Hello, I have just had a thought that I feel compelled to share with all of you. There is something about LDing that concerns me very much. I believe that people who become very involved in LDing can sometimes use it as a substitute for reality. As an example, if there was someone who really wanted to talk to a DC, they might go into an LD every night and talk to that person. Then once they really got to know that person, they might become obsessed with talking and doing crazy thing with them. This might be a weak example, so I will use another one that you all might think is dumb, but it has SO much truth to it. In the Wizard of Oz, Dorathy (might not be spelled correctly) is taken to a land where she thinks everything is perfect. When she starts to explore this strange new world, she finds that even though it is a wonderful place, nothing can ever replace her home. See what I mean by this? If people became too obsessed with this, it can have very bad consequences.
That dosen’t make sense. At all. Impossible.
I get where you are coming from, but as you said, “Nothing could ever replace her home.” No matter how amazing LDs are, they are more of a supplement to reality and not a substitute for it.
Yeah, I get what you mean, but as far as I know no one does this… although getting to know a DC would be cool. But, erm, yeah.
Ok, I see that several people disagree with me, so I will try to work this out. First, I want to underline that I am only talking about people who use LDing as an escape from reality rather than people who constantly LD as a supplement for reality. People who use it as an escape are taking in a world that DOES NOT exist (I’m really sorry, but we all have to admit that it doesn’t exist) and are therefore replacing their own lives with their fantasy world. Worse still, people who LD obsessively feel a strange longing thoughout their normal lives to go back into an LD (believe me, I’ve experienced this firsthand). Now, I want you all to know that I think LDing is a wonderful thing that can help all of us to learn and have wonderful adventures. However, we have to accept the fact that there are flaws in it. If LDing is misused, it can severely damage someone’s real life. We need to come to terms with the fact that REALITY is much, much more important than the our lives in LD’s! I’m very sorry if I’ve offended anyone with my views, but like I said before, I have experienced these flaws in LDing many times, and frankly, I’m getting tired of it. I am by no means saying I never want to LD again, because I wish I could have an LD every single night. I simply want to bring this to your attention.
REALITY is what should be most important in our lives!!! We can’t live in some fantasy world forever, because sooner or later, we have to wake up and get out of bed. I don’t care what you say about being able to stop time in a dream because that is pure nonsense! Now believe me, I not trying to attack or to criticize your beliefs about LDing, but we have to wake up and realize that LDing isn’t everything. I’ll stop now
I really don’t see the point of this. As far as I know, nobody has ever become so obsessed with lucid dreaming that they spend all their time in bed and completely neglect their waking lives. It just doesn’t happen. You can only sleep for around a third of your time, so we’re forced to spend twice as long in the real world as we are in a dream. Also, dreams are much too random to provide an escape for most people. As realistic as dream characters are, they could never replace friends or deeper relationships in waking life, and I’m sure you’d struggle to find someone who didn’t agree. There’s really no concern here, and I get the impression that you haven’t had quite enough experience with lucidity to see that.
Yes, I admit it. I don’t know everything about LDing, nor will I ever. I’ve only been seriously working on it for a little over a year and I have a long way to go. However this is what I know: Reality is more important than a dream. Period. I’m sorry if I got carried away and said things that might have been mistaken, but I’m simply trying to support the arguement that reality is more important by using examples.
My main point is this: If we put LDing BEFORE our real lives, we are in danger of being “sucked in” and forgetting what life is about in the first place.
Reality is more important. Anyone who believes otherwise should see a therapist.
Ah, but the great thing about this is that ‘reality’ is a very tricky and subjective topic to begin with. The more you think about it, the harder it is to define it. I guess the only difference is that waking life has a physical and noncontrollable side of it, whereas dreaming is purely the construct of the mind. But even our experience of RL is just the subjective interpretation that is based on many personal and cognitive processes, thought perhaps not as absolute as LD.
I think the topic is more of a “LD versus RL” rather than a “Dream versus Reality” thing.
Besides, since you can’t sleep 24/7 there is a great motivator to do something with your waking life.
Very true Maruta. It is hard to define reality, but we do know that reality is much more stable than a dream, and that’s one of the reasons why it should come first.
“They say that dreams are only real as long as they last. Couldn’t you say the same thing about life?” ~Interestingly relevant Waking Life quote.
You reaaly start to get into trouble with your argument if you really start to think about WHY real life is more important than dream. So far the only arguments you have for that to even be true is that Real life is the bigger part to the day adn that it’s stable. That to me doesn’t seem like it’s enough to really call it important. Because when you get right down to it, the only importance ANYTHING has is the importance you subjectively GIVE it.
