Thread: Dissatisfaction with Reality

I think that is kind of dangerous to think, why are you unhappy with reality?

obviously he does not want to say. blackfrancis, i will be honest. that should (if anything) improve your lucid dreaming. also, lucid dreaming will provide a refuge from the stresses of daily life, but remember: eventually it will come back to bite you on the ass. i hope you are not planning on some sort of "lucid coma" or something. *note to self: try to induce lucid coma* (only joking)

Dreams aren't really a complete escape from reality because the issues and emotions that plague you in your "real life" often come back in full force in your "dream life" to be confronted. Learning to be lucid in your dreams will help you respond the same issues in new ways, rather than being trapped by them, and this is a skill that you can hopefully carry through to your waking life. Dreaming should complement your day-to-day life, rather than compete with it.

By the way, I often feel the same way about wanting to escape so I understand how you feel. Hopefully things will get better soon.

Originally Posted by guerilla

I think that is kind of dangerous to think, why are you unhappy with reality?

That is a question I was gonna ask but I think I know the answer cause I'm with him too..... EVERYTHING about reality sucks!....

IMJ

Really, between waking life and dream life there's not much of a difference if you're conscious enough. I don't see how it's dangerous to be dissatisfied with reality and I would think that that eagerness to escape should help you to achieve lucid dreams more often, as long as you channel that eagerness properly.

it only has to suck if you make it suck! again, use your lucid dreams to help issues about waking life. Can't go wrong there.

If your miserable in real life: A. I dont think your going to have an easy time achieveing a LD. And B. if you did, I have a feeling you would still be miserable since your closer to thinking and acting the same as you do in real life.

Why do you want to have an LD? to do something that you cant in real life? Why cant you do that in real life? Confronting what you dont like about real life is the first step to actually liking it

Originally Posted by roguenightmare

it only has to suck if you make it suck! again, use your lucid dreams to help issues about waking life. Can't go wrong there.

Can't agree more with that. But then again....reality has the upper hand and all we got is adaptability.

IMJ

Originally Posted by BlackFrancis

I am completely unhappy with my life and want to escape all the time. I'm afraid this will interfere with the ability to lucid dream because I'm too willing to accept a dream world as reality. What do you think?

Well let me tell you something:
I feel the same way pretty much all the time and I know ALOT of people and more everyday who feel the same. You know this Life on this Earth with these people could be soooo wonderfull and pleasurable.

But people make thisn world such a mess and get in eachother's way of being happy. It is because of the Ego of mankind that makes us want to enjoy Life at the expence of others, Consume all joy/food/good stuff ourselves and leav nothing left for another. The cursed Ego which does not want to share and feels threatened and the need to "kill competition" all the time. This Destructive additude towards Life, which seems to be a contageous behavioural virus, will run us all aground. It is making Life so sour.


This, wanting to escape from reality, in my eyes is very healthy. It's this world that has become sick. But instead of Escaping Reality I seek to make it better, no matter how hard that may be and no matter if I have to die trying.

Why won't you treat your life as a dream?

'Life is meant to be big fun, you're not hurting anyone, nobody loses'

I really think Lucid Dreaming is not a refuge, or a hiding place. It's a recreation.

Sure it's the closest thing we have to living our fantasies, but there is a real life to be lived out there. And if you are not happy in waking life, well you should try your best to fix your waking life, and not hide in sleep.

2/3 of your day is spent awake, and Im not sure where to direct you, but its really best to seek some help, or an outlet, so you can enjoy it.

Lucid dreaming is not a place to hide from reality. If you go in with that attitude, your dreams will suck and you'll probably be worse off if you do it.

I don't think LDing should have anything to do with improving your waking life. To me, lucid dreaming is just a hobby, like snowboarding. I do it for fun, and no other reason. If you feel that your life sucks, don't try to use LDs as an outlet, because 1) it's not very reliable 2) it wont last and 3) it will do nothing to help whatever problem you're having in your waking life. Whatever is wrong right now you can either fix, or it will fix itself in time, even if that just means getting over whatever is making you unhappy. When people say reality sucks, I don't think it's true at all. Life is what you make it, and I'd have to say that I'm very happy with mine because I do what makes me happy and I don't dwell too much on the bad things. I've come to realize that a lot of what people get stressed over is very insignificant, even if it may seem like a big deal. I'm not saying that you should just stop being unhappy, but I'm just trying to give you some hope that your life doesn't have to suck, and if you really try you can probably make it better.

Originally Posted by Postman

Why won't you treat your life as a dream?

'Life is meant to be big fun, you're not hurting anyone, nobody loses'

I did this before well..in a way still am. Certain places or events does relate to dream like scenarios. I think merging dreaming and reality is also lucid dreaming...just that your aware that your not in a dream but still I am dreaming.

IMJ

Originally Posted by SKA

Well let me tell you something:
I feel the same way pretty much all the time and I know ALOT of people and more everyday who feel the same. You know this Life on this Earth with these people could be soooo wonderfull and pleasurable.

But people make thisn world such a mess and get in eachother's way of being happy. It is because of the Ego of mankind that makes us want to enjoy Life at the expence of others, Consume all joy/food/good stuff ourselves and leav nothing left for another. The cursed Ego which does not want to share and feels threatened and the need to "kill competition" all the time. This Destructive additude towards Life, which seems to be a contageous behavioural virus, will run us all aground. It is making Life so sour.


This, wanting to escape from reality, in my eyes is very healthy. It's this world that has become sick. But instead of Escaping Reality I seek to make it better, no matter how hard that may be and no matter if I have to die trying.

