Would you trade your current life for a lucid dream of unlimited length?

**Candlelight** · 03-30-2011 09:34 PM

Just curious as to what other people would do. Trading 'lives' would mean losing everybody you know, by the way. No family, no loved ones, you'd start again with an entirely new cast of characters. No re-spawning people allowed.

In case some people don't get the title, I'm asking this; Would you trade in everything/everyone you you know at this moment in time in order to enter an 'infinite' lucid dream?

Discuss. I'm not entirely sure about what I'd do so I'll leave my vote blank for now.

**Solarflare** · 03-30-2011 09:42 PM

>:O

I DONT KNOW
WAIT INFINITE!
HELL YEAH
maybe
I DONT KNOW

**IAmCoder** · 03-30-2011 09:45 PM

This I did.

**ty4TheAdventure** · 03-30-2011 09:47 PM

No.

I believe all experiences are entirely subjective. We cannot interpret or perceive any situation completely objectively. So in that way, dreams and reality are similar. However, the truly subjective nature of both realities and their differences in malleability, control and power is not enough to convince me to trade.

I love life. I love the world. I love being with my family, meeting and making new friends as well as seeing old ones, and knowing that we as a society are growing and evolving. To me, dreams are not a form of escaping life. Instead, it is a form of enhancing our perspectives and experiences in waking life. I do not intend to use LDing as a way to escape the "hassles" of everyday life. I intend to use it to learn and think about reality in new ways. Ways that will help me propel my waking life experiences forward.

Imagine truly believing and internalizing that you have unlimited possibilities in waking life. That you can truly do whatever you want without any self-imposed or society-imposed restrictions. Sure, the laws of physics may not be changeable, but what you can do in waking life is limitless. You can make any decision. You can talk to any random stranger without feeling shy. You can try out a business venture without fear or any other negative emotion. You can travel the world without fear of it. You roll with the punches as they come, making intelligent decisions, but not letting it hurt you emotionally or in stressed out ways. Instead, you simply feel joy and love as well as happiness.

Waking life as well as lucid dreaming gives you an opportunity to accomplish this kind of abstract idea- total freedom. I don't ever want to say "I can't do so and so because of x or y."

In essence, to me LDing is for a new understanding or perspective of reality in waking life. A total infinite lucid dream would contradict my goals which is why I would not trade.

All in all, this is my own personal goal

**kookyinc** · 03-30-2011 10:53 PM

Absolutely not. I'd rather die now then have eternal life. An eternal lucid dream would quickly get boring. The first 10,000 years of having fun in the dream would be exciting, but eventually you would run out of things to do. By definition you would know that even if your loved ones were around you they would only be phantoms. Once the dream becomes boring, eternity would begin. You'd be left with nothing important to do for the next 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,00 0,000,000,000 years. But then it doesn't end; you have another eternity to go. And then another and then another. Forever. That would be the greatest curse of all time.

**ty4TheAdventure** · 03-30-2011 10:57 PM

Originally Posted by kookyinc

Absolutely not. I'd rather die now then have eternal life. An eternal lucid dream would quickly get boring. The first 10,000 years of having fun in the dream would be exciting, but eventually you would run out of things to do. By definition you would know that even if your loved ones were around you they would only be phantoms. Once the dream becomes boring, eternity would begin. You'd be left with nothing important to do for the next 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,00 0,000,000,000 years. But then it doesn't end; you have another eternity to go. And then another and then another. Forever. That would be the greatest curse of all time.

Wow. I didn't think of the question that way. The way I see it, eternity in waking life would get pretty bad after losing person after person you love. However in a lucid dream, I can see how the malleability would keep me entertained for a while. But after that gets boring, could it start feeling like being the only man on Earth? With no person you feel is real that you can interact with, thinking everyone is a figment of your imagination manifesting itself.

It could end up being a sort of hell.

**Solarflare** · 03-30-2011 11:10 PM

Originally Posted by kookyinc

Absolutely not. I'd rather die now then have eternal life. An eternal lucid dream would quickly get boring. The first 10,000 years of having fun in the dream would be exciting, but eventually you would run out of things to do. By definition you would know that even if your loved ones were around you they would only be phantoms. Once the dream becomes boring, eternity would begin. You'd be left with nothing important to do for the next 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,00 0,000,000,000 years. But then it doesn't end; you have another eternity to go. And then another and then another. Forever. That would be the greatest curse of all time.

You have just given me an answer

and maybe cured me from my partial fear of death XD

yeah im not jk thx XD

**Jay12341235** · 03-30-2011 11:01 PM

Life's only fun because of the challenges. It gives you something to accomplish. I think I'd prefer it over lucid dreaming because of this

**Candlelight** · 03-30-2011 11:15 PM

Some interesting points here. Most of you seem against it - is there anybody who'd like to do it? If so, why?

