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    View Poll Results: Do you believe you have a soul?

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    Thread: POLL: Do you believe you have a soul?

    1. #1
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      POLL: Do you believe you have a soul?

      This poll is not bound to any religion and is absolutely anonymous, unless you want to say it loud and clear! I always wanted to make such a poll on pure lucid dreaming forum to see what pure lucid dreamers think about this matter. I see that we have around fifty active members, please vote with your heart.
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      I voted no.

      That's not to say I don't believe there is a spiritual or immaterial part to us.

      Right now as I reflect on this, I am most influenced by Sam Harris' book "Waking up: Guide to Spirituality without Religion" and especially the part about the Split Brain experiment. The two interesting things he brings up is: 1. Two parts of one's brain can be aware of different things, hinting that we might have more than one consciousness per mind. Consciousness might overlap. 2. You can split the brain and ask the two resulting consciousness if they felt a change. They will both claim they felt no discontinuity. This implies consciousness is divisible.

      Because souls are indivisible and wouldn't normally overlap, I think the traditional idea of soul no longer represents these observations. Right now, I tend more to believe that consciousness is an omnipresent thing, and that it is aware of every closed conscious circuit (alike to an electrical circuit: there is the potential for electricity everywhere, there only needs to be a closed circuit for the movement to be triggered). Because each closed conscious circuit is closed, it is aware of its separatedness from other circuits, and can't be aware of their awarness... because of the seperatedness of the circuits, not of consciousness.

      In that sense, I believe that consciousness is eternal. Even after all conscious beings die, I believe there will come another time where there are conscious beings and consciousness will not even be aware of the discontinuity, although it will forever only be aware of the closed consciousness circuits, therefore limited in its awareness.

      I think the main difference in my belief and the traditional souls is that I don't believe my soul grants me my identity and uniqueness. Mainly because, if I were to reincarnate in someone else with a much different body from mine today, in a different culture, with a different psychology, with different experiences and social circles, I have no idea what would remain consistent between my previous and new life. It would turn out, I would be far more similar to many other people than my previous life. So, in that case, I feel the only thing that would be intact between me and my previous life, is what is the same between me and every other person: my (our) consciousness (without its contents).
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      I voted yes.

      Similar to Occipitalred, I am spiritual but not religious, and believe consciousness is eternal however I also believe that spirit or God is beyond even consciousness, and that it's God or spirit which creates all things including consciousness. We only experience consciousness through the dimensions of time and space, you need time to think and perceive things, and space to act it out. Beyond that, you are stepping closer to unity or infinity (infinite unity?) where it becomes impossible to have conscious thought.

      Further to this, even just the thought of losing or selling my soul makes me cringe and feel sick inside. Same feeling happens if I so much as think about writing something with my own blood. There is power within our blood, and using it for a purpose like blood magick or signing a contract is an act against God.

      The soul is often described as a container or vessel, it isn't your personality traits, beliefs, thoughts, ego, or anything like that. It's more like a power cell that generates your body and mind, allowing you to be self-aware and experience existence. As such, I also believe in soul energy, and there are many dark beings that try to steal or feed off your soul energy. They can't steal the soul as this belongs to God, the only way they could is if you committed the act above. But they can take the energy it generates if you're not careful. The energy is generated when we sleep, but can also be recharged other ways such as meditation, healthy living, etc.
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      I voted "Yes!", but at my present level of understanding I still don't know exactly what a "soul" is.

      In my view (as it currently stands), we need three things: consciousness, imagination, and will power. Without consciousness we would not be experiencing anything, nor would we know the difference between being alive and being dead. Without imagination we would never experience any world whatsoever, neither the physical one, nor any dream worlds, because worlds are made up using imagination ("there is no spoon"). Without will power, we would never be able to direct our attention, nor able to direct our imagination, and subsequently whatever worlds we would experience would have no meaningful structure, since everything would be created and experienced at random.

      I am perfectly willing to consider the trinity of consciousness, imagination, and will power to be the "soul".

