I though about the title of this topic. What it is referring to is not the obsession itself, or wether it is bad. But that obsessive lucid dreaming can be bad. Aparently the result of it can be bad. As with any obsession there can be bad consequences. Why is lucid dreaming any worse? The way I see it, it is a quite good alternative. Sort of like being obsessed with meditation, or exercising. One can perhaps take it to an unhealthy extreme, but before that it can be quite healthy.
I think you got your finger on the crucial point there. People can change themselves through LDs (and through books, exercising, meditation, computer games… most things which are done for hours a day, for months.)
But the changes through LDs are more at the core, and more intense. To give an example: there has been research that becoming lucid in a nightmare and facing the monster/thread can relieve anxiety in waking life after just one LD. I don’t think there’s a book or therapy that would have this effect that quickly. I’ve read a report from a woman who changed her eating habits practically overnight, without relapses, and usually it takes people months to do that, with relapses ocurring all the time.
But if LDs can be used to have strong effects to the positive (quicker than books or therapy or changing life style!) then it follows that we can teach ourselves really bad stuff, too. What about killing people on a regular basis in LDs? Or living out other hateful or cruel fantasies?
The usual response is that it’s just a dream and can’t be harmful. But it just doesn’t make sense to say that we can make positive changes in LDs, but negative ones are impossible.
Like with videogames, people have the capability to separate it from the real world. We may well build up homocidal thougts and negative patterns of thought in lucid dreams or any other activity for that matter. But it will not necessarily become behavioral patterns.
I agree though that lucid dreams have more powe than a video game, the experience is much stronger and we do learn from experience. Both good things and bad. Hopefully most people have the ability to reflect on these experiences and realise that they can’t act certain ways IRL.
If negative thought patterns arise it can be a problem because then they are either not undesirable to the person, and they don’t decide to change it, or they are unaware of it. It’s a problem not of lucid dreams but of life.
The thing about personality changes is this. If your personality changes, you will not percieve it as negative. Perhaps inappropriate, but you’ll probably be happy with it.
For instance, instead of losing the excessive appetite, you gain one. However that would happen, you’ll think you just enjoy food more now. You’ll wonder why you didn’t before.
Though overeating is often due to an issue wich has nothing to do with food, and could have manifested in other ways. I do not know that dreams have the capability to CREATE issues. If they did, lucid dreaming would be EVEN MORE important to do, so we could have a measure of control over the dreams.
The thing about video games is there are people who end up being so obsessed with the virtual world that they confuse the virtual and physical reality. The same thing can happen with LDers, but also to book-readers, tv-viewers, internet-surfers, and all kinds of day-dreamers.
However, this condition forming is VERY rare as stated in the Wikipedia entry for Lucid Dreaming.
edit: no more quackery medical advice from me~♥
You know, I feel like going on and on about this. But, I think the reason wikipedia says this is very rare is beacuse it doesn’t heppen. You don’t go crazy because of obsessive lucid dreaming, or anything for that matter.
As a matter of fact also, most people who are schizofrenic become so In their early adult life. Around thier late teens and early twenties. Or so I have read. You don’t develope schizofrenia without good reason, mostly being genetic predisposition. It has nothing to do with imagination, day dreaming or avoiding problems. Though these things may come into play when the psychosis starts in that they can be affected by it.
Obsessive anything can be very bad. The object of the addiction is not to blame, rather the addiction itself.
You’re right krakatoa, all official sources will say schizophrenia does not develop until the young adult years in most people. However, we do not fully understand schizophrenia or many other mental disorders. Just as depression could be overdiagnosed today, schizophrenia may be underdiagosed. I do not claim to be a clinical psychologist or older or wiser than you–I’m just reiterating a debate from my psychology class.
