Diseases and the dangers of lucid dreaming

Quest for Lucidity General Lucidness
1

Hi folks,

I love playing video games. Quick, loud, bloody games I favour. And I never had a bad feeling about that. Video games are fun. Nothing more.

So why would I say “do not play videogames” to someone else? No reason?

What if he’d suffered from epilepsy? Many epileptic persons get attacks from playing video games, caused be the flashing lights. People can be heavily injured when having an epileptic attack.

So why do I tell you this here?

It’s beacuse I’m irritated, not to say annoyed, by people who advise other young people suffering from mental diseases like schizophrenia, anxiety and so on, to actively induce lucid dreams.

“I take medics”, no problem… Anyone can have lucid dreams without danger. Drugs in combination with intensive experiences, are known to cause or intensify schizophrenia. But hey, dream on… If it’s good for me, it’s not bad for you.

Maybe I’m totally wrong with this. But if I’m wrong, noone gets harmed. Think about that.

2

The only time I can recall a dreamer with a serious medical condition like schizophrenia on this forum, the overwhelming response was to consult a physician on trying to become lucid… but maybe your thinking of someone else.

But it’s hard to say what could irritate such disorders and what won’t since like everything else in life there are variations. Schizophrenia is one thing, as it could cause a serious episode when one experiences SP or HI. But, again, its for that person’s physician to say if it is healthy or not. As for others like severe anxiety, it depends on what effects them and in what ways.

Will an LD cause a panic attack? I don’t think so. Could SP? Yes if that person doesn’t know what they are experiencing. If a person desires to attempt lucid dreams, while we should caution them to defer to a medical expert, it is not our place to say whether they should or shouldn’t.

Anyone who has a serious mental disorder should ask themselves four things. Can I handle the stress of going through HI, SP and possibly frightening images in dreams? Can I handle the disappointment of not achieving an LD? Can I handle the excitement of an LD when i do get one? Have I asked my doctor these questions?

3

We dream regardless of whether those dreams are lucid. I’ve never heard of a mental condition being aggravated by dreams, and I’d be surprised to hear so.

Besides, schizophrenia is a severe dysfunction of a person’s cognitive functions, and I can’t help but wonder if it’s even possible for a schizophrenic to achieve lucidity. Also, they often suffer hallucinations while awake, so I don’t see how dreams could be any worse.

4

Coming from someone who is schizoeffective, I can vouch that they can have LD’s, and any other dream states. It’s probably easy for me to LD, because my mind is more sensitive to detachment. I can’t be sure of that, but it’s just a guess. As for if LD should be avoided, well I’ve had therapudic things to help with dream effectiveness… It had something to do with signs I was looking for, or as I remember specifically, “Giving them a voice.”. I remember once I was induced in order to speak in place of a curtain thing that kept appearing in my dream. A bit strange if you ask me. Schizophrenia is not the exact same thing. I do not “switch personalities without knowing or remembering.” Nor see nor hear things that aren’t there. (to my knowledge atleast…) My moods, desires, and logical thinking does, however… But I remember all of it, and I’m constantly in conflict with myself, fighting against the choices I made earlier that I was so sure of.

Anyway, enough of that, the point is, I am pretty sure that LDing a dream will not make things worse from you. (saying that right after my statement of wrong choices. Superb!).

5

First I want to say that I really like the discussion that came up on my post. Thanks for joining.

@Rhewin: I’m on this forum for about one week and saw two threads where I felt unable to simply say “yes, start trying, it’s ok”. From that 2 cases I extrapolated “two requests each week on this general topic”, which probably was wrong.

Additionally there was one case of a person who could not stop lucid dreaming, and another case where a person described insomnia (but I’m not sure here) as a consequence of lucid dreaming. Those were different things, but show us that LD maybe is not so harmless for everyone.

@TheCoryKid: I think there is a big difference in simply having normal dreams and actively inducing dreams. Take WILD as an example: We are trying to consciously get into a hypnagogic state, and maybe will consciously experience SP. Imagine someone who suffers from paranoid schizophrenia getting into SP. I’m quite sure this wouldn’t be helpful.

@Loah: Same here. Let us make a good guess - although we do not know for sure - that LDing itself is totally harmless. But maybe the technique getting there is not for some few people. Or imagine a schizophrenic person who was able to LD, talking to his family or doctor about that. Ok, LDing was totally harmless, but his parents put him back to a locked therapy and medics just because he stated "I can control my dreams and talk to ". It’s easy to imagine how things are getting even worse.

What I want to say is: We should always be careful advising people to do something which we do not fully understand. And if I was able to make some people think about that, that’s enough for me.

6

Ok, I understand now. LD is fun, yes. But just because one person can do it safely, does not mean that there are no other factors at play to someone else. Saying it is ok and harmless as a universal statement is assuming that there are no other factors, because there aren’t for you. There are things I have to avoid, and some i’m not quite so sure about, but telling me its ok without knowing the facts, and being wrong, could put me in a bad situation, because I was convinced it was safe. But telling me it is not ok, and being wrong would not have caused the problem.

