Thread: Why aren't we always lucid

Bingo!! I had never really connected it up all the way like that, but you're absolutely right. Conscious awareness has only been with us for as long as we've been human, and we're still learning how to use it. And it seems the default thinking approach is still mostly unconscious for many people - conscious awareness needs to be developed through practice, such as critical thinking skills, self-analysis etc - things many people don't do often if at all. It's entirely possible (and much easier) to go through most of life without switching on the conscious apparatus. The unconscious apparatus runs by default - things like instinct, unexamined opinion and bias, and automatic emotional reactions. It takes a lot of work to discipline the mind to become more conscious, and it takes practice and effort.

I suppose what it looks like to develop conscious awareness more fully so that it extends through sleep would be what Tibetan Buddhists call the Clear Light - or something similar anyway. They develop the ability to hold this state constantly through every level of sleep, even the deep dreamless stages. I'm not sure it's exactly like what you're talking about - I do have the book The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep, but it's been a long time since I've read it. It's about developing awareness, just keeping the spotlight of base awareness focused even as you relax and drop off. And I think it's what Sageous calls the Void, or at least they're closely linked.

But what they do is detach from dreams entirely and instead it's like meditation that lasts all night long (and all day as well). I think that part is up to you - you can either continue to experience dreams and exert lucid awareness and control over them, or let dreaming slide away and just go into the clear light awareness. I've heard of similar things in other ancient traditions - there was a lot of talk about it in Castaneda's books as well.

I think it's also like dream meditation that people talk about in here.

We aren't always lucid because the thought we are or might be dreaming doesn't consciously cross our minds during the dream. This is because our attention is preoccupied with other things during the dream that are more important to us at the time.

Of we were always lucid, it would become boring at one point. This way, it is a challenge for one to accomplish.

Atleast how I think it would be.

Originally Posted by dolphin

We aren't always lucid because the thought we are or might be dreaming doesn't consciously cross our minds during the dream. This is because our attention is preoccupied with other things during the dream that are more important to us at the time.

Like in a computer program. The common denominator is an electic impulse. Every program needs to be initiated by a single electrical sequence of ones and zeros. Maybe the same could be said for self awareness in general. You could have a insanely powerful computer without self awareness untill the right sequence is played...

And like darkmatter points out, there are levels and different aspects to it. And by intent we can run programs/perform exercises known to increase self awareness untill suddenly you play the right sequence to activate a new program in your consciousness.

I feel it becomes important to recognize that this sequence, like any happening in the universe, would be a continual process. The beginning and end of the sequence/thought is arbitrarily decided and does not really exist.


(that turned in to a stream of thought, but it makes sense to me at least)

Originally Posted by Lucidit

Of we were always lucid, it would become boring at one point. This way, it is a challenge for one to accomplish.

Atleast how I think it would be.

This was my first thought as well. It makes a lot of sense to think "entertainment value" is one of the core priorities of the universe. And it can often provide a good perspective. It is in simple terms the Hindu world view. The world as a drama.

Edit: Another thing from Hinduism is that in order for the drama to be as entertaining as possible, it is set up so that the actor may not realize that he is in a play (to put it horribly). Lucid Dreaming could compromise that.

Originally Posted by dolphin

We aren't always lucid because the thought we are or might be dreaming doesn't consciously cross our minds during the dream. This is because our attention is preoccupied with other things during the dream that are more important to us at the time.

Which in turn comes from the fact that most live non-lucidly (mindlessly, "autopilot," "zombie mode," "zoned out," etc.) in waking life. Awareness and access to memory are impaired in the dream state. In order to compensate for this and have much more chances of becoming lucid in the dream state, waking awareness, reflection, and access to memory need to be raised to higher levels.

Seen alot of lucid dream tutorials in social media that 'you control everything'..i highly doubt anyone's 100% in control, if so people would probably make better (more philosophical decisions) than flying or playing with unicorns

Originally Posted by PrisonPlanet

Seen alot of lucid dream tutorials in social media that 'you control everything'..i highly doubt anyone's 100% in control, if so people would probably make better (more philosophical decisions) than flying or playing with unicorns

Some people do spend a lot of time on philosophical and self improving pursuits during their LD's. But they are not the only ones who can gain a very high level of control. Time brings the awareness and experience to sustain and control a lucid dream to all sorts of folk with all sorts of priorities and life views.