True schizophrenia… the kind they put you in mental hospitals for… is very much different. Most likely genetic or related to problems in pregnancy–that’s the current popular theory. It’s hard to track down and people don’t usually notice it until it’s in its most advanced stages of development. So I’m taking down the 4 points I put up before before…
I was trying to convey the idea that it’d be REALLY hard to develop"schizophrenia" from LDing…and that the depression, delusions, hallucinations, change in personality, moodiness, and confusion that you may/may not experience aren’t that big of a deal. People can get these same symptoms from a lack of sleep. 
lol
you people are forgetting the most important thing: You CANT obsessively lucid dream. Honestly think about it for a minute,its something you do while you’re asleep, so it doesn’t affect your life in any way.
I agree with Monstrosity.
I mean - how could you sleep all day having LDs? I think this is just impossible, the chance and danger that you get addicted to a video game and spend your whole life playing it is higher than that…
This is a very philosiphical (sp?) topic… and interesting. I am afraid that I can’t add anything useful, but I agree with… the people who made the, uh, long posts. They made sense and I agree with them. I think.
Well put.
I’m obsessed but I don’t say to myself “I should nap now and see if I LD!!” everyday.
I only think of LDs when I have time for it…
I usually use my free-time to be with companions or work on my art portfolio.
LD’ing isn’ t bad for your health, so who cares is if your obsessed anyway. GO WATCH OLD SCHOOL.
are you watching old school… no? BAD!
im tired of this ‘reality’ over dreamworld bollocks. its the same pit of irrational crazy as not entering the experience. why, why the hell should real life be so artificially raised above dreaming. what exactly is so special about? a hermit who spent a lifetime alone in an eastern european forest, if he could lucid dream, would probably leave one of the richest lives in the history of humanity. there is nothing intrinsically more valuble in reality than dreams, and anyone who claims otherwise is just as deluded as paranoid freaks they try to warn us about.
as long as we stay alive and fulfill our duties to otherwise, we can dream and obsess over dreaming as much as we like, and, probably, be much the better of for it.
Yeah, perhaps to each his own can sum it up. Or whatever makes you happy.
I suppose if you are so obsessive that you have more than 8hrs sleep a night, then it is possible it is bad for you.
Adults who sleep 8+hrs a night generally have shorter life spans than those sleeping 4-7hrs. Too much sleep is a long term health risk, this is known.
So in a manner of speaking yes it could be bad. But then, being that obsessed with LDing is highly unlikely.
Any obsession that starts to really interfere with real life I think is bad. If you sold your house for LDing equipment and a nice mattress that’s going too far.
At college the other day a couple in front of me was talking about LDing where you basically become a god.
The girl was afraid of LDing because of what would happen when he (the LDer) became obsessed with LDing and forgot to discriminate between reality and the dream world. She then said the person would ignore those around him/her and still think he/her was a god and do crazy things.
I personally don’t really see how an obsession of LDs can cause someone to forget reality, it would cause him/her to be more aware of the differences. Maybe it wouldn’t if the LDer was on a drug, had a brain injury, or suffered from a form of schizophrenia where they have illusions of grandeur.
I doubt LDing can cause psychological disorders but maybe when the people talk of their LDing hobby they reveal traits of the disorders that would usually be harder to see. This could make others think that the LDing triggered the disorder.
If there isn’t a crime on the books already there will be a day when LDing becomes more popular, and someone with a mental disorder and an obsession for LDs commits a crime and blames it on the LDs.
I was actually thinking the same thing… but i dont have any worries about me… on wikibooks - lucid dreaming addiction is typed down as a danger
People who think it’s possible to confuse lucid dreams with reality should have one themselves. That’s when they’ll find out it’s impossible to confuse the two.
Isn’t the danger here overanalysing, thus creating paranoia?
If you sell your stuff, even your house, to buy LD stuff, I think that’s ok. Because you made your choice, LDing is worth it to you. Going too far for some, but that’s their choice. How many people, no matter how obsessed, do you think will do that?
Do we camplain when monks give up posessions and all that to live for God? Should there be the topic “obsessive praying can be very bad”? I don’t think it’s a bad thing even though I am an atheist, and could have seen monkhood as tragic selfsacrifice for nothing, but that’s not true, because for the monks it’s fulfilling.