Thread: Is it ethical to hurt your DCs?

I was just wondering what you guys have to say on whether or not it is ok to be severely hurting your DCs? Aside from the argument saying killing a DC is like killing a part of yourself I was thinking in principal it would be wrong to go out of your way to harm something, even if you have no physical proof that what you are harming is real. The idea I'm trying to express is similar to how Hindus wouldn't ever harm insects/living things because they might be reincarnations of other humans. On one hand I want to have epic LDs where I blow stuff up and have a general rampage, but on the other I feel like it is morally wrong to go out of my way to even simulate killing other living things, much more so even other humans.

You're only confined by your morals, kill all you want, nothing bad will happen to you, except maybe some guilt

Originally Posted by n00bf0rlyf3

You're only confined by your morals

This is what I believe about this issue, too. I also believe that all the things that I consciously choose to do, even in lucid dreams, "count" and have moral weight simply because I have consciously chosen to do them. I believe that what we do and the choices we make define who we are.

At the same time, I've found that I'm less inhibited when lucid dreaming. I think whatever neural circuits store my conscience are still inactive, even when I'm lucid. This leads to occasional expressions of guilt in my dream journal when I've done something I would have refrained from doing in waking life, like vocally proclaiming my desire for accolades and acceptance.

It all depends on your beliefs and morals of course. I would never maliciously harm or kill a living creature in real life, but I feel more than comfortable doing it within my dreams.

This question is hard. I have morals so don't get me wrong, I am just a bit philosophic.

What is ethical? I mean is knowing stealing and killing is bad something programmed in our genes? No it's something we have learned. Sorry if you are a religious person although the same principle applies.
Either if the ethics are from god or the law, we still resist because of one reason. Punishment. If we knew we wouldn't go to jail or have to pay fines when we stole something would we still not do it?
A more extreme case. If we was able to turn back time would we resist to do something completely unacceptable like killing someone we hate or worse.
My point is that it's the consequence we fear not the actual act. If we were raised to kill, we would kill, like the knights in the Dark ages. Although killing is always hard for a man to do, so maybe it is biological for survival purposes I don't know. But when it comes to dreams hmm 4 years ago I would say "Wohoo no consequences I can be terrorist one day and president the other".
Well in these for years I have become a little more spiritual, because of weird experiences with information beyond previous knowledge. So how can a dream/ astral not be real?
Well either way I am not sure. It sounds weird I know, but at least make sure that before you kill the DC:s and so on check that they are just DC:s...

I sometimes hurt my DCs, but they never bleed or stuff like that, i don't want to murder them like that or anything. More like i throw them away or something.

But yeah, since they are just DCs, i don't think that it matters what you do to them.

I see it as being no different than a video game. You can always tell yourself that the DC will just respawn somewhere else if you are worried about the guilt associated with it. As long as you keep it in the dream world you're fine. Just do a quick RC before pulling the trigger on anyone to make sure

I think it depends on your intentions. I like to sword fight in lucids. They usually end with me "killing" a DC. But my intention is not to kill the DC. It's to experience the sword fight. If I told the decapitated DC to stop being a pussy and put his head back on he would. And we'd laugh about it afterwards. No harm done.

Now if you're goal is to simulate killing for the sake of killing I would consider that unethical. Summoning that annoying guy from school and slowly disemboweling him seems like the wrong thing to do.

But in the end you can no more kill a DC than you can kill a rock. If killing a DC makes you feel bad then don't do it. If you enjoy killing them just for the sake of killing then check yourself.

Originally Posted by dms111

I think it depends on your intentions. I like to sword fight in lucids. They usually end with me "killing" a DC. But my intention is not to kill the DC. It's to experience the sword fight. If I told the decapitated DC to stop being a pussy and put his head back on he would. And we'd laugh about it afterwards. No harm done.

Now if you're goal is to simulate killing for the sake of killing I would consider that unethical. Summoning that annoying guy from school and slowly disemboweling him seems like the wrong thing to do.

But in the end you can no more kill a DC than you can kill a rock. If killing a DC makes you feel bad then don't do it. If you enjoy killing them just for the sake of killing then check yourself.

This. I've had so many battles in my dreams and never felt bad about them, but one night I had a non-lucid where I was just going around a hospital beating up patients and their families. For some reason I was being forced to. I woke up the next day and felt like shit all day, like I was really sick in the head. Wasn't fun.

If you have the urge to kill for the sake of killing in a lucid dream you may want to get yourself checked out.

I would ask whether it is psychological damaging rather than morally wrong, in attacking figures in our dreams, are we in a sense attacking elements of our own psyche? Or are dream characters just reflections?

I tend to see morals as (necessary) social constructs. There are many things I've done in the disinhibited state of non-lucid dreams that I would never think of in waking life.

I wouldn't be surprised. I've had many instances when I'll dream about something and the next day not be sure if it really happened or not. Sometimes I'll feel like I need to remember to do something, only to realize it was a task I'd wanted to do in my dream. If you kill somebody in your dream, I think you are (in a very small way) killing them in your mind. Whether that in itself is enough to actually feed a psychological disorder, I can't say.

