How Has Lucid Dreaming Changed You As A Person

Hi guys,

I am very curious to know if lucid dreaming has helped you view the world better, become more comapsionate, or are you still the same grumpy bastard you always were? I have been always interested in the meeting point between what I like to call the T&S-less and the T&S-full.

Meaning: If the spirit or soul ( I personally have a conviction that we all have a soul) that has no constraints of Time and Space (T&S-less) and the human body that is 100% physical and made up of matter, constrained by Time and Space (T&S-full), cross at one point. They meet and coexist. So there must be a meeting point somewhere...the last 10 years of my life has been dedicated to this and I have found my own personal answer.

Lucid Dreaming I find is similar in where something so loose meets something so ridgid. I would love to hear how the loosness has loosened the rigidity with you guys or vice versa.

well i think the only thing lucid dreaming has really done for me is realize the beauty of the earth and the realism of it. its wierd that it took a dream to tell how real the world is. it also opened up my mind to new things and i was able to experience things that i would never in real life... its pretty tight.

Lucid dreaming has, if anything, made it easier to communicate with myself.

I don't believe in souls and energy and all that new-age crap - of course, you're welcome to, and obviously DO, disagree with me over that. Shows how Lucid Dreaming doesn't neccessarily have to have new-age connotations, at least, right?

What has LDing done for me? Well, dreaming in general is new to me. Prior to joining DV, I didn;t remember my dreams at ALL. Period, A few a year, max. Now, on most nights I'll remember at least one, usually about 3, sometimes more. That's cool. For me, LDing and dreaming in general has enabled me to expand my understanding of the connection between the conscious and the subconscious. As my wants, fears, and inner urges act out in dreams, it's also enabled me to discover more about my core personality.

Lucid dreaming hasn't changed my waking life much at all, other than being more alert to unusual events and sensations and such in hopes of finding out I am dreaming.

It has vastly increased my enjoyment of sleep time. That's the big bonus for me... that's conscious time added to my life! The more, the better.

My goal is to be able to maintain that consciousness continuously if I wish. That would be like gaining a second lifespan, the way I see it.

Actually the belief in souls is not New-Agish. New-Age steals a lot of stuff from other religions (such as karma from Buddhism) but ever since the old Egypt man has believed in an immortal soul. I believe in a free will and I can find no way of believing in free will without believing in the soul (it has got something to do with the physiology of the brain). I don't believe in energy and I have not got much left for New-Age though.

I think that Lucid Dreaming has made me know me better. Other than that, so far, the only thing Lucid Dreaming has given me was fun :wink:

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I don't believe in energy[/b]

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Now that's a funny phrase for a physicist to read! I know what you mean, though, all the new age claims about what different kinds of energy can do. Like the freakin' expensive energy machine you can buy to sleep next to, which is just a bunch of noble gas tubes with electricity running through them!

I think we are going a bit off-topic, but i meant energy as the cosmic thing, not like kinetic energy og electric energy :?

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Originally Posted by VirtualReality

I think we are going a bit off-topic, but i meant energy as the cosmic thing, not like kinetic energy og electric energy :?[/b]

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Yeah. I mean, OBVIOUSLY I believe in actual energy. But, I think all this "cosmic energy' nonsense, even if it isn't complete crap, shouldn't be called 'energy'. Because, it risks confusion with the real energy. If that makes sense? But, that doesn't really matter to me. Because, I think "cosmic energy" is complete trash.

Lucid Dreaming has given me more confidence in doing tasks and such. It's taught me discipline and how to keep going, even though you seem to fail. You will always succeed.

That said, lucid-dreaming has also made me a more accepting person. I don't believe in religion, but until I started dreaming for real, I was pretty harsh at religious people. I am way more open-minded and I like to try new stuff.

Lucid-dreaming has in general made me much happier. Not that I was sad, but lucid-dreaming is for me the dot above the i.

I'm going to divide my answer into two sections; things that lucid dreaming itself has changed about me, and things that being a member of this forum has changed about me.

