Why is It so Unnatural for Our Bodies to Lucid Dream?

[Thesassypig]

I finally woke up from a successful ish WILD today, and I was thinking, "Wow, my mind did a lot to make me think I wasn't dreaming anymore. I wonder why." I became lucid as I felt my body go numb while taking a nap, but shortly after I fell asleep in my dream, to which I awoke in another dream. Although eventually I became lucid in that one, the dream scenes kept coming and ending one after the other and my mind just didn't comprehend it well enough to stay lucid. So why do lucid dreamers have to tread so carefully on the line between dreams and reality? Is lucid dreaming something we are not supposed to achieve? My own dreams try so hard to throw me back into a non lucid dream, why does it do that?

[dutchraptor]

Generally speaking the neurotransmitters in the brain during dreaming prevent cognition and enhance memory. It would seem that in either case of the two prominent theories, that dreaming revolves around memory consolidation or that dreams are a danger preparation mechanism, that it could be a disadvantage to be lucid. Being awake in lucid dream may impede memory consolidation, require too much energy or make danger simulation useless since you would know the danger isn't real. The most logical option it would seem is that lucid dreaming is just a relatively unstable state correlating to how receptive you are to spikes of cognition or something along the lines of that. If you can't keep up the self awareness then you will fall victim to the dream because the chemicals in the brain are there to keep it in that state. You can go against the grain by becoming acquainted with lucid dreaming or by learning how to react to events which might trigger some critical thinking for example.

[snoop]

Generally speaking the neurotransmitters in the brain during dreaming prevent cognition and enhance memory. It would seem that in either case of the two prominent theories, that dreaming revolves around memory consolidation or that dreams are a danger preparation mechanism, that it could be a disadvantage to be lucid. Being awake in lucid dream may impede memory consolidation, require too much energy or make danger simulation useless since you would know the danger isn't real. The most logical option it would seem is that lucid dreaming is just a relatively unstable state correlating to how receptive you are to spikes of cognition or something along the lines of that. If you can't keep up the self awareness then you will fall victim to the dream because the chemicals in the brain are there to keep it in that state. You can go against the grain by becoming acquainted with lucid dreaming or by learning how to react to events which might trigger some critical thinking for example. To add what dutchraptor has said, wakefulness and sleepiness are really just a balancing act in the brain. When you go to sleep, the nuerotransmitters that promote wakefulness and cause the wakefulness system to function at all generally go (nearly) completely silent in the brain; that is to say, neurotransmission ceases. These neurotransmitters play key roles whether it be directly or somewhere downstream (releasing/stop releasing hormones, the passing of ions through channels along the cell membrane, etc.) in forming memories, especially working (short-term) memory. Memories don't start to really be long term until you've gone through REM and consolidated your memories. The brain also has neurotransmitters that cause you to forget things based on the brain's discretion or if you've made major changes to your diet or taken drugs. Not every bit of information taken in is useful, especially the longer you live and the brain can simply superimpose/fill in the blanks with it's large repertoire of memories, freeing up your ability to process more information pertinent to your situation and your decision making process. As a result, you tend not to remember your dreams. Dreaming, if you compare its "symptoms" to physiological conditions and the neurotransmitters involved, is really just a stage of highly acute delirium that the body naturally goes through. You've got to admit, the abstraction allows for a lot of creative connections that you would never otherwise make, subconsciously or consciously, and promotes survival. As a result of this long stream of creative thought, our ancestors (speaking in regards to species) that started dreaming also started to self-propagate. This manifestation just kept building upon itself until it has come to what we experience today. The reason it is unnatural to be fully conscious during this process is due to the complex workings of our bodies and is merely a side-effect of our resting process. The more we lucid dream (read: make it common practice and benefit in our livelihood for millions of years) the more likely we will have mutagens that allow us to remain more conscious during the dreaming period, and perhaps use that time to our advantage to increase our happiness or solve issues in our lives. Given these mutagens stand the test of time, it will become known as an evolution of the species.