**BillyG** · 03-31-2011 12:03 AM

Well that depends.
1: can i remember things from my past life so I dont make the same mistakes.
2: can i control things like a dream.
3: do i start out as my age right away

**Candlelight** · 03-31-2011 12:06 AM

Originally Posted by BillyG

Well that depends.
1: can i remember things from my past life so I dont make the same mistakes.
2: can i control things like a dream.
3: do i start out as my age right away

Imagine you fell asleep tonight into a lucid dream with the highest possible state of awareness, one where you could control EVERYTHING. Even time manipulation and such. The only condition is you losing everybody you know/everything you have, but yes, you would retain your memories.

You could probably get around the memory thing by imagining a mind eraser laser or something and wiping your memory though.

**Raphael** · 03-31-2011 12:10 AM

No way, it'd get old controlling everything with my head. There would be nothing spontaneous, no one acting on free will. I'd be the God of a realm in which I am the only person, talk about loneliness...

**ty4TheAdventure** · 03-31-2011 12:11 AM

I'd love to hear from some of the people who voted yes. The poll's at a tie now

**Candlelight** · 03-31-2011 12:15 AM

Originally Posted by PhantomLegend

I'd love to hear from some of the people who voted yes. The poll's at a tie now

Me too. Everyone who has responded with a post has seemed pretty against the whole idea but the poll's still at a tie.

**BillyG** · 03-31-2011 12:26 AM

u said no respawning people but u never said no spawning talking animals

**Woozie** · 03-31-2011 12:34 AM

No way. I can't begin to imagine how lonely that would be. I'd always know everyone around me were just creations of my own mind. To quote Cobb from Inception:

Spoiler for Inception:

having godlike powers isn't really worth an eternity of loneliness imo.

**lotsofface** · 03-31-2011 12:30 AM

I would trade the next 5 or 10 years for a lucid dream, but eternity? No.

The two states of consciousness complement each other, and need each other. Life gives a sense of meaning, and of interdependence, and of human connection. Dreaming gives a sense of freedom, self discovery, all the great things.

But dreams are awesome relative to monotonous life.

**Candlelight** · 03-31-2011 12:33 AM

Originally Posted by lotsofface

I would trade the next 5 or 10 years for a lucid dream, but eternity? No.

The two states of consciousness complement each other, and need each other. Life gives a sense of meaning, and of interdependence, and of human connection. Dreaming gives a sense of freedom, self discovery, all the great things.

But dreams are awesome relative to monotonous life.

I love that point. I'm going to put it in my signature. Thank you for...well, posting it.

**lotsofface** · 04-02-2011 08:32 PM

Originally Posted by Candlelight

I love that point. I'm going to put it in my signature. Thank you for...well, posting it.

Wow, thanks. I suppose it's easy to be eloquent when I'm drawing from such an amazing experience for inspiration.

**rynkrt3** · 03-31-2011 12:41 AM

Well, since my life sucks as it is, and my "loved ones" arent really that special to me... besides my mother and father, I would say yes.

**Hyu** · 03-31-2011 01:04 AM

As kookyinc mentions, living an eternity in a world where you have absolute power is not something I would like to do.
In fact living with absolute power at all does not sound attractive to me at all.
Generally speaking, I would never trade my life for anything uncertain anyways, regardless of how promising it sounds.

**buzz170** · 03-31-2011 01:32 AM

I would do it.
Being able to completely control your world forever would be amazing in my opinion. Some of you say that it would become boring after some time due to challenges, but wouldn't you be able to create new problems just for the sake of overcoming them? Also, wouldn't the other dream characters have free will if you wanted them to? So, you could make it anything you wanted to just as long as you didn't bring in anyone from this world.

This is how I see it, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong... I'm not sure I understand the rules correctly.

**siuol** · 03-31-2011 02:13 AM

it would be sad to leave everything behind. the way i see it, life feuls dreams. real places on earth, things ive seen, and movies and cartoons give me ideas for what to do. but if i had a little longer to live, i'd do it. sure forever is a long time, but put it this way, id go absolutely insane, and when im insane and can control everything i might come up with something interesting.

**Crissco** · 04-02-2011 03:29 AM

I think dreams fuel real life by inspiring creativity.

I would do it. It would be like going into a coma. People say if you dont know what you want to do as a career then find something you love doing for free and try and get paid for it. So if i was in complete power i could take something I love doing for free and do it forever. But you could do anything with it after that. I believe there is enough stuff to do that you could fill an infinite amount of time doing it. The hard part is, still, will it be worth it if you don't have anyone to share it with. Its kinda like video games that dont have multiplayer.