My Control/Awareness Paradox

[Soulnote]

It seems that in my lucid dreams, the more clear headed and aware I am, the less control I have over it. My more recent lucids have been more clear, and i've been acting less instinctive and have more control over myself, along with being able to do things like remember real life perfectly, so basically, i'm fully aware that i'm dreaming and in the same mindset as I am awake. That's the problem, because I am fully conscious and able to think like I do in real life, my brain's telling me things like: Human beings cannot fly You can't levitate things Stuff like what I would think with a right mind, but because I am conscious enough to have a right mind in my dreams, that's making my mind try to follow real life rules. I can't seem to control anything unless i'm instinctive and not in a right mind over myself. Any suggestions on this?

[Raphael]

You need to have complete trust in your abilities, confidence is everything. Don't pay any attention to the irony you just laid out, it will only hinder you if you keep it in the back of your mind. Know that it is a dream and that you are God. Don't let your conscious mind put limitations on yourself, know that you are in a whole other world with a different set of rules. This is not real life, it is your imagination; imagine something and it will happen. If you're having trouble with a task, flip it around and look at it a different way. Make it easy on yourself, use verbal commands. Get DC's to teach you things, or have them tell you how great your power is. Anything to build your confidence.

[Soulnote]

Easier said than done

[Raphael]

Haha, that's exactly the kind of attitude which is prohibiting you from having control. Believe in your abilities, young grasshopper.

[Soulnote]

It's like fully believing that you can fly in real life, i'm conscious enough to be able to think like i'm awake, unless you're insane, it's hard to fully convince yourself you can fly in real life

[AngelKiss]

Maybe it's a dumb question, but - How can you be lucid - i.e. being aware that you are dreaming - and not be able to "tell" your brain: So what? It's not real life. It's a dream, so everything is possible! I thought that is what being lucid is about. Whether you can fly or let something levitate in the end, then depends largely on your dream control. But, hey, I am a newby with little experience in LD, so maybe I am totally wrong

[Soulnote]

Maybe it's a dumb question, but - How can you be lucid - i.e. being aware that you are dreaming - and not be able to "tell" your brain: So what? It's not real life. It's a dream, so everything is possible! I thought that is what being lucid is about. Whether you can fly or let something levitate in the end, then depends largely on your dream control. But, hey, I am a newby with little experience in LD, so maybe I am totally wrong Being lucid is knowing you're dreaming, that's it, nothing to do with control. Also, control isn't that simple, yes you need to believe you can do it, but the more lucid you are, the more your awake brain turns on, and your awake brain says people can't fly. So the more turned on it is, the harder it is for me, I don't know if this is just with me of what. But thanks anyway.

[silver2k]

Easier said than done It's like fully believing that you can fly in real life, i'm conscious enough to be able to think like i'm awake, unless you're insane, it's hard to fully convince yourself you can fly in real life Being lucid is knowing you're dreaming, that's it, nothing to do with control. Also, control isn't that simple, yes you need to believe you can do it, but the more lucid you are, the more your awake brain turns on, and your awake brain says people can't fly. So the more turned on it is, the harder it is for me, I don't know if this is just with me of what. But thanks anyway. Seriously, could you be more negative? Tell your stupid brain that you can't fly in reality, but you can fly in your lucid reality.

[Playlaughdream]

I think we all have the same difficulty. Last night I used the wbtb method and remained motionless and then I remember having a WILD with all transition experiences but as soon as the dream environment appeared, my conscious mind couldn't do much and I woke up. Also I wouldn't say dream world is totally different than waking reality because everything is constantly being interpreted by mind. Anyway I don't how to have better control. And I think the more lucid the less control for beginners like me.

[siuol]

the importiant thing is to find something that works for you. like i cant fly without my wings, but id rather fly without them, so its annoying. sometimes, if i feel to concious to do anything i kind of dip out of conciousness for a while. its wierd so ill explain, in a sport when you jump up and catch a ball really fast, its almost like a blur where you werent thinking out each move or really even looking at everything, but when you land you are back to normal. i quickly do something with a bit less conciousness, and then snap back to my previous level of lucidity.

[Playlaughdream]

the importiant thing is to find something that works for you. like i cant fly without my wings, but id rather fly without them, so its annoying. sometimes, if i feel to concious to do anything i kind of dip out of conciousness for a while. its wierd so ill explain, in a sport when you jump up and catch a ball really fast, its almost like a blur where you werent thinking out each move or really even looking at everything, but when you land you are back to normal. i quickly do something with a bit less conciousness, and then snap back to my previous level of lucidity. I like the idea although it seem rather difficult to increase and decrease the level of lucidity as you wish. It sounds like you have to lose control or let go in other to gain some control.

