First of all, a disclaimer, i am not here to scare anyone or demotivate anyone here. Lucid Dreaming is such a wonderful thing. I am asking a question to experienced lucid dreamers in this forum and also any medical practitioners that whether frequent Lucid dreams cause Schizophrenia? It is a mental disorder in which one is unable to distinguish unreal things from real things, for ex: they may see something that does not exist or may hear voices that do not exist. Their mind creates illusion that unreal things are happening.
So for instance, some people claim to have spent many days in lucid dreams and also using various powers. One thing that distinguishes a lucid dream from RL is the ability to use powers. So what if i wake in RL after intense lucid dream and upon performing reality checks see it doesnt work in RL? Like, i pinch my nose but it is not paining.
In other words, what if my mind refuses to believe that i came out of my dream and i am in real life? Did it happen to anyone or is there any possibility of happening such things?
I believe there is a danger for mentally unstable people that they may begin to believe this life is not in fact reality, but I couldn’t see a practiced, mentally stable lucid dreamer believing that this reality is not in fact the true reality.
For example, there are reality checks that have been proven to work inside of dreams, but not work outside of dreams, for instance the “nose-plug” RC. I’m sure you’re aware of it, and, for the most part, it is fool-proof. If a person was to enter this reality and use this RC, usually it would tell them they aren’t dreaming. However, if what your saying was to happen, they would have to first believe that the RC failed. How could someone fail an RC that is fool-proof in this reality?
They would have to trick themselves into telling themselves that they could, in fact, breathe where they couldn’t. It would take either a very far-gone, or very mentally unstable person to believe something like this.
I’m not denying the fact that a person can go insane from lucid dreaming, or believe that this reality is not in fact the true reality, there are possibilities for all things to occur, I’m just saying that it would take quite a bit of work for something like this to happen.
There is no reliable evidence linking the two that I have seen, and no reason that I can see to believe that it might cause such things anymore than playing a character in a computer game for hours at a time, or reading a book and being ‘absorbed’ by that world like any good book does. Also something else to consider is that we dream every night anyway, being aware that we are dreaming, seems to make it less likely that you would be unable to distinguish between the two upon waking.
It’s nice to try and treat people at face value, but I’d advise a certain amount of cynicism with regards to incredible claims. We all get incredibly excited about having an LD, it’s easy to imagine somebody could get caught up in that excitement and exaggerate. If you watch people around you, especially those who are relaying a story to others that you actually witnessed, you will see what I mean.
We can’t even be sure that such dreams are possible, worrying that they might have bad effects seems a little premature to me.
Why would your mind refuse to believe that it’s out of a dream when it is the one/thing that fabricates the world around you when you dream? It seems more like an irrational fear to me than a realistic possibility. Unless there is a pre-existing medical condition which would probably have already surfaced, I find it hard to believe there is any possibility that the mind would allow itself to be messed up like this, by a natural process.
I’m actually not sure if LD can cause schizophrenia. Perhaps those who’ve been diagnosed with schizophrenia are better off abstaining from LDing. But according to Stephen LaBerge it’s completely fine, right?