moved from gathering since it’s a basis of a good discussion. Feel free to change the title more. for now I just added ‘don’t enjoy lucid dreams’ in brackets
I don’t have a LD goal. My main purpose here is hopefully let people realize that lucid dreaming cannot be ultimately controlled.
One day, you may have a dream that will take away your sanity.
I have never tried to provoke myself to have a LD, but have had them anyhow, and the only lucid dreams I’ve had were horrid and all I wanted to do was to wake up.
I have never experienced a lucid dream that I enjoy, nor will I ever try.
Well, here you are wrong. Your bad experience with LD’s is only your mistake. And it’s like life. If you let it to be controlled by others it will until you take control in your hands, if you can control dream then this experience can not be compared to anything in WL. Don’t take your experience for granted. Explore your inner and outer world, enjoy life, nothing is finite!
If I don’t think that dreams can be controlled in the first place, there’s no way to make me believe that having a bad dream experience would be my own mistake. Thank you for your welcome and your support anyhow.
How in the world can an imaginary world you can’t completely control be something that is anyone’s fault if there is an occasional bad subconscious experience? I believe dreams are very spiritual indeed. You can tell a lot about a person by what they dream if you know how to interpret dreams. My only point is that attempting to control what you have no control over is pointless.
Not all my dreams have been bad, in fact I’ve had some great superhero dreams, too, but I don’t believe “others” can have control my dreams either. If dreams are the only thing in life that I must explore, than I must not have much of a life.
Well I was pointing out the experience like having a monster chasing you. You can easily change that in a LD. I was talking only on the parts you can control. There are many aspect that you can’t control or you can control them but you don’t have a need to control/change them…
Let’s say for example you are running from the monster, and you realize that you are dreaming. You will make the monster disappear or you will confront him (or you will do whatever you want to) but will you have a need to change scenery at this time, if you have a green grass beneath your feet will you change a color just because you can?
In my opinion the thing with LD’s is to be able to change the aspect of the dream you want or sometimes you don’t change anything you just observe what your subconscious mind created… There’s to much things to control but I believe it’s possible if you are experienced enough, maybe I’m wrong…
You are welcome!
That was only figuratively, I was only pointing out that you need to take a control of your actions.
Well experience thought me that you can control a lot. When it comes to dreams like I said before you can control what you want the parts you are focused on, everything else if controlled by your subconscious…
Well far from that, that the dreams are only thing to explore. But they are worth of exploring…
There are many weird rumours about lucid dreams, and some people even seem to want lucid dreams to be “weird” and “bad for you”.
The fact is that lucid dreams are totally normal dreams, but where you happen to be aware of the dreaming state.
So if something unpleasant happens in a lucid dream then it would’ve happened all the same even if you weren’t lucid.
If anything lucidity gives you a much greater chance to turn a nightmare into something much more pleasant, so in my mind there is absolutely nothing negative about becoming lucid in a dream - hell, most of the time you can even choose to lose consciousness if you get tired of the lucid state by not paying attention to anything, letting yourself become absorbed in an activity etc.
It is even possible to wake yourself up on command during a lucid dream.
Also keep in mind that lucid dreams give you much greater possibilities to have truly mind-blowing experiences, and even do rehearsals and practice different skills.
As I always do, I make these comments in an attempt to either clarify or to be proven wrong; none of this is an attack at you as a person.
Perhaps, but you haven’t made any argument to that effect. You used this as the starting assumption for everything else you said. In fact, there’s already empirical evidence that says we indeed have some level of control (although you may mean “total control”, in which case we acknowledge this). Thus, you argument lacks soundness; that is, it has an inherent error in an assumption.
This statement is true. It’s also true to say “You may never have a dream that will take away your sanity.”
Who ever said “only”? You’ve said that you’ve had lucid dreams without actually trying, so why can’t this be something additional to explore instead of a replacement for other things in life?
I know you said that your experiences were horrid, but I think you might try speaking about some of them here so that we can inquire more. You can’t make your point just by repeating it; we need to hear some of your experiences both to find where you’re incorrect and to see if you indeed have a point.
How exactly would a dream be capable of “taking away your sanity”?
I have had horrible nightmares in the past but I always recovered completely from them after less than an hour or so.
And now I’m talking about social nightmares, where I have been in fights with people I am very close to in real life, and I would consider those kinds of nightmares much worse than the stereotypical “chased by demons” kind of nightmares, because they hit you much deeper, and I still recovered from them really quickly.