[futureghost]

I understand what you are saying here. what you need to realize I think is that you are not as conscious in these dreams as you think you are because if you were you would realize that the rules are not the same in a dream.In other words enforcing the laws of the waking universe upon the dreaming one makes it nothing more than a bad copy. When this happens try to realize that the problem is that you do not understand your environment, stop and try to understand what a dream is rather than deciding what it should be. This is also good mental training for critical thinking in waking life. We make poor judges of everything if nothing can ever be anything but a derivative of something else. Also...perhaps contrary to the popular belief I really don't believe that there is anything to a lucid dream which is not a direct reflection of the dreamer. Therefore When the environment resists me, I interpret it as me resisting myself, because there is simply no "other" to offer true external resistance. it may help to confront that, it has helped me in the past.

[Soulnote]

I fully know the rules are different but it's still hard for me to just "switch" modes, another thing is I have a weird mental condition where I adapt to things too much, so that would contribute to it too.

[futureghost]

that is NOT a weird mental Condition man, that's a natural ability. Adapting quickly in this age means survival. I think I came off wrong I intended "know" to read more along the lines of "accept". This is a deeper knowledge the same kind you would lend to the fundamental laws of physics , the same kind that is giving you problems. I fully believe that trying to fight that strength is not the solution because when you turn it around you'll be crazy proficient.

[Xaqaria]

Being lucid is knowing you're dreaming, that's it, nothing to do with control. Also, control isn't that simple, yes you need to believe you can do it, but the more lucid you are, the more your awake brain turns on, and your awake brain says people can't fly. So the more turned on it is, the harder it is for me, I don't know if this is just with me of what. But thanks anyway. I don't agree with this. The more lucid you are, the more aware you are to the fact that the rules you are used to do not apply. Clarity is not a good way to gauge lucidity. If you are fully aware of being in a dream then it will be natural to fly or move things or create things out of thin air. It is only when you question the dream (is this real? or any thought that you are somehow beholden to real life rules) that you become less lucid and lose control.

[futureghost]

Ok, I'm going to go ahead and explain what I believe the be the structure of the perception-reality relationship because i think it might help somebody who might read this thread. as far as i can tell it's like this: you have awareness, it's centered on the perceiver. The perceiver IS the point of consciousness which balances between two realities which relate (interact) to/with each other through the medium of perception, that is through a conscious perceiver. reality "A" is Objective reality "B" is Subjective. Treating either one as if it's the other is a bad bad move. In reality "A" the perceiver is passive to the facts which that reality presents, in reality "B" it's reversed the facts of reality are the direct product OF the perceiver...and I am not sure that even qualifies as mundane perception since perception is generally considered a passive act and the relationship of the perceiver to the subjective internal universe is anything but passive. It's probably better to think of internal perception as "Conception". Applying this in an actual dream is really MUCH harder than it sounds. When we think of conception we think of the invention of ideas, literally creating new thoughts from nothing. Now this is made even more difficult by the age we live in. There is literally so much and so much has been done and we're surrounded by all of it, Real conception now verges on myth. It's very common to think of "Creativity" as nothing more than the ability to take a lot of stuff that already exists and rearrange it into some shape nobody has seen...yet. SO...it's really insanely hard to imagine placing actual Conception in the role of perception to the extent where it becomes natural, but that is really the thing to do. hope it helps.

[Soulnote]

Ok, that made no sense to me, but thatnks for trying to put in so much effort How about we leave it at this "Control" and "Awareness" can't have the exact same definitions for different people. Control is by belief that you can do it, or that's what I think. Everyone will have different views on what exactly being "lucid" will mean. Like in life, you can't understand what someone's thinking if you aren't them, so some things they need to figure out on their own.

[Xaqaria]

I have a question, why do you seem to be arguing so hard for your problem? Whatever the answer is, it is most likely the root of the problem itself. "Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they're yours." - Richard Bach

[Soulnote]

That's what I was saying last post, let's just leave it, I need to figure it out myself

[futureghost]

Well regardless, Good luck

[Blacklight]

Well, in the most clear lucid dreams of mine I sometimes have trouble jumping and flying around because I think that "I only need to make the mistake of thinking it's a dream when it isn't once and I'm dead. Forever. Caution would be best now."