Why is dreaming frowned upon?

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Originally Posted by kaeraz

This subject hits close to home. I told my brother about lucid dreaming just the other night. We're really close and I respect him and his opinions immensely. Only problem is, my brother is a big skeptic. I mean, I'm a skeptic, but this guy isn't convinced that gravity is going to work from second to second if you know what I mean. :D

Anyway, I told him about how I was experimenting with being conscious in my dreams and he was like, "Are you sure you aren't just concentrating on the hits and not the misses?" And I'm like, "Dude, I've run into a whole mess of misses my whole life! That's what regular dreams are!" Then I explained to him that since I started getting seriously into this about a month ago, I've had three lucid dreams. I mean, how do you explain that away?? He just started joking about how I'd be rambling on about out of body experiences next - and it make me think that he was inadvertently equating the two, which kinda pissed me off. I mean, lucid dreaming has been proven and studied. I know that OBEs cannot be proven and are merely personal accounts like religious experiences.

It's hard because I love lucid dreaming and everything you can accomplish from it, but I'm also a skeptical atheist. I don't like telling this to my brother or my other skeptics friends and have them regard it as something mysterious and mystical.

Ya know? :D

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im also a skeptic... hate people who dont belive in lucid dreaming.. good luck is all i can say.

It's proof that people don't actually put thought into everything, the paranormal is a very small thing in most peoples minds, so when they hear about a concept such as lucid dreaming, after all being an altered state and being diffrent from nornal dreaming they think of it as supernatural, I'd love to all tell you my horse concept about it, but I've posted it so many times in threads like these (and believe me, there are lots), I get sick of typing it out, but I'll see if I can go and find it.

EDIT: Ok I found it

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Originally Posted by LucidDreamGod

I've read alot of these types of threads, it seems clear to me that lucid dreaming is often the victum of prejudice, I once made a comparison to the cro magnon people (Cave Men) in the book series earth's children seeing people riding horses, they become prejudice to them, thinking there is something super natural about them, they reacted with volience or fear apon first seeing them. (similer to how some people react to lucid dreaming with insults, or think of them as super natural today)

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the problem is that people nowadays wont believe anything fantastical. lucid dreaming isnt well known and when people hear that you just controlled your dream, they find it a bit far-fetched. when i told my family about lucid dreaming my brother burst into fits of laughter, my mother looked as though she was wondering whether or not to sign me in to a mental institute, and the only one that listened to me was my aunt. and the only reason she believes me is because (she revealed this when i told her about lucid dreaming) she has been lucid dreaming and having OBEs since she was young and showed me all these old books about lucid dreaming and astral projection and divination and shit like that.

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Originally Posted by Hiros

Like everyone and their dog has already said, people are simply way too close minded.

I have a friend that I want to talk about in regards to this. He is so incredibly closed minded that its ridiculous. I've told him about LDing and all he does is look at me funny, doesn't even respond, so I take the hint and stop talking. And its not just with dreaming, but anything your interested in that he isn't.

For example, another friend and I were talking about how this guy is adamantly against Blu-ray now that its won the HD format war. He has an Xbox360 and was all for HD-DVD saying how he wanted to get the drive add-on for his 360. Now that Blu-ray has become the standard, he's against HD completely. He says DVD is good enough and always will be. Its astonishing how his mind can do a 180 like that.

He'll go on and on about something he likes, be it a new video game, film, book, whatever (we're all geeks, and proud of it). But if you mention something you like he just trashes them without ever having experienced it.

My point here is that its impossible to change his mind on anything, believe me I've tried, and whats ever worse is that a large portion of the worlds population thinks this way.
We can yell about how awesome dreaming can be until your blue in the face, but they won't listen. :(

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Doesn't everyone have a friend like that?

I know I do.

yeah....

most ppl who i approach with this, even if generally good hearted people, appear uneasy. part of this is nearly completely due to the personal nature of dreams and what is little known about their truth. if you look in society, besides song lyrics (which are usually ignored) when dreams are mentioned, they are looked at as a connection with the new age theories and many hokey-flaky concepts (astral travel, past-life regression, etc). this immediately make a lot of ppl think that you (since you are interested in dreams) must also be flaky. thereby the uneasiness. yes, this is certainly not everyone, and i am lucky to have a handful of ppl in my life who are interested to share stories or hear the occasional cool thing from a dream and 2 ppl who have had LDs in their life.

i remember well, my first time hearing about LDs and it was like the holy grail was bestowed on me. as moonbeam writes in her profile... "interests:
dreaming is all that is left." i once felt like that exactly.... but truth is, now that there is dreaming, every day life is alive again.

i value all ppl here, even if we don't share the same views on some topics, because i know that in this world, where it is hard to find ppl who will accept some of your more unconventional sides (like LDing!)... we have each other to help make sense out of this! that it is such a beautiful, limitless experience... well this makes it even better.