Most of us aren't even lucid for most of our waking lives, our awareness is minimal.

I think the reason we are not always lucid is more of a social conditioning thing than a capacity that we have recently developed. At present, I think the human race in general is narrowly focused on the material physical sensory world rather than the internal world of sleep and dream. I think the world we live in (the system) promotes this sort of single-minded materialism by marginalizing dreams as unreal or unimportant. We are not encouraged to explore our consciousness beyond the waking life.

I think we might start out that way. But we are told (in the one that doesn't change no matter my attention or belief) that one matters and one doesn't. A lot of the other things people say here probably is true as well autopilot, social conditioning, not ever thinking about dreams, and other things seeming important. And as far as "full control getting boring as others mentioned. It just depends what you do with it. Being in " creative mode" on Minecraft can get boring with time, but just because I choose to play hardcore mode doesn't mean I dont have full control. And just because I am in creative mode doesn't mean I am "in full control". I usually create video games and plots and read books. Or I will create a small area and explore the whole thing. Exploring the whole of infinity is impossible and boring after a time. Going back to a small world and continually exploring and getting a reputation and exploring that worlds " rules" is not something that gets boring very easily. Practicing waking life hobbies is also good. There are many things that I simply can't see getting boring unless I lack creativity.

I think the reason why we are not lucid every night is simpler than everything that has been written in this thread so far.
We are not lucid because we are not supposed to.

It has been proved that during non luci dreams, few parts and functions of the brain (and a certain kind of neurons) are turned off.
This must have a biological reason. (hobson gave some)
I see lucid dreaming as a way to hack the brain.
When those parts and function are turned on (because of prospective conditioning : DILD techniques, or because it has not been turned off :WILD), the brain starts to work more like it works when awake.

The parts and functions involved in the sens of self, and few other functions, probably need to rest while other parts need to keep working during a certain fraction of the night.
Plus maybe dreams are supposed to be rather random and with free idea associations, a cat becomes a tiger few seconds later, a yellow umbrella becomes a yellow stick and so on.
Because dream events are succeeding this way, in an illogical and inconstant way, if the functions involved in the recognition of illogical or weird events were not turned off, this way of producing dreams would be compromised and it's purpose (whatever it is) too.

Lucid dreaming is a way to make the brain work in an unnatural way, that's why I see it as a hack, or a glitch for occasional and spontaneous LDs.

Originally Posted by Kaan

I think the reason why we are not lucid every night is simpler than everything that has been written in this thread so far.
We are not lucid because we are not supposed to.

It has been proved that during non luci dreams, few parts and functions of the brain (and a certain kind of neurons) are turned off.
This must have a biological reason. (hobson gave some)
I see lucid dreaming as a way to hack the brain.
When those parts and function are turned on (because of prospective conditioning : DILD techniques, or because it has not been turned off :WILD), the brain starts to work more like it works when awake.

The parts and functions involved in the sens of self, and few other functions, probably need to rest while other parts need to keep working during a certain fraction of the night.
Plus maybe dreams are supposed to be rather random and with free idea associations, a cat becomes a tiger few seconds later, a yellow umbrella becomes a yellow stick and so on.
Because dream events are succeeding this way, in an illogical and inconstant way, if the functions involved in the recognition of illogical or weird events were not turned off, this way of producing dreams would be compromised and it's purpose (whatever it is) too.

Lucid dreaming is a way to make the brain work in an unnatural way, that's why I see it as a hack, or a glitch for occasional and spontaneous LDs.

. What about those many naturals that boast lucid all the time or the few that have worked to get to that point? From the ones I have talked to, they don't have any issues because of lucid dreaming.

Also, tho I may not quite be at the level of the ones I mentioned that are lucid every dream, i am lucid every night in most dreams, and it seems to be a more natural and healthy state. When I am not eating or sleeping or active, I struggle to LD. When I am healthy and productive, they seem to come easily and if I could keep that up, I feel like I would be lucid even more.

@OP NFRI, this actually does lead me to an idea and a point, that the reason we dont LD, when there are lots of naturals that easily LD and do it all night every night, is that we are not as healthy, or simply dont have an interest in dreams. Those two things from a young age seem to be a common idea for naturals.

There is always the exception that confirms the rule, isn't there?

