Thread: Subjective Reality tied to lucid dreaming.

Thats some pretty deep stuff. I listened to one of stev pavlinas podcasts on lucid dreaming before it was quite informative.

Anyway i just read the first link but i think im going to have to read it over to understand the concepts more.

Yeah, unfortunately, this is just one of those things that you have to really
put some effort into understanding. It's not for the weak minded. But that's
where the downsides end. If you commit to understanding it, you'll gain so
much that you'll start to wish you had more to read on this uncommon topic.

-- Nick --

Same bogus confusion as collective consciousness.
Pavlina has invaluable insight in his various motivational articles and teaches some good wisdom but in things like this he just goes too far. He should stick to social topics, heh.

I agree with Merlock. Pavlina really has some very cool articles out. But this "subjective reality" concept is extremely lacking in substance and preciseness. It's mostly just circular reasoning and extraordinary claims without any evidence. I'd go as far as to say that it is a highly deluded world-view. In fact, it resembles much of what you'd expect someone on LSD or a schizophrenic person to say.

Especially considering quotes like this:

Subjective reality centers around consciousness, and that consciousness is the real you. There are no other people “out there” having their own subjective experiences. There is only you. And your subjective reality is the only one there is.

I much rather stick with critical realism and critical rationalism.

Also, highly interesting is the "Ignorance vs. popularity" clause.

Accuracy vs. popularity

The main issue with the subjective reality perspective is that it’s not very common or popular. That doesn’t make it invalid, but it does mean that if you choose to pursue it, you’re likely to encounter people who think it’s invalid because they’ve never experienced it… or they’ve experienced something like solipsism and assume you’re on a similar degenerate path. If you live in a world where most people are deaf, and you gradually begin to hear sounds, how will you explain your new perceptions to others? Good luck! They’ll probably think you’re daft. I’m not saying you shouldn’t try — I’m obviously willing to make the attempt — but don’t be surprised when you witness some resistance from the other dream characters. You’ll have to ask yourself which is more important to you: accuracy or popularity.

We know this one from Christianity and other religions. Jesus said something quite similar. "Expect to be mocked for your beliefs, because they seem so outlandish." It's what you do to make your ideology a viral and self-sustaining one. Immunization to criticism, the number one most important aspect you need to implement if you want to create a successful irrational ideology or dogma.

It makes the "subjective reality" meme a viral meme, exactly like religion, by implementing inner mechanisms of protection against destruction of the meme from outside, thereby making it immune to criticism and facilitating ignorance. Good job, Steve!

Also his rebuttals to scientific criticism seems very vague and unspecific:

Science and history, past and future, and all your memories exist within your consciousness. You manifested them. If you believe it can’t be true, then it can’t. Science is based on the presupposition that objective reality exists. The whole notion of an objective observer stems from that assumption. But this assumption is unprovable and may therefore be erroneous.

So?? This is like 5th grade philosophy. "What if we all live in a giant shoebox?" OMG PHILOSOPHOZS. I really expected better. Pavlina is the one postulating unreasonable claims, above all.

This claim "Belief creates reality" is total bullshit.

From a subjective standpoint, the belief in objectivity is what manifests all the laws and discoveries of science. To drop that belief is to make it possible to violate the seemingly untouchable laws of science.

This is where it gets whacky. I might believe this guy if he actually provides evidence for this extraordinary claim. Until then I can be pretty certain that he is deluded.

What about the physical laws of science? Can I break them?

Not if you believe they are real. Whatever you believe to be universal law, the physical universe (including your body) must obey. You cannot break any law which you “know” to be true. But you can change what you know to be true once you begin to recognize that you are consciousness itself, not merely a body-mind in a physical universe.

This is also very stupid. If the laws of physics depend on human consciousness, why can't babies fly, since they are born without any presumptions about the world.

Pavlina proves to be a total nutjob when says:

So if I believed you could fly, then you could fly?
Yes. But it would be more accurate to say this: If you knew I could fly, then I could fly. If you knew you could fly, then you could fly.

The ability to control your thoughts is very beneficial for psychic development.

[...]
Also, psychic development provides further validation of subjective reality.
[...]t’s certainly possible to explore psychic development without a subjective belief system, but I found that the more I embraced subjective reality, the richer my psychic experiences became. Also, my wife has had some pretty amazing psychic experiences too — in fact, she’ll be appearing as a psychic medium on an episode of the Criss Angel Mindfreak show next season.

With things like these he really puts himself into the corner of total assholes like Sylvia Browne.

Also, I think that anyone who believes in supernatural things without scientific evidence is virtually flying the planes on 9/11 and by postulating crazy shit like Steve does he's really helping delusion and terror grow in society. What he's basically saying is that it's a good idea to lie to ourselves.

