

reply to post by James1982


Lucid dreaming is something that has always come easily to me, but on the other hand, astral projection is what gives me the most difficulty. This is where the "hands" thing, does me in. I'm guessing that due to whatever mental/emotional blocks that I'm carrying around in my sub-conscious; once I look at my hands in this altered state and realize that I can see THROUGH them, a panic sets in and I'm immediately drawn back into my physical body. It's very frustrating, as just being able to let go and fly in an ASC (altered state of consciousness) would not only be remarkable in itself, but rather useful in cultivating psychic awareness. Awesome thread, OP!

Hey thanks for the reply,

I have not had as many lucid experiences as you, but It's getting up there. I never really seem to do anything too fun/crazy once I realize I'm dreaming, while I do realize I'm dreaming, I don't "fully realize" it and start acting out whatever I want.

However, I do seem to have "bad" dreams more often than not, and when I realize I'm dreaming, all the fear I was previously feeling in the dream fades away, and I just kind of observe everything that's going on. I've only had a few flying dreams, and they weren't really flying, just like hovering a few inches off the ground and moving around without any effort. Awesome experience, and once I wake up I try very hard to get back to sleep with flying/hovering on my mind.

Funny thing too, the more I lucid dream, the more I find myself having dreams within dreams. I'll "wake up" inside my dream once I begin lucid dreaming, and then think the world I woke up into is the real world, only to realize after waking up for real, that I was still asleep. Maybe it's the mind's way of keeping me asleep, since I do usually wake up fairly quickly after I become lucid.

I also wake up a lot more during the night since lucid dreaming, even if I don't become lucid in the dream. I usually wake up 3-4 times throughout the night, each time remembering pretty well the dream I had. I'm getting quite good at dream recall, even weeks or months later. Hopefully in a few years I'll really be able to take advantage of lucid dreaming.

The last lucid dream I had, where my hand became a fractal, was a pretty crazy one. I was in my bedroom, looking out my window over a city landscape (which is not the view from my window) and saw a nuclear explosion a few miles off in the distance. In my dream, I was terrified, and was thinking "this cannot actually be happening" which is where the hand-trick came into play, I looked at my hands and saw a fractal hand, and instantly realized I was dreaming, and was no longer scared, and just kind of observed everything that was going on.

The buildings around me had all been destroyed, my house was still intact however. There were some family members there, one of which attempted to commit suicide with a revolver by shooting himself in the head. Since I was lucid this was not frightening to me as I knew it was a dream, but found myself attempting to help that family member kill himself after the gun failed to fire, which, upon waking up, seemed like a VERY odd thing to do. Perhaps some underlying aggression towards this person or something, who knows.

Anyway, sorry for the ramblings, my main topic I wanted to get to the bottom of was the hands thing, so I got a little off track heh.

My 1st lucid dream was like, "OMG! I am dreaming." Whoosh -->>> wake up.

First few lucid dreams were over very quickly. For me, I learned to not get to excited, take a deep breath and look around at the sights and sounds. Once you get the intial shock of dreaming over with and can stay calm and patient you get to explore.

I have to sadly confess, early on, I used this state in some sexual manner. Knowing I could do anything I want... you can imagine the rest. After, I had outgrown this lustful desire and was more curious I have been able to explore the world from more of an exploration point of view.

The flying was super exciting at first... over the last few years, flying is a mode of transportation I use as a way to get away or go somewhere quickly, it seems very natural now. Jumping is fun too. If you know you are dreaming and truly believe it, then you can jump off cliffs and buildings and that is a good way to learn how to fly. Like a bird.

There is something extremely peaceful and satisfying with flying...

Learning to lucid dream and explore that world surely is fun. Going through walls is really cool too. Flying or moving through buildings is pretty a,azing. These are fun things to do while in a lucid state as it proves you know you are dreaming and can go beyond our physical limitations.

I am not sure what kind of portals/doors this opens... but in my experiences, I see two sides, light beings of God and darker beings... I have dealth with these forces my whole life. My caution is to be prepared. In my opinion, lucid dreaming takes a higher level of awareness to begin with.

Sadly, even though many of my dream are quite spectacular, I am too lazy to write them down and still dismiss them as merely dreams, but there are many I will simply never forget and the events blow even my mind away and lead me to believe that great hidden knowledge may be tucked away in the dream state... like talking with higher level entities, dark entities, ETs, God, storylines that are mind blowing. Alas, it is a personal experience that others cannot directly relate with...

hence my name GoldenVoyager... kind of says it all.

