Thread: bugging me for years

Your brain is trolling you

Why are we still able to be surprised by dreams, once we know we are dreaming? Something outside of our reach is still planning little surprises and pranks, and generating weird stuff. Whatever part of our mind is generating the dream is not totally within our control.

Originally Posted by WakingNomad

I have the same amount of lucidity and belief.

Obviously belief has nothing to do with it.

The statement "dream control works via belief" is a lie. Plain and simple.

It amazes me that people are so quick to state the unlimited possibility, complexity, and mystery of dreams, and then those same people go ahead and lump all of control under such a vague, singular idea with no supporting evidence outside of anecdote. Tragic, really.

Not that unexpected really, lucid dreaming is such a new area of research, it took so long for the psychological establishment to accept the validity of lucid dreaming. It's no surprise there has been little research into the mechanics of dream control. I don't believe you could reduce it to a simple paradigm like 'belief' or 'expectation'.

Robert Waggoner mentions something along these lines in Gateway to the inner self.
His view is there's a dreamweaver/hidden observer/greater awareness that forms the dream, and then lets you participate, so to speak.
One never has full control over a dream, only the ability to direct there attention and focus, the hidden observer (subconscious/unconscious?) does the rest of the work. Maybe the dream didn't want you to create fireballs?

Originally Posted by WakingNomad

This question has been bugging me for years:

Why do I sometimes have godlike dream control and at other times when I try to make a fireball, my palm just gets hot?

I have the same amount of lucidity and belief.

I hate to wax utterly un-philosophic, but it could amount to what you ate, or didn't eat, that day, or the position of your head during the dream, or the amount of sleep you got the day before, or..well, you get it. It could simply be your own body chemistry working against you, Nomad, and nothing more.

No matter how powerful we become as dreamers, the takeoff system is still fueled by the physical world, and sometimes that fuel just sucks.

Originally Posted by ShadowOfSelf

Robert Waggoner mentions something along these lines in Gateway to the inner self.
His view is there's a dreamweaver/hidden observer/greater awareness that forms the dream, and then lets you participate, so to speak.
One never has full control over a dream, only the ability to direct there attention and focus, the hidden observer (subconscious/unconscious?) does the rest of the work. Maybe the dream didn't want you to create fireballs?

ah! I never thought of that. thanks.

Originally Posted by Sageous

I hate to wax utterly un-philosophic, but it could amount to what you ate, or didn't eat, that day, or the position of your head during the dream, or the amount of sleep you got the day before, or..well, you get it. It could simply be your own body chemistry working against you, Nomad, and nothing more.

No matter how powerful we become as dreamers, the takeoff system is still fueled by the physical world, and sometimes that fuel just sucks.

One of my favorite magicians says to exhaust all mundane possibilities befor resorting to magic.

Originally Posted by WakingNomad

One of my favorite magicians says to exhaust all mundane possibilities before resorting to magic.

Another mundane thought about this occurred to me in the wee hours this morning:

What if those LD's in which you have no control are not really LD's? What if you are simply dreaming that you are lucid?

I know this is a difficult thing to accept, especially by an advanced LD'er like you, but I believe it can and does happen, simply because occasionally nature prevails and your dreaming mind produces exactly the dream you expect it to, with no waking awareness help from you. It happens to me fairly often, and I've been at this for a very long time.

You might disagree, but would it do any harm to add an exercise to your awareness arsenal where you take a moment to double-check your conscious condition in the dream (it would have to be something more than a basic RC, because, I've found, that the dreaming mind can easily trick you with a "successful" standard RC)? Might be worth the effort, and the reward would be more LD's and, of course, more security in your sense of control.

... take it or leave it, I suppose.

Originally Posted by Sageous

Another mundane thought about this occurred to me in the wee hours this morning:

What if those LD's in which you have no control are not really LD's? What if you are simply dreaming that you are lucid?

I know this is a difficult thing to accept, especially by an advanced LD'er like you, but I believe it can and does happen, simply because occasionally nature prevails and your dreaming mind produces exactly the dream you expect it to, with no waking awareness help from you. It happens to me fairly often, and I've been at this for a very long time.

You might disagree, but would it do any harm to add an exercise to your awareness arsenal where you take a moment to double-check your conscious condition in the dream (it would have to be something more than a basic RC, because, I've found, that the dreaming mind can easily trick you with a "successful" standard RC)? Might be worth the effort, and the reward would be more LD's and, of course, more security in your sense of control.

... take it or leave it, I suppose.

My lucidity and dream control are unrelated.

Originally Posted by WakingNomad

My lucidity and dream control are unrelated.

"Leave it" it is, then. That's fine.

Just one more quick suggestion, then: next time you are in a dream with strong lucidity and little or no control, try to remember what you were doing fifteen minutes earlier, or just before the dream. If you find yourself remembering some elaborate scenario that has nothing to do with lying in bed waiting to sleep, you might have a chance to reassess the strength of that lucidity.

I only suggest this because I have never heard of dream control and lucidity being unrelated. I suppose that could be true. If it is, then this memory check will work every time, regardless of control. If they are related, though, this test will allow you to prove to yourself that your awareness isn't as "fully on" as you think it is when your memory fails to match reality. Please keep in mind, Nomad, that this suggestion is not meant to question your abilities, only to help you refine them even further.

And again, take it or leave it. I'm not proud.

Simple, you cannot expect to keep a room well lit and never have it descend to darkness once more. You cant have power and expect to not find yourself powerless, for both ideas are a possibility.