Is it possible to directly control emotion in dreams?

[NeoSioType]

Could a dreamer associate an emotion to an imaginary switch and flip it on to experience the emotion? Could the same thing be done with feelings and sensations? Things like pleasure and pain? Tactile sensations? Colors? Sounds? Tastes and Smells?

[Higat]

Yeah - I may be a little hard ( or would it ? ) - emotions are a lot easier to control in dreams than in real life; careful though: your emotions influence a big portion of the dream; fear could make the dream a nightmare if it' s not controlled ... lol that makes me want to try it

[NeoSioType]

I'm not really sure if it would work or not. I mean it does seem incredible, particularly emotions. For physical sensations the switch could just be another way to associate a sensation. I don't think there's any experienced lucid dreamer that hasn't done that. I've never induced an emotion in a dream. I don't even think I have many memories of emotions in dreams other than fear and awe. I wish I could start lucid dreaming again. There's a bunch of experiments I wish I could do.

[dutchraptor]

Yes it can be done, I've done a few personal experiments and generally the negative emotions are easier to induce than positive emotions, and also lead to a higher stability of the dream sometimes. Creating fear or anxiety is quite easy to induce, but also to remove. Happiness and laughter are a slight bit harder but I was able to induce them through various means, like taking an imaginary pill or imagining probing and controlling emotions in my brain. It's quite hard to just demand to start laughing, unlike most things related to dream control you can't just control it by thinking about it, it requires some form of cause or reason.

[PostScript99]

I've been wondering this myself. But do you mean the mood of the dream itself or what you experience? Because all my dreams have an inherent mood, independent of my thoughts and actions, and even my own emotions. This mood can often conflict with my own emotion, which creates a very strange effect. I can make myself spontaneously happy in dreams, but this happiness is often mixed with whatever emotion was already there. I think it would be far different to shift the nature of the dream itself than to just feel different things.

[Zoth]

The trick is rationalize it yourself. Like dutchraptor said, you can take a pill or imagining the emotion as a conceivable substance. Other easier way can be simply recalling a memory that gives you the emotion you've previously attached to it.

[The Cusp]

Emotions are a great way to control your dreams. Dream characters respond to emotion. Get angry, your DCs get angry and agitated. Confidence as an emotion is probably the most useful for control in any given situation. You don't need a switch, it's very easy to generate emotion, especially when you know the dream isn't real. As for feeling pain, everything requires your attention to exist. You only feel what you focus your attention on. Again, no switch required, just be careful with your focused attention.