Thread: Do your control your dreams? Or do your dreams still control you?

Originally Posted by DarkLucideity

Too bad you didn't tackle any of my points. I still fail to see how you can enslave yourself or be enslaved by yourself - much less do that by having goals.

Sorry to break it to you - but you're a hypocrite. You can't not have goals nor work at things. It's a goal of yours to be "free" and "without goals." You worked at it by ceasing your lucid dreaming efforts and probably other goals. You're specifically trying to have freedom to reach your goal of freedom.

Also, by your logic, either way your dreams control you. Either you strive for lucidity and that "controls" you, or you go through your dreams unconscious and controlled.

Not only that, with your third point you say that lucidity is good as long as you don't make any effort toward it, and living in the now is awesome. So admit it, you're just lazy. It's all right, I'm lazy too. But I'm not about to call hardworking people slaves.

I have a few things to say about this but I have to go to the gym. This will be edited. Just quoting it for later...

Originally Posted by ZenMan12

but I have to go to the gym.

I don't know if you're serious about that or not.

Originally Posted by ZenMan12

If one needs to maintain and work for something that means that there are goals. Freedom to me comes from the realization that nothing needs to worked on since you already are free. Effort in order to maintain a certain state comes at a sense to keep control over your surroundings. This stems from insecurity. It seems like enslavement to me.

I'm surprised everyone is taking this post so personally, and apparently getting so angry. I think you guys are misunderstanding the tone of the original post. I guess that is the risk of communicating over the internet, like this. It would be a lot easier if we could all hear each other's tone of voice, and see facial expressions

I think this is an important question. One I ask myself all the time. Not just in dreaming, but in all aspects of life. Where do you draw the line between doing something for enjoyment, and working so hard on something you become a prisoner to it? How many times have we all had to remind ourselves of our goal when learning a new skill or taking a difficult class? How many people start playing a sport because it is fun, then get so caught up in the competition, they get angry, stressed out, and stop enjoying it? How many people start using drugs for recreation, then become addicted to them and dependent on them?

Originally Posted by Happiness is a Warm Gun

Lucid dreaming is a form of self awareness and expression, like music, art, and literature. It's not about control any more than singing is about controlling what we hear, or drawing is about controlling what we see.
LDing takes effort, just as it takes effort to live in the moment, but this isn't slavery. We alone decide whether or not to put in the work, and we alone reap the rewards.

That is a great point. It reminds me of learning to paint. I love painting. I have worked very hard learning how to paint, and am still learning. You need to train yourself to see the world in a new way. Light, color interactions, composition. As you work hard learning to paint, you start to see all these things around you every day. Things you previously didn't even notice. The learning process is extremely difficult and takes a lot of time, but you also learn from the learning process. You are not just learning how to make a pretty picture, you are training yourself to really see the world around you.

I think of lucid dreaming the same way. Sure, lucidity is the goal. Controlling your dreams may be your goal. The process is also very important. You train yourself to be more aware of your state of consciousness. You become more aware of your self and your surroundings.

3) I guess there is another type of "dream style." You don't use tricks to become aware but rather "it is." Every action becomes an action unto it self--meaning there is no implied reason to do such an action during a dream or in real life. It is through direct experience. When you go the other route you need to constantly use tricks/skills/work to be conscious during a dream because it isn't your natural state to do so.

Have you looked into Tibetan Dream Yoga at all? It is exactly what you are talking about. If you haven't already, check out Rinpoche's book "The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep." Don't read too many posts about dream yoga here on DV. Some of them are way off the mark.

Originally Posted by ZenMan12

How can you take tone from a post of words, let alone arrogance? Isn't that pretty subjective? I do look for criticism. If I have a counterargument that means I don't look for criticism? Where does it say I don't?

How am I being judgmental of others? I believe through my experiences (and it is probably the same for others, this is what I believe and I state it) there is truth to it. I wanted to share and see what others think, both positive and negative.

I would prefer not to be insulted in the process. I do live in the moment.

Verbal masturbation in flowery language? I thought it was interesting stuff. If describing it in a positive way, with no formal 1st person, shows that I'm arrogant and trying to put myself above all people, then I guess it can't be helped. I was passionate about writing it.

