Aaaah yes.. the "Emperor's new clothes" syndrome is alive and well.Quote:
Originally Posted by DuB
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Aaaah yes.. the "Emperor's new clothes" syndrome is alive and well.Quote:
Originally Posted by DuB
Seconded. It can be pretty hard sometimes to achieve things you want in an LD and many things I tried were simply impossible. Sure, the capacity of the mind sets the limit, but what else can be said about waking reality. Nevertheless there are rules and it doesn't mean you're able to break them, yet you can find other ways.Quote:
Originally Posted by Oneiro
"Sure, the capacity of the mind sets the limit.."
Hmmm.. not sure about this "mind" thing.. I worry that it's just a concept, a "construct" of some description..
Dogma, even..
??
I guess it's just some name for something so we can pretend to know about it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Oneiro
Yep. That's my suspicion too.
I'm not saying that anyone can do it. I'm jsut saying that anything totally graspable by our minds can be translated in a dream. I was responding to the suggestion that a dream realm has it's own limitaitons parralelling physical limitaitons.Quote:
Really? How do you know that? I would bet that you've just read that somewhere. Have you successfully tried everything "conceivable to the mind"? I would have to say that I strongly doubt that.
There are several "simple" things that most so-called "LDers" cannot do.. and several not so "simple" too.
Here is what I was saying...Quote:
I disagree. Many things exist irrespective of one's personal attention. Now.. if you had written "things disappear if you don't focus your attention on them.." well.. that would be different.
In a dream, there is no preexisting world. things are created and changes as the mind focuses on them. It's not as if we are traversing through a dreamscape.
Who's guide was it that said that? It was a really good one...
Maybe not expectations that are apparent to your foremost thoughts. If you read on a forum, (just an example,) "My DC pulled out his own heart and it turned into a grenade!" You probably won't expect that to happen at least not in your foremost thoughts. But if later that night in an LD a DC pulls out his heart and it turns into a grenade, that is not coincidence. Your mind was influenced.Quote:
Speaking from my own personal experience, I had absolutely NO expectations whatsoever when I first started to "talk to DCs" in lucid dreaming.
I love how you took my post entirly out of context by using one sentance in a paragraph. In context, I said we don't expend energy in the sense that we don't have some dream mana bar that can be consumed. Keep the discussion in context.Quote:
Come on. A human expends energy all the time, whether awake or asleep.
No. If a DC is all in your head, it can't have desire's of it's own since it doesn't exist independantly. It's all within your mind. It's 'your' manifestations.Quote:
Huh? Your empirical evidence?
Look, a DC isn't independantly real. It only exists within your mind.Quote:
Evidence? None. Just speculation. Oh.. and btw.. EVERYTHING "disappears" if you don't focus your attention on it, asleep OR awake.
Is there a possibility I'm wrong on this? Sure. It hasn't been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt either way. But unless you think that DCs are jumping from dream to dream OR that we are entering a dreamscape of some kind, then they are our thoughts. Nothing more.
When I say that it can be done, I don't imply consistently or with everyone. But it can be done in a dream. If not sone on command, at least one has the potential.Quote:
No you couldn't.. not necessarily. Don't believe the hype about "everything is possible" in LDing. It isn't. And if you want to cite anecdotal evidence such as is found on this site, I would strongly advise you to remember the "validity quotient".
Or some have the potential.
Just because something is debatable dosen't mean it is fiction. Phsycology is much more reliable, (even if it's changing,)_ then a preumption about an alternate reality.Quote:
You mean Psychology? Heh. Ever had a good rap with a Psychologist? Their "science" changes all the time.. goalposts move.. it's possibly the most inexact science that there is. In effect, they are shooting at the moon.. and an honest one will admit it. A bad example to use, spockman.
First off, you don't know how many LDs I've had. Secondly, I'm not proposing the ideas based on my conclusions. I'm saying that the conclusions of some people in this forum should probably be rethought.Quote:
Huh? A "few encounters"? Why are you assuming that? Projecting? Isn't it you who has "conclusions" after just a few LDs?