I still know so little... though I have blessed to see and experience so much.

I cannot say I know what Astral traveling is.. but at times I am pulled gently yet at the speed of light through the cosmos and end up on another world. Not sure if this is the same thing. While I am traveling through the cosmos I feel like light energy, no body... but then again I am not thinking of having a body as it is not important... the force that pulls me feels like it is God's energy pulling me... bringing me somewhere... usually to some dark place where I am tested in some manner. I am always curious as to where I land... I do not fear and feel God right with me, so I know I am about to be presented with something. Very interesting. I wish I knew what this was all about.

reply to post by James1982


I think it's fascinating what our sleep/dream world is capable of offering us within our normal, waking life. To me, the traditional shamanic awareness of many different worlds, all connected to this one, seems more in line with the idea of the "Multiverse" and with the quantum sciences, than does any other that I've encountered.
I used to have the most terrifying nightmares about aliens which, as soon as I would spot one of their ships, would KNOW that I was looking at them, right at that moment. The rest of these horrifying nightmares were spent trying to evade them. But then about a year ago, I had a very lucid dream in which they were right outside my house and I was trying desperately to get my family to hide. I suddenly realized that yes, this was a dream and that I could change the scenario any way I wished! So, I crawled out from behind the couch, into the light being aimed at me and just breathed out; sending thoughts of peace and friendship towards them. Since then, I haven't had a single bad dream or nightmare about anything, whatsoever! This is why I believe that taking charge of your dreams, can do so much to improve every other aspect of our lives.

reply to post by lowundertheradar


That seems to be the best thing I've gained from my adventures in lucid dreaming, the ability to become fearless.

As I said, I seem to have far more nightmares than positive, or neutral, dreams, so I used to constantly awake in a state of intense fear. For the last several years while I have been working on lucid dreaming, I have a much better ability to not be scared by my dreams, both while still asleep, and once I awake.

I am not a spiritual person, I don't get into new-age or mystical type subjects. But I do have a profound interest in dreams. I've watched, and read, a lot of material on dreams, and most of it really seems to make a lot of sense.

There are apparently two types of dreams, REM dreams, and non-REM dreams. One is to re-play past events, and analyze them. The other is to go through possible future events, figure out problems, go through scenarios before they actually happen so you'll be more prepared, etc.

After learning this, and then re-analyzing my dreams it really seems that most all of my dreams, at least the ones that are more "normal" and not completely off the wall, do fall into these two categories. More times than I can count, since I've been interested and involved in lucid dreaming, I have used things that I have "learned" in my dreams to help myself in the waking world.

Maybe I am missing a big part of the puzzle by excluding spirituality and other similar things, but so far I think that being aware and analytical of my dreams, and being a lucid participant in them, has really helped me as a person to grow and evolve. I have problems like everyone else, and it seems like our own minds offer a lot of the solutions to these problems, that otherwise we wouldn't have realized. I no longer think dreams are "just dreams" I think they are an open portal into our minds, a way to analyze ourselves without the conscious mind's issues getting in the way.

Thanks for everyone that has replied, and I hope more people will comment with their opinions as well I really hope someone can think of a possible reason why one's hands are always so messed up in dreams, the answer seems to be staring me in the face, but I just cant find it.

I think it's anytime you look too closely or focus too much, things destabilize visually. It's almost impossible to look at your hands without it being up close and you focusing on them. Mine are always impossibly blurry and I once just tried to unblur them unsuccessfully. The time on watches changes, the words on signs change when you look back and away. But I have had them not change, maybe when I didn't focus on them and paid more attention to the background.

Buildings in a city can change too like this. As you fly over a city, one building will get in the way of the other. When the building that was obscured comes back into view, it can be changed. It really makes me wonder how any dream can be stable at all, but we have good stable dreams all the time. I think it's all about how much you focus and how up close you are observing things. That is trippy about what your hands do when you see them up close, it sounds like you really focus on what you look at.

You don't have to do it that way, imagine taking in a great scene, like a view from a mountaintop where you can see for miles. You don't really focus on anything, you just take it in. I wonder what effect this would have in your dreams if you observed more in this manner?

But when you are looking at your own hands I guess it's almost impossible to "take it in" in this way.