      EDIT: Come to think of it: maybe will power, imagination, and consciousness could also be named as God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit ...
      Last edited by Voldmer; 11-30-2020 at 09:17 PM.
      Occipitalred and michael79 like this.
      So ... is this the real universe, or is it just a preliminary study?

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      So, I will backtrack on my post. I researched a little bit more and soul-theorists don't think the Split Brain experiment is a problem for the soul. Just like I believe the universal soul can be co-conscious simultaneously in all conscious entities, soul theorists also believe the divinely assigned soul is dependent upon the brain and if the brain is split, the soul unit will simply be co-conscious simultaneously in both hemispheres, separate in each parallel awareness, yet, one.

      So, I guess, what makes me a panpsychist instead of a soul-theorist is that I just don't see what distinguishes one soul from another once you remove the brains which they are dependent upon.

      Quote Originally Posted by Eonnn View Post
      I believe consciousness is eternal however I also believe that spirit or God is beyond even consciousness, and that it's God or spirit which creates all things including consciousness.
      I suggest looking into panspiritualism.

      Quote Originally Posted by Voldmer View Post
      I am perfectly willing to consider the trinity of consciousness, imagination, and will power to be the "soul".
      It's interesting because I, myself, have always defined the soul = consciousness + willpower.

      I wonder how you distinguish consciousness from imagination. It seems that for you, consciousness is the ability to be conscious at all like a yes or no parameter, and imagination is the ability to juggle the contents of consciousness. I never thought to separate them into two. Interesting.

      Interestingly, the question of willpower is what most convinces me there is a soul. There just seems to be no place for willpower in the materialist viewpoint, yet, I really believe in it and anyway, any serious philosophical conversation on willpower ultimately drains me completely, haha.

      EDIT: Also, why is the "No" option italicized and exclamatory? My own "no" was a bit more quiet, kind of like a no?
      Last edited by Occipitalred; 12-01-2020 at 02:45 AM.
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      Quote Originally Posted by Occipitalred View Post
      It's interesting because I, myself, have always defined the soul = consciousness + willpower.

      I wonder how you distinguish consciousness from imagination. It seems that for you, consciousness is the ability to be conscious at all like a yes or no parameter, and imagination is the ability to juggle the contents of consciousness. I never thought to separate them into two. Interesting.
      For me, consciousness is the always-on* ability to perceive. Imagination creates the stuff which consciousness perceives. In my view, in the permanent absence of imagination, consciousness could perceive nothing apart from its own existence, and the existence of willpower.

      * For me, unconsciousness is when consciousness is actively focused on the temporary absence of imagination (or simply not focused on whatever imagination has created). Therefore I view the word "unconsciousness" as a distinct misnomer.
      Occipitalred and michael79 like this.
      So ... is this the real universe, or is it just a preliminary study?

    7. #7
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      What are your thoughts on the difference between awareness and consciousness if there is one? people can increase their level of awareness, for example by practicing mindfulness meditation. And likewise people can be unaware, for example someone making fun of a person when their back is turned, or an unexpected event because they lacked awareness. I think our consciousness is always present and perhaps always remains the same type or quality of consciousness amongst all humans it seems, just the level of awareness varies moment to moment. So if someone is unconscious, it's more a misuse of the word in that they are still conscious just un-aware or the awareness is focused on something else at the time (in sleeping it would be focused on deep sleep in a sort of rest/recovery mode or on the dream experience). The awareness is further increased if one becomes lucid whilst dreaming. Or, do you think they are completely interchange-able words and increasing awareness is exactly the same thing as increasing consciousness?

      I looked up panspiritualism, I never heard that term before or the theory but yes it seems pretty spot on to what I believe. Through all my years of spiritual experience, research and development it seems to resonate with what I've learnt and discovered. Although I only skimmed over the article about it, will look into it a bit more when I have time.

