Conclusion on lucid dreaming

[skuthepoo]

I have a sort of partially negative conclusion on lucid dreaming. I did have a few outstanding dreams last night that I thoroughly enjoyed, but I had to sleep in and loose half of my day to have them. Is it really worth it? There are a lot of doors open in my life at the minute and realistically I only have 2 days off a week, and I've to loose out on creative leasure time to sleep and have a nice memory of something that never happened. I'm not slating lucid dreaming, I'm just thinking I'd rather be doing amazing things in waking life than just living them out in dreams. I think lucid dreaming will be something for me to practise at while I'm on holiday away from home without my creative mediums. Discuss.

[Hukif]

Uh, if lucid dreaming is getting in the way of your waking life (And I don't mean offense) you are doing it wrong. Even when I was at my craziest about controlling dreams, would just use free time in-between classes to make up new ways to become lucid (Given that it failed but meh). After finding gravity RC, just had to be aware of my body so again not something that gets in the way of waking, in fact it improved. And then have the fact that while doing crazy things in lucids can easily study, make up tests for class or help out with jobs using the lucid time to think about. It is not like LDing is ONLY usable for fun, it can be used for studying or working or practice of certain skills.

[Zoth]

You will spend a faction of your life dreaming. So you're not loosing time when you lucid dream, you are actually gaining it. Besides, it's not about the memory, it's about the experience. Lucidity is perceiving yourself in a dream, and that is as real as this very moment. Yes it will be gone and turn into a memory, but that happens with your whole life events. Not to mention like said above that lucid dreaming has important (and yet to be developed) benefits to sports, health, creativity, self-development, among many other areas. Take a look at this video, this is merely imagining, dreaming proves itself to be much more realistic due no sensorial restrictions, and there are more and more studies comproving it!

[dutchraptor]

I'm just thinking I'd rather be doing amazing things in waking life than just living them out in dreams. I think lucid dreaming will be something for me to practise at while I'm on holiday away from home without my creative mediums. Discuss. The difference here is that you think that an experience is more valid in waking life than in real life, however most people think they are equal on this forum. Considering that I have done things in lucids that I will never be able to do in real life, I can't even come close to them, lucids give my life an aspect of extreme excitement. After you have stopped any action it all just becomes a memory, and all you are doing when thinking back on memories is re-experiencing them in your brain, so whether these memories are from an internal or external source they are interpreted the exact same way. At the end of my life I would much rather think about all the times I flew through the amazon, teleported to different worlds, made my own lifeforms than the few times I went doing some kind of exciting real life activity. Now just because lucids are amazing doesn't mean you have to sacrifice real life for them, there is a healthy balance and as zoth showed you are not actually wasting any time at all. It's up to you what to believe but for me life is about experience and there is no better medium for experience than a really good lucid dream.

[skuthepoo]

Interesting replies. I think my main intention wasn't to offend. It's just I don't seem to have stable dreams unless I sleep for maybe 10-12 hrs, but I feel cranky and tired if I sleep longer than 7/8 hrs. So it tends to cost me a whole day.

[Bobblehat]

I'm kind of similar. I like lucid dreaming, but I like a lot of other stuff in life (including normal sleep and non-lucid dreams! ) so now I more or less refuse to do anything to achieve lucidity that eats into my day or means that I could lose sleep.

[SleepyCookieDough]

Just a comment. I personally think that ADA (all day awareness) is the best way to lucid dream. I am not a natural lucid dreamer but I keep a mental dream journal which is enough to boost my recall to 6-7 dreams a day (it is 0 or 1 without the proper use of this mental dream journal). I made a thread about it previously called Memory Temple Technique. This is barely time consuming at all. This is my reality check: Everytime I realize I have been unconscious or that I have made a transition to another place I ask these questions to myself: 1. “Am I dreaming?” 2. “Does the world around me make sense?” 3. “When is the last time I asked myself this and was I dreaming or not?” 4. “How did I get here from then and does that make sense?” Then I become aware of all my senses and my surroundings (breathing, blinking, sounds in the background, everything) and this is how I do ADA. This is a very effective way for me to get lucid dreams pretty fast (if I use the technique really well).< What I mean is that this recipe works REALLY well for me and it does not take any of my time. It makes my real life more real. I used to daydream all day and barely live my life. Lucid dreaming has given me the chance to live, to feel alive. This is the greatest thing lucid dreaming gave me. Lucid dreaming is being aware in a dream so if you would just be aware when you were alive, you would automatically become lucid in your dreams. In brief, if lucid dreaming is taking to much time out of your life, your doing wrong because for me, it has given me my real life back. It gave me two lives: Dreams and the real world. Work on your overall consciousness and try to remember your dreams throughout the whole day to better dream recall. Good luck.

[Bobblehat]

Just a comment. I personally think that ADA (all day awareness) is the best way to lucid dream. Each to their own. Practising ADA would be like purgatory to me.

[VagalTone]

It makes my real life more real. I used to daydream all day and barely live my life. Lucid dreaming has given me the chance to live, to feel alive. This is the greatest thing lucid dreaming gave me. very very inspirational !

[PennyRoyal]

This is my reality check: Everytime I realize I have been unconscious or that I have made a transition to another place I ask these questions to myself: 1. “Am I dreaming?” 2. “Does the world around me make sense?” 3. “When is the last time I asked myself this and was I dreaming or not?” 4. “How did I get here from then and does that make sense?” This helped me a lot. Thanks!

[Sensei]

I mainly agree with hukif. If it gets in the way, you are doing it wrong. Yeah, the research at the beginning takes some time, but DJing really doesn't take that long. 20 minutes max. I no longer DJ, but I tell all my dreams to my wife on my way to work. Throughout the day I normally keep them on my mind since I have always liked dreams. As long as I am well rested I average 4-7 dreams a night. Other than that I don't see any work in it.

[sisyphus]

I was the same way for quite a while. Lucids are more likely in later REM cycles. So I'd sleep an extra 1-3 hours to get more REM cycles. But as the OP laments, that eats into your day. You probably want to change up your approach. Instead of spending 1-3 hours trying for more dreams, limit your sleep to 8 hours and then spend 20 minutes to make more thorough DJ entries. Or schedule a WBTB or WILD attempt into your normal 8-hour routine, which will only add maybe 10-30 minutes. Basically, work on using your time efficiently while limiting your total time in bed to fit your real life schedule.

[Ninjaa]

I had to sleep in and loose half of my day to have them. Is it really worth it? Maybe you need to change your technique if you have to sleep that long to achieve a lucid dream, I suggest you try waking up in between REM cycles because it sounds like your waking up and then taking a long time to get back to sleep making you more aware therefore having a better chance at lucid dreaming, there are many, many, different techniques to lucid dreaming, and i'm sure you'll find the right one for you if you look hard enough. And yes, it is worth it, we spend on average about 1/3 of our life sleeping, wouldn't you rather use that time to experience a realm were anything is possible? nice memory of something that never happened. Our whole life will soon enough become just a memory.