Here’s a question to ponder: if were given the choice to have only lucid dreams for the rest of your life, would you? Even if you could never have a normal dream again, would you choose that? I’m guessing most people here would say no. Of course, lucid dreams are better than normal dreams in a lot of ways: we are aware that we are in a world of limitless possibility, we can do anything we want just by willing it, the list goes on. But in our great interest in the relatively uncommon occurrence, we sometimes fail to appreciate what most of us take for granted: normal dreams.
While the greatest beauty of lucid dreams is the fact that we are aware that they are happening inside of our minds, that can also be their greatest weakness. In lucid dreams, no matter how wonderful the experience is, there is always the unshakable knowledge that you will awaken soon, and this experience will only live on as a memory. In normal dreams, however, whatever is happening is real to us until we awaken. While it is true that both will inevitably end in awakening, in normal dreams, we do not become aware of this fact until the actual awakening takes place. Whether or not its a happy dream, you are in a world where incredible things do happen, whether or not you will them to. Even things that are unpleasant at the time of occurrence can be enjoyable as memories, and the belief at the time that the occurrences were real can make the memories all the richer. But the truly wonderful normal dreams are the happy ones. Its hard to describe some of the feelings of joy I’ve had in dreams, but I can still remember them to this day.
Now, I’m not saying NDs are always better. In fact, as a whole I would consider lucid dreams a superior experience, but I still couldn’t imagine life without normal dreams.
It would be just plain stupid to only have LD’s. The dream’s nature tells us that a man must dream in order to reconsider and recostruct the informations over day. That would mean that our mind needs to refocus on particular details from an event by reconstructing it. And this is not possible in LD’s because we do not follow the “program” that our brain has for us so, in this case, dreaming would be just for fun, and we would step away from the roots of it’s identity.
Lucid Dreams are like writing a book, you know what will happen.
Normal Dreams are like reading a book, you don’t know what will happen .
So, for me, normal dreams prove a lot of excitement (but I appreciate occasional lucid dreams as well, simply because it allows you to do things you cannot do when you’re awake).
Well, if you’ve ever heard of Luminous, she was interviewed in one issue of the Lucid Dreamers Exchange, that’s all she does is Lucid Dreaming, all night every night. The only problems I’ve heard from her whenever we talk is that she gets tired more throughout the day because she doesn’t get enough slow wave sleep. I don’t think it’s that bad of a proposition, at least from what I’ve heard.
I almost have LD’s every night and I don’t find it actually an issue but you have to know how to make a balance between them. For example, when I become lucid, I can still let the dream control my actions (the feeling is something like following the fate?) but if I have any kind of uncertainty I can always stop the typical events and, for example, ask a DC for deeper and more in-sight details. It may look like I got lucid when I actually asked for further details but, in reality, I was conscious from the begining, and just waiting to see what my mind has to show. It is much better this way. A really good example is that sometimes I see events from the future and IRL it only takes a trigger to show me what is going to happened next because I dreamed so. This could not have been technically possible if I would become lucid every night and start fooling around.
Well put. I agree. ND’s do have a certain unpredictability that make them fun. I also like them, because it gives me a place to go that, to me, seems…complete. Unless it’s a nightmare, normal dreams are almost always euphoric to me.
I hope one day to be able to have LDs at will, but I would definately want to be able to have NDs as well. It’s almost more exciting sometimes waking up from a ND and piecing it together than from a LD and already knowing what happend. More amazing things happen in NDs than I could ever think of being concious.
Another thing is that it sort of makes it more fun only having a chance to have a LD. Like, if I could just go to bed and say “I’m going to have a lucid dream tonight,” then have one automatically it would somewhat take the fun out of putting a little bit of work into it and practicing the methods. Every time I have one I always have that little surprise at the beginning saying, “Oh, wow, it actually worked!”
I can agree with that.
Now even though I appreciate my NDs … I wouldn’t mind losing them for lucids
LDs also have a good degree of unpredictability in them. Also you can set a situation up and then just see how it goes … you don’t have to have full control over everything.
I would guess that the people that say normal dreams are fun and interesting and unpredictable don’t recall the same dream themes everynight.
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(if you know what I mean 