      My latest discovery, has been that psychokinetic abilities (abilities of the mind - PK for short) are not the same as psychic clair abilities (eg. clairvoyance, clairaudience, clairsentience, etc.) as PK covers things like telekinesis, pyrokinesis, hydrokinesis, chronokinesis, etc. which all fall under the umbrella of PK, but the psychic abilities are slightly different - being able to see, hear, feel in spirit. There is a different quality about them and how they function,and are considered gifts not abilities. You might argue telepathy falls under the PK umbrella, but clairaudience is so much more than just reading people's minds as it includes being able to communicate with spirit, non-physical beings and also mother nature, the trees and animals, etc. Precognition seems to relate to clairaudience in that if you can communicate with spirit, you can receive information in advance, or receive psychic 'downloads' of information.

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      Quote Originally Posted by Eonnn View Post
      What are your thoughts on the difference between awareness and consciousness if there is one? ... Or, do you think they are completely interchange-able words and increasing awareness is exactly the same thing as increasing consciousness?
      I guess this easily becomes a matter of labels, rather than a matter of deeper differences, but as far as I am concerned, awareness is the act of perceiving, whereas consciousness is someone engaged in the act of perceiving. In other words, consciousness is awareness + someone who is aware. Or, to put it into yet other words, awareness has no "I", whereas consciousness very much does have an "I".
      michael79 and Eonnn like this.
      So ... is this the real universe, or is it just a preliminary study?

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      Thumbs up

      First thing first, Thanks to everyone who participated in this poll and also thanks to ones who didn't. I somehow expected the end result, but there are some good twists, seven people besides me said Yes, which was unexpected in a good way, one is uncertain but he have time to change his opinion and it seems he is open to suggestions, one said No but from what I had read, he is on the path. Also the members who didn't vote even after I said the poll is fully anonymous are the real voter's of No. From around fifty active members, ten positive and forty negative is a result in the border of expectation for a Lucid Dreaming forum. After all a Lucid Dreaming forum is based around the idea of non-spirituality, aka everything we experience after we fall asleep is just a dream. Let's say for the ones who didn't vote, the hope will die last^^

    10. #10
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      Quote Originally Posted by Occipitalred View Post
      I voted no.

      That's not to say I don't believe there is a spiritual or immaterial part to us.

      Right now as I reflect on this, I am most influenced by Sam Harris' book "Waking up: Guide to Spirituality without Religion" and especially the part about the Split Brain experiment. The two interesting things he brings up is: 1. Two parts of one's brain can be aware of different things, hinting that we might have more than one consciousness per mind. Consciousness might overlap. 2. You can split the brain and ask the two resulting consciousness if they felt a change. They will both claim they felt no discontinuity. This implies consciousness is divisible.
      I will not discuss the split brain theory, because I think the brain doesn't contain the soul, so with scalpel you can't split the soul and is gross, it remainds of Dr. Mengele human experiments. If you want you can check this thread, it seems splitting the brain is an old theory.
      I think the main difference in my belief and the traditional souls is that I don't believe my soul grants me my identity and uniqueness. Mainly because, if I were to reincarnate in someone else with a much different body from mine today, in a different culture, with a different psychology, with different experiences and social circles, I have no idea what would remain consistent between my previous and new life. It would turn out, I would be far more similar to many other people than my previous life. So, in that case, I feel the only thing that would be intact between me and my previous life, is what is the same between me and every other person: my (our) consciousness (without its contents).
      That is a correct observation, well done. I myself think Soul is just a Vessel to my Mind which contains my Consciousness, but if we talk about Consciousness we must mention also the Subconscious, the Superconscious and the Unconscious. Our brain is connected to our mind through the billions of neurones, though we use all of our brain, we can only access 10 percent at any given time, so our Consciousness is limited. Your indentity and uniqueness primary is comming from your memories and experience. For example when I have non-lucid dreams I do things that can contradict with my indetity, when I fly in the dream or kill someone/something, when only I wake up I find those actions contradiction of my thinking, because I'm afraid of high places and I'm against violence, it's like I'm not the one doing those things but my dream character me, after all when we have a non-lucid dream we don't have access to our memories and experience, it's like every time we fall asleep we die. But through my Astral Travels and OBE, I can say for sure that our memories and experience don't remain only in our Brain, they are translating into our mind as well.

