Thread: Lucid Dreams don't exist!

I really enjoyed your response, Abra. I think you summed it up and even brought into view this notion:

Originally Posted by Abra

Any good lucid dream must start with this fundamental awe. Awe breeds thorough consciousness, and signals to your mind that it's something you care about. I take note to make "feeling lucid" the top priority on my lucid task list. For if that is not accomplished at a satisfactory and thoughtful manner, then no lucid really matters.

When one first begins to lucid dream, the mere idea of being lucid is enough to keep them interested and put them into a state of wonder at how one's mental self could be seemingly separate from their physical. I've had a couple of (low-level) LDs where I woke up and thought, "Well, that could have been better."

Anyway, just wanted to comment on that.

hahahhaha hey phalangees
does your nick derive from the anatomical term used to label fingers and toes? or what

Hey there,

To continue's Abra's quote (and apologies if I take it slightly out of context):

Any good lucid dream must start with this fundamental awe. Awe breeds thorough consciousness, and signals to your mind that it's something you care about. I take note to make "feeling lucid" the top priority on my lucid task list. For if that is not accomplished at a satisfactory and thoughtful manner, then no lucid really matters.

Not only do I agree, this is exactly my point. Make "feeling lucid" your top priority.

Imagine for a moment you've never experienced a lucid dream before, and you read the following two dream fragments:

a) "As I noticed the golden bird in the sky, I suddenly realised I was dreaming. I became lucid. What a wonderful feeling. Taking a moment to ground myself, I then started trying to fly and took off into the sky."

b) "As I noticed the golden bird in the sky, a sudden shock went through me. Like the feeling you get of a sudden insight, that just seems to pass through your spine. I looked around in awe of my surroundings, taking in my surroundings and told myself: "I must be dreaming.". Letting this awed feeling take me over completely, I started some exercises which were meant to keep me fully in the dream, and then I tried to fly. I felt like I detached from the ground, sort of like two magnets being pulled apart, there is a sudden "change" in cohesion as the feeling of weightlessness sets in."

I think that the second will make it easier for someone to understand the feeling of getting lucid, and thereby get closer to the experience of it. Additionally, even advanced lucid dreamers, I think, can be helped by constantly reminding themselves of this other level in the way they talk and communicate, perhaps even write in their dreamjournal.

Ofcourse we all know what the term "lucidity' refers to and what the experience of it is, but are those associations consciously triggered every time we talk about lucid dreams. Not for me at least.

In dream yoga, the teachers will make heavy use of metaphores to try and help their students find their way along the path. They do this because they realise that symbolic level of language is essentially empty, and that what you're trying to talk about is on another level. So they use metaphores to things we know and can relate to, in order to try and evoke certain feelings, sensations and experiences to which the experience of lucidity can be likened.

Likewise, I believe that for us as well, analogies, metaphores, trying to capture sensations and experiences can be very useful in atainting lucidity.

My 2 dreamycents,

-Redrivertears-

Wow, I think you have really helped me. I was chasing something, you helped me know what it was. thank you. Now things seem more possible. Now I understand the use of a dream journal.

Dreaming is like going through a memory, if you have a bad memory (or poor dream recall) you just skim over it and hope you got the base idea. But if you have a good memory (or good dream recall) you will be able to know of (not only remember) that dream-like object or happening for you to catch it and become "lucid"

Man, you're so right. Lucid dreams do exist in the sense that we can dream having realised we are dreaming but the term itself cannot exist as there are so many different levels and degrees of the knowledge, awareness etc. I wouldn't be surprised if this induces me a DILD tonight. Thanks a lot.

I suppose that is one way of looking at it.

I read something in my philosophy book about the inadequacy of language to describe things like emotions, etc.. The argument was basically that although you can brand something as "anger" as one specific thing, everyone's experience of it is different and unique, and can't be explained. I think this is essentially what you're trying to say. Your title/point definitely was provocative as you said, but I guess it was a good choice to get your real idea across and show that people are getting too stuck around the word and the definition rather than their own experiences. A worthwhile read definitely.

Ok, I didn't really read much of it because it was soooo long, and I only have a few more minutes online b4 I have to go, so I'll wait and read the rest of it before I make a proper response.

I readed your entire essay. This is brillant. I think you're right when saying to seeking for the feeling of awarness instead of seeking for an abstract concept. I feel that the details and examples you gives are right.
Me too, I guess this little additionnal piece of wisdom will help me induce a DILD tonight. Thanks!

While you´re busy trying to theorise about how Lucid Dreams can´t exist, I<ll go ahead and have one anywayz.

I think you´ve become a little stuck in theorising so that you forgot that it´s simply not important for deciding wether Lucid Dreaming is real: If I have a Dream in which I suddenly realise that my surrounding enviroment and situation is all a dream, and from that moment on I gain enough consciousness to act/interact in that dream according to my own free will: Then I had a lucid dream. There are several levels of lucidity that´s when you´ve allready made it to the bottom of the "Lucid Scale".

Now you can bring all the scientific evidence in the world to persuade me to believe that what I just awoke from didn´t happen, but that just seems silly to me.
Seems just as silly as you looking at the Road, watching a bright Yellow, Green and Red van drive out of sight and then me telling you that that which you just saw wasn't there.

To the OP:

Your entire thesis is the equivalent of saying:

"Because there is no clear way to define 'consciousness,' consciousness does not exist."

"Because there is no clear way to define 'life,' life does not exist."

"Because there is no clear way to define 'awareness,' awareness does not exist."

These are all fallacious lines of thinking. Just because something is not clearly defined, does not mean it doesn't exist, in the general sense. It is a gray area, but it is a wide-scale of a single, existing, concept. Only a minimalist ideology would suggest that, since something cannot be pinpointed, it doesn't exist. It's much like saying "Since it can be scientifically argued that the Christian God does not exist, then A God (not matter what interpretation of God) does not exist." It's flat-out wrong.

If you want to tell it like it is, tell it like it is: Lucidity does exist - just like your waking-world consciousness exists, but there are varying degrees of it. It is not a static concept.

To say it 'doesn't exist,' just to showcase its subjectivity and wide-ranging nature, is nothing but rhetoric.

you are ranking awareness dream and reality awareness on one scale of 1-100.. to counter everything you've said, i think dream awareness and reality awareness are two different things.