Thoughts?

Welcome!

I've tripped a lot in dreams and had a few of these dreams within a dream, long before I ever saw that movie inception. The times I remember, I seemed to go lucid once I hit the second dream, and then later wake up into the first dream and think I was back to reality (aka false awakenings). One time, in the first dream, I looked at my friends eyes after eating some harmalas in the dream, and his eye blew up to the size of the room and became a trippy kaleidoscopic portal of some sort. After going through that I woke up into the second dream.

Hi, yes, I am no stranger to these experiences. It happened to me a lot more frequently when I was single, living alone and not having to do 50 things immediately upon waking.

When you become lucid in the second state, the dream within the dream, that is a great launching point. Set your intention - this is sometimes hard because I didn't always know where to go or what to do - but that is your chance. Then, in that second dream, lay yourself down as if you were going to sleep, but with the intention of traveling. Then see what happens. Haha!

Also, for me, it was always MUCH easier to have lucid dreams and/or project during the middle of the day while napping. It is also helpful to be lying on your back with nothing over your stomach. At one point, I could do it in any position, but like anything it takes practice and I have other priorities now. Nonetheless, people shouldn't overlook dream states and meditation in favor of substances. You can get incredible mind-expanding experiences without spending money or resourcing material.

Astral flying is really fun. Recently though, I've been using some kind of balloon/glider/kite thing that I control by jumping and sort of filling it with an inner wind that I have to govern and choke like a throttle. I can go high and travel far, but some gravity always pulls me down and I have to go up again. Of course, this limit is provided by my own mind, but it's all good!

I've only experienced the dream within a dream once or twice and it was always much more magical, once I was able to telepathically communicate with my wife and then I had a false awakening in which we talked about how we shared a dream and could use telepathy until I realized that I was still dreaming.

As a child I used to have very psychedelic dreams where I would go to a secret place in the forest and climb down a long ladder underground that would lead to a fantastic neon abstract cartoon world very similar to DMT. I would eventually crawl up the ladder and wake up super stoked on my dream. Unfortunately those dreams became much more rare as I got older.