What's beyond the darkness?

I was in a dream when I became lucid. I realized nothing around me was “real” (to clear up philosophical perspective we’ll say this refers to the solidity and consistency of the waking world).

Upon realizing I was dreaming, and nothing was “real”, I could stick my hand through the wall, because of this, then I looked down at the floor, and realized it couldn’t support me, since it wasn’t “real”.

Upon realizing this I fell through the floor into darkness, and after a few seconds I woke up.

I have not yet been lucid again (this was only a night ago) to experience this, but I want to understand it.

My girlfriend’s dad told me to study the 4 noble truths of Buddhism, and that has helped me learn from the experience, but I want to know what’s at the core; what’s beyond the darkness.

This, however, got me thinking, the darkness was synthetically generated as well, so what’s beyond the darkness, and the superficial appearance of things in a dream?

If you eliminated all the “synthetically generated” phenomena in the dream, what would you experience?

Hi c_n12
This reminds me of what happens when I use my Armageddon shout: I destroy the entire universe with a single word. After the awesome visuals have ended I am left floating in nothing. I am then in my version of the darkness, and I have pure sensory deprivation.(It is extremely hard to maintain the dream at this point).
From here I can create anything I want, including the universe. It reminds me of the blank program from the matrix.
As for the question of what is beyond the darkness I am not sure. My version of the darkness I consider to be nothing at all, so i’m not sure if there is anything beyond it.

Armageddon shout? I’ll have to try that sometime.

Well if you’re interested in Buddhism and their practice of dream yoga I suggest a book by Robert Waggoner - Gateway to your inner self. He discusses a lot of interesting topics, and one of them is the idea, as you say, to find out what is “beyond darkness”. He went deeper and deeper into lucid dream, and eventually discovered that he needs to let go of his ego - personality, dreams, beliefs, etc as they influence his perception and the dream itself. So eventually he had an experience of “pure awareness”, which buddhists consider to be the final goal of lucid dreams and it can be used to “prepare for death”, as I understood. This is but a brief summary, but I highly recommend the book, he explains it much better than I could.

I don’t know what’s “beyond” the darkness, but I’ve had a lot of lucid dreams that involve the void.

I like going there. I’ve had several lucid dreams that have been, more or less, entirely set in non-descript blackness.

Frequently, I go into the void on purpose—usually so I can enter a new dream.

The void is not always uniformly featureless for me. In the void, I find living geometric patterns, sometimes beings of light, windows into dreams, etc.

To add to what dreamosis has said, I consider the Void a sort of gateway that allows the dreamer to enter new dreams or have another dream within the Void itself. For me it’s a sort of dreamlike limbo.

I have found that when I fly through it, sometimes I encounter fantastic objects that I would otherwise have to create or find in a traditional dream environment. These objects include a black hole (when entering it, it is a portal to a new universe), ridiculous fractal patterns, physical manifestations of infinity, etc.

For some reason, it feels as though I am within my body but also far away from it. It’s a feeling that feels like dissociation but since you are aware of the dissociation paradoxically it is as though you are there and not simultaneously. Does anyone else feel like this when inside the Void?

I’ve visited the void many times, but no. I don’t feel the dissociation. For me it’s just a blank dream of total darkness. It feels like a transition zone. A place between dreams and waking up, but I have no issue entering a new dream from there. I’ve done so a few times.

Can someone please explain what “the void” is ? :smile:

The void is the state where you are conscious as in a lucid dream, but no dream has formed. It is common between dream scenes, and between lucid dreams and waking up. Some people experience the void before a WILD, but I get that only in extreme insomnia periods.

For me, the void looks like the greyness behind closed eyes and feels weightless. I haven’t noticed sounds in the void yet.

Ah! This reminds me of a dream that I had! :happy:

[spoiler][center]Dream 200/something~ ‘Nothing is scarier than darkness’
(Marked as “dream 200/something” because I lost the count last year, haha)

[/center]
This is a very recent nightmare that I had. (Click for bigger size!)
I was about to become lucid thanks to that obvious dream signal of the climate swap, but I got distracted with—another dream signal: my old friend the meteorite (lol! 😂) and things went quickly out of control!

The funny thing is that I wasn’t even afraid of the meteorite; I was like ‘meh, time to die’; but when I found myself alone in that kind of void/limbo I just lost my head! Curious, isn’t it?

This is the newest artwork that I have, Im going to make more but It will take a little more of time because my old health issues are a bit annoying these days. Hopefully, in two weeks or a month I’ll be sharing something new! 💜[/spoiler]
I ussualy end in this void whenever I die in a dream. Its amazing to discover that Im not the only one! :content:

This is off topic, but your dream comic is awesome, Lady Yomi! :love:

On topic: I feel that the void mimics a state with no sensory input. I wonder if people who have experimented with floatation tanks would experience something similar to the void? Maybe our consciousness can’t imagine true emptiness, so the brain fills the space with greyness and dizziness because that’s what we believe it should be like?

To add my experiences and thoughts on this:

The void is an empty dream. No visuals there when I enter. I can be there when I’m lucid, but I don’t have to be lucid to find myself in the void. I’ve asked people and it appears some have black voids, some have gray voids and some have completely white void. Why they are different like that I do not know.

I’ve had a WILD that started from the void. When I manage to remember the first dream of a night, they have started in the void with me completely focused and alone with my thoughts. These thoughts bring about dream visuals, a world forms from the darkness. These observations make me think the void might actually be what we experience during NREM. I have no way to confirm this, but some brain activity monitoring during sleep could do that. Not sure if such tests have been done.

Unlike Siiw, I have experienced sounds in the void. Our mind can create anything in this space, I believe. One lucid dream took me to the void when I jumped into a TV and the void was filled with just a continuous scream that was splitting my head apart, it was painful to hear. That was the only time the void has felt “hostile”. Usually it’s a serene place that I’m happy to find myself in.

My void is black. There is no dizziness or color of any kind when I enter. Wyvern once told me his void is white. Two examples that don’t quite fit that theory.

Letaali, I made a bad word choice in my post. My void is grey and dizzy, maybe because I imagine a senseless state like that. Other people have different ideas of what emptiness is like. White, for example, reminds me of a blank canvas…

Thanks A LOT for your kind words towards my art, Siiw! :happy: That made me happy!

My void is always pitch black at first, but it becomes grey and dizzy (just like yours, Siiw!) the more time I spend on it! :notify:

I have discovered that its quite hard to keep on dreaming when Im on that place; everything is so unstable and messy and I have problems to keep quiet! :confused: