Thread: Real Life and Lucid Dreaming

Lol, yes. I don't often bring up lucid dreaming with new friends that I meet. Usually I may mention something vague about a dream I had one night. If I get, "oh, I dont dream" or a similar response, I won't generally think to say anything more.

ALL THE TIME. I've said it on a few topics here as well. Everytime i talk to someone about lucid dreaming, they look at me as if i am an idiot for even believing in it and pretend that they know more about the subject of dreaming than me -.-, which really annoys me. And then ofcourse they tell me i should get a real hobby and that's where i shut up and stop talking about it. It's not worth the frustration at all! Man i wish i knew more people that are open minded...

Originally Posted by Leo96

ALL THE TIME. I've said it on a few topics here as well. Everytime i talk to someone about lucid dreaming, they look at me as if i am an idiot for even believing in it and pretend that they know more about the subject of dreaming than me -.-, which really annoys me. And then ofcourse they tell me i should get a real hobby and that's where i shut up and stop talking about it. It's not worth the frustration at all! Man i wish i knew more people that are open minded...

I had a friend who said he had a lucid dream and I about pissed my pants. He said it was a vivid dream where he was in an epic LoTR battle. I asked him if he was aware that he was dreaming, he said no, I said that isn't a lucid dream, and said, "It was vivid though. THAT'S the definition of lucid." I shrugged off the conversation and didn't talk to him for a while because of his arrogance...

Not once.
Seriously - and I have asked and talked to a lot of people - mostly friends of mine.
I found by now (maybe even over) 10 other LDers - most in real life - half do it at the moment - the others remembering and getting quite excited about it. Classically: As a young child - lost it - forgot it - omg!!!!!
Up to somebody having an LD the very night I brought it up after years of not being lucid - and people wanting to learn it newly.
I even asked two days ago on my darts-forum* - the count is 3 (meanwhile ) active LDers, and did in adulthood - but long time back.
And not one nasty comment - somebody asking if I was looking at a vanilla sky can not be suspected of nastiness - lots of interest or up-shutting.

So no.
Nobody at all in my surrounding has up to now expressed an opinion along - LDing is non-existent, nuts, bad for you, whatever.
But there even was a one hour TV docu on it on television last week in Germany/France.
Not one. Maybe I know, whom and how** to ask - don't know what it is - that most people on here report such negative feedback..




*a very special place because of it's people - so not any - I would be shot at/down with it in most - no doubt..
** first probe - and in the case of a person not being acquainted - show them science first - there is a lot meanwhile.

I don't get that "crazy" feedback, but most of my friends that were interested lost their interest the very next day
I guess most people in Leb did have them as a child, because we are taught in a young age that dreams have precognitive significance. I don't believe in that junk anymore

I know it's kind of wrong to test people, but I've used lucid dreaming as a test for friends in the past. How open minded they are about things like lucid dreaming, and if they had experienced it before. I asked one girl a couple days ago if she ever had lucid dreams and she said to me, "Oh, is that like LSD? Because I don't do drugs, I just smoke weed". Depending on how people react when I bring up the subject of lucid dreaming, I can sometimes distance myself from them. I talk about a lot of odd things and I'm a pretty weird guy, so I figure if they think that's weird then there is no way that we can have a lasting friendship because it only gets weirder from there. I mean, I already get the "are you on crack?" look from my friends all the time and they're usually pretty open-minded about my weirdness. But two of my old best friends were as good if not better than me at lucid dreaming, and it's been really nice to have people to talk to about it.

