Dream:On!

Dreaming? There's an app for that.

As you know, Kevin and I, but mostly Kevin, are interested in lucid dreaming. Kevin really tried to develop the ability. He kept dream journals, took Vitamins, and worked on his dream awareness.

Mine just happen sometimes. I have had half-a-dozen or so in the last few years since Kevin has been interested. My very first one, when I was a wee tot, was semi-lucid when I halted my dream and yelled out, movie-director style, "Cut! This time we're going to have us chase the monsters instead!"

I've described a few of my lucid dreams here on this blog:
March, 2008
November, 2009
December, 2009


In Saturday's LA Times, there was a feature article about a new iPhone app, called Dream:ON.  I immediately told Kevin about it, and I downloaded it myself.

The idea is that the accelerometer in the phone will detect movement in the bed, which translates to different stages of sleep.  (OK, I know, this is pretty loose data that it collects. It pretty much missed me waking up and going potty at 2am). When it senses that you are in the deep REM sleep, it plays sounds of a pre-chosen scenario, supposedly to influence the dream by your integrating the sounds that you hear.

I've tried it twice. I thought being on an old-fashioned bag-o-water waterbed would especially give some good data!

The first morning, I woke up and found that I had dreamed about the app itself. In my dream I was telling someone about it. I thought that was a good start!

This morning, the second morning, I woke up after having a lucid dream! There was no setting of a peaceful garden, reflecting the sound scenario I had chosen, but I dreamed I was in England. They have lots of gardens there, right?

I dreamed that I was trying to call a cab in order to catch a plane, but I couldn't get my cell phone to work. I told someone that I was having trouble, and then it dawned on me that this is often my sign that I am dreaming: mechanical failure! I often have trouble with the phone in my dreams. So, when I realized I was probably dreaming, I pinched myself AND bit myself to make sure. In a previous dream a few years ago, I had pinched myself, but Denial being a pretty powerful thing, I didn't believe it and told myself that I did feel the pinch when I didn't.

Anyway this morning in my sleep, I realized I was having a lucid dream, and tried not to get too excited, because I've blown it before by getting all giddy about it and losing the lucidity or waking up. So, I played it cool, and the thing I decided to do was to make $1000 appear outside.

I declared to everyone in the dream room, "Hey, go outside, there is $1000 in hundred dollar bills outside!"

I opened the door, and sure enough, there were $100 bills suspended on strings. Some of them were fake, like Monopoly money. I guess the Dream World didn't want me to get too big for my britches??

So, although the Dream:ON app didn't directly influence my dream, at least not in the way it was intended, I think just being aware of it and being aware of dreaming helped me achieve lucidity.

The developers of the app have a quasi-scientific study going using user-derived data. I won't go that far, but maybe you'd like to download the app and participate!

Dreaming is kind of fun. I think I'll sleep with my phone again tonight!