Thread: what stops us from dreaming lucid?

hi dreamers
this has been probably discussed before on this forum but i would love to hear as many opinions on this as possible so i am putting this on 2 threads "general discussion" and "attaining lucidity":
for years i have been looking for the perfect luciddream induction method. but now i thought maybe one should look at it from the other end first. so my main question i am in search of an answer now is : what stops us from dreaming lucid? what obstacle is there? what are the barriers? why is it so difficult to attain lucidity during dreams? what do you think? what stops us from becoming lucid? is it a biological reason / inhibit? or is it due to our mental condition, our daytime consciousness, our way of life?
would be very interested in your view - this is something i really never gave much attention to so far - i was always so much focused on finding the "perfect" dream induction method - or developing the perfect dream inducing selfhypnosis etc. etc.

I'd say it's mostly our ties to reality. Just tonight I had my first extended LD (didn't lose it right away) and I wasn't even thinking about doing it more than usual. The contributing factors, which I wont go into now, lead to me being more relaxed and confident than ever.

To control the worlds created by our minds requires a certain kind of determination.

Over the past few months I've been ridding my self of some bad mental habits and having more faith in my self. My lucid dreams finally started happening in my 3rd month of trying. Extremely short at first, they gave me faith that I could do it but they were inconsistent. Then I had more and more at a steadier pace. I think this phase allowed me to stop being disappointed in my self and look on the bright side that progress is progress!

I got interested in self hypnosis by all the recent posts about it and read a how-to today. I think it requires being really in tune with your self, relaxation at will, and no worries. I had read the holosync articles about the science behind it yesterday and noted similarities. I used holosync during my WBTB today and relaxed through the first 2 tracks, then during the Theta track began reciting mnemonics to help me LD. I think this was sort of a self hypnosis and a big factor helping me LD.

I think practice, combining of techniques, and learning which ones suit the dreamer best is the only way to have a 'perfect LD technique'.

The logical part of our brain shuts down so that when we're dreaming...we're not really logical...

i believe everyone is capable of lucid dreaming, but because society places little importance on dreams in general, and such obsission with current events, employment and succes, that 'philosophical' things like dreams get ignored and eventually forgotten. I think the people that continue to have interest in dreams, or perhaps people that remain in tune with themselves and not swept away in the every day mess of reality continue to experience and expand on their own awareness.

the reason i believe this is because as a child, i was able to have lucid dreams naturally, and all my dreams were vivid and had great depth.

In EWLD, it talks about the view of the world that we have as a child; everything revolves around us, we're the 'centre of the universe.' we begin life with our awareness of ourselves overshadowing the awareness of other people. Its not untill later that we gain knowledge of how our actions impact on others, and concepts like sharing and compassion.

Eventually we lose the 'innocence' altogether, and our concious thoughts become centered around school, sports, and the community, ie; 'foriegn' thoughts and practices.

so if society had more interest in dreaming, and more concious emphasis placed on it, perhaps lucidity would be a lifetime skill. maybe it should be emphasised in schools as a way to handle grief, explore creativity and all the other things that lucidity is useful for.

i'm not sure if any of that made sense.

first : ok - was obviously not a good idea with 2 threads......, sorry. i wanted to reach as many people as possible.

yes, me too i think there are various reasons that stop us from dreaming lucid every night during every rem-phase - biological, social and mental / psychological reasons. but i think the main reason is probably of mental & psychological nature. i would guess that the biological & social aspects are of lesser importance - they maybe could be overcome - depending on our mental condition, willpower and determination.

prof. tholey, university of frankfurt, germany - unfortunately already dead - could proove in a sleeplaboratory that he is capable of keeping his consciousness during all sleepphases & dream lucid permanently - even during nonrem phases. he had a socalled 24h-consciousness...... i think that must be an awesome state of mind that you must be in.....

by the way: fosar & bludorf (both good longtime friends of tholey) write in their book on ld (2002) that the circumstances of tholey's death were quite mysterious : the autopsy found no cause of death..... his dead body was found in his bed without the sign of any struggle or so..... and the receiver of the phone next to his bed was nicely hung off the phone and put next to the phone - kind of like he made a conscious decision to leave into the eternal dreamtime at will..... somehow this reminds me of "the matrix"..........

I don't understand, this prof. Tholey could dream 24 hours of the day?

I think he means he was aware 24 hours per day

the thing that seems to stop me is my awareness of reality in life because of those "foriegn thoughts" - they take over and manke me dream about them instead, and because that's so i wake up with a clear head, i subconsiously dont want to become lucid because i need to "think in my sleep"

tholey could proove in the sleeplaboratory that he was not only conscious during daytime - but also when sleeping throughout ALL sleepphases - nonrem & rem. so, this results in being 24hours conscious - also known as the so called 24-hours-consciousness. a phenomena known among yogis in buddhist, tibetan and hindu tradition. tholey supposedly was the first western person to have demonstrated and proove the existence of this 24h-consciousness in a sleeplab.