Thread: Lucid Dreaming in Different Religions

Well, I am also a christian, and I think that a dream is a dream. A lucid dream is still a dream, just a different one. I believe that dreams happen in the mind, so not an astral plane. Just because they are weird and crazy, the best way to describe LDs is dreamlike.
I do enjoy praying in dreams and have spent some time reading the Bible, but it is much better to spend waking time doing that as I have much more time in waking. I log less than 5 hours a month in lucid dreams, and about 500 hours a month in waking. I mainly use LDing for fun and for hobby development. Some churches are against it because most people do relate it to astral projection. I myself think that astral projection is just a dream that one fools themselves in believing it is a different plane, since, as lots of us say "you can do anything in a dream".

Well,i'm muslim.First,as our friend sensei said,a lucid dream is still a dream.I consider dreams as a simulation of real life made by our brains and where we act as we are in the waking reality.i find it two dumb and silly to live every night of your life acting like that.In addition, our dear prophet said that a human being's acts are not judged while he's asleep.

As an agnostic atheist, as well as someone from a Jewish family, I agree with both Sensei and Inceptionist - dreams are just your brain's way to practice real-life and make order of your daily experiences. Lucid dreams are just dreams in which you're aware of them being just dreams. Dreams can get very convincing and life like and even seem like they are real "somewhere" in some other "plane" - but (at least in my opinion and in my system of belief) it's not the case and their amazing detail and precision are easily explained by "science" / "reason". The way I explain it - every thing that you see in real life is merely your brain's interpretation of reality, so if the brain can simulate on a daily basis the whole reality as you see it, why shouldn't it be able to do the same at night?!

That being said, there are other religions out there that interpret dreams differently, and even Judaism, Christianity and Islam - all tell tales about god's appearance in a religious leader's dream, or a dream with a lesson to that leader. That's just how religion works - it's intended to teach us a lesson to live a healthier life. As an atheist I see these "dream tales" as a plot device to teach the reader a lesson, while a religious person will probably say that that's how god reveals a lesson to his believers. Either way, the conclusion is the same - dreams in religious context are a way to communicate a lesson. There are plenty more "ways" to choose from - dreams were chosen not because they are something "other-worldly", but because they are very personal and can be as creative as "the teacher" (e.g. Yhwh, God, Allah, etc) wishes.

Dreams are a prominent metaphor in Buddhism. Since there is no deity, the role of prophesy or supernatural realm is diminished. Instead, the experience and practice of dreams is used as tool to investigate the illusory dualities of wake/sleep, real/false, life/death, self/other. There's a particular branch of mysticism call Dzogchen that emphasizes the dream-like illusion of perception and the path toward rigpa (unconditioned self-awareness) which is quite like our concept of lucidity.

A fair chunk of Buddhism's dream concept must surely come via Hinduism, especially the cyclical alternation of sleep/wake as compared to death/rebirth. I am less knowledgeable about the everyday practices of Hindu lay people, so I don't know whether lucid dreaming is at all known or practiced.

Besides Vedic traditions, some veins of Buddhism also borrow from Tengri and Tao traditions. Tengrism has a prominent element of shamanism, as do the practices of people indigenous to the Americas and Pacific islands. In shamanism, we see things like dream quests and inducing states of trance. On the other hand, in Tao Te Ching, I don't recall any teachings that ever mention anything about sleep or dreaming.