Morals in dreams

[Baloogan]

I get italian mafia dream avenegers if I do anything over the top like killing tonnes of DCs

[Seeker]

Ah, the morals question!

Do you refrain from doing things because it is immoral, or because you are afraid of the consequences?

LD offers the ultimate test of how true you are to your set of morals. It is a consequence free environment. Nobody but your concience needs to know about your transgressions.

[Placebo]

Personally I find that I have guilt about certain wrongdoings, but not others. Eg. killing someone bothers me... until I remind myself, that its just a figment of my imagination anyway (hopefully !)

[Amethyst Star]

My morals usually affect me in whatever state I'm in: IRL, ND, and I know they will in LDs. Anyway, I've done things in dreams I wouldn't do IRL and when I do them I wake up and I always feel really bad. I wouldn't do that to myself in an LD because I'd feel worse knowing that I did something I could have kept myself from doing.

For me it's like doing something IRL in the privacy of your own room. Even though no one else knows about it, do you feel guilty afterward? For me it's the same in dreams. When I manage to LD I don't plan to go up to someone and kick the crap out of them for no reason. However, I've considered making up a scenario where I play the heroine and possibly kick the crap out of the bad guy. It's all about reason. Personally, I'm more about flying, exploring under water, and possibly practicing what I've learned in Judo so I don't strain another tendon like I did Wednesday.

[Cyrus]

For me ethics mean doing things i believe are right and avoiding things that are false IMO in rational basis. Oh, well, i'm 29 years old too, so it might give some hint too that i want to use my LD's for something else than blowing things up and being nasty

I have flirted in my LD's and counted it as normal as far as i and my DC enjoyed that

I have fought with my DC's twice. Once in poor LD that i mainly created conciously. It was in poor level with me fighting with some pc game monster and giving me almost no excitement at all (except my ability to give electrical wave hits with my fingers). The other was where i was fighting with two evil men who tortured some teenagers.

But mostly i will confront those who attack me, or appear evil. For me it gives more satisfaction to see them friendly, or ready to explain why they acted such evil/violent way. As EWLD sets it: it's much more beneficial to face then and talk with them (what represent mostly your own fears) than to destroy them).

But yeah, if i would be teenager, i would blow on my "nice conduct" in LD and would be more destructive in LDs.

[stargazer]

I'm not an expert LDer, but I usually don't deliberately through away my ethics/morals in my LDs to try/do things I would never try/do in my waking life. I'm usually focused on flying, building up my five senses, etc...

[sensi]

So far i always have stuck with my morals when having a LD. I think if i didnt i would feel stink because my concience would know. Anyway im not interested in killing etc so its hasn't come up in a lucid dream.

Peace Sensi.

[Samweis]

I share the opinion that doing whatever you want, independent from bad or good, wouldn't hurt anyone, but I see the possibility that it might affect you in a bad way. For example, when you murder a lot of people, your mind might become addicted to this idea, so you change your attitude towards murder slowly when you repeat murdering a lot of times. I think it can be nice to try some things you wouldn't really do in real life (good or bad), but it shouldn't be your daily lucid routine.

[mindfield]

I think that if most DC-s are the construct of my mind(I want to be open to the idea that there can be "objective" things in LD -s things from other worlds, or persons you know but they are not lucid and so behave very stupidly sometimes) then if I would kill rape... them I hurt myself. They can symbolize a thing or they can be an important aspect of my mind. So I think there is a danger of hurting my own mind or some structure in my subconscious.

[SiY]

i shot my mate and stole his hat in my second ld, i didn't feel guilt i thought it was very funny. I do not think i would feel guilt by killing people but i would have morals such as. Not killing babies, rape, killing babies. Thats about it. me and my Lose morals i'd probably try and destroy the world in one of my dreams to see what would happen.

[Carnun]

I think that ethics effect us in our dreams in either a conscious or unconscious way. For example, there are many posts where people decide they wouldn’t do something cause they believe it to be immorally wrong - against their own personal ethics… I guess that is an easy one to understand. In some cases morals/ethics seem to manifest themselves in dreams in other unconscious ways. I read in this book on Lucid Dreaming where they tried to test this: Some lucid dreamer (male) went lucid and tried to have sex with a girl of a very questionable age… although he was prepared to go through with it… he would take of his underwear and go for it only to find he was wearing another pair of underwear!! He kept repeating this and the underwear kept returning! (I hope they were clean ones!!!) I guess it all comes down to the persons own morals… and how they will react in certain situations… I have killed a plenty in my NDs – but it has always been related to survival. Never really had the opportunity in LD's... maybe if I could LD I might give it a go.

Funnily enough, Freud thought that dreams where manifestations of our less moralistic desires (more or less - but don’t quote me on that!).

[Presence of Light]

lately i've been finding that my LDs send me on power trips where i will punish DCs for doing things I don't agree with in rather harsh ways, as if I some sort of moral authority and am above them because I have god-like powers to do whatever I want to them.

it kind of bothers me, if someone is making fun of me i might beat them down, then i'd feel bad, apologize, and cast a healing spell on them....

at least i usually apologize.

what scares me is if i had magic powers in real life i'd probably do similar things..... except not as severe since i think "real life" is "realer" than "dream life" but still.....

[milod789]

[Presence of Light]

[Zataod]

The morality issue crystalized for me the other day when a homeless person asked me for money on the street. (an everyday occurrence in Chicago) As usual, I ignored him and kept going. However, it reminded me of the discussion about morality within the realm of dreams and how that compares to morality in the waking world. Basically, I don't care if I'm sometimes less than perfect in the real world. I know that I'm screwing my karma over some, but overall I'm doing okay.

But when I think of morality within a lucid dream, I think it's very important. And here is the difference.

The homeless man on the street of Chicago is not part of me. However, if I had been in a dream and encountered a homeless man, then the story is completely different. That homeless man would be part of my psyche that created the dream in the first place. Every character within a dream is part of me. Now, how do I want to treat those aspects of myself? It seems that the only sensible approach is to treat dream characters with respect and compassion. This approach will lead to a more integrated, healthy self. If I was to battle with dream characters, then I'm really only battling with aspects of myself. A self at war with itself is not a healthy self.

So, in thinking about this issue a bit, I think that morality within a dream (for me at least) is more important than morality in the waking world -- not that I want to be a total jerk in the waking world.