      Despite what I said, that our mind consist of Consciousness, Subconsciousness, Superconsciousness and Unconsciousness, I believe they are all One, but we are somehow broken, so we don't have access to the other parts. As a Starseed I'm greatly affected by this, I know I have a mission but I somehow lost my memories through the transition, I left a clue for myself that I must not forget Who I'm or What I'm, this information came to me for the first time when my brain fully developed. I forgot the important part but a clue is a clue, so I'm searching continuously for what I have lost. In my encounter with fifth dimensional beings, I can say one thing for sure, we are different than them by only one thing, we have a hearth, hearth give birth to emotions which makes us unpredictable, a wild card. The beings on other hands have more hard logic, in fact they are similar to a very advanced AI, they still can love but their love is different than ours. Sure I believe in God as a very powerful, almighty and omnipotent entity, who thinks a lot different than us. I sure believe that I have willpower and Imagination. After all what we see and experience is formed by this imagination through our senses.
      Last edited by michael79; 12-04-2020 at 10:31 PM. Reason: spelling

    11. #11
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      Quote Originally Posted by michael79 View Post
      Our brain is connected to our mind through the billions of neurones, though we use all of our brain, we can only access 10 procent at any given time, so our Consciousness is limited. .
      Oh no. *Facepalm* you didn't just re-quote that infamous and contentious line which 50% agree with and 50% disagree ?

      Is there actual proof of this "we only use 10% of our brain?"
      Please provide link if possible explaining and proving it without a shadow of a doubt.

      I am personally in the other camp that believe we use 100% of our brain, all the time. There is a difference though when it comes to increasing our level of awareness or spiritual awareness, so that you can go beyond the 100% we use.
      Great thread though, would be nice if more people voted. Beyond dreaming section think most believe in a soul if they didn't, they wouldn't be in this section.
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      Quote Originally Posted by Eonnn View Post
      Oh no. *Facepalm* you didn't just re-quote that infamous and contentious line which 50% agree with and 50% disagree ?
      No, I didn't!
      Is there actual proof of this "we only use 10% of our brain?"
      Please provide link if possible explaining and proving it without a shadow of a doubt.
      I will repeat just for you what I said:
      though we use all of our brain, we can only access 10 percent at any given time, so our Consciousness is limited
      Quote Originally Posted by Eonnn View Post
      Beyond dreaming section think most believe in a soul if they didn't, they wouldn't be in this section.
      I'm sorry but this isn't the Deep Dreamers section.
      Last edited by michael79; 12-04-2020 at 10:32 PM. Reason: spelling

    13. #13
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      Quote Originally Posted by michael79 View Post
      . Also the members who didn't vote even after I said the poll is fully anonymous are the real voter's of No. From around fifty active members, ten positive and forty negative is a result in the border of expectation for a Lucid Dreaming forum.
      Oh, there's really no reason to assume the answer of those who didn't participate in any direction. It would be much more accurate to say 80% of those who replied to your poll claim a belief in a soul. Since there was no definition for a soul, there might be some discrepancy there. Also, we might wonder how representative those who voted are of the wider lucid dreaming community. 11 is a small number. But I really wouldn't conclude that 20% of Dreamviews believe in a soul from your poll! It's probably the majority, rather!

      Quote Originally Posted by michael79 View Post
      After all a Lucid Dreaming forum is based around the idea of non-spirituality, aka everything we experience after we fall asleep is just a dream. Let's say for the ones who didn't vote, the hope will die last^^
      I wouldn't say a lucid dreaming forum is based on non-spirituality. On the contrary! Lucid dreaming is about focusing on our subjective experience. It is a very spiritual exercise! Even for those for whom it is not religious, mystical or devotional, it for sure is spiritual, perhaps contemplative.