This will be the last post about me being a retard, arrogant, and so forth. I really wanted to discuss the topic. If that is what some people think than it can't be helped.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_(literature)
No, tone is not subjective. No, it's not interesting to read your regurgitation of Zen concepts that you barely even understand academically. And no, that won't be the last post about you being an arrogant retard.

Learn Zen until you have the humility to save your opinions for those who ask for them.
Learn LDing until you can see past fulfilling your desire for control to all the other possibilities.
And learn communication until you realize that posting about how you pity us poor, enslaved LDers because we're too scared to live for the moment isn't a good way to start a civil discussion.

Originally Posted by DarkLucideity

I don't know if you're serious about that or not.

I can still go to the gym just as a "direct experience." It has no sway over me meaning that if I missed the gym I wouldn't get overly upset about it--I can just enjoy the gym. The reasons to why I go to work out are absent. It isn't because I want to become somebody else, etc. I sincerely like working out just for the sake of working out. Every action (or goal if you want to view it that way) becomes an action onto itself rather than for some paramount goal that can eventually be lost. If that makes sense.

Originally Posted by DarkLucideity

Sorry to break it to you - but you're a hypocrite. You can't not have goals nor work at things. It's a goal of yours to be "free" and "without goals." You worked at it by ceasing your lucid dreaming efforts and probably other goals. You're specifically trying to have freedom to reach your goal of freedom.

Not only that, with your third point you say that lucidity is good as long as you don't make any effort toward it, and living in the now is awesome. So admit it, you're just lazy. It's all right, I'm lazy too. But I'm not about to call hardworking people slaves.

Maybe I am lazy, maybe not; but, for many people giving things up is very hard because without them one feels like nothing. It gives meaning to our lives but like everything, the are impermanent. Nothing can last forever. Would you/Can you give up lucid dreaming? Would doing so make you unhappy and feel less than you once were? If it was lost and you are unable to lucid dream would you feel inferior to someone else who can/still is able too?

Originally Posted by Robot_Butler

I'm surprised everyone is taking this post so personally, and apparently getting so angry. I think you guys are misunderstanding the tone of the original post. I guess that is the risk of communicating over the internet, like this. It would be a lot easier if we could all hear each other's tone of voice, and see facial expressions

I think this is an important question. One I ask myself all the time. Not just in dreaming, but in all aspects of life. Where do you draw the line between doing something for enjoyment, and working so hard on something you become a prisoner to it? How many times have we all had to remind ourselves of our goal when learning a new skill or taking a difficult class? How many people start playing a sport because it is fun, then get so caught up in the competition, they get angry, stressed out, and stop enjoying it? How many people start using drugs for recreation, then become addicted to them and dependent on them?

Where does your line lie? Are you conscious to know when you become a prisoner of it? I may be able to understand myself more. Are you willing to lose your niche to lucid dream or do you keep going? What do you do? Do you not lucid dream and actually do do dream yoga?

Originally Posted by Robot_Butler

Have you looked into Tibetan Dream Yoga at all? It is exactly what you are talking about. If you haven't already, check out Rinpoche's book "The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep." Don't read too many posts about dream yoga here on DV. Some of them are way off the mark.

I briefly looked into it but can't say I know much about it. You say it is essentially what I'm talking about?

Also what about your view on desensitizing yourself from your dreams (nightmares lucid dreams, etc)? This does go into sociopathology. You become unresponsive to fear and so forth. For example, you subject yourself to constant nightmares and pretty soon through either breaking social conditioning, or simply until they loose there effectiveness to give you fear (your amygdala doesn't work).

I started typing a post but I gave up. You're obviously not going to start thinking logically (as in, even if you keep your opinion, not being a hypocrite about it) anytime soon anyway.

What Happiness is a Warm Gun said.

Now, even if I am enslaved, I'm really happy about it. I'm sorry you're unable to make an effort for enjoyment, but if you ever come around, I'd be glad to help you LD

But for now, I'm not going to listen to you insult me and this entire community by calling us slaves to lucid dreaming, so goodbye.