:bedtime:
yeah baby... time for another action packed night... ;)

all be good.

analyst

Not everyone is into dreams, some may just sleep because they are tired and need sleep and don't care about dreams, others like dreams. People are not always going to like what others like, so you gotta accept it and move on. My dad looks weird at me when talking about a dream, but i don't care, i keep telling him my dreams nomatter what look he gives me, i've said this to guys at my work, they don't mind it. Hell one time at my work 5 of us were talking about scientifically making OBE's.

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Originally Posted by Venomblood

Doesn't everyone have a friend like that?

I know I do.

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I do too, he'll go on and on about stuff that he likes (he's absolutly obsessed with runescape, and he often sleep talks about it, which is really really funny to watch), and is always trying to get me to do what he wants to do, he hardly listens to what I have to say, and he always expects me to pull all my attention to what he's doing. But then again no buddy really likes him, and he's not really the type of guy who you can stand, I just hang around him for the heck of it :P.

Althugh once he did find lucid dreaming quite interesting due to a dream he had about a girl he liked a long time ago, though when I was through talking about it he had already gone to sleep, literaly, but ofcourse it was because we stayed up all night. And the time before that just an hour or so before, I got done explaining and he had no response to give and I said so do you want to learn how, and he's like "Huh?"

I've never actually been laughed at for talking about it, my brother used to be into Alien abductions and OBEs so my family was really used to it, the most I got out of a person was another one of my friends, who I kind of talked about lucid dreaming alittle too much around, and she said she didn't want to hear about it anymore, though it didn't offend me, she's open like that very often.

Might be from the fact that I talked about them when I was mostly at a younger age, and younger kids are more open minded.

It really is aggrivating isn't it. When you try to tell someone something. They criticize you for it, and when you try to defend your view, they don't wanna hear it.

I was talking to my friend about it a while back. He takes pride in doing the opposite of whatever is told on him for the sake of being an individual. Whatever. Basically, when I told him about it, he immediately called me on bullshit. His first response was to accuse me of lying, but when I insisted he told me it was all in my head.

I told him to go ahead and try it for himself. He seeems like a pretty capable person, so I figured he have no problem having his first lucid dream. When I began explaining how to do it, he just blew it off and told me it was impossible to control. That if was possible, it was all luck and there was no point in pursuing it. So I told him, "You just lost the game."

Disregard the last sentence. It was a real story.

Hurgh! These people you're describing. I can so imagine talking with someone like that!
I can almost feel the feeling of extreme annoyance of doing that!

Thanks, you make me feel lucky I don't know anyone that close minded.

All my friends/family/whatever like to discuss their dreams, and most of them have had a lucid dream. Only my mother just isn't interested. She says she thinks it's an interesting idea, but that she likes to just wake up with a completely random dream. I can understand that aswell.
Actually, I think I'm the only person of all my friends/family/people I know except for my mother and father that has never had a lucid dream. Which annoys me slightly :p

I think I have a pretty wide mind... The flat earth society does that to you.
You couldn't imagine the fun I had trying to make people believing the Earth is flat!
One of my teachers actually thought I believed it!/was crazy!

heh, i know what you mean. I'm focusing on the philosophy of dreams for my ext2 english major work this year- apparently that makes me a hardcore druggy in the eyes of the teachers. Still, i think there's a huge difference between the way a lucid dreamer perceives dreams as opposed to a regular dreamer, many people arn't so fortunate in their ability to recall dreams as to possess a keen interest in them. I'm sure there are thing that these people are interested in that we couldn't care less about.

Peace.

My parents think I'm crazy and my friends think it's Bullshit.

My mum wouldn't even let me take a Banana up to my room so I could eat it before I went to bed.
"Not that Lucid dreaming shit again."

For me it's best to keep it to myself.

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Originally Posted by Artixknight

Honestly, why do people frown upon dreaming so much?

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Jim: Hey Bob! I just had this really weird dream last night!

Bob: *rolls eyes* Cool, Jim. Let's try and keep it to yourself.

Jim: I really have to tell someone! It was weird! Kinda like it came out of a
movie.

Bob: Alrighty then, Jim, let's hear it.

Jim: O.K., so I was at the park when this alien U.F.O flew out of the sky...

Bob: *ignores Jim*

Jim: And thats when it ended.

Bob: That's great. Now we can get on with our lives in reality.

Jim: Uh... yeah, I guess. :embarrassed:

Bob: Cool. Let's go out and get some lunch.

Jim - but you know what, the funny thing is, I knew that I was dreaming the whole time...

Bob: I thought we were done talking about that. Dreams are meaningless. MEANINGLESS. They're just fluids in your brain moving around at night! You never knew you were dreaming, it's all in your head. And if you did know you were dreaming, then you're probably doing witchcraft or something. Now let's go.

Jim: O.K. You're right. Dreams are meaningless. Let's go. :?
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People say that dreams are meaningless. They assume anyone who lucid dreams is insane or is into witchcraft. But why do they think this way? Dreams are important! Health wise, for one.