Originally Posted by anotherdreamer

I know it's kind of wrong to test people, but I've used lucid dreaming as a test for friends in the past. How open minded they are about things like lucid dreaming, and if they had experienced it before. I asked one girl a couple days ago if she ever had lucid dreams and she said to me, "Oh, is that like LSD? Because I don't do drugs, I just smoke weed". Depending on how people react when I bring up the subject of lucid dreaming, I can sometimes distance myself from them. I talk about a lot of odd things and I'm a pretty weird guy, so I figure if they think that's weird then there is no way that we can have a lasting friendship because it only gets weirder from there. I mean, I already get the "are you on crack?" look from my friends all the time and they're usually pretty open-minded about my weirdness. But two of my old best friends were as good if not better than me at lucid dreaming, and it's been really nice to have people to talk to about it.

It may be that the idea seems impossible to them. You need to lay in the facts! If they don't believe, then you're right, they are not open-minded. This is a great way of testing people BTW! Good luck finding more friends that understand LDing!

Well in regards to "Does anyone else get the look like they should be institutionalized when they talk about lucid dreaming to their friends"

It's been said that the whole mental illness thing depends on the culture. For example in some other countries/cultures/traditions people having visions and whatever were actually admired and thought of as messengers or something. I recently read these kind of articles because i was researching about how messed up mental health is in japan.

So anyways I also feel like i'm crazy when doing the reality checks and so on but i shouldn't. But i just see myself like that because like what i explained above, the culture and tradition says that those actions are not normal and are weird.

But we're all brainwashed into the media and capitalistms and materialism with Commercials and TV and Reality TV, so lucid dreaming is a healthy alternative to it.
DO NOT BE ASHAMED of it.

I rather be seen as insane for doing Lucid dreaming than watch the crappy Kardashian reality show. hahahaha.

lol, true true. I don't see LDing as insanity or shamefulness, on the contrary, I couldn't believe it when I first read it. I was like:"we can do that!? Why didn't anyone tell me!? No one knows!?". I know you don't mean it like that. We should not be limited to our social "standards", like you said. Lol, I hate those kardashian reality shows. Comedy, nothing better than a comedy show, like 2 and a half men, or Ma Fi Metlo(lebanese lol)

I am sure one reason why people react like this is thanks to the paranoid crowd on the lucid dreaming videos on YouTube.

"Never try this shit, I got SP and almost died from shock!
Worst thing I have ever experienced!!!"
"lol yeah, SP is scary, last night I had this demon on my chest, it was horrifying!"

And this isn't even an exaggeration.
People in general seem to freak out too much over the worst possible things and forget about the incredible rewards.
I repeatedly tell them that their own expectations largely determine what their hallucinations will be like, but I'm not sure if they even listen.

Originally Posted by Laurelindo

I am sure one reason why people react like this is thanks to the paranoid crowd on the lucid dreaming videos on YouTube.

"Never try this shit, I got SP and almost died from shock!
Worst thing I have ever experienced!!!"
"lol yeah, SP is scary, last night I had this demon on my chest, it was horrifying!"

And this isn't even an exaggeration.
People in general seem to freak out too much over the worst possible things and forget about the incredible rewards.
I repeatedly tell them that their own expectations largely determine what their hallucinations will be like, but I'm not sure if they even listen.

That's why ignorant people are better to persuade. You can teach them everything, and skip the SP part(or at least how you can "wake" while still having it)

I actually stopped trying to convince my friends (or anyone) of the awesomeness of lucid dreaming, since the friends I have told about it thought I was crazy and weren't interested at all. (Well, they already thought I was crazy before I told them, but that's not the point lol) Then yesterday, I was watching inception ( again ) with my sister. She seemed really interested in the movie and all, so I decided to bring up LDing, even though she was the last person I had expected to be interested in it. Guess what, I was wrong, she DID seem interested in it, even though she told me the whole: "But I almost never dream" stuff. After telling her that's BS (Ok not literally) and that she just doesn't remember them, she suddenly was scared that if she remembered them, she would also remember her nightmares and she really didn't want that. So I told her that with LDing, she could just change the nightmare into a pleasant dream. I told her that keeping a DJ would help with recalling dreams, but then she just looked at me with a face like: that seems like a lot of work, and she went upstairs... *sigh* Oh well... it was worth trying.