The line is drawn EXACTLY where you're superstitious and not scientific. Once you cross that line, you're providing a playground for other nutjobs to join in and sooner or later blow up a building or two. Congrats.



All in all, I find this world view to be extremely dangerous and detrimental to human progress because human progress depends on scientific objective reality.


That's why we usually put schizophrenics and deluded megalomaniacs into loony bins and don't let them run websites.


P.S. Please don't tell me that babies can't fly because I don't believe they can. That is circular reasoning. REPENT.

I hate subjective reality. It strikes me as being very stupid. We can clearly see that the outside body is what affects the senses via neurons, and then the brain recieves these inputs from the physical, objective world. There is no evidence otherwise. The whole philosophy is completely self-contradicting and pointless.

What I find interesting is that the author doesn't actually believe in it himself. Perhaps he's just trying to sound intellectual, because look:

So I’m the only one who’s conscious?

Yes, you are.

If he believed himself to be the only conscious being in the world, why would he have written the article in the first place?

Just for the record: I wasn't arguing against the mind. I know the mind exists independent of the body (but connected both ways). But the concept of a collective consciousness or of only one consciousness -- you (as that article implies) -- is bogus since we are all conscious self-aware beings.

As for the idea of everything happening within a mental structure...nope. Dreams are proof of the opposite. Because when we dream we are in a world structured by our mind, using conceptual thought that is interpreted into sensory information. But then we wake up and there's an independent physical world around our physical selves as well, which we can manipulate physically.

Oh, and...isn't this basically the Brain In A Vat theory?

He sounded preachy like a christian when he was talking about if you work for "peace you will be happy always" type stuff. And the references to jesus to...Budha was the king of peace...not jesus ahem...

It sounded like he was peddling to a christian crowd to me. thats my issue with it.

Originally Posted by Xei

What I find interesting is that the author doesn't actually believe in it himself. Perhaps he's just trying to sound intellectual, because look:



If he believed himself to be the only conscious being in the world, why would he have written the article in the first place?

You dont understand what he was saying i gather. Steve Pavlina is not saying that he is the only consious being in the world, I t hink he was trying to say that their is only one consciousness in the world of which we all are a parts of. SO in that sense he means their is only one consciousness in the world according to him.

He didn't really sound like he knew what he was talking about really. Sometimes he said the opposite... what does 'there is only one consciousness' even mean? That makes no sense given the definition of consciousness. If there was only one consciousness I would be seeing through everybody's eyes, not just mine. This is not true, my consciousness is clearly limited to my body. By definition, everybody has their own consciousness.

Just for the record: I wasn't arguing against the mind. I know the mind exists independent of the body (but connected both ways). But the concept of a collective consciousness or of only one consciousness -- you (as that article implies) -- is bogus since we are all conscious self-aware beings.

Yes I agree, there's quite clearly a separation between me and you so the statement 'there is only one consciousness' does not make any logical sense.

However I'm not sure about the dualism. There is a lot of evidence that the Cartesian Theatre is flawed. Our minds are our brains.

Oh, and...isn't this basically the Brain In A Vat theory?

No, it's not, I don't think. With the Brain in a Vat, the suggestion is that there is an objective reality in which our brains, or minds, exist, but it is fed false sensory data from a virtual reality simulator. The world you percieve is therefore, objectively, not real.

However this guy is saying that everything you percieve is as real as it can possibly be.

Aristotle showed that subjective truth is a load of nonsense millenia ago.

Originally Posted by dragonoverlord

their is only one consciousness in the world of which we all are a parts of.

I don't get this. So many people are obsessed with this collective conciousness business. I don't understand why it should be?

I am a seperate conciousness to you. I don't care if we are all the same fundamental matter etc because I am clearly a seperate thing. Why should there be a collective conciousness? It makes far far more sense to assume there is not.


It's like saying that because we all see television through different screens that they are all in fact the same large screen!

No. It doesn't make sense. It's wishful thinking, at best.

Originally Posted by Carôusoul

I don't get this. So many people are obsessed with this collective conciousness business. I don't understand why it should be?

I am a seperate conciousness to you. I don't care if we are all the same fundamental matter etc because I am clearly a seperate thing. Why should there be a collective conciousness? It makes far far more sense to assume there is not.


It's like saying that because we all see television through different screens that they are all in fact the same large screen!

No. It doesn't make sense. It's wishful thinking, at best.

Perhaps...Perhaps not. I was merely explaining to you what the author was trying to get across though and what his perspective was.

Im not really sure about the whole collective consiousness thing myself but I did hear about this thing on tv that was "afftected" by the global consiousness thing. They said they recorded unusual amounts of sorrow on 9/11 and when that monster Tsunami struck. I cant remember the details but it was on a show called daily planet.

