Possible problem...

I have been doing research for over two years about dreams and the role that they play in the brain, and I've come to the difficult idea that lucid dreaming is not a healthy practice for the brain to undergo. I will persist in my efforts regardless, because I see it as a small price to pay to use the world in my head as my own personal sandbox and playpen. At least, until my theory is proven correct.

My theory is as follows:

Dreams in their non-lucid state serve as a way for the brain to 'dump' its memories from short-term to long-term storage and sift through the unnecessary things we need to forget. Messing around with this process by bending the workings of a dream to our beck and whim may degrade our ability to remember and recall. My personal experience with this arose when I started practicing meditation exercises and lucid dreaming. I began to forget assignments in school (not lack the motivation and simply neglect to do it as I normally do, but actually FORGET.). Then I began to forget where I put things in my manically-organized room. (I can usually find anything in a heartbeat, but lately, I've been misplacing things badly enough that it has become a concern of mine.)

However, there is conclusive evidence to suggest otherwise (This did not appear in my personal experience, however.) and that dreaming lucidly helps us to clear our heads and actually boosts the functioning of our memory (our capacity, recall speed and clarity and our attentiveness).

Whatever the case may be, I will continue studying the habits of my memory as I get deeper into the practice of lucid dreaming. I would just like to suggest that we all (noobies and veterans alike) proceed with caution.

Even though the website does not give me enough space to use it, please remember my name as Wildfire the Tiger. (wildfirethetiger.devianart.com)

Happy dreaming to you all! ;)

Even if LDing ends up being bad for you, the average LD is several minutes. 5 or so minutes out of 8 hours isn't that big of a deal. Whether your hypothesis is correct or not I don't think it will stop people from doing so given how incredible it really is.

Besides, we don't know the purpose of dreams yet. Anything anybody tells you is entirely speculation and assumptions made on what little information we have. I'm not trying to say your hypothesis is completely wrong, nor am I trying to sound condescending, but I highly doubt LDing is in any way detrimental to your mental or physical health.

The things you say make sense, but, like Burke said, no one knows the real purpose of dreams. It is just a theory that dreams are used for filing away memories. But I don't know if Lucid Dreaming messes up your sleep or not, because you're technically "asleep" but really if you're lucid you're awake.

I'll shorten my post bcause I have to go to work very soon:

- There is not a single report of someone that is lucid 100% of their dreams. And rare are the cases of people staying lucid every night. We still don't know exactly how this "dump" of memories or passageway between short to long term memory is processed. Besides, you don't even know if you perceive all your dreams. Your conscious mind ignores many things, and maybe loads of them escape the majority of your dreams as well :)

- Maybe lucid dreaming harms health (which I really doubt it). But I just hope that we present facts are they are. So far, several hundred scientists have found nothing but positive results to memory, concentration, well-being, resulting from the practice of lucid dreaming. Not that I doubt you, but trust me when I say scientists are always careful with these brain phenomenons.

I wish you good luck. Don't understand why you can't be a bit more lengthy about your research in this forum, because I'm sure people would still like to see the results (even if it was to present with with different views and opinions or even agree with you). After all, that's so much we don't know about dreaming :)

I suppose you're right. It was just a bit of paranoia getting to me. As I said, despite this minor correlation, I won't stop here. I'll continue doing case studies of my own sleep and dreams for the next long while. I won't try to conclude anything just yet. It was just something that was brought to my attention. :D Thanks, though! I really appreciate the feedback!

I too doubt it, and I simply want to investigate this idea. Sorry if I annoyed you with my 'conspiracy theory'. :roll:

...yeah...and that's all I'm good for. Making sense. :roll:

The information in our dreams is not binary. Our brains are neural networks, and neural networks store patterns. Dreams are expressed in archetypes, which are basically patterns. You don't bend these patterns out of shape in dreams, you travel through them.

Nothing dangerous about lucid dreaming.