Also, dreams are included in many, many songs. Dreams have inspired people to paint famous paintings and make famous sculptures! Dreams are included in so many books and movies. They take us to places where we can escape from reality for a little while every night. Dreams are great!

And let's not forget Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream ;)

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Hmm...I guess it depends on who your friends are. If I told my friends or family about my dreams they'd be interested in hearing it. Alotta times dreams can be humorous and everybody can laugh at it lol. Never had anybody tell me keep it to myself. Guess it depends on if your family is conservative vs. liberal, open minded vs. close minded and what not.

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Originally Posted by MadHatter17

You know its funny because there's also an considerable group that gets most of its satisfaction from intangible things. Namely, video gamers. I play video games too, but you wont catch me yammering on about my gamer score or any such thing.

Meanwhile these same people are slow to realize the value of certain sentimental material things.

Reminds me of this old conversation about table top miniature games, the kind that cost a fair amount of money for figures you paint.

Guy 1: Well why would you spend so much money on those, you have to do all this work on them, and they're only an inch tall.

Guy 2: Well think about this have you beaten Halo 2?

Guy 1: Yeah

Guy 2: And what do you have to show for it? Thousands of people have done the exact same thing, that game was expensive 2 but after a few times playing it it loses all value. This figure *holds up a customized painted figure* is one of a kind, no one else in the world has one quite like this.

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Still, the video game is a skill that others can experience with you, or observe as you play. That counts as something to show. Dreams, on the other hand, cannot be shared at all save by word of mouth, and no matter how long you talk, the minute detail, and sensation of the experience is lost in transfer.

food for thought... :cookiemonster:

Quote from Waking Life: "I'm gonna tell you about a dream I once had. I know, when someone says that, then usually you're in for a very boring next few minutes, and you might be, but it sounds like, you know, what else are you going to do, right? Anyway..."

i've been recently getting this reaction from some non-LDers who initially were interested in hearing my dreams! :roll: i think i will tone it back a little. :disconcerted: perhaps we all are a bit guilty of this... eh? :oops:

I've always found the reaction to LDing...interesting to say the least. I never quite understood it, I believed it when I heard it becaues it made sense. My thoughts went something like this when I heard about it:

A) It is possible to know when one is dreaming (this must be true, as I've had unintentional LDs before I discovered DILD/WILD).
B) When one is dreaming, one will always be able to breath through his nose (again, this simply was logical; I had felt external stimuli in my dreams before).
C) Therefore, by plugging my nose and breathing in, I can tell whether or not I was dreaming.

I simply accepted it, and had an LD soon thereafter. However, some people are completely closed to the idea, I have no idea why. I began telling my dad about it, he looked at me like I was insane and I stopped. Some of my friends found the interesting and have casually tried LDing themselves, but another of my friends just rolls his eyes if I bring it up.

I suppose most people simply do not want to leave their personal preconcieved ideas of normality. It's rather sad, actually.

Man, this thread reminds me of how great this community is. Who needs the outside world to share LD's with when you have Dreamviews?

Come on, group hug! :hug:

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Originally Posted by Artixknight

Honestly, why do people frown upon dreaming so much?

---
Jim: Hey Bob! I just had this really weird dream last night!

Bob: *rolls eyes* Cool, Jim. Let's try and keep it to yourself.

Jim: I really have to tell someone! It was weird! Kinda like it came out of a
movie.

Bob: Alrighty then, Jim, let's hear it.

Jim: O.K., so I was at the park when this alien U.F.O flew out of the sky...

Bob: *ignores Jim*

Jim: And thats when it ended.

Bob: That's great. Now we can get on with our lives in reality.

Jim: Uh... yeah, I guess. :embarrassed:

Bob: Cool. Let's go out and get some lunch.

Jim - but you know what, the funny thing is, I knew that I was dreaming the whole time...

Bob: I thought we were done talking about that. Dreams are meaningless. MEANINGLESS. They're just fluids in your brain moving around at night! You never knew you were dreaming, it's all in your head. And if you did know you were dreaming, then you're probably doing witchcraft or something. Now let's go.

Jim: O.K. You're right. Dreams are meaningless. Let's go. :?
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People say that dreams are meaningless. They assume anyone who lucid dreams is insane or is into witchcraft. But why do they think this way? Dreams are important! Health wise, for one.

Also, dreams are included in many, many songs. Dreams have inspired people to paint famous paintings and make famous sculptures! Dreams are included in so many books and movies. They take us to places where we can escape from reality for a little while every night. Dreams are great!

And let's not forget Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream ;)

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That part of sleeping, the "deep sleep" (sometimes it does not require a dream) is the only part in sleeping that we would die if we didn't get. So yes, dreams are, in a way, necessary for us to live.

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Originally Posted by Artixknight

Honestly, why do people frown upon dreaming so much?

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The reasons people frown on lucid dreaming are the same reasons they can't lucid dream.

Lucidity is rooted on an fearless and accepting mind that sees beauty and truth in everything. Waking life is rooted on a fearful and selective mind that rejects most everything as meaningless fantasy.