Lucid Dreaming itself:

-It's increased my awareness many, many times over. Not only in dreams, but in waking life: I notice things more, like changes in people's hairstyles, or different hubcaps on a car. I'm able to pick up on little things.
-It's made me a better problem solver. I perform reality checks regularly, and it's changed my entire psyche to be more focused on logic and reasoning, and thus to be able to spot flaws in designs or plans more easily.
-It's helped stop my insomnia
-It's brought me out of some major depression three years ago, and changed my entire outlook on life to be MUCH more positive (I'm an undying optimist now). It's hard to put my finger on why LDing did that for me, but I know it played a major role.
-Made me more social too, but this kind of links back to the last point.

What DV changed:

-The biggest change is that I'm an atheist now. Brady, Universal and Spoon were major influences in my trip away from the LDS church, and from religion in general, and I definitely feel that I owe them a lot for that.
-Being a member has made me much more conscious of other people's world views. This was a major change for me, because I'd always been raised in a tiny little town in Utah, and hence really never received exposure to anything but the "normal" beliefs and principles held common in Utah. I'd never really considered things from other's perspectives before, so this helped me to
1) Be a more attentive, understanding and empathetic person, and
2) To reexamine my personal world view, but in a global perspective, and to make changes to my life accordingly
-DV was also a major role in getting me out of depression. I listed this under LDing too, but the forum itself helped a lot, so I'm placing it under both.

Well, Lucid dreaming has taught me a great deal of persistance, with Lding at least... other then that, I guess I feel happier and more energetic when I get up from an LD usually I suppose. Besides that though im still the grumpy old bastard I always was. haha.

Besides the point, I agree with the blue meany about all this cosmic energy mumbo jumbo.

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Originally Posted by The

I don't believe in souls and energy and all that new-age crap - of course, you're welcome to, and obviously DO, disagree with me over that. Shows how Lucid Dreaming doesn't neccessarily have to have new-age connotations, at least, right?
For me, LDing and dreaming in general has enabled me to expand my understanding of the connection between the conscious and the subconscious. As my wants, fears, and inner urges act out in dreams, it's also enabled me to discover more about my core personality.
[/b]

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You know some people might call the subconscious "new-age crap".
I'm not one of them but, there is a point in that somewhere.

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Originally Posted by rosephase

You know some people might call the subconscious "new-age crap".
I'm not one of them but, there is a point in that somewhere.
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Oh, no, the subconscious is DEFINITELY not new-age crap. Basic psychology, the subconscious is a very important concept. That's not what I was sayign at ALL.

But "soul" and "energy" are new age crap, in my opinion. I DON'T associate either with the subconscious, which is a very important psychological concept.

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Originally Posted by The

Oh, no, the subconscious is DEFINITELY not new-age crap. Basic psychology, the subconscious is a very important concept. That's not what I was sayign at ALL.

But "soul" and "energy" are new age crap, in my opinion. I DON'T associate either with the subconscious, which is a very important psychological concept.
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But a "psychological concept" isn't a concrete idea. It doesn’t exists you can't touch it and there are many people who don't believe in it. Just because the books you've read say it's a real thing doesn’t mean it is. (Once again I'm with you on this one but I thought I would bring it up because you say you’re blunt I might as well be to)

I also hate smilies but I will use one now to show I'm not flaming :okbyenow:

...

Just because you can't see it and some people (the uneducated and otherwise ignorant) don't believe in it doesn't mean that it isn't observable. The subconscious's effects have been observed and documented over and over again.

Can't say as much for the soul, can you?

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Originally Posted by rosephase

I also hate smilies but I will use one now to show I'm not flaming :okbyenow:[/b]

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Flaming? Nah, "flaming" doesn&#39;t really happen on DV all that much. And SMILIES? You can&#39;t POSSIBLY not like this guy: :bigteeth: or :ninja:&#33;?&#33;?&#33; And :wtf: <---just plainly the best smiley ever.

As for a "psychological concept" not being a concrete idea - wrong. It may not be a tangible physical thing, but it&#39;s just as true as a scientific theory. And in the case of the subconcious, it&#39;s more than a theory. It has been conclusively PROVEN that more goes on in the brain that we are not conscious of and do not "attend" to. It is absolutely certain that a huge bunch of stuff goes on in our heads that we are not consciously aware of - a "subconscious".

