Lucid Dreams Vs. Vivid Dreams

What is the Difference?

Ben Ulansey
Thought Thinkers

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Photo by Javier Allegue Barros on Unsplash

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Oftentimes, if you bring up lucid dreaming with people, they’ll simply believe that you‘re referring to dreams that are vivid. To lucid dream is to fully become aware of the fact that you’re dreaming while continuing to dream. Experienced lucid dreamers can entirely dictate the contents of their dreams.

While lucid dreams are usually vivid, vivid dreams will not typically be lucid. But with both lucid dreams and vivid dreams, there are gradations. There are degrees of awareness that we can experience while in REM sleep. In most vivid dreams, we might not even have a sense at all of who we are as people. We can watch scenes play out like movies. Our perspective can vacillate between first, second, and third-person seemingly without a trigger. It can be difficult to pin down any faces and locations. Identities and environments seem to shift around hazily without our notice.

In dreams that are more vivid, we can have a clear sense of who we are, but lose our sense of how we behave. Our activities will make little sense. Our reasoning won’t be sound. We might not even notice as we teleport from one dream to the next. But we know who we are.

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Ben Ulansey
Thought Thinkers

Writer, musician, dog whisperer, video game enthusiast and amateur lucid dreamer. I write memoirs, satires, philosophical treatises and everything in between 🐙