Philosophical question: If you're dreaming you're having an LD are you actually having an LD?

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Originally Posted by Sageous

Well, if waking-life is a dream, it's a pretty damn impressive one!

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True. Who could make all this stuff up?

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Originally Posted by Sageous

Sivason is better-equipped to discuss the metaphysics of the "we're all existing inside a greater dream" world vision, but:

Since reality is as complex as it is, I think that we would not be the ones individually producing the dream of waking-life... there would need to be some sort of vast shared dream wherein we all hold generally similar views of the reality we're dreaming up, and each of us is only a contributor, not a creator.

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Yes. A Matrix sort of thing....

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Originally Posted by Sageous

Or else we are all just DC's in some god's dream, which makes us even more powerless as individuals. On top of all that, "waking up" from this sort of dream would be extremely difficult -- though I'd bet the rewards for doing so would be pretty impressive. Things like RC's, designed to work as they do in the "waking-life" dream, would be of no help; something much deeper would have to be done.

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Maybe we wake up when we die. That could still be a false awakening, though.

Anyway, for all practical purposes, it's best to just assume our waking lives are real. If we turn out to be wrong about that, it won't be a big deal.

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Originally Posted by Zthread

Yes. A Matrix sort of thing....

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Well no, not really... Remember that even the Matrix machines couldn't properly build a waking-life reality for their victims, so they had to settle for a grey, simple, miserable world that their copper-top prisoners could accept. The wonders -- and complexities -- of Reality Itself were beyond both the machines and the humans. That reality transcends our expectations and imaginations might be a hint about its existence.

Also, in my opinion the Wachowski bros had no real understanding of the whole "there's something bigger than us out there" thing that P.K. Dick talked about, so the Matrix really does not do more than hint at the "We are all just in a dream" theme. So no, I wasn't drawing from the Matrix for my opinion.

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Anyway, for all practical purposes, it's best to just assume our waking lives are real. If we turn out to be wrong about that, it won't be a big deal.

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Maybe that would be best...

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Originally Posted by Sageous

Well no, not really... Remember that even the Matrix machines couldn't properly build a waking-life reality for their victims, so they had to settle for a grey, simple, miserable world that their copper-top prisoners could accept.

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Maybe if they had more RAM, were more parallelized, and were faster, though.... :wink:

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Originally Posted by Sageous

The wonders -- and complexities -- of Reality Itself were beyond both the machines and the humans. That reality transcends our expectations and imaginations might be a hint about its existence.

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Good point.

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Originally Posted by Sageous

Also, in my opinion the Wachowski bros had no real understanding of the whole "there's something bigger than us out there" thing that P.K. Dick talked about, so the Matrix really does not do more than hint at the "We are all just in a dream" theme. So no, I wasn't drawing from the Matrix for my opinion.

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Yes, P.K. Dick's writings are probably closer to the idea.

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Originally Posted by Sageous

Maybe that would be best...

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Maybe. OTOH, who knows?

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Originally Posted by Zthread

I definitely think you're making a valid point here, but I'm still not completely sure that couldn't be a form of lucidity. For example, suppose you're in a dream within a dream and you realize you're in a dream, but do not realize the dream you're in is a dream within a dream. So, one might say you're not really lucid, because you're just dreaming you're lucid.

However, suppose that in addition to realizing you're in a dream, you also take advantage of the situation to do the kinds of things you usually do during your regular LDs. For example, suppose you fly around, phase through walls, look at your hands to see if you have extra fingers, try to accomplish one or more of your LD dream goals, etc. If you do things like that, then your dream will certainly seem to be more like an LD than a regular dream..

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I just got back into the world of lucid dreaming after being away for years. This thread has been interesting for me because I’ve had plenty of these “low level” lucidity dreams. It’s been awhile, but I (think?) I had one last night. I tend to wake up around 4-4:30am naturally, so I know that’s when my REM cycle is strongest—is that right? Anyway.

On the topic of this thread—this morning after I went back to sleep after waking up for a few minutes at 4:15am, I fell back into sleep, and had some lucid??? dreams. (I had been trying to WILD into a lucid dream, but the night before I spent 3 HOURS trying to do that, before having to wake up early for work. I didn’t get much sleep and had a TERRIBLE day, so I decided to not make that mistake again—hence, I ended up just falling asleep).

I don’t remember how or why, but I do remember all of a sudden being in this dream and having some awareness that I was in a dream. I remember trying to change my reality and put myself in different scenes from movies, but the only thing I could attempt was changing one outfit—my level of control was practically nonexistent. I remember I kept flying around, like jumping high in the air and then flying from there, which is something I’ve done off & on in dreams for years—but I just can’t recall if I actually KNEW it was a dream, or if I only knew *in the dream* that I was in a dream—and I’m pretty sure you guys get the difference ;)

It’s so frustrating to wake up from these “lucid” dreams, bc I can’t ever be sure if I was actually lucid or just dreaming I was lucid?? My level of control in lucid dreams is crap anyway. I used to be better at control back when I was practicing LDing on a regular basis. Now I am just getting back into it and my “skills” are so terrible, it is beyond frustrating!

Anyway, just wanted to say hi and thanks for this thread bc it’s super helpful!!