Thread: Have you met God while LDing?

Originally Posted by Mark75

So faith, then. Faith meaning belief in spite of lack of proof.

Yes, but that does not mean faith without reason. I cannot prove that God exists, but that does not mean that I can't make a well-reasoned, logical case for his existence.

Basically what you've said to me is you believe it because you believe it.

No, I didn't say that. First, see my comment above. Second, I don't think I went into any details about why I believe in God, nor do I think that this is the place.

You mention "learning to discern your own mind's thoughts from what may be the promptings of the Divine" but never mention specifically how you do actually go about doing that. Is that by faith, too?

No, I don't say specifically how to go about doing that. I don't have a bulleted formula for spiritual discernment that I can cut and paste here. Sorry, it doesn't work that way.

And if I did have a list, I don't think this is the place to talk about such a thing. I expressed my reservations for using LDs to experience God, and gave reasons when asked, but I am not going to deliver a treatise on why we ought to believe in God or the specific character of a Christian prayer life.

If that is what you want then there are far better writers and thinkers who can give far better answers than I can--C. S. Lewis, for example.

-Lux

Originally Posted by LuxAeterna

--man is not capable of reaching God of his own power.
-Lux

that is a really depressing belief. sometimes when i have a lucid, i am so overjoyed by the beauty of the moment, that i just kind of send out a "thank you god! I love you!". I feel a divine presence which i know to be my creator. let me just say that i am not a christian. i don't attempt to define or personify the creator; i just believe in him/her/it/whatever. some higher power put us here. when i am lucid i feel very close to that higher power.

Originally Posted by boognish

that is a really depressing belief. sometimes when i have a lucid, i am so overjoyed by the beauty of the moment, that i just kind of send out a "thank you god! I love you!". I feel a divine presence which i know to be my creator. let me just say that i am not a christian. i don't attempt to define or personify the creator; i just believe in him/her/it/whatever. some higher power put us here. when i am lucid i feel very close to that higher power.

Notice that I say above that I do not exclude the possibility of God making himself known in a dream. It seems unwise to me to use dreaming as a tool for reaching him by our own power. It is logical, really: if God is infinite, and since we are finite, he is infinitely far from us. And yet, he makes himself present to us, and draws us to him because he desires us as we desire him (whether we know it or not). To me, that's far from depressing.

-Lux

Originally Posted by LuxAeterna

Yes, but that does not mean faith without reason. I cannot prove that God exists, but that does not mean that I can't make a well-reasoned, logical case for his existence.


No, I didn't say that. First, see my comment above. Second, I don't think I went into any details about why I believe in God, nor do I think that this is the place.



No, I don't say specifically how to go about doing that. I don't have a bulleted formula for spiritual discernment that I can cut and paste here. Sorry, it doesn't work that way.

And if I did have a list, I don't think this is the place to talk about such a thing. I expressed my reservations for using LDs to experience God, and gave reasons when asked, but I am not going to deliver a treatise on why we ought to believe in God or the specific character of a Christian prayer life.

If that is what you want then there are far better writers and thinkers who can give far better answers than I can--C. S. Lewis, for example.

-Lux

I think I missed the part where you told me the difference between talking to god while awake and talking to god while asleep. The best I could come up with is that you'd said that the mind was more suggestible during sleep in terms of unwittingly synthesizing the divine, but certainly you don't think it's incapable of doing that while awake. Especially given the strong emotional attachment people have to their given religions, it's not much of a stretch to think that what may be ignored as mundane by a non-religious person may be interpreted to be divine by a religious one. We also can't rule out outright hallucinations and plain old lying to oneself.

For the record, "You can just tell" is a very, very bad answer.

I had one once where Jesus suddenly appeared in the sky and time ended and everyone went up to Heaven. Then I went to visit Earth and everything looked like a ghost town.

Originally Posted by Mark75

I think I missed the part where you told me the difference between talking to god while awake and talking to god while asleep. The best I could come up with is that you'd said that the mind was more suggestible during sleep in terms of unwittingly synthesizing the divine, but certainly you don't think it's incapable of doing that while awake.... We also can't rule out outright hallucinations and plain old lying to oneself.