It was a response to the proposition that dreams and the brain aren't neccessarily realted. They are. I stand by that.Quote:
Ummm.. yes.. so are you saying that this proves that LDing is "all in the mind"? Because if so, it doesn't at all. It just proves that something is going on in the brain whilst LDing, that's all.
In some respects, granted.Quote:
Your conclusions about it are speculation, however.
We can argue semantics all day. There were probably better words to use.Quote:
"Likelihood"? Sounds like bias to me.
I'm not arguing you there... for you.Quote:
I disagree. That may be true for non-lucids, "dream incubation" and all that.. but IMO in proper LDing it is NOT your subconscious that is at the forefront.. it has to be your conscious self IF you do it properly. Otherwise it wouldn't be "lucid" dreaming, you know, being conscious while fast asleep.
If you feel that you can better introspect yourself in another way then go for it. I use LDing as a way to introspect. Those are personal reasons to LD.
In my first lucid dream, which happened when I was 6 or 7, I was walking down the street in a city with my family. Everything was made of cheese, even my family. It was the stereotypical cheddar cheese dotted with holes. I was not, though. So, as I walked down the street, I realized that I was dreaming. I began to cry. I asked my "fake" mother how I could get back to the real world, and she told me to shut my eyes tightly. I did, and I woke up. I still use that technique to this day, and I also used it a lot as a kid during nightmares.
In my dreams, the DCs are usually my friends or anime characters. I remember asking one of my best friends where I was and she said,"Where do you think?" giving me this "are-you-stupid-or-something?" look.
For the most part, I can't remember my conversations with dream characters. I remember my questions, they usually have something to do with my dream. Their replies usually have to do with my mood.
If I go to bed feeling worried, the DC's replies only deepen that worry.
"Did I hurt my friend's feelings?"
"Probably. That was pretty bitchy."
"D:"
My dream characters are kind of mean. D: They're only willing to help if I present an important question. Otherwise, they give get all mad at me for asking such stupid questions.
Like, I should know.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Moonbeam
This was a while back on page 3.
Thats very wierd because my subconscious's nickname is fuse =D
i wonder if hes been out visiting people in theyre dreams lol (he also has blue eyes)
Has anyone realized that some DC's have a more human personality than others? Some seem like figments and wisps, hollow even, and others have a very intense depth to them, or in comparison tot hose other ones anyway?
DC's are just non-existant objects. If you expect, not hope, them to be helpful, they will. I would still like to make friends with a recurring dream character, so I have someone to talk to if I'm bored.
This is certainly the theory. However, I and many others have found that, while expectations are certainly a significant determining factor in things such as DC behavior and dream control, they are not the whole story. Often the behavior of DCs defies our expectations. As RadiantZeal noted, sometimes they will be coherent while other times they will be quite random. Sometimes they will be amiable, while other times they will be hostile, and at still other times they will be impassive. Sometimes they acknowledge my lucidity and sometimes they deny it.Quote:
Originally Posted by PSPSoldier534
The point I'm trying to make is that there is a certain element of randomness which is present in all dreams - including lucid dreams. While expectations are an important factor, if you put all of your faith in them, you are going to be surprised and disappointed. As I occasionally tell beginners who ask about dream control, lucid dreams are not "The Matrix."
Actually they are. I don't believe in the randomness, and I've never had a DC act out in my dreams (even though they are mostly very short). But, I guess it is also possible to program them to be random or surprising.
Haha, spoken as someone who has only had seven lucids :tongue: And even if that's not the case... you are so an outlier...Quote:
Originally Posted by PSPSoldier534
Well, I guess I'll just have to wait for someone to act out.