I mean, we are not supposed to exactly and instantly know how many matches has just fallen on the ground. your argument sounds like "what about rain man?" to me.

Originally Posted by Kaan

I think the reason why we are not lucid every night is simpler than everything that has been written in this thread so far.
We are not lucid because we are not supposed to....Lucid dreaming is a way to make the brain work in an unnatural way, that's why I see it as a hack, or a glitch for occasional and spontaneous LDs.

Originally Posted by Sensei

. What about those many naturals that boast lucid all the time or the few that have worked to get to that point? From the ones I have talked to, they don't have any issues because of lucid dreaming.

Also, tho I may not quite be at the level of the ones I mentioned that are lucid every dream, i am lucid every night in most dreams, and it seems to be a more natural and healthy state. When I am not eating or sleeping or active, I struggle to LD. When I am healthy and productive, they seem to come easily and if I could keep that up, I feel like I would be lucid even more.

I think maybe that these two views are not actually in opposition.

I agree with Kaan that LD'ing is pretty much by definition an "unnatural" event. All tech talk aside, the very act of lucidity -- being awake while you are asleep -- is paradoxical at best, and probably not what we were programmed to do during sleep. So the reason consistent lucidity might be a problem is that we are moving upstream against the current of the brain functions we were given. However:

Aside from the fact that I do not agree that there are "many naturals," as I have met to date only one person who has convinced me that he is a natural (and, BTW, he has professed real mental issues that could be related to his inability to release awareness from his dreams), though I've met many who proclaim themselves naturals, though most prove they are not after a very short conversation, there are many people -- myself included -- who LD very frequently, and some -- myself included -- whose lifelong practice has left them with at least a kernel of lucidity in most dreams. And those people seem to be quite healthy and reasonably sane -- hopefully myself included. In fact, some would say that they are able to use their lucidity to enhance the restorative functions of dreaming by having a Here&Now opportunity to digest any messages their unconscious might be offering. Also, I'm pretty sure that researchers have found that LD'ing -- at least in the moderate way that most people can manage -- has zero effect on the physical restoration going on during sleep (of course, I can't cite anything here, because I think I'm going on something LaBerge told me long ago).

So, even though LD'ing is an unnatural event, if it becomes commonplace in a person's life, it doesn't seem to do any real harm to our natural sleep and restorative functions. The caveat here here is that even those who LD every night are very likely having some NLD activity during their sleep cycle (especially in the early stages), so the "natural" work of sleep and dreams is still going on; so if someone did manage to be constantly lucid every moment of every night, they might encounter problems (as that guy I mentioned earlier did).

tl;dr: I think both of the positions you guys present are valid, and can live together in this process: Lucidity is not a natural function, but those who have learned (usually from years of intentional action) to counter some of that function by impressing their waking-life self-awareness upon it on a consistent basis have not seen their sleep functions or health (mental or physical) damaged.

If the lucid state is a part of evolution, and being lucid entails awareness... then evolving is... for the purpose of being more aware?

Evolution has no purpose. It's driven by natural selection - survival of the fittest in the new environment. We lost our sharp teeth and tails and claws but grew a prefrontal cortex instead, which brought a new more fully developed type of conscious awareness into the world. We survived because we were good generalists, rather than specialists, and because our higher intelligence allowed us to out-hunt, out-gather and generally outsmart everything else. But we're still tipping the scales and now we're able to do amazing things at a massive scale, and who can say if we'll end up destroying most of the life on the planet at some point? Or at least devastate our own civilization. So it's not like a linear climb toward ever better things - it never is. What serves a species well at one point evolutionarily might be what destroys them later.

But that said, I do agree that we still have to learn how to use all this shiny new conscious apparatus we grew - and mainly we need to learn how to integrate it with unconscious intuitive wisdom, which is something left-brain conscious intelligence arrogantly forgets about.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but, we have no way to know if animals lucid dream or not.

Here's a weird thought though:

With the development of language came our ego. Our ego is the source of a lot of "unconsciousness".
Without the ego you're sorta always lucid. Always in a state of pure awareness.

However this begs the question: Is a lucid dream A) A dream in which you know it's a dream OR B) A conscious dream?
We usually go about the assumption that A and B is the same thing, but they are not. You can have a highly conscious dream and not necessarily know it's a dream.
Without ego, all dreams are highly conscious.

