Originally posted by Oneironaut
Actually jay dawg, being conscious in the dreamn Does mean you're lucid. Having complete control is just something that comes along after you're lucid enough to Know you have complete control.
The word \"lucid\" is defined in a few ways. But most of then centered on \"clarity\" \"the ability to think or sense rationally\" \"clear\" \"oriented\"
You can have a dream where you have powers at will, able to fly and things, but are in the act of doing them without fully realising \"Hey..wait a minute..I'm dreaming, thats why I can do all this.\"That is not a lucid dream.
But even if you become conscious \"Hey I'm dreaming\" and decide to just go on watching the dream, and not even actually forcing yourself to Participate, it is still a lucid dream.
Alot of people confuse being lucid with actually having a 'control' over your dream, but thats not true. Control comes with will. But you don't have to will yourself to do anything to have a lucid dream. Simply know you're dreaming.
i agree with much you have said. i think our sense of what is control versus what is lucidity is mixed. if by control you mean having complete waking conscious control of your actions in you dreams, then i am in control of all of my dreams, lucid or not. i see no difference in control in the sense that after becoming lucid one realizes that he can suddonly fly. that to me is the same account of control that is experienced nightly. lucidity is all of that, plus knowing your dreaming and its all in the mind. imagine dreams you have had in the past when you knew you were completely conscious of all your actions, now does not realizing one is dreaming take away from that? i think not