Dangers of lucid dreaming, etc.

Hi, I'm pretty new to the whole lucid dreaming scene, only had one or two, so I was wondering if someone could help me.

I have heard that is definately safe to LD, and i blindly agree with this, but I was wondering about something. While lucid dreaming, it seems as though you consciousness is engulfed by your subconscious, rather than the other way around (or words to that effect), and I was wondering if anyone knows of any dangers of getting too, you know, involved with your subconscious?

Can lucid dreaming perhaps open too many possibilities with regards to the human mind? Because I'm a newbie in this area I have been looking over the whole theory side and not so much the practical side, and been thinking of a whole lot of ideas that may or may not be possible. After mentioning these to a friend he told me that it is dangerous to do those things, so I am a bit worried.

Thanks for any help.

I've researched plenty on LD'ing, and not once did I ever hear of a case study of LD'ing being harmful to one's own self. Many brilliant men, like the psychologist Carl Jung, had a profound ability to lucid dream.

I believe that consciousness itself is the most prominent aspect of our minds, so there is little danger in observing the subconscious in the dreams. Dreams are only projections from the subconscious. If the subconscious were so bad, if would have eaten you up already. Misinterpretation of the subconscious is what may be off-track at times.

I mean, some people can be disturbed by their minds, of course, but as one person said (forgot who), "dreams are where man can be safely insane." :-P I've had LD experience, and it's only liberating, as opposed to negatively consuming. In terms of common sense, you dream all the time, and it's nothing out of the ordinary, the only difference is being aware of'em.

Thanks, but I have no doubt it is safe to LD. What I am asking is whether it is dangerous or not to do things somewhat associated with LD's, experimenting with the subconscious and so forth.

Most of the ideas I had when I read up on LD's were quite abstract, although im sure I could think of a practical application, and are not documented anywhere. I am fairly sure they would take advantage of your subconscious and shifting states of mind.

I think what I am really asking is: what, exactly, is the subconscious compared to real life consciousness, and can it be damaged by your own mind, if anyone knows.

Thanks.

I really doubt you can damage it in any way. It's not that fragile, I would hope.

Well, you could conceivably create bad habits. In much the same way as you can use hypnosis / self-hypnosis to alter your habits and beliefs, it is quite possible to do the same in a lucid dream.
That being said, it is generally pretty safe, as long as you don't go around telling your subconscious that you have a stomache ulcer and will die as soon as you wake up.
Even then, I suspect that the subconscious would just turn it into part of the dream, and it would be ignored upon waking

What I have done, is to speak to a manifestation of my subconscious and actually had an argument with it.
The result? I had problems with lucid dreams from then on (for a month or two)
Is that all? Yes
Your subconscious has your well-being at heart, and does not consider your awareness in a dream to be advantageous. If you piss it off, it will piss on you - but only in trivial ways. It will never result in your subconscious affecting you in any 'real' way IMO.

You have to keep in mind what the subconscious is... it is simply fertile soil for planting seeds of thought.
Anything you plant, will develop and grow - both good and bad

Naturally, any healthy person does not wish harm upon themselves, thus their subconscious has a healthy respect of a fit mind and body. That's what keeps your heart pumping IMO :P

What about damaging your own mind in a non destructive way (if you know what i mean, like change your perspective for the worse) VIA your subconscious by trying abstract ideas such as experimenting with taking your awareness in and out of dreams (reverse WILD?) to try and obtain more control over the flow between dream and reality.

That is just one idea, and i know it could very well be impossible, as could my other ideas. I am far from having the ability to try any out, but thats the problem. I would want to know whether i could cause myself metaphorical harm by doing it before finding out the hard way.

If you dont have a clue what I am talking about or think I'm nuts or something dont worry about it, I'm sure not many people would know the answers anyway.

lucid dreaming is perfectly safe. It's even more than safe. It raises awareness and provokes thought of the senses and such. There are however such rare rare cases where dreamers have such amazing dreams that they can be affected by them. However, trust me, it wont happen to any of us.

Well, Ima tell you a different answer then most. It is my belief that yes lucid dreaming "can" be extremely dangerous.

(Note to all: I know this sounds like a load of crap. Believe me or not it is your choice.)


With thought I can increase and decrease the size of my pupils. I found this out by simply thinking if it is possible and then telling myself that it is. I looked into a mirror with an average amount of light by it (the bathroom), braced myself so that I was absolutely still, opened my eyes so the whole pupil was shown, and thought about them getting bigger like Number Five's eyes from short circuit. After about a minute or two of thinking they started to grow and soon the pupil covered a good portion of the iris. Then I thought about how it is possible and they went back to normal. After they were normal I thought about them getting smaller but they did not change so I put more thought into it and that's when they started to shrink. After doing it a lot it is now much easier but shrinking them still takes more thought then enlarging them. I'm not sure if the pupil size has anything to do with this but I also found that I can sit in a dark room with a open door shedding light and imagine a blanket of darkness engulfing it and what I see is darkness moving along the walls and eating the light away till it is gone. My eyes do not close when I am doing this.

Another thing I found I can do is slow down my heart and change the beat pattern (which by the way is not good from my understanding so dont try it). I did this on purpose once and it scared the (****) out of me, every now and then I'll start thinking about it and it will happen again.

I can do other things but these two things are things that the body (I think anyway) should have a stopper in. If you have your pupils all the way open and look at the sun it would be bad, and if you thought and your heart stopped then your dead... I do not believe you'll be hurt if you dont believe you'll be hurt. So if you think dreaming is safe then it is.

Here is a link on thinking about exercise, I dont know if the link is reliable but I know something like this was on the discovery channel or discovery health.

poster above... I'm unsure what this has to do with lucid dreaming. Maybe you missed the connection?
are you saying excess thought can alter your bodies state or what? like clarify, because it doesn't make to much sense to me right now...

Quote:

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Originally posted by sephiroth clock
poster above... I'm unsure what this has to do with lucid dreaming. Maybe you missed the connection?
are you saying excess thought can alter your bodies state or what? like clarify, because it doesn't make to much sense to me right now...

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Sorry, I was getting ready for bed when I wrote that. Yes I'm saying that thought can alter the bodies current state.

probably, LD'ing CAN be dangerous. But I don't know what's the point of thinking about that. No matter what you do in an LD, I doubt it can reap totally bad results, because you're aware of your control of it, and realistically speaking, knowing it's a dream.

Dreams are different than what you were talking about Newmoon. I know it's possible to change your heart rate (my dad can do it and I can to a small degree) and the kinds of things you were talking about require only the proper training, either by yourself or with the aid of a professional. If you've ever heard of biofeedback then you know what I'm talking about. It's possible to consciously change your pupil size and if I recall correctly, it's one method some people use during lie-detecting tests.

Dreaming is different, though. Since you are sleeping, your subconscious has taken several precautions to make sure you can't hurt yourself. The basic (autonomic) body functions are regulated and the body is, in essence, paralysed. So, it would be very difficult for someone to harm themselves unless one of those autonomic functions were disrupted, which is very difficult to do. That's just my take on it :D

-Amé