Therefore, lucid dreams are more natural than given credit for, if you consider option B to be the definition of a lucid dream.
The "knowing it's a dream" bit is just the surface of what a lucid dream is. The juicy, conscious bit beneath that is really natural.

Originally Posted by slash112

With the development of language came our ego. Our ego is the source of a lot of "unconsciousness".
Without the ego you're sorta always lucid. Always in a state of pure awareness...

Without ego, all dreams are highly conscious.

I see where you're coming from, but I think there's a confusion of terminology going on here. I wouldn't call the ego a source of unconsciousness - it's actually the source of consciousness. It literally is the conscious mind - the part of the mind that we're consciously aware of. Dreams are created at least mostly by or in the unconscious. Non-lucid dreams, I mean. Though to be fair, I think many animals have at least some rudimentary form of conscious awareness - just not to the same level we have.

A lucid dream is when we're able to bring some level of conscious awareness into the otherwise unconscious world of the dream. So it's actually the ego that brings the lucidity. Or rather it's the introduction of (ego) consciousness into the normally unconscious dreams.

I think the problem arises from the fact that the common popular understanding of the word ego has nothing to do with the psychological usage of it. In common usage ego means egotistical, but in psychology ego is literally the name for the conscious mind.

There's also some confusion coming from the fact that Buddhists use the word consciousness to refer to awareness, but divorced from left-brain conscious thought. So it's a sort of unconscious awareness. I THINK - though possibly it does stem from the right-brain/unconscious? We just need to be careful when we use loaded terms like this that we understand exactly what we mean by them.

Ahah yeah defos a terminology breakdown here. I have that problem a lot, with the stuff I'm interested in xD Slowly learning to overcome these hurdles though.

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

There's also some confusion coming from the fact that Buddhists use the word consciousness to refer to awareness, but divorced from left-brain conscious thought. So it's a sort of unconscious awareness. I THINK - though possibly it does stem from the right-brain/unconscious? We just need to be careful when we use loaded terms like this that we understand exactly what we mean by them.

Very good point. I get very jumbled because I shift from perspective to perspective all day long.

Indeed I refer to the word consciousness as awareness. When I first seen it used that way I was like "wtf that's not consciousness", but I've gotten a bit too used to it. xD
I also use "consciousness" to refer to experience. Everything we experience is consciousness, all we know is consciousness.

Unconscious awareness is indeed a good way to describe my meaning of "highly conscious". Weirdly.

But the weird thing about this unconscious awareness is, you're aware of everything, exactly as it is. Just without the chatter and the filters we usually look through. I sometimes refer to it as "super lucidity". But I guess that's stupid when you consider lucidity to be all about the chatter.


EDIT:
So, if we're taking "lucidity" to be in relation to the head-chatter. Then lucid dreaming is indeed due to evolution. My bad. It's still natural tho. Anything your mind does is natural.

Originally Posted by slash112

Correct me if I'm wrong, but, we have no way to know if animals lucid dream or not.

This is true, but I have reason to believe that other animals are capable of lucid dreaming.

A dream is a reflection of one's self. A lucid dream requires an identification of one's own dream as such while it is happening. So, for one to have a lucid dream, one has to be able to identify a reflection of one's self as their own while they are experiencing it. Mirror tests have shown that other animals like chimps and elephants have the ability to identify that their reflections as their own while they are experiencing them. Sure, a dream is a much more abstract reflection of one's self than a mirror, but these animals are also capable of making sense of other abstract concepts.

Speaking of this, I'll add this reason why we aren't always lucid: a dream is relatively abstract in appearance, making it tend to be more difficult to identify while experiencing it than something more concrete in appearance.

Originally Posted by slash112

So, if we're taking "lucidity" to be in relation to the head-chatter. Then lucid dreaming is indeed due to evolution. My bad. It's still natural tho. Anything your mind does is natural.

I don't think the chatter has anything to do with lucidity really - but it does come from the conscious / ego part of the mind. The left brain is the logical and linguistic part (makes it kinda easy to remember). I would say the logic part has more to do with lucidity than the language part does. The chatter is just because we have a tendency to do all our thinking through language now - we've sort of become endless chatterboxes.

But now that you've brought this up, I am very curious as to where the 'observer' is located. Is it in the conscious or the unconscious? Maybe it straddles both, or exists somehow between them? We may never know, or possibly science already has the answer and we just haven't got the memo on it yet.

