Dream Food
April 13th, 2005 by Steve Pavlina
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On Monday night I had another lucid dream. This one happened within the first 30 minutes of going to sleep, which means shorter dream cycles and less vivid dream worlds compared to dreams that occur later at night.
Some people had asked me about eating in a lucid dream, and I’d never given it much thought before. I’d often had regular dreams where I would dream I was eating something, but I don’t recall doing much eating in lucid dreams, especially with the goal of doing a sensory evaluation of the experience.
So this time when I became lucid, I decided to try eating something to see what dream food is like. In the scene where I became lucid, there was a fresh box of donuts nearby — they were actually vegan donuts in my dream world, ostensibly from a nearby donut shop in Las Vegas that makes vegan donuts. I picked up a bear claw (one of my favorites). It looked and smelled like the real thing. I took a bite, and it was delicious. Then I ate the whole thing (and this shop makes really big bear claws, probably close to 1000 calories just for one).
This dream donut was actually a little better than its real world counterpart. First, the apple filling tasted very fresh and was still moist — in real life it’s usually more dried out. The donut part tasted normal, but the apple filling flavor was better than in real life (like it was made from the best organic apples you can get). I was able to eat the donut twice as fast as normal because it didn’t require much chewing — it felt solid in my mouth at first, but it only took a little chewing before it was ready to swallow. The texture was normal, but it dissolved almost like cotton candy after about 2 seconds of chewing. And best of all, the sugary glazed coating on the donut didn’t melt on my fingers and become sticky, and none of the glaze cracked off and fell on the floor.
Overall the experience was a lot like eating a real donut — only better. The nice thing about dream food is that you can eat as much as you want and not get full or gain weight. I could have eaten the whole box of delicious dream donuts, but I opted to spend the rest of the dream practicing other dream skills.
One thing I love about lucid dreaming is that you can decide in advance what you’re going to do the next time you have a lucid dream, and then when you find yourself having one, it’s easy to remember what you wanted to do.
Funny that I even have a to-do list for my dreams. 
Anyone else craving a bear claw right now?
April 13th, 2005 at 7:23 am
My mouth is watering!
April 13th, 2005 at 9:00 am
Is it possible that you are just entering a state of consciousness during your lucid dream? I need to go back and read some of your previous posts on this subject. How would you know the difference or are lucid dreams like daydreams.
btw - I was laughing-out-loud when you mentioned that you now have to-do lists in your lucid dream world. You are the most organized person in the world… officially.
April 13th, 2005 at 9:24 am
Lucid dreams are nothing like daydreams. You are still asleep and having a dream, but you become conscious within your dream and aware that you’re dreaming. That’s where the fun begins. You can follow the category link to “lucid dreaming” to read previous posts on the subject.
April 13th, 2005 at 10:11 am
Mmmmmmmmmmm…..dream donuts……
April 13th, 2005 at 2:30 pm
Steve -
You have me so intrigued with Lucid dreaming I’ve been trying to figure out how to build my own induction device (the NovaDreamer is quite expensive).
Just out of curiousity, do activities within the dream have a physical effect on the body? Or do they only have an effect on the body if you instruct your subconsious that they will have an effect? Could one exercise in their lucid dream as a means of losing weight?
April 13th, 2005 at 2:49 pm
I don’t know if dreams have a significant effect on the body. But I do know that if you get beat up or sliced up in a dream, you don’t wake up with bruises and cuts. And there’s also no danger of dreaming you’ve died. I’ve died in my dreams a few times — a weird experience, but I still woke up alive. So as far as I can tell, there’s no significant lingering effect on the body.
For many years I’ve tried to control my physical body on the bed while in a lucid dream — that’s really hard. With extreme effort I can get my real-world voice to make an audible noise while I’m in a lucid dream (or when I’m astral), which my wife can hear, and then she’ll physically wake me up. Otherwise my physical body seems totally paralyzed. I can sense it as something separate from my dream body, but I can’t move it.
I don’t think exercise in a lucid dream has any effect on the physical body. You’d think that running 600 miles per hour would burn a few calories, but apparently not.
On the bright side, you don’t get winded when you exercise in a dream, so you have unlimited endurance.
One thing I’m going to try soon is shape-shifting. I’ve never done it before, but my wife has, once becoming a rabbit and once growing into a giant. She said it was a very unique experience. I think I’ll start by trying to stretch out my arms.
The kinds of experiences you can have in lucid dreams are endless. With a lot of practice (years), some people can have one every night, even without induction devices.
April 14th, 2005 at 2:16 am
Well…
“Mental rehearsal” of movements has been used in sports and the motor parts of the brain are still active during dreaming, although the actual control over the muscles is not. (dream paralysis)
Briefly, you will not “gain muscle” or “loose weight” but you can rehearse difficult movements and might very well benefit from this sort of “dream training”.
April 14th, 2005 at 3:13 am
SSSssssssssssnnnnnnnnnnnooooooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeee!
Steve , please wake me up when you come back to reality. You’re an excellent writer, but this fluff lately is a waste of everyone’s time!
Please get this codswallop out of your system.
Patiently,
Fred
April 14th, 2005 at 5:40 am
Hey Steve:
Good to see fredom of speech isn’t dead here! Get your head out of the sand and come back to the world of the awake!
April 14th, 2005 at 6:51 am
Just go to Babelfish and have the site translated into Golgafrinchan — that will turn all the lucid dreaming posts into telephone sanitizing tutorials.
May 9th, 2005 at 8:26 am
Lucid dreaming is real. I had never had one before I started reading about it, but I had two within a few months after I started reading about it a lot. Once it becomes a possibility for your mind, you are more likely to have one I imagine.
July 7th, 2005 at 9:01 am
Vitamin B12,in large amounts,has been shown to improve memory and lucid
dreaming by increasing RNA synthesis.(try 1000 ug.just before bed)
August 5th, 2005 at 6:05 pm
Hi Steve, - recently i just achived my first induced lucid dream, i have had a few before but more so by accident. In the field of shamanism - the skills that you talk of being able to practice in the dream state interest me alot especialy dying and shape shifting, i was wondering if you could perhaps give me some pointers of other skills to practice first before pursuing more indepth skills?
Thanks alot.
P, s Have you ever met up with your wife on the atral plane? if so did she at the same time meet up with you?