A Treatise on Proof

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08-16-2011, 12:52 AM
Sageous

A Treatise on Proof

There was an emotional eruption on a recent thread regarding proof, and its priority among members here. The conversation really had no place in the thread on which it was, so I thought I would start one here, if anyone is interested.

Why? Because I noticed a very troubling theme in that conversation: That proof, and by extension truth, does not matter.

It seems the norm here that, if a person believes he has had a certain dream experience, the fact that he thinks he had it is enough for him, and it should be so for everyone else. That he cannot repeat the experience, or wave some tangible flag (like, someone else objectively acknowledging a shared dream) that backs him up simply does not matter. Worse, it seems that people are willing to believe something is proven simply because other people, especially those with lots of colorful “medals” under their names, say it is proven. In other words proof -- the act of showing your work, as it were, or the presentation of real evidence, even to yourself, does not matter.

Here is why it should matter: The human mind is a fantastically capable thing. Literally. By that I mean that the mind is more than able to create any image or experience that a person can desire, and it does so best in dreams. So, if a person really, really wants to, say, have a lucid dream, their dreaming mind will eventually oblige by producing a dream in which that person thinks he is lucid, even though he is just dreaming that he is lucid, and lacks any of the waking awareness needed for true lucidity. The same goes for shared dreaming, AP, OBE’s and anything else like that. So, if a person chooses not to prove, even to himself, that he experienced one of these things, he may never learn that the "great" event he just had was "only a dream," he will fail to experience real lucidity, or a real shared dream, etc, and he might have trouble learning to bring about the real thing.

Proof in LD’ing, for me, is very simple and comes in two parts:

1. Since an LD is a moment of waking consciousness, it will be recorded by your brain as a waking memory. Unlike dreams, which are for the most part quickly discarded even by the brain’s short term memory system, waking memories are easily recorded and stand a much better chance of getting filed into long term memory when they have much emotional import, as a lucid dream might. So, lucid dreams are easy to prove, simply because you remember them as any other waking event. And yes, with careful discipline regular dreams can be filed in long term memory, but that only happens after you make a real effort, and therein lies the difference:

Actual LD’s stay with you, whether or not you want them to, but regular dreams take a real effort to remember. So, if you struggle to remember a dream that you were sure was lucid, it most likely was not.

2. When retelling the dream, if the dreamer says things like “And then this happened to me,” or “And then that dream character said that to me,” he is very likely retelling a non-lucid dream. Lucidity means, by definition, that the dreamer is consciously involved in the dream, and that he is actively affecting the dream, simply because he knows that everything in this dream is his. To tell it like someone else was in charge betrays the fact that you were not, and the dream was not lucid -- or at least not terribly lucid.

Again, these are only proofs to the dreamer himself. Even LaBerge couldn’t really prove the existence of lucid dreams to others very effectively. What I’m most concerned with here is what you’re proving to yourself -- I really don’t care what someone else thinks!

Proof in other nocturnal events, like shared dreaming, is more complex, because it requires corroboration from someone who is not you; and need preferably also not just proof from the person with whom you are sharing a dream, but from an objective “referee.” This is because two people with very similar desires/history/day residue stand an excellent chance of believing and, more importantly, remembering later that they shared a dream, simply because their dreams were similar -- just as they planned, or were destined by similar or shared waking experience to have. Experiments can be set up with a third party referee instructing potential dream sharers before the dream, and interviewing after the dream to see if information he asked them to share actually was. This is a pretty simple test, which to my knowledge been tried many times, but has yet to succeed.

This is all very important because there is so much to be mined from lucid dreaming, and that mining is categorically blocked if a person fails to lucid dream, or to share a dream, or whatever else, but then convinces himself that he succeeded. These claimants take away from their dream no proof, no true experience, but a genuine confidence that “I did it.” Who, exactly, is that helping?

The other side of a proof, call it the mathematical side rather than the empirical side, is that a proof is literally a showcase of the steps taken to achieve whatever event is being discussed.

These are steps that must be able to be taken by anybody, with similar results, in order for the proof to be valid. If someone can show, even once, that these steps don’t work then the proof, and the prover’s statement, are not valid. A person cannot simply say that dream sharing, for instance, is true simply because “It happened to me.” They must also be able to show how it happened, and offer instructions to others that will work. This is why your math teacher wanted you to show your work, and why you are not smarter than her because you got the answer anyway, but have no idea how you did so.

There seems to be a great deal of “because I said so” going on on this site, and I wonder how often someone has been fooled into believing that she had an LD, or a shared dream, because that is exactly what she wanted, and the real experience never happened. I personally call them False LD’s and they have happened to me thousands of times.

Let it be clear that I truly want to believe in this stuff, and have made it my life’s work to prove it’s all real, or not, and to find out where it all leads, if it is real. That is not the mindset of a skeptic, by any measure. I am in no way trying to say, “It can’t be.” Instead I fear that it has already been discovered “To be,” but those who did it have chosen to believe, rather than to prove.

Now, a quick note regarding debate: Say whatever the hell you want, but be nice! Also, if you tell me that I can only understand a phenomenon like dream sharing if I’ve done it myself, please be assured that I’ve had many occurrences that felt just like what you guys call a shared dream, but I could never prove to myself that they truly were. It is not enough simply to say, “I’ve done it.” That is not how reality works, it is not how you learn to do it right (or confirm that you already did), and, above all, it is not how you learn to master the art of dreaming. Or any art, for that matter!

I truly hope that people choose to discuss this stuff -- it is the core of everything we are doing, and to ignore it might prevent many, many dreamers from ever experiencing the true potential of lucid dreaming.
08-18-2011, 04:36 PM
Sageous

So no responses at all, huh?

Okay then, I guess I can take that as a clear display of the disinterest in proof and truth on this site. Either that, or this was just another "TL;DR" post. Both choices are pretty sad in their own right, to me.

Enough said, I suppose. I'll officially give up trying to promote the idea of learning more about what we're doing in our dreams, and growing from that knowledge. "I'm right because I'm sure it happened to me" wins here; fair enough.
08-18-2011, 04:57 PM
Oneironaut Zero

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1. Since an LD is a moment of waking consciousness, it will be recorded by your brain as a waking memory. Unlike dreams, which are for the most part quickly discarded even by the brain’s short term memory system, waking memories are easily recorded and stand a much better chance of getting filed into long term memory when they have much emotional import, as a lucid dream might. So, lucid dreams are easy to prove, simply because you remember them as any other waking event. And yes, with careful discipline regular dreams can be filed in long term memory, but that only happens after you make a real effort, and therein lies the difference:

Actual LD’s stay with you, whether or not you want them to, but regular dreams take a real effort to remember. So, if you struggle to remember a dream that you were sure was lucid, it most likely was not.

These assertions are not true. At the very least, they are not universal. I have lost lucid dreams just as easily as I have lost non-lucid dreams (merely being able to remember, sometimes, the moment where I became lucid, and maybe a second two that surrounded the incident, but nothing more.) I have also had many non-lucid memories burned into my mind just as vividly as some of my lucid dreams.

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2. When retelling the dream, if the dreamer says things like “And then this happened to me,” or “And then that dream character said that to me,” he is very likely retelling a non-lucid dream. Lucidity means, by definition, that the dreamer is consciously involved in the dream, and that he is actively affecting the dream, simply because he knows that everything in this dream is his. To tell it like someone else was in charge betrays the fact that you were not, and the dream was not lucid -- or at least not terribly lucid.

This, again, is untrue, as many recounts of waking memories are told in exactly the same fashion. You also seem to be under the misconception that lucidity means taking conscious control over the entire dreamscape - such as the actions of the dream characters. This is not true, and I would charge you to find any evidence of this. One can simply remain passive and "watch" the dream, as if watching a movie. Your characters will often continue to do their own thing. The 'movie' will play on. Being aware that it is a dream does not automatically facilitate 'controlling' the aspects of the dream, itself.

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Again, these are only proofs to the dreamer himself. Even LaBerge couldn’t really prove the existence of lucid dreams to others very effectively. What I’m most concerned with here is what you’re proving to yourself -- I really don’t care what someone else thinks!

Lucid dreaming has been proven to the best level that is possible, at the time. It's no longer a fringe science, and its validity is accepted in even the most mainstream scientific circles.

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Proof in other nocturnal events, like shared dreaming, is more complex, because it requires corroboration from someone who is not you; and need preferably also not just proof from the person with whom you are sharing a dream, but from an objective “referee.” This is because two people with very similar desires/history/day residue stand an excellent chance of believing and, more importantly, remembering later that they shared a dream, simply because their dreams were similar -- just as they planned, or were destined by similar or shared waking experience to have. Experiments can be set up with a third party referee instructing potential dream sharers before the dream, and interviewing after the dream to see if information he asked them to share actually was. This is a pretty simple test, which to my knowledge been tried many times, but has yet to succeed.

Proving shared dreaming is more complex because it is not something that can be proven by recounting of experiences alone. The reason for this is that there is a fundamental, scientific disconnect with the alleged phenomenon. Before any account of shared dreaming can be considered scientifically viable, we must first have proven the most basic concept: that human beings can share thoughts/memories/experiences/information, from within their own minds, over a distance. To this point, there is no widely-accepted confirmation of this very basic principle. Without such, any attempt to prove the experience of a shared dream, as more than coincidence, is fundamentally flawed.

On the subject of personal experiences: For someone who alleges to have as many lucid dreams as you have, you seem to be getting confused about a few things. Firstly, there are a few different ways to prove lucid dreaming to one self. One of my common experiences is being in a lucid dream and beginning to wake up, feeling my bed, feeling my pillow, etc. Without fully waking up, I will myself back into the dream with full-knowledge that I just almost woke up, and that I want to try to accomplish (whatever, before I wake back up).

Also, my 10 year old daughter, who has very little knowledge about lucid dreaming, has been telling me about her experiences. She will tell me about dreams where she will (for instance) find a really cool/unique shell on the beach and, with the knowledge that she is dreaming, tell her self that is sucks that she only has a little while to play with the shell before she wakes up.

I don't know how much experience you have with waking yourself up from a lucid dream or nightmare, but to imply that the clarity experienced, while doing so, is illusory requires a mountain of proof, in itself. When you are conscious in a dream (which, again, is a scientifically accepted phenomenon), and you make that decision to wake yourself up (which can sometimes fail) and then that consciousness blends in perfectly with the waking world, upon waking, it happens as an unbroken stream of said consciousness. It's not like waking up from a non-lucid dream, in which you can often wake up disoriented and with a sense of "where the hell am I? What just happened??"

With all the evidence stacked toward the validity of lucid dreaming, it does seem like you're making quite extraordinary accusations.

Lastly, I believe you should be a little more careful about mixing scientifically viable phenomena like lucid dreaming, with 'metaphysical' (highly unproven) phenomena like shared dreaming. It is like trying to put the claim that one can make fire from matches in the same bucket as someone making the claim that they can manipulate fire with their minds.

Largely, I think you ran into a bit of tl;dr, which might have been the reason many people haven't responded to this, but it seems like you might be faced with a few misconceptions, yourself. Really, your "I'm right because I'm sure [X] happened to me" works both ways, and you shouldn't be hanging on to your accusations and assumptions, simply because people haven't yet taken the time to comment on your post.

But hey, that's just my two cents.
08-18-2011, 08:12 PM
Sageous

Thank you for posting, Oneironaut! I'm truly glad someone paid attention. Now a couple of responses to your two cents:

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These assertions are not true. At the very least, they are not universal. I have lost lucid dreams just as easily as I have lost non-lucid dreams (merely being able to remember, sometimes, the moment where I became lucid, and maybe a second two that surrounded the incident, but nothing more.) I have also had many non-lucid memories burned into my mind just as vividly as some of my lucid dreams.

Yes, they are true. And yes, of course their truth is not necessarily universal -- every rule has exceptions, especially when the human mind is involved. That I posted them badly on this abbreviated format is certainly a possibility, but I stand by my "assertions."

First, if an LD is not a moment of waking consciousness, then what is it? Next, you sort of confirmed my point by saying you've lost LD's to memory as easily as Non-LD's. That is exactly what I was saying -- that there is a strong possibility that many dreams that you thought were lucid may not have been, and as you struggle to remember them, you might tend to build lucidity into them (BTW, I'm using the generic "you'" here, I don't mean you specifically). And yes, as I said above, careful discipline or intense moments (like nightmares) can certainly make some non-LD's just as memorable. Some, not all. I should have been more clear about that.

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This, again, is untrue, as many recounts of waking memories are told in exactly the same fashion. You also seem to be under the misconception that lucidity means taking conscious control over the entire dreamscape - such as the actions of the dream characters. This is not true, and I would charge you to find any evidence of this. One can simply remain passive and "watch" the dream, as if watching a movie. Your characters will often continue to do their own thing. The 'movie' will play on. Being aware that it is a dream does not automatically facilitate 'controlling' the aspects of the dream, itself.

I stand behind this statement as well, but perhaps I should have used the word "awareness" once or twice in the post. I definitely did not mean to imply that I thought the dreamer's consciousness must be in total control of the dream for an LD to occur. That rarely happens, and never happens in low-level lucids. However, to be truly lucid a dreamer must be aware that the place, plot, and characters that he is experiencing come from his own mind, and nowhere else, even when he's watching the dream as if it were a movie (an extremely low level of lucidity, IMHO). To assume that "it's all from somewhere else" either means that you are not entirely lucid, if at all, or else you are looking at the dream as something else, like an OBE or shared dream.

So yes, "Being aware that it is a dream does not automatically facilitate 'controlling' the aspects of the dream, itself," but you still need to be aware that you are dreaming to be lucid.

You are correct about waking memories being recalled in exactly the same fashion as false lucids, but you left out the part where the universe in which those waking events occurred was not completely of your making. So yes, things would have happened to you, and people would have been spontaneously speaking to you. Again you make my point for me -- lucid dreaming awareness implies that you understand the source of the world you are in, and to describe dreams with words like “And then this happened to me,” or “And then that dream character said that to me,” implies that you think things are happening to you that were not invented by your own mind. Again, this has nothing to do with controlling the dream, it has to do with knowing that the dream, in the end, is you.

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Lucid dreaming has been proven to the best level that is possible, at the time. It's no longer a fringe science, and its validity is accepted in even the most mainstream scientific circles.

Okay, I'll give you that. I was stating that opinion simply to lead to my point about how important it is for the dreamer to prove his LD'ing to himself. In the end I really don't care what science has proven. Odd, huh?

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Proving shared dreaming is more complex because it is not something that can be proven by recounting of experiences alone. The reason for this is that there is a fundamental, scientific disconnect with the alleged phenomenon. Before any account of shared dreaming can be considered scientifically viable, we must first have proven the most basic concept: that human beings can share thoughts/memories/experiences/information, from within their own minds, over a distance. To this point, there is no widely-accepted confirmation of this very basic principle. Without such, any attempt to prove the experience of a shared dream, as more than coincidence, is fundamentally flawed.

Well said, and I mostly agree, but I'm not totally sure I follow your final logic: For instance, we proved the existence of, say, fire, thousands of years before science proved what it physically is. Do we really need to wait for science to prove the physics of shared dreaming before we can prove it exists? That doesn't sound right. What did I miss?

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On the subject of personal experiences: For someone who alleges to have as many lucid dreams as you have, you seem to be getting confused about a few things. Firstly, there are a few different ways to prove lucid dreaming to one self. One of my common experiences is being in a lucid dream and beginning to wake up, feeling my bed, feeling my pillow, etc. Without fully waking up, I will myself back into the dream with full-knowledge that I just almost woke up, and that I want to try to accomplish (whatever, before I wake back up).

I believe I said, in bold italics, that "Proof in LD’ing, for me, is very simple and comes in two parts." I wouldn't have include that "for me" bit if I didn't mean it. Of course there are other ways to prove lucidity to yourself! I've even used the method you listed many times with much success. Indeed, I was hoping that one thing this thread would lead to is people posting their own methods for confirming lucidity.

[On a personal note, I don't feel that I was confused. That I offer unusual thoughts about LD'ing does not imply confusion, but perhaps an interest in looking further into the subject. Those thoughts could certainly be wrong, but they are not the result of confusion. And I was not "alleging" anything about my LD count -- I just loosely added up the averages from my journals over 30 years, and, though I got a much higher number, I figured 2k was the max to list before triggering ridicule (and accusations of allegation). I suppose I should have gone with "A lot," too. ;) ]

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Also, my 10 year old daughter, who has very little knowledge about lucid dreaming, has been telling me about her experiences. She will tell me about dreams where she will (for instance) find a really cool/unique shell on the beach and, with the knowledge that she is dreaming, tell her self that is sucks that she only has a little while to play with the shell before she wakes up.

That's a nice story, and reminds me fondly of attempts to bring back toys and ice cream cones when I was around her age. I'm not sure how it fits in here, though; did I miss something again?

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I don't know how much experience you have with waking yourself up from a lucid dream or nightmare, but to imply that the clarity experienced, while doing so, is illusory requires a mountain of proof, in itself. When you are conscious in a dream (which, again, is a scientifically accepted phenomenon), and you make that decision to wake yourself up (which can sometimes fail) and then that consciousness blends in perfectly with the waking world, upon waking, it happens as an unbroken stream of said consciousness. It's not like waking up from a non-lucid dream, in which you can often wake up disoriented and with a sense of "where the hell am I? What just happened??"

I have no idea where that paragraph came from, or what it has to do with anything I said. When did I say anything about illusory, or even clarity, for that matter? Was it because I didn't clearly say that some non-lucids can certainly be remembered as well as lucids? If so, then I already discussed above. (Also, isn't the act of waking yourself from a nightmare a lucid event?} I'd appreciate it if you would clarify this, since to me you are stating the obvious, as these things happen pretty regularly to pretty much everybody -- with exceptions, of course!.

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With all the evidence stacked toward the validity of lucid dreaming, it does seem like you're making quite extraordinary accusations.

Aside perhaps from my facetious “because I said so” comment, I'm pretty sure I didn't make any accusations about anything, much less extraordinary ones. That was not the point of this post, and I am sorry you got that impression. That said, I'd appreciate it if you could list these accusations, especially the extraordinary ones, so I can admit to them or apologize for them.

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Lastly, I believe you should be a little more careful about mixing scientifically viable phenomena like lucid dreaming, with 'metaphysical' (highly unproven) phenomena like shared dreaming. It is like trying to put the claim that one can make fire from matches in the same bucket as someone making the claim that they can manipulate fire with their minds.

Right you are about that -- I guess I was trying to jam too many things under one umbrella, just to get it out there. This stuff should definitely be treated separately. That said, I still think it is paramount that a lucid dreamer finds a way to prove his experience to himself, other than to simply say "I did it."

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Largely, I think you ran into a bit of tl;dr, which might have been the reason many people haven't responded to this, but it seems like you might be faced with a few misconceptions, yourself. Really, your "I'm right because I'm sure [X] happened to me" works both ways, and you shouldn't be hanging on to your accusations and assumptions, simply because people haven't yet taken the time to comment on your post.

Still, that whole tl;dr thing bothers me. This stuff can often take a lot of words to properly explain, and to ignore something simply because it might take five minutes to read is distressing on a lot of levels.

A funny thing about that "I'm right because I'm sure [X] happened to me' works both ways" bit: Virtually all of your examples and arguments were based on your personal experience. That said, you are correct, and I have been the victim of telling myself something was true simply because "it happened to me" many many times, and that was a real obstacle towards developing my LD skills and experience. That is also why I struggle to prove that validity of my own LD's to myself first, so I don't get stuck in another rut of non-LD's that behave just like real LD's...

Again, Oneironaut, if you are still here ( tl;dr and all), thank you very much for responding, and I hope you come right back with more responses that explain why I am wrong. That is, in the end, how we learn.
08-18-2011, 09:25 PM
Oneironaut Zero

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Yes, they are true. And yes, of course their truth is not necessarily universal -- every rule has exceptions, especially when the human mind is involved. That I posted them badly on this abbreviated format is certainly a possibility, but I stand by my "assertions."

Then maybe there was some misunderstanding of your point, on my part. We'll see...

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First, if an LD is not a moment of waking consciousness, then what is it?

I believe you are making the mistake of giving 'lucidity' a single value. There are 'levels' of dream awareness, just as there are 'levels' of waking world awareness. Yes, one can make the generalization that someone is either 'awake' or they are 'not,' but this an over-simplification, really. While you are awake, there are levels of awareness that you can experience. Even now, while you are reading this, you are 'awake.' You are 'aware.' But are you just as 'aware' as you are if, say, you'd just survived a near collision with an oncoming vehicle? And how does that level of 'awakeness/awareness differ from, say, if you just woke up in the morning, and are groggy, sluggish, and only loosely oriented?

Lucid dreaming works much like this. Every lucid dream is not a 'BAM-OMG-IM-SO-AWARE-RIGHT-NOW', just like every waking-world moment is like that. What happens when you do something extremely mundane, while you are awake? Your conscious mind beings to wander. You go into autopilot. You are still 'awake,' and you are still functioning, but in these moments, your awareness wanes. These moments are much harder to recal, with full clarity, than when you are in a situation that has you feeling vibrant and full of life.

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Next, you sort of confirmed my point by saying you've lost LD's to memory as easily as Non-LD's. That is exactly what I was saying -- that there is a strong possibility that many dreams that you thought were lucid may not have been, and as you struggle to remember them, you might tend to build lucidity into them (BTW, I'm using the generic "you'" here, I don't mean you specifically). And yes, as I said above, careful discipline or intense moments (like nightmares) can certainly make some non-LD's just as memorable. Some, not all. I should have been more clear about that.

Now don't get me wrong - I'm not saying that I don't have moments where I might have mistaken lucidity for a like sensation. In fact, I'm as careful as possible to include this distinction in my journal entries. When I'm not sure about it, I will definitely note it. And, I do completely acknowledge that the line between lucid and not can be very blurry at times. In this, we both agree (and many people on this site do accept and explain that, in their journals, as well). But it seems to me like you are trying to discount many people's experiences for nothing more than how they are wording them. Sure, there is a margin of error, in that we may not always be 100% sure about whether or not we were conscious (just like we can not always be 100% sure that some of the events we remember, from a dream, happened exactly the way that they did), but I believe I'm familiar enough with the lucid state to be fairly sure I had attained it. Can I be 100% sure? No. Just like you can't be 100% sure that the memories from your childhood happened exactly the way they did.

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I stand behind this statement as well, but perhaps I should have used the word "awareness" once or twice in the post. I definitely did not mean to imply that I thought the dreamer's consciousness must be in total control of the dream for an LD to occur. That rarely happens, and never happens in low-level lucids. However, to be truly lucid a dreamer must be aware that the place, plot, and characters that he is experiencing come from his own mind, and nowhere else, even when he's watching the dream as if it were a movie (an extremely low level of lucidity, IMHO). To assume that "it's all from somewhere else" either means that you are not entirely lucid, if at all, or else you are looking at the dream as something else, like an OBE or shared dream.

So yes, "Being aware that it is a dream does not automatically facilitate 'controlling' the aspects of the dream, itself," but you still need to be aware that you are dreaming to be lucid.

Ok, then this must have been an instance of bad wording. There is no question from me (or anyone here with any level of experience) that the person must know that everything going on around them is a dream, to be lucid. In fact, that is the most basic principle we teach around here. I recognize that not everyone here is completely knowlegeable of the concept, but I think your portrayal of an ignorance of that concept as being 'the norm' around here is kind of exaggerated. (I do also see that you acknowledged that lucidity/awareness does have 'levels,' so I retract what I'd said, earlier.)

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You are correct about waking memories being recalled in exactly the same fashion as false lucids, but you left out the part where the universe in which those waking events occurred was not completely of your making. So yes, things would have happened to you, and people would have been spontaneously speaking to you. Again you make my point for me -- lucid dreaming awareness implies that you understand the source of the world you are in, and to describe dreams with words like “And then this happened to me,” or “And then that dream character said that to me,” implies that you think things are happening to you that were not invented by your own mind. Again, this has nothing to do with controlling the dream, it has to do with knowing that the dream, in the end, is you.

Aha. Now we are getting somewhere.
My friend, what you are arguing, here, is semantics. It is a misinterpretation of what is being said, because of the words that are being used. Now, I can only speak for myself, but I've been around here long enough to know that what I'm about to say goes far beyond just myself, but that many people in this community word things the same way:

When I'm writing my journal, I write the way I would recount the story as if I actually had the experience, in a waking world context. Just because I write "and then the fire-breathing dragon blew fire at me. Then, I, knowing that I was dreaming, stepped out in front of the beast, put up a single hand before me, and created a force field around myself to shield myself from the dragon's attack" does not mean that I'm not 100% aware of the fact that the dragon was a dream creature of my own creation, inside my own head. It is simply the most comfortable, familiar way - for many people, in general - to recount an experience. Yes, when I'm retelling a non-lucid dream, I will use the same language (as if I'm actually living the experience). The distinction doesn't show in the style of writing - as well it shouldn't. When I write out my dreams, I write them as I am experiencing the waking world. What changes is my knowledge that the elements are within a dream.

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Well said, and I mostly agree, but I'm not totally sure I follow your final logic: For instance, we proved the existence of, say, fire, thousands of years before science proved what it physically is. Do we really need to wait for science to prove the physics of shared dreaming before we can prove it exists? That doesn't sound right. What did I miss?

You missed the fact that fire - unlike shared dreaming - does not have to combat concepts like psychological delusion and lack of known, physical possibility, for it to exist. It existed long before us, and could never be mistaken for anything other than fire. As humans, we have no choice but to accept the existence of fire. "Hey, look. That's fire. Right there. There it is." There is no one (with a brain) that could honestly smirk at the statement and say "pfft. That's not fire. Fire doesn't exist." It is not some pyschological concept that our brains could just fool us into believing in.

Shared dreaming, on the other hand, is a(n alleged), neurological event. There is no empirical, undeniable, scientifically-scrutinized proof for it. None. Zero (and I say this as someone who is well-aware of some scientific institutions that have had very interesting results that suggest the possibility of it's existence. But the key words here are "suggest" and "possibility"). You cannot equate shared dreaming with something that does have objective, empirical proof - such as fire. Look at it this way: The scientific community, as a whole, is divided even on whether black holes exist, and there is inconceivably more evidence for black holes than there is of shared dreaming.

Fire, though, has not been deniable since the dawn of time. You're comparing apples and oranges.

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I believe I said, in bold italics, that "Proof in LD’ing, for me, is very simple and comes in two parts." I wouldn't have include that "for me" bit if I didn't mean it. Of course there are other ways to prove lucidity to yourself! I've even used the method you listed many times with much success. Indeed, I was hoping that one thing this thread would lead to is people posting their own methods for confirming lucidity.

[On a personal note, I don't feel that I was confused. That I offer unusual thoughts about LD'ing does not imply confusion, but perhaps an interest in looking further into the subject. Those thoughts could certainly be wrong, but they are not the result of confusion. And I was not "alleging" anything about my LD count -- I just loosely added up the averages from my journals over 30 years, and, though I got a much higher number, I figured 2k was the max to list before triggering ridicule (and accusations of allegation). I suppose I should have gone with "A lot," too. ]

I think I got a little confused with your wordage, actually. It seemed like you were dipping into the "how can you all be so sure lucid dreams exist?" (...which I found was a strange contradiction to your noting that you've had lucid dreams, but wasn't really sure) I believe it was your comparing lucid dreaming to shared dreaming that made me think this, and respond in kind.

As far as my use of 'alleging' goes: I simply say that because all accounts of how many lucid dreams we have are 'alleged.' There is no empirical proof that any of us have had the numbers of lucid dreams that we say we have. I'm not calling you a liar, I was simply being quite careful (read as: technical) with my words.

Quote:

That's a nice story, and reminds me fondly of attempts to bring back toys and ice cream cones when I was around her age. I'm not sure how it fits in here, though; did I miss something again?

I have no idea where that paragraph came from, or what it has to do with anything I said. When did I say anything about illusory, or even clarity, for that matter? Was it because I didn't clearly say that some non-lucids can certainly be remembered as well as lucids? If so, then I already discussed above. (Also, isn't the act of waking yourself from a nightmare a lucid event?} I'd appreciate it if you would clarify this, since to me you are stating the obvious, as these things happen pretty regularly to pretty much everybody -- with exceptions, of course!.

