(I hate the term 'Newbies' - I think its belittling, but its obviously what I' m categorised with for the time being so I'll ride it out)

I'm just wondering if anyone else who has just discovering/experimenting with lucid dreaming have doubts as to if it is really possible to be 'luicd' and seemingly conscious in a dream. Being asleep by definition, is being unconcious, no? I've heard people talk of OBE's and NDE's and I don't rule anything out, but rather than anything beyond what we presently know scientificaly, I find a more simple explaination for these experiences in a biological/pyschological framework. I wonder if lucid dreaming is the same.

Do we want to believe we can be aware in a dream and hey presto! - we dream we have been aware and able to control it in the same way we incorporate things that have happened to us recently in 'real life' into dreams? Is lucid dreaming simply retrospectively reinterpreting our dreams once we wake up as having been aware when they were nothing more than the brain doing its normal nightly 'data dump'?

Phil
p.s. I like being an advocate of the devil I have this real cynical/idealistic duality going on.