It sure is, I mean there is nothing saying that it's a bad thing. But I think you should reduce the hate and focus on getting there instead. Hate is very strong in you. I'm doing LDing for the EXACT same reason/purpose as you! So I know what your hate is.....overwhelming.

IMJ

I am not sure why you are so unhappy or what your mental/physical state is, so I'll make my best statements. I don't think that your unhappiness will interfere with your ability to lucid dream, quite the contrary, but I think it could lead to your being obsessive about achieving lucidity. I experience the same thing occasionally and it makes matters worse. Obsession can help with your dedication and motivation, but may also harbor unhealthy behaviors and states of mind. I'd recommend getting help for your depression, and using lucid dreaming to help you achieve peace and happiness in conjunction with counseling or medication. I would not recommend trying to use LDing as an escape, as it can lead to actually feeling worse about your waking life. I say this from personal experience.

Do you have any experience with lucid dreaming? You may have false expectations, so please try to provide us with more info so we can do our best to help you

For me, lucid dreaming has been a big help especially in times of lesser depression. Overall it has helped with my self-assurance and esteem, caused me to relax more about life in the waking world and realize how much of my stress was simply my perceptions and socially-ingrained worries (which are irrelevant and have since been mostly discarded). It is also great fun. I spent a majority of my childhood wishing there was more to life and feeling powerless and unfulfilled, so to be able to "play God" or have superpowers has been exhilirating. Like I said, I think you can use it to help yourself but only if you work on solving the problems in real life at the same time. If you find that you are spending too much time dreaming, or getting frustrated because you are having trouble attaining lucidity and it is causing you further depression, I would stop until real life was sorted out.

Lucid dreaming isn't going to help you escape reality, so much as just have some fun, people feel like it's some kind of new life, and then other's tell that person that it is somehow dangerous for them and it never is (I'm not citing guerilla specificly, I've heard lots of people say it), first of all you probably won't get to the point of mastering lucid dreams long enough to distract you from your waking life (sorry to crush your hopes) but most people only get up to like 30 min dream time to have fun at most, and the majority don't get this but only a time or so a week.

Though don't get me wrong, I believe it is possible to master lucid dreaming, it just takes disopline.

I wouldn't be telling the full story though if I didn't tell you that I too have an additude a lot like you right now, I just want to forget about reality for awhile.

BlackFrancis I think your posting this is not a good idea. You'd actually get many views from people who couldn't agree/understand with your cause...makes it worse in my opinion. Wether it affects or not is really dependant on your subconcious and actual effect in the long run. Going back on my words... maybe by hating reality it may actually improve your LDing...who knows. Gives you more focus than anyone else can give to LDing...because I found that LDing is a selfish hobby and it requires alot of attention for it to be successfull. If you give it a title "hobby" or "recreation" it deminishes your cause/attention for wanting to escape. So asking us if it affects isn't helpfull, you gotta go deep and evaluate which way of life you want...the LDing way of life that you want or LDing as just a recreational purpose. Go for what you think will work most of all....

IMJ

Hell, this sounds like it can provide excellent motivation if you harness it right..

Apparently it will be harder according to the concept of depth psychology. “Belief” in the dream symbols and experience is required for healing, personality integration or catharsis to take place. Lucidity can only arise if a person is relatively free of un-reconciled conflicts which form barriers. Anyway, I recently had a dream that I was in California and I actually said the word "dream". That's probably the closest I'll ever get to lucid dreaming.

Originally Posted by BlackFrancis

Apparently it will be harder according to the concept of depth psychology. “Belief” in the dream symbols and experience is required for healing, personality integration or catharsis to take place. Lucidity can only arise if a person is relatively free of un-reconciled conflicts which form barriers. Anyway, I recently had a dream that I was in California and I actually said the word "dream". That's probably the closest I'll ever get to lucid dreaming.

What do you mean by "Belief" in the dream symbols? Is it like linking them to something familiar in reality? There is some truth in that though cause I have been 'resolving' my conflict and I find I don't grip LDing as tight as before.

IMJ

I don't know I got the italicized part from wikipedia.

I know how you feel mate, but believe me, you don't want to go down this road. Reality is what matters, sure Lucid Dreaming is much more enjoyable than reality at times, but Lucid Dreaming is also a RESULT reality. In fact, everything you experiance in a dream is a result of a similar experiance in real life. (If not similar, it pulls parts of previous experiances to make it "feel" like it is correct) I had a similar problem, trying to escape into my dreams. It just makes reality worse and worse and makes Lucid Dreaming more like an addiction than a nice little bonus to life. Just face up to whatever is going wrong in your life, do what you can to fix it, if you need somone to help you go to a friend, or if no one like that exists, you have US! When it is all over, no matter what the outcome, good or bad, you will feel satisfied with yourself because you know that you tried your best to fix it.

Sorry for giving a lecture, must be rediculous coming from somone you don't even know, but I have been down a similar road. I don't know your circumstances, but I know that it only gets worse when you try to avoid what you need to face. Think of Lucid Dreams more like a "recharge" at the end of the day, to get you ready for your next battle instead of an escape from the war.

I hope all goes well with you!

Originally Posted by -InsaneKid-

Think of Lucid Dreams more like a "recharge" at the end of the day, to get you ready for your next battle instead of an escape from the war.

That's true. I feel so happy and exhilarated after LDing that it's hard to have a bad day. And that is a brilliant way to think about it anyway.