Originally Posted by dragonoverlord

Perhaps...Perhaps not. I was merely explaining to you what the author was trying to get across though and what his perspective was.

Im not really sure about the whole collective consiousness thing myself but I did hear about this thing on tv that was "afftected" by the global consiousness thing. They said they recorded unusual amounts of sorrow on 9/11 and when that monster Tsunami struck. I cant remember the details but it was on a show called daily planet.

Enlighten me on how one goes about measuring levels of "sorrow" in the air..?

Originally Posted by Carôusoul

I don't get this. So many people are obsessed with this collective conciousness business. I don't understand why it should be?

I am a seperate conciousness to you. I don't care if we are all the same fundamental matter etc because I am clearly a seperate thing. Why should there be a collective conciousness? It makes far far more sense to assume there is not.


It's like saying that because we all see television through different screens that they are all in fact the same large screen!

No. It doesn't make sense. It's wishful thinking, at best.

Actually, it's...not wishful thinking. No one can possibly wish to be part of someone else. Everyone strives for being themselves and having their own life, their own achievements, etc. Being unique is an innate instinct.

Thus, it is because you know you are a separate being that you are indeed one. You don't want to be part of a collective consciousness and thus you aren't. Simple.

Originally Posted by Carôusoul

Enlighten me on how one goes about measuring levels of "sorrow" in the air..?

http://noosphere.princeton.edu/results.html
http://noosphere.princeton.edu/terror.html

That's ridiculous, just look at all the times when the probabilities weren't significant at all. You can't pick random events from that list and say, ooh, look how unlikely that was, because for hundreds of other events in which many more lives were lost, the probability was completely normal. Also, how was sorrow measured again? I wasn't bothered to read all of that.

Actually, it's...not wishful thinking. No one can possibly wish to be part of someone else. Everyone strives for being themselves and having their own life, their own achievements, etc. Being unique is an innate instinct.

Thus, it is because you know you are a separate being that you are indeed one. You don't want to be part of a collective consciousness and thus you aren't. Simple.

Actually I think many people hope for any kind of evidence of the supernatural.

In my opinion consciousness is 'supernatural' in a sense, meaning that it is an incredible thing unlike any other without any explanation.

However some people fail to see this and instead cast false hopes on things without any evidence, such as this 'collective consciousness' tosh. In my opinion they do this to escape the percieved insignificance or monotony of their lives.

Although I don't understand what you mean when you say that if you did 'want' to be part of a collective consciousness, you would become one... how does that follow?

No, you wouldn't necessarily become one if you wanted to, I mean, a collective consciousness is collective...and you can't force others to your will indefinitely...but you are yourself if you want to be because what you want is of utmost importance and nothing can stand in your way if you strive towards it.

We are not insignificant. We are conscious self-aware beings. That makes us equal to any other conscious self-aware being in existence: any god with endless power and any peasant with hardly any knowledge of speech or logic.

The difference between us, conscious self-aware beings, is in our amount of power and knowledge at any given moment. So, in essence, even if there is a god in this world, say, the Christian god...it doesn't matter. Any one of us can gain enough knowledge and power to summon that god up to us or find that god and slap him around physically for fun or to overwhelm him and gain his position and so on and so forth.

We are all-powerful because we have infinite potential. But false hopes are indeed a problem. Because false hopes are wishful thinking, they're illusions, which only restrain one from realising that infinite potential. The world is constructive and requires ways to achieve anything, ways that consist of knowledge and ability, but absolutely any ability can be gained. It simply requires to first find the knowledge needed to acquire it.

We are not insignificant. We are conscious self-aware beings. That makes us equal to any other conscious self-aware being in existence: any god with endless power and any peasant with hardly any knowledge of speech or logic.

I never said that we are insignificant. If you read what I said a bit more carefully, I was actually saying the exact opposite of that, ie. what you just said.

The difference between us, conscious self-aware beings, is in our amount of power and knowledge at any given moment. So, in essence, even if there is a god in this world, say, the Christian god...it doesn't matter. Any one of us can gain enough knowledge and power to summon that god up to us or find that god and slap him around physically for fun or to overwhelm him and gain his position and so on and so forth.

I don't understand what you're talking about here though.

Humans can never have as much power as the Christian God, as the Christian God created the universe. We can't do that. Also, no amount of knowledge will somehow allow us to contact that God, or somehow force him to manifest himself physically so that we can... 'slap him around'...

And I don't believe in such a God anyway.

You critisize false hopes but if your hopes include a three point plan of

1. becoming enlightened
2. hence summoning God in order to slap him senseless and
3. hence stealing his job,

then I'm afraid that's rather hypocritical. Or maybe I just misunderstand you.

Well, that was just an exaggeration to prove a point.
Anything is possible.

