What if Everyone Knew?

You missed the main point of what I was saying. I was saying that if there was a technology to make it so you could do it AS LONG as you want, ANY TIME you wanted, it would work. The reason it currently does not satisfy you is because you’re only in the dream for a matter of minutes. IF you could do what it was you wanted to do for longer, maybe up to an hour, any reasonable person would admit that would release the urges.

It definitely would be better the more accepted it was… If it was accepted, then most us would probably have been practiced it since early childhood and thus most of us who lucid dream today will probably have been even better at it.

Also just being able to share lucid dream stories with friends, would probably increase motivation alot.

I didn’t miss the point. Technolodgy can fail, thus that one night or day could happen, and if it was as easily availible as that it would be more likely to become addictive and cause the problem.

But time isn’t the problem, it feels different, the emotional responses are different because you know it isn’t real.

Killing in a dream releases anger, but if you thrieve on the fallout of killing, the pain the family goes through. You won’t get that in a dream because it’s not real and so it wouldn’t stop the urges no matter how long you do it.

For someone who sees another person in the killings, eg: sees their mother in the girl they are murdering - that might work in an LD, depending on whether they can control themselves the rest of the time.

With rape, if it was purely the sex then maybe it would help some. But others rape because of mental conditions, it’s the domination, the fact the victim is going to be scared for life and like killing the fallout of it. Some of it might be simulatable in an LD but some won’t be, so the overall urge will exsist regardless.

Somethings it could help with, others it just couldn’t. The mind isn’t as simple as, I’ll just do it this way and it will be fine.

I could see how it might work for drug/alcohol issues, they are very basic urges and the effects can be dreamt easily. But the fallout of something traumatic is unique to the victims, it’s not something you can dream up because of that. It may work in the short term if you could do it anytime you wanted, but in the long term I think the person would slip, they would need the reality.

I’ll have to agree. Seeing as how most people think dreams are random bunk and don’t really care about them, I don’t think lucid dreams would change the majority of people’s behavior in the waking world.

A few intelligent people would use their lucidity to increase their productivity. But everyone else would just do the same stupid crap in their dreams, that they do in real life.

Your cynisism swayed my opinion somewhat. However, at the bare minimum, it would help the actually real people be closer with their spirituality. Perhaps even make intolerable situations bearable, knowing the person can escape into another world where the greatest story is told every night.

Lucid Dreaming just needs to become socially acceptable to talk about in day-to-day conversations to be something thats done widely. Lucid dreaming needs a sponsor, some sort of celebrity. Like Beck, or perhaps Thom Yorke.

I never said it would help EVERYBODY, in EVERY WAY, NO MATTER WHAT.

Any reasonable person, who has studied psychology to the depth that I have, would come to the conclusion that it would help SOME BODY, in SOME WAY.

I think people would be a lot happier on the whole. People wouldn’t always lament the life they’ve been given if they could do anything in a dream. For example an unpopular person would be less jealous of a jock who gets all the girls if he could do the same at night. Also LDing is a good way to explore your subconcious and to learn things about yourself. So, if everyone could LD it would be good.

So do you think it’s goos to spread it around to your friends and others you know, even if it keeps spreading?

What does it have to do with spirituality?? Linking lucid dreaming with spirituality, is one of the things that make it lose credibility.

Lucid Dreaming is proven by science, and should never ever be linked with religions in my opinion.

Lucid dreaming has Shamanic origins, therefore it’s origins are spiritual. Ignoring that because science looked into it and found it to be true is also discrediting.

People have been lucid dreaming for ages even before the rise of religion. Everyone does it, including shamans, christians, muslims, hindus and so on.

Spirits or the spiritworld has not been proven to exist, while lucid dreaming has.

Spirits may not have been proven, but that doesn’t mean you should ignore LDings origins and it’s links with spirituality (which has nothing to do with spirits) and religon because LDing has been proven.