You can’t lose your grip on what life is really about from lucid dreamin because you don’t KNOW what life is about anyway. The purpose. the maning. it’s probably the biggest and hardest question in human history. Probably beacue it has no answer.
So what reason do we have to live then? Simply that we WANT TO live. We all have our reasons, there is no universal answer. Some may live only to dream. Is that so bad? If they are doing what they want to do. If they live a rich inner life, is that bad? Sure it may have negative consequences on their waking life. And they will have to live with that. Any smart person will understand that you can’t ONLY sleep. Even stupid people understand that. So whoever lives to dream will still have to make the best of their waking life. And if they don’t care about career or social life then good on them. Less to obsess about. We may think its sad that they don’t live the way WE want them to. The way we think is best for them. But we might not understand that they may even be happier than us, adn shouldn’t we just let them be happy? If they are not happy living like that then it’s a problem, and they may be the only ones that know the problem exists so they are going to be the ones that will be motivated to change it.
So far there has been little evidence that LD have the same negative consequences that drug abuse might have with lack of motivation and physical dependence and such. So you can with the insight that you want to change take the steps without too much resistance. Think about it! The only thing that causes negative effects in waking life is what you do around the dreams. Such as. Having a certain sleep schedule. Sleeping longer. Taking time to do techniques, and ofcourse thinking obsessively about dreams in the day time so much that it interferes with your daily affairs. The dreams themselves are not a problem. And if you have been lucid dreaming for a long time you will be more skilled and will need to go less out of your way to have lucid dreams. It can become so easy that you will have lucid dreams regularly without even trying.
So, there is really not that much to worry about. Everybody NEEDS to escape reality from time to time, it’s healthy. Especially if you have alot to worry about in real life. You just have to be mature enough to pick the right times. If there is nothing you can do or have to do then dream on!
Not likely to happen to me, since WL matters are my highest priority and I pursue LD strictly as a way of enhancing my normal life. Nothing in life is a free lunch, and even LD has its dangers. It’s all a matter of discipline, like pretty much anything else that counts.
Maybe some people are just more susceptible to obsessions/addictions of this kind, but really anything that feels “good” can be addictive. Now, sure, the perception of pleasure can be altered (masochism?), but I think we all start with the same perceptions of pleasure and pain.
krakatoa: You seem to forget that people have responsibilities, to their family, their community, their country, etc. No-one lives in a vacuum, and that is in no way subjective, it’s a fact. This is why not everyone is a philosopher pondering the meaning of life; because everyone has immediate responsibilities outside the dreamworld. Those who choose to shun their responsibilities are a burden on everyone else, no matter how happy they are.
They are only a burden under the system that requires everyone to participate. But that’s a political question.
Or when it comes to family, a moral question. Not about it being bad for the individual.
Still this is the rest of the world imposing their subjective opinions of what is important. And ofcourse the individual will have to take that into consideration when they decide if they think that being accepted is important, or that it’s important not to be a burden and so forth. But there are always those who don’t have so much responsibility to anyone else. A hermit for example. He’ll need to get his stuff in order. Gather food and water and whatnot. He will instinctively think that is more important when he’s hungry or whatever.
It’s impossible to dream all day long. Everyone is stuck with being awake for the better part of the day. Noone. And I mean NOONE is going to sit around doing nothing but waiting to get back to sleep. In fact, the person who lives a very rich dreamlife is probably going to be more content doing the mundane everyday things because they know they can do something more interesting at night. And you may have noticed yourself that when you are in a fase thinking alot about dreaming and such, you start to notice that real life IS interesting, it is dreamlike. Almost the MORE INTO it you are, the more magical waking life seems. You start to see life more as a series of dreams, every moment an opportunity. When you think about the possibilities of dreams and compare it to real life you know that dreams have more potential, but there is so much in life that can be experienced that you could never fit it into one lifetime. It’s full of opportunities, so many choices that you can get almost giddy when you think about how you would have acted in a dream and what you could actually do at that moment.
You always know if you have responsibilities. To avoid them is not smart. That is true. But blaming it on lucid dreaming is not fair. Avoiding responsibility is a choice done outside of dreaming. It has to do with personality. Lucid dreaming may actually be the cure since it teaches you to make the best of every situation, why else lucid dream?