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

I don't think the chatter has anything to do with lucidity really - but it does come from the conscious / ego part of the mind. The left brain is the logical and linguistic part (makes it kinda easy to remember). I would say the logic part has more to do with lucidity than the language part does. The chatter is just because we have a tendency to do all our thinking through language now - we've sort of become endless chatterboxes.

My mistake, I get you.

But now that you've brought this up, I am very curious as to where the 'observer' is located. Is it in the conscious or the unconscious? Maybe it straddles both, or exists somehow between them? We may never know, or possibly science already has the answer and we just haven't got the memo on it yet.

It's actually located everywhere (and nowhere). You could say the observer is outside of space and time.
It takes time to come to this realization, but you can indeed prove it to yourself.

There are functions of "observing" in the mind. Functions of "awereness". But even that awareness is perceived by the "pure awareness".
You can be aware of pure awareness by pointing your focus backwards/inwards. You either reach a "back screen of consciousness" or "the void".

You can investigate the void itself. Check it for qualities. As it turns out, it is a proper void, it has no qualities, including location.

But try for a moment to think what it is like to be "pure awareness". This helps.
In deep sleep, pure awareness is aware of nothing. We all know what that feels like, timeless and spaceless.
Awake, pure awareness sees all the activities of the mind. In the unconscious part of the mind, there's not much to experience. In the conscious part, that is where pure awareness sees thoughts and senses.
What do you think it's like for pure awareness to see a rock? Much like deep sleep I imagine.
Then it gets interesting when you start thinking about plants.

The thing about the observer is. It's not even right to say that it "observes", because that implies that it's doing something. But it doesn't do anything, it simply is. Hence you may often hear the word "is-ness" thrown around. That is-ness is all around you, it's where you're looking FROM, THROUGH, and AT. This is the point where it becomes really natural to say "it's consciousness!".

It helps to know that pure awareness is all-pervasive.

Also helps to know the non-dual truth that the pure awareness and the things which appear in it, are not two, but one. Seems like a contradiction to everything else I've said, but it's not. Nothingness and somethingness, pure awareness and the appearances, are intimately joined in a unity, like light to a TV screen.

Originally Posted by slash112

(About the Observer): It's actually located everywhere (and nowhere). You could say the observer is outside of space and time.

Wow - you just described the Self! This is exactly how Jung explained it, though it does more than just observe or be aware. It's also been described (in many traditions, starting long before Jung) as a circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere. A very Buddhist description now that I think about it. Of course Buddhism was one of the world wisdoms that helped Jung develop his ideas about the unconscious and its relation to the conscious Ego. He also said it seems to exist outside of space and time, because the unconscious (right brain awareness essentially) doesn't think it terms of linear time the way the left brain does. It thinks holistically and sees everything all at once. Of course this also explains ideas about God, Angels etc, for whom time as we know it does not exist and who see everything all at once and understand it all holistically. These are all simply the various names people have come up with in the past to describe the strange phenomena they observed that have a numinous - meaning divine or magical quality to them. So quite possibly meditation (and prayer) helps to constellate the Self. After all, the way to do that is to pay more attention to the unconscious.

And I realize it's probably impossible to do what I was asking about, but I was wondering where in the brain it's located - if scientists could see activity in some part of the brain when it's active.

That's awesome, about Jung. I take things from Buddhism and others a little bit, but I take a big massive chunk from Advaita Vedanta.
And indeed it's called the self/true self/the witness/the observer/pure awareness/the void and maaaany other names, even Christ light or Christ consciousness.

And I realize it's probably impossible to do what I was asking about, but I was wondering where in the brain it's located - if scientists could see activity in some part of the brain when it's active.

That's just the thing, the true observer is not the brain. This why you may hear around the place "You are not the body. You are not the mind."

HOWEVER, I often see a correlation between the third eye and the observer. The third eye is a genuine bit in the brain that receives senses and thought.



Here's a drawing I did, I put it in the first page of my book. Sorta symbolic way to look at it, just drawing this helped me process it better. Click into it, the writing in the image shows which parts of the third eye receive what. Experiential info from the brain comes through in channels, into the third eye.
third eye2.jpg

But the true observer is the one which sees the third eye. The info is there in the third eye, but something witnesses that info. A pure witness.