What do you guys think about this post on Reddit

[Elaol]

I was browsing Reddit and I stumbled onto this topic. One of the responses really stood out. I posted it below. I am curios what do you guys think of it? I 'studied and practiced' lucid dreaming for about seven years, the first five very actively. I got pretty 'good', 'choosing' the setting and themes. I'd wake up in the morning and tell my friends about all the cool things I did. I felt as if I was 'taking control of my subconscious', and just steps away from unlocking my hidden potential. Unfortunately it's almost entirely BS. You don't 'control your dreams', you dream that you are controlling your dreams. I found this out by making a journal entry before bed, and not reading it until I had already talked to someone about the dream I had 'controlled' the night before. In my dream I was perfectly sure that I had intended to create a beautiful picnic scene with rainbow-flaming birds dancing in the sky and a sweet ethereal music suffusing the very air. I was so proud of the details, and how I had gotten it just right from my imprinting session before bed. That afternoon I checked my diary: I had planned a deep sea fishing trip to catch a kraken. Nothing like the actual dream I had, though I was completely convinced that it matched every detail I had prepared. Why it is 'almost' BS: You can get a lot of positive self-imagery out of it, even if it isn't technically you controlling your unconscious. It's a form of confabulation, though the brain damage is just sleeping.

[Hukif]

The guy couldn't do it, calls it BS. Nothing weird about it. Failing at his goal somehow made him think it is all BS, which is silly. If I fail to accomplish a goal in playing Soccer that I had written about before, that is nothing more than my failure, not soccers., right?

[fogelbise]

He had a false lucid dream, no big deal. Perhaps all of his experiences were false lucid dreams, who knows. If he had ever had a high level lucid dream, I'm positive it would have completely overridden all off the doubts he expresses in that post. Does the fact that someone has a false memory make all memories false? I think he is more likely trolling!

[DoubleHelix]

Sounds like he set his own "Task of the Month" and because he failed to accomplish his task on the first attempt, incorrectly concluded that it was all BS. Sadly, the loss is all his. People come to the wrong conclusion (and act on that) all the time. They become "experts" in a false belief, like UFO's for instance. They change the course of their lives with their false bias. In this case, the Reddit poster abandoned an effort that probably would have continued to enrich his waking and dreaming life if he had just evaluated the circumstances more objectively and with less emotion.

[duke396]

Apparently that topic was a big debate a while back. Most of us (meaning people who have actually had lucid dreams) "get it", but I think it's a very valid line of questioning for someone who hasn't, or at least hasn't experienced the upper "levels" of it. Also if you're dreaming that you're controlling a dream, would you not still be aware it's a dream and still therefore lucid? Lucidity doesn't necessarily mean control. It's common to have false memories or lack of control in lucid dreams. My belief is there are different levels of lucid dreaming, like a scale of 0-5. 0 - not lucid. 1 - lucid but no control at all. 2 - control over your own thoughts and actions. 3 - control over part of the environment physics (teleporting, flying, summoning etc). 4 - control over DCs thoughts and actions. 5 - god-like control of virtually every aspect of the dream at will. I don't mean that to be a definitive list, because there are many factors and many areas in between, just a general idea...

[FryingMan]

You'll notice that he emphasizes "control" very heavily, equating it with lucidity it seems. Anecdotally, that's pretty unusual for someone who spends "5 active years" and who got "pretty good" at "lucid dreaming." From my experience, people who spend several years on LDing and are serious about it usually end up emphasizing awareness and holistic approaches much more than complete emphasis on control.