Is there a difference between Dream vs Lucid vs Astral?
Perusing the internet over the last year years I have notice people stating that there is no difference between dreaming (as we normally understand it) and astral travel. Whilst this is in a way true, it is missing out a fundamental aspect that drastic changes the experience, thus creating the individual names we give each experience. Dream vs Lucid vs Astral.
If you cant tell a difference from your own experiences, you have only experienced one. The difference is not shown by what happens, how clear the visuals are, how much you remember or how much you ‘felt’.
The difference is in your level of consciousness and level of self awareness. The further you go (dream-lucid-astral), the greater self awareness you have of those levels of yourself that exist on those planes/levels. A brief explanation:
- Dreaming –> Only Aware of the Dream self and the dream reality
- Lucid Dreaming –> Dreaming as the Awake self, aware of the sleeping self and reality
- Astral Travel –> On the astral. Sometimes as the Awake Self, sometimes as Astral Self.
For reference in this article:
- Dream self refers to the ‘you’ in the dream
- Awake Self refers to your human self you are now, as opposed to being asleep
- Astral Self refers to what is often called higher self/oversoul/monad.
Dreaming
Dreaming is how we commonly understand it, though not everyone can remember their dreams when they wake up in the morning. Some only remember AFTER awaking, whilst others are aware throughout the dream that it is happening.
If you want to try remember more of you dreams, check out the Lucid Dreaming article linked below.
Dreaming does happen on the greater astral plane, however it is not the same experience as astral travel itself. The ‘dream’ is its own individual reality bubble that exists within the great astral plane. If lucid and on the verge of transitioning to the Astral Self, it is possible to rip the dream reality apart and exit onto the astral as the Astral Self.
Dream vs Lucid vs Astral and Dual Awareness – Dream AND Lucid
I am adding this is as a small mention due to my own experiences and after discussing it with the only one other I have heard having this experience also.
This is where there is the Dream Self that is only aware of that dream reality, just like a normal dream. Yet within that Dream Self there is the Awake Self that is ‘along for the ride’. Watching and observing everything happening in the dream without the ability to interact or actually do anything.
Dream Self will do something in the dream and Awake Self will go ‘what on earth was that about?’. Two separate points of view, judgements, decision or choice (in the dream situation) yet completely still YOU.
(Please don’t try to confuse or fear-bend this to ‘possession’ or anything else – it isnt the same)
Lucid Dreaming
I have already written an article about this so I will add an except and link the article:
‘Lucid Dreaming is the ability to retain or re-gain your conscious awareness waking self whilst still in the dream. To be aware that you are currently experiencing a dream in first person. Your awareness of the you currently asleep in bed, that self comes back to you and the you that you are awake.. awakens in the dream.
This is not the same as simply being aware of the dream. Its the ‘conscious self’ you are aware of being in the dream. Contrary to popular belief this is not the same as having control in the dream itself. This can often take longer to learn and can only be done WHEN lucid.’
(Otherwise.. controlling a dream, as the dream self.. is still just a ‘normal dream’.)
Dream vs Lucid vs Astral and Real Time Zone (AKA RTZ)
I will add this in as many misunderstand this plane as the astral or a dream or what is being called in the past a ‘false awakening’. I have been visiting the RTZ naturally since my teens several times a week and have decades experience here. It is a great place to face fears, speak to guides, do energy work.
This RTZ layers sit roughly between Physical and Dream. It is the most closest to resemble the physical world yet also can look vastly different at the same time. Here we can be non-lucid thinking we are simply awake in bed, or we can be lucid to the fact we are projecting into another plane of reality.
After two decades backwards and forwards I have manage to align with the frequency of the RTZ. I now remain awake whilst reality ‘shifts’ back and forth between the two around me, without ‘leaving my body’ or ‘falling asleep and finding myself there’.
It is a place of complete opposites. If I go there when its dark, usually between 10pm – midnight (it happens automatically for me), its pitch black night or if I go there when the sun is up, early morning it can be TOO bright a day .
For example from personal experience:
My room when its nightime is as dark as midnight out in a field in the middle of no where. There is NO lights. Lamps never turn on ( a good reality check here), fire never lights. Also the rooms are bare. It feels eerie. Fear of the unknown and dark plays a BIG part here.
Energy and sensing here is heightened, so energy and spirits are very easy to sense around you and in you.
Newcomers/non-lucid here often find they cant move and feel they are VERY heavy. There can also be troubles with sight. Awareness, lucidity, working on the fears with frequent visits and practice can have you floating around the room playfully. It took me several months to just over a year. I have many years of nightmares here until I came understand what was happening and where I was.
Many often have beings around their bed, bouncing on the bed, pulling off the quilts and touching their legs . This still happens to me.
Some think they are being attacked ‘Dementor – Harry Potter style’… I thought this for years myself, enforced by the fear-based spiritual community when I asked for guidance. However I stopped being a scared victim and I decided to investigate.
Turned out it was simply my own energy leaving my body with such pressure it was pushing me back into the bed. How did I find this out? I turned over in the bed… that simple. The ‘attacking spirit pressing me into the bed on my right side’.. was proved to be energy escaping my body as when I turned over onto my other side. The energy was still coming out but now down into the bed proving it was coming from me, not some entity above me.
Astral Travel
Once you understand the difference between dreaming and lucid dreaming, you can understand the level of difference to look for between lucid and astral.
Astral Travel is where you leave the dream bubble behind completely and either astral travel as your Awake self, or you can fully take on your Astral Self along with a level of spiritual memory recall that the Awake Self as forgotten. – This is your best indicator you are on the astral.
Astral is NOT a look-alike of the physical plane. Even if it does have the same ‘denser physical matter feel’, its a different plane of existence, you wont see your house or someone you know in the physical. If you do you are more likely on the RTZ. The astral can look like a cartoon or glowy fantasy land. My first conscious astral projection was something akin to infra red!