7

I’d like to see a link if you want to discuss specific cases. If you start to get insomnia, then the logical thing to do is to stop practising WILD for a while. There are more ways of trying to get lucid than trying to stay aware and transition into a dream. Failing that, stop trying to LD period, falling asleep is natural and built-in to us, LDing doesn’t come in and corrupt that, that’s rampant paranoia. Which certainly can mess up your sleep, but that is not the fault of lucid dreaming.

I’m not a big fan of the warnings for everything culture. Where do you draw the line. Should we require that all electrical sockets have warnings saying, “do not insert conductive material into the socket.”

At a certain point we have to let people take responsibility for themselves. Of course in a specific case where somebody says without any backing or understanding of the topic at hand, if you are suffering from a dissociative disorder, it makes no difference to the safety of LDing, in terms of your psychological wellbeing, then we can say they are being foolish, but to require everyone to quantify themselves with every possibility is an incredible burden on communication.

Sorry, to be quite frank, you are running away with a plausible situation into pure fantasy now. You really expect people to be thinking about how somebody might react because somebody says something, based on doing something you said would be ok. :eh:

If somebodies extremely religious parents for example, over-react to LDing and punish their child for it, it’s tragic, but I don’t place responsibility on the LDing community, any maltreatment or inappropriate punishment is the parents full fault and responsibility.

Whether its actively written, or not (under normal circumstances) should be appended to anything people read. The only time I can accept that not being the case is when you are dealing with young children. Since its required that users are 13+ or have parental consent and awareness of use of the forum, I don’t see the issue.

Drinking water is good for you. Do I need to quantify that with, so long as you don’t drink too much or it will cause death by cytolysis. How about I also add, and you aren’t currently in a room with lots of high voltage electrical equipment that you might spill it on. The list goes on and on.

8

Your argumentation is based on things that I never said. I did not ask anyone to put any warning somewhere.

I am talking about ACTIVELY saying “it is harmless”, which is quite a difference - and quite wrong in my opinion. And I’m talking about saying this to people with mental diseases being uncertain if this is good for them or if LDing works at all.

So pls discuss with me things that I said, and not (let me cite:) “pure phantasy”.

9

My argumentation is based on things that you are implying, these being;
Lucid dreaming, may be unsafe, even in normal circumstances
And/or We should consider every persons situation and quantify it within what we say.

I would not be uncomfortable saying to somebody, under normal circumstances, Lucid Dreaming, is harmless to the best of my knowledge. Which is the same as “Lucid Dreaming is harmless” it is just a shortened version, without additional quantification which should be assumed to be there automatically. This for me is where people taking responsibility for themselves comes in as I explained. It’s hard to be exact with language, “Do not insert metallic things into sockets” makes perfect sense and it’d be a fool who challenged it, except, following that advice blindly, now means we can’t plug anything into that socket, including plugs which are designed for that purpose.

Fundamentally, if you are talking about whether it could be harmful to become aware that you are dreaming, whilst you are dreaming. Something which as evidence in the bible suggests, we have been doing for thousands of years and in a number of cases occurs naturally. Not to say that proves it harmless, it just means that for me, without evidence that it may be harmful, it seems a bit like scaremongering to start implying that it might harm you, especially when its based on an ambiguous reference to some guy I saw saying he believed he suffered insomnia because he tried LDing, and somebody else, who couldn’t stop LDing. (Which not to imply about people, but in a number of cases such people have been trolling.) I also assume you mean LDing, otherwise “being unable to stop dreaming” is funny, since we all dream every night and short of taking certain chemicals, we can’t stop that.

Not to demean people, but if somebody has a mental problem, or anxiety disorder, etc etc, that is not normal circumstances, therefore “Lucid Dreaming is harmless” shortened version of “To the best of our knowledge Lucid Dreaming is harmless under normal circumstances” is perfectly valid still. I’m essentially challenging the degree to which we consider abnormal situations within everyday usage of language. If a specific situation came up where somebody says, “I have X disorder, could lucid dreaming harm me” my response would be speak to the relevant professional.

In answer to your assertion that if we consider this, nobody gets harmed, but if we don’t one person may get harmed. I disagree; communication at large is harmed. We become paralysed, too afraid to say “I believe this to be harmless” just in case somebody in a different situation tries it and it isn’t for them. It’s exactly the same mentality which is making it so I have to put out a “Warning wet floor” sign every time it rains, in case somebody falls over and sues me or the company I work for. People, take responsibility for yourselves and stop expecting others to do it for you. That’s a different topic though, I guess.

10

I personally think its harmless no mather what. Dreaming is natural and lucid dreaming does not differ from it much. I think that even a shizofrenic person can understand that a technique like WILD is not suitable for him.