Aside perhaps from my facetious “because I said so” comment, I'm pretty sure I didn't make any accusations about anything, much less extraordinary ones. That was not the point of this post, and I am sorry you got that impression. That said, I'd appreciate it if you could list these accusations, especially the extraordinary ones, so I can admit to them or apologize for them.

I'm going to chalk my earlier responses up to having been confused about whether you were trying to imply lucid dreaming might not exist (and be closer to such metaphysical concepts as shared dreaming). I wasn't quite able to understand what you were saying, but I get it now. :cheers:

Quote:

Right you are about that -- I guess I was trying to jam too many things under one umbrella, just to get it out there. This stuff should definitely be treated separately. That said, I still think it is paramount that a lucid dreamer finds a way to prove his experience to himself, other than to simply say "I did it."

I agree, but what do you propose? Because someone says "I did it," on the forum, doesn't mean that they haven't otherwise proved it to themselves. I'm not sure how much time you've spent actually going through the dream journals, here, but people (maybe not all) tend to be pretty clear about explaining their experiences/sensations/thoughts through their experiences. Sure, if you are just reading some random thread, someone's might just come up and say "yeah, I got lucid last night," but that does not mean that there isn't a lot of context you aren't missing just because it's not posted up on the screen. In my experience here, nearly everyone who's been here for a while knows and has demonstrated the fundamental understanding of what lucidity is, the sensations associated with it, and the factors to determine whether it was a lucid dream, wasn't a lucid dream, or was just too vague/obscure to tell the difference.

Quote:

Still, that whole tl;dr thing bothers me. This stuff can often take a lot of words to properly explain, and to ignore something simply because it might take five minutes to read is distressing on a lot of levels.

I know the feeling. My posts can often get a little long, and I know that it may ultimately cause people to not read them all. That just comes with the territory. I know that there are plenty of walls of text that I just wont dive into reading - even if I find them somewhat interesting, at the onset. Hell, I could only wish I had enough time to read all of the interesting posts that come up on this site. Lol. Not possible.

Quote:

A funny thing about that "I'm right because I'm sure [X] happened to me' works both ways" bit: Virtually all of your examples and arguments were based on your personal experience.

I would never deny that (m)any of my opinions are formed by personal experience (and you'll find that I'm usually pretty anal about openly admitting when something is 'personally,' or 'in my humble opinion').

Quote:

Again, Oneironaut, if you are still here ( tl;dr and all), thank you very much for responding, and I hope you come right back with more responses that explain why I am wrong. That is, in the end, how we learn.

My pleasure. Sorry about misunderstanding part of the point you were trying to make. I think it was just the jumping back and forth between lucid and shared dreaming, that threw me off. :thumbup:
08-18-2011, 09:48 PM
nightronics

Sageous, this post is a little tl;dr, but i read it, and i have to say, although this really isnt on topic, but i think that this whole posts revolve around the deeper working of dreams and lucid dreams. Both you and Oneironaut have had many Lucid dreams (my assumption based on your about me section on your profiles) and this topic seems to be more oriented towards more advanced lucid dreamers, and im going to guess there are quite a few of them here, but there are also (relativly speaking) newbies such as myself that will not read this. Its like learning to play the piano; some people just want to learn a song, others will want to learn history and theory.

Quote
1. Since an LD is a moment of waking consciousness, it will be recorded by your brain as a waking memory. Unlike dreams, which are for the most part quickly discarded even by the brain’s short term memory system, waking memories are easily recorded and stand a much better chance of getting filed into long term memory when they have much emotional import, as a lucid dream might. So, lucid dreams are easy to prove, simply because you remember them as any other waking event. And yes, with careful discipline regular dreams can be filed in long term memory, but that only happens after you make a real effort, and therein lies the difference:
/Quote (I dont know how to do the regular quote xD)

Im sure that many people have lost many lucid dreams due to forgetting them, as with any dream. Lucid dreams, although we can harness them and induce them with practice are (as far as i know) natural and it is usually safe to say that everyone has had at least one dream in which they know that they are dreaming. However, it is possible that they don't realize the implications of that fact; they don't realize that there is no danger in their actions or that they can control their actions or what ever else can be regarded as this apparent "proof" of a lucid dream. Dream journals are kept to remind the brain of the importance of dreams. Because you don't normally access the information gathered/learned in a dream in real life, they become less important to you and it and the brain discards the information. So, by writing down and recording your experiences in real life, your brain realizes that the information that it is normally discarding is important, and so it stops discarding it. A lucid dream in which you realize the full implications of your dream has a more emotional impact on your life, thus you remember it. On the contrary, a "weaker" lucid dream will not spark that importance and need to use the dream information later.

QUOTE
Actual LD’s stay with you, whether or not you want them to, but regular dreams take a real effort to remember. So, if you struggle to remember a dream that you were sure was lucid, it most likely was not.
/QUOTE

Again, not necessarily. This whole thing about the levels of lucidity impacts the probability you will remember it.

QUOTE
2. When retelling the dream, if the dreamer says things like “And then this happened to me,” or “And then that dream character said that to me,” he is very likely retelling a non-lucid dream. Lucidity means, by definition, that the dreamer is consciously involved in the dream, and that he is actively affecting the dream, simply because he knows that everything in this dream is his. To tell it like someone else was in charge betrays the fact that you were not, and the dream was not lucid -- or at least not terribly lucid.
/QUOTE
I guess depending on how experienced you are with lucid dreaming, you probably are <i>not</i> in complete control of your environment. You can - as you probably know - as you gain more experience, affect more aspects of your dream consciously. If you can agree that we are in full control of our lives when we are awake, think of it like this. "You are walking down a street, and then you see your friend down the road. You say hi. He said Hi back. Then it began to rain." How you describe that from a first person perspective to someone else effectively? "I was walking down a street, and I saw my friend. I said hi and then he said hi to me. Then the rain started." People in DJ entries communicate what they have experienced in a dream as they would something in real life. There is no syntax to describe a dream. People just write it how they want, their preference.
QUOTE
Again, these are only proofs to the dreamer himself. Even LaBerge couldn’t really prove the existence of lucid dreams to others very effectively. What I’m most concerned with here is what you’re proving to yourself -- I really don’t care what someone else thinks!
/QUOTE
Proof of what? That someone was conscious in a dream? In my opinion, unless someone invents a machine that can see the thought process and mental imagery of someone while they are dreaming, it is impossible to prove to others of something that is in your own brain. Its like trying to describe the color blue without using any examples or other colors. You can picture it in your mind, but you cant describe it.

QUOTE
Proof in other nocturnal events, like shared dreaming, is more complex, because it requires corroboration from someone who is not you; and need preferably also not just proof from the person with whom you are sharing a dream, but from an objective “referee.” This is because two people with very similar desires/history/day residue stand an excellent chance of believing and, more importantly, remembering later that they shared a dream, simply because their dreams were similar -- just as they planned, or were destined by similar or shared waking experience to have. Experiments can be set up with a third party referee instructing potential dream sharers before the dream, and interviewing after the dream to see if information he asked them to share actually was. This is a pretty simple test, which to my knowledge been tried many times, but has yet to succeed.
/QUOTE

I personally do not believe in shared dreaming; if shared dreaming was in fact true, it would mean that all human beings have a potential for telekinesis or at very least, telecommunication. All the stuff about the brain unlocking the full potential and ability to do things it cant usually i think is just BS.

QUOTE
There seems to be a great deal of “because I said so” going on on this site, and I wonder how often someone has been fooled into believing that she had an LD, or a shared dream, because that is exactly what she wanted, and the real experience never happened. I personally call them False LD’s and they have happened to me thousands of times.
/QUOTE
Part of this is because the person was excited that they had a LD and when people start to counter that thought, they get defensive. NO ONE can prove someone else wrong about that persons dreams. What ever though processes where going on at the time were going on and if someone truly believes they were in control, for all intents and purposes they were, and no one (especially over the internet for gods sake) can prove them wrong.

QUOTE
Let it be clear that I truly want to believe in this stuff, and have made it my life’s work to prove it’s all real, or not, and to find out where it all leads, if it is real. That is not the mindset of a skeptic, by any measure. I am in no way trying to say, “It can’t be.” Instead I fear that it has already been discovered “To be,” but those who did it have chosen to believe, rather than to prove.
/QUOTE
LDs are what you make of them. If you have an LD and dont believe you had any control, you didnt have an LD (Which is paradoxal really...)
But really, the people that are here to stay (as in on these forums) accept these "limitations" of lucid dreaming and enjoy it anyway. Do you remember the feeling of satisfaction with your first lucid dream? If you keep believing and having lucid dreams, there is really no reason to get over-critical of trying to prove they dont exist. If someone comes here with the express purpouse of denouncing LDs, then they can go somewhere else (like ld4all for all i care lol just kidding). Cause then this and all the other sites would turn into an astral projection forum - where there is two sides, the believers and the non-believers. I personally think astral projection is just a lucid dream, but im not going to go to an astral projection forum and try to convince everyone that. They have enough controversy already. There has been attempts to prove LDs at least on the physiological level and they worked. That is why LDrs have this great community, they all share something that is just so amazing; the though of even being able to fly without a plane, to controlling everyone and everything in their dream.

So that is why, my friend, I believe (even with my limited experience with lucid dreams) that true proof is not necessary. After people learn how to induce their lucid dreams, even if they really arnt in control, even if lucid dreams dont even exist, people are satisfied. After all, you can play a really nice song on the piano as long as you know the basics of how to do it.
Peace.
-Alias

I think I got carpal tunnel from this post. xD

Holy crap i thought i lost all of this because my session timed out while i was typing and i had to re-login lol
08-18-2011, 09:53 PM
Darkmatters

I was put off from answering here because the OP has an aggressive, almost angry tone, and makes some strange claims that I can't agree with.

When I become aware that I'm having a dream, I KNOW I'm lucid. I might even confirm it with a couple reality checks, but by that point I already know. Why is it necessary to prove it? To use the fire analogy presented above, if you build a fire and cook your dinner in it, is it necessary to prove to yourself that you actually built a fire? I think the real question here is semantic... what's the difference between knowing and proving? And this is probably unanswerable, because let's not forget, in the entire history of human thought, no-one hasbeen able to so much as prove that reality itself exists. We haven't made it past "I know, therefore I am". Unless I missed the memo on that one. So, while what we know as concrete reality does have a very different character to it than dreams, we still can't actually prove that they aren't essentially the same type of phenomenon. Basically because the only apparatus we have for doing experiments is our own subjective senses sending signals to the brain. We have no way to prove the validity of any external devices because we can't really prove that such devices themselves even exit. If we can't prove the difference between waking reality and an ordinary dream, how then can we prove a difference between two different kinds of dreams? I'm afraid it's an area where we can never have actual proof of the kind you seem to want - we can only rely on our own experiences.

Quote:

However, to be truly lucid a dreamer must be aware that the place, plot, and characters that he is experiencing come from his own mind, and nowhere else, even when he's watching the dream as if it were a movie (an extremely low level of lucidity, IMHO). To assume that "it's all from somewhere else" either means that you are not entirely lucid, if at all, or else you are looking at the dream as something else, like an OBE or shared drea

There's a basic mistake here - in that while every element of a dream is produced by your mind, it comes from the subconscious. Not from consciousness. So while it's true that every element of the dream is created by your mind, including the dream environment itself, in many lucid dreams we fail to recognize the full implications that everything is a creation of our own mind. To realize this means you're having the highest level of lucidity, or at least an extremely high level of it. Personally I haven't even reached that level yet, though I have been absolutely aware that I was experiencing a dream and able to control some aspects of it. You've already admitted that you acknowledge 'levels of lucidity', so I don't understand why you automatically expect every lucid dream to come will full awareness that every character and every element in the dream is a mental fabrication? This statement seems to imply that anything less than absolute highest level lucidity is not lucidity at all.
08-18-2011, 10:26 PM
Sageous

Oneironaut:

Well, we are now both definitely on the same page...I had a feeling that would happen.

Just a couple short notes:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oneironaut

Then maybe there was some misunderstanding of your point, on my part. We'll see...

I believe you are making the mistake of giving 'lucidity' a single value. There are 'levels' of dream awareness, just as there are 'levels' of waking world awareness. Yes, one can make the generalization that someone is either 'awake' or they are 'not,' but this an over-simplification, really. While you are awake, there are levels of awareness that you can experience. Even now, while you are reading this, you are 'awake.' You are 'aware.' But are you just as 'aware' as you are if, say, you'd just survived a near collision with an oncoming vehicle? And how does that level of 'awakeness/awareness differ from, say, if you just woke up in the morning, and are groggy, sluggish, and only loosely oriented?

Lucid dreaming works much like this. Every lucid dream is not a 'BAM-OMG-IM-SO-AWARE-RIGHT-NOW', just like every waking-world moment is like that. What happens when you do something extremely mundane, while you are awake? Your conscious mind beings to wander. You go into autopilot. You are still 'awake,' and you are still functioning, but in these moments, your awareness wanes. These moments are much harder to recal, with full clarity, than when you are in a situation that has you feeling vibrant and full of life.

When I reread, in the context of your response, my statement "... if an LD is not a moment of waking consciousness, then what is it?" I realized that I made semantic error that for me is almost a nervous tick. If I had said an LD is a moment of self-awareness in a dream, would that have made a difference?

You are absolutely right, it is not about being awake, but rather about being aware. That makes a huge difference, given that awareness is a rarity in waking life as well, and waking lucidity certainly exists, I think. I could not agree more with the rest of this paragraph.

Quote:

Now don't get me wrong - I'm not saying that I don't have moments where I might have mistaken lucidity for a like sensation. In fact, I'm as careful as possible to include this distinction in my journal entries. When I'm not sure about it, I will definitely note it. And, I do completely acknowledge that the line between lucid and not can be very blurry at times. In this, we both agree (and many people on this site do accept and explain that, in their journals, as well). But it seems to me like you are trying to discount many people's experiences for nothing more than how they are wording them. Sure, there is a margin of error, in that we may not always be 100% sure about whether or not we were conscious (just like we can not always be 100% sure that some of the events we remember, from a dream, happened exactly the way that they did), but I believe I'm familiar enough with the lucid state to be fairly sure I had attained it. Can I be 100% sure? No. Just like you can't be 100% sure that the memories from your childhood happened exactly the way they did.

Good point, and you're right, I think. I'll try harder.

That said, perhaps I could readjust by, instead of questioning the wording of his dream in a DJ, suggesting that the the dreamer should question how he remembers it himself. This way my "as if it were a waking memory" step might still be valid. In other words, if, while the dreamer is retelling the dream to himself upon waking, he finds himself grasping at vagaries, or adding things that were not there, or remembers honestly that it did not seem like it was a world of his creation he was wandering, and his dream-character self just thought it was lucid, maybe then he'll question his state. If that exercise is used then, after that, whoever is reading that dreamer's DJ (including him) can do so with the clear understanding that this was indeed an LD.

[QUOTE]Aha. Now we are getting somewhere.
My friend, what you are arguing, here, is semantics. It is a misinterpretation of what is being said, because of the words that are being used. Now, I can only speak for myself, but I've been around here long enough to know that what I'm about to say goes far beyond just myself, but that many people in this community word things the same way:

When I'm writing my journal, I write the way I would recount the story as if I actually had the experience, in a waking world context. Just because I write "and then the fire-breathing dragon blew fire at me. Then, I, knowing that I was dreaming, stepped out in front of the beast, put up a single hand before me, and created a force field around myself to shield myself from the dragon's attack" does not mean that I'm not 100% aware of the fact that the dragon was a dream creature of my own creation, inside my own head. It is simply the most comfortable, familiar way - for many people, in general - to recount an experience. Yes, when I'm retelling a non-lucid dream, I will use the same language (as if I'm actually living the experience). The distinction doesn't show in the style of writing - as well it shouldn't. When I write out my dreams, I write them as I am experiencing the waking world. What changes is my knowledge that the elements are within a dream. [QUOTE] Understood, mea culpa, and please see my last paragraph, as it fits nicely here too.

Quote:

You missed the fact that fire - unlike shared dreaming - does not have to combat concepts like psychological delusion and lack of known, physical possibility, for it to exist. It existed long before us, and could never be mistaken for anything other than fire. As humans, we have no choice but to accept the existence of fire. "Hey, look. That's fire. Right there. There it is." There is no one (with a brain) that could honestly smirk at the statement and say "pfft. That's not fire. Fire doesn't exist." It is not some pyschological concept that our brains could just fool us into believing in.

Shared dreaming, on the other hand, is a(n alleged), neurological event. There is no empirical, undeniable, scientifically-scrutinized proof for it. None. Zero (and I say this as someone who is well-aware of some scientific institutions that have had very interesting results that suggest the possibility of it's existence. But the key words here are "suggest" and "possibility"). You cannot equate shared dreaming with something that does have objective, empirical proof - such as fire. Look at it this way: The scientific community, as a whole, is divided even on whether black holes exist, and there is inconceivably more evidence for black holes than there is of shared dreaming.

Fire, though, has not been deniable since the dawn of time. You're comparing apples and oranges.

I think I got a little confused with your wordage, actually. It seemed like you were dipping into the "how can you all be so sure lucid dreams exist?" (...which I found was a strange contradiction to your noting that you've had lucid dreams, but wasn't really sure) I believe it was your comparing lucid dreaming to shared dreaming that made me think this, and respond in kind.

Ah, but how many dream-sharers out there are already sure that shared dreams are as real as fire, and their reality just as eternal? That is where I was going with this, I think. So, if you go with dream-sharing as real, then it is apples to apples. But you know what? You were right... this should be about LD'ing only, just to avoid further confusion...

Quote:

I agree, but what do you propose? Because someone says "I did it," on the forum, doesn't mean that they haven't otherwise proved it to themselves. I'm not sure how much time you've spent actually going through the dream journals, here, but people (maybe not all) tend to be pretty clear about explaining their experiences/sensations/thoughts through their experiences. Sure, if you are just reading some random thread, someone's might just come up and say "yeah, I got lucid last night," but that does not mean that there isn't a lot of context you aren't missing just because it's not posted up on the screen. In my experience here, nearly everyone who's been here for a while knows and has demonstrated the fundamental understanding of what lucidity is, the sensations associated with it, and the factors to determine whether it was a lucid dream, wasn't a lucid dream, or was just too vague/obscure to tell the difference.

And here we stumble into (or I remember) another personal quirk on my part: In my mind, dreams are a very personal thing, both in terms of privacy and in actually understanding what the hell is going on. Because of that, I do not keep a DJ on this site, and do not read those of other people -- to me that would be wrong. Major dysfunction, I know, but that's me. The real problem here was that I made assumptions about DJ entries that I had no right to make, and failed to notice the level of import members here place on those entries. For that I apologize, and consider it a lesson learned.

So I'm glad we're on the same page now, and also that the process of getting there added some very importance nuance to the conversation.
08-18-2011, 10:33 PM
Darkmatters

Now I think we're getting down to the nitty-gritty. I think your real beef is with shared dreaming. You confused the issue by adding in all the stuff about lucidity. Maybe it would be best to start a new thread that's focused solely on proof of shared dreaming?

**EDIT**

I also think this is a part of what you're after -

I believe the majority of people involved in the IOSDP are proceeding from the assumption (a good one IMO) that shared dreaming - even more than lucidity - depends to a large extent on confidence and positive outlook. To go into it with a negative outlook is likely to cause failure. Skepticism itself can be a detriment. It's possible that skeptics are incapable of shared dreaming due entirely to said skepticism. So I tend to agree with the general consensus that open-minded positivity is the best way to approach it. Especially for those who are new to it and still trying to ascertain whether their experiences even ARE shared dreams or just similar day residue. I'd think proof would be more for those who are advanced and have reached a level where they're personally sure it has happened.

**EDIT**

In fact, I wonder if that isn't your actual point... maybe you should create a thread asking whether skepticism is a detriment to shared dreaming. To determine this, it would be necessary to create a double-blind test. Some people going in with positive belief, some skeptical, and some convinced that it's impossible but willing to experiment with it honestly. Your position seems to be entirely aimed at going into it with a skeptical attitude.
08-18-2011, 10:54 PM
Sageous

Aliasmk and Darkmatters:

First, all apologies if I sounded aggressive or angry in my OP; that was not intended. Sometimes I get abrupt or sarcastic, and forget that both often come off badly in print.

Aliasmk, your point was well taken, and you make a lot of sense. Funny thing is, I made this post, and make these unpopular arguments, especially for newbies, because it can be easy to be led astray by the anticipation of LD'ing, and you might miss a chance to enjoy the real experience. This is of course my opinion. Also, I honestly cannot remember my first LD, and feel a bit at a loss for that. Oh, and if you stick brackets [] around the word quote, it'll work!

Darkmatters: I hear you, and I think my answers lie in the stuff I said to Oneironaut, so I won't bore you with more. One thing, though, the subconscious is part of the mind, and certainly part of you. I tend to call it the dreaming mind, myself, but I was including it in my statements.

And yes, I might be speaking too much of full-on lucidity here in terms of awareness, but at least an inkling of that awareness should exist for lucidity to exist. As there are levels of lucidity, so are there levels of awareness.
08-18-2011, 11:05 PM
Darkmatters

About yout ideas being directed at beginners...

Speaking as a newbie myself with only 8 LDs to my credit, we don't usually start off with full-blown lucidity and full understanding that everything in the dream is the creation of our subconscious (with some direction coming from consciousness). For most of us the 1st one is simply one momentary burst of awareness that we're dreaming, then excitement wakes us up. That seems to be very common. And because the experience of being aware in a dream is totally new and strange, it takes time to get used to it and to gradually deepen your awareness to the point of this full lucidity that you seem to feel is the only true kind. Gradually they begin to last longer, eventually you start to remember to do RCs and stabilize, and to try some task or other, and after a long time of this, if you're capable, you might reach full-blown lucidity and realize that every character and feature in the dream is the creation of your mind.

But even then, the subconscious is at least partly in control. It would be very weird to say "I then created a dragon and made it breathe fire at me" unless you actually consciously summoned it and told it to breathe fire. Usually the sub-c does a lot of things on its own.
08-19-2011, 12:26 PM
nightronics

Quote:

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

About yout ideas being directed at beginners...

Speaking as a newbie myself with only 8 LDs to my credit, we don't usually start off with full-blown lucidity and full understanding that everything in the dream is the creation of our subconscious (with some direction coming from consciousness). For most of us the 1st one is simply one momentary burst of awareness that we're dreaming, then excitement wakes us up. That seems to be very common. And because the experience of being aware in a dream is totally new and strange, it takes time to get used to it and to gradually deepen your awareness to the point of this full lucidity that you seem to feel is the only true kind. Gradually they begin to last longer, eventually you start to remember to do RCs and stabilize, and to try some task or other, and after a long time of this, if you're capable, you might reach full-blown lucidity and realize that every character and feature in the dream is the creation of your mind.

But even then, the subconscious is at least partly in control. It would be very weird to say "I then created a dragon and made it breathe fire at me" unless you actually consciously summoned it and told it to breathe fire. Usually the sub-c does a lot of things on its own.

This was exactly what i meant with the newbies part and the subconscious part, except you explained it much better :)
Well said.
08-19-2011, 07:09 PM
Sageous

Okay...so maybe it wasn't meant for absolute, first time out newbies. How about aimed at the people who have had a few LD's and are comfortable with the state?
08-19-2011, 07:23 PM
Sageous

Quote:

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

Now I think we're getting down to the nitty-gritty. I think your real beef is with shared dreaming. You confused the issue by adding in all the stuff about lucidity. Maybe it would be best to start a new thread that's focused solely on proof of shared dreaming? ...

...In fact, I wonder if that isn't your actual point... maybe you should create a thread asking whether skepticism is a detriment to shared dreaming. To determine this, it would be necessary to create a double-blind test. Some people going in with positive belief, some skeptical, and some convinced that it's impossible but willing to experiment with it honestly. Your position seems to be entirely aimed at going into it with a skeptical attitude.

Darkmatters, I think you're assuming much more anger and skepticism in me than is there. I have no "beef," and did not want to imply that. I suppose to many that grabber line I used, "It's true because I said so," might sound like anger, but it's more an observation about the nature of proof and truth on this site -- I guess I should have used another phrase. All I was trying to suggest was that, if dreamers aren't careful, they might fall into a trap of false lucids, where they think that they are lucid dreaming, but there is no actual waking awareness present. To me, presenting this idea is a very positive thing, not a beef.

In all honesty, I'm not a big fan of shared dreaming -- I really do not understand the need to meet and greet folks in my dreams, when I have to do enough of that in waking life. I guess I don't have much herding instinct in me! In fact, I started a thread a while back about "other people's dreams," where I noted that my possible shared dreaming events amounted to "others" coming into my dream and blocking my lucidity. So, since by extension I really have no interest in proving or disproving shared dreaming. I don't think I could honestly introduce a thread about it. Indeed, I should have left it out of this one, as it does muddle my point.
08-19-2011, 08:06 PM
nightronics

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sageous

Okay...so maybe it wasn't meant for absolute, first time out newbies. How about aimed at the people who have had a few LD's and are comfortable with the state?

Thats basically me, and i replied... but im quite familiar (not an expert) with Stephen LaBerge's research and brainstates in general.
08-19-2011, 08:15 PM
Sageous

Quote:

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

About yout ideas being directed at beginners...

Speaking as a newbie myself with only 8 LDs to my credit, we don't usually start off with full-blown lucidity and full understanding that everything in the dream is the creation of our subconscious (with some direction coming from consciousness). For most of us the 1st one is simply one momentary burst of awareness that we're dreaming, then excitement wakes us up. That seems to be very common. And because the experience of being aware in a dream is totally new and strange, it takes time to get used to it and to gradually deepen your awareness to the point of this full lucidity that you seem to feel is the only true kind. Gradually they begin to last longer, eventually you start to remember to do RCs and stabilize, and to try some task or other, and after a long time of this, if you're capable, you might reach full-blown lucidity and realize that every character and feature in the dream is the creation of your mind.

But even then, the subconscious is at least partly in control. It would be very weird to say "I then created a dragon and made it breathe fire at me" unless you actually consciously summoned it and told it to breathe fire. Usually the sub-c does a lot of things on its own.

Good point, but I think you're still missing mine. Of course I don't assume everyone must have full-on lucidity in order to have a lucid dream. That is absurd on it's face, simply because full-on lucidity is extremely rare.

Lucidity comes in stages, as does awareness. What I am saying is that even minimal awareness in a dream where no control exists at all still demands that the dreamer understands, even minimally, that this is a dream, and not the waking world. Doing reality checks, for instance, is a sign of this understanding, and they can and should be done in even the weakest of lucid dreams.

If after even a newbie tried and failed to be lucid for a long period of time and his dreaming mind (or subconscious, as it were) finally obliges and gives him a dream with all the factors of lucidity in it as the newbie expects them, the dreamer will wake up assuming he was lucid, even though he never was. If he had a way to prove the lucidity (i.e., my memory tests, RC's, etc) to himself, then he can realize that there was no awareness present in his dream and avoid being fooled again. This kind of testing and discipline will help the newbie, or perhaps advanced newbie, as we suggested above, to develop his LD'ing skills to the point where full-on lucidity is possible. And, conversely, not checking that the dreams you had were lucid might bring on a long, perhaps permanent, period of having dreams about being lucid without ever actually being lucid. I knew a woman once who often discussed her lucids, and in every one of them she was flying, and very little else. As I listened to her describe oh, about the 20th dream, I realized that there was an excellent chance that her dreams were not lucid at all, since she seemed to recall no self-awareness at all, and was constantly surprised by the things her "dreaming world" showed her. There was a lot more detail to convince me that I won't go into here, but suffice it to say I was concerned, because she was sure (and convinced those around her) that she was quite the expert, but in reality she was missing out on the whole experience. I tried to discuss this with her, once. Once: she was not interested in hearing anything about that, and of course called me am unthinking skeptic, Mr. Negativity, and lots of other things. I am sure to this day she is still not proving the nature of her dreams to herself, and is likely having those same flying NLD's.

