The worth of lucid dreaming

Hey all. I'm very interested in lucid dreaming and am delighted to have found this forum!

By way of introduction, I'd like to try and start a discussion about a question I've been pondering lately.

Re-reading LaBerge's 'Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming' has made me curious about the worth of lucid dreaming itself - whether or not it is better to be able to have lucid dreams; to be conscious whilst sleeping.

I can certainly see the appeal of lucid dreams - to be equipped with all of the senses you have in waking life, in an environment which is limited only by your own imagination. However, I wonder whether we lose something by learning to become lucid in our dreams. I often have what I'd call meaningful dreams, dreams that have given me insight into my own life and feelings, dreams which, if I had been lucid in, would not have been so useful to me.

What I'm trying to say is: don't we need this access to our unconscious mind? Isn't it more valuable than appeasing ourselves through conscious, or lucid, wish-fulfilment?

In one sense, I can see how being able to have lucid dreams would be a very worthy thing. Considering how wildly different dreaming can be to waking life, it's a wonder how many more people aren't capable of lucid dreaming. Surely the ability to have lucid dream shows that you have a good clear grasp on the real world, on how things should be and really are in waking life.

Any thoughts?

Sorry about the over-long introduction! I'm a philosophy student forced into idleness by the waiting for the next semester!

Hello, welcome to dreamviews.

Firstly, and I am sure many members will agree... is that Lucidity and Dream control are two different things. If you are worried about the supression of subconscious workings then you do not have to take charge of the dream. I find it unlikely that if dreaming were meant to be completely unconscious that we would dream at all. There has to be a worth of dreaming, if there is no worth for dreaming, why do we do it? If you were unconscious in your dream was there any point in doing it? Is there any benefit from that which you don't experience. Theres obviously many contesting approaches to this, which are indeed very philosophical. Does anything exist outside of that which you are conscious of? In a personal dream the collective consciousness does not really cater for binding reality down, so if you don't remember it, is it because it never happened?

I for one don't believe that any harm comes from lucid dreaming. Sure many people may use it to further their own wish fufillment and granted evolution would favour immorality to be in the mind to help co-operation, rather than in the physical. No species thrives through division. Are we beyond this level of animalistic behaviour? If anything, the dynamic and fluid environment of the dreamscape is a brilliant mechanism through which to observe your unconscious mind to learn from. The lack of restriction through fear of punishment can lay down a reflection of yourself and actions unobtainable in the physical world. I believe that learning to live with your subconscious/unconscious is a vital step in personal improvement, and what better place to do so than the dream world: the domain of the subconscious itself.

When I lucid dream, I am but a tiny conscious fragment acting as a rather humble visitor to my massive subconscious mind.

I can not control much at all, just enough to explore. Most lucid dreamers do not simply control everything, not at all. It's hard, near impossible to escape the subconscious influence on the environment. Your unconscious mind doesn't let up on you simply because you are lucid, oh no, its far more clever than that. I will go a step further and say its having just as much as an effect now in everyday waking life, it never misses the opportunity to show you something for as long as you are open to it. Why are you attracted to certain things, why do you react to certain situations? Your unconscious mind is screaming out for attention all the time, why not have a listen.

Lucid dreaming simply comes down to that for me. Opening your eyes to a place where before you were blind/ignorant. Why have half of reality when you can have a go at the whole. Awareness and Synchronisity (try reading some Jung on that) are the most important parts of a persons development. Lucid dreaming is probably one of the most purest ways of doing such, because of its fluidity.

Thanks for reading that fairly uncohesive rant, if you did :)

I will start off by saying Hi! :D

I can see where your coming from it is a very good point. Ive heard of a few people that have invented things from a Lucid dream so they can't be all that bad, I have never had a Lucid dream personally so i do have "normal dreams" all the time and some of the things your mind comes up with is amazing! But i would like to have control over my dreams once in a while, to go to the places i want to go, and to see the things i want to see.

Stephen Laberge addresses this very topic in the beginning chapters of EWOLD. The way he explains it is that dreams are not, as many people think, "messages from the unconscious," but rather an interaction between our conscious and unconscious minds. When you look at it this way, there is no way it could be harmful or detrimental to introduce more awareness into this interaction, indeed such meaningful dreams as the ones you pointed out could only be enhanced by an addition of consciousness. But it's obviously up to you whether or not you actually think it's worth it to learn the art of lucid dreaming. Don't think it will be easy though, it's not that it's hard, but it takes real patience and dedication.

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Originally Posted by LeeLee

Sorry about the over-long introduction! I'm a philosophy student forced into idleness by the waiting for the next semester!

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