A "soul" or funky new-age "energy" on the other hand, not only has no convincing scientific evidence, and is simply not needed to explain anything, so, again

*SLASH*

Occam&#39;s Razor.

(Note to self: I need to buy a fancy engraved 18th century men&#39;s shaving razor, and put it on a little decorative wooden stand, with a tiny brass plaque that says "Occam&#39;s Razor". I think that&#39;d be very cool.)

This is from the very 2nd paragraph form wikipedia about the subconscious.

"At the present stage, there are still fundamental disagreements within psychology about the nature of the subconscious mind (if indeed it is considered to exist at all), whereas outside formal psychology a whole world of pop-psychological speculation has grown up in which the unconscious mind is held to have any number of properties and abilities, from animalistic and innocent, child-like aspects to savant-like, all-perceiving, mystical and occultic properties."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subconscious

And I would like to say I&#39;m with you all the way I got into this thing to understand my subconscious better

And your right about one thing, I found a smiley I liked.

:P

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Originally Posted by rosephase

"At the present stage, there are still fundamental disagreements within psychology about the nature of the subconscious mind (if indeed it is considered to exist at all), whereas outside formal psychology a whole world of pop-psychological speculation has grown up in which the unconscious mind is held to have any number of properties and abilities, from animalistic and innocent, child-like aspects to savant-like, all-perceiving, mystical and occultic properties."[/b]

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Good quote, but, it&#39;s misleading. Note in the first sentence that "there are still fundamental disagreements within psychology about the nature of the subconscious mind". Sure, definitely. But the BRACKETED COMMENT "(if indeed it is considered to exist at all)" is ambiguous not only in meaning, but ALSO it is likely an addition of the person writing the Wikipedia entry rather than the sources he is working from, if any at all.

The moral of the story? Don&#39;t trust Wikipedia, it&#39;s frequently inaccurate, often misleading, and we know nothing about which anonymous contributors actually write the entries.

ON THE OTHER HAND, the Oxford English Dictionary defines subconscious (noun) as:

"The part of the mind which influences actions etc. without one&#39;s full awareness."

Now while I can certainly accept that it may not be absolutely certain the full nature and function of the human subconscious, it is ABSOLUTELY proven to exist. Examples:

• Our breathing is regulated and controlled without our being fully aware of this process of controlling, unless we pay conscious attention to it.
• When we are sitting in a room with multiple conversations and only paying attention to one (this is called the "cocktail party effect") we cannot consciously hear what is being said in conversations other than the one our attention is directed at, but yet if somebody in one of these "unattended" conversations mentions our name, our mind will register this, EVEN THOUGH we are not paying conscious attention to the conversation, and we will notice it and our attention will switch to that conversation.
• Blinking. Unless we consciously attempt to control blinking, it is regulated on a subconscious level.
• Depth perception. We are not conscious of the visual cues and system of processing that our mind uses to perceive depth, but we recognise the end result. All this "working out" happens behind the scenes on a subconscious level.
• Many, many, many more examples.

It is proven, as certain as the theory of gravity, that more goes on in our minds than we are conscious or aware of. This is, BY DEFINITION, the "subconscious". Though it&#39;s nature and function might be uncertain in some respects, it incontrovertably exists and is an important part of the human mind - I would argue, MUCH moreso than the conscious. We can live without being conscious - but we cannot live without our subconscious. The subconscious functioning that keeps our body alive is absolutely essential.

WIKIPEDIA IS WRONG

Point-blank, whoever wrote that entry is wrong. It&#39;s incorrect and misleading.

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Originally Posted by The

Good quote, but, it&#39;s misleading. Note in the first sentence that "there are still fundamental disagreements within psychology about the nature of the subconscious mind". Sure, definitely. But the BRACKETED COMMENT "(if indeed it is considered to exist at all)" is ambiguous not only in meaning, but ALSO it is likely an addition of the person writing the Wikipedia entry rather than the sources he is working from, if any at all.

The moral of the story? Don&#39;t trust Wikipedia, it&#39;s frequently inaccurate, often misleading, and we know nothing about which anonymous contributors actually write the entries.

ON THE OTHER HAND, the Oxford English Dictionary defines subconscious (noun) as:

"The part of the mind which influences actions etc. without one&#39;s full awareness."

Now while I can certainly accept that it may not be absolutely certain the full nature and function of the human subconscious, it is ABSOLUTELY proven to exist. Examples:

• Our breathing is regulated and controlled without our being fully aware of this process of controlling, unless we pay conscious attention to it.
• When we are sitting in a room with multiple conversations and only paying attention to one (this is called the "cocktail party effect") we cannot consciously hear what is being said in conversations other than the one our attention is directed at, but yet if somebody in one of these "unattended" conversations mentions our name, our mind will register this, EVEN THOUGH we are not paying conscious attention to the conversation, and we will notice it and our attention will switch to that conversation.
• Blinking. Unless we consciously attempt to control blinking, it is regulated on a subconscious level.
• Depth perception. We are not conscious of the visual cues and system of processing that our mind uses to perceive depth, but we recognise the end result. All this "working out" happens behind the scenes on a subconscious level.
• Many, many, many more examples.

It is proven, as certain as the theory of gravity, that more goes on in our minds than we are conscious or aware of. This is, BY DEFINITION, the "subconscious". Though it&#39;s nature and function might be uncertain in some respects, it incontrovertably exists and is an important part of the human mind - I would argue, MUCH moreso than the conscious. We can live without being conscious - but we cannot live without our subconscious. The subconscious functioning that keeps our body alive is absolutely essential.

WIKIPEDIA IS WRONG

Point-blank, whoever wrote that entry is wrong. It&#39;s incorrect and misleading.
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Ahh see what you are talking about is th unconscious mind. That is what controls breathing and blinking. Which is very different form the theory of the subconscious mind.

Lucid dreaming has greatly improved my dream recall. It has given me a possible career choice- a stuider of dreams&#33;
I have something to talk about (and to do this year&#39;s speech&#33;)

Its removed me bad dreams&#33; I used to have bad dreams, recurring nightmares etc

I can confuse people more easily

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what are you talking about[/b]

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Thanks for the amazing posts to my question. I have really been touched bu all of them.

Meanie, Rose, as interesting as your converstion is, its throwing the flow of this topic way off.


:dreaming: thats my favorite smiley.

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Originally Posted by aoneironaut

Meanie, Rose, as interesting as your converstion is, its throwing the flow of this topic way off.[/b]

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Fair enough. Let&#39;s say for now that I disagree with rosephase, but, let&#39;s get back on topic. Muchos sorry for hijacking the thread. :bigteeth:

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I&#39;m going to divide my answer into two sections; things that lucid dreaming itself has changed about me, and things that being a member of this forum has changed about me.
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Tsen, this post was wonderful to read. You have affirmed in a very concrete way two feelings that many of us have. Lucid dreaming is a powerful experience, the significance of which goes way beyond what most people could fathom. Also, DV is a great community that affects people&#39;s non-internet lives.

Lucid dreaming has affected me in ways that many have described already - deeper attention to detail, further opening of the mind, an overall renewed enjoyment of life at finding another whole world to explore that was right in front of us our whole lives.

An awareness of lucid dreaming has also affected some of my social interactions. I am not shy to talk about LD with my friends, and I find that many of them are quite interested in the ideas. They are interested as long as I talk about LD&#39;ing in general, not the details of a bunch of dreams I&#39;ve had. There is an honesty that comes out when people start talking about dreams. It&#39;s not something noticeable in a one-on-one conversation, but it&#39;s been noticeable when I&#39;ve found myself in a group that starts talking about dreams. You can almost watch people decide to trust the people around them as they choose to share their actual thoughts about dreaming. It&#39;s not part of American culture to make yourself vulnerable in a group, and it&#39;s good to see people do so.

Totally agree with you Japhyr on Tsen&#39;s post.

So your saying that this open-ness about our dreams can sort of bring out our vunerablities hence bringing us a bit more together....very interesting...