Oneironaut already straightened me out on the flaws in my retelling test, so I won't go into that again. However, I have to ask you what exactly you think the subconscious is? Isn't it just another part of you? Wouldn't that mean that the dream is by definition (and not semantics) always your invention, even if your current level of awareness is preventing you from controlling all aspects of it? Your subconscious, if it exists at all (something that has become a subject of debate in the last few decades), is not a separate entity lurking in your brain, sending signals when necessary -- it is you. I believe that a dreamer must understand that before they can attain full-on lucidity.

So bottom line here for me: Yes even the newbiest of dreamers can acknowledge that the world they are in is their own, even if they have zero control -- and that acknowledgement will bring them one step closer to having control.
08-19-2011, 08:48 PM
Sageous

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aliasmk

Im sure that many people have lost many lucid dreams due to forgetting them, as with any dream. Lucid dreams, although we can harness them and induce them with practice are (as far as i know) natural and it is usually safe to say that everyone has had at least one dream in which they know that they are dreaming. However, it is possible that they don't realize the implications of that fact; they don't realize that there is no danger in their actions or that they can control their actions or what ever else can be regarded as this apparent "proof" of a lucid dream. Dream journals are kept to remind the brain of the importance of dreams. Because you don't normally access the information gathered/learned in a dream in real life, they become less important to you and it and the brain discards the information. So, by writing down and recording your experiences in real life, your brain realizes that the information that it is normally discarding is important, and so it stops discarding it. A lucid dream in which you realize the full implications of your dream has a more emotional impact on your life, thus you remember it. On the contrary, a "weaker" lucid dream will not spark that importance and need to use the dream information later.

That is an excellent point, but I'm not sure it serves to counter a need for proof. Isn't a dream journal, in the end a device for properly remembering your dreams, perhaps a test of their lucidity? After all, recording that weak lucid will help burn the experience into long-term memory, and recording it honestly (as in don't add in stuff because you figure it must have happened) might lead you to honestly judge for yourself whether you were actually lucid. And yes, the reinforcement value of a dream journal is enormous, and has for me even appeared as a reference in my dreams. (If I misunderstood you here, please try again -- I think this is important and I want to get it right).

Quote:

I guess depending on how experienced you are with lucid dreaming, you probably are <i>not</i> in complete control of your environment. You can - as you probably know - as you gain more experience, affect more aspects of your dream consciously. If you can agree that we are in full control of our lives when we are awake, think of it like this. "You are walking down a street, and then you see your friend down the road. You say hi. He said Hi back. Then it began to rain." How you describe that from a first person perspective to someone else effectively? "I was walking down a street, and I saw my friend. I said hi and then he said hi to me. Then the rain started." People in DJ entries communicate what they have experienced in a dream as they would something in real life. There is no syntax to describe a dream. People just write it how they want, their preference.

Okay, okay, I get it!

Quote:

Proof of what? That someone was conscious in a dream? In my opinion, unless someone invents a machine that can see the thought process and mental imagery of someone while they are dreaming, it is impossible to prove to others of something that is in your own brain. Its like trying to describe the color blue without using any examples or other colors. You can picture it in your mind, but you cant describe it.

As you probably suspect by now, I was not trying to go there in terms of proof. However, much has been done to "prove" specific activities in the brain, using FMRI and similar devices; neuro psychologists are "seeing" the thought process" of many brain activities, including dreams. I'm guessing that lucidity would not be that hard to prove, if science had an interest in doing so.

Quote:

Part of this is because the person was excited that they had a LD and when people start to counter that thought, they get defensive. NO ONE can prove someone else wrong about that persons dreams. What ever though processes where going on at the time were going on and if someone truly believes they were in control, for all intents and purposes they were, and no one (especially over the internet for gods sake) can prove them wrong.

I have no interest in proving someone is wrong -- I want individual dreamers to prove to themselves that they are right. Those are two very different perspectives.

Quote:

LDs are what you make of them. If you have an LD and dont believe you had any control, you didnt have an LD (Which is paradoxal really...)

Not a paradox at all, because if you actually had an LD and then deny it, you still had the LD -- denying an event does not make it go away. And again, I am NOT talking about control here.

Quote:

But really, the people that are here to stay (as in on these forums) accept these "limitations" of lucid dreaming and enjoy it anyway. Do you remember the feeling of satisfaction with your first lucid dream? If you keep believing and having lucid dreams, there is really no reason to get over-critical of trying to prove they dont exist.

Honestly, I cannot remember my first lucids as an adult (I firmly believe that most kids have lucids regularly, and I actually do remember those, but I was a kid and was not impressed), but I can tell you they were not pleasant (mostly confusion and the like, as I had no idea what was going on)...I cannot understand why mentioning something like proof means I am "over critical" and am trying to prove that LD's do not exist. I am vehemently neither of those things, and I wonder where that interpretation comes from.

Quote:

If someone comes here with the express purpose of denouncing LDs, then they can go somewhere else (like ld4all for all i care lol just kidding). Cause then this and all the other sites would turn into an astral projection forum - where there is two sides, the believers and the non-believers. I personally think astral projection is just a lucid dream, but im not going to go to an astral projection forum and try to convince everyone that. They have enough controversy already. There has been attempts to prove LDs at least on the physiological level and they worked. That is why LDrs have this great community, they all share something that is just so amazing; the though of even being able to fly without a plane, to controlling everyone and everything in their dream.

Again, why on earth would a person with the nerve to list 2,000 + as the number of LD's he's had be "denouncing" them? That is categorically not true. Period.

Quote:

I think I got carpal tunnel from this post. xD

I hear ya! :lol:
08-20-2011, 01:03 PM
Darkmatters

I'm starting to feel like I'm getting where you're coming from. Oh, and I really only got that sense of aggression and anger from your first post... as soon as you started responding after that you don't sound that way anymore. Sorry if I made it seem like you did!

When you described the woman who told you about her flying dreams but didn't seem to actually be lucid and didn't want to hear about it - now I think I understand what you're getting at. Heh yeah, it sounds like she really wasn't lucid, and didn't like you casting a spotlight into her dreams. Denial on her part.

So, you consider doing RCs and things of that nature proof? Heh, I wish you had said THAT earlier!! Though possibly you did and I missed it in one of the massive walls-o-text above! :lol:

I can say that in my case I definitely dreamed ABOUT lucidity and then dreamed that I WAS lucid before I started experiencing actual lucidity. It's like my brain was moving toward it step by step. Then I started having dreams where I knew without a doubt that I was dreaming, but failed to in any way PROVE that to myself... and then I began to check lucidity through RC's and in my most recent couple of LD's I've even remembered to stabilize and remembered some personal goals I wanted to try to achieve.

We're not really on the same page about the subconscious though. And I might be using the term incorrectly. What I'm talking about is what Freud and Jung called the unconscious... the vast majority of the mind on which that tiny island called consciousness is founded, and from which it grows. Most of our development has been unconscious... through various animal forms and early protohumans and eventually to the dawning of human consciousness so recently. Most of what goes on in our minds is totally unconscious and totally unknown to us. The tip of the iceberg is absolutely subject to the deep movements of the oceanic current that pull on the submerged part of it, though the tip is completely unaware of that. It arrogantly assumes that it is totally in control when that control is largely an illusion.

When the unconscious throws dragons or whatever at us in dreams, they often (not always) represent emotional content we're struggling with. I haven't achieved a high enough level of awareness yet in a lucid to determine whether this is still true in a lucid dream, but I suspect at least sometimes it is. So while your conscious mind is totally unaware of why that dragon just appeared or why it somehow reminds you of your aunt Millie, it's coming from the deeply buried and unfathomable unconscious. YOUR mind, yes, but not a part you have any conscious volition of.

The dream schema we learned about from LaBerge (at least that's where I first learned of them) are spawned in the unconscious... they HAVE to be, or we wouldn't dream unconsciously the way most people do every night!

So the way I look at it... the dream environment and everything in a 'normal' dream is supplied entirely unconsciously... but in a lucid dream it's like that little piece of the mind called the consciousness awakens, or apart of it does anyway, and is like a little lantern we can carry to dispel some of the darkness of the otherwise unconscious dream. As we gain greater levels of awareness, it seems that lantern gets brighter and begins to cast it's light into formerly dark corners. And if you reach the highest level of lucidity, it seems you can develop the ability to control almost every element consciously. But still the gaming engine of the unconscious must be creating the schema - maintaining it from moment to moment and supplying new directions for it to move in. Certainly we don't consciously control all of that! It would take way too much computing power!! But we can certainly suggest directions for the schema to move in... environments we want to see etc, and the unconscious will oblige if we're aware enough.
08-20-2011, 05:30 PM
Sageous

Quote:

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

When you described the woman who told you about her flying dreams but didn't seem to actually be lucid and didn't want to hear about it - now I think I understand what you're getting at. Heh yeah, it sounds like she really wasn't lucid, and didn't like you casting a spotlight into her dreams. Denial on her part.

I can say that in my case I definitely dreamed ABOUT lucidity and then dreamed that I WAS lucid before I started experiencing actual lucidity. It's like my brain was moving toward it step by step. Then I started having dreams where I knew without a doubt that I was dreaming, but failed to in any way PROVE that to myself... and then I began to check lucidity through RC's and in my most recent couple of LD's I've even remembered to stabilize and remembered some personal goals I wanted to try to achieve.

So you are living my treatise then! Seriously, your route took you form false lucids to doublechecking q/ RC's (aka proofs) to more advanced LD's (remembering personal goals is a step up from just knowing you're dreaming). By doing things to prove the LD's to yourself, you improved your ability to groe and hold your awareness. And that is what itis all about.

Quote:

We're not really on the same page about the subconscious though. And I might be using the term incorrectly. What I'm talking about is what Freud and Jung called the unconscious... the vast majority of the mind on which that tiny island called consciousness is founded, and from which it grows. Most of our development has been unconscious... through various animal forms and early protohumans and eventually to the dawning of human consciousness so recently. Most of what goes on in our minds is totally unconscious and totally unknown to us. The tip of the iceberg is absolutely subject to the deep movements of the oceanic current that pull on the submerged part of it, though the tip is completely unaware of that. It arrogantly assumes that it is totally in control when that control is largely an illusion.

I think we're both stuck on different pages about this, but that's fine, because I think in the end we're both talking about the same thing, even if we're using different terms (more in a second)

Quote:

When the unconscious throws dragons or whatever at us in dreams, they often (not always) represent emotional content we're struggling with. I haven't achieved a high enough level of awareness yet in a lucid to determine whether this is still true in a lucid dream, but I suspect at least sometimes it is. So while your conscious mind is totally unaware of why that dragon just appeared or why it somehow reminds you of your aunt Millie, it's coming from the deeply buried and unfathomable unconscious. YOUR mind, yes, but not a part you have any conscious volition of.

I don't bother with this stuff myself, but there is a whole sect of lucid dreamers who use lucidity for "healing" purposes. So yes, from that I would guess that you can use lucidity to better understand what your (okay, okay) unconscious is trying to tell you -- ie, asking a dream character why he is there.

Quote:

The dream schema we learned about from LaBerge (at least that's where I first learned of them) are spawned in the unconscious... they HAVE to be, or we wouldn't dream unconsciously the way most people do every night!

So the way I look at it... the dream environment and everything in a 'normal' dream is supplied entirely unconsciously... but in a lucid dream it's like that little piece of the mind called the consciousness awakens, or apart of it does anyway, and is like a little lantern we can carry to dispel some of the darkness of the otherwise unconscious dream. As we gain greater levels of awareness, it seems that lantern gets brighter and begins to cast it's light into formerly dark corners. And if you reach the highest level of lucidity, it seems you can develop the ability to control almost every element consciously. But still the gaming engine of the unconscious must be creating the schema - maintaining it from moment to moment and supplying new directions for it to move in. Certainly we don't consciously control all of that! It would take way too much computing power!! But we can certainly suggest directions for the schema to move in... environments we want to see etc, and the unconscious will oblige if we're aware enough.

Now that is about the most "lucid" description of the relationship between a lucid dreamer and his dreaming mind I've heard in a while! Here's another thought, though: Forget for a moment about controlling the dream, or generating schema on "your own." Instead: what if a very high level of lucidity allowed you to "tap in" to that computing power, to see it at work, and perhaps use some of it to your waking life benefit? Perhaps you could develop the ability to think of many things at once, as your dreaming mind must do to create the images and plot lines that it does. Not only that, but you could do so with much more coherency than the dreaming mind, since you can add your conscious rationale does. Quite a bit of mental power there. One caveat, though: What I just described is exactly what psychotics do by nature, so you have to be very careful how you handle that "power," lest it handles you -- a good start is a disciplined proof habit.

That said, why not try to establish your own schema when highly lucid? Seems like a decent long-term goal to me... I can tell you I've done so myself, but I won't say it's possible simply "because I said so." ;) I can at least hang the possibility out there for you since I know, but can't prove, that it's been done before. Odd how that works! Anyway, the schema doesn't have to be complex -- indeed, I am in the habit of erasing everything in my dreams and floating in absolute nothingness. It's a lot cooler than it sounds, and I believe opens the door to even higher things, like experiencing schema that are completely alien to my dreaming mind (aka, transcendental).

The potential of lucid dreaming as a tool for mental/spiritual/metaphysical/esoteric/etc exploration is enormous, especially when it comes to tapping parts of our mind that nature has to date held at arm's length. There is much to learn, but hazards (like psychosis) and roadblocks (like false LD's) exist all along the way -- obstacles than can be easily recognized by a dreamer who chooses to prove to himself what really just happened to him.
08-20-2011, 11:50 PM
Darkmatters

Ah, such a relief!! I feel like I'm really starting to understand what you're getting at here. :happyface:

After writing that last night I googled the difference between the unconscious and the subconscious. Ran across a lot of very different explanations, but most of them were using the term unconscious in the wrong way... as in "knocked unconscious", rather than "the unconscious". The entries I found using the term correctly said that the subconscious is apparently a subset of consciousness that you're not currently aware of but that can be brought into awareness... example, like if you're trying to remember something but it's just beyond your reach. Contents of the subconscious can be brought into conscious awareness.

The only way to bring contents of the unconscious into conscious awareness is through psychotherapy... things like rorsach tests and word association or the therapist noting resistance or projection on the part of the patient. I want to look into it farther, I'm interested in which part is actually creating the schema. If it's the deep unconscious then those parts should be pretty well inaccessible to conscious manipulation, but if it comes from the subconscious, then it can be done.

I've heard of what you describe - doing away entirely with schema and going into a transcendent state. It's what the Dream Yogis do... what they call the Clear Light.
08-21-2011, 06:48 AM
Sabre2552

I tried to follow this thread, but it's gotten really long and would take a lot of effort to read and follow each individual argument, so I would just like to address a small point.

Oneironaut, I agree with most everything you said in your first post except for your statement that the need for the mechanism for shared dreaming to be proven before the acceptance of shared dreaming. If rigorous scientific study were done on two isolated individuals and they were found to recount similar dreams with statistical significance, then even if we didn't know how it happens exactly, we could still say that the phenomenon is probably real.

This is all hypothetical, of course. And as far as the OP's assertion that this forum doesn't care about proof, that isn't entirely true. I like to deal with lucid dreaming realistically and pragmatically; I listen to people's experiences, filter them through my own rationalization abilities, and then decide whether to pursue the ideas further or not. I'm interested in things like time dilation and would like to do some experimentation, but I take what people say with a grain of salt.

Anyway, continue!
08-21-2011, 04:42 PM
Sageous

Quote:

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

After writing that last night I googled the difference between the unconscious and the subconscious. Ran across a lot of very different explanations, but most of them were using the term unconscious in the wrong way... as in "knocked unconscious", rather than "the unconscious". The entries I found using the term correctly said that the subconscious is apparently a subset of consciousness that you're not currently aware of but that can be brought into awareness... example, like if you're trying to remember something but it's just beyond your reach. Contents of the subconscious can be brought into conscious awareness.

The only way to bring contents of the unconscious into conscious awareness is through psychotherapy... things like rorsach tests and word association or the therapist noting resistance or projection on the part of the patient. I want to look into it farther, I'm interested in which part is actually creating the schema. If it's the deep unconscious then those parts should be pretty well inaccessible to conscious manipulation, but if it comes from the subconscious, then it can be done.

Psychotherapy, yes, but I still suggest that advanced lucid dreaming can also tap the stuff of the "subconscious." and more than just the dream-oriented schema. To be self-aware in the dream state is, I believe, a very powerful tool of exploration of the mind. And you can do it without paying someone $200 an hour!

Quote:

I've heard of what you describe - doing away entirely with schema and going into a transcendent state. It's what the Dream Yogis do... what they call the Clear Light.

I'm very aware of the Yogi's version of this, and yes, what I do is very similar, especially to Samadhi practices, though I do not follow any of their specific traditions or dogma (both of which I feel cloud the potential experience). But none of that is important here, except to say that even the yogis have exercises that offer proof to themselves that what they are doing is working, and that they are not misleading themselves with false mystic perceptions.
08-21-2011, 04:50 PM
Sageous

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sabre2552

I tried to follow this thread, but it's gotten really long and would take a lot of effort to read and follow each individual argument, so I would just like to address a small point.

Sorry about the length of the posts -- but there is much to be said...much of what we're talking about here has consumed volumes of books; it ain't easy to keep it short! I hope you'll find time to check it all out, though; you might find it worth it.

Quote:

This is all hypothetical, of course. And as far as the OP's assertion that this forum doesn't care about proof, that isn't entirely true. I like to deal with lucid dreaming realistically and pragmatically; I listen to people's experiences, filter them through my own rationalization abilities, and then decide whether to pursue the ideas further or not. I'm interested in things like time dilation and would like to do some experimentation, but I take what people say with a grain of salt.

Very nice to hear, and by the very nature of this thread I'm coming to believe that there are many of you out there...it's beginning to shift my assertion a bit. Thank you!
08-21-2011, 05:27 PM
Rozollo

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sageous

1. Since an LD is a moment of waking consciousness, it will be recorded by your brain as a waking memory. Unlike dreams, which are for the most part quickly discarded even by the brain’s short term memory system, waking memories are easily recorded and stand a much better chance of getting filed into long term memory when they have much emotional import, as a lucid dream might. So, lucid dreams are easy to prove, simply because you remember them as any other waking event. And yes, with careful discipline regular dreams can be filed in long term memory, but that only happens after you make a real effort, and therein lies the difference:

Actual LD’s stay with you, whether or not you want them to, but regular dreams take a real effort to remember. So, if you struggle to remember a dream that you were sure was lucid, it most likely was not.

2. When retelling the dream, if the dreamer says things like “And then this happened to me,” or “And then that dream character said that to me,” he is very likely retelling a non-lucid dream. Lucidity means, by definition, that the dreamer is consciously involved in the dream, and that he is actively affecting the dream, simply because he knows that everything in this dream is his. To tell it like someone else was in charge betrays the fact that you were not, and the dream was not lucid -- or at least not terribly lucid.

I had to reply to this general point: memory is not even close to 1:1 of events. This has been tested time and time again that when we recall something, the further back it happened, the more embellished it is, even if unintentional. One test took people who were in college for 9/11 and asked them two months later to describe the day. They visited these people two years later and nearly every detail was changed. That was for a significant event like 9/11. This, among many other experiments, is why witness testimonies aren't the only evidence to convict. Witnesses are unreliable.
08-21-2011, 06:10 PM
Sageous

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheKing

I had to reply to this general point: memory is not even close to 1:1 of events. This has been tested time and time again that when we recall something, the further back it happened, the more embellished it is, even if unintentional. One test took people who were in college for 9/11 and asked them two months later to describe the day. They visited these people two years later and nearly every detail was changed. That was for a significant event like 9/11. This, among many other experiments, is why witness testimonies aren't the only evidence to convict. Witnesses are unreliable.

Though I've already adjusted my "thesis" with regard to #2 of these tests, I think you're focusing more on #1, so let me just say this:

You are absolutely right. The thing is, I am talking about making that test moments after waking up, when conscious memories are very close to 1:1, not years, or even days, later. That's why the test needs to be made immediately, and that memory recorded honestly into a DJ, to hold it in a place other than your mind. That said, memories of regular dreams, as opposed to LD's, tend to behave just like those distant conscious memories immediately upon waking, and can be lost or misremembered very quickly (with the exception, of course, of very intense NLD's). And there is the difference I am trying to point out.
08-21-2011, 07:07 PM
Rozollo

Ah, fair enough. I misread.
08-22-2011, 01:21 AM
That

Tl;DR
08-22-2011, 03:39 AM
Mzzkc

Well, that took forever. XP

I don't have a helluva lot to add, but there's a few things I'd like to clarify.

The first deals with how memory is handled during lucid dreams. As it turns out, during lucid dreaming, the dorsolateral prefontal cortex has been observed to be active. This is not the case for normal dreams. The reason this is relevant is because that part of the brain deals with working memory--long-term memory. As such, there's biological evidence to support the idea that, yes, lucid dreams are much easier to remember than non-lucid dreams. Of course you'll only remember them as well as you do IWL. So, like O pointed out, mundane stuff isn't likely to stick with you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oneironaut

Before any account of shared dreaming can be considered scientifically viable, we must first have proven the most basic concept: that human beings can share thoughts/memories/experiences/information, from within their own minds, over a distance. To this point, there is no widely-accepted confirmation of this very basic principle. Without such, any attempt to prove the experience of a shared dream, as more than coincidence, is fundamentally flawed.

This irked me, because it's so blatantly false. The proof is in the words you're reading now. Here I am, sharing my thoughts with you over such a distance. The problem people tend to have when approaching shared dreaming is they go at it with all these preconceived notions, that the act of sharing dreams is somehow paranormal and outside the established laws of physics.

But look, I'm sharing information with you right now. There's no magic going on. This kind of focused interaction, coupled with intention, and like-mindedness, is really all you need for two people to share a similar experience in their dreams.

And as for good evidence not existing, that is also false. There's one publication in particular (published in The Journal of Psychology; Mar94, Vol. 128 Issue 2, p133, 15p) titled "Dream sharing: A case study." that provides strong statistical support for the existence of shared dreaming. I suggest you look it up if you get the chance/care about the subject. If you have access to EBSCOhost you can grab the article from their database.
08-22-2011, 04:32 AM
Oneironaut Zero

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mzzkc

This irked me, because it's so blatantly false. The proof is in the words you're reading now. Here I am, sharing my thoughts with you over such a distance. The problem people tend to have when approaching shared dreaming is they go at it with all these preconceived notions, that the act of sharing dreams is somehow paranormal and outside the established laws of physics.

But look, I'm sharing information with you right now. There's no magic going on. This kind of focused interaction, coupled with intention, and like-mindedness, is really all you need for two people to share a similar experience in their dreams.

And this tends to irk me, because it's a blatant misrepresentation of the most general definition of "Shared Dreaming." You cannot compare sharing thoughts through dreams with sharing information through a computer. To even imply that the two are analogous to each other is...I don't even know a word that I can choose that doesn't seem overly insulting.

When you share information over a computer, you are using established, verified mediums to transmit that information. Your thoughts are traveling through your nervous system, into your fingertips, which are tapping the keys on your computer, which are then converting that information through a man-made network (wireless or otherwise), into another person's computer and onto their screen. This is not the same as what is implied by the concept of shared dreaming, which is simply two people sharing a direct experience - from mind to mind - without that established, verifiable medium.

This is the main thing that upsets me when people try to obscure the meaning of 'shared dreaming' to include similar experiences, in dreams. The most general definition of a shared dream is one in which the consciousness of more than one person are - quite literally - in the same dream, at the same time. Period. Please explain to me how a mind-to-mind connection can be made without having to be conveyed through the body (whether talking, signing, typing, etc).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mzzkc

And as for good evidence not existing, that is also false. There's one publication in particular (published in The Journal of Psychology; Mar94, Vol. 128 Issue 2, p133, 15p) titled "Dream sharing: A case study." that provides strong statistical support for the existence of shared dreaming. I suggest you look it up if you get the chance/care about the subject. If you have access to EBSCOhost you can grab the article from their database.

I will certainly do that. As I said before, I have read of evidence for such a thing to exist, but evidence is just that. Evidence is questionable. It is not, in itself, definitive. There is evidence that black holes exist, and yet the entire scientific community is not united on belief of their existence. You might also want to look into Dean Radin and some of the 'successes' his team have had in finding evidence for telepathy and over 'psi' phenomena. I never said evidence was non-existent. (I've even started threads on this very forum, defending such evidence, against skeptics who said evidence didn't exist.) I simply said that there is no widely-accepted, undeniable proof as there is with, say, fire.
08-22-2011, 05:01 AM
Mzzkc

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oneironaut

And this tends to irk me, because it's a blatant misrepresentation of the most general definition of "Shared Dreaming." You cannot compare sharing thoughts through dreams with sharing information through a computer. To even imply that the two are analogous to each other is...I don't even know a word that I can choose that doesn't seem overly insulting.

I'm not using the general definition because, as you said, there's no reason to give it any credence. And I didn't mean to imply that the two were analogous, since I agree, that's just dumb as all hell.

I was just pointing out that we do have a way to interact over long distances that we can explain, which you have so verily done.

Quote:

This is the main thing that upsets me when people try to obscure the meaning of 'shared dreaming' to include similar experiences, in dreams. The most general definition of a shared dream is one in which the consciousness of more than one person are - quite literally - in the same dream, at the same time. Period. Please explain to me how a mind-to-mind connection can be made without having to be conveyed through the body (whether talking, signing, typing, etc).

See, this is where the issue is. Your definition of shared dreaming, the one most people use, carries several assumptions. The big one, that is really the fatal flaw, is that the dream exists as a place outside of oneself/as a place where people can meet. For that idea, there is truly no supporting evidence, and as such no reason to believe it.

This is why I feel that definition is flawed. A better alternative, is the one you seemed opposed to: that shared dreaming is simply two people sharing similar dream experiences with overlapping details in both content and plot.

And really, I find this an easier definition to deal with, as, by following that model, all it would take to induce shared dreams is communication beforehand (using the methods we've already talked about) and incubation the night of the attempt. Which, as it turns out, is exactly how a lot of these reported shared dreams occur.

I could go on for awhile, explaining the intricacies of how I consider shared dreaming to be possible using known information, and the numerous flaws with the current model of thought people approach shared dreaming with, but I'm in a bit of a rush right now. Maybe I'll write up a thread for it later. =P

Quote:

I will certainly do that. As I said before, I have read of evidence for such a thing to exist, but evidence is just that. Evidence is questionable. It is not, in itself, definitive. There is evidence that black holes exist, and yet the entire scientific community is not united on belief of their existence. You might also want to look into Dean Radin and some of the 'successes' they have had in finding evidence for telepathy and over 'psi' phenomena. I never said evidence was non-existent. I said that there is no widely-accepted, undeniable proof as there is with, say, fire.

I mean, empirical statistic analysis conducted on independently recorded dreams is about as close as anyone will come to proving this thing until that dream recording technology comes around. But yeah, I agree, evidence will only take you so far.
08-22-2011, 05:09 AM
Oneironaut Zero

Ok. We agree, then. I have absolutely no problem with the idea that two people can share eerily similar dream experiences. I believe I have experienced many of them, myself. However, this is something that is really just having a 'similar dream,' and I don't find it necessary to tack any exaggerated, misleading labels to them (such as the arbitrary use of 'shared dreaming' that you and others might use). One major problem I have with this is that it confuses people - newbies especially. They start seeing people throwing around the concept of 'shared dreaming,' and they begin to think that telepathy is a proven phenomenon. Sharing a dream is much like sharing a cab. You can't 'share' a cab, if you're not both in it, at the same time. To apply such a term to it is to really obscure what's really happening when you are just having 'similar dreams.'
08-22-2011, 05:29 AM
Mzzkc

Yeah, I see how it could be confusing. The reason I use the term 'shared dreaming' for this is because that seems to be all shared dreams really are: eerily similar dreams, in which both people were present. The only reason a lot of people tack on the whole telepathy thing is because someone experienced it, wasn't able to readily comprehend and analyze the mechanics behind the experience, and attributed it to something supernatural.