Edit: When you focus really hard on anything, you sort of take over the process of creating in the dream. The subconcious if left alone, can do amazing things. So it's better to just go for general ideas than to try to map out every specific detail. The subconcious almost always does the best work. When you focus too much on one part of the dream that whole process is ruined. Then everything comes out blurry or trippy.

reply to post by Novise


That is a good point, perhaps it's just when you focus on something in a dream that it starts to break from reality.

Although, for example the last lucid dream I had with the nuke going off, I remember focusing on that pretty intensely, and it remained a clear image of a nuke going off. Obviously never having had witnessed this in real life, I'd imagine it was a composite of all the various nuke videos and pictures I've seen.

Perhaps that's the difference. If, while in a dream, you focus on something that you personally have seen in real life, and know quite well, like your hands, then it becomes unstable. But if the object or scene you are looking at, and are focusing on, is something that your mind is constructing from your subconscious, then you can focus on it all you want without disturbing it.

Something along the lines of, looking at your hands, you mind is more critical because you KNOW what your hands look and feel like. So it's harder for your subconscious to make a "fake" version that will pass your scrutiny. Where as a nuclear bomb going off, it's pretty much a complete creation of your subconscious, so it's easier for it to get passed off as real because you don't have personal first hand knowledge of it.

Just kind of exploring the idea out loud here, I could be completely wrong. I just find this stuff fascinating. Thanks for everyone's contributions.

Lots of things look different in dreams. It's just a matter of whether your dream self realizes it or not. Looking into a mirror in a dream will usually cause your face to become distorted, morph, or not be your own face at all. I've pulled out my cell phone in my dreams and realized that it's not the type of cell phone I own, that I'm dreaming, and then I wake up. I usually only become aware that things don't look right because I'm having a bad dream that I want out of and this realization gives me a way to tell myself to wake up and get away from the scary stuff. I've had my best friend turn into a cat in my dreams right in front of my eyes, only to continue talking to them as if everything was normal.

Everyone has their dream symbols, something that occurs very often in your dreams. Perhaps it's a person, a possession, or a certain location. For me, I often dream about being back in high school, but as my current age (25). I've not been able to grasp onto this and use it as a tool to lucid dream for some reason however. I always just feel like that's where I'm supposed to be in my dreams and don't seem to think anything odd of the fact that a 25 year old is still attending high school classes with 16 year olds. Figure out what it is you see most in your dreams, and remind yourself of it several times a day. When you see it in your dreams you should be able to ask yourself "Am I dreaming? Is this normal?", and you should become lucid when you realize this is NOT real life. I have only been able to lucid dream twice without even trying and it lasted a very short time because I guess I was having too much fun. I don't know how to better realize the high school symbol in my dreams and say "Hey, this isn't real, I graduated 8 years ago!" but I'll keep trying. I have these dreams about high school usually 3-4 times a week. It's very frustrating to me, I'd rather start flying around the world instead of taking an algebra test.

One thing that's been happening to me lately that's confusing me, is right after waking up from a very vivid dream, something with lots of detail that I will definitely remember, I start to get flash backs of another dream that I feel like I had days or even weeks ago. Something tells me that I definitely had this same dream or that it's a continuation of a dream from before. But then I'm confused and not sure if this other dream actually just happened or if it is an old dream that I couldn't recollect until just now. I dunno, it's just like a sudden deja vu and I'm stuck wondering if this just happened or if these locked memories are suddenly unlocked the moment I wake up because of the dream I just had. It bugs me for a good 30 minutes or so after I wake up and then I tend to let it go and get on with my day. Has this ever happened to anyone? It drives me nuts that I can suddenly recall what feels like hours worth of details from a dream that I'm convinced happened last month, and wondering why I didn't remember this dream until just now. It's amazing how much information is stored in our brains that we can't readily access and when I feel like I've cracked the vault for those few minutes upon waking I want to keep digging but all I get is this one dream similar to whatever I just woke up from.

I was listening to a radio show that was talking about lucid dreaming, and he said to place one hand behind your back, and the other over the bed and to breath very calmly to initiate this. I have never had one of these "lucid dreams" ever in my life that I can recall. So I thought, "hey self let's see if he's right." Sure enough I had exactly what has been described here and elsewhere as a lucid dream. It felt very odd to say the least but anyways. I think it probably has to do with pressure points, and blood flow but I am not a doctor so couldn't really say.