Originally posted by Dew Dust
But should I treat my subconscious and conscious as two different identities or is it really one?
I want to achieve lucidity to get to know more of myself. To get in touch with that deeper self--spirituality. I don't see how it is self destructive to gain control of a dream and explore the purpose of me and making myself a better person.
Well, there is a differentiation between the Conscious Mind and the Subconscious Mind because there seems to be a concensus that they ARE distinct. It reminds me of a passage in one of the old Raymond Chandler detective books -- one of the characters wondered that anybody could ever commit incest, and Chandler's detective, Phillip Marlowe, replies 'yes, or they wouldn't have a work for it'. We have a word for the Subconscious Mind.
And we know that the Subconscious Mind, in this instance, though, I would refer to it as the Dreaming Mind, that it is at odds with the Conscious Persona Mind because of the deliberate tactics the Dreaming Mind takes to shake off the Lucid Dreamers attempts at control. The most used strategy is for the Dreaming Mind to impose what are called False Awakenings, in which by fooling the Dreamer into supposing that he was awakened, the dreamer will no longer suspect that he is 'dreaming' and will thus give up on the assertion of all of his control. The Dreamer might then be lulled back into ordinary dreaming. False Awakenings are extremely common. You will even find quite a few 'techniques' given on this Page for defeating the Dreaming Mind's False Awakenings. The Dreaming Mind is considered quite the enemy and every effort and option is examined or utilized in order to assure its defeat.
It indeed troubles me that it seems that in many cases some of our Dreamers have succeeded in irradicating the Dreaming Mind. They have driven the Subconscious Mind off the field and when they dream, they seem to descend into a large Blank Canvass which they are left to fill in with their own limited imaginations. No longer 100% of their Mind working in partnership, but a mere 5 or 10% playing with itself, talking to itself, stagnating with itself. But they have TOTAL CONTROL. Total Control of what amounts to an empty self-contained, self-constrained Universe. It must be fun for awhile, but after a certain time all that is left is not even a "Been There, Done That" Tee Shirt.
Where, if one retains the Dream Mind, suffering its influences, messages, comments, and even its interferences, then one is on his or her way to Integration with the Total Self -- the Total Mind.
Also, because we have found that dreams are indeed shared, Dreams are not to be considered entirely personal -- the Material in Dreams has been demonstrated, in many instances, to come from OUTSIDE the individual Self. The Great Psychologist and Intellectual, Carl Jung, supposed that such phenomena suggested the existence of a Collective Consciousness. Our connection to Spirituality is through this Collective Consciousness. Our Dreaming Mind may not just be simply personal, but may be part of an Intelligence that Transcends and Subsumes our own. But over-exerting Lucid Control we, in effect, dismiss and veto this Higher Influence.
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