So, from my perspective, the telepathy definition is the real exaggeration. XP
08-22-2011, 05:44 AM
Oneironaut Zero

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mzzkc

So, from my perspective, the telepathy definition is the real exaggeration. XP

Hence why people say "shared dreaming does not exist." You are really doing yourself (and others) a disservice by using such an already-established name (albeit for an unproven phenomenon) for something that isn't even literally what the words describe...

...you should stop. Lol.

Really, it's kind of like saying "Well, I don't believe in supernatural things, so I'm going to call creating fire -with, say, flint rock and gasoline - 'pyrokinesis', since what people normally call 'pyrokinesis' (creating fire with one's mind) does not exist." It's just unnecessarily confusing.
08-22-2011, 06:06 AM
Mzzkc

But I don't think the two things are separate.

Here:
- Shared dreaming implies that two or more people share a dream.
- Dreams are nothing more than experiences we have while asleep, so far as we know.
- It logically follows, then, that shared dreaming implies two or more people share an experience while asleep.

Nothing more. Nothing less.

In no way do the words "shared dreaming" imply telepathy. That's just a preconceived notion, and less a definition than an explanation.

Really, my platform is all about shared dreaming. I just don't prescribe to the commonly held notion that telepathy is how the phenomena occurs. My explanation for shared dreaming rests primarily on dream formation, shared schemata, and induction. It's still shared dreaming, as far as I'm concerned; the only difference between what I'm preaching and what they're preaching is in the explanation of the underlying mechanics.

That may have been hard to follow, so I'll phrase my point in another way so I can be sure there aren't any misunderstandings.

"Shared dreaming is telepathy" is not a definition. It's an explanation. To consider it the only way to explain shared dreaming is downright silly. All I offer is a different explanation for the same phenomena. A new way of thinking about things that'll hopefully spark a different kind of debate than simply saying "shared dreaming does not exist."

If anything, what I'm saying is "shared dreaming does not happen the way you say it does."

Which, I feel, is a step forward from the typical rabble you see all over these boards.
08-22-2011, 06:17 AM
Oneironaut Zero

I guess that's just not something we are going to agree on, then. I feel that you are unnecessarily complicating a thing that is generally meant to mean something else (real or not), simply because you like the terminology. As I said before, to share something means to actually, both, take part in (or take a part of) a certain thing. How many examples of the word "share" can you find, that don't imply more than one person explicitly having a piece of a whole (not of something similar)? Cloning someone's body and then putting your own consciousness into the clone is not 'sharing a body.' It is 'inhabiting a similar body.'

Share | Define Share at Dictionary.com

What you are talking about is simply a misuse of the word 'share.' If it's something that you want to hold onto, then that's your prerogative, however it is your own, arbitrary definition of 'to share,' and - as I said - it just unnecessarily complicates what could otherwise be a simple conveyance of what you actually mean.

But, hey...don't let me stop you. :cheers:
08-22-2011, 06:30 AM
Mzzkc

Yep!

You're right. By the literal definition, shared dreaming implies two people partake in a single, solitary experience while asleep.

Just a bit of an oversight on my part. XP

Most of my points still stand, however. Such as offering an alternative explanation for what's going on instead of completely denouncing the idea outright. Because these experiences do happen; I just don't think telepathy is to blame.

Still a big thanks for pointing that, that little revelation will definitely change the way I approach the topic. =)
08-22-2011, 06:32 AM
Oneironaut Zero

Glad I could help. :cooler:

(And I do agree on the alternate explanation, btw. ;))
08-22-2011, 08:36 AM
Sabre2552

Thanks for discussing that point with Mzzkc, Oneironaut. While reading, I came up with the same argument that you later used.

I'd like to chip in my two cents on the following statement:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oneironaut

When you share information over a computer, you are using established, verified mediums to transmit that information. Your thoughts are traveling through your nervous system, into your fingertips, which are tapping the keys on your computer, which are then converting that information through a man-made network (wireless or otherwise), into another person's computer and onto their screen. This is not the same as what is implied by the concept of shared dreaming, which is simply two people sharing a direct experience - from mind to mind - without that established, verifiable medium.

I'm not sure if you read my last post, and from your following posts it seems your argument hasn't been changed, so I'd just like to reiterate a bit.

Yes, everything I quoted above is 100% true. However, I think you're using it as a basis for a fallacious argument. Your argument, as you said before, is this:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oneironaut

Before any account of shared dreaming can be considered scientifically viable, we must first have proven the most basic concept: that human beings can share thoughts/memories/experiences/information, from within their own minds, over a distance. To this point, there is no widely-accepted confirmation of this very basic principle. Without such, any attempt to prove the experience of a shared dream, as more than coincidence, is fundamentally flawed.

Can scientific discovery not be a result of reverse engineering? Say we isolated as many variables as possible while testing shared dreaming and still came up with results that were statistically significant. This may or may not be strong enough evidence to prove the phenomenon (depends on how reproducible the experiment is and the strength of the results themselves, keeping in mind that nothing is ever truly "proven"), but it is evidence nonetheless, and I wouldn't consider it fundamentally flawed because no current scientific theory supports the findings.

Scientific knowledge is accumulated over millennia of study. Today's science is still far from perfect, and assuming every law of reality is accounted for is risky. In fact, new laws may not even be required; we could simply be overlooking a unique interaction between the current ones.

Going back to your fire analogy:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oneironaut

You missed the fact that fire - unlike shared dreaming - does not have to combat concepts like psychological delusion and lack of known, physical possibility, for it to exist. It existed long before us, and could never be mistaken for anything other than fire. As humans, we have no choice but to accept the existence of fire. "Hey, look. That's fire. Right there. There it is." There is no one (with a brain) that could honestly smirk at the statement and say "pfft. That's not fire. Fire doesn't exist." It is not some pyschological concept that our brains could just fool us into believing in.

Shared dreaming, on the other hand, is a(n alleged), neurological event. There is no empirical, undeniable, scientifically-scrutinized proof for it. None. Zero (and I say this as someone who is well-aware of some scientific institutions that have had very interesting results that suggest the possibility of it's existence. But the key words here are "suggest" and "possibility"). You cannot equate shared dreaming with something that does have objective, empirical proof - such as fire. Look at it this way: The scientific community, as a whole, is divided even on whether black holes exist, and there is inconceivably more evidence for black holes than there is of shared dreaming.

Fire DOES have to "have to combat concepts like psychological delusion and lack of known, physical possibility" for us to accept its existence. You simply live in a world that has already rigorously proved it through experience, math, and science. If I lived in a community that happened to never experience fire and did not have scientific reason to believe in it, and you came and told me of it, I wouldn't have any reason to believe you. However, fire is inherently easier to accept because it is more concretely observable and more easily manipulated.

The main difference is that dreaming is at the moment a subjective experience that scientific knowledge cannot yet plumb the depths of, crippled by having to resort to indirect observation. Keep in mind that if it weren't for the fact that eye movement is not paralyzed while dreaming, even lucid dreaming might not be accepted by the scientific community, even though consciousness while dreaming is not such an absurd thought. We simply do not have the technology, skill, or will to test dreaming as rigorously as more obviously practical fields.

It may sound like I accept the validity of shared dreaming. This isn't the case; I have not experienced it myself and am of course skeptical of its existence because scientific theory does not currently accept it. I simply find the amount of anecdotal evidence to be sufficient enough to warrant thorough scientific testing, see no inherent flaw in pursuing its study, and on a more emotional level am a wishful thinker and would like it to exist because of its possible practical and entertaining applications. The same goes for precognitive dreams and time dilation (though I really hope the latter is possible!).
08-22-2011, 04:24 PM
Sageous

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oneironaut

Lastly, I believe you should be a little more careful about mixing scientifically viable phenomena like lucid dreaming, with 'metaphysical' (highly unproven) phenomena like shared dreaming. It is like trying to put the claim that one can make fire from matches in the same bucket as someone making the claim that they can manipulate fire with their minds.

....Unless of course someone comes along who actually cares about the subject; then apparently shared dreaming fits very nicely into the mix!

Excellent conversation guys, I really think I learned something by reading it.

However, the real problem of it being very difficult to prove shared dreaming to yourself still exists. Doesn't it?
08-22-2011, 11:30 PM
Oneironaut Zero

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sabe2552

Can scientific discovery not be a result of reverse engineering? Say we isolated as many variables as possible while testing shared dreaming and still came up with results that were statistically significant. This may or may not be strong enough evidence to prove the phenomenon (depends on how reproducible the experiment is and the strength of the results themselves, keeping in mind that nothing is ever truly "proven"), but it is evidence nonetheless, and I wouldn't consider it fundamentally flawed because no current scientific theory supports the findings.

In many cases, I would agree with you (and, to a point, I do), but when dealing with matters of the mind, the testing must be miles more rigorous. The reason that (I believe) this is, is because the effects are not something that we can measure, empirically. Any recounts of what one experienced while dreaming has to face things like fuzzy memories, false memories, succeptibility for confirmation bias and things like that. It is for the same reason that psychology is considered by some to not be a 'science.' However, I do agree that, with the right about of testing and verification, we can get - as you say - strong evidence for its existence. So, yah. For the most part, I will stand corrected on that, because (without being too technical), I agree with you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saber2552

Fire DOES have to "have to combat concepts like psychological delusion and lack of known, physical possibility" for us to accept its existence. You simply live in a world that has already rigorously proved it through experience, math, and science. If I lived in a community that happened to never experience fire and did not have scientific reason to believe in it, and you came and told me of it, I wouldn't have any reason to believe you. However, fire is inherently easier to accept because it is more concretely observable and more easily manipulated.

I don't quite think that they are the same situation. The difference is that we aren't talking about "telling" people about a phenomeon - which requires proof. We are talking about actually experiencing a phenomenon - which is proof, in itself. If you are walking through a forest and lightning strikes, igniting a tree, you have proof of the existence of fire (whether you are aware of what fire actually is at the time, or not). There is no vaguery as to whether fire exists, because it's right there in front of you. Shared dreaming, on the other hand, is not as definitive. If you experience a shared dream (or the semblance of one), the experience itself, without further testing, is not enough to just say "I had a shared dream." That is what many people on the site do, IMHO, because they are just convinced that it is, even without the rigorous testing to prove the phenomenon was an actual shared dream, and not something like it.

Having fire proven to you doesn't carry this burden, because it is an objective, physical, tangible thing. Proving the existence of an actual shared dream is much, much more demanding than proving the existence of fire, because all you have to do is experience fire to have its existence proven to you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saber2552

The main difference is that dreaming is at the moment a subjective experience that scientific knowledge cannot yet plumb the depths of, crippled by having to resort to indirect observation. Keep in mind that if it weren't for the fact that eye movement is not paralyzed while dreaming, even lucid dreaming might not be accepted by the scientific community, even though consciousness while dreaming is not such an absurd thought. We simply do not have the technology, skill, or will to test dreaming as rigorously as more obviously practical fields.

That is correct, and it is for this reason, exactly, that we have to be extra careful when labeling something as 'a shared dream.' It's just a matter of being careful not to call something (that has such heavy implications) something that it may not be. With lucid dreaming, the idea of becoming conscious within one's dreams is so common, that most people can say they've had at least a nightmare in which they realized they were dreaming. As far as physiology, it has never really been that wild a claim, in that it's not breaking any laws of known physics. I do understand that there are phenomena going on, at this age, that are proving to bend/break conventional laws of physics, making the category of 'what's possible' all that much bigger. But, with the possibility of something like Shared Dreaming, the implications for the future - and our understanding of the universe in general - are so great, that we must be even that much more careful about whether was have completely confirmed the phenomenon, before we go around spouting off that 'shared dreaming is real.' I'm very aware that our discoveries are limited to the tools available to us, at any given time, but - like with black holes - it's one thing to accept one thing as possible in theory, but it's dangerous to assume something so monumental exists, based on limited or premature evidence.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saber2552

It may sound like I accept the validity of shared dreaming. This isn't the case; I have not experienced it myself and am of course skeptical of its existence because scientific theory does not currently accept it. I simply find the amount of anecdotal evidence to be sufficient enough to warrant thorough scientific testing, see no inherent flaw in pursuing its study, and on a more emotional level am a wishful thinker and would like it to exist because of its possible practical and entertaining applications. The same goes for precognitive dreams and time dilation (though I really hope the latter is possible!).

Completely agree. :thumbup:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sageous

....Unless of course someone comes along who actually cares about the subject; then apparently shared dreaming fits very nicely into the mix!

Not sure that I agree with this. What I mean is that it's quite confusing to many people, to lump together scientifically-accepted phenomena like lucid dreaming, with as-yet-not-not-deemed-probable phenomena such as shared dreaming and other 'metaphysical concepts,' as if they are all of the same level of scientific validity. There's no harm in talking about them in the same context, but I think it important to make a distinction between such concepts, but that's just my opinion.
08-23-2011, 03:21 AM
Sabre2552

I think we agree for the most part, Oneironaut (you misspelled my name every time, btw :P).

We both agree that testing done rigorously (and it would need to be, I hate claims based off of uncontrolled or loose testing) could result in strong evidence for shared dreaming, so I think the only discrepency we might still have is how useful that evidence is. Without supporting scientific theory, I agree that we can't just jump on the paranormal bandwagon. However, if rigorous scientific testing produces statistically significant results to the point where it'd be more likely the events are not due to chance, then I think we both agree that, though this would not hold all the answers quite yet, it'd be a great first step into scientific study of the paranormal.

As far as the fire argument goes, even experiencing fire itself is not enough of a proof to say with certainty it exists. As a result of all our experiences in the end being productions of the mind, even seeing fire, feeling its heat, even burning yourself with it is not enough to assure its reality, though it certainly gives strong evidence for its existence. Almost everything in the world can be misinterpreted; it takes scientific study to take us beyond the issues of psychology and into true physical understanding. I think we agree, though, fire is "easier to accept because it is more concretely observable and more easily manipulated." We're just battling details at this point (which is fun!).

You'd be surprised at the disbelief in even lucid dreaming without the science behind it! Here's a quote from Creative Dreaming by Patricia Garfield:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Creative Dreaming: Preface to the Second Edition

At the time Creative Dreaming was published in 1974, lucid dream accounts were exclusively anecdotal. Dream and sleep researchers didn't believe it was possible to be asleep and conscious of the fact that one was dreaming. They dismissed descriptions of lucid dreams as, at worst, wild imaginings or, at best, "microawakenings" in which dreamers thought they were asleep but were actually briefly awake. Even if lucid dream accounts were true, it was believed they were so rare as to be unimportant. They were lumped with the categories of the occult or parapsychology.

You are absolutely correct, though, that anecdotal evidence is not enough for everyone to just jump on the shared dreaming bandwagon. I think people are too believing of the assumptions made by some people on this site The astral plane, spirit guides, souls, a collective unconscious, and precognition are all concepts thrown around like they are verified, but I feel they should instead be "food for thought" and concepts worth individual testing. Study of shared dreaming has the potential to radically change scientific knowledge as we know it if paranormal beliefs hold up, and so to not take the time and effort to study it thoroughly before making conclusions would be a scientific travesty and could jeopardize any secret truths that may be hidden within.

The distinction between lucid dreaming and shared dreaming is important; one has been scientifically verified and never required a huge leap of faith, while the other one has not yet been verified and requires a much larger leap of faith. Even still, I see the scientific and public acceptance of lucid dreaming as a tool to finally explore the paranormal aspects of dreams rationally and scientifically.

It's fun to talk to someone so rational. :)
08-23-2011, 04:41 PM
Sageous

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oneironaut

Not sure that I agree with this. What I mean is that it's quite confusing to many people, to lump together scientifically-accepted phenomena like lucid dreaming, with as-yet-not-not-deemed-probable phenomena such as shared dreaming and other 'metaphysical concepts,' as if they are all of the same level of scientific validity. There's no harm in talking about them in the same context, but I think it important to make a distinction between such concepts, but that's just my opinion.

I agree. Indeed, I was relieved that my original admitted error of using shared dreaming as an example in the "Treatise" was set aside, and conversation shifted over to what I feel is paramount in all this -- that the individual dreamer must be careful about proving to himself that what just happened was a lucid dream. That LD'ing has already been generally accepted as proven by the scientific community (well, teeny tiny portions of the scientific community, but still scientists) only helped direct conversation that way.

However, the exchange you, mzzkc, and Sabre have been having has been enlightening, and I feel necessary, especially on this site. This thread is, to me, as good a place as any for that discussion. In other words, this talk might be about something completely different from LD'ing, scientifically speaking, but it still falls under the greater umbrella of Truth, and that is never a bad thing.
08-24-2011, 02:31 PM
Oneiro

Sageous? It's been quite amusing seeing you encounter the "Dreamviews Firewall", trying so hard not to tread on eggshells, tiptoeing around Obi-Waneironought, letting them browbeat (bully) you down, etc etc. Tried the site search?

This guy was one of a previous (very) few who had the same misgivings that you seem to share:

http://www.dreamviews.com/f12/do-you...ing-lds-69018/

Interesting responses, especially from "Mad Stratter". He/she stayed here all of 2 months!

Good luck.

BTW Dark Matters? You say you've had "8 lucid dreams" but you don't know what the "full lucidity" (that Sageous mentions) is? I'd reset your dream dial to zero, you and lots of others. I suppose, like over 180,000 others, you'll disappear pretty soon.
08-24-2011, 05:02 PM
Oneironaut Zero

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oneiro

Sageous? It's been quite amusing seeing you encounter the "Dreamviews Firewall", trying so hard not to tread on eggshells, tiptoeing around Obi-Waneironought, letting them browbeat (bully) you down, etc etc. Tried the site search?

Lol. What a joke. I remember the 'debates' you and I used to have (which were much less 'debates' than you being a douche and trying to belittle anyone who doesn't believe the things you believe). Not that I need to explain myself to you, but I think it'll be obvious to anyone who reads this thread that I wasn't the least bit forceful in sharing my opinion - which I repeatedly state was my opinion - so you are really just making a fool out of yourself (yet again), by using such accusational hyperbole, simply because you can't make a solid case for your own assumptions about reality.

But hey, don't let me stop you. Go nuts. :thumbup:
(Just watch your tone.)
08-24-2011, 05:20 PM
Oneiro

Well, I once remember you wriggling and squirming, and then getting threatening. (How old were you when you first came here)?

..but "debates" with you? I don't remember any.. you're not confusing me with "arne saknussem" (banned) are you?

Quote: "Just watch your tone.."

Still trying to bully people, eh, with your pseudo-martial artist internet persona? Anyone can pose anonymously on the internet, and you certainly do. Where are all your sycophants when you need 'em? (And boy, do you need 'em). I'm sure they'll pop out soon.
08-24-2011, 06:29 PM
Oneironaut Zero

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oneiro

Yes, I remember you wriggling and squirming, and then getting threatening.

Of course you remember it that way. Perception is everything, right? You call it wriggling and squirming. I call it trying to walk a line and tolerate your pompous rhetoric. Call it what you will.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oneiro

How old were you when you first came here?

Case in point.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oneiro

Quote: "Just watch your tone.."

Still trying to bully people, eh,

A perfect example of how out of touch you are with reality. I wasn't threatening you like some internet tough guy. It is my charge to give you fair warning, when you engage in behavior that could get you infracted or banned from the site. You have made it a habit of being excessively dickish to members who don't share your views, and I have actually been very lenient on you, and not taken any action for the simple fact that I do not want it to seem as if I'm using my ability to do so as some personal vendetta. A little something that anyone reading this exchange (and the last) can take into account. I'm not going to waste too much time going back and forth with you, simply because you feel like being antagonistic, as usual.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oneiro

with your pseudo-martial artist internet persona? Anyone can pose anonymously on the internet, and you certainly do.

LOL. Wow. You really lay it on thick don't you? there are plenty of accounts of my low level of martial arts training, on the site. I took two years of Kung Fu (which I started back when I was 10! Lol.), and have taken a few Weeks of Muay Thai, a few years ago. Oh man. I'm such a poser. Lying about being a martial arts novice. You'd think if I was going to lie about something, I'd make it impressive. Oh well. Fail on my part, I guess.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oneiro

Where are all your sycophants when you need 'em? (And boy, do you need 'em). I'm sure they'll pop out soon.

So easy to play the victim when more than one person disagrees with you, isn't it? God forbid you ever actually agrees with your views to back you, lest I stick my head in the sand and try to delegitimize differing opinions by calling them sycophants of yours.

This thread does not need to be derailed with your personal issues against me. I will not respond to any more of your mudslinging. If you have a problem with me, take it to PM. Otherwise, allow this thread to get back on track.
08-24-2011, 06:53 PM
Sabre2552

Oneiro, I really don't want to be a part of any conflict. I am also not sucking up to Oneironaut; I am looking at things objectively.

Your first post is filled with negativity. You assume that Sageous has been "trying so hard not to tread on eggshells, tiptoeing around Obi-Waneironought, [and] letting them browbeat (bully) you down" when I see no signs of any of these things and no mention of these things by Sageous himself.

Sageous posted just before you that he was thankful for the discussion on this thread, which I have personally participated in. I noticed no signs conflict other than differences in opinion, which were handled with rational discussion. He specifically mentions Oneironaut as having been beneficial to the thread.

The comparison to the other thread, I find, is a feeble one. The OP of that thread found opposition mainly out of the tone of his posts. His fundamental assertion in the first post was left unsupported, and his terse language and assumption of authority send a cold impression that does not help people get on his side. Even still, people were willing to humor the OP's request. Mad Stratter simply did not agree with a specific restriction (one that does seem illogical) which the OP never explains the importance of, and so Mad Stratter decides to weigh his own conclusion (that exposing the private message sent would not jeopardize the experiment and would instead get rid of some of the barrier to entry) above that of the OP's intentions. It is after this that the OP starts to make a flurry of unsupported assertions that causes A) the experiment to go downhill, and B) Mad Stratter to feel personally attacked and to strike back with his own personal attacks. It is unfortunate that the experiment was not seen to the end, but the OP is not a completely innocent victim and rather the catalyst of his own opposition.

Then you make the unsupported assertion that dreams need to have "full lucidity" to count as lucid dreams, specifically calling out an individual on his lucid count.

I don't agree with Oneironaut's tone in his response, though it's understandable given the fingerpointing at him in your first post. However, that does not give you reason to make more unsupported assertions in an even harsher tone than you used before, and this time with no on-topic discussion at all.

I'm sorry, Oneiro, but your posts in this thread have thrown off-track what was otherwise a rational and level-headed discussion. Please, understand this, and either join the on-topic discussion or leave entirely.
08-24-2011, 07:26 PM
Oneiro

Well.. you've both done a nice (poor) job of derailing this thread, but it was originally about "truth"..

So go and read another opinion:

http://www.dreamviews.com/f12/do-you...ing-lds-69018/
08-24-2011, 07:59 PM
Sageous

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oneiro

Well.. you've both done a nice (poor) job of derailing this thread, but it was originally about "truth"..

So go and read another opinion:

http://www.dreamviews.com/f12/do-you...ing-lds-69018/

No, Oneiro. You have derailed this discussion. And that really sucks, because it was a good one.

I'll respond quickly here to your first post, too, though Sabre's already said it quite clearly:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oneiro

Sageous? It's been quite amusing seeing you encounter the "Dreamviews Firewall", trying so hard not to tread on eggshells, tiptoeing around Obi-Waneironought, letting them browbeat (bully) you down, etc etc.

I'm not sure, Oneiro, if you are insulting me, warning me, or defending me (or simply being condescending), so I'll just stick with what makes sense:

Being new here, I had no idea that Oneironaut has moderator powers, and his presence on the thread registered zero on my intimidation scale. Zero. I have no idea why you think that. I never felt myself "tiptoeing." or suffered a browbeating. My apologies were for real (look the word up; in cases like this it is not about being sorry or submissive), and meant to acknowledge or explain my opinions, and not because I feared that I may have offended Oneironaut.

Any careful comments I did make (I assume that was your "walking on eggshells" bit) were meant purely to push forward a conversation that was actually going somewhere, in the hopes that I might learn something new, and that that something important to me might be shared clearly with others here. Nothing I wrote was edited or touched in any other way by the forum moderators, so why should I cower? Come to think of it, it's a damn website on the internet; why should ever be afraid of such a thing in the first place, regardless of what the moderators do? Are you?

Quote:

This guy was one of a previous (very) few who had the same misgivings that you seem to share:
http://www.dreamviews.com/f12/do-you...ing-lds-69018/
Interesting responses, especially from "Mad Stratter". He/she stayed here all of 2 months!

I'm not quite sure why you sent me to that thread. I was never, even once, discussing misgivings, I was discussing the need for proof as a tool -- proof for something I already know is real, because I proved it to myself.

... You know what? I don't care. All in all this was an excellent conversation on all levels, and you have inexplicably chosen to lower it down to personal nonsense. I have no idea why, and really don't care, save that I really hate to see this thread ended in this soup of tiny talk. Oh, and I already sense that that this forum might not be the place for me (I have that same sense about the Web in general, so don't take offense, DV folks), so there is certainly a chance I won't be here in a few months...my exit, though, will have nothing to do with moderator intimidation.
08-24-2011, 08:02 PM
Sageous

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oneiro

BTW Dark Matters? You say you've had "8 lucid dreams" but you don't know what the "full lucidity" (that Sageous mentions) is? I'd reset your dream dial to zero, you and lots of others. I suppose, like over 180,000 others, you'll disappear pretty soon.

Also, I never once said that low-level lucidity is not enough for a lucid dream. Had you read my posts, you might have noticed that I said the exact opposite.
08-24-2011, 08:12 PM
Oneironaut Zero

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oneiro

...but "debates" with you? I don't remember any.. you're not confusing me with "arne saknussem" (banned) are you?

Possibly, and if so, then I apologize for the mixup. But I do vaguely remember a similar altercation with you. This thread can get back on track, but I am simply replying to save face.
08-24-2011, 08:12 PM
Oneiro

Sageous? Go away and do some reading (about 20-25 years) and then come back and try and pose..
08-24-2011, 08:56 PM
Sageous

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oneiro

Sageous? Go away and do some reading (about 20-25 years) and then come back and try and pose..

Nice.

So that's all you have? Empty insults that betray your age, anger, and ignorance? Pathetic.

Well, Oneiro, you've shown us all (once again, I'm sure) your true colors, and they are dull indeed. I don't know you, and have no idea why you've chosen to simply attack people rather than actually discuss things, but I suppose that's your problem. I will not waste another second on this.

P.S. And thanks again for shredding a thoughtful conversation. Very nice indeed.
08-24-2011, 11:46 PM
Sabre2552

To help this thread get a topic started again:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sageous

I was never, even once, discussing misgivings, I was discussing the need for proof as a tool -- proof for something I already know is real, because I proved it to myself.

What are your experiences, Sageous, with shared dreaming? How concrete do you feel these experiences have been? And on a side note, have you had any experience with time dilation?
08-25-2011, 07:02 PM
Sageous

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sabre2552

What are your experiences, Sageous, with shared dreaming? How concrete do you feel these experiences have been? And on a side note, have you had any experience with time dilation?

My experiences with shared dreaming are odd and questionable at best, and in my mind not concrete at all.

Unlike so many people here, I don't find value in visiting others in my dreams -- I get enough exposure to others in waking life; I'm not a herding animal, I suppose. However, I have had so many experiences of "strangers" in my dreams, and even completely alien dream scenarios populated by strangers who acted as if they knew me, that I have over time wondered if my dreams were being invaded by someone or something outside the boundaries of my dreaming mind. Or, perhaps, I was doing the invading inadvertently. The most potent of these invasions is a young woman who appears beside me whenever I approach my highest goals (currently erasing all things in the dream and establishing a "place" that is nothing, save my awareness), and simply maintains a pleasant, un-erasable presence. Very frustrating!

I know that does not fit the definition of dream-sharing here, and the description is decidedly vague, but it's what I have. I even started a stillborn thread about it. Also, for what it's worth I have conjured a few dream-sharing experiences that fit the accepted definition during lesser LD sessions over the years, but they remain utterly unprovable, even to myself. So I guess I've had enough experiences to wonder about dream-sharing, but not nearly enough to firmly believe that the rules of nature as I know them can be so defied.

