Do Dreams Really Destabilize?

apologies if this is in the wrong thread

I've been thinking on this lately - do dreams really destabilize? We all know that starting out, lucid dreams tend to go away pretty fast. What I'm wondering is this: Is it possibly due to all of us here saying such? Is it because of the stories we've both made and read about on beginning lucid dreams that has made us expect the dream to go away on the first go?

This also goes towards doing certain things in dreams, i.e. sex and flying. These two seem to make dreams go away a lot - is this just because we keep expecting them to? The dream world is hugely affected by expectations, so I'm starting to think that maybe, because of all these stories, our dreams keep on going south.

That's a good question, DreamscapeGoat, though the answer is probably "Yes; dreams do destabilize." I was encountering short-lived dreams for many years before there was an internet, and I am aware that others had the same problems as well. Unstable dreams are more likely a consequence of chemistry or focus than expectation, and we really do need to learn to develop skills for stabilization.

But it was a good question, because expectation is a powerful force in dreaming, and we could all be talking ourselves into "prefab" messes regularly -- especially with those popular tasks like flying. So, in cases of trying things that "everyone else is doing," like flying, yes, expectation can effect performance, but it probably isn't much of a player in events like dream destabilization... so this thread is still well worth the effort, even if unstable dreams are not sourced in expectation.

I do hope more people chime in about the power of expectation, because it is important.

Something to think about is the rules on which the dream world is built. The dream world is much more flexible and fluid than the real world and we can see this even in normal dreams, where items often shift but we are so involved with the story that we fail to spot such inconsistencies. Another example for shiftiness is when we try to go somewhere and get lost and we can't find our way back, a bit like the saying "you can't step in the same river twice".

So dreams are a bit shifty and fluid by nature, but that doesn't mean we always need to worry about our dream world collapsing on us. Perhaps as lucid dreamers, we have even greater control over this shiftiness of dreams, after lots of practice we become proficient as to decide when the dream can change or when it can stay the same. You probably have noticed I used the word shifting, instead of destabilization. It's because we attach lots of negativity to the word destabilize. "You become lucid and the dream destabilizes, you need to stabilize!". :panic: Indeed, we have been repeating this like a mantra, certainly creating expectations about instability.

Another thought on why dreams may become less stable and fade when we are engaged in flying or sexy time. As has been pointed out by many here and the famous sentence by the Cusp in his dream control tutorial - everything requires your attention to exist in dreams. The dream is your thoughts, conscious and unconscious, so as long as you are again, consciously and unconsciously feeding with attention that which is in front of you, it will be there. When you start having sex or flying, you have to ask yourself where is your attention? If you forget about the room there will be no room around you. The world may change or collapse altogether. On one occasion I summoned a pyramid and took off flying in its direction, but as I was doing this, my attention was on how was I about to journal this whole experience. Then I looked at where the pyramid was supposed to be and it had turned into some houses. So, attention and focus in dreams are of tremendous importance. When you become lucid you also may be thinking excessively, giving the surrounding world less attention to the point it vanishes. Perhaps this is what destabilizes some dreams as well.