Seriously, imagine the lucid dreaming addict! What could he possibly do that is so different from a non addict? Does he sleep through the entire day so he loses his job? Possible…If he is also addicted to staying up late. Because you can go to bed earlier too. if you want to sleep a long time. Does this person have some sort of super ritual that takes all day to do? that ensures lucid dreams that night? In that case I’d like to try it out. He’ll probably do the same techs as all of us. Can you do it “more”? possibly but that will be in a transitional state before he learns to do it properly so it doesn’t need to be done “more”. He won’t go home right after work and his buddies say “hey wanan hang out?” And he goes “No can’t right now, I’m gonna lucid dream now.” Ofcourse not, maybe in the evening but someone who goes to be early is usually deemed RESPONSIBLE, even if it is for another reason than making sure to get up for work. There will be time for socialising. And family, they live in the same house usually. You can handle your responsibility to them before bed since they’re gonna be sleeping later on anyway. Unless they are old enough to take care of themselves. ÁND you can practise and prepare for lucid draming as you go along doing all of that stuff. Being obsessed withlucid dreaming doesn’t mean you’ll not care about anything else. To live for dreams doesn’t mean you change your attitude about life in general. Some life for skydiving or riding a motorcycle, some life for their art, some for their family. These people do other things as well. lucid dreaming is not a drug. It doesn’t control you. There is no withdrawal. It won’t make you sit at home all the time and try to dream. Even heavy drug addicts do other things.
And in the end, nothing matters. The sun will explode an all that man has built up will be destroyed. and if we are off in a speceship somewhere by then, considering the long distances of travel we may as well pass the time by lucid dreaming, perhaps in suspended animation. None of us will be there then and if it will happen it won’t be because of any of us. Our lives are about just getting on. living any way we see fit becaues there are no rules in the real world except the physical ones. If you think about it, you can do anything, but it’ll have consequences. I’m sure I seem like a crazy rambling psycho by now so I’ll just, shut up now.
Quite frankly, I’d say that was a good post.
Though you might want to leave some ait inbetween the lines, for that was one eyebleeder!
Anyhow, I doubt that anyone would get that fixated about lucid dreams. There are basic needs for all humans, after all. The reproductive needs could be used as a good example here. Most people do want to pass on their genes, which is impossible in LDs.
If they do get that obsessed it won’t last for all eternity.
What I am trying to say is that there is always some things that lucid dreaming wont be able to replace. I doubt any human being with a normal functioning brain will become that bad of a control freak that he/she wants to abandon his/hers real life forever.
Then agian escaping from reality is very appealing.
Uh hi. 
New guy…
I mostly agree as well. The fact all you need to do to fulfill your addiction is get some sleep means it can never take over your life.
I really wish they’d teach people about LD in school. It still surprises me how few people know about it, considering the possibilities. Then again, I’m even more surprised about how a lot of people don’t even care about it.
Still, that was one big Wall 'o Text. Made me wonder if it’d turn into one of those 3D figures if I’d stare at it cross-eyed. 
just kidding
Maybe if the LDer learns how to manipulate time, they can put in a whole lot of LDing in little time and so dream their heart out at their leisure until they’re sick of it, without spending too much time on it.
And anyway, have there ever been recorded instances of such an addiction?
Haha. I sacrificed peoples eyes for space efficiency. Sorry I am lazy when it comes to as we say in Sweden “stycke-indelning”. I tend to go on and on and dont know when I am done with one part.
Ok, guys, I think I have evidence that this MIGHT be possible. In Stephan LaBerge’s book, he says “It may be possible for the die-hard escapist whose life is otherwise dull to become obsessed with lucid dreaming.” The key word here is MAY. I’m not telling anyone to stop LDing, because that would be stupid. I just think that we need to be aware of the fact that some people who might be mentally or emotionally insecure could be sucked into this, which is unfair to them. Please don’t think that I’m trying to critcize you, because I’m not. We just need to be aware.
Also, I think I’m going to add something else. Many of you seem to be under the impression that when I say that people could become obsessed, that it means that they stay in bed all day. What I mean by obsessed is that people who are emotionally insecure might begin to think about nothing except LDing. They may begin to have delusions about what is real and what isn’t. Now, understand something: I’m not saying that you all are mentally unstable. I’m just saying that we should be aware of the fact that there are people who are and that LDing could be harmful, or even dangerous to them. We need to be able to help people like this if we ever come into contact with one. That is the main reason as to why I am bringing this to your attention. I think it is unfair for people who are using LDing in a harmful way and not realizing the dangers of it. They deserve our attention and care, and I think that this topic was well worth posting.
Another swede! 
Well plan your post!
Oh sorry.
Well then I am obsessed…