Thread: is dreaming a burden on waking life?

OMG WTF U R A FAG GO DYE!!!!!!!!!

jk.


but......


Well, dreaming is real at the time, and it is immensely exhilarating and fun if you do it right. But it doesn't affect later experiences.

So it is real for then, but to your future self, it is not. It is fun, but has no effect on your further life.

But then, would you not be wasting your time skydiving, as after that, it doesn't benefit you anymore? It is living in the moment.

Also, the general point of life is to be happy. So if dreaming makes you happy, then it is not wasting life.

Also you don't stay up 24 hrs a day if you don't dream ...

Also continuity isn't the right word. That is a word filmmakers use if say, in one shot there is a sign on a door, and in a close up the character opens the door and the sign is gone.

fuck you
live life in the now, and that means in the dreams to

your post post really made me pissed off. if you think spending your time in waking life on dreams is a waste of time, then your pretty much saying spending time on any hobby is a waste of time, because lucid dreaming is a hobby. if youve got a problem with lucid dreams then youve got a problem with me and pretty much everyone else on dream views.
go fuck yourself.

So...are you going to respond?

Originally Posted by theyearthreethousand

haven't you ever considered that spending your time in waking life on dreams is wasteful?

Yes, I have.

Originally Posted by theyearthreethousand

I feel people should be trying to get the most out of reality first and foremost; because there you can find some true, long lasting happiness. there are rewards. why do people bother with dream journals every day? is it for self-analysis?

For me, yes.

I feel that dreams are reality. What is reality? Physical matter? Your soul, your thoughts? Even if you believe that only matter is reality, you must acknowledge that we, humans, alter matter (reality), using our hands and other things we have made with our hands, which first started in our minds. Therefore, our thoughts can become reality (human invention).

Dreams are thoughts, are they not? Therefore, dreams can become reality.

We spend about a third of our lives sleeping. Why not enjoy it?

Let me tell you how lucid dreaming has helped me personally:
It has helped me deal with a myriad of sleep disorders which I formerly misunderstood including:

nightmares
sleep paralysis
terrifying false awakenings
hypnogogic and hypnopompic hallucinations

Lucid dreaming has also helped me deal with depression. I used to take way too many naps when I got depressed, because sometimes when I'd wake up, I'd feel like total shit. Other times, I'd wake up in a good mood. So, if I woke up in the morning, feeling depressed, sometimes I could take a nap, and feel better. Sometimes the reverse would occur.

As my dream recall increased by keeping a dream journal, I realized what was happening was I would have a bunch of shitty dreams (not total nightmares, but a dream like being at a job I used to hate, for example), and wake up feeling like shit. I would not remember the dreams, therefore I didn't know why I always woke up like that.

Now, I rarely wake up in a bad mood, because I deliberately having good dreams that night.

I understand the fear of being obsessed with lucid dreaming, and the idea of spending time in waking life on dreams is a waste. I have had that fear myself. Well, pez dispensers are fun, but too much, you are obsessed. Anyone can be obsessed with anything. I did consider that, until I realized how much lucid dreaming has helped me. Since I joined Dream Views a couple weeks ago, I have learned so much about lucid dreaming, especially the concept of WILD'ing.

The sense of power I have in lucid dreams is transferred to waking life. The power is real. I always had it. Lucid dreaming just reveals it to me. The power comes from realizing how illusory our life really is, and how what people think about me doesn't really matter much.

Have you ever stopped to think that artists can derive very vivid inspiration from what they conjure up in dreams? Or that MANY people have actually learned/improved waking life skills in their sleep? Or that you can save money on recreation or binge eating by doing those things in your dreams? Or that you can learn about yourself in ways that a therapist is most likely not going to be able to?

You strike me as incredibly ignorant and uneducated about lucid dreaming, period. If you had actually read "Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming" by Stephen LaBerge, instead of sticking your head 3 feet up your own ass, you would know all the REAL LIFE benefits that are possible with lucid dreaming.

I have no sympathy for your baiting statements, and unless you get the balls to actually reply again and stick to your word, then you'll be nothing but a cowardly troll.

looks like you just got pwned!

Originally Posted by theyearthreethousand

is dreaming a burden on waking life?

No, waking life is a burden on dreaming.

Originally Posted by Metaphyz1k

No, waking life is a burden on dreaming.

My thoughts exactly.

