Some doubts and possible warnings on lucid dreaming.

Hi guys. Having a lucid dream was always a chalenge for me, but isn't it unsafe trying to fool your brain? Its more about wild than anything, or even WBTB. DILD or anything similar that doesnt make you wake up in the night seems more safe... I think thats unsafe because I always thought that our health comes with good sleep. People doing WILD are sriously toying with REM cycless which are very important. I read some article a while ago about some experiments about REM cycles on the USA and the guys who experimented it ended crazy with mental sickness. But its just my worries because we are toying with our brain, something that we dont know what we are messing with, like the pandora box. I know that they seem very cool, but think about it... Just trying to help the community. Sorry for the lack of coesion in the text, Im not english :D

but all you do is wake up and go back to sleep people do that all the time anyways...

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some experiments about REM cycles on the USA and the guys who experimented it ended crazy with mental sickness.

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The experiments you're talking about likely involved sleep deprivation. Messing with your sleep cycle does have potentially harmful short-term effects.

That said, lucid dreaming doesn't necessarily affect the length or quality of your REM sleep, it just allows you to be aware.

Please do not spread fear with misinformation.

Lucid dreaming is completely safe, and natural.

There is nothing to fear. Your worries are baseless.

I am not even going to be bothered with any 'techniques' except learning to recognize when I am in a dream by constantly asking myself throughout the day if I am dreaming, looking at my hands, checking if I am dreaming whenever I pass through a doorway or look at a clock (sorry, I'm a newb, not sure what you call this method). I am sure as others have said that it all methods are completely safe and this gentleman you refer to was put under extreme conditions, but if you are really worried, just try and recognize when you are in a dream. It just takes a few seconds out of your day to check every now and then. However, I wouldn't worry about any of the techniques being discussed. Nobody is recommending smoking crack or anything, it's just sleep. I would wager if anything, that it is beneficial, as most of them use recall, concentration, relaxation, and meditation, all of which are in fact, very good for you.

Most importantly (and as Nina said), lucid dreaming is natural. We are not 'hacking our brains', as some people might interpret it.
How many people do you know have realized they were having a nightmare, and either wished to wake up, or have been able to actually wake themselves up to escape the dream? Probably a lot. That is essentially what lucid dreaming (and in that case, dream control; ending the dream) is all about. Now how many of those people that you know - who have used that escape - method are insane due to not letting those dreams play out? Or even bordering on insane? I doubt very many.

When you are changing the dream, you are really just interjecting a thought into a stream of subconscious thoughts. Like when you're thinking and idly switch trains of thought, from one thing to the next. If you see a werewolf in a dream and make yourself unafraid to rush him and attack him bare-handed, that doesn't mean that - when you're awake - your mind is not going to know that if you see a werewolf in real life you should haul ass. The mind can normally differentiate fact from fiction (when intelligent enough to do so, as the average person is), so living out fiction while dreaming, in my opinion, would have little to no affect on how you perceive waking life. Do you have any theories as to why it would - or what ill effects controlling a dream might cause? If not, do you know of any?

you might have heard about sleep deprived people, or those trying out those napped based sleep schedules. They sometimes have major sleep disruptions, but losing a half hour won't do anything as long as you make sure to compensate for it.

Sorry If I spread a little fear but there was something on me that didnt like the idea of wilding and I just put out a doubt. Sure lucid dreaming won't do anything bad its just recognizing that youre dreaming. I just had to put it out off me. Sorry guys.

PS: some of that doubt came from my dad :cheeky:

As people have said, there seems to be little evidence of ill effects of lucid dreaming. However, I guess there might be some reasons LDs could be considered harmful.

If you consider that sleep is basically a break for your conscious mind, you might say that spending too much time lucid wouldn't give you that necessary break, leaving you burned out after a while.

There might also be some objections to lucid dreaming on the topic of memory: as far as I have read, dreams play a significant role in preserving memories, so perhaps "interrupting" the normal flow of associations or whatever in the dream through conscious control could interfere with memory?

I'd like to say I don't particularly believe in these ideas myself -- I don't know enough about sleep to say they are true -- but I'd love if someone had anything to share in opposition to these claims.

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If you consider that sleep is basically a break for your conscious mind, you might say that spending too much time lucid wouldn't give you that necessary break, leaving you burned out after a while.

There might also be some objections to lucid dreaming on the topic of memory: as far as I have read, dreams play a significant role in preserving memories, so perhaps "interrupting" the normal flow of associations or whatever in the dream through conscious control could interfere with memory?

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It's not as if you're lucid dreaming 100% of the time while you're asleep! :P People generally have FAR more non-lucid than lucid dreams, even if they don't remember them. And there's also non-REM sleep.

To the OP: Your perception will define your reality. If you view Lucid dreaming with fear, you will project that. Everyone is different. Perhaps you should better understand yoursefl and your fears so you don't create issues for yourself.

You don't understand WILD at all, you aren't depriving your body of sleep, you aren't adversely effecting mental health. All you are doing is going back to sleep after you wake up and remaining aware so you can enter a dream.

You're not toying with your brain if you practice WILD like normal people, the worst that can happen is you just fall back asleep. There are members on this forum who've been WILDing for years, and they are just fine.

That having been said, messing with your sleep cycles to adjust REM will at worst mess up your sleep schedule and make you lose rest for the additional chance to LD.

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Originally Posted by J.D.

It's not as if you're lucid dreaming 100% of the time while you're asleep! :P People generally have FAR more non-lucid than lucid dreams, even if they don't remember them. And there's also non-REM sleep.

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Well, yes, but the question is not how important the negative effects are, but whether they exist. I was just considering an "ideal" situation where you spend most of your time lucid dreaming, or at least most of your REM sleep lucid dreaming. Considering that, I remain curious as to whether my proposed objections to lucid dreaming (once again, I'm playing the devil's advocate, I'm not really confident in these objections) hold or not.