      Quote Originally Posted by michael79 View Post
      I will not discuss the split brain theory, because I think the brain doesn't contain the soul, so with scalpel you can't split the soul and is gross, it remainds of Dr. Mengele human experiments. If you want you can check this thread, it seems splitting the brain is an old theory.
      The split brain experiments were not inhumane acts done in favor of science to the detriment of health. It was a treatment for epilepsy which was effective and with little side effects as it turned out, but it is very rare now.

      Anyway, I did find this recent article which I found most informative of everything I read:
      https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7305066/

      As it turns out, the evidence is not conclusive and it seems likely that the mental processes in a split brain are still ultimately unified (into one consciousness)... as the split brain turns out, is not completely split.

      Yet, my belief remains somewhere in panpsychism.

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      Quote Originally Posted by Occipitalred View Post
      Oh, there's really no reason to assume the answer of those who didn't participate in any direction. It would be much more accurate to say 80% of those who replied to your poll claim a belief in a soul. Since there was no definition for a soul, there might be some discrepancy there.
      In my question I didn't define any absolute meaning to Soul, so if they really believe in soul, they should have voted and explain what soul is for them, but they didn't!
      Also, we might wonder how representative those who voted are of the wider lucid dreaming community.
      Trust me I have been there.
      But I really wouldn't conclude that 20% of Dreamviews believe in a soul from your poll! It's probably the majority, rather!
      Why they didn't vote then! Maybe I should have given out cash bonuses to encourage them!
      I wouldn't say a lucid dreaming forum is based on non-spirituality. On the contrary! Lucid dreaming is about focusing on our subjective experience. It is a very spiritual exercise!
      I'm sorry I don't want to be rude, but this is complete bollocks.
      In every LD forum when I mention the word spiritual is directly being connected to paranormal. Yes it is spiritual exercise, but in the wrong hands become non-spiritual. Interesting that in Spiritual forums, Lucid Dreaming section is abandoned the same way as Beyond Dreaming section here^^


      Yet, my belief remains somewhere in panpsychism.
      I respect your beliefs, yet this thread is not about "Me" changing your beliefs.

      :peace:
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      Quote Originally Posted by Occipitalred View Post
      Oh, there's really no reason to assume the answer of those who didn't participate in any direction. It would be much more accurate to say 80% of those who replied to your poll claim a belief in a soul. Since there was no definition for a soul, there might be some discrepancy there. Also, we might wonder how representative those who voted are of the wider lucid dreaming community. 11 is a small number. But I really wouldn't conclude that 20% of Dreamviews believe in a soul from your poll! It's probably the majority, rather!
      Great post. When I saw that, I thought the same thing. You can't conclude anything about the people that didn't vote. They may have not voted for many reasons. To do so would be a bias.

      I also noticed no definition, and it made me pause. But, I voted anyways, although my definition is probably not the original poster's definition.



      Quote Originally Posted by Occipitalred View Post
      I wouldn't say a lucid dreaming forum is based on non-spirituality. On the contrary! Lucid dreaming is about focusing on our subjective experience. It is a very spiritual exercise! Even for those for whom it is not religious, mystical or devotional, it for sure is spiritual, perhaps contemplative.
      Part of the problem here is again the lack of definition. What is spirituality? I personally think everyone is spiritual. We're all on a path of some kind of another, whether we call it spiritual or not. We are spiritual beings. But that's just my view.

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      Though I agree with Occipitalred that dreaming is a virtual spiritual experience, and I believe that there is enormous potential for exploring spirituality in LD's, I think I also might understand Michael's point. I think it isn't so much that the online LD'ing community isn't agreeable to spirituality as much as it that almost all they want to discuss is technique -- they want to know how to get lucid, and give little thought (so far) to what to do with that lucidity once they attain it. And techniques by their nature are decidedly non-spiritual. "Beyond Dreaming" will always become a subtopic in that world.