Time dilation? Here's another twist for you: In my opinion, there is no such thing as time -- it is simply a tool invented by sentient beings to organize their existences. So, since there are no laws of physics at all in a dream, I can't see why time can't simply be tossed aside, and an eternal existence enjoyed in any 20-minute LD.

Though when much younger I had a few of those "man, that dream when on for days" dreams that I'm sure many people wake up from, I was never lucid during them, and later when I thoroughly examined my DJ and my memory, I began to sense that the dreams only "felt" that long, and a normal duration of time really passed. Also, though I never succeeded in erasing time from my dream in terms of defying it by doing something very long-term in one dream (for instance, I once wanted to write an entire novel in a dream), I do have a sense that it can be done, subjectively, because I think time in dreams can potentially be ignored.

There is a long thread on time dilation here somewhere, and much conversation seems to center on the brain, and how much activity it can produce in a given physical time frame. That the brain must function during a dream, and that a one-year time-dilated dream theoretically forces the brain to generate a year's worth of synaptic activity and a year's worth of experience, perceptions, memories, and even settings in a matter of minutes seems absurd on its face, and it is a good argument against time dilation -- but only if time is an actual physical thing, and not a tool of man's making that can be set aside during an LD.

Of course, both of these activities defy proof very effectively, especially to the outside world. Because of this, I believe it is very important that the dreamer who thinks he experienced them considers that experience very carefully before deciding they were the real thing.
08-27-2011, 04:21 PM
Sageous

Sabre,

Thinking about that novel I never wrote in dream time led me to consider a simple (though not easy) proof for time dilation: write a song. Give it several verses, so it is too complex to accidentally "make up" on the fly upon waking. Make sure it's truly original, but don't worry about how good it is. Then rehearse it and rehearse it until you know it by heart. This process should take many hours in the waking world, if not days. So, if you manage to do it in one dream session, you may have dilated time to do so, and with the finished song provided concrete proof (at least for yourself) that it happened.

If you don't like writing songs, then choose another activity where the "product" of several hours or days of work can be brought back to the waking world: Write a long poem, design a video game, write and memorize a speech; perhaps if you are athletic, perfect one thing that needs work (though physical things like this are a little harder to bring across because you also have to convince your body that it knows how to do them -- same with playing music). I think you get the point though; seems that there is a way to prove to yourself, beyond being sure it happened, that time dilation could exist.
04-24-2012, 05:20 PM
Ctharlhie

I'm a bit late to the party here, but I'm going to throw my opinion in about what I perceive to be the original topic of discussion (before all the stuff about shared dreaming and the nature of objective empiricism came in) and that's the question of how we can verify individual lucid dream experiences.

I, almost violently, reject the notion of false (fake, simulated, pseudo, any other of the names applied to the phenomena) lucidity. How can I know I am dreaming, and yet not know at all. It's simply a contradiction of terms. If I reality check, what possible conclusion can I come to other than that I am dreaming? I might not have full control, or even remember my lucid dream goal, but I couldn't deny that I was lucid. Equally, I often am lucid from the outset of a dream with no need to reality check, I just know I am dreaming as surely as I know that the Earth is a globe, or that the sky is blue.

The issue that we encounter is that lucidity is generally seen as a value that is either discrete (lucidity can only be 'on' or 'off') or as a continuity (lucidity can be given a range of values from 1-10, say). I believe that lucidity is actually closer to a spectrum, there are a number of qualities that can be ascribed to lucidity, or a Deirdre Barret calls it, 'corollaries', to determine the lucidity of a dream experience we can measure it against these corollaries:
1. Knowing that you are dreaming (amazingly enough)
2. Knowing that dream objects will disappear (remember O's daughter's dream of the shell on the beach?)
3. Knowing that physical laws need not apply
4. Clear memory of waking life

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wikipedia

Awareness and reasoning:
While dream control and dream awareness are correlated, neither requires the other—LaBerge has found dreams that exhibit one clearly without the capacity for the other; also, in some dreams where the dreamer is lucid and aware they could exercise control, they choose simply to observe.[2] In 1992, a study by Deirdre Barrett examined whether lucid dreams contained four "corollaries" of lucidity: knowing that one dreams, that objects will disappear after waking, that physical laws need not apply, and having clear memory of the waking world, and found less than a quarter of lucidity accounts exhibited all four. A related and reciprocal category of dreams that are lucid in terms of some of these four corollaries, but miss the realization that "I'm dreaming," were also reported. Scores on these corollaries and correctly identifying the experience as a dream increased with lucidity experience.[19] In a later study in Barrett's book, The Committee of Sleep,[20] she describes how some experienced lucid dreamers have learned to remember specific practical goals such as artists looking for inspiration seeking a show of their own work once they become lucid or computer programmers looking for a screen with their desired code. However, most of these dreamers had many experiences of failing to recall waking objectives before gaining this level of control.
04-24-2012, 07:00 PM
Sageous

Better late than never, Ctharlhie; thanks for revisiting and briefly reviving this thread!

At the risk of eliciting a violent reaction (please don't hurt yourself, or others!), why can't there be false lucids? I'm sure that I have them regularly. I think you might have missed a major condition of this 'treatise,' Ctharlhie: The work of proving is done after waking, and not during the dream. I haven't read this thread in months, so you might be more familiar with the material, but I'm pretty sure I at least confirmed that somewhere. If not:

Of course you can prove to yourself during the dream that you are lucid, with RC's, memory, and certain self-awareness confirmations like those four corollaries. To say otherwise would be absurd. Not only that, but a dream during which you clearly confirmed that you you were lucid will surely fill both of the initial criteria for proof I listed in the OP (even though I believe I had to walk back #2 somewhere in the thread). In other words, yeah, if you can prove that you're lucid during the dream, you'll likely accurately remember it as a LD upon waking.

No, what I mean by a false lucid is a non-lucid dream about being lucid -- where your dreaming mind obliges all your expectations with a schema of a lucid dream. I have had dreams where I did lucid things, like sitting down with dream characters and explaining lucid dreaming to them, or flying, etc, all without ever having the presence of my waking awareness in any form at all! In other words, I have had "lucid" dreams that failed on all four of the corollaries you list. And I'm not at all surprised: since LD'ing no doubt ranks high among the daily thoughts of ambitious LD'ers, you can bet that LD'ing will rank high on the list of day residue that your dreaming mind taps to generate dreams. Given that, why wouldn't it be possible for you to have dreams about LD'ing?

If you double-check my "proof" criteria, it's all about proving to yourself after waking that you were truly lucid, and not simply dreaming about it. So yeah, if during the dream you can pass any or all of those four corollaries, or pass your RC tests, or remember that your sleeping body still exists, right where you left it, then you're certainly lucid. And, I believe, the memory of that lucidity will stay with you as a waking-life long-term memory, so after you're awake it will stay with you as easily as any other waking memory; the very persistence of that memory is proof. Did I just repeat myself? Sorry... I guess it was important to me!

Now, if your dream was about being lucid, it would probably fade very quickly upon waking, just like the rest of your non-lucids. If it was a powerful dream it might stay with you a bit longer, and might even make it into long-term memory (as nightmares, for instance, do so well) but even then, I believe, careful examination of your remembered actions and thoughts during the dream might reveal that you were indeed not lucid. [and yes, some lucids, like some waking memories, don't make it into long-term memory either, but usually because they're dull or otherwise lack merit, like many waking memories]

It can happen. I think that to deny that false lucids can occur opens the door to declaring, upon waking, that anything that seemed like lucidity was lucidity, period. Doing this might feel good, but it also might keep you from developing your skills and perhaps prevent you from ever becoming truly aware in a dream. You'd think (and announce to the world) that you're an LD'er without ever getting to experience the joy and wonder of the condition itself. Which is why I started this thread.

I hope that made sense. If it didn't, or you did not misunderstand when the actual proof takes place, then let's chat some more. This I think is a very important -- and universally ignored -- part of developing LD'ing skills, so I think it would be great if a conversation were re-struck about it ... even if you prove me wrong!
04-24-2012, 10:07 PM
Suck4Luck

Love the thread, amazing points ++++
04-25-2012, 05:12 PM
hermine_hesse

I know this is from far back in the thread. But this part really grabbed my attention:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sageous

Forget for a moment about controlling the dream, or generating schema on "your own." Instead: what if a very high level of lucidity allowed you to "tap in" to that computing power, to see it at work, and perhaps use some of it to your waking life benefit? Perhaps you could develop the ability to think of many things at once, as your dreaming mind must do to create the images and plot lines that it does. Not only that, but you could do so with much more coherency than the dreaming mind, since you can add your conscious rationale does. Quite a bit of mental power there.

Are you able to do this? If so, how did you achieve this? Is existing in void helpful?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sageous

One caveat, though: What I just described is exactly what psychotics do by nature, so you have to be very careful how you handle that "power," lest it handles you -- a good start is a disciplined proof habit.

I understand your point about proof regarding lucidity, but how do you maintain a healthy rationalism as your dreaming experiences become bizarre and outside of your rational paradigm of the world? I have only had a few instances where I encountered what could be "alien" energies or entities in a LD. Even though I suspect these presences in my dreams might be something beyond my understanding or comprehension, a part of me remains skeptical and realizes they could just be creations of my unconscious, or perhaps the collective unconscious. I have seen other users post ways to "test" if a DC is an outside entity such as ignoring and see if it still exists. As many of my DC are extremely well developed - they may seem to have intelligence, emotions, consistency, and even memories or thoughts - it's not hard for me to imagine a DC created my unconscious (or subconscious, if you will) remaining and being self-consistent even if I ignore it.

I imagine as what you describe in the first quote comes to fruition, the nature of both Waking Reality and Dreaming reality become more malleable and consciousness flows without interruption from one state to the next - the distinction between Waking reality and Dreaming reality becomes blurred. How do you distinguish between real and imagined experiences and avoid psychosis? Is this always an important distinction to make?
04-25-2012, 05:50 PM
Ctharlhie

Is there good and bad psychosis?

Increased dopamine levels in some individuals is associated with heightened creativity and yet an abnormal excess is linked with schizophrenia.
There really is a fine line between genius and madness.

But honestly, do I want my waking life to become more creative and dreamlike? Yes. Do I want my dream life to become more realistic and tangible? Again, yes. I would love to get to the point where going to sleep is a seamless transition between one reality and another. I don't doubt for a second that I would hang on to my sense of self and what is truly 'real'.
04-25-2012, 07:51 PM
Sageous

Hermine_Hesse:

I just came off a long session of LD'ing, replete w/ some of what you describe here; curious that the question happened to be raised today! Let me dump down a cup of of coffee or two first, to clear my head a bit... there, that's better! Now:

Quote:

Originally Posted by hermine_hesse

Are you able to do this? If so, how did you achieve this?

I'm not able to do it yet, that I know of. Indeed I can do little more than imagine how it might be achieved. Tapping the resources of the unconscious (and retaining sanity in the process) is a long-term goal/fantasy/theory of mine that I hope I will "achieve" by way of a sort of side-effect to the other stuff I'm doing (see dreams of transcendence (DOT) thread). Oh, and if I could achieve this, I'm guessing I would lack the time or inclination to post on a web site! Among that stuff I'm doing:

Quote:

Is existing in void helpful?

It sure is. Existing in void, where the only "thing" present in all your creation is your essence, is simultaneously peaceful, exhilerating, and humbling. It also can become, I think, an excellent conduit for conscious communication between the three usually uncooperative bits of your Self: body, mind, soul. I haven't reached that point yet (or I have, but haven't yet developed a suitable metaphor to remember the moment -- DOT thread again!), but I have discovered that the void, after a few moments of that wonderful peace, can become quite the engine for creation...doing anything in a dream after time in nothing seems a snap every time. So yes, existing in the void is helpful...I hope that's what you meant by your question, now that I think of it...well, if not, ask again, and tell me what I missed!

Quote:

I understand your point about proof regarding lucidity, but how do you maintain a healthy rationalism as your dreaming experiences become bizarre and outside of your rational paradigm of the world? I have only had a few instances where I encountered what could be "alien" energies or entities in a LD. Even though I suspect these presences in my dreams might be something beyond my understanding or comprehension, a part of me remains skeptical and realizes they could just be creations of my unconscious, or perhaps the collective unconscious.

In all honesty, I really never give this much thought -- I would imagine the act of applying rational thought during paradigm shifts like this, especially if alien events are unfolding, would do more harm than good. I simply maintain as powerful a sense of self (and wonder) as I can, and always remember that, no matter what I see or do in these strange, often indescribable conditions (see DOT thread), I know two things: first, that my sleeping body, the base for all this energy and activity, is safely tucked under my waking-life covers, and that all these strange things are happening in the domain of my own mind, and therefore are ultimately under my control, even if possibly not of my own creation. Also, sometimes there is simply no need to maintain rationalism -- some things defy reason, and are better experienced without it. And, of course, if things truly exceed my sense of self, they'll also likely exceed my ability to remember them anyway, so it doesn't matter (see that pesky DOT thread again!). And finally, keep in mind that I dive into that void with an expectation of "something wonderful." That sounds a little silly, I know, but if you are psychically "ready" for alien things to happen, they become much easier to endure and enjoy, even when they defy comprehension.

Quote:

I have seen other users post ways to "test" if a DC is an outside entity such as ignoring and see if it still exists. As many of my DC are extremely well developed - they may seem to have intelligence, emotions, consistency, and even memories or thoughts - it's not hard for me to imagine a DC created my unconscious (or subconscious, if you will) remaining and being self-consistent even if I ignore it.

In my humble opinion, those users are wrong. You can't test a DC's existence any more or less than you can test the existence of your own dreaming body. Those DC's have been inserted into your dream by your dreaming mind (or, perhaps, someone else's dreaming mind, as it were), and it really doesn't give a crap if you choose to ignore a DC or not. I've turned away from DC's, indeed flown away from entire dream scenes, only to encounter them all five minutes later as my dreaming mind dutifully regroups. One notable DC has even dogged me through multiple LD's, with waking time in between (always corrupting my lucidity, too -- very annoying) . In fact, ignoring a DC often takes more concentration than having a conversation with it, so by the very act of ignoring it you may be making it more important than it was in the first place. You are correct in your assumption that your dreaming mind can create DC's with all the "intelligence, emotions, consistency, and even memories or thoughts" of your own DC body. For that reason alone they would defy an "ignore" test pretty easily, and wow unwary dreamers into thinking some other intelligent being has wandered into their dreams.

Quote:

I imagine as what you describe in the first quote comes to fruition, the nature of both Waking Reality and Dreaming reality become more malleable and consciousness flows without interruption from one state to the next - the distinction between Waking reality and Dreaming reality becomes blurred. How do you distinguish between real and imagined experiences and avoid psychosis? Is this always an important distinction to make?

As Ctharlhie notes above, psychosis is the negative result of a seamless and, notably, uncontrolled, meld of your waking and dreaming (unconscious) experiences, to the point where you are unable to differentiate between them, and powerless to separate them. That is indeed a very bad thing. But add control, the power of an overriding "self," an ability to not so much differentiate as compartmentalize the blended world (i.e., stepping off a skyscraper in the physical world is always a bad thing, and nobody else in the waking world can see the dragon with whom you're conversing -- and vise-versa), and suddenly that psychosis becomes genius.

Again, at the risk of summoning yet another link to that DOT thread, the ability to successfully tap your unconscious mind in a wholistic and healthy way would be coincided with a quantum leap in your awareness and conscious ability. In other words, the new "you" who would have the capability to do these things would very likely never even think about distinguishing between real and imagined experiences, because it just wouldn't matter. Pretty cool, I think!

Thanks for asking, Hermine; though my brain does hurt a bit now!

P.S.: I just realized that I made this post without refering to what I wrote last year. I hope the new jibes with the old. It should, but if it doesn't, please be sure to call me on it!
04-25-2012, 08:00 PM
Aeolus

I understand. I have had one lucid dream. I remember it as a waking event, like you said, it was amazing. However I have had my sub-conscious trick me a few times into thinking I'm lucid. Things like me having dreams of just doing random stabilization techniques. If I hadn't had my first I would probably think these were lucids. I'm sure there are people on the site who may not have had any, but we'll never know, and they might not either.
04-25-2012, 11:03 PM
Hukif

Maaaaaaan, it sure was hard to read all that.
Now then... think what 0' said before about how people write their dreams being part of the problem, I will totally agree with that.
For example, I tend to be very lazy and won't write down most of my thoughts during a lucid or details about events, so when people read it they tend to tell me it is all a lie.

In fact, the little stuff with Oneiro at page 2 happened for me. Arne Sakkussnen said I was lying (same for Oneiro) about my lucid dreaming experiences because of my poor writting and english skills. Later on I accepted to do the tasks of Arne for a few months and she ackowledged them to be true, but then the tasks were given daily and I had a lot to do, so had to drop out of the whole task thing and start focusing on my own thing. Sadly by the time I came back Arne was already banned and I lost the link to her yahoo group so never had a chance to try her tasks again.

I do believe that proof is important though, a few times I wake up and when thinking back on the experience will notice parts at which I lost lucidity, but yeah I am not good at explaining and end up just putting it in a way for me to understand... guess this is what happens for a lot of people? They just write it down in a comfortable or familiar way and don't worry about others (and shouldn't be, anyway).

Also want to comment on the first point of knowing everything around you is a dream. While this is true sometimes people will try to impose another idea over the dream part to make the experience more meaningful. For example thinking a certain dream lover is real somewhere in order to not detriment the feelings, or like I do often to treat dreams as real (Just treat, though) while I am dreaming, sometimes will actually believe some stuff to be real while asleep but thats because of some experiments. So pretty much, no matter how much lucidity someone may have, sometimes they will choose for certain stuff to go with emotions rather than the lucidity.

But yeah, great thread and great read.
04-26-2012, 12:19 PM
The Miracle

Also late to this, wasn’t active on the forum when the original thread was around.
Thank you, Sageous, for your thoughts. I think you raise many important issues herein, and I am surprised and disappointed by some of the negativity in response.

Having a rational mind, a constantly sceptical mindset, a constant awareness of the world around you and your memory and perception and so forth, is absolutely essential to cultivating lucid dreaming. Interestingly, the same rational scepticism is the cornerstone of scientific method (though it is not always embraced, but I won’t go into that here...).
Lucid dreaming and dreaming more generally are still not widely accepted as legitimate areas of study in many fields of science, and certainly even within the sleep science field, lucid dreaming and dreaming are often laughed off (with, I would argue, an unhealthy scepticism...)

We need people who are willing to treat dreams and LDs with this scepticism, to question it and by doing so help us learn more and charge the powerful minds and practices of science with telling us more about these phenomena. We, who feel the reality of lucid dreaming. We who are passionate about it. We who are convinced that this has a central role in our own lives, and is potentially very important in all our lives; we who are convinced that this practice can be used for the betterment of ourselves and others and the world at large.

The science of dreaming is a passion of mine, and I hope that others on this forum can engage with it actively, and consider their actions and ideas in light of our scientific paradigm. Without engaging that aspect of it, how can we expect to lift the perception of LDs in the public conscience?

In a more direct response to earlier points about false lucids in particular, I agree with Sageous that these are possible – I would argue very likely, almost inevitable.
I have certainly had experiences within dreams of talking about dreams, even of discussing lucid dreams with others – this doesn’t mean I was lucid. On actual lucidity, we should always be sceptical, first of all because I think that within the dream we could misattribute action in the dream to our own agency, and second (and more likely) we could misattribute our level of consciousness and lucidity in hindsight, upon wakening.
I know that in my own dream journaling, I often write motivations and reasons for things that I immediately recognise were not inherent in the dream, but are part of my own subconscious process of making sense of the images and actions of the dream. If this can happen noticeably, it almost certainly occurs subconsciously – and if it can happen frequently in this way, it is likely that we can misremember our broader state of consciousness and agency within the dream.
04-26-2012, 01:38 PM
DreiHundert

Sweet jesus... My entire response was discarded because it contained a picture and I'm not yet a full weeks member on Dreamviews....

Now it's 8:00 in the morning and I haven't slept yet... I cannot dream of rewriting it now. So I'll post to get subscribed and I'll jump back in with my views when I am well rested(hopefully I'll have time for this tommorow.)
04-27-2012, 11:08 PM
Barry

true story bro..or maybe not.
05-19-2013, 04:58 PM
SpreadLearner0

As someone who has not been practicing toward the goal of lucid dreaming for very long at all, I'd just like to say that I feel that it's important for beginners to try and imagine what a lucid dream will feel like, and to adjust that image as they make progress in the dream world.

In my own experience, I always figured that a lucid dream would simply be one in which the world around me would begin to more accurately resemble reality. I think this ties in with having a dream feel like a 'waking memory', which for me, having not reached what I'd consider lucidity is not enough. Since I've been practicing, nearly every dream I have feels like I'm awake, including a fully functioning dream body with all of the five senses, continuity, and a vivid and interactive landscape that is virtually indistinguishable from waking life, even to the point that I will be wearing the same clothes as when I was last awake, be in the same rooms, or with the same company, or travelling about a dream replica of the town I live in.

As such I've adjusted my image, just as I had to adjust it when I began to defy the laws of physics in dreams, realized I was doing so on some level, and still did not 'wake up' in the dream.

The event I'm waiting for is when I will be able to treat everything in my environment in the dream as subject to any change I wish, while also being able to say, "I'm asleep, when I was awake I was doing X, when I wake up I will do Y, this dream will now be Z".

I fully believe its possible, and I doubt it will be anything like what I imagine it as, but I have to keep adjusting what I define as the hallmark of lucidity by process of elimination as I experience more, and keep pushing. It's possible, and probable I believe that even when I do become lucid I will be able to continue pushing my presence to new levels of awareness that I didn't think possible in waking life, but I recognize that this will take time.

One thing I forgot to mention; another reason I don't consider lucidity to be connected with how well I remember the dream is that since I've been doing these practices, I seem to be able to recall very distant dreams, some so far in the past that I can't remember when I dreamed them, but in the memory that is dredged up, they may as well all have happened the previous night. This happens sometimes while I meditate, sometimes when I RC, and sometimes when I'm simply working and not really thinking about anything.
05-19-2013, 09:02 PM
Rothgar

Glad everyone is being cordial...makes for a good topic when people can honestly disagree. The challenge with stating facts about LDs is it is experiential by nature. It is like faith in God to some degree. I know I lucid dream. I cant know for sure you do. So I have to trust you are being honest and bounce my experiences off yours and see if they correspond close enough to believe what you are saying eevenif not exactly the same. I dont think I have ever forgot a lucid dream...ie not that day at least. Cant believe i could...But mine are short and I dont chain them, so I believe those who say they can. But mine ARE like real memories. I also have been lucid but blown away by the setting and do NOT feel in control of the schema, even if it is mine. But I chalk that up to a strong subconscious. Those DCs dont behave as if I control them...altjough I can beat the up every time if I choose. Ive felt compelled to explain something to my son in an LD even though I know he is a DC but he still looks and acts like someone I love. I knew I was lucid once but was on a cliff..I have a fear of heights, and I thought about just letting go but fear constrained me from doing so. But I know I was lucid and not just dreaming I was lucid.
05-19-2013, 11:22 PM
Sageous

^^ Well said.

Remember though that the "proof" we're talking about here is one made to yourself, and not to others. I really don't care if other people believe that I was lucid or not, but it matters that I can prove to myself that I was lucid.

Also, regarding your last bit, LD's are experienced at a variety of levels; of course you can have an experience where you lacked control, or even memory during the dream, but were still very self-aware. And, of course, you will remember it like any other waking life moment, so the proof will be readily available.

I hope this post actually ties in with the conversation... it has been well over a year since I posted here or even looked at the thread, so I can only remember the treatise itself, the tone of thread, and some of the responses, but not so much the directions the conversations went. I hope I didn't contradict myself!
11-08-2013, 07:16 PM
floatinghead

EXCELLENT thread and topic - I am just sorry that I did not see this before!!

I would like to bring up what we were previously talking about in the other thread - proving shared dreaming. First of all, let me break down my current hypothesis of how a shared dream (potentially - based on my own, and others experiences) works; I believe that if they are possible shared dreams would be sort of like telepathy, one would first try and connect to the person - both people would NEED to be lucid in order to succeed. At first I believe the connections would be weak, so this would ultimately mean that synchronizations would only be a few (unless you happen to be an experienced shared dreamer or have other reason) and would also probably be mainly symbolically based. (also perhaps you would only be receiving half of the picture) The more you would attempt to share a dream the better the connection would be - simply because you would know how to 'tune in' to the correct frequency. So I suspect that the average person would need to have 5-10 successful attempts before real CLEAR shared dreams are reported back with any real success (which does not have to rely on symbolism as a translator)

Even then, if you have two people who perceive the universe in such different ways there is a good chance that shared dreaming would never be able to be perceived the same (for the majority of the time) by both people simply because their own personal symbolic vocabulary would be vastly different to one another and not compatible. I'm not sure about this statement but it is my current thought process on the matter

Anyway, the point of all this is that if you consider this theory a possibility, then recording a proving a shared dream in the early stages is clearly not as simple as first perceived. (not counting for the fact that if accounts are made up then two people could simply contact one another through email before talking to you :) ) for the same reason why the classic 'dream diary' does not work (because everybody is different and has there own personal symbolism which make up their own personal dream diary) shared dreaming poses the same potential problems.

Let me draw out an example which you may have read in the other thread:

Me and my daughter had a very simple dream experiment early on where by I said a password and she had to receive it. My secret random password was 'giraffe'. What she told me the next day she received was 'unicorn'

At first I thought this to be a failure and moved on, it was only until Aa year later did I consider another alternative explanation to what happened. First of all let me say that a giraffe to me is something pretty amazing - it is possibly the most beautifully unique mammal nature has given us, from it's strange but wonderful proportions to it's huge size coupled with it's gentle nature and unique brightly colored patterns it is truly one of natures most beautiful animals. With this is in mind I would suggest that when I gave the password what was received is not language per say, but rather the emotional idea - and when my daughter (who was seven at the time) perceived this idea through her own visual symbolism she perceived something different -the most beautiful and wonderful mammal which she perceived as real - a unicorn.

As I said, this is a potential possibility - I am not saying this is what actually did happen - it is just as likely that she was thinking of unicorns that night and so that is the first thing that came to her. I agree that this would be more than a suitable explanation - but if the alternative is true, then we need to re-think everything we think we should expect from shared dreaming.

I am also interested in making this my life's work and hope that this is true but will try not and let the hope cloud my judgement. My aim is to understand, if shared dreaming is real, how it works. Create a system where by everybody can experience it - because if one person can do it then surely everybody can with a bit of practice!
11-08-2013, 08:17 PM
Sageous

Quote:

Originally Posted by floatinghead

I would like to bring up what we were previously talking about in the other thread - proving shared dreaming. First of all, let me break down my current hypothesis of how a shared dream (potentially - based on my own, and others experiences) works; I believe that if they are possible shared dreams would be sort of like telepathy, one would first try and connect to the person - both people would NEED to be lucid in order to succeed. At first I believe the connections would be weak, so this would ultimately mean that synchronizations would only be a few (unless you happen to be an experienced shared dreamer or have other reason) and would also probably be mainly symbolically based. (also perhaps you would only be receiving half of the picture) The more you would attempt to share a dream the better the connection would be - simply because you would know how to 'tune in' to the correct frequency. So I suspect that the average person would need to have 5-10 successful attempts before real CLEAR shared dreams are reported back with any real success (which does not have to rely on symbolism as a translator)

Even then, if you have two people who perceive the universe in such different ways there is a good chance that shared dreaming would never be able to be perceived the same (for the majority of the time) by both people simply because their own personal symbolic vocabulary would be vastly different to one another and not compatible. I'm not sure about this statement but it is my current thought process on the matter

That theory makes a lot of sense to me, and, if the two dream-sharers are close to each other, both physically and emotionally, it could work in our physical realm without rewriting any laws. Also, I think your description of the difficulty surrounding the actual communication is spot on as well -- we really all do assemble our perceptions differently and, even if you managed to project the exact image you wanted to, your dreaming-sharing partner might see it entirely differently (more in a sec).