I agree. The mind can lie to itself. And because of that fact the things you mention cannot be ruled out as possibly acting on the waking mind of a religious person. I do not advocate mindlessness.

My point, again, is simply that in a dream the brain can produce an overwhelming but entirely subjective experience that a person may wrongly mistake as being a divine revelation or epiphany. Such a thing easily happens in a dream, while in real life such a false experience would be either drug related or the result of psychosis.

For the record, "You can just tell" is a very, very bad answer.

Is this in response to something I wrote? I hope I didn't seem to supply the answer that "you can just tell," because I agree that it is not a very good one.

-Lux

Originally Posted by LuxAeterna

My point, again, is simply that in a dream the brain can produce an overwhelming but entirely subjective experience that a person may wrongly mistake as being a divine revelation or epiphany. Such a thing easily happens in a dream, while in real life such a false experience would be either drug related or the result of psychosis.

Psychosis such as faith?

Originally Posted by Mark75

Psychosis such as faith?

Mark75, how can you be so sure that their is no God? You said in one of your posts that there is no such thing as absolute truth. However, from your post on this thread it seems that you know what absolute truth is.

Originally Posted by hapkidoman

Mark75, how can you be so sure that their is no God? You said in one of your posts that there is no such thing as absolute truth. However, from your post on this thread it seems that you know what absolute truth is.

I can be sure that the Christian or similar gods do not exist by virtue that the idea is incompatible with our world. There is no evidence nor good reason to support the existence of this or any god, so for the time being I assume they do not exist.

I decided to quest for god in a LD.
When I found him he was a mirror. I rock.

Originally Posted by LuxAeterna

Personally, I would not advise using Lucid Dreams for religious/spiritual purposes. They are, by definition, a subjective world created by the dreaming mind. What one is after in seeking God is not a subjective experience that feels like God, but Objective Truth.

If one can believe in the existence of an omnipotent God, then surely it wouldn't be much of a stretch for them to believe in a spiritual side to dreams as well.

I don't believe in a monotheistic god of any sort - but I must say that lucid dreaming has caused me to look again at the staunchly atheistic view i once held.

hey,

I do believe there is a divine existence.

I do think you can contact it in both waking and dreaming life.

I don't think you could tell the difference between dream and waking life spiritual experiences.

I don't think these differences exist.

Were you able to do it?

yes, in waking life. Actually happens all the time. Use your ears. Just my two cents.

Do you think it was real or just a vivid imagination?

I think you should cross out the little word "or" - and there you are...

I think that there's a essential truth revealed when you look for God in a dream and find yourself looking into the mirror.


OT remarks about topics touched upon in this discussion:
- I think God answers all prayers with acceptance and affirmation - the problem is that most people are not aware of what they are praying for

Originally Posted by Mark75

Psychosis such as faith?

Faith is not psychosis.

Originally Posted by The Dictionary

psy·cho·sis
A severe mental disorder, with or without organic damage, characterized by derangement of personality and loss of contact with reality and causing deterioration of normal social functioning.

-Lux

Originally Posted by Mark75

I can be sure that the Christian or similar gods do not exist by virtue that the idea is incompatible with our world.

That's only true if you assume that the world and a Christian God cannot be reconciled. Then what you have is circular reasoning.

To me, and to many thinkers far greater than me, the idea of God is reconcilable with the world.

There is no evidence nor good reason to support the existence of this or any god,

God is not directly provable by science because science only deals with the material world and God is immaterial. However, for those willing to look, there are many, many events in the history of the world that suggest Divine action.

Furthermore, there are very good, logical reasons for believing in God.

I think that this is my last post on this thread.

-Lux

Originally Posted by LuxAeterna

My point, again, is simply that in a dream the brain can produce an overwhelming but entirely subjective experience that a person may wrongly mistake as being a divine revelation or epiphany. Such a thing easily happens in a dream, while in real life such a false experience would be either drug related or the result of psychosis.
-Lux

Blimey! "..drug related or the result of psychosis." So you don't think much of Mohammed, then?