Humans can never have as much power as the Christian God, as the Christian God created the universe. We can't do that. Also, no amount of knowledge will somehow allow us to contact that God, or somehow force him to manifest himself physically so that we can... 'slap him around'...

*sigh* This is exactly why you wouldn't gain enough such power.
The question isn't if you can but why would you allow anyone or anything to stand in your way?

Anything is possible.

No it isn't. What are you talking about? Is it possible to travel faster than the speed of light? No. Is it possible to create energy? No. These are universal truths.

*sigh* This is exactly why you wouldn't gain enough such power.
The question isn't if you can but why would you allow anyone or anything to stand in your way?

Oh hell no, please don't tell me I'm don't have it in me to magically become an omnipotent being. I feel so ashamed.

I thought anything was possible though?

And what on Earth are you talking about? I'm not on a quest to become God so I would have no problems with anybody trying to prevent me reaching the goal of said non existent quest. Who are these people anyway? How can somebody try to prevent me from becoming God?

I really have no idea what you are trying to convey. Could you please explain yourself a little more thoroughly.

These "people" are you. You're restricting yourself. You're not letting your ambitions free.

The world is constructive and you won't get a result by saying that you want it and won't let anyone or anything stand in your way but that's the mind frame required to start off on the search of a way to achieve a goal.

If you want to travel faster than light -- so be it. You just need to find a way to do so. You can't deny something you don't know of (can't deny that it's possible by stating that it's impossible with your current knowledge) but by doing so you limit yourself. And you shouldn't deny it either, because then you're showing weakness. Someone with true inner strength will say, "I want this and nothing and no one will stop me from getting it". Laws can be avoided, shifted or broken, people can be convinced, pleaded to or removed from the way, etc.

In essence, there is no such thing as impossible goals, there is only lack of knowledge of how to achieve them.

Just because something happens one way, doesn't mean it can't be done another. Just because something seems impossible from one point of view and position, doesn't mean it can't be accomplished from a different position with different ways and knowledge.

We are conscious self-aware beings with infinite potential. We are all-powerful because knowledge is power and we have the potential to gain knowledge of anything and everything.

I'm sorry but you're wrong.

I don't understand how you originally said that subjective reality was nonsense and are now saying that the universal truths of objective reality can be broken by the mind.

We'll just have to beg to differ I suppose. If you have any solid evidence that anybody who has wanted to do something physically impossible has managed to do it then post it I suppose. Otherwise just keep believing, I won't try to sway you. A few years at DreamViews is ample time to learn that some people will keep believing anything, even if there is no evidence at all, anyway.

It isn't belief...

You can't deny this reasoning logically: if you want something, you need to find a way to achieve it.
From that comes the deduction: just because you don't know how to do something, doesn't mean it's impossible.
And from that comes the conclusion: nothing is impossible but everything takes a way to achieve.

And I don't completely deny the subjective reality concept. I only completely deny the concept of all of us being part of one collective consciousness.

As for subjective reality: it's a complicated subject, along the lines of the Law of Attraction. Because both those don't state that wishful thinking is used to change the world around. They state that the power of intent and whatnot, the mind, controls fate. And fate isn't a straight line, it's a vector. It's all very vague. And why is it vague? Because we lack knowledge on the matter. We don't know everything.

Thus, in order to achieve precise results and affect the world around directly, we need to use our minds to find knowledge of how to do that and can't rely on mechanisms of fate like the Law of Attraction and Subjective Reality imply/explain.

Well basically your logic is flawed. The third point does not follow from the second. Just because something is not definitely impossible, that does not mean that it is possible.

For example, your argument goes: I do not know how to create energy; just because I do not know how to create energy, it might not be impossible; therefore it is possible to create energy.

There's quite clearly a fallacy there.

You can't create energy, and there is no secret method to be discovered by which somebody may do so.

And there's your fallacy. You can't say something is impossible. Just because you don't know how to do something, doesn't mean it's impossible. That logic isn't flawed. You can't base deductions off of lack of knowledge.

"Something is impossible" = a deduction based on lack of knowledge, an extreme.
"Anything is possible" = not a deduction but the allowing of anything, being open-minded.

And in my previous post I was saying that you can't deny the first phrase, not the deductions.

So you say...

Just because something is not definitely impossible, that does not mean that it is possible.

Sure, but the real reason behind saying that anything is possible isn't because of the reasoning I've provided. That reasoning is there as a result of some deeper thought on the matter. The real reason for why I know anything is possible is because I want it to be.

Simply enough: if I were to ever want something that is considered impossible, I would not let anyone or anything stand in my way. Laws of physics? I don't care. I'll find a way, I'll realise my will and no one, nothing will oppose me in that endeavour.

Knowledge is power, ambition is the driving force behind attaining it.