Hi Nen, among many things, I think it's the genuine mutual respect I find shared amongst people in this community that really makes it, with humility, shine above the rest.
My lucid dreaming in a nutshell (turned out to be a rather enormous nut... I hope this is of interest to you) - worked with Silene Capensis root, pre-powdered and agitated into a froth every morning for about 3 months - consuming only the froth. During this time I also sporadically drank (and sometimes smoked) the "deliciously bitter" Calea Zacatechichi- it's certainly up there with one of the most extreme tastes I've come across. IME was not worth the trouble, but I think I will give a shot again sometime.
I kept a journal from the beginning of my experiments - in the several years prior I had written down only a couple of interesting/epic/worth-remembering dreams and I found that once one puts more of a conscious emphasis on dreaming, one tends to remember ones dreams with more ease.
That being said, during the three months with Silene Capensis I did in fact have better dream recall, had many amazing lucid dreams (I had only had, maybe, two in my whole life prior to this) and suffered zero side effects from the extensive daily use of the SC dream root. It was also quite tasty.
My only drawback, it did look a little strange to others to see me every morning, squeezing foam out of a plastic bottle and consuming it.
However, I can never truly be sure that Silene Capensis had any active role in the improvement of dream recall or lucid dreaming ability; it could simply be down to my increased conscious emphasis on these dream states.
This being said, since I finished my small supply of root powder I have continued to have many lucid dreams and certainly many more vivid and wild regular dreams.
Incidentally, one of the strangest things of all is that despite my enormous interest in DMT it has only featured once in one of my dreams.
I have always put a lot of intention on re-creating the dmt experience in my dreams:
Whether a recreation of what I have learned about other people's experiences (for I barely remember my first and only time smoking DMT), or perhaps even unlocking my forgotten experience. I sometimes feel that my memory of it is just on the "tip of my tongue" and just needs the right thought process to act as a key to fit the lock.
Their is also the possibility that with conscious effort one could trigger the release of endogenous DMT into the cocktail of brain chemistry. But of course, as we all know, the jury is still out on the possible relationship between dreaming and DMT.
I find this so strange because I have had many dreams whereupon I have used LSD, cannabis, alcohol or MDMA within the dream and recreated identical effects. Sometimes I have taken an unknown psychedelic in the dream and had the most incredible dissociative, remarkable hallucinogenic and psychedelic experiences I have ever had.
Interestingly, I find that the consumption of drugs I have never used before in waking life, yet still know a lot about, do not seem to work on me in dreams. In one dream, my friends and I came across enormous bundles of very pure cocaine that had washed up on the shore of a beach. We promptly ripped open the packages and started eating handfuls of this pasty white substance. My friends were obviously showing effects, yet I was saying to them that it wasn't doing anything to me.
Only just recently did I have a dream that DMT was even featured in it. Some people and I smoked dmt in a joint as changa and went for a big walk up a hill. It was a little psychedelic but really it was a lot like a strong cannabis high.
LSD dreams I have had, have all been VERY acid. Not in the spiritual introspective sense of LSD, but in the social-construct shattering perspective; the dissolving of culturally assigned beliefs and reality judgements. The feeling of realer than real.
I have had dreams that were dmt-like that did not involve any substances. One dream, a friend and I seemed to be working in a small warehouse, moving crates around etc. I was climbing over many crates, and even a headstone from Easter Island and I came across a small door in the side of the building. It was similar to a trapdoor, yet it was on a wall. I became lucid-ish at this stage and 'knew' that if I went through this 'portal' I would become fully lucid. Yet if I were to go through, there would be no hope of return - physically or mentally. I have heard many reports of such gateways/portals/points-of-no-return during breakthrough experiences within hyperspace.
Some people seem to have great difficulty gathering the courage to enter such portals, I think it's our obligation a psychonauts to go through them
I made my way inside with a little difficulty, and closed the door behind me and saw that it was now flush with the wall with no hope of returning. I was fully lucid at this point, and I admired my new surroundings and was once again impressed by how indistinguishable from waking life it was. This, I think, is the most amazing, profound and significant aspect of the dream world - it says so much about what we consider to be reality.
I was in a passageway, that was only as wide and high as the trapdoor I came through and it extended about 10 metres in front of me, the end of the passage led to the twilit sky beyond the building I was in. I went into a glide through the passage and coming out of the end swooped into a perfect flight. I was above a large courtyard of a luxurious Italian mansion and I could see the the lights of the city extending all around me towards the horizon.
I woke up a little shortly after this in my bed and realised I had been waving my hands around in the air! At the time I was in a backpackers hostel in Scotland, people in the room had just started getting up and ready for the day - getting their
Oktoberfest outfits on etc. I jumped down and had a few conversations with people and marveled the room and noticed many things I hadn't noticed before.
Then I really woke up. To my complete surprise I had had a false awakening!
I have many many more experiences to share, but this was certainly the most surprising dream I have had in a while.
I have not read any Castaneda - but he's been on my list for a while now, I think I will have to check it out.
Peace to you friend.
I am a piece of knowledge-retaining computer code imitating an imaginary organic being.