      But that's what the dreamers are discussing, and not necessarily what they are believing. I've had many discussions with members here over the years, and once you get them off the topic of techs, they are generally pretty spiritual folks -- generally enough that I would guess that 80% figure up there might just hold. Think of it like getting music online: The LD forums are akin to downloading Pandora (including reading the instructions to do so); while that process has nothing to do with the music itself, the people doing the downloading still want to eventually listen to music... and once LD'ers get past the downloading phase (aka techs) and learn to become consistently lucid, spirituality tends to be unavoidable; of course, at that point the forums are no longer useful, so we don't get to hear much about that.

      Regarding definition: I think the word "soul" is pretty much archetypically embedded in our collective minds. We might all have different definitions of the word, but when we hear it it still brings us all to the same place -- and that place is a spiritual one. So, whether a person believes in a soul or not, they will probably understand the the nature of Michael's question, perhaps intuitively.

      And yes, of course, I voted "yes," though my version of a soul might be a little out of the mainstream, as I see it as an accumulation of a lifetime of thoughts, with its nature being based on the quality of those thoughts -- no religion need be attached.



      P.S. There's really only 50 people left here (with way less actually posting, obviously)? That is either very sad or kind of cool (like we're now in a very special club), I can't decide.
      Last edited by Sageous; 12-05-2020 at 05:55 PM.

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      Yes, agreed.

      I think another reason we don't discuss spirituality in that sense is because the lack of common ground. We often explain our spiritual life in terms of our beliefs. Here, Michael describes the soul as a vessel for his mind, which explains how his mental faculties are not bound to his brain and he can travel in other planes. Sageous, as a lifetime of thoughts. Myself, as one universal soul split through all sentient bodies. Eonnn, as a power cell that generates your body and mind. Voldmer, unsure, thinks it might be consciousness, imagination and willpower. MoonageDaydream also seems to have her own idea of the soul.

      Sageous prefaced his definition by saying it might be a little out of the mainstream. I think, in terms of our spiritual worldviews, we all feel somewhat isolated. Also, the purpose of our worldview is to make sense of our spiritual lives... When our worldview is built or expends, we generally feel a click of "oh, that makes sense! I resonate with this!" Invariably, we will feel more connected to our own worldview, perhaps open to others' but only if they click.

      Once, in a language school abroad, I had two teachers with whom I would speak about spiritual things. They told me about ghosts and auras and taught me how to flow energy and see auras. They were both very happy about finding someone else spiritual saying they hadn't talked about this stuff in over 4 years. Since I was only passing, I was excited to tell them that they both knew another person with spiritual abilities and interests. But one saw auras as colors and the other as size. And both my teachers' reaction when I told them about one another was disbelief toward the other. I had not expected that. And when I came back home, I shared my conversations with these teachers to my professional fortune teller godmother. She also did not connect with those two other women and just dismissed it by saying "Oh, I don't see auras." And my godfather is also very spiritual, everything he says is imbued with spirituality. Because of that, during a dinner, my parents and grandmother tried to have me talk about my lucid dreaming. Instead of being interested, he explained that dreaming came from the astral (the place where other dimensional entities manipulate us) and dismissed it. He also mentioned he goes to the world of Dead in his sleep. Anyway, there was a wall between him and I coming from his side which exasperated my grandmother at the time.

      The point is, all these highly spiritual people in my life, they feel isolated. No one understands them. My godmother prefaces everything with "you'll think I'm crazy but here it goes..." but they really can't connect with each other. Because their experiences and worldviews don't align.

      Because of that, such conversation often lead to persuasive arguments or at best, philosophical explanations seeking more clarity... working on word definitions, finding the right statements that makes our experience click! "Oh, that makes sense!" We've done it here, and it can be a lot of fun. It also can feel unpleasant because realizing we don't actually know anything can be unpleasant.

      As long as spiritual conversations try to seek an absolute truth, we will all struggle for that truth to be the one that best connects with us. If any spiritual conversation makes assumptions (ex. mentioning ghosts and fifth dimensional entities), you might disengage another participant who, instead, believes in Jungian archetypes and the divine gods.