Quote:

Anyway, the point of all this is that if you consider this theory a possibility, then recording a proving a shared dream in the early stages is clearly not as simple as first perceived. (not counting for the fact that if accounts are made up then two people could simply contact one another through email before talking to you :) ) for the same reason why the classic 'dream diary' does not work (because everybody is different and has there own personal symbolism which make up their own personal dream diary) shared dreaming poses the same potential problems.

Yes, it is almost easier to "prove" that a shared dream didn't happen rather than did, simply because the differences initially seem so stark that you're willing to write off the experience as "just a dream." But this may be a good thing, when it comes to proving the shared-dream to yourself (which for me is all that matters), because ultimately the pieces will eventually fall together for either you or your partner, and the proof will be obvious. I know, that was a pretty vague statement; but it's okay, because you offered a perfect clarification right here:

Quote:

Let me draw out an example which you may have read in the other thread:

Me and my daughter had a very simple dream experiment early on where by I said a password and she had to receive it. My secret random password was 'giraffe'. What she told me the next day she received was 'unicorn'

At first I thought this to be a failure and moved on, it was only until Aa year later did I consider another alternative explanation to what happened. First of all let me say that a giraffe to me is something pretty amazing - it is possibly the most beautifully unique mammal nature has given us, from it's strange but wonderful proportions to it's huge size coupled with it's gentle nature and unique brightly colored patterns it is truly one of natures most beautiful animals. With this is in mind I would suggest that when I gave the password what was received is not language per say, but rather the emotional idea - and when my daughter (who was seven at the time) perceived this idea through her own visual symbolism she perceived something different -the most beautiful and wonderful mammal which she perceived as real - a unicorn.

As I said, this is a potential possibility - I am not saying this is what actually did happen - it is just as likely that she was thinking of unicorns that night and so that is the first thing that came to her. I agree that this would be more than a suitable explanation - but if the alternative is true, then we need to re-think everything we think we should expect from shared dreaming.

That to me defines both the problem of communication and its resolution in a nutshell -- thanks for sharing! The image you projected was one thing to you and another altogether to your daughter, but eventually you figured out that they were both the same thing, and you did so with a rationalization that cleared up the experience, rather than muddy it. Very cool!

None of this of course settles my real problems with shared-dreaming as a physical event (especially with people who are far away and not intimately related to you), but it does clarify the problem with communication, and how it might be better understood, if not overcome.

Quote:

I am also interested in making this my life's work and hope that this is true but will try not and let the hope cloud my judgement. My aim is to understand, if shared dreaming is real, how it works. Create a system where by everybody can experience it - because if one person can do it then surely everybody can with a bit of practice!

That is an excellent life's work, I think, especially if you succeed. And if you do, I will expect to be contacted with details -- during a dream, of course! ;)
11-08-2013, 08:43 PM
floatinghead

ha ha - glad we are on the same page! :)

It is sure allot easier to prove a shared dream did not happen rather than saying it did! You can also strongly argue that potentially you can match up any two things in symbolic mumble-jumbo speech since none of us are really qualified to know for sure!

I am in an interesting situation at the moment, where by I have spent the last couple of years becoming determined to prove that shared dreaming exists but at the same time becoming more and more skeptical - each time I would make some headway with another dreamer I would want more proof. The problem with this was that as I became more skeptical, the less I believed the less success I seemed to have, the way this would work within my dream was that I was having less and less 'experiences' and it was feeling more and more like I was just practicing within my own head. I was stuck with barriers everywhere - my own skepticism were responsible for creating these barriers within the dreaming! In the same way that your current emotion attracts the very thing you are feeling (think something is coming after you and it will) my skepticism and disbelief was generating a kind of barrier and preventing me from making any real progress.

So now I have learnt to let go - this does not mean I fully believe in anything, it is more like I am open to all possibilities but never fully believe in anything 100%. An open skeptic like yourself :)

One of the ways I have found of getting around the communication issue is have a base point that we can use to start off a dream, (a place we both meet at which we both feel the same about) and to also build a 'plan' for each dream share that occurs in order to minimize mis-interpreting of what is occurring. I understand that this is not ideal for the first stages of dreaming to prove that shared dreaming exists since we are 'influencing the witness' as it were, but given time I believe a strong communication can be formed and when it does this 'planning' can be taken out of the equation to be replaced by more spontaneous activities which would then be logged the next day.

I believe that the one common base similarity that we can use to help to prove shared dreaming at any stage is emotion. By sending out a basic 'emotional' message to the recipient this cannot be confused as much as any other word which can be easily (symbolically) confused. So to prove this you would choose from either: happiness, fear, envy, sadness, disgust (all the basic ones) and then try and communicate this across (while both being lucid to avoid coincidences in general dreaming) Of course there is still an element of coincidence and chance involved but the more times you do it the greater success rate there would be.

One thing I would like to prove one way or another would be if we can actually talk to the dead in our dreams - but that would be even more difficult to prove!
11-08-2013, 11:48 PM
Sageous

It sounds to me like your head is in the right place now, Floatinghead, and that from that your "discoveries" will hold more value, ultimately. Though you could be right about using emotion for communication -- at least to open the door to it, anyway -- remember that emotion is a two-edged sword: if your dream-sharing partner is someone with whom you are familiar, there is an excellent chance that you both might perceive the same emotional events in your un-shared dreams, and then erroneously consider that a shared moment. Something intangible, something that would "surprise" one of you, would need to be included as well. Can an emotion be faked, perhaps? Regardless, it sounds to me like you're in a position to eventually be able to prove this (or, sadly, not prove this) to yourself, and maybe the rest of us too!

Quote:

Originally Posted by floatinghead

One thing I would like to prove one way or another would be if we can actually talk to the dead in our dreams - but that would be even more difficult to prove!

Now there is a feat that, if proved, would change everything! After all, you're proving that there is life after death, that consciousness survives the body, and for that matter that consciousness exists independently of the body. I can't wait until you show up in one of my dreams, ancestors in tow...
11-09-2013, 12:48 AM
floatinghead

Thanks! I appreciate that.

I agree that emotion is not ideal, and as stated before - because of the limitation in the amount of emotions available to convey it can be easily passed off as a coincidence.

However, I will continue on with my current course of action and hope to weld some more substantial results (ideally within a more advanced concrete state of shared dreaming of being able to record actual conversations to a 75% accuracy at the least) that I will try and recreate over and over.

My next excursion is planned for this weekend ...
11-09-2013, 11:12 AM
Goldenspark

Interesting thread! I have not read it all.... but getting back to the proof theme. I didn't see any mention (apologies if I missed it in skimming) of LaBerge's experiment when he got a subject to flick their eyes while in an LD. Because the subject was hooked up to an EEG machine they could tell he was in REM, and the predetermined signal was for him to flick his eyes several times in one direction (if I remember correctly).
While not absolute proof, it is some powerful real eveidence of the existence of LD.
My point then is, how do we do an experiment that gives us proof of our own lucid dream?
For me the few lucids I have had are so stunningly different in clarity compared to my regular dreams that I was in no doubt of what they were, and of course I "knew" I was dreaming.
The other pointer is that I have the Zeo headband, so I can show that my LD was followed by immediately waking from a period of REM (according to the Zeo which claims to be 70% accurate compared to an EEG in a sleep lab).

Maybe I could record my eyes during the night and look for a similar thing that LaBerge did?

Any other ideas about how to prove to oneself that you did in fact have an LD? The only motor control you have is your eyes, but maybe recognising some real world effect, like flashing lights or sound could be used?

On Shared dreams, The scientific proof should be easy, even if the actual shared dream is not.
I'm quite prepared to believe that two dreamers in the same room could interact subiminally to allow shared dream data that could meet scientific scrutiny. If they were talking in their sleep that might not be too remarkable though!
11-09-2013, 07:03 PM
Sageous

Quote:

Originally Posted by Goldenspark

Interesting thread! I have not read it all.... but getting back to the proof theme. I didn't see any mention (apologies if I missed it in skimming) of LaBerge's experiment when he got a subject to flick their eyes while in an LD. Because the subject was hooked up to an EEG machine they could tell he was in REM, and the predetermined signal was for him to flick his eyes several times in one direction (if I remember correctly).
While not absolute proof, it is some powerful real evidence of the existence of LD.

I can't remember myself, but I don't think LaBerge's work was specifically mentioned. This was for a good reason, though, because that would have let the conversation stray to proving to others that lucid dreaming is real, which I have no interest in. The baseline that "it's been proven" is enough for me and this thread. What really matters is proving to yourself that you had an LD last night (already assuming that LD's are more than possible).

That said:

Quote:

My point then is, how do we do an experiment that gives us proof of our own lucid dream?
For me the few lucids I have had are so stunningly different in clarity compared to my regular dreams that I was in no doubt of what they were, and of course I "knew" I was dreaming.
The other pointer is that I have the Zeo headband, so I can show that my LD was followed by immediately waking from a period of REM (according to the Zeo which claims to be 70% accurate compared to an EEG in a sleep lab).

You might not need to do an experiment, because that "stunning" memory was more than enough. Since Ld's are waking-life consciousness events, they get stored as waking-life memories (usually long-term memories too, given their importance to you). So yes, if you remember being lucid, and that memory is more a part of you than something you must struggle to recall, you were very likely lucid, and, in my opinion, can stop there.

However:

Quote:

Maybe I could record my eyes during the night and look for a similar thing that LaBerge did?

It does need to be said that LaBerge did many of his experiments on himself -- especially early on when test subjects who could actually LD were few and far between. Much of his data, and his conclusions in his book, were actually drawn from monitoring himself. So yes, if you have a ZEO headband or other device that can record eye-movement, you could probably set up an experiment on yourself.

One word of warning, though (and one that LaBerge scoffed at when I mentioned it): During the periods of REM very late in a sleep cycle, which is when most of us LD, it is very possible to be more awake than asleep when you do your eye movements. In other words, even though the machinery is still detecting REM (and even appropriate brainwaves), you might be close enough to a waking state that you're not actually in a dream when you move your eyes.

So if you do try this experiment, make a point of moving your eyes during a solid dream, and not during that misty gray time when there aren't many dream images, if any.

Quote:

Any other ideas about how to prove to oneself that you did in fact have an LD? The only motor control you have is your eyes, but maybe recognising some real world effect, like flashing lights or sound could be used?

It sounds like you don't need anything else, but I honestly can't think of a better experiment than LaBerge's eye-movement. It must be something that you're sending out to the real world, though, because it is very easy to non-lucidly incorporate outside signals coming in, like light or sound, into a dream, with your dreaming mind dutifully creating a schema that includes your noticing those signals.

tl;dr: If you've fulfilled the 2 requirements listed in the OP of this thread -- and I think you have -- you've already proven to yourself that you LD, Goldenspark. There's no need, in my opinion to do more, but you can certainly try.

Quote:

On Shared dreams, The scientific proof should be easy, even if the actual shared dream is not. I'm quite prepared to believe that two dreamers in the same room could interact subliminally to allow shared dream data that could meet scientific scrutiny. If they were talking in their sleep that might not be too remarkable though!

That's a good reason, I think, to have dream-sharers sleep in separate rooms!
11-09-2013, 10:43 PM
Goldenspark

Objective proof

Apologies, I somehow thought that your treatise was looking for proof in the purest sense, i.e. objective proof, in which case proof to yourself and others could be the same thing.
The fact that it is so easy to fool yourself into thinking you were lucid, but actually you just dreamt you were lucid, makes it such a subjective thing that an objective proof would be ideal.

Now that there are EEG neuroscience software platforms that allow the brain to control things (robot arms, objects on a screen etc.), I don't suppose it will be too long before someone can send a message to the outside world via brain activity while in a lucid dream. There are even keyboard entry programs, so I suppose someone could even spell out "I am lucid dreaming"!

On shared dreaming, actually I thought that getting an interaction between 2 people dreaming in the same room would be a good start, not "cheating".
It would be even worth using a common cue to both subjects just to see what happened. Geting 2 sbjects to be dreaming at the same time would be difficult enough. What about lucid at the same time?
11-10-2013, 01:04 AM
Sageous

^^ Sure, objective proof would certainly be ideal; I can't argue with that!

But, for the purposes of your own experience, and as a tool for avoiding being "fooled" by false lucids, subjective proof is enough to get your mind and memory in the right place after a potential LD. On a practical note, as we can't yet all be wired up to machines to test, a simpler subjective test for proof might be a dreamer's only route.

So yes, until those brainwave interfaces are available, we might be consigned to working out our own, personal paths to proof --or perhaps building experiments that do the same. The true key from my perspective is a need to confirm what just happened, for the sake of having the correct baseline for your next attempt at LD'ing, rather than just accepting or believing that what just happened to you was a LD (which is not a good baseline because it doesn't allow you to make the adjustments necessary to achieve actual lucidity, much less improve your skills).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Goldenspark

On shared dreaming, actually I thought that getting an interaction between 2 people dreaming in the same room would be a good start, not "cheating". It would be even worth using a common cue to both subjects just to see what happened. Geting 2 sbjects to be dreaming at the same time would be difficult enough. What about lucid at the same time?

I hadn't thought putting two subjects in the room together to be cheating per se, just that it could open the door to things other than shared dreaming to happen (ie, subliminal or sub-vocal communication, telepathy, coincidence based on sleeping in a mutually shared environment), so a separation might be in order. I must have misunderstood, because I thought that's what you were implying as well...

Yes, I think the timing of the lucidity would be difficult, but not impossible. For instance, when the experimenter sees that both subjects are in REM, he could wake them simultaneously, giving them an opportunity to DEILD, and thus be lucid at the same time. It might take a while to sync up the REM periods, but it ought to work eventually.
05-01-2016, 11:44 AM
ezzolucid

Wow, this is a long thread and so I will set aside some time to read it but I have an initial thought which is something that I personally do in regards to 'proof' and it would be interesting if this thread could be continued via this 'technique' that I use.

When im lucid I say to myself out loud "NOTE TO MYSELF THIS REALLY IS A LUCID DREAM and ITS FANTASTIC AND REAL, I AM NOW NOSE PLUGGING AND REALLY LUCID"

I say this as sometimes my lucid dream turns into a non lucid and when i wake iand start recalling my dreams i then get fragments of what i believe was a lucid dream which i the piece together to remember the whole experience. i then ususally recall shouting that phrase to myself which confirms to me when awake that it was actually a lucid dream and not a non-lucid where i was dreaming that i was lucid

So sending a verbal command to myself whilst lucid to be remebered when awake in this way helps me realize that i was actually lucid

I hope this 2 pence (not 2 cents - im english!) helps
05-01-2016, 04:37 PM
Sageous

^^ Shouting such an affirmation during the dream seems a good idea, but I can't resist offering a counter-thought:

What is to prevent you from non-lucidly dreaming that shout, especially because you've built expectation during waking-life that the occurrence of that shout and RC indicates that a good happened? In other words, couldn't your dreaming mind draw from expectation and day residue to simply create a scene wherein this shout occurs, a scene wherein you are never actually lucid? For what it's worth, similar things have happened to me way too many times.

So: Though this technique certainly seems useful for confirming and amplifying lucidity at the time of an actual LD, I personally would still recommend using the quality of your memory of the experience, rather than the content of what you are remembering, to best determine, for yourself, if you were truly lucid.

It's nice to see some attention being paid to this thread again, BTW, since I think this subject is just as important as it was five years ago.
05-01-2016, 05:17 PM
cooleymd

Hmm not B-Slapped for necro-posting into thread from dawn of time :)

Ezzo: I would think since you claim to use canDEILD that you would tend to know you were lucid because a few seconds earlier you were momentarily awake.

Sageous: I would have to disagree with the idea in first post that lucid are all well remembered.

My first intentional lucid dream was totally forgotten when I woke I went to the bathroom then came back sat down and reality checked by looking at my hand three times saying "This" "Never" "Wor....... Wait a second it worked last time" and the whole 3 minute lucid came back to me. As I remembered the weird result of my reality check in dream where I stared at my hand for nearly a whole minute and then tried to mess with DC (and was Dream Heckled by one) until the dreamscape aggressively attacked me enveloping me in fast growing grass (from initially rock) and destabilized me.

Several Lucids since involved the more usual method of forgetting Lucidity. I Become lucid, I run around, then I decide to fly or jump and get stuck in the air. I can't reach the ground and wake up. Of course I don't bother to get out of bed I'm not in the right one anyways, why bother to get dressed I'm already wearing ridiculous random crap after all. I immediately run up to DC's and tell them all about my lucid dream (non lucidly of course). I am of course the victim of a false awakening which has taken my awareness and eventually my dream. But upon waking, I remember backwards and when I come across the segment of retelling the Lucid I recover it. (happened several times)

Sometimes of course instead of running around I am false journaling my lucid. The last time it happened I was using a remote control to record my lucid on a VHS tape using an interactive NTSC television set. (I don't even have a TV)
05-01-2016, 11:05 PM
Sageous

Quote:

Originally Posted by cooleymd

Sageous: I would have to disagree with the idea in first post that lucid are all well remembered.

First, I never said that all LD's are well-remembered. What I said, and still say, is that LD's are remembered with the same mechanisms used to store waking-life consciousness events. Plenty of waking-life consciousness events are forgotten too. Things are well-remembered when they are significant, and there are certainly plenty of LD's that never make the significance grade.

That said, it seems to me that the support you listed for your disagreement seems rather to confirm, and nicely clarify, my points:

Quote:

My first intentional lucid dream was totally forgotten when I woke I went to the bathroom then came back sat down and reality checked by looking at my hand three times saying "This" "Never" "Wor....... Wait a second it worked last time" and the whole 3 minute lucid came back to me. As I remembered the weird result of my reality check in dream where I stared at my hand for nearly a whole minute and then tried to mess with DC (and was Dream Heckled by one) until the dreamscape aggressively attacked me enveloping me in fast growing grass (from initially rock) and destabilized me.

Your first LD wasn't forgotten at all; it seems to me that it was effectively stored in your short-term memory at a minimum, and probably your long-term memory (as waking-life consciousness events tend to be stored) as well. You did not totally forget the dream (as generally would have been the case, had it been a NLD), but rather you simply did not access its memory for a while after you woke up. That you were able to remember it in detail some time after you got up shows that you had indeed done a fine job storing the dream.

Quote:

Several Lucids since involved the more usual method of forgetting Lucidity. I Become lucid, I run around, then I decide to fly or jump and get stuck in the air. I can't reach the ground and wake up. Of course I don't bother to get out of bed I'm not in the right one anyways, why bother to get dressed I'm already wearing ridiculous random crap after all. I immediately run up to DC's and tell them all about my lucid dream (non lucidly of course). I am of course the victim of a false awakening which has taken my awareness and eventually my dream. But upon waking, I remember backwards and when I come across the segment of retelling the Lucid I recover it. (happened several times)

I'm not sure I fully followed this paragraph, but it seems again that the memory of the lucid moment was strong enough to survive a FA, another dream, and a few moments of wakefulness. That you can still "find" the LD after some backtracking implies that it is a more powerful memory than it would have been had it been a NLD. In the end, you didn't forget your lucidity, but rather had its moment eclipsed by subsequent events -- you sort of just set the moment aside, but still retained its memory. Had your dream not been lucid, those subsequent events likely would have permanently erased the NLD, but, since your dream was lucid, all it took was a bit of digging to retrieve the LD that had been securely stowed in your memory... which I believe was what I was saying in the OP of this thread, so many years ago...
05-01-2016, 11:26 PM
cooleymd

Yes they were eventually recalled in these cases but for each one recalled I'm sure on some other days and equal number were lost, tho when I wake after every cycle (as is often the case) I doubt I lose many on such days.

The one I referred to was many dream segments back, I had to recall like 3 other scenes and then the one of retelling the Lucid being 4 scenes back so the lucid was buried 5 scenes deep.

All of these segments were parts of the same dream tho, as I had awoken from the previous cycle and recalled other dream segments from it. and had then woken from this subsequent cycle with these 5 segments so yes the dream was buried behind about 10 - 12 minutes of non lucid dream portions.

You do mention intentional waking from lucid elsewhere in the thread. The primary reason I would make such a choice is to not forget the dream. Often if I gain and then lose lucidity but then regain it, I will realize this is a danger (to forget all) and thus choose to wake. Why if not for this reason do you speak of intentionally waking? (for just more detail?)

I am a skeptic of people who wake after sleeping in and supposedly recall like 9 or 10 dreams, because I can often wake at 6am and again at 7am and in each one remember 5-8 distinct dream segments and know they are all from one dream. Often will 2-5 more previous awakenings with 3-5 segments each. I only count one Dream per cycle, and If I wake after multiple cycles while I can't know it isn't from multiple cycles I assume everything I recall is from the last dream.

Transitions can often be quick and absurd and yet accepted in the dream, but on awakening would likely be mistaken as separate dreams (by waking every cycle I can't make this mistake and often instead try to recall the transitions too, tho they often make you want to slap yourself for failure to trigger).
05-01-2016, 11:50 PM
Gyalogos

Hello!

I am a hardcore pothead. So, my remembering of dreams is under the level of catastrophic. Now, I am older, I do not smoke all the day, and I do relatively lot of meditation and mindfulness practice. My sweetest joint is the goodnight joint. Thanks for this passion I can not remember normally my dreams. In months, from zero I was evolving to almost every night fragments. I have automatically 1 LD every month. (sometimes I make "WILD marathons" and than I have around 20 LDs in one year). Now, here comes the essence: I always remember my LD-s very good. Like daytime memories. Even when I was smoking myself to coma, and having nights that are flying away in seconds with a dark amnesia, if I had a LD, I was remembering it (maybe not crystal clear, but compared to the conditions, it was super good). So, I am using my remembering for knowing that what I had, was a real LD. Interesting is, that I can remember slightly better the "fake LD" dreams, than the normal dreams. Maybe because there was a glimpse of awareness.
05-02-2016, 12:31 AM
Sageous

Quote:

Originally Posted by cooleymd

All of these segments were parts of the same dream tho, as I had awoken from the previous cycle and recalled other dream segments from it. and had then woken from this subsequent cycle with these 5 segments so yes the dream was buried behind about 10 - 12 minutes of non lucid dream portions.

And today, which memory is clearer? Those 10-12 minutes, or the moment of lucidity? I ask this knowing that the 10-12 NLD minutes had to have been memorable, because they bracketed your first LD, but still confident that the more powerful memory is the LD.

Quote:

You do mention intentional waking from lucid elsewhere in the thread. The primary reason I would make such a choice is to not forget the dream. Often if I gain and then lose lucidity but then regain it, I will realize this is a danger (to forget all) and thus choose to wake. Why if not for this reason do you speak of intentionally waking? (for just more detail?)

I don't remember ever mentioning intentionally waking from a LD, and therefore certainly don't remember its context, but I generally recommend the opposite: it is better to enjoy your dream and continue your lucid explorations than it is to preserve the memory of a particular dream. I might have felt differently 5 years ago (which you'll likely prove in your next post ;)), but I don't feel that way now: if you are in a lucid dream, stay in it; don't worry about recording it or anything else. Besides, since LD's are waking-life consciousness events, you will likely have no trouble remembering it upon waking later on, right? If I said differently once in the heat of a conversation, please disregard.

Quote:

I am a skeptic of people who wake after sleeping in and supposedly recall like 9 or 10 dreams, because I can often wake at 6am and again at 7am and in each one remember 5-8 distinct dream segments and know they are all from one dream. Often will 2-5 more previous awakenings with 3-5 segments each. I only count one Dream per cycle, and If I wake after multiple cycles while I can't know it isn't from multiple cycles I assume everything I recall is from the last dream.

Transitions can often be quick and absurd and yet accepted in the dream, but on awakening would likely be mistaken as separate dreams (by waking every cycle I can't make this mistake and often instead try to recall the transitions too, tho they often make you want to slap yourself for failure to trigger).

Yes, I too feel that many "counts" of dreams from a previous night tend to get refined upon waking. I personally tend to call everything within one REM period (or, perhaps, the period between micro-awakenings) as one dream because, well, it is. But even then, when lucid, I have continued single dreams across wake-up periods as well, so the dream count winds up being even lower... which in the end sort of illustrates why counting your dreams is not the best thing to do.
05-02-2016, 01:24 AM
cooleymd

It was the FA that I was referring to being buried in the 4th back segment with one of the LD before it.

The First Intentional but forgotten and then recalled after awakening LD was stand alone, I remember from only about 5 seconds before doing the test in dream, to the moment that I felt doomed in the LD as the grass was closing in.

I am pretty sure since the LD happened in the front yard (a yard of rock and no grass) that it was it self a part of a false awakening, and one of the things that caused me to test was that it was likely the wrong time of day, also the lack of cars but presence of 80 or so DC all walking at the same speed and in the same direction along my side street.

The dream was recalled only when I did the reality check after waking. In the dream when I did it I had 5 fingers and couldn't believe I was awake so I did the second time, and had 1, 2, 3, 4 and a transparent pinky makes 5, It instantly became solid, I stared at it, but when I noticed that my fingers were a bit to long (I have slightly stubby fingers in real life) two of them began to shrink, then to turn and twist too, so I knew it was a dream. I think the great stability of the dream came from staring (focusing) so long on the dream hand. (My next two lucids were about 5 and 10 seconds each one and two months latter, but were followed by actual awakening and recall)
05-09-2016, 04:07 AM
TravisE

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sageous

[…]
What is to prevent you from non-lucidly dreaming that shout, especially because you've built expectation during waking-life that the occurrence of that shout and RC indicates that a good happened? In other words, couldn't your dreaming mind draw from expectation and day residue to simply create a scene wherein this shout occurs, a scene wherein you are never actually lucid? For what it's worth, similar things have happened to me way too many times.

So: Though this technique certainly seems useful for confirming and amplifying lucidity at the time of an actual LD, I personally would still recommend using the quality of your memory of the experience, rather than the content of what you are remembering, to best determine, for yourself, if you were truly lucid.
[…]

That sort of reminds me of something I experimented with a couple of times to try to prove lucidity to myself. During a LD, I decided to stop what I was doing for just a moment and ask myself to confirm whether or not I was aware I was dreaming and understood what that means, the idea being that if I was actually lucid, the fact that I was asking myself the question in the first place would prove it by definition. But when I woke up, I went a bit further and considered whether I clearly remembered being present in that moment and making that conscious decision to ask myself the question for the purpose of trying to verify my own lucidity/self-awareness. If so, I figured that it was probably unlikely to be a false lucid. That last part would seem to be consistent with your recommendation of considering the quality of the dream memory. Does this sound like a reasonable test?
05-09-2016, 07:15 AM
Sageous

^^ Yes, that does indeed sound like a reasonable test, but only because you went that bit further upon waking to confirm it all.... nicely done!

Also, the exercise you did during the dream can be a good tool for steadying or gathering your lucidity (when, of course, you are actually lucid! ;)). I do something similar on occasions when I need to gather my Self for a particularly difficult task. But keep in mind that, though it is a good tool when you are actually lucid, it is also a routine that you could easily dream you are doing while not lucid -- which is why I included that "only because" bit above. Anecdotally speaking, I had many dreams where I took such a pause to confirm and contemplate my lucidity -- my presence in my dream -- only to realize upon waking that I was never lucid...but I also had many occasions where I was truly lucid while doing the exercise (and made good use of it); with experience I have learned to tell the difference easily upon waking.
05-17-2016, 06:02 PM
TravisE

On this subject, I guess I'll throw out another thing I've been grappling with for a while. A frequent difficulty of mine is trying to differentiate between very weakly lucid dreams and false LDs. Now, at a certain threshold, a LD will be fairly unmistakable to me, it seems, but besides LDs and NLDs, I always seem to have this single, fuzzy “maybe false lucid, maybe semilucid, I'm not sure how to categorize these” bucket.

Historically (going back to before I had heard of false lucids, which are still a relatively new concept to me), I've simply called them “semilucid” dreams. To me, these would be the dreams that appear to have LD-like qualities but with some key element seemingly missing. For instance, maybe I seemed to have some idea that I was not in waking reality but didn't seem to specifically recognize that I was in a dream, or I couldn't seem to recall a particular “I'm dreaming” thought or feeling, or I didn't quite act or think in a way I'd expect to in a “proper” LD, or I seemed to be lucid but with very little memory of my waking life or my LD goals, or something else that just seemed a bit “off” about it.