Originally Posted by KxWaal

If one can believe in the existence of an omnipotent God, then surely it wouldn't be much of a stretch for them to believe in a spiritual side to dreams as well.

I don't believe in a monotheistic god of any sort - but I must say that lucid dreaming has caused me to look again at the staunchly atheistic view i once held.

Thank you for posting that, I agree with your first paragraph very much after all, if a god is omnipotent then he can do anything that he wants.

Would you mind telling me what details about lucid dreaming made you think twice about your religious or non religious views? You said in a previous post that you were trying to find God and that you saw a mirror. That seems to happen to a lot of people, what's your view point on this?

Thanks again for the post.

psy·cho·sis
A severe mental disorder, with or without organic damage, characterized by derangement of personality and loss of contact with reality and causing deterioration of normal social functioning.

So, yeah.

Originally Posted by LuxAeterna

Furthermore, there are very good, logical reasons for believing in God.

Finally!

Originally Posted by LuxAeterna

I think that this is my last post on this thread.
-Lux

Missed it by that much.

Originally Posted by Moonbeam

Finally!



Missed it by that much.

Hmm...I don't understand. So, I have to ask: What do you mean, what are you trying to say here?

-Lux

I have had several dreams about meeting "god." By that I mean the devine, the higher power. All of these dreams have been lucid.

In one I was flying and decided to go see god. So I flew straight up into the sky. I few for a very long time, even leaving the earth behind. When I got there, I remember only a few things. I was held like a little child. I was safe and loved. And I had been expected.

In another I saw a representation of god. It was a parade of people singing, carrying banners of brightly colored cloth. I knew it was "god" because I could feel it.

In the last one god was funny. Krishna -- blue, but middle aged, pot-bellied, and enormously good natured. And sarcastic!! And wise, too.

Except the first one, I did not seek out a meeting with the devine. I look at these LDs as gifts. Little bits to keep me working at improving myself and the lives of others.

Originally Posted by hapkidoman

Would you mind telling me what details about lucid dreaming made you think twice about your religious or non religious views? You said in a previous post that you were trying to find God and that you saw a mirror. That seems to happen to a lot of people, what's your view point on this?

One of the first things that made me feel this way was the experience of sleep paralysis and WILDing. I've almost always feel a "presence" - This varies from euphoric ecstasy to the most crippling feeling of malevolence I've felt.

I've also had Lucid Dreams and dreams in general where I found myself in knowledge of things I've had no way of knowing. Things that have turned out true later. This includes both remote viewing and prophetic experiences.

As for the mirror thing... A Satanist (in Anton LaVey's sense) believes that he is his own God. It's basically humanism with a fashion sense.
I agree with many of LaVey's ideas and this is one of them.

My current spiritual viewpoint is really an eclectic mix of LaVeyan Satanism, shamanism and chaos theory.

One of my core beliefs is that perception equals reality. Whether I consider this to mean that physical reality is dictated by my expectations (much like LDing) or if I consider this to mean something more philosophical (the way I view things and context can make things "seem" different or effect me differently) - I've yet to decide.

At any rate, I've begun to view dreams as every bit as important as waking life.

Sorry if this became a bit rambling or "out there". I might have just smoked too much weed tonight.

Never, not even Jesus. I'd have thought that I would have in my whole life though... pretty strange really.

I'm actually planning on trying to, and I nearly became lucid in a non-lucid dream because I thought this image in the clouds was God, but then it spoke and it had the voice of my brother, so I forgot about lucidity.

Originally Posted by LuxAeterna

Hmm...I don't understand. So, I have to ask: What do you mean, what are you trying to say here?

-Lux

Well, see, I've never heard a good, logical reason to belive in god, and I was sarcastically pretending that we were finally about to hear one, if only you hadn't decided that was your last post. Hence, "missed it by that much", like Max always said on Get Smart.