Thread: Is Control a Good Thing?

I think the dream world is it's own reality. The DC's are the regular citizens. You are the god though

i really like to watch the adventure, but since LDs are really rare for me i always try to exhibit as much control as i can, namely none.

Of course it's a good thing. You can stop your nightmares, practice fire drills, and...hehe.... practice something....

I say control is the best thing, since I use it for canceling my control of the dream so the adventure can continue lol

One of the things that make dreams so amazing is that our thought process is so radically different in them. This is a beautiful thing to behold, and often if you just sit back and relax some of the most stunning thoughts will make themselves apparent. Ideas you never could have concieved in waking life. So I think is a bit of a waste of the dreamstate to exicut TOTAL control, which boxes you in to thinking i the manner you always do....Boring!!!

Um, I'm not gonna vote. I like variety. It's fun to take complete control, but it's also fun to sit back and be more passive. We have so many dreams, why not do it all?

Control is great. Better to have it and not use it, than not to have it at all.

Being able to control your level of control, being able to let yourself go with the flow is also control. So yeah, control ftw...

Originally Posted by Seeker

A good friend made a suggestion to me before Christmas. He suggested that maybe as part of my lucid dreaming experience, I should not try to exercise too much control in my dreams. He suggested keeping it to a minimum and just go with the flow and see how the adventure unfolds. See what you can learn from them.

That's just being plain lazy. Every now and then you hear a rumor about some guy who got so good at controlling his dreams that it wasn't fun anymore so he had to stop. Those people are lying.

You may gain greater control, but that just opens up new challenges and possibilities. It never gets boring, it never gets too easy, and the more control you have, the more there is to do.

I like controlling dreams sometimes, but other times I just go with the flow so I think control is fun sometimes, but not other times.

Wow this thread was brought from the grave, notice the over-4-year difference between seeker's post and the next one? It's interesting seeing who the big minds were back then and who they are now.

I love dreamcontrol, it opens up so many possibilities - so much you can do, so much you can see, so many people you can visit...! It's amazing what it provides you, the world's literally in your hands. ^^
The only thing that could be considered as bad on it is, that the subconscious meaning of your dream could go missing, since you do everything by yourself and with full awareness.

Once again it's got advantages and disadvantages, but in general I think it's a very great thing, so I'll join the statement:
"It's better to have it and not use it, than not to have it at all."

Reality has enough restrictions! either because I'm physically incapable, because there are consequences for my actions, or because people won't co-operate with me. Dreams are a place where I can do anything I want, I can experience the things I know I'll never get to experience in real life. I want full control.

referring to lucius's and A Lost Soul's points, I would have to say that I'm a little in between what you two were saying and what some others may say about dreams being no more than all in your head. here's my view:
Dreams are in your mind. They're not a different dimension or anything. You create them from images in your mind. And there's science to prove that.
But...
I dont think that's all a dream is. obviously, there's a very big difference between a lucid dream and non-lucid dream. A bigger difference than simply knowing you're dreaming. When you experience a lucid dream, it's on the same thought level as real life. it's concious. This makes it just as real as real life itself. You're concious, you can taste and see and smell and feel, you can control your actions and thoughts. You're just doing it somewhere besides a physical world. But things dont have to be physical to be real. Courage, curiosity, friendship, those kinds of things are real. But just because you can't feel them and touch them in the reality we live in doesn't mean they're not real. Dreams are pure thought. They're perception, but if you experience reality in your perception, that would have to mean that dreams are no less than a subjective reality. Just like one of my favorite quotes from waking life "They say dreams are only real as long as they last. But couldn't you say the same thing about real life?"
I don't believe in any of the astral plane, alternate reality, physical real world ideas. But I do believe that it can very much seem like that at times when a dream seems so real. Then they "dream share" and think even more that it's a different dimension. But the thing that happens is our minds can sometimes be connected to other peoples'. It's not impossible to have the same dream as someone else. Everyone has an aura and wave frequencies, and when two people become close to one another, then their wave frequencies can become close as well, and then your thoughts start to intermix and you can just kind of tell what they're thinking (like when newly married couples will finish eachothers sentances all the time) but on a subconcious level. Which is why it shows up in dreams. So when a lucid dream becomes as real as life itself and then someone you know in real life happens to have the same dream as you, you both end up thinking that you must have been in some alternate reality together. I guess it's pretty darn close, cause it's a reality inside your own minds, but it's not a different dimension or anything.


whew, now that I got that cleared up with myself. I'll get back on topic.
control is a very good thing. Without it, a lot of the entire idea of lucid dreaming seems pointless. What's the point of knowing that you're dreaming if you're not going to use your control to do something amazing that you could never do in real life. but... I do believe that you can exercise control while following the plot of a dream. When lucid, a lot of what poeple think is "oh that's cool, I dont have to follow my dream and I can do whatever I want"
but you can still follow along with your dream and go with the flow while using control. Just dont control the situation or the scenery or the DCs. Just control your own abilities, such as flying. I mean, you can go with the flow and have an amazing experience that your subconcious creates, but instead of walking across that street, why not fly?
Control is good, but I do agree very much that going with the flow of the dream can lead to amazing experiences as well, which I have found out on person experience.