      I think a conversation where we talk about the feelings that we experienced may be better received? For example, "I had a dream, where I had a strong feeling that I can best describe if my mind were contained in an immaterial vessel outside my body and I met the future ghost of the Queen of England." I think prefacing statements with "I had the sense that... I had the feeling that..." is helpful at bringing each other on a common ground. Because, I can imagine those feelings, even if claiming them to be true doesn't help better explain my own subjective world.

      But yeah, I don't know.

      Quote Originally Posted by Sageous View Post
      P.S. There's really only 50 people left here (with way less actually posting, obviously)? That is either very sad or kind of cool (like we're now in a very special club), I can't decide.
      Oh, wow, I'm surprised! Sad, but then weird to think about.
      Last edited by Occipitalred; 12-05-2020 at 10:47 PM.

    18. #18
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      My bluff actually worked pretty well, even perfect, more people came, thanks. That actually exceeds my expectations, as I didn't predict that Sageous will come, he even voted Yes, that actually is pretty useful addition for driving this thread. I left the question without a definition, because I thought everyone will be happy, as I expected different opinions on the matter, did I get it wrong?

      Quote Originally Posted by Occipitalred View Post

      I think another reason we don't discuss spirituality in that sense is because the lack of common ground. We often explain our spiritual life in terms of our beliefs. Here, Michael describes the soul as a vessel for his mind, which explains how his mental faculties are not bound to his brain and he can travel in other planes. Sageous, as a lifetime of thoughts. Myself, as one universal soul split through all sentient bodies. Eonnn, as a power cell that generates your body and mind. Voldmer, unsure, thinks it might be consciousness, imagination and willpower. MoonageDaydream also seems to have her own idea of the soul.
      You explained my belief a little too superficial, my belief is actually pretty similar to Eonnn and Voldmer or more like greater of both combined. Without willpower I don't think we will have desire to live or to exist. Imagination translates The World through our senses into our Mind and our Mind connected to our brain. Our Soul is an energy body, without the Soul the body can't be truly alive, actually our body is created around the Soul. As I say our curent Consciousness is limited part of the whole, Mind = Cons + Subcons + Supercons + Uncons, they look separate but are one and only. And of course our Hearth which is Special. I won't throw Spirit over all of this or it will become too complicated. But thanks to You and Sageous I'm starting to think that equality is not the answer, maybe we are all humans but we may have different characteristics of our Soul, like I know that Earth has Soul too, in fact that will explain a lot of things. We all have a spiritual path to follow, but maybe the path is not the same, even the end result!
      Last edited by michael79; 12-06-2020 at 04:44 AM.
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    19. #19
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      This really has been a terrific thread.

      So many great points and personal insights, thank you to all!

      Personally I feel as though we are all non-physical beings having a physical experience. The continuity or collaboration or solitude of that experience is somewhat a matter of semantics in my personal worldview.
      The simple fact that we all rally behind the validity of the dreamscape and the importance of information gathered in that space puts us on par with the great shamans or sages of old.

      We all agree that we have a physical body, with which we are able to navigate the world around us and manipulate it according to our will. We also, on a nightly basis, are able to transcend that physicality into another place entirely. Seemingly constructed by our will or intention and usually containing information not readily available to our conscious mind.
      This to me is stark evidence that there is definitely a part of us which exists beyond the bounds of the physical universe. We have all experienced extraordinary things incomprehensible to the physical form. It is natural and happens regardless of our dedication to any craft. But with the effort of gathering and sharing wisdom we are able to streamline said efforts beyond what I am certain our ancestors would have thought possible.

      Is there a soul? Does identity exist after death?
      I'm honestly not entirely sure. What I am sure of is I have personally experienced in the non-physical being without a body, I have experienced the physical sensation of death or the feeling of vacating the body and the tactile feeling of consciousness blossoming outwards into an infinitely beautiful unknown. I have had experiences which calm my understanding of the importance of life and experience and community.

