Lucid Dreaming - Cheating ourselves from Real Dreaming?

I would have to agree with this. Since, one way or another, the supposed dreams that you’d be having while not lucid dreaming would somehow be related to such desires anway.

I mean, have you ever not had a dream that didn’t relate somehow to some deep desire?

can count 2 years of constant nightmares

I’m not so sure nightmares aren’t hinting at something. I have always found that dreams I would consider nightmares are always trying to get me to face something that I’m trying to ignore. At some level fulfilling my desire to face that demon…

yes, but the problem with my nightmares is that they’re always a monster killing someone i know instead of killing me.

My best guess as a response to that, would be that you feel you can’t help others or are worried about others getting hurt around you and you will be powerless to help. I’m not a psychologist :tongue: and dreams are a very personal thing. If dreams do have a meaning the best person to figure out that meaning is you :smile: I do know that with me, looking at why I might be having the nightmare, and trying to deal with the problem consciously. I can really get somewhere and the nightmares tend to stop too :grin:

You would agree with the author then, as he says Nightmares are merely unfinished dreams where we haven’t seen what our Source is trying to tell us.

I agree with the Author but I also agree with you guys. I think both states are equally important. I feel Lucid Dreaming has brought me tremendous insight regarding my “reality” that I am experiencing as I type this and exactly what “real” is…but I also feel that sometimes we should relinquish control to our Higher Selves and receive the messages that could be there for us to help us better our lives instead of trying to control the dreamworld to fulfill personal desires.

Maybe it’s just because I am such a novice, but at this point I don’t see it as an either/or proposition. When I lucid dream, I do not consciously envision the whole dreamscape. Mostly I’m just manipulating part of the dream environment and seeing where it leads. Sometimes the dream seems to be actively responding to what I am doing in such a way that it is clear what kind of issues I am dealing with. This is not possible with a non-lucid dream where you get only what you are given (which may be no more than an ambiguous or cryptic cypher).

So if dreams carry any kind of deeper meaning, I think one would be much more able to receive that meaning while lucid, rather than non-lucid. Trying to interpret ordinary dreams usually seems like a bit iffy to me, to say the least. At least if one can interact with the dream, one could possibly achieve greater clarity as to the exact import.

perhaps if ever single rem periood of someones night was lucid, it might be a debatable point. but no ones lucid everysingle dream, and even if they were it probably wouldnt matter anyway. unless every single detail of the dream was consciously placed there, we could still recieve messages. besides, we a re far better placed to pick up on them whilst lucid anyway

Whilst I might agree with the author that nightmares may carry messages (Or you may gain insight by seeing how your own mind is trying to deal with something :smile: ) I really don’t like the wording of “Cheating Ourselfs From” In all my experiance any form of higher guidance, will wait until you are ready and then will keep on at you until you ‘get it’. :wink:

If you are ready to recieve guidance / learn things from dreams, I doubt your mind would let you just ignore it :tongue: I believe dreams are created as much by the sub-consious as the consious mind. I know nobody who has compleate control over their dreams :smile: So basically this doesn’t concern me too much, I don’t think improving my ability to connect with / understand / influence my sub consious is going to hinder my spiritual growth, quite the opposite. :content: (If you couldn’t tell :tongue:)

If this point was brought up before I guess I missed it. Some scientists believe that dreams are ‘practise’ for potential situations. Like social interaction, motorskills and survival. There is not necessarily anything your subconscious is trying to tell you. That is not to say there is nothing to find out. If dreams are practise then we can absolutely keep practising even if we become lucid. Though most of us would probably want to do something more fun, wich makes it a question of dicipline.

I personally believe that the subconsious tries to send out messages. It doesn’t make sense to me. If the subconscious needed something to become conscious I think you would simply become conscious of it. And a very cryptic message seems like a very inefficient way to do it. The dream interpretation methods I have read about could easily be applied to waking life to give it a meaning or “message”.

But what do I know about dreams anyway?

I actually got tired of my LDs always following the same pattern.
Dreaming normal dreams can be as exciting as having a LD.

sniff sniff I smell bigotry…

Bull****, if you really want to know.

Not if you are me.

Normal Dreams - Cheating ourselves from Lucid Dreams?

Fixed. :gni:

But on a serious note… Messages from our Higher Selves will find a way through whether we’re lucid or not. They interrupt my LD adventures from time to time.

This is a very interesting topic. I don’t really want to make any rule for myself yet, though, as far as what I “should” do in a lucid dream. Coincidentally, my current lucid dream assignment is to just carefully observe the dream and see if I can get my dream characters to vent and perhaps even tell me their life stories (I have noticed that they usually don’t have much patience if you want them to listen to you or have them accomplish some task for you, but they are ready to talk if you give the signals to them that you’ll be a good listener).

Some normal dreams can be just as good as lucid dreams. Sometimes even better. Normal dreams usually have hidden meanings or symbolism that most lucid dreams just don’t have. They can also be pretty imaginative. The longest dream I’ve ever had was a normal dream (Yes, longer than the 8 hour LD). It was a whole story, third person. Besides the fact that I had an enormous headache after the dream, dreams like this can give you amazing ideas for writing stories and things.
Plus, I’ve yet to hear of pregog lucid dream. :tongue:

I still do prefer most lucid dreams though. It really depends on what you’re in the mood. Normal dreams are a good way to bring out the creative side in you and lucid dreams are a good way to explore that creativity.

I agree, there is a whole different feeling to a normal dream than a lucid dream – but I’m definitely one of those people that want to keep experiencing both. Like you point out, they are both very valuable in their own separate ways.

^They do have a different feel to them. If you noticed, dreams have a nice, cheery air to them, even if somethign bad is happening. When it’s a bad dream (not necessarily a nightmare), you feel immense sadness or scaredness. My OPINION is that since you are not thinking much during NDs, then you feel more intense emotions without all that excess back-checking.

And about the topic…well, if you have 2 LD’s every night, then if you have an average of 4-6 dreams nightly, you would still have at least 2 regular dreams per night-right?

I don’t quite feel cheated when I have a lucid dream. In fact, it’s usually the other way around, what with FAs and over-excitment.

Hell yeah I do! My Higher Self must really dislike me by now. :content:

If your Higher Self really wanted to tell you something, it would just nog let you have LD’s :tongue:

I thing my dreams are way to strange to contain hidden messages.