So, well, at least I can say with some certainty that no dream of any kind will ever “take away my sanity”, which by the way sounds like a huge exaggeration, to be quite honest.
And if you did experience something truly horrifying in a dream then you would most likely instantly wake up anyway, maybe feeling a little bad for a while.
But I don’t really blame you; it’s easy to be skeptical of lucid dreams in many ways if you don’t have that much experience of them, since they do after all seem very surrealistic and, I guess, trippy for those who are new to them.
But rest assured that lucid dreams overall are very healthy, and an excellent hobby in every possible way one could imagine.
Think about it - they happen during sleep, so you don’t even have to sacrifice any real-life time, they are healthy and refreshing (since they are dreams), they allow you to play around and experiment, and they can even help you change your whole personality since they give you excellent opportunities to practice lots of social skills etc.
And no, it doesn’t matter that “they are just dreams”, if you do things in a dream that remind you of similar events in real life then they will wear off on your real life.
Firstly, it’s a common mistake that people think that LDers replace life with their dreams. This is completely false. LDers know that dreams are not reality. People like LDing because it lets you explore and do things you can’t do in life. Whether these things include more impossible things like flying, or things as simple as you wanting to be able to play the flute, LDing is nothing more than a form of enjoyment. Are you also against people who direct movies, write books, or create video games? They aren’t really that different.
Maybe I’m going about this in the completely wrong way and misinterpreting your post. If that’s the case, I’m sorry.
I’m not really sure i understand this goal of yours. What exactly is your definition of “ultimate control”? Are you talking about taking total control, negating everything your subconscious is trying to produce, and draw your dreams from scratch? Why does it bother you that someone might think that?
Are you talking about an LD might, or any normal dream in general?
I think non ld’s probably have more of a chance of accomplishing this than LDs. Part of learning about LDs, and how to induce them, is methods to train you to tell the difference between reality and a dream. I don’t see any negative to this. Along with that, is a form of reinforcement to how it can effect you, aslong as you’re conscious that what you’re doing isn’t real, which is a default thing for LD’s.
I’m not sure what to say about this. What exactly do you mean horrid? Frightening, as nightmares? Or something else? False awakenings are similar to lucid dreams, and from my experience, they can seem more real than LDs. When I have false awakenings, I don’t feel in control as in an LD, and sometimes they are a little nightmarish. Are you sure it wasn’t one of those?
All LDing really is, is knowing that you’re dreaming, and taking advantage of that. It’s not entirely about controlling everything. Quite honestly, it would in fact be rather boring if you did everything on your own.
Again, im not sure i understand your purpose. If your purpose really is ultimately just the simple statement of saying that LD’s can’t be completely controlled, then all that i can really think to say is ‘does it really matter?’
…what?
Again, Lding doesn’t replace your life, nor is that a common goal.
Life and dreams are very different in content and mechanics. Lding is just a supplement.
–ADD
(I keep editing this post as i think about this)
Look at dreams as an instrument. The instrument has it’s own mechanics and how it functions. WHen Lding, you aren’t trying to change the instrument, you are just learning how to better control and play it. (I like that… new siggy)
What is your definition of complete control? Controlling everything in your dreamspace, moving things around, only letting events happen or things when you want them to? Or being able to become lucid whenever you want?
I believe that you can have complete control over a dream. If you become good enough and master dream control, and become as lucid as lucid can be, you’ll be able to control everything. It’ll be easy to control the things that you want, but it’ll be hard to block out everything your subconscious throws in, like random events.
Mind you, when I say control I don’t mean something impossible to us like creating a new color or using dreams to understand the laws of physics.
You can master your “subconscious” though. Because your “subconscious” is actually just a part of you. I’m not saying that it’s easy, and it’s definitely not your fault if you can’t control it.
Dreams can have a bad effect on your sanity, if they are bad enough.
If that’s true then it’s dreams in general that are to blame, and not specifically lucid dreams, like the TC seems to believe.
The only way to get around this problem would be to stop dreaming altogether.
Yeah! That is what can make dreams fun some times, having little control means you don’t know what’s waiting around the corner! I’m sure there are techniques for controlling nightmares as well, I was plagued with both nightmares and sleep paralysis as a kid, I know what it is like.
That is what can make dreams fun some times, having little control means you don’t know what’s waiting around the corner! I’m sure there are techniques for controlling nightmares as well, I was plagued with both nightmares and sleep paralysis as a kid, I know what it is like. 