      What we are doing here is important.

      Regardless of what we call it, we are all dreamers, we all share the bond of understanding that there is more when we close our eyes.

      And I'm grateful to be on this journey with all of you.
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    20. #20
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      Lately I've been struggling with words, which has been one of the reasons I kept myself from saying anything in here, but it has been very interesting to read everyone's comments on this topic.

      From the beginning of seeing the topic, I also haven't thought that a universal definition of what the soul is to be of any particular use in regards to the original poll question; if michael79 had defined soul in some way, either by his words or someone else's words, in all likelihood, there would always be a case that one or more people wouldn't identify personally with that definition, and then by that definition they might bias their answer to that context, regardless of their personal belief. I think that the very vague and open-ended question was a good idea in that sense (despite my sceptical attitude toward it at first), especially since michael79 asked us to vote with our hearts.

      I would spend too much time quoting everyone and asking too many questions or adding too many small remarks at this point.

      Really, I just wanted to say I was the one who had voted "I don't know." in response to the poll, more or less for reasons that have already been brought up by pretty much all of you in several different parts of your comments.I might have been more likely to say "Yes" than "No" to the question at the moment and again this would have depended on if there was a pre-made definition of it to go by, but the only factor nobody could bring up anyway is my own personal experience and over the last few years I have found myself constantly and frequently rediscovering and rearranging my own beliefs much more than I might have expected, even five or ten years ago.

      I have found myself over the years thinking "Yes" just as loudly as I have thought "No" and so I chose to answer that I don't know because maybe I can't know and never will know; and if I do some day develop a very firm belief in either direction, how would I know if that truth is one which applies to me? This would just be a pointless obsession to me, currently; if there is a truth for me to discover in some sense, then it will come with time, not by persuading myself with arguments to one side or another.

      In other words, the fence can be nice, and I like to sit on the fence now and then.
      Last edited by DarkestDarkness; 12-06-2020 at 05:46 PM. Reason: grammar
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    21. #21
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      I like the fence as well sometimes, that grey area between the black and white where it is neutral and balance can be found.
      Lately, I've been focusing more on the positive side to see if it's possible to stay there.

      My friend and I have similar deep meaningful conversations around spirituality, he often points out how language is so limited and how we confuse terminology or associate different meanings to similar words. He says it's a key component to becoming enlightened to realize the awareness behind all creation, to be aware of the awareness behind the words, and ultimately become aware of being aware. I usually respond with a story about how in the beginning we didn't use language and the fall from heaven was because we discovered verbal communication. Or perhaps a different story, like how I have a feeling or memory of taking a vow a long time ago in a past life to never again speak a single word, perhaps for this very reason.

      Either way, I have to agree with Sageous it's both cool and sad that lucid dreaming forums are all but dead now, most people moved on (to the youtube comments section?) but the remains of the past are still here hidden away like precious gems beneath a sea of trash. People often judge the book by it's cover and only see what's floating on the surface, so they move on without looking any deeper.

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      Last edited by Eonnn; 12-07-2020 at 03:50 PM.

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      No I don't believe I have a soul, but I think you just worded it wrong. I believe I am soul/awareness that very temporarily has a physical body as a tool to function in a physical reality. And quite frankly, I'm not a fan of the physical, I never have been. I've always felt like an alien in a world I don't belong. But I know that at some point in my existence I'll be happy I went through the physical experience, and in the long run will have benefitted from it.

      I disagree that technique is separate from the spiritual because for me at least, it is not. For me the entire endeavor and daily awareness work and getting into the proper frame of mind is a very spiritual practice. But in a greater sense, I don't believe it's possible to separate the spiritual at all. As everything we feel, everything we do, everything we think, is a part of the process of evolving consciousness whether we happen to be feeling it in the moment or not.
      Last edited by Caradon; 12-09-2020 at 05:06 AM.
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      Yes, I do believe I have a soul. the soul is considered the incorporeal essence of a person and is said to be immortal and transcendent of material existence.
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