11

@Greendragon: Ok, I understand what you want to say, and though I do not agree I think we made our positions clear to everyone who is interested in reading it.

At that point I’m still satisfied with having discussed it. That’s the sense of a forum at all, and I do not think that everyone has to share my point of view. Would be too boring, either. :cool:

(Edit: Inserted “@Greendragon”)

12

Yes, maybe you’re right with that. A schizophrenic not being in an acute episode (as I assume when he takes part on a forum) is usually very clear. The ones I know are really intelligent and charming persons.

Within an acute episode they are most probably not able to LD at all, as they have other things on their mind. I experienced this with a related guy, and he was totally in his own world, which was very scary (the world he described as much as the situation itself). He was always talking of the evil outer-galaxy aliens and such.

I’m quite uncertain about people being medicated, lacking any experience with that.

Sounds like I’m stating “hey, all fine, lets go and WILD”, but I still fear that some mate seeing aliens now has a new toy to lose reality for. (sorry for my bad english!)

Maybe this fear more based upon my personal experiences with schizophrenic persons, as with scientific facts. Hope you understand what I mean, it is really difficult for me to say things precisely, as english is not my native language.

13

For what it’s worth, here is a similar article on DreamViews. In this case, the OP claims that LD’s made their friend go crazy. Mind you, we don’t really know the validity or accuracy of their statement, but here you are anyway.

14

Thanks Rhewin for this interesting link. I’d also guess (not being any form of doctor) what was stated there, that LDing was either a trigger or a catalysator for a latent schizophrenia. That would mean that the person, if we assume that this is true, most probably would have become schizophrenic by another trigger if he’d not LDed. Who knows. But for me this is a clear sign not to advise LDing techniques to any mental diseased person (is that correct english?)

15

Ok, there’s a loop going on in my head, and maybe its just me, but. Firstly, the thread that that link goes to, does not say anything about techniques to getting LD. I think that’s kindof a key here. I for one have understood this from the beginning that there are parts of this forum that I do not even click on. I have never asked for methods in which to LD, and when I LD, it happens naturally. I have no clue how to do it myself, and one thing I realized is that I never do a RC. I didn’t even knew what that was. The thread states that it may be possible that LDing could have brought a mental illness to the surface. I am dying to say Not True. I do understand though that everyone is different, but even still. I have had my issues since early childhood. Not exactly common. But I have been LDing my entire life. So the loop here is, i’m kindof getting that you’re agreeing with that thread, but then you enforce ok. nevermind.

16

Loah, sorry, I’m having a language barrier right in front of me and keep running into it. For example I really do not understand that sentence, which is really just a language issue. I understand each word, but not the construction “you enforce ok. nevermind.”

By now I feel I have no chance discussing this topic with native speakers, as I am simply unable to precisely say what I want to say and understand what everyone is saying here. Half of the time I’m at leo.org looking up words, the other half I’m guessing. The third half (counted with six fingers :smile:) is a solid english school education 20 years ago, which obviously wasnt worth a cent. I rarely felt so misunderstood. :cry:

Sorry to everyone, did not think its getting that complicated when starting the thread and will not do this again so soon.

Give me just a last chance trying to say what I mean: I simply wanted to say that I think it is not okay to say to schizophrenic persons things that may be harmful. I thought this is a leight-weight statement everyone would say “ok, may be”. And I like that this was discussed a bit. But right now I have a little feeling there’s already a fresh cross nailed for me… :woo: :help:

So call me inconsequent idiot, but I think I should be out here right now, as this topic really is becoming kind of a loop for me, one which I do not fully understand.

17

Oh no, no no no, I’m so sorry! That was a fault of mine. where it cuts off, i concluded that my post was stupid, and meant to hit cancel… frustrating. I didn’t realize it posted, sorry.

18

Ok, I see. I often stop writing my post in the middle, too. Writing helps a lot to sort out things. Thanks for explaining.

19

I haven’t had the impression that you are misunderstanding, or felt as though I have misunderstood you. I haven’t really said, but I do agree with what you are saying. I don’t think it is wise to actively promote LDing to people with mental conditions, without telling them to consult a trained professional and/or to exercise caution.

The part I disagreed with, was that we should take such a situation into account when we have no reason to believe the person we are talking to has mental problems and never say we see LDing as harmless, since so long as the assumption is that, that is true under normal circumstances only, I don’t see a problem.

If everyone agreed all the time, it would make discussing anything totally pointless. Far from feeling hostile to you, your attitude throughout the topic has been fantastic; and is worthy of respect. Even though I’m still unsure if we agree or not, it doesn’t matter, I respect the way you are discussing. It’s foolish in my opinion to become angry with somebody because they disagree. Its refreshing to be able to hold a discussion and disagree without things turning personal or turning into pointless bickering.