Originally Posted by Metaphyz1k

No, waking life is a burden on dreaming.

mind=blown

I am an avid gamer and as such I think your comparison between dreams and video games is completely ridiculous. When compared to dreaming video games are a laughable waste of time. A dream journal is important to me because it helps improve my recall and gives me some motivation when i go back and read old entries. Practicing lucid dreaming has also helped me to greatly reduce the frequency of bad dreams I have and it has helped me to wake up in a very good mood.

Your opening post makes me wonder why you even come to DreamViews at all, it seems like you are wasting a lot of your time.

You spend half your life asleep, so by that standard at least half of your life is wasted resting, while for me, that half of my life is dreaming.

To flamers: Why so defensive? Insecure much?

To OP: Hmm... well i don't think you have to invest a lot of waking hours into lucid dreaming to reap the rewards. And i do think that calling the experience of dreaming "cheap" and "fake" is a bit inflammatory on a site like this one. The thing about dreaming is that the experience can be to the dreamer just as real as waking experiences. It all comes from the same hardware. In addition to this the fact that your actions have no lasting effect in dreams is one of the most attractive things about it! What a great way to escape from the crippling responsibilities and consequences of reality!
I do think that lucid dreaming can be to some people, myself included, a form of escapism - in a similar way to drugs - which could become an obsession which adversely affects their waking life. In that sense lucid dreaming could be harmful, but just like with drugs its possible to get the rewards of lucid dreaming and not get to that harmful stage. Its all about keeping things in perspective.

Too much hostility in this thread. The OP made his opinion and concerns
clear, and didn't go out of his way to directly insult anyone.

Originally Posted by theyearthreethousand

they are just cheap, fake experiences, however vivid and no matter what you may experience: there is no continuity, your actions have no long term effect.

And this is where I humbly disagree. The experiences are not cheap, as they
may provide peace of mind, pleasant moments, and scenarios from which one
can learn new things. I view those traits as positive and worthwhile. What makes a
dream fake, by the way? Our own universe will not last forever, not the way
it does now, but will be a distant memory on the timeline of existence. Your
dreams last much shorter, but do they not leave fond memories for you?
That can be the case.

As per the last statement in your quote, I say that dreams do have long
term effects. My behavior and feelings toward the world have been
completely flipped over the course of my lucid dreaming career, as it were.
The most notable change of all is my contentedness and general feeling of
well-being in the world. I've experienced feelings I've never had before, met parts
of myself I fell in love with, and have incorporated a new level of self control
into my daily life, and all because of my involvement with dreams.

You're displeasure with lucid dreaming may arise from a lack of noteworthy
content. It may come from your opinion that dreams are 'not real'. If you feel
you have nothing to gain from it any longer, then go your way in peace and
find what it is that makes you happy.

I am honestly not here to troll or get a raise from anybody. Look at my join date for a start. To call me “incredibly ignorant and uneducated about lucid dreaming” is laughable, DeeryTheDeer. Also, I am an artist...
I hardly got “pwned” - but you can try in your dreams JamesLD, maybe after you have travelled through space?

I am happy to hear lucid dreaming has helped some people tackle a sleeping disorder.
My main concern is that some people will/are investing so much time into this “hobby” in their waking life. It’s easy to see examples of this by quickly browsing the forums - it just seems a little worrying to me, because I don’t think it should be used as a substitute for how bad your life is. Achieving things in real-life is much more fun and rewarding in my opinion. Sure, I remember some interesting dreams I have had in the past - but in the back of my mind I know that it was all just a figment of my imagination. I am not disputing the realism, but nothing will change the fact that it's just happening in my head. This is why I described the experiences as “cheap” and “fake”. When I reflect on my week, I want to recall some happy moments I experienced in waking life - not a dream experience. You may say you're getting the most out of the time you sleep - but are you getting the most out of the time you live? This is why I think that lucid dreaming will never become mainstream - it doesn't matter how open-minded you are to new things...

Did you honestly just completely skip over your replies besides the ones with swear words?? You just repeated what you said in the first thread.

And saying that everyone on Lucid dreams is using dreaming for a substitute for a bad life made me lose respect for you.

Nice going.

This is actually a simple argument. What should we give more importance, Real Life or Dream Life? Yet, this is a odd comparison since Real Life is by default the most important; survival is necessary. So your question is whether we should not dwell on our dreams, but by that line of thinking, I could ask, should we even dwell on any of our memories? Why bother with constantly remembering useless experiences that have no direct relevance on the future?