It depends a bit on how u look on these things. I personally killed some dream characters, did i feel guilty? Not really, but that's because i know it was a dream. For me it feels the same as killing somebody in a videogame, i know it's not reality. And like some people sayed u can just wish them back. I don't really see the big issue.

But then again, if u kill somebody that u hate for example in real life. And u keep doing this, cause it brings u so mutch satisfaction. It may bring those actions/thoughts into real life. And that's unhealthy ofcourse. And i would advice to seek some help right away.

It's all about do u know the difference between dreaming/reality? If yes, then don't worry about it. Don't get me wrong, not saying u should kill in every lucid dream. To mutch of something may bring u harm in some ways. But if it's once in a while, i wouldn't worry about it. I think it may even help u release some anger, afther a stressfull day. But that depends completely person on person though.

I will just offer a few simple questions. Do you wish to be a calm spiritual person? Do you really find violent video game dreams more entertaining then any other dream setting? What do you feel you get out of violent fantasies?

If you have little concern for developing into a remarkable and spiritual person, then go crazy and do what ever occurs to you. I may find it sad, but to each their own. What can it hurt other than your own sense of self? I personally do not want to be a person who thrills at violence more than say flying or controlling a storm.
I may suggest that context can make a huge difference! In one dream maybe you murder everyone at your school and in another you break inti a pirate hide out in Somalia and free the poor hostages. I think the second could be thrilling and involve killing a blowing things up without meaning much. So context matters.

Originally Posted by sivason

I will just offer a few simple questions. Do you wish to be a calm spiritual person? Do you really find violent video game dreams more entertaining then any other dream setting? What do you feel you get out of violent fantasies?

If you have little concern for developing into a remarkable and spiritual person, then go crazy and do what ever occurs to you. I may find it sad, but to each their own. What can it hurt other than your own sense of self? I personally do not want to be a person who thrills at violence more than say flying or controlling a storm.
I may suggest that context can make a huge difference! In one dream maybe you murder everyone at your school and in another you break inti a pirate hide out in Somalia and free the poor hostages. I think the second could be thrilling and involve killing a blowing things up without meaning much. So context matters.

This is a great post! However, I've had very violent dream characters in my dreams, and it wasn't because of anything that *I* did. Even last night, I remember someone beating a helpless young man, and I stood my guard -- prepared to defend myself. Typical of me in real life; I recognize an injustice where I see it, and I will defend myself if I have to.

But the dream character brought the violence to me. I wasn't searching for violence.

Originally Posted by Mindraker

This is a great post! However, I've had very violent dream characters in my dreams, and it wasn't because of anything that *I* did. Even last night, I remember someone beating a helpless young man, and I stood my guard -- prepared to defend myself. Typical of me in real life; I recognize an injustice where I see it, and I will defend myself if I have to.

But the dream character brought the violence to me. I wasn't searching for violence.

But if your dream characters bring stuff like that to u, doesn't that mean that deep inside u want it to happen?
Found this on the internet, it has nothing to do with dreams. But i agree that in the end we all have a killer instinct and sometimes it may come in our dreams in a strange way. Maybe not us, but just other dream characters can show u what we really can do. But it's your actions that makes the person u are today, but i don't think anybody in this world is truly a 'pure' person. We are all animals in the end.

I think the reason we are so violent is because during the millions of years we evolved to become homo sapiens we had to kill prey, preditor, or one another. I think that this killer instinct is with us for good in our genes. In the modern age a majority of us prefer peace, perhaps you can argue this, but that killer instinct is always there just beneath the surface.

Originally Posted by Mindraker

This is a great post! However, I've had very violent dream characters in my dreams, and it wasn't because of anything that *I* did. Even last night, I remember someone beating a helpless young man, and I stood my guard -- prepared to defend myself. Typical of me in real life; I recognize an injustice where I see it, and I will defend myself if I have to.

But the dream character brought the violence to me. I wasn't searching for violence.

Well in your case you are defending yourself or another, so the context issue is taken care of. Dreams of standing up for yourself or being heroic are not phsycologically the same as violent fantacies. I assume that you may still desire to have fewer of these dreams given a choice, but the thing it is revieling about your nature may be an honest desire to become strong enough to not be afraid. Here is all I would suggest as I do not find your dream disturbing in general due to the context. That is, you have many types of dream control you will learn to play with. Here is a useful power "turn off DC' where you use a jedi type jesture and the DC freezes and no longer can continue what it was doing. You can also use attacks that spare gorey results yet are effective. A non-lethal lightning that leaves them smoking, but still twitching for example lets you combat evil with out the need to experience bloody violence.
Other dream control options exist that may be good ways to deal with dreams of being a defender. You can learn to 'believe' a DC has only limited power. With you playing a super hero and the DC funny and pathetic there is no need to deal lethal bloody attacks. Then you could pick them up with 'the force' and shake them unconcious and so on, or fly away, telport them to a room neck deep in dirty diapers or what ever yyou find entertaining.