Thinking of it now, I'm starting to wonder if many of those dreams I've been lumping into the “apparently lucid but not quite enough to mark in this DJ as a ‘real’ LD” category over the years were false lucid dreams. Or whether the concept of “semilucid” is actually very meaningful (especially since I've always essentially treated it as a category distinct from my “actual”, “I'm pretty sure about it” LDs).

I'm aware of the idea of using quality of recall to judge, but since recall even of LDs can vary on a spectrum, it's often not a black-and-white proposition to me. Sometimes I have dreams that really just seem to fall right on the fence, and it seems all I can really do is try to make the best, most objective guess I can: lucid, NLD/false lucid, or “semilucid” (if such a thing technically exists).
05-18-2016, 04:47 AM
Sageous

^^ Maybe this is something you don't need to grapple with, Travis. If you are already comfortable with how you judge and remember your "proper" LD's, you have proof enough of the dreams that, in terms of your LD practice, matter.

Now, this isn't to diminish the importance of your semi-lucids (that's a fine term in my opinion, BTW* ) or your false-lucids; all dreams have value. But, given that you seem able to identify your stronger or actual LD's, I don't think you need to spend much time wondering whether the other things were LD's or not (my personal rule of thumb: if you have to wonder, it probably wasn't a lucid, or was a very weak LD at best). I think that some dreams can be left behind -- especially if you can't quite remember or define them anyway. Just record them as whatever they felt like, and maybe skip calling them LD's at all...after all, you've got a high enough count at this point that you really don't need to do any fudging, right?

*As an aside, a semi-lucid is not the same as a false lucid. False lucids, for me, are dreams about being lucid and, upon waking, it is pretty clear that you were never self-aware during the dream. Semi-lucids would include some self-awareness, or at least some knowledge that you are dreaming. If you must keep a tally, semi-lucids can probably be included in the "LD" column.
05-19-2016, 07:13 PM
TravisE

Thanks for the input! I was beginning to suspect, in the process of organizing my thoughts and writing that post, that I didn't really need to worry about the “troublesome” dreams too much. Also, I think I understand the purpose of this thread more clearly now.

I don't feel the need to complicate things by adding more categories than necessary, so I actually keep things pretty simple (mainly just marking LDs to make them easier to find later). Although I do track the numbers, it's mainly just for curiosity/“for fun” purposes, because I'm that way. I try to make sure I remember not to place much significance in them.
06-06-2016, 06:56 PM
TravisE

Yeah, I think this is starting to make more sense to me. The other day I had a dream about falling asleep and believing that I might be seeing a dream forming, but when I woke up I just seemed to intuitively recognize it as a NLD (since I didn't remember actually being self aware that time). I didn't need to wonder about it. In fact, it didn't even occur to me at all, I think, that there was anything about the dream that could have theoretically been confused for actual lucidity until I had later gotten up and was reviewing the notes and writing the formal DJ entries.

On the other hand, the day before that I had one where I tried the sleeping-body-remembering exercise, noticed a lack of dream control and therefore tried repeating the exercise, tried the other thing we discussed recently*, looked around and played with a bunch of things, experimented more with control and thought of some theories about how it and my dream schema were operating during the dream, remembered to try many random ideas for LDs that were floating around in my mind the last few days—and then woke up and easily recalled everything I had done and thought in detail (and I had crammed a lot of activity and observations into that dream). I knew that one had to be a LD.

* Speaking of that, I think remembering to take a moment to notice and feel my presence in a LD is something I'd like to do more often. It somehow seems to make the whole experience more enjoyable, giving it more impact and allowing me to fully appreciate it. Even though I also try to do this in waking life, the feeling of doing it in a LD seems even more impressive.
01-12-2017, 09:10 AM
Venryx

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sageous

So yeah, if during the dream you can pass any or all of those four corollaries

[1. Knowing that you are dreaming (amazingly enough)
2. Knowing that dream objects will disappear (remember O's daughter's dream of the shell on the beach?)
3. Knowing that physical laws need not apply
4. Clear memory of waking life]

, or 5. pass your RC tests, or 6. remember that your sleeping body still exists, right where you left it, then you're certainly lucid.

And, I believe, the memory of that lucidity will stay with you as a waking-life long-term memory, so after you're awake it will stay with you as easily as any other waking memory

I've finally read through the whole thread now (well, 80% of it--I skimmed/skipped some posts), and I think this is the clearest summary of the point I disagree on.

Sometimes all six of the above criteria are met, and yet my memory of the experience is still not as robust as daytime memories. I'm thinking of one in particular, though there have been several.

It may be pretty robust, but it usually still needs memory strengthening to ensure its preservation.

Has this never happened for you, Sageous, that the six criteria above have been met, and yet your memory is still inferior somewhat to that of daytime events?
01-12-2017, 09:26 PM
Sageous

^^ First, Venryx, when I read your post I said, "I said that? That sure doesn't sound like something I would say." So I scanned the thread and discovered that Ctharlhie actually posted those corollaries (as originally listed, I guess, by Deirdre Barret in one of her books). Those corollaries are not mine, with the exception I guess of #'s 5 & 6, which I assume you pulled from my response to Ctharlhie in the next post. I just wanted to make clear that the criteria listed have pretty much nothing to do with my OP, or the treatise in general (which is about how you deal with proving to yourself that you were lucid upon waking, and not that you are lucid while dreaming), and were part of a conversation I was apparently having with Ctharlhie about false lucids. I'm not sure why you attributed them to me, but be assured that, though they are arguably fine, I don't personally use them to measure the presence or quality of a LD, either during a LD or after waking.

That being made clear:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Venryx

I've finally read through the whole thread now (well, 80% of it--I skimmed/skipped some posts), and I think this is the clearest summary of the point I disagree on.

Sometimes all six of the above criteria are met, and yet my memory of the experience is still not as robust as daytime memories. I'm thinking of one in particular, though there have been several.

Except, as I already noted, that you are actually basing your disagreement with D. Barret's criteria for deciding whether you are lucid during a dream, and not for remembering the dream upon waking. I believe my next post (#58) pretty much argued that you can have dreams about being lucid where all of those criteria are met, without ever actually enjoying the presence of your waking-life self-awareness (aka: lucidity) in the dream.

As much as nobody likes to talk about it, pretty much ever, I believe that False Lucids (FL's) can happen, and one way to realize that you weren't actually lucid might lie in the difficulty you are having in recalling the dream upon waking. This was one general point of the treatise; and of post #58, which I suggest you take a look at, so I don't have to delve too deeply here into FL's.

I personally have a feeling that this experience of false lucidity, especially for novice LD'ers who spend a lot of time thinking about or working on lucidity, happens far more often than we care to believe or accept. Frequent thinking about being lucid, imagining the feelings, reading other people's stories, doing day work, etc. tend to create both day residue and an unconscious desire to be lucid that can turn up in the content of our NLD's... so NLD's about lucidity are likely inevitable for all of us.

Per the OP, I have found that one sure way to confirm that my LD actually was a LD is that, upon waking, I can remember it like any other recent, important, waking-life consciousness event, and that the dream itself is not fading, as dreams normally tend to do (because, I believe, we are hard-wired to discard dreams immediately, lest their memory interfere with our waking-life memory and cause general cognitive confusion).

Here's the problem, and why I am truly an outlier with this theory: It is much nicer to wake up from a dream that sure felt lucid and decide it was a LD, even though it's already faded from my mind and was not stored as a memory, than it is to wake up and realize that, since I can't seem to retain the dream in which I was sure I was lucid, that I might not have been lucid at all. So I choose the option that errs in favor of lucidity, my goals, and generally feeling good about success. And, of course, as the dream fades and I am able to note that some of those criteria were met, I only feel better about having been lucid -- even though I never was.

I have a feeling -- and the reason I started this thread, if I remember properly, -- that a whole lot of dreams are being labeled as lucid in spite of the fact that lucidity was never achieved. Now, you might ask what harm there is in that? ... but there truly is harm, because a dreamer could get locked into a phase of only dreaming about LD,ing, and never give themself a chance to truly develop their skills, and discover the true experience of lucidity.

Okay, I'm pretty much repeating the OP and thread in general here, so enough said, I think.

Quote:

Has this never happened for you, Sageous, that the six criteria above have been met, and yet your memory is still inferior somewhat to that of daytime events?

Far more often than I'd care to admit!

:sageous:
01-12-2017, 10:46 PM
DawnEye11

I read some of the posts and now im curious to see how the present sageous would rewrite his first post. To be honest as I read it I disagreed with certain points until I realized the way it was written may have confused many who read it, including me. Its a good discussion topic and there were good points worth mentioning though
01-12-2017, 11:38 PM
Sageous

^^ Aside from dropping things that other members argued well against, like proof #2 (retelling the dream), being maybe a bit less seemingly annoyed in the opening paragraphs (I wasn't), and allowing quite so much talk of shared dreaming, "present Sageous" probably wouldn't have changed a thing.

I'm sorry this is confusing for you; I do get that way! ... I suggest you read through a bit more... you might find that discussion with thoughtful members tended to unravel a lot of the stuff in the OP.
01-12-2017, 11:47 PM
Venryx

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sageous

^^ First, Venryx, when I read your post I said, "I said that? That sure doesn't sound like something I would say." So I scanned the thread and discovered that Ctharlhie actually posted those corollaries [...] Those corollaries are not mine, with the exception I guess of #'s 5 & 6, which I assume you pulled from my response to Ctharlhie in the next post. [...] I'm not sure why you attributed them to me, but be assured that, though they are arguably fine, I don't personally use them to measure the presence or quality of a LD, either during a LD or after waking.

Sorry about that! If you look closely, you'll notice I put brackets around the list of 4 corollaries. I thought that would be clear enough to mark it as having come from the prior post, but I probably should have used another [QUOTE] tag.

It's true that while you didn't list those corollaries yourself, you did reference them, and very much seemed to have affirmed that they're sufficient to establish lucidity--at least while you're in a dream. (see below for the quotes)

I just included them in-line (in brackets) to make it clear what you were referencing--sorry for the confusion.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sageous

Except, as I already noted, that you are actually basing your disagreement with D. Barret's criteria for deciding whether you are lucid during a dream, and not for remembering the dream upon waking.

Well, although they weren't your criteria, you did essentially make them your own by saying (from #58), "if during the dream you can pass any or all of those four corollaries [...] then you're certainly lucid".

As well as (from #58): "Of course you can prove to yourself during the dream that you are lucid, with RC's, memory, and certain self-awareness confirmations like those four corollaries. To say otherwise would be absurd."

However, I think I understand now that you're making a clear distinction between proof during a dream and proof upon waking.

In other words, while the above quotes do seem to say pretty unambiguously that those criteria are sufficient to establish lucidity while you're in a dream, they don't count essentially once you wake up, because you may have only (non-lucidly) dreamed that they passed? Is that what you're saying?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sageous

I believe my next post (#58) pretty much argued that you can have dreams about being lucid where all of those criteria are met, without ever actually enjoying the presence of your waking-life self-awareness (aka: lucidity) in the dream.

But that's the same post where you said the two quotes above! Look them over again!

1) "if during the dream you can pass any or all of those four corollaries [...] then you're certainly lucid"
2) "Of course you can prove to yourself during the dream that you are lucid, with [...] confirmations like those four corollaries."

These quotes legitimately make it unclear to me what your position is!

I could try to understand your meaning better by going over the posts again, but I think it will be faster to just ask you directly:

Question 1) Let's say that you suddenly find yourself in what might be a dream. You remember the below 4 criteria, and start checking whether they're all true:

Quote:

1. Knowing that you are dreaming (amazingly enough)
2. Knowing that dream objects will disappear (remember O's daughter's dream of the shell on the beach?)
3. Knowing that physical laws need not apply
4. Clear memory of waking life

Now let's say that you've found all 4 criteria to be true. Is that sufficient to prove to you, in that moment, that you are lucid?

Question 2) Now forget the scenario above, and pretend there's some other time, a week later say, where you just woke up. You have the feeling that you just exited a dream. So you think back, and remember a point in your dream where you checked all 4 of the criteria above, and they all passed. Of course, it's always possible your memory is faulty, but as much as you can remember, you checked the 4 criteria, and they really did pass (i.e. as much as you can remember, you really did know the dream objects would disappear, you really did know that physical laws need not apply, etc.). Is this sufficient to prove to you, now having awoken, that you were lucid in the dream?

Thank you! I legitimately want to clear up confusion on your position on this!
01-12-2017, 11:52 PM
DawnEye11

A small change can make a huge difference though. :) Don't worry. It was when you talked about retelling the dream and not being able to recall a lucid that stuck out to me more anyways. I was honestly afraid to continue reading those huge blocks of texts which is why I was hoping for the condensed version. XD

Quote:

1. Knowing that you are dreaming (amazingly enough)
2. Knowing that dream objects will disappear (remember O's daughter's dream of the shell on the beach?)
3. Knowing that physical laws need not apply
4. Clear memory of waking life

I think this is where level of lucidity would come in as discussed in other threads.You could clear all 3 but have very little waking life memory. Its the waking life memory that takes the cake in the end. With no waking life memory you wont be aware its a dream or be aware its a dream and have completely different waking life memory.So this is how i see it.With very little you can be aware but still be immersed in the dream. With only a tiny bit of waking life memory lost you can be close to full lucidity or fully lucid and just happened to forget because you didn't care to remember in the end or distractions. Lastly there is fully lucid with full waking life memory. Although clear waking life memory is important it doesn't mean that you weren't lucid because you didn't ask yourself a list of waking life memory questions. For the most part when you wake up and think about/write the dream you can see signs that tell you whether you were or were not.
01-13-2017, 04:15 AM
Sageous

Okay guys. Aside from giving me flashbacks to what I went through with this thread originally, I have to say that you might be missing my overall point.

Those four criteria, which are not mine, which were brought up some 57 posts into this thread, and on which I already clearly commented ( I can tell because you seem to understand my points about them, even though you're still presenting arguments as if I am relying on the criteria for my treatise), and about which I spoke purely in the context Ctharhlie's post, are not, not, not the foundation of this thread, and have nothing, nothing, nothing to do with proving to yourself that you've had a LD after you've woken up. I never said they did, and never will.

I can't think of any way to say this more clearly, so I hope you understand: there really is no conflict, I think, or discrepancy in what I'm talking about because I had some good words to say about those 4 criteria in the context of a response to a question, so please try your best to shed them (the 4 criteria) from your attempt to understand what I'm saying here.... as I think I've said several times now, in terms of proof after waking, they really don't matter.

All that said:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Venryx

Sorry about that! If you look closely, you'll notice I put brackets around the list of 4 corollaries. I thought that would be clear enough and to mark it as having come from the prior post, but I probably should have used another [QUOTE tag.

It's true that while you didn't list those corollaries yourself, you did reference them, and very much seemed to have affirmed that they're sufficient to establish lucidity--at least while you're in a dream. (see below for the quotes)

I just included them in-line (in brackets) to make it clear what you were referencing--sorry for the confusion.

Sorry; I did miss the brackets; but even with the brackets you seem seem to have implied that the criteria were mine, and that they were integral to the premise of the OP; I would say "My bad" for misunderstanding, yet you are still bringing them up, below, as though they mattered to me:

The key part there -- and the only reason I referenced them -- was to confirm that, sure, if you are lucid, they would be handy for confirming that lucidity during the dream. Aside from that, they would have nothing whatsoever to do with how you confirm to yourself that you were lucid upon waking ... and I hope you noted that I also spoke at length about how those criteria can be confirmed in a NLD as well, simply by dreaming about making those confirmations.

Quote:

Well, although they weren't your criteria, you did essentially make them your own by saying (from #58), "if during the dream you can pass any or all of those four corollaries [...] then you're certainly lucid".

No. I didn't.

I've reread that part of the post several times now, and I still cannot understand how you drew the conclusion that I decided those criteria worked to confirm that you were lucid after you woke up. I think I even used italics to confirm that sure, the criteria were excellent tools for confirming lucidity while you were lucid, during the dream, but those same criteria could just as easily be incorporated into a NLD, where you dream about asking the questions... and, how you remember it all upon waking is where the final determination is made.

Quote:

As well as (from #58): "Of course you can prove to yourself during the dream that you are lucid, with RC's, memory, and certain self-awareness confirmations like those four corollaries. To say otherwise would be absurd."

However, I think I understand now that you're making a clear distinction between proof during a dream and proof upon waking.

If you understand that, then why are you still asking about it?

Quote:

In other words, while the above quotes do seem to say pretty unambiguously that those criteria are sufficient to establish lucidity while you're in a dream, they don't count essentially once you wake up, because you may have only (non-lucidly) dreamed that they passed? Is that what you're saying?

Yes! That is what I'm saying! And yet...

Quote:

But that's the same post where you said the two quotes above! Look them over again!

1) "if during the dream you can pass any or all of those four corollaries [...] then you're certainly lucid"
2) "Of course you can prove to yourself during the dream that you are lucid, with [...] confirmations like those four corollaries."

These quotes legitimately make it unclear to me what your position is!

No, they don't!

Note the words "during the dream" inserted in there (even back then I was careful about including them).

Those corollaries certainly work fine for lucid confirmation during the dream. But they are useless after the dream, which is where this thread, and true proof that you were lucid, is centered. I don't know how many different ways I can say this: proof that you were lucid comes after you have woken up... if you truly were lucid during the dream, you will know it, during the dream; and you will remember it, lucidly, upon waking, as a normal, easy to recall, recent conscious moment. If you were not lucid but were dreaming about being lucid, you will likely not know it during the dream (because the dream is about being lucid), even if you also dreamed about confirming the criteria, but can confirm upon waking that, thanks to how you remember the dream, you may not have been lucid (i.e., the dream fades quickly, just as a NLD might).

Quote:

I could try to understand your meaning better by going over the posts again, but I think it will be faster to just ask you directly:

It may be faster, for you, but I highly recommend rereading the actual posts, especially with the consideration that there were some posts before #57. But we're here, so:

Quote:

Question 1) Let's say that you suddenly find yourself in what might be a dream. You remember the below 4 criteria, and start checking whether they're all true:

Now let's say that you've found all 4 criteria to be true. Is that sufficient to prove to you, in that moment, that you are lucid?

Yes it is... in that moment.

Now, here's where it can get hazy: if you are dreaming about being lucid, your non-lucid DC self will be fully convinced that it is lucid. But all is not lost:

This is a "you had to be there" sort of thing, but be assured that that conviction is far different from the actual conviction you will have when truly lucid; the difference can be easily noticed, upon waking, when comparing the two memories.

Bottom line: if you are lucid, the criteria work just fine as confirmation for something you already know; if you are not lucid, the criteria are simply plot devices in the narrative in which your DC "you" is participating, during the dream.

Quote:

Question 2) Now forget the scenario above, and pretend there's some other time, a week later say, where you just woke up. You have the feeling that you just exited a dream. So you think back, and remember a point in your dream where you checked all 4 of the criteria above, and they all passed. Of course, it's always possible your memory is faulty, but as much as you can remember, you checked the 4 criteria, and they really did pass (i.e. as much as you can remember, you really did know the dream objects would disappear, you really did know that physical laws need not apply, etc.). Is this sufficient to prove to you, now having awoken, that you were lucid in the dream?

No, it is not.

I would never define my lucidity based on fading memories of doing things like confirming those criteria. That, in fact, was pretty much the point of the treatise. Proof doesn't come from the content of the dream (especially if you must struggle to remember it), but in the quality of its memory: A true LD will be a part of your memory, of your conscious experience, and you will be able to remember that you were lucid without needing to refer to the narrative itself. [This is likely another "you have to be there" bit that likely requires much more explanation, I know, but time and space aren't allowing it, this time.]

Quote:

Thank you! I legitimately want to clear up confusion on your position on this!

I hope so, because it sure feels like I'm being tested. ;)

I think I went into this at some length on the thread (several times, in fact), so if I'm still failing to get my point across, I do hope you'll go back and browse the thread. I also think that if you tried to look at what I'm saying more simply, you might be less confused. I am not a complex person, by any measure, and generally I say things as simply as possible... unfortunately, I also have a bad habit of trying to incorporate other people's thoughts with my own, as I did with Ctharlhie's post #57, and that can complicate things!

Quote:

Originally Posted by DawnEye11

A small change can make a huge difference though. :) Don't worry. It was when you talked about retelling the dream and not being able to recall a lucid that stuck out to me more anyways. I was honestly afraid to continue reading those huge blocks of texts which is why I was hoping for the condensed version.

Sometimes, unfortunately, huge blocks are necessary.

Quote:

I think this is where level of lucidity would come in as discussed in other threads.You could clear all 3 but have very little waking life memory. Its the waking life memory that takes the cake in the end. With no waking life memory you wont be aware its a dream or be aware its a dream and have completely different waking life memory.So this is how i see it. With very little you can be aware but still be immersed in the dream. With only a tiny bit of waking life memory lost you can be close to full lucidity or fully lucid and just happened to forget because you didn't care to remember in the end or distractions. Lastly there is fully lucid with full waking life memory. Although clear waking life memory is important it doesn't mean that you weren't lucid because you didn't ask yourself a list of waking life memory questions. For the most part when you wake up and think about/write the dream you can see signs that tell you whether you were or were not.

I think you're confusing different aspects of memory here.

Though I'm not a fan of levels of lucidity (I don't go much beyond "mediocre" and "full-on" as levels myself), your point about awareness during the dream is sound, and makes good sense. But:

In terms of confidently remembering a LD after you have woken up, which is the point of this thread: You will tend to remember a lucid of any level upon waking as a waking-life consciousness event, because all lucids, no matter how weak, are by definition waking-life consciousness events. So, even if you had no access to memory during a low-level LD, you will very likely still have little trouble remembering the experience upon waking.

About the only exception to this I can think of is that if, after you've been LD'ing for quite a while and LD's aren't all quite the same "Oh Wow!" experience as the first few were, regardless of time or content, then you might just start forgetting some low-level lucids, just as you discard disinteresting waking-life consciousness moments as they pass. But I'm not sure that matters here.

Venryx & DawnEye11:

I hope all this made some sense, and did more to clarify than to muddle. I guess the tl;dr: here is that this thread is about confirming to yourself, after you are awake, that you had a LD, and those criteria, though certainly useful during a LD, are pretty much meaningless, proof-wise, after you've woken up.
01-13-2017, 04:53 AM
DawnEye11

I'm not trying to argue anything. I just made comments. How am I confusing different aspects of memory? I know what you mean about remembering the lucid of any level. I agree with you there but what do you mean no access to memory when lucid? This might be new to me since I've always been able to access some kind of memory.How is it even possible to have no memory and be lucid?Ohhh. I see now. So you would only know its a dream in that scenario but you can't remember any waking life memory.I had dreams like that before but I considered them non lucid.This was because i knew it was a dream but there were too many elements to the dream that i felt were real. Probably due to not having waking life memory. What you said does matter. I used a different scenario like forgetting in the dream but I was basically saying the same thing.hm...Even though I'm pretty confident in my ways and memory for telling if I'm lucid or not it helps to read posts about this topic. It boosts my confidence more and lets me prove to myself that I'm lucid when I feel its time to do a check just in case. Although the feeling of being there and aware is strong it is good to test/reevaluate yourself at times.
01-13-2017, 05:32 AM
Sageous

^^ I could be wrong, but I've found that it is possible to know you are dreaming without having any functional, conscious, access to memory.

You can be self-aware in a dream and yet fail to remember, say, your dream goals, or perhaps that your physical body is asleep where you left it. From my experience (both mine and what I've heard from many others), most LD's fail to have access to memory as a component. Accessing memory, in fact, indicates for me an achievement of a higher level of lucidity.

I think you should count yourself lucky if you've always got access to memory in your LD's; that may indeed be a rarity!

I go on more about memory, and might be a little more clear than I can be here, in my thread called Memory:The forgotten Fundamental; you can check it out here, if you're interested.... and happily, I wrote it much more recently than the Treatise on Proof thread, so hopefully it will make more sense!
01-13-2017, 05:40 AM
Sageous

^^ I just read your edit, DawnEye, and I see we're on the same page... yay!

:cheers:
01-13-2017, 05:46 AM
DawnEye11

Oh, cool! Im still a little confused though. XD

So when your thinking about your dream goals it doesn't trigger other parts of your memory? How would the not recalling dream goal scenario play out with no waking life memory? I can see how its possible to be somewhat lucid after forgetting where your physical body is.Depending on the dream I would consider it semi lucid until I remember where my real body is. But even then there's always some waking life memory with me. Can you give me some examples from your dreams? If not ill read the thread you made about memory. I wanna know more. Thanks for explaining to me. : D

I finished reading your post on memory Sageous. I liked it and it left me with no questions. Im still interested in reading your dreams where you had no waking life memory though. ^.^
01-13-2017, 06:42 AM
Sageous

^^ Since this thread is, oddly, sort of about remembering, and not memory (if that makes any sense), I don't want to head to far off topic, but as long as I'm here:

Quote:

Originally Posted by DawnEye11

So when your thinking about your dream goals it doesn't trigger other parts of your memory?

Sure it does. In fact, remembering your dream goals (or, say, your sleeping body) is an excellent way to gain and maintain access to memory during a dream.

Quote:

How would the not recalling dream goal scenario play out with no waking life memory?

Well, if you have no access at all to waking-life memory, then you won't remember your dream goals -- which sort of simultaneously complements and runs counter to what I said a second ago.

This is because self-awareness is also in the formula for successful LD'ing, and hasn't been mentioned yet: if you are able to gather your self-awareness (essentially your lucidity) in a dream, you should eventually come to a point where you realize that you should be remembering something (like those goals), especially if your day-work includes building an interest in remembering to remember -- and also if you're interested in rounding our your presence in your dream. So self-awareness can provide that initial trigger to remember something, and thus gain access to memory.

Quote:

I can see how its possible to be somewhat lucid after forgetting where your physical body is.Depending on the dream I would consider it semi lucid until I remember where my real body is.

Me, too... but I've found that that is not the prevailing measure of lucidity in the LD'ing community; it seems that simply knowing that you're dreaming is enough.

Quote:

But even then there's always some waking life memory with me. Can you give me some examples from your dreams? If not ill read the thread you made about memory.

Again, that is impressive! I really don't have time to dig up some examples of my own dreams that lack access to memory, but let me put it this way: Since, for me at least, LD's are very much a Here&Now event, the priority in low-level lucids is knowing you are dreaming, and often that is enough; the world provided by your dreaming mind can remain as real as it was before you were lucid, even though you know it's not real (paradoxes are common in a discipline where the first rule is being awake while you are asleep, I guess); you can know you are dreaming while still working with the "memories" provided by your unconscious/dreaming mind.

Okay I thought of an example: The other day I was in a dream where I was exploring an enormous mansion with a family of strangers who apparently were deciding what to do with it since the family patriarch who owned it had died. The dream went on for a long time (easily an hour), much happened, much was discovered, there was lots of intrigue among the heirs, visits to the mansion's three pools and the impoverished city streets that it directly abutted (with no room for pools), and throughout that entire time I knew I was dreaming, that none of this was real. But never once did I, say, try to remember where I may have seen this house before, or who these people were (or, more directly, that there were other, more important things that I wanted to be doing with my dream time); I simply accepted them as contextually real because they had occupied the complete history of my current dream. Also, never once did I give a thought to my waking-life self or my dream goals... I just rode along in the dream, knowing it was a dream, but unable (or unwilling?) to take a step up in my presence and remember. I'm not sure if that made sense; I hate examples, but it's what I thought of.

At any rate, I'm glad you're checking out that other thread; I think you might like it.

[EDIT: I just read though it and see that this whole post is a bit of a mess; it's getting late here! Well, hopefully it'll make at least a little sense...]
01-13-2017, 07:51 AM
Venryx

Okay thanks, this last response has helped clarify things quite a bit for me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sageous

Okay guys. Aside from giving me flashbacks to what I went through with this thread originally, I have to say that you might be missing my overall point.