And then further to question my own question, how do we know what has direct relevance on the future?

there is no future for anyone of us, so we could just go and die...

no, im not serious, but I do take my dreams very serious! I agree with the pro lucid dreaming posts. Sleep is wasted time and I dont want to lose time in this already so short life. lucid dreaming can help so much. for your brain its real, so the memory is real for me too! lucid dreaming means freedom...freedom we can never achieve in real life.

real life is work, real life means pressure, stress, disappointments.... lucid dreaming is the perfect way to release those bad things this society gives us.

For me lucid dreams are much more worth than real life.

Hopefully he was expecting swearing though?

That's like, say, you go to an artistic woodwork forum, and post something saying: in my opinion, you are all just wasting your time. i'm living. what you make is cheap and fake, and has no use in real life.

but it's artistic, and people enjoy it, and it brings happiness, and he just kind of missed on those.


does OP actually want to REPLY TO WHAT I SAID INSTEAD OF STATING THE ORIGINAL POINT TWICE?

stnicka, JamesLD, and deerythedeer, consider this a warning to tone down your behavior within this thread.

Interesting that the word earth is contained in theyearthreethousand. I take it we're still planning to be here!

Yes, *sometimes* I have thought that spending so much of my waking life on dreams is wasteful, but well, it never lasts long. It's usually indicative of being in a dry spot, out of flow, and frustrated. But see, I don't think that if one is really working with dreams, that they are in any way "just cheap, fake experiences."

Do you know, for instance, that Albert Einstein dreamed his theory of relativity, or that Elias Howe invented the sewing machine because the solution to how to do it came in a dream? Do you not know those dreams had a real impact on the world? Do you know that Abraham Lincoln dreamed his assassination the night before it happened? Do you not see the opportunity he might have missed by not seeking further information? Do you know that Jack Nicklaus improved his golf game based on a dream? Many athletes use dreams to improve their skills. Do you know that psychic Edgar Cayce predicted the 1929 stock market crash from information in a dream? Do you know that Mark Twain dreamed his brother's funeral before his death, and then watched it all play out in front of him?

These are all well-documented cases, and there are many, many more! Problems are solved, inspiration is provided, daily life is improved, for many people who follow their dreams and take them seriously. And I haven't even touched on the psychological and spiritual benefits, which are many.

However, I will agree that it's disturbing to me at times when I see people only seeming to take dreams as a game, a sort of new amusement park ride, an extension of a drug abuse problem, a new way to get high, and, as you said, a new way to avoid reality and their waking lives. But that is about a misuse of dreams, not about spending time on dreams.

I don't incubate or control dreams, beyone asking my guides for advice, and knowing it might come in a dream, but might also come in other ways. I don't control lucid dreams, which come naturally for me, as I use the lucidity to pay closer attention. I believe my dreams bring advice and help for me on all manner of things, like healing, and warnings to avoid certain things, or little things like I forgot to enter a check and might have one bounce! I dream deaths before they come, of both family and public figures. I dream disasters sometime too, like 9/11. I find dreams infinitely helpful and enlightening, and yes, sometimes, entertaining. But that's not the main thrust for me, just a side benefit, and a tribute to my guide's gift for wordplay and puns.

I think the problem you have is with certain dreamers, not with dreams. And you know what? I think even if they're going about it the wrong way now, they at least have their foot in the door and may be in the right place to eventually get it right, maybe, if they can! Everyone has to start somewhere. You, for example, might, if you pay full attention, figure out it's not a waste of time, and they are not cheap, fake experiences for everyone. Forced lucidity might lead to a lot of that though. I don't know. I don't do that! It just didn't feel right at all from the start. My lucidity generally bespeaks a psi connection of some kind, and I like to leave it alone, as it happens enough already! I use the lucidity to pay attention to detail and set the dream better in my memory so I'll still have it when I wake up.

I was hoping there wouldn't be so much flaming in here, when I first read this post I thought it was a reasonable opinion. but then to say that dreaming is a waste of time is odd, because you haven't got much of a choice, its practically impossible. I don't know if that is unfortunate to you, but everyone dreams, whether it be during our sleep or in our waking lives - dreaming is thought, and we cannot escape that. Do you know what is a waste of time? not remembering your dreams. Do you not value the many hours of your life dedicated to sleep? To take this up as a hobby is actually giving that time some value...

Waking Nomad made an excellent point - Many people have been inspired though their dreams, and as an artist, you of all people should be taking advantage of the dreamworld to create art, no? Invention and Inspiration are both bi-products of dreaming.

For me, waking up after a great dream makes my day.

I understand the point the OP is trying to make. If you think lucid dreaming is a waste, thats completely fine. But those who enjoy lucid dreaming enjoy it for a reason.