Thread: Why you would not want to become lucid every night.

If you got tired of it, you could always just sit down and do nothing. But I feel like that is almost saying, "I'm tired of being alive. I would like to blank out or otherwise be unaware of myself for a while." So I am a proponent of being lucid as much as possible.

There is a part of me that says yes I want to be lucid every night. But the reality is that some nights I am tired, and falling asleep and just resting is very inviting. Or my mind will be on something I saw on tv or a movie and my mind is mulling over that when I fall asleep. The truth is that it takes the right mental frame of mind, and a level of awareness that some nights I am unwilling to spend time to incubate. So in that case I have to say that although I may say I want to LD every night, my mind and actions demonstrate that I don't really. It requires a commitment and effort to show you really want an LD, at least for me.

Not every night. Nope. No way. It's kind of like sex...no matter how much you enjoy it, there IS such a thing as too much. After a while, it would just become mundane and routine. I'd rather it be more rare and SPECIAL.

What I keep wondering is, are lucid dreams truly tiring? I wish there was some sort of research on this. Because whenever I talk about lucid dreaming to people, they say all they want to do when they sleep is black out, they are tired and want to regenerate their energy. And I don't know what to say to that. I wish I could refer to a scientific article and say, yes, you're right, don't lucid dreams on nights you're tired or, you know what, it's the same to lucid dream than to non lucid dream energy wise.

And if people do say it tires them out, I wonder if it's the preparation and inducing techniques that are tiring or the lucid dream itself.

If I got to the point where I was lucid every night I would just lie down and relax in the dreams if I wanted to disconnect from them or whatever.
I don't think it can get much more relaxing than intentionally taking a nap during a dream.

The only reason I can think of is that often my normal dreams are actually more interesting than my LDs, but I think I would still prefer to LD every night because it's more useful.

Originally Posted by Occipitalred

What I keep wondering is, are lucid dreams truly tiring? I wish there was some sort of research on this. Because whenever I talk about lucid dreaming to people, they say all they want to do when they sleep is black out, they are tired and want to regenerate their energy. And I don't know what to say to that. I wish I could refer to a scientific article and say, yes, you're right, don't lucid dreams on nights you're tired or, you know what, it's the same to lucid dream than to non lucid dream energy wise.

And if people do say it tires them out, I wonder if it's the preparation and inducing techniques that are tiring or the lucid dream itself.

I think is as you say: the tiring thing is not the dream, but all those techniques, the added tasks of practicing RCs and awareness, writing a journal every morning when you'd rather just lay a bit more...

But, wanting to black out in order to recover energy... well, it doesn't make much sense, as we dream every night even if we don't remember, so technically we don't black out. So it's better if we can dedicate that time to ourselves, and only ourselves.

Originally Posted by Suvid

I think is as you say: the tiring thing is not the dream, but all those techniques, the added tasks of practicing RCs and awareness, writing a journal every morning when you'd rather just lay a bit more...

I've heard some people say that they sometimes feel mentally exhausted after inducing an extended chain of intense LDs, but this is probably a fairly unusual case. A LD or two per night shouldn't make any difference; I've personally never noticed any difference in how rested I feel even having a few in one night.

But, wanting to black out in order to recover energy... well, it doesn't make much sense, as we dream every night even if we don't remember, so technically we don't black out.

This. In fact, completely eliminating REM sleep (where most of the dreams occur) will likely make you even worse, given the adverse effects of REM deprivation that have been demonstrated to occur in subjects. Now, whether it's the dreams themselves that are the reason for this, or if the dreams are merely a side-effect of REM sleep, I don't know.

hmmm...

Now, I'm interested to know if people get tired from meditation. Because in my mind, lucid dreaming itself can't be any more energy draining than meditation when done naturally. Maybe people who are tired from lucid dreaming are at a level where they are good enough to lucid dream a lot, but not good enough to do it effortlessly?

Originally Posted by Occipitalred

Now, I'm interested to know if people get tired from meditation.

No! Meditation is resting, you recharge.