Hey on the subject of visions and mental illness.. if me and God have a private conversation today where he tells me to kill my son - I'd be absolutely crazy. Hold on a minute.. doesn't that sound like one of the early bible stories?

Originally Posted by apsinvo

Hey on the subject of visions and mental illness.. if me and God have a private conversation today where he tells me to kill my son - I'd be absolutely crazy. Hold on a minute.. doesn't that sound like one of the early bible stories?

Sounds like schizophrenia to me.

I never talk about it, but once a friend told me about sleep paralysis so I brought in the topic, he got this nervous laugh and asked me if I was on drugs (which I'm not), so I started explaining, I think that he believed it in a way, but it's tiring. How people can be so close minded in first instance?? It annoys me, I wish I could talk about it in a natural way...People have no idea about what they've been missing...Seriously, I would pay to have a lucid dream every night.

I've only really talked about it with my brothers and while they never truly seemed be against the idea of lucid dreaming, they believed I was over exaggerating how amazing lucid dreams could be. I told them how they you touch, taste, see, smell, and hear things in their dreams. And while they all agreed you could see in your dreams and some of them agreed you could hear things in your dreams. None of them believed you could touch, taste, or smell things. So when I told them fantastic stories of lucid dreams in which I was flying and could feel the wind across my face they sort of blew me off.
That is until one of them had a lucid dream for himself reported exactly what I had been saying for the longest time .

Originally Posted by Cindyst

I never talk about it, but once a friend told me about sleep paralysis so I brought in the topic, he got this nervous laugh and asked me if I was on drugs (which I'm not), so I started explaining, I think that he believed it in a way, but it's tiring. How people can be so close minded in first instance?? It annoys me, I wish I could talk about it in a natural way...People have no idea about what they've been missing...Seriously, I would pay to have a lucid dream every night.

I would KILL to have LDs
We are paying for the NovaDreamers, aren't we!? Not me, I'm broke
Seriously, all of my friends believed me, but they thought I was over exaggerating. One of them had a LD after I talked to him, and he really enjoyed it(lasted for a few seconds, but he asked out a girl he really likes, and she accepted), but never bothered to learn. That poor fool!

Edit: I love the word fool! In arabic, it means beans

First of all, thanks for all the replies, didn't think it would become this active.

And second, I am fooling around with some things to make me become more lucid more often.
I'll be posting on it soon.

Thanks! Keep going with the replies!

Originally Posted by DutchDreamer97

I actually stopped trying to convince my friends (or anyone) of the awesomeness of lucid dreaming, since the friends I have told about it thought I was crazy and weren't interested at all. (Well, they already thought I was crazy before I told them, but that's not the point lol) Then yesterday, I was watching inception ( again ) with my sister. She seemed really interested in the movie and all, so I decided to bring up LDing, even though she was the last person I had expected to be interested in it. Guess what, I was wrong, she DID seem interested in it, even though she told me the whole: "But I almost never dream" stuff. After telling her that's BS (Ok not literally) and that she just doesn't remember them, she suddenly was scared that if she remembered them, she would also remember her nightmares and she really didn't want that. So I told her that with LDing, she could just change the nightmare into a pleasant dream. I told her that keeping a DJ would help with recalling dreams, but then she just looked at me with a face like: that seems like a lot of work, and she went upstairs... *sigh* Oh well... it was worth trying.

SO... FREAKING... Close.

I feel like converting someone into lucid dreaming would be like converting someone into a religion.
It sounds crazy at first, and seems so outlandish.

I don't get crazy looks when I bring up lucid dreaming - in fact, I've brought a few others into the light of it - but I still get odd looks when I'm staring intently at my hands.

To play devil's advocate, it does sound slightly strange when someone tells you that they can do anything in the comfort of their own home. It just doesn't sound right. Much as someone said before, it is a lot like a religion - you can't force people to accept the idea.