People seek lucid dreaming for various reasons. Lucid dreaming is my FREEDOM- freedom from wash-woman servitude. Because of my job, when I can’t go lucid I usually dream about washing things. (I am trying to wash away people’s troubles.) Everybody else gets to go on exotic journeys, fight DCs, participate in fun activities and etc. in their non-lucid dreams and I get stuck hand washing various items that DON”T even belong to me. I wake up feeling tired and pissed because I was the wash woman all night. For the past month I have been trying to master using a friggin power washer in lucids so when my wash-women dreams appear, I can satisfy my subconscious AND take a short cut. I even stopped by Home Depot to look at power washers so I would know exactly what to put in my lucids.

Originally Posted by ZenMan12

1) Even when you "control" your dreams, you are still driven to make yourself lucid in hopes of attaining some benefit from your lucid dreams. Indirectly, you dreams, or the context thereof, control you. If dreams weren't of any importance, would it be safe to say there one wouldn't even bother to achieve lucidity?

2) I started lucid dreaming do to the fact that I felt "free" and I could fly, etc. But with the realization of the point above dreams still held importance to me and so I figured I wasn't truly free in the sense that dreams still were able to sway me and my "happiness." Also to maintain that state causes one--if they fail, unhappiness.

In both of those, you talked about how dreams have importance to you, which in turn makes your happiness rely on whether or not you have lucid dreams. What I don't understand is why having something be important to you is such a bad thing. Like it or not, your happiness is always going to rely on something external, whether it be a relationship, having a good job, or, yes, lucid dreaming. Having nothing be important to you would be a sad existence indeed. You wouldn't care about anyone but yourself and you wouldn't have any motivation to do anything. I'm not sure how you can be happy or "free" without doing anything. Oftentimes the best things in life are the things that you have to work for and the things that have both ups and downs. In avoiding things that require effort and things that could backfire, you are limiting yourself to a very small assortment of tried-and-true activities.

For example. So many people aren't aware of what is going around them. Many people are in their heads thinking about the past and future,etc. To become conscious one just needs to be aware of the Now, the moment. This doesn't require effort, in fact, it requires no effort. You simply allow yourself to be aware of your surroundings. The more effort you put into being in the Now--the harder it becomes. You can't enjoy the Now since your trying too hard to be there. I hope this analogy makes more sense.

I actually agree with you here. Too many people just go through their daily lives like zombies, not really seeing or hearing anything, just living on autopilot. I'm sorry to say that I'm in that group of people, although I've improved greatly in the past couple of years.

At the same time, it isn't a good idea to always live only in the present. It's important to think about the future so that you'll have a future. If I only thought about what I wanted at that exact moment, I would sleep in every day, waste all my money, and not go to school. If I continued to think only of the present I would just keep spiraling downward, and I would be neither free nor happy.

Originally Posted by ZenMan12

1) Even when you "control" your dreams, you are still driven to make yourself lucid in hopes of attaining some benefit from your lucid dreams. Indirectly, you dreams, or the context thereof, control you. If dreams weren't of any importance, would it be safe to say there one wouldn't even bother to achieve lucidity?

If we take what you say here seriously, then it turns out that we should all immediately creep into our graves and die. Because every desire can be attributed to hoping to attain some benefit.

I can still go to the gym just as a "direct experience." It has no sway over me meaning that if I missed the gym I wouldn't get overly upset about it--I can just enjoy the gym. The reasons to why I go to work out are absent. It isn't because I want to become somebody else, etc. I sincerely like working out just for the sake of working out. Every action (or goal if you want to view it that way) becomes an action onto itself rather than for some paramount goal that can eventually be lost. If that makes sense.

It's hard to believe that somebody can go to gym as a direct experience but be unable to do the same with LDing. I think you're living under the influence of a self-created illusion.

Originally Posted by ZenMan12

Also, if I'm a retard why couldn't you figure out what I said?

tee hee. If I may answer that? It may be because you are a retard? Just a thought. I'm not calling you a retard, but someone thought so. So I'm just explaining, you know.