Originally Posted by Mindraker

This is a great post! However, I've had very violent dream characters in my dreams, and it wasn't because of anything that *I* did. Even last night, I remember someone beating a helpless young man, and I stood my guard -- prepared to defend myself. Typical of me in real life; I recognize an injustice where I see it, and I will defend myself if I have to. But the dream character brought the violence to me. I wasn't searching for violence.

Mindraker, I think what we're talking about here is choosing to do violence to DC's during LD's.

No, I think Sivason's excellent post somewhere above relates to dreamers who choose to kill or do other very bad things to their DC's that they wouldn't dare do -- or even think about -- in waking life. If you are not lucid, there's really nothing you can do, or blame yourself about, when violence ensues ... though it would be very cool if your DC "You" did the right thing too (as yours seemed to), because it reflects well on the dreamer!

To ignore your sense of morality and your sense of Self to find joy in hurting others is never, I think, a good thing. Also, you may be able to convince yourself that DC's are not real and thus can be tortured, raped, killed, etc, no-harm-no-foul, but in truth all those DC's are reflections of you; projections of your own dreaming mind. All the pain you bring upon them is pain brought upon yourself -- and a part of you will remember that.

Somewhere else up there Ekyu mentioned the killer instinct ... isn't a LD the perfect opportunity for we learning and growing humans test, and prove, our ability to rise above instinct? I think so.

I was just pointing out that we are not perfect beings, and i agree that lucid dreaming shouldn't be about killing or hurting other people for fun. There are far more intresting stuff to do. But u also need to look it from my point of view on this matter, is it really that hard to beleve that some people just enjoy being a 'bad' guy once in a while in there dreams? I don't think it's that strange..

Is it wrong? That's for themself to decide, it doesn't effect anybody else but them.
We don't have any right to judge people in situations like this.

Originally Posted by Ekyu

I was just pointing out that we are not perfect beings, and i agree that lucid dreaming shouldn't be about killing or hurting other people for fun. There are far more intresting stuff to do. But u also need to look it from my point of view on this matter, is it really that hard to believe that some people just enjoy being a 'bad' guy once in a while in there dreams? I don't think it's that strange...

Sadly, it's not strange at all. I was actually not disagreeing with you, Ekyu; your point is more than sound. I was mentioning only that LD'ing could be a tool for rising above mindless instinct.

Is it wrong? That's for themself to decide, it doesn't effect anybody else but them. We don't have any right to judge people in situations like this.

Perhaps not a right to judge (people's dreams are their own worlds, after all), but maybe an obligation to look into the nature of doing harm to DC's, and indirectly our selves, and using the process of discussing things like this to raise warning flags to folks who are currently convincing themselves that it is okay to become a sociopath in their dreams.

If it is a 'normal' dream then if you attack a DC well there isn't much you can do about it as you have exerted no (conscious) control. So there would be no point worrying about the moral question.

However in a dream where you can exert some degree of control, or a high level of control, or will as in a 'lucid' dream then I don't personally like the idea of attacking or humiliating a DC just for the fun of it; although I might argue this if I was attacked first. I would plead self defence in that case!

Just like real life I would try the diplomatic approach first. Try to find out the reason behind things rather than simply lashing out. You might find your own answers to your inner conflicts in real life.

As Sivason mentions in his above post that there is a tremendous opportunity for personal and spiritual development when practicing LD.

Anyhow, it's just my 2 cents!

I never really try to injure a DC, In a gunfight lately I shot one just wounding him and I felt awful about it while trying to patch him up.
I dont even hurt monsters, If theyre obnoxious I order them to the junkyard

I think that killing a DC can't damage your mind in any way just like ignoring a DC and make it disappear can't damage your mind. Even though I believe that everything you do in waking life and in dreaming life has an effect on your mind ,but it wouldn't be necessarily bad. You know one may think that killing a DC will damage his mind and another will just see it as a possibility to experience a sword fight where you can't kill anybody for real. I guess that just depends on the person.
Although I am quite a calm guy in waking life so I usually don't go on killing sprees and I can't recall killing anyone in my dreams.

I only kill DCs that are out to harm me.

Originally Posted by superchaz

I only kill DCs that are out to harm me.

If Lucid, I have more fun showing them that they are unable to.

Anyway, kind of hard to kill something that's not physically alive. They have the same indestructible qualities as the one dreaming them has. Your mind may create the event of them dying as you attack them. But more often than not when I try to kill attackers in nonlucids, they don't die. And the effort in trying can sometimes get disturbingly gruesome.

Originally Posted by Caradon

If Lucid, I have more fun showing them that they are unable to..

I like that answer, I pick my lucid DC's more carefully, For tonight the seed is already planted, I wish we didnt have to repeat it every night but if I dont then it's a non-lucid and devil take the hindmost......