I'm not gonna read through this whole thing so I hope that I don't just repeat anything people have already said.

I personally think people should do whatever they want in lucids. If you need to exercise control to complete a dream task, I am all for it. If you don't have a particular task, or are in an interesting scenario, I'd follow along. If you want to just go with the flow, do it. I don't think there is any BEST way to have a lucid dream. Different people want different things out of it. Even a single person wants different things out of different lucids. I think it simply depends on the dream itself!

I know that Billybob wrote something about this in one of his tutorials that I thought was very wise about the types of dream control. I'm sure you've read it but maybe want a refresher, and for those who haven't I'd recommend it http://www.dreamviews.com/community/...hlight=control

Also LaBerge did in EWOLD:

Q. Since I believe that dreams are messages from the unconscious mind, I am afraid that consciously controlling my dreams would interfere with this important process and deprive me of the benefits of dream interpretation.
A. As chapter 5 will explain, dreams are not letters from the unconscious mind, but experiences created through the interactions of the unconscious and conscious mind. In dreams, more conscious knowledge is available to our conscious experience. However, the dream is not at all the exclusive realm of the unconscious mind. If it were, people would never remember their dreams, because we do not have waking access to what is not conscious.
The person, or dream ego, that we experience being in the dream is the same as our waking consciousness. It constantly influences the events of the dream through its expectations and biases, just as it does in waking life. The essential difference in the lucid dream is that the ego is aware that the experience is a dream. This allows the ego much more freedom of choice and creative responsibility to find the best way to act in the dream. (page 19, Preparation for Learning Lucid Dreaming)

Also he wrote, "A few nights later, I had the first lucid dream I remember since the serial adventure dreams I had when I was five years old. In the dream:
It was snowing gently. I was alone on the rooftop of the world, climbing K2. As I made my way upward through the steeply drifting snow, I was astonished to notice my arms were bare: I was wearing a short-sleeved shirt, hardly proper dress for climbing the second highest mountain in the world! I realized at once that the explanation was that I was dreaming! I was so delighted that I jumped off the mountain and began to fly away, but the dream faded and I awoke.
I interpreted the dream as suggesting that I wasn't yet prepared for the rigors of Tibetan dream yoga. But it was also a starting point, and I continued to have lucid dreams occasionally for eight years before I began to cultivate lucid dreaming in earnest. Incidentally, my impulsive behavior when I became lucid is typical of beginners. If I were to have such a dream now, I would not precipitously jump off the mountain. Instead, I would fly to the top of the mountain and find out if I was climbing it for any reason besides "because it was there." (page 47)

i only exercise total control when i have a very specific task i want to do such as the task of the month or things like that. i would say only about five percent of my lucid dreams i have had total control. i choose not to control them because i find normal dreams to be more interesting, exciting and more restful.i have found making yourself do things or controlling your dreams doesn't give you as good as a rest at night as normal dreams do.i usually become lucid but i don't change anything in my dream and i just go with the flow watching from the side or occasionally as a character.

Originally Posted by Shift

I know that Billybob wrote something about this in one of his tutorials that I thought was very wise about the types of dream control. I'm sure you've read it but maybe want a refresher, and for those who haven't I'd recommend it http://www.dreamviews.com/community/...hlight=control

Thanks for linking to that tutorial, the passive control part sums up my thoughts on the matter. Once I start having more lucid dreams, passive control is the way to go. Usually it can be cool to see what your mind can come up with when you don't consciously keep it in check. I see it more than enough in normal dreams, so it might be cool to try and make sense of normal dream stuff when I know I'm dreaming.

I'm not going to be as cautious about forced control as most might me, REM periods only last so long, and I don't want to spend all of it coming up with clever ways to make something happen.

Whenever I try to completely change my dream through total control, the result is always me waking up. The longest lucid dreams I've had have been ones where I've had control, but didn't change the course of the dream (besides the random fireball or telekinesis). There could be a correlation here, or I could just be inexperienced at dream control and need more practice. Whichever the case, right now, I get longer lucids when I keep my interference to a minimum.

Originally Posted by Licity

Thanks for linking to that tutorial, the passive control part sums up my thoughts on the matter. Once I start having more lucid dreams, passive control is the way to go. Usually it can be cool to see what your mind can come up with when you don't consciously keep it in check. I see it more than enough in normal dreams, so it might be cool to try and make sense of normal dream stuff when I know I'm dreaming.

I'm not going to be as cautious about forced control as most might me, REM periods only last so long, and I don't want to spend all of it coming up with clever ways to make something happen.

My pleasure! Just glad to help out! And I think that tutorial is brilliant! And ya, I know what you mean. I think once I've perfected LDing, I'll stop trying to control everything. I know I will never stop flying

I am for some control in the sense that there are some places I'd like to go to and some people (most of them fictional) I'd like to meet, apart from normaly controling my actions\decisions.
Other than that, I think it would kill a lot of the wonder that's part of dreaming. If you control everything all the time, you never get to be surprised and find things that are totally new and unexpected. Stuff that you would not counsciously create (whether awake or sleeping) would be lost.

I am all for passive control over dreams. If you're creative enough, you can still do anything you want. That tutorial was exactly what I needed to find.