Sorry about that. I know it gets tiring when people continue failing to grasp a point, or asking questions that don't seem relevant. I saw that you seemed to encounter that quite a bit earlier on, so I tried my best to cut down on the length of my response and focus on just a couple main points, which would be easy to clear up if I misunderstood them. (and you've since done so)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sageous

Well, although they weren't your criteria, you did essentially make them your own by saying (from #58), "if during the dream you can pass any or all of those four corollaries [...] then you're certainly lucid".

No. I didn't.

Sorry; we were using the term in different ways. I wasn't implying that they became something integral to your OP/treatise or anything, I was merely pointing out that by referencing something, then making a statement about it, that statement is still yours and can be legitimately referenced by those coming later. (as you seemed to be brushing off what was said--from your point of view, it probably seemed unimportant, but to me it was still important because it seemed contradictory to some of your other statements)

Quote:

I've reread that part of the post several times now, and I still cannot understand how you drew the conclusion that I decided those criteria worked to confirm that you were lucid after you woke up.

As mentioned above, I didn't mean you took those criteria and made them part of your main point/treatise. However, I did see them as being discordant with some of the other statements.

The following example is to help illustrate the way I understood those statements quoted: Let's say you have a kid, and your kid went out to play. He came back, and was mad because he'd been in a race, but his friends said he hadn't won even though he passed them up.

You then tell him: "If during a race you can pass all of the other racers, then you're certainly winning"

Now compare with your statement: "If during the dream you can pass any or all of those four corollaries [...] then you're certainly lucid"

Just as the kid could validly understand his dad's statement as meaning, "Oh, now that you've told me, I can look back and verify that I was winning, after the fact",

So also, one could validly understand your statement as meaning, "Oh, now that you've told me, I can look back and verify that I was lucid, after the fact". (especially if that person does not view dream memories to be as unreliable as you do)

And in fact, this is exactly how I understood your statement at first!

English is often ambiguous, and in this case led to genuine uncertainty for me in multiple places in this thread. The above is just one of the more uncertain ones, that I felt was unclear enough to warrant confirmation.

(And I understand that there was context that supported your actual meaning. But to me it still wasn't conclusive.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sageous

As well as (from #58): "Of course you can prove to yourself during the dream that you are lucid, with RC's, memory, and certain self-awareness confirmations like those four corollaries. To say otherwise would be absurd."

However, I think I understand now that you're making a clear distinction between proof during a dream and proof upon waking.

If you understand that, then why are you still asking about it?

As mentioned above: Because I still wasn't sure! Part of it was that the idea itself seemed somewhat of a stretch, to be that strict; and there were multiple statements that seemed to support a less extreme interpretation. So while I viewed it as the most likely reading, I decided I should also provide some of the statements that made me question that reading.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sageous

Question 2) Now forget the scenario above, and pretend there's some other time, a week later say, where you just woke up. You have the feeling that you just exited a dream. So you think back, and remember a point in your dream where you checked all 4 of the criteria above, and they all passed. Of course, it's always possible your memory is faulty, but as much as you can remember, you checked the 4 criteria, and they really did pass (i.e. as much as you can remember, you really did know the dream objects would disappear, you really did know that physical laws need not apply, etc.). Is this sufficient to prove to you, now having awoken, that you were lucid in the dream?

No, it is not.

I would never define my lucidity based on fading memories of doing things like confirming those criteria. That, in fact, was pretty much the point of the treatise. Proof doesn't come from the content of the dream (especially if you must struggle to remember it), but in the quality of its memory: A true LD will be a part of your memory, of your conscious experience, and you will be able to remember that you were lucid without needing to refer to the narrative itself. [This is likely another "you have to be there" bit that likely requires much more explanation, I know, but time and space aren't allowing it, this time.]

Okay.

To me this sounds overly strict! But it's interesting to hear that some people evaluate all of their dreams in this way, and in a sense is even encouraging, as it means it's possible to have these "high-level lucids", as I call them myself, much more frequently.

Perhaps I'll come to see it more this way over time, but for now it's an interesting view that I'll keep in the background, as I continue practicing.

Thank you for taking the time to respond! -- I know you've done a good bit of it over the lifespan of this thread, and I appreciate your thoroughness.
01-13-2017, 06:48 PM
Sageous

^^ Not to beat a dead horse, because I think we're done here, but I can't resist playing with your analogy:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Venryx

The following example is to help illustrate the way I understood those statements quoted: Let's say you have a kid, and your kid went out to play. He came back, and was mad because he'd been in a race, but his friends said he hadn't won even though he passed them up.

You then tell him: "If during a race you can pass all of the other racers, then you're certainly winning"

Now compare with your statement: "If during the dream you can pass any or all of those four corollaries [...] then you're certainly lucid"

Just as the kid could validly understand his dad's statement as meaning, "Oh, now that you've told me, I can look back and verify that I was winning, after the fact",

So also, one could validly understand your statement as meaning, "Oh, now that you've told me, I can look back and verify that I was lucid, after the fact". (especially if that person does not view dream memories to be as unreliable as you do)

Now, let's reexamine that race.

Let's say that sure, there was a race, and the kid was there, but let's say now that he was much smaller than the other kids, and they really didn't want him in it... but he ran anyway.

The race started, and the rest of the kids were quickly lost in the distance, so the kid was left to race by himself -- which he did, and did quite well; being a kid: In his imagination he had a great surge of energy and accelerated to lightning speed, passing the bigger boys as though they were standing still! His adventure was so vivid that, during the race, he knew he passed all the other kids. It never happened, but the image of doing so was, for him thanks to his his child's imagination, very real -- during his imagined race.

Later, with the images of his fantasy victory already fading but still vaguely present as an apparent moment of reality, the kid catches up with the other kids and tells them how well he did -- because he still sort of remembers doing so, and it still seems real, and important, to him. Being bound by reality and their own experience, the bigger kids are confused, and simply laugh at him; which only triggers defense mechanisms in the kid that make him feel even more strongly that he had passed the others.

So he goes home in tears, and his father -- without knowing about the fantasy victory -- only asks him if he remembers knowing that he passed the other kids, which the kid affirms; so dear old Dad says "If during a race you can pass all of the other racers, then you're certainly winning" And the kid cheers up, happy that someone has confirmed his version of reality.

The boy, in truth, passed no one, but in his need to fit in he afforded himself a fantasy of winning the race and then chose later on to believe that the fantasy had actually happened, because he still possessed a fading memory of doing just that -- and, of course, he really wanted to believe that memory.

It's perhaps not a great analogy, but it makes its point (for me at least): the kid's criterion for winning the race -- passing the other boys -- was certainly met during his fantasy of doing so; even though he wasn't even in the actual race. Later, even though he was shown reality in no uncertain terms (catching up to the boys later, when they should have been catching up to him, and them laughing at him), he chose instead to believe he had won, simply because he had a dim memory of doing so, thanks to the fantasy and his father's convenient advice.

Now let's reverse the story and say that the kid actually did race, and actually did win. But later on, when he comes home and tells his father proudly that he won, his father doesn't believe him, because his son is so small. Though he'll be hurt that his father was unsupportive, the kid won't change is story, because, thanks the the strong, waking-life consciousness memory he has of passing the other boys, he knows he won the race -- and he knows it not because he affirms that "during the the race he passed the other boys," but because he was there.

Okay, maybe I mangled this analogy a bit too much, and inserted a psychotic episode into the story, but hopefully I made my point: Those criteria work just fine as confirmations of lucidity if you are lucid; but unfortunately they also work just fine as confirmations if you are dreaming about being lucid. So, lucid or not, the criteria are effective for confirming lucidity. What makes them work properly during the dream is that if lucid you already know you're lucid, so, like a RC, they are just affirming the obvious: It isn't the criteria themselves, but your mindset that is confirming lucidity. Conversely: upon waking, you may instead remember, vaguely, that you confirmed all the criteria, but you have no memory of that mindset (no clear recent conscious memory of lucidity, of presence in the moment), so you choose to assume that you must have been lucid, even though you were only dreaming about lucidity. In the end, then, it is not those criteria that determined whether you were lucid, but how you remember meeting them.

Again, this was the whole point of post #58, and pretty much the thread in general. Since there are so many ways we can convince ourselves that we were lucid, and many of those ways can be wrong or misleading (like remembering, "for sure," that we met those criteria in what is really a rapidly fading NLD about being lucid), there needs to be some way to determine, for ourselves, that the dream was a LD.... that way, for me, is in the quality of the memory. Was it a clear, waking-life consciousness memory? Then it was a LD. Was it a fading flash of memory, just like any other NLD? Then it may not have been a LD. It really is that simple... and those 4 criteria really have nothing whatsoever to do with that final, simple resolution that occurs after waking.

Okay, now I'm just rambling and sort of having too much fun with this analogy. Whether we disagree or not, I think at least we're finally all on the same page here, so I'll call it a day.
01-13-2017, 07:29 PM
Venryx

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sageous

^^ Not to beat a dead horse, because I think we're done here, but I can't resist playing with your analogy:

Now, let's reexamine that race.

Let's say that sure, there was a race, and the kid was there, but let's say now that he was much smaller than the other kids, and they really didn't want him in it... but he ran anyway.

The race started, and the rest of the kids were quickly lost in the distance, so the kid was left to race by himself -- which he did, and did quite well; being a kid: In his imagination he had a great surge of energy and accelerated to lightning speed, passing the bigger boys as though they were standing still! His adventure was so vivid that, during the race, he knew he passed all the other kids. It never happened, but the image of doing so was, for him thanks to his his child's imagination, very real -- during his imagined race.

Later, with the images of his fantasy victory already fading but still vaguely present as an apparent moment of reality, the kid catches up with the other kids and tells them how well he did -- because he still sort of remembers doing so, and it still seems real -- and important -- to him. Being bound by reality and their own experience, the bigger kids are confused, and simply laugh at him; which only triggers defense mechanisms in the kid that make him feel even more strongly that he had passed the others.

So he goes home in tears, and his father -- without knowing about the fantasy victory -- only asks him if he remembers knowing that he passed the other kids, which the kid affirms; so he says "If during a race you can pass all of the other racers, then you're certainly winning" And the kid cheers up, happy that someone has confirmed his version of reality.

The boy, in truth, passed no one, but in his need to fit in he afforded himself a fantasy of winning the race and then chose later on to believe that the fantasy had actually happened, because he still possessed a fading memory of doing just that -- and, of course, he really wanted to believe that memory.

It's perhaps not a great analogy, but it makes its point (for me at least): the kid's criterion for winning the race -- passing the other boys -- was certainly met during his fantasy of doing so; even though he wasn't even in the actual race. Later, even though he was shown reality in no uncertain terms (catching up to the boys later, when they should have been catching up to him, and them laughing at him), he chose instead to believe he had won, simply because he had a dim memory of doing so, thanks to the fantasy.

Now let's reverse the story and say that the kid actually did race, and actually did win. But later on, when he comes home and tells his father proudly that he won, his father doesn't believe him, because his son is so small. Though he'll be hurt that his father was unsupportive, the kid won't change is story, because, thanks the the strong, waking-life consciousness memory he has of passing the other boys, he knows he won the race -- and he knows it not because he affirms that "during the the race he passed the other boys," but because he was there.

Indeed, those are plausible scenarios as extensions of the analogy, and they make your points finely. (they were also narrated well, so were fun to read!)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sageous

Okay, maybe I mangled this analogy a bit too much, and inserted a psychotic episode into the story, but hopefully I made my point: Those criteria work just fine as confirmations of lucidity if you are lucid; but unfortunately they also work just fine as confirmations if you are dreaming about being lucid. So, lucid or not, the criteria are effective for confirming lucidity. What makes them work properly during the dream is that if lucid you already know you're lucid, so, like a RC, they are just affirming the obvious: It isn't the criteria themselves, but your mindset that is confirming lucidity. Conversely: upon waking, you may instead remember, vaguely, that you confirmed all the criteria, but you have no memory of that mindset (no clear recent conscious memory of lucidity), so you choose to assume that you must have been lucid, even though you were only dreaming about lucidity. In the end, then, it is not those criteria that determined whether you were lucid, but how you remember meeting them.

Again, this was the whole point of post #58, and pretty much the thread in general. Since there are so many ways we can convince ourselves that we were lucid, and many of those ways can be wrong or misleading (like remembering, "for sure," that we met those criteria in what is really a rapidly fading NLD about being lucid), there needs to be some way to determine, for ourselves, that the dream was a LD.... that way, for me, is in the quality of the memory. Was it a clear, waking-life consciousness memory? Then it was a LD. Was it a fading flash of memory, just like any other NLD? Then it may not have been a LD. It really is that simple... and those criteria really have nothing whatsoever to do with that final, simple resolution that occurs after waking.

Okay, now I'm just rambling and sort of having too much fun with this analogy. Whether we disagree or not, I think at least we're finally all on the same page here, so I'll call it a day.

Yep!
01-14-2017, 03:08 AM
DawnEye11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sageous

^^ Since this thread is, oddly, sort of about remembering, and not memory (if that makes any sense), I don't want to head to far off topic, but as long as I'm here:

Sure it does. In fact, remembering your dream goals (or, say, your sleeping body) is an excellent way to gain and maintain access to memory during a dream.

Well, if you have no access at all to waking-life memory, then you won't remember your dream goals -- which sort of simultaneously complements and runs counter to what I said a second ago.

This is because self-awareness is also in the formula for successful LD'ing, and hasn't been mentioned yet: if you are able to gather your self-awareness (essentially your lucidity) in a dream, you should eventually come to a point where you realize that you should be remembering something (like those goals), especially if your day-work includes building an interest in remembering to remember -- and also if you're interested in rounding our your presence in your dream. So self-awareness can provide that initial trigger to remember something, and thus gain access to memory.

Me, too... but I've found that that is not the prevailing measure of lucidity in the LD'ing community; it seems that simply knowing that you're dreaming is enough.

Again, that is impressive! I really don't have time to dig up some examples of my own dreams that lack access to memory, but let me put it this way: Since, for me at least, LD's are very much a Here&Now event, the priority in low-level lucids is knowing you are dreaming, and often that is enough; the world provided by your dreaming mind can remain as real as it was before you were lucid, even though you know it's not real (paradoxes are common in a discipline where the first rule is being awake while you are asleep, I guess); you can know you are dreaming while still working with the "memories" provided by your unconscious/dreaming mind.

Okay I thought of an example: The other day I was in a dream where I was exploring an enormous mansion with a family of strangers who apparently were deciding what to do with it since the family patriarch who owned it had died. The dream went on for a long time (easily an hour), much happened, much was discovered, there was lots of intrigue among the heirs, visits to the mansion's three pools and the impoverished city streets that it directly abutted (with no room for pools), and throughout that entire time I knew I was dreaming, that none of this was real. But never once did I, say, try to remember where I may have seen this house before, or who these people were (or, more directly, that there were other, more important things that I wanted to be doing with my dream time); I simply accepted them as contextually real because they had occupied the complete history of my current dream. Also, never once did I give a thought to my waking-life self or my dream goals... I just rode along in the dream, knowing it was a dream, but unable (or unwilling?) to take a step up in my presence and remember. I'm not sure if that made sense; I hate examples, but it's what I thought of.

At any rate, I'm glad you're checking out that other thread; I think you might like it.

[EDIT: I just read though it and see that this whole post is a bit of a mess; it's getting late here! Well, hopefully it'll make at least a little sense...]

:)No worries. I understood your post.Thanks for the explanation. It cleared up everything for me. I have no more questions for now but Ill continue reading the memory thread when I have time
01-14-2017, 11:42 PM
TheUncanny
This is an interesting read that may not even need the response I'm about to post, as I admit I read the first page or two then sort of skipped around.
Spoiler for TL;DR - Graphics showing my thoughts on levels of lucidity:
I'm undecided on where exactly the line falls between a lucid dream and "dreaming that you are lucid", and I believe it's because (like waking awareness) there isn't a hard line to be found. Imagine this example, where blue represents non-lucidity and orange represents lucidity:

http://i1337.photobucket.com/albums/...ps9jn9qtr4.png

Tell me, at which point does the color transition from blue to orange? Square F maybe? After all, F is right at the halfway mark, so if the transition happens anywhere it should be there. If that's where we choose to draw the line, then G should definitely be in the "orange"(lucid) category and E should definitely be in the "blue"(non-lucid) category. To verify that, let's compare those colors with A (which we know for certain is blue/non-lucid) and K (which we know for certain is orange/lucid) as a litmus test of sorts:

http://i1337.photobucket.com/albums/...psgbvbcyyj.png

I don't know about you, but I wouldn't label the color of square G as being in the "orange" family. So what about square E then?

http://i1337.photobucket.com/albums/...psjixyjdjg.png

Lavender maybe, "blue" it certainly isn't. I think this dynamic is very similar to the concept of lucidity and why it's difficult to pin-point where exactly it "happens". So where do we draw the line then? Well, in my 15+ years of practicing LDing, my dream experiences would translate into a color spectrum that looks a little more like this:

http://i1337.photobucket.com/albums/...psqytv628l.png

A = Dreams where I am completely oblivious to the fact that I am dreaming. I am 100% bought into the experience as being real, and have zero questions regarding the truth behind them, regardless of how absurd those experiences are.
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B = Dreams where I still believe what I am experiencing is real, but I at least recognize the bizzareness of what is happening. Some things just don't seem normal, but I lack sufficient awareness to question the truthfulness of the experience itself.
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D = These are those dreams where I speak and behave as if I am lucid, but I still lack that certain "waking awareness". Ironically, I usually have excellent dream control in these types of dreams...maybe because I'm not burdened by a waking rational which is conditioned to believe that certain things are impossible?
-

G = This is what I would consider a base-level lucid dream; the real thing. There is a night-and-day difference in terms of appreciating the foreign nature of the experience. I know it's not real, but I'm still very much at the mercy of the dream. It's like being a lucid bystander in someone else's non-lucid dream.
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H = These are where the majority of my LDs fall. More awareness to the fact that I'm dreaming and more waking rationale. I see the bigger picture. I don't "play into the dream" nearly as much as G-type LDs, I remember dream goals and stabilization techniques, etc.
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J = Noticed how I skipped I? These dreams are notably different than my normal LDs, and I've only had a few of them. My awareness is equal to that when I am awake. I'm calm, sharp, and sure of myself in a way that is only half there in H-type LDs. Navigating the dream is second nature, very little doubt in (and resistance to) my will as the dreamer. No fogginess, no forgetfulness, no impairment over my normal waking cognition.
-
K = The level of LD I have yet to have. I'm sure there is a higher level than what I've currently attained (maybe even a few) so I wanted to leave room for it.
For me, the line between lucid and non-lucid dreams has to do with recognizing that the dream is a foreign entity. It has nothing to do with dream control or reality checks, but a perspective that is coming from "outside" of the dream. That's the best I can describe it. With higher levels of lucidity, the foreign feeling of the dream lessens (as your understanding that the dream is actually you really sinks in) but it lessens due to more awareness, not less awareness as is the case in non-LDs. Hope that makes sense. So, for me, the proof is not in what happens during the dream, but rather from what vantage point your are experiencing the dream.
01-15-2017, 10:38 AM
TravisE

^ I've definitely felt that the line for lucidity isn't a hard one, and TheUncanny has an interesting, thought-provoking perspective. I've even had at least one or two unusual dreams in which I seemed to understand that I was asleep but not necessarily that I was dreaming (there was one, for instance, in which I believed I was in a NREM state, but the way in which I awoke from it made me afterwards suspect that it was actually a cleverly-disguised REM dream); these can be really challenging to try to classify.

The way I remember my better-quality LDs indeed seems like how Sageous says it should be. But I've sort of felt that my lower-level LDs tend to fall more in between how I would remember a NLD vs. an LD, in what sometimes seems a not-so-clear-cut manner, even though (if I understand correctly) Sageous feels that there should still be a clear difference for low-level/semilucid LDs vs. NLDs. So I think I'm going to start trying to remember to pay close attention to how my recall of my dreams (both lucid and nonlucid) is right upon awakening so I can understand more clearly and be more sure exactly what is happening.
05-21-2017, 02:58 AM
TravisE

Okay, so it's been a while, but I have spent some time thinking about what I wrote in the last post and observing my dream-recalling process. Here are my current observations and conclusions.

As I mentioned above, I was somewhat puzzled that even dreams I truly feel (even after careful, honest consideration) were true lucid dreams sometimes seem more fuzzy to recall than it seems they should. But, when I thought about it, I realized that maybe this isn't so strange after all. I suspect that perhaps my memory and visualization of sensory imagery don't happen to be super-amazing: If, in waking life, I went to a place I've never been, even an intriguing, very interesting one, but only once and for just a few minutes, I think there's a chance that I could have some trouble afterwards recalling a particularly clear picture of it, despite it having been a waking-life event (especially if there were a lot of other interesting things going on competing for my focus and attention). And it turns out this is precisely the type of experience that many of my LDs are. So, in that case, perhaps the “somewhat fuzzy” memory of such a LD event is in fact behaving exactly as any other waking-life-event memory would be expected to.

On the other hand, I think I have noticed an aspect of my waking-life-level memory that typically does retain relatively consistent clarity even when everything else seems foggy: that of my actions, my overall train of thought, the decisions I made and my reasoning behind them, etc. After a LD, I seem to generally have no trouble remembering these things reasonably clearly (as when recalling a recent waking-life event), whereas after NLDs they frequently seem much more nebulous and poorly-defined when I try to recall them.

In fact, I now think this may be how I've been evaluating my dreams for a while, without really realizing it. If I feel I can remember with enough clarity that my train of thought included, whether implicitly or explicitly, some kind of perspective of my inhabiting something other than waking reality, I tend to consider that decent evidence of lucidity. An interesting recent example was a dream I awoke from with an odd—almost instinctual, even—hunch that there had been a slight element of lucidity. I could remember the gist of the dream pretty well, including my actions and thoughts, and though I seemed to be operating on a back-of-the-mind notion that I was currently dreaming toward the end, my thoughts were strikingly nonverbal and subtle, making it seemingly difficult to tell for certain. But when I realized I was able to recall those nonverbal thoughts, complete with even some subtle nuances that I found actually rather difficult to translate directly into words, I concluded that this must have been at least a semilucid dream. It seems unlikely that I would have had a good recollection (if any at all) of such subtleties had it been a NLD.

Another possible factor is that, as I've spent the last couple of years practicing and becoming familiar with the state of lucidity (a.k.a. self-awareness) both during my waking life and sleep, it feels more like there is a sort of “feeling” of being in the state as opposed to not being in it. It's subtle and hard to put into words, but this is another thing I look for when recalling a suspected LD: Do I actually remember having that distinct “feeling” of being self-aware?
05-21-2017, 05:29 PM
Sageous

^^ That seems an excellent process to develop (or is it discover?) for your situation, and I daresay it represents a nice bit of introspection and self-awareness.

It also points out that there is a lot of gray area in this whole "proof" thing, and that what we call a normal conscious memory can and does vary from person to person... but that gray area can be defined and dealt with if you've got a good self-awareness practice going!

This also, I think, nicely points out the importance of developing waking-life memory, or at least our sense of it...
11-16-2019, 05:35 PM
Caradon

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sageous

2.[/I][/B] When retelling the dream, if the dreamer says things like “And then this happened to me,” or “And then that dream character said that to me,” he is very likely retelling a non-lucid dream. Lucidity means, by definition, that the dreamer is consciously involved in the dream, and that he is actively affecting the dream, simply because he knows that everything in this dream is his. To tell it like someone else was in charge betrays the fact that you were not, and the dream was not lucid -- or at least not terribly lucid.

Seriously? When someone says something like this automatically makes me think they have no idea that they're talking about.

You're really going to try and say that a dream isn't really lucid because someone describes unexpected events happening, or a dream character says something that the dreamer didn't consciously intend for it to say?

Lucidity has nothing to do with dream control. If you know you are dreaming while you are in a dream you are lucid, period, end of story. I'm surprised this is a sticky thread.
11-16-2019, 06:09 PM
Sageous

^^ Deep sigh... I haven't seen one of those posts in a while...

I hope you might consider reading on in the thread, Caradon, because if you do I think you should see that I eventually retracted #2 after lots of protest and some reconsideration of my own.

Also, It's been a long time, but I'm pretty sure that I didn't say lucidity must include dream control; if I did, I probably made an adjustment later in the thread as well, because I do not believe that. Be assured that I do not equate "affecting the reality of the dream" with dream control -- think of it more as being aware of your presence in the dream, just as you are aware of your presence in waking-life reality, where you have very little control... I could say that advanced LD'ing should include some control (or the ability to do so, if you feel like it), but that is a different discussion.

Again, I hope you'll read on; I'd hate to think you'll ignore all my posts from now on because you don't think I know what I'm talking about!

:sageous:
03-03-2021, 05:48 AM
Sivason

I admit before hand that I have not read most of the thread. Now, many years later, do you still feel you remember ALL of your lucids like waking life memories, or was I reading that wrong. I have heard you mention this before and it does not match with my own experience. I certainly have hundreds of memories that seem real and will be with as long as any memory. Those times are awesome/ With me, if I do not drill recall every once in awhile I can forget amazing LDs. I spent the last year or so having wonderful lucid adventures, which I am sure I will remember, perhaps even taking time to focus on it becoming a memory only to wake up and be like, "something about hiking and a girl?"
Not disagreeing with you if your experience differs from mine, just curious.
03-03-2021, 07:52 AM
Sageous

^^ Yes, I do still feel that I remember all my LD's as I do waking-life memories... and I also can't help but wonder if your experience might be closer to mine than you think!

I can't remember right now, and I'm far too lazy to look through the thread, but I think this came up somewhere in the discussion; hopefully what I say now vaguely resembles what I said then:

Yes, my LD's are, to me, remembered in the same manner that my waking-life moments are remembered. However, like most of us, I have a whole lot of waking-life moments that I can't remember at at all, especially these days -- for instance, I can't readily tell you what movie I watched last night, even though I was wide awake and enjoying it for 2 hours of my waking-life (with a bit of a struggle I can probably come up with it... ah... wait a second ... there were waves; big ones ... here it comes ... The Perfect Storm, I think it was). By the same token, many of my more mundane lucid moments get lost, or only come back when I review my DJ's (which is a good reason to keep a DJ, BTW). And these days I pretty much forget most of the "I'm dreaming" moments where lucidity is low, just as I forget most moments in waking-life where lucidity -- or sensory/emotional -- input is low. Not everything needs to be recorded, I guess.

However, I also have many "awesome" waking-life moments that I remember like they happened five minutes ago, and with which know I will never part -- for instance, the moment I proposed to my wife 34 years ago last month. By the same token, I also have many awesome lucid moments that are remembered the same way -- for instance, the moment I turned and faced down the yellow T-Rex that was chasing me, again, when I was about 5 (now that was a moment!).

So yes, it does seem that my more excellent LD'ing moments do indeed get stored just like my more excellent waking-life (and occasionally lucid) moments. But, like waking-life memory, not all of it is saved, or at least isn't saved well, because some moments just aren't awesome enough to properly file away. I could be wrong, but I have a feeling that perhaps, Sivason, you may be cataloging your experiences in the same way, given that LD'ing is a staple of your conscious life ... now that you're a wizened-old dream yogi, you really don't need to save all your lucid moments because sometimes they just weren't that awesome.

Also, I think this thread was aimed at the sort of LD'er who was still having that "AHA!" moment when lucid, a moment that is very difficult to forget. Grizzled old veterans like us (and I think a few of the folks who posted here) might not be, for better or worse, having those moments any more, so we might just be allowing lots of lucid experiences to drift away, just as we do with waking-life experience. [that sounded way better in my head, BTW]

That said:

Finally, and perhaps to the point of this thread, here's something to think about: maybe some of those wonderful lucid adventures you had over the last year weren't really all that lucid, but instead were low-level lucids, or even NLD's that happened to have you knowing you were lucid built into their plot? In your unique case -- and given my own time-earned ability to remember immediately upon waking if I were lucid or not -- this is likely not true, but, in the spirit of this thread, it might be something to consider.

tl;dr: Yeah, I'm still of the same mind; for me every self-aware dreaming moment worth remembering gets stored the same way every waking-life moment worth remembering gets stored.

... of course, I could be wrong; memory is funny that way!
03-03-2021, 10:41 PM
Sivason

Thanks. I certainly do not store most of my waking moments for very long.

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