But isn’t it still important to question the idea that lucid dreaming could be linked with spirituality? Large areas of psychology are still not properly understood and if everyone chose not to link spirituality and lucid dreaming (and other areas of psychology) we may never truly know whether things like spirits exist or not.

If we want to draw other people to lucid dreaming then it’s important to portray the scientific aspect because, like Tomas said, the scientific aspect will give it more credibility than the spiritualistic aspect. But also it’s important to look into the spiritualistic aspect in a scientific way so that it can be determined whether things like spirit guides really exist.

Man creates his own reality by the basis of his own beliefs.

If you believe something, then it’s true in your own reality. If you don’t, then it’s not. Nothing is or is not. Life in and of itself is but a dream.

People who belive in an after life, will have one, because they truly do believe and expect it. People who don’t, won’t have one and will stop existing right after death, just like they so believe. There is no one truth to our existence.

Make life what you want it to be, just as all of us on these forums make our dreams what we want them to be. After all, life is but a dream.

I think that if LDing became “easy”, with the help of technology, people would take it for granted. It’s like daydreaming - it’s easy and free, but it doesn’t resemble reality enough to actually change anything.

Even if you do things in your dream, it’s still a dream, lucid or not. It could be efficient in some cases, if you have a short-term want of some kind, like going to a club or something. You could go into your dream and go to a club, party, and wake up with no “side-effects” like hangovers or conflicts with friends, etc. But in the long term, it wouldn’t change anything. People would start taking LDing for granted, just like most people take their normal dreams for granted.

And if people try something in their LD’s that they wouldn’t do in waking life, maybe they’ll be inspired to do it IRL too. It could be a good thing of course, but it could also be a bad thing. Human beings aren’t all good, and I’m sure some people would find a way to use LDing for negative causes.

Going back on topic (it wasn’t initially a topic about a possibly imaginable LD’ing technology in the far future but mainly Sonic922 asking what effect it could have if he spreads LD’ing today amongst friends), I don’t think it will change anything. This forum exists for ten years and LD’ing is still quite unknown. It’s almost absolutely unknown in France (though it seems there will be a movie about it soon! :happy: )

The two disadvantages you point out are very unlikely. It’s impossible to confuse real life and dreams (unless you’re crazy :crazy: ). I don’t think that experienced LD’ers spend their life sleeping. It requires effort to have LD’s and lazy people are not good at it.

Thus I don’t think there will be any advantages or disadvantages in spreading LD’ing (if possible). Now I would give you the advice of choosing well the friends you will speak to. Many LD’ers complained that they have been called crazy by their friends once they told them about LD’ing. Now it’s possible to speak on forums, cause people don’t really know you and there are often many natural LD’ers who practice LD’ing without even knowing it (“o? realizing you’re dreaming is called lucid dreaming? I am doing this all the time…”)

Wait. What do you mean by “there will be a movie about it soon”?

It’s called “The Science of sleep”. It’s a comedy. It seems to be rather curious. :eh: I don’t know if it will be a good movie (neither if it will appear in America cause there are only actors who are known in France, it’s seems to be heavy-handed french humour and the special effects are absolutely ridiculous :happy: ). Yet if it’s a good idea, US movie makers probably will do a remake.

:smile: Hopefully it will be worth seeing. I’ll get my hands on it somehow to see if it is.

Lucid dreaming has as much to do with religion and spirituality as the dreamer themself believes. Therefore, this argument is really irrelevant, (religion tends to do this).

However, the entire idea of lucid dreaming and dreaming in general is mind-boggling. Who could imagine the concept that while someone is sleeping, they have a personal dimension that is completely owned and domainated by themself? It’s basically another level of life unimaginable to everyone but the creator itself.

Who honestly cares about lucid dreaming losing credibility? People will always have doubts, they will always be close minded. If a simple reference to spirituality in relation to a lucid experience damages lucid dreaming’s credibility, let it. The believers will still believe, it would just scare off the pessimistic skeptics. And nobody cares about them :razz: