Thread: Laws Governing the Dream World?

In a lucid dream i once had i became aware during a WILD attempt which i had fallen asleep in, i became aware and i saw blackness and then i was taken to my house, then i wished someone into existance so i could talk to them and it ended, i pretty much started from scratch but i am yet to be able to properly do it because i have not had as many lucid dreams to be able to extend my ability. I do not believe everything is possible in a lucid dream, there is the common question asked "can i increase the length of time i lucid dream for?", the truth is that you can get the impression that a long time has passed in a lucid dream but at the end of the day you cannot physically increase the amount of time you lucid dream for from say 10 minutes to 5 years and live every second of it in a one hour period of sleep, it would require you to change your perception of time, some things are not possible in lucid dreams, but they are commonly the more complicated things.

Hey there,

I'd say the answer to your question is fairly straightforward. The unconsciousness. It creates your normal dream, and it creates your lucid dreams as well. In fact I firmly believe the conscious part of us cannot create anything in a dream, we can only appeal to our unconsciousness to have it create for us.

The thing is, even the sun you decided to make rise... did you chose how big it was to be? Exactly what shade of color it needed to be? Exactly from where it would rise? How high it would rise? How it would affect the sky around it?

Even when we consciously control or create something, the largest part of it remains defined by our unconsciousness. Even in a lucid dream, 99% of everything around us is entirely unconsciously created.

The thing that people sometimes fail to realise, in my opinion, is that the conscious and unconscious are not exclusive to one another. They're not two seperate things, meaning you are either conscious or unconscious. If you read the various theories on consciousness, they will all tell you the same thing: the consciousness is a part of the unconsciousness. That means that any action, even a conscious one, is in part unconsciously driven.

This is even more so in dreams, where our consciousness tends to be less strong, and we automatically fall back upon our unconsciousness, which shapes the dream around us.

Anyways, just my 2 cents,

-Redrivertears-

Originally Posted by Redrivertears

Hey there,

I'd say the answer to your question is fairly straightforward. The unconsciousness. It creates your normal dream, and it creates your lucid dreams as well. In fact I firmly believe the conscious part of us cannot create anything in a dream, we can only appeal to our unconsciousness to have it create for us.

The thing is, even the sun you decided to make rise... did you chose how big it was to be? Exactly what shade of color it needed to be? Exactly from where it would rise? How high it would rise? How it would affect the sky around it?

Even when we consciously control or create something, the largest part of it remains defined by our unconsciousness. Even in a lucid dream, 99% of everything around us is entirely unconsciously created.

The thing that people sometimes fail to realise, in my opinion, is that the conscious and unconscious are not exclusive to one another. They're not two seperate things, meaning you are either conscious or unconscious. If you read the various theories on consciousness, they will all tell you the same thing: the consciousness is a part of the unconsciousness. That means that any action, even a conscious one, is in part unconsciously driven.

This is even more so in dreams, where our consciousness tends to be less strong, and we automatically fall back upon our unconsciousness, which shapes the dream around us.

Anyways, just my 2 cents,

-Redrivertears-

So you would say that the "unconscious", whatever that may mean in its entirety, is the entity that governs the dream world? And, not only that, but that the unconscious somehow allows for consciousness to exert itself from time to time as one of its governing principles? Almost as though consciousness is a rebel child of the great expanse of the unknown or something?

I guess what I'm trying to get at is a way to "trace back", so to speak, the workings of what you refer to as the unconscious -- to throw the curtain off of the Wizard a little bit. Probably futile, I suspect, but why not? After all, it's my dream, right?

Hey there,

I think, following the theory of consciousness and unconsciousness, you're still seeing them as 'too seperate of one another'.

Let me put it in another way. The unconsciousness is us. The entirety of us. It includes all our urges, all our fears, all our desires, all that we are. It governs both the dream world and our actions in the waking world. Now part of this unconsciousness can 'become conscious'. Ie... we are not normally aware of everything that is going on within our minds... but from time to time, we can become aware. That's what consciousness is.

Example: You might feel attracted to a particular type of person. Say... for some reason or another, you really fall for someone with brown eyes and black hair. You're not normally aware of this, though after some time, you begin to notice all the persons you've had feelings for have had this particular attribute, and that yes: you are someone that's more easily attracted to persons with brown eyes and black hair. At that moment, a previous unconscious thing has 'become' conscious. It doesn't change in any way, but you've become aware of it.

The same principle applies in dreams, in my opinion. We start out mostly unconscious of our dreams and the way they are shaped, the way they repeat, the way they are formed and reformed. But slowly, we become aware of aspects of it 'I often have nightmares about vampires', 'I often dream that I'm waking up', 'I sometimes dream I was someone else in a previous life', etc etc.

By paying more and more attention to our dreams, we begin to be able to recall them better, we begin to see patterns in them, dreamsigns, sometimes we even begin to be able to interpret dreams (if we chose to do so). Slowly, we are building our awareness of dreams. Slowly, we are mapping the edges of our dreamworld, so that they 'become conscious'.

Now consciousness is not a fixed thing. It varies up and down. I might be aware that I easily lose my temper when faced with authority, but often only realise 'I've done it again', until after the facts. At the moment itself I still yelled at my boss (with all consequences), and later I'm blaming myself for being a fool. Consciousness varies, it fluxuates up and down, sometimes we're more conscious of our actions, sometimes less, even if they're the same sort of actions.

This happens in dreams as well. As we are slowly building our consciousness in dreams, like above, sometimes we get spikes, moments of higher consciousness then others. We become aware that we're dreaming while doing so. We become conscious in our very dream.

But the dream itself is still unconsciously build. Conscious or not, it makes no difference. The difference is that consciousness is a guidance mechanism. Being conscious of something allows us a measure of control over it. And so we can start using dreammanipulation, though in truth, its still the unconscious force that's doing all the work.

To finish, I like to sometimes make the analogy to a ship sailing on the water. The unconsciousness is the ship in it's entirity. The consciousness is the control room. You have guages and colored signals there that can direct your attention to something that is happening in the ship, something that you're usually not paying attention to. You're not constantly worried about how much fuel the ship has left, until the ship starts getting problems. A red button begins to blink, and you become acutely aware of the fact that your fuel is low. The fuel issue just 'become conscious', and being in your control room, you can begin making manipulations to adjust the situation, in this case turning your attention to the steering part, and moving into the harbor to go refuel.

Anyways, I hope this makes some sense to you

-Redrivertears-

That is a very good point. You are right, dreams always have a given setting to begin with, but you can change that setting upon becoming lucid. For example, if you begin the dream at your house, you can spin and think of an ocean and you'll most likely end up at the beach. But (at least so far) I have never made up the scene from scratch.

Originally Posted by Redrivertears

I think, following the theory of consciousness and unconsciousness, you're still seeing them as 'too seperate of one another'.

Let me put it in another way. The unconsciousness is us. The entirety of us. It includes all our urges, all our fears, all our desires, all that we are. It governs both the dream world and our actions in the waking world. Now part of this unconsciousness can 'become conscious'. Ie... we are not normally aware of everything that is going on within our minds... but from time to time, we can become aware. That's what consciousness is.

Actually, I consider them one and the same thing. Here's an image for metaphor that would sum up my view of it: if the total conscious/unconscious complex were depicted as a mountian, then the conscious aspect would be a small, glowing pebble at the very tip of the thing. Yes, it came from the same granite (and will return to it), but has somehow (temporarily) become distinct, if even only superficially and in it's own egotistic conception of "self". Interestingly, this pebble just happens to be able to get up, hike around, and shed some light on the otherwise dark and unknown areas. It can even tunnel into the hillside and find minerals and metals if it wants to. So, there must be some way for this pebble to come to some sort of fundamental understanding as to its original nature.

There may be SOME laws that govern the dream world...just none our personality selves are aware of, and certainly none like anything we have here on earth or in our physical realm. Though I don't any.

I had something like it. The dreamowas a black screen. I thought hard and there was a videogame-like options screen. Then I made up some good options. I decided to go with, RUNNING FROM A HOMICIDAL ALLIGATOR WITH A MAGIC WAND. I pressed it, and out popped a little paint brush that read: Go ahead, Paint the dang dream scene! I got mad because I still had to make it myself, but it was fun painting the dream. Although everything looked like a kid doodled it in class. Then I just ran away from the alligator.
Don't know if this is what you mean, but I thought I would say this. By the way, it wasn't a WILD, but I was lucid.

Based on the replys so far I think that we can safely say that one law that governs the dream world is that the matrix that your consciousness exists within is given to you w/out your own (conscious) intervention, and not at your discretion. Even in the case of "blackness" at the beginning, the blackness is given to you. Note the case of jereb: he/she started w/ a "black screen". In other words, the black screen was provided by the subconscious, unconscious, dream gods...whatever you care to call it/them/he/she. Also note that the paint brush that appeared doesn't seem to have been a conscious choice.

This is interesting. We have, very superficially anyway, discovered that you have to roll w/ the punches, so to speak, as far as your given environment goes. It is, apparently, a law. There is no way around it. When you become conscious that you are dreaming, even if you are conscious of nothing other than complete darkness, you do so in conjunction with some other force or power that is providing the data that allows the event to occur. When you think about it, this is exactly how it happens at the event of your birth. You have no choice. At one moment there is nothing, and then there is everything, and it is all provided for you as an environment to exist within. This leads to another sub-law:

-------------

Laws that govern the Dream World, Article I:

The original matrix that you shall exist within will be provided for you, regardless of your ability or power to make changes or dissolutions later.
1.a. The phenomenon of awakening in a dream mimics that of physical birth.

-------------

We have to ask why it is important to recognize rules and laws in the first place? My personal feeling is that it's because rules are made to be broken!

There is a school of thinking (that I personally subscribe to) which says that what lucid dreamers experience and what astral projectors experience are one and the same, but we just term it differently.

Think of it like this, you have a lucid and you're ecstatic because you can do anything you want, but look at the others here on the forum who don't/can't - they want it really badly. This to me suggests that what we do and what they do are quite seperate. This said, I know that what we experience in this world shapes what we see in the dream world. My analogy, and view on this is that it's kind of like a party in a huge house for all the residents of the house. Some people bring balloons. Some bring streamers. Everyone brings and contributes something.

Thoughts on this?

Note:
Love the idea of the Dream World Laws. Not the "rules are made to be broken" part, but the idea is great. I do sometimes feel sorry for DCs when I am forced to hurt them, or do hurt them.

Originally Posted by Redrivertears

Hey there,

I think, following the theory of consciousness and unconsciousness, you're still seeing them as 'too seperate of one another'.

Let me put it in another way. The unconsciousness is us. The entirety of us. It includes all our urges, all our fears, all our desires, all that we are. It governs both the dream world and our actions in the waking world. Now part of this unconsciousness can 'become conscious'. Ie... we are not normally aware of everything that is going on within our minds... but from time to time, we can become aware. That's what consciousness is.

Example: You might feel attracted to a particular type of person. Say... for some reason or another, you really fall for someone with brown eyes and black hair. You're not normally aware of this, though after some time, you begin to notice all the persons you've had feelings for have had this particular attribute, and that yes: you are someone that's more easily attracted to persons with brown eyes and black hair. At that moment, a previous unconscious thing has 'become' conscious. It doesn't change in any way, but you've become aware of it.

The same principle applies in dreams, in my opinion. We start out mostly unconscious of our dreams and the way they are shaped, the way they repeat, the way they are formed and reformed. But slowly, we become aware of aspects of it 'I often have nightmares about vampires', 'I often dream that I'm waking up', 'I sometimes dream I was someone else in a previous life', etc etc.

By paying more and more attention to our dreams, we begin to be able to recall them better, we begin to see patterns in them, dreamsigns, sometimes we even begin to be able to interpret dreams (if we chose to do so). Slowly, we are building our awareness of dreams. Slowly, we are mapping the edges of our dreamworld, so that they 'become conscious'.

Now consciousness is not a fixed thing. It varies up and down. I might be aware that I easily lose my temper when faced with authority, but often only realise 'I've done it again', until after the facts. At the moment itself I still yelled at my boss (with all consequences), and later I'm blaming myself for being a fool. Consciousness varies, it fluxuates up and down, sometimes we're more conscious of our actions, sometimes less, even if they're the same sort of actions.

This happens in dreams as well. As we are slowly building our consciousness in dreams, like above, sometimes we get spikes, moments of higher consciousness then others. We become aware that we're dreaming while doing so. We become conscious in our very dream.

But the dream itself is still unconsciously build. Conscious or not, it makes no difference. The difference is that consciousness is a guidance mechanism. Being conscious of something allows us a measure of control over it. And so we can start using dreammanipulation, though in truth, its still the unconscious force that's doing all the work.

To finish, I like to sometimes make the analogy to a ship sailing on the water. The unconsciousness is the ship in it's entirity. The consciousness is the control room. You have guages and colored signals there that can direct your attention to something that is happening in the ship, something that you're usually not paying attention to. You're not constantly worried about how much fuel the ship has left, until the ship starts getting problems. A red button begins to blink, and you become acutely aware of the fact that your fuel is low. The fuel issue just 'become conscious', and being in your control room, you can begin making manipulations to adjust the situation, in this case turning your attention to the steering part, and moving into the harbor to go refuel.

Anyways, I hope this makes some sense to you

-Redrivertears-

YUP I agree with you. dude this is somehow relates with DILDs. It's when you totally become aware in which the world you are within is just a mere creation of your subconscious mind. I believe DILDs is the most effective way of attaining Lucidity. Simply because your subconscious mind was the ruler of your dream until you became conscious of this. Meaning your dream sorroudings has already been created thus by the subconscious mind and you became aware of being in a dream. Your environment stays the same as when you weren't lucid until you decide to change it.

Self-consciousness can lead you to inducing a DILD. Meaning, being "much aware" of everything you do during a regular day basis is an easy way of you knowing you are dreaming within a dream. It's just being aware of everything you experiece during a regular day.

For inducing DILDs Try: being aware of all your [Actions, thoughts, and everything you see]... this method gets me atleast one or two LDs per night!

some rules are written by the body
like the tendence of dreams to fade / become harder to control / ecc with time (you can make the movie long with flashbacks or so, but it can't last That long, and there's the felling of time growing short) or external influences (morning light...) - or also others, like opening by mistake your real eyes while trying to open the dream eyes etc.....

I'll vote yes to the pre-conditioned 'dream template' that usually begins lucids. Most of my not-so-many LDS originate in an environment that is pre-existing. However, there have been plenty of times I was able to alter that environment, but it is usually difficult for me to do this. The difficulty arises from what I'll call PeterPan Disorder, which is the heap of negative doubt that most adults have taken on as baggage throughout their lives, hence why they can't get to Never Never Land or think happy thoughts.

Considering creating an LD from blackness - it's possible. The last time I remember this happening was at the onset of a day-nap and my mind sort of fell into the LD state but there was no environment to go with it, so I built one by thinking of a clearing in the woods. Just the thinking of the generalized 'woods' produced a workable image, much like a dream template, but malleable enough to manipulate at will.