My theory on the Dream world is that is our Unified consciousness, and we experience it consciously during sleep. Everything I have experienced so far has pointed to this. Of course, it would explain that some of the characters are indeed created by our selves, and others are actually other peoples consciousness and/or characters we are interacting with. I have met characters that have such a vivid and deep personality, as well as appearance, my mind, as imaginative as it is, couldn't imagine some of the characters I come across. I can actually feel the depth to them, as if they are more than just some figment of my imagination.
One of the things I look forwards to in dream is the interaction of characters. An the interactions I have with many of them, is hollow and superficial and hazy; unsubstantial to the extreme, as if they don't really have any personality other than a few basic characteristics. They are like wisps and ghosts.
The others have literal and figurative substance to them, very much like a human beings consciousness would. They have personality that goes beyond just a few characteristics, and they always appear less hazy and wispy, even if they are (I know its confusing, but what I mean by this is although they appear in that dream-like state of haziness, they are far from ghostlike). It's like instead of you looking at a floating sheet, you are looking at a floating sheet with a person inside of it.
And the reactions I get from some of them when I ask them questions indicate a deep intelligence or at least a partial awareness, rather than the replies of those wisps, which tend to be no more than single minded answers or unemotional replies, and often times if there is emotion to the replies, it is of a single emotion rather than a multiple array of emotion.
I don't know. The characters in my dreams are pretty deep in emotion and personalities, all very original, but I always feel like I know them, like I have those emotions and personalities disguised in me.
I am currently reading "30 Years Among The Dead" by Wickert, a 1920s psychologist who healed mentally ill people by using a medium. The book contains his experiences of 30 years with possession causing split personalities and multiple personalities he describes. Of course "school medicine" ignores that approach, though it seems he was very successful completely restoring many of his patients mental health. As he describes, possession happens out of ignorance, the dead that do not know they are dead. Just like the dreamer that does not know he is dreaming.
The dreamstate may simply be a connection to the invisible world for the living (those that are in possession of a body). That's what was and still partially is believed by many cultures for hundreds of year, including many european people.
The dream characters I meet do have an own personality, but they mostly pretend to be someone I know. As soon as I become lucid or wake up this is obvious. Sometimes I see that they realize when I become lucid... and they don't like it. They don't attack me or something like that, but I can see it in their faces. Sometimes they make cheap excuses and get away quickly. I don't believe in subconsciousness and autosuggestion, I believe in what makes sense to me. And if it's the existence of different layers of existence with beings existing in a different state, then be it so. I don't need to drag along other explanations when there is one that is obvious, just because it is not popular.
From all the lucid dreams I remember, my dream characters usually didn't respond, would run away, or would dissapear completely to the point where I was the only living object in the dream. Some of them would run away real fast and I couldnt keep up with them. I dont' know why that happens. Apparently I expected it to, otherwise it wouldnt of happened. But, I wonder why they do that. I remember once I made a Dream character of my own self image and it didnt really have any life. It just stood there looking at me with no movement whatsoever.
Oh how I wish this thread hadn't just dissolved into arguing about parapsychology and all that. That's never going to end well for anyone. The guys who believe it will just act high and mighty about it, as if they know something that the rest of us don't, and call us closed minded, rather than accept the often more-than valid points made against them. It's basically just a battle of ignorance. There's a whole section for all your paranormal nonsense. I was thinking that this section was just for actual discussion.
And back to the subject matter....
My DC's (which I entirely believe are simply constructs of my own mind) are a mixed bunch. Sometimes within the same crowd of people, some will willingly accept I'm dreaming, others will outright deny it, while others still will simply try to ignore it, and on rare occasions I've had DCs trying to explain to other DCs that I'm dreaming. A few times I've even been ridiculed by own my DCs for thinking that the other people I'm talking to are real, and for thinking they will remember those conversations back into my waking life. (No paranormal nonsense here please, I in no way think they are seperate entities.)
As for getting help from them....well, it's not so much that they refuse to give me any, for whatever situation I'm in, it's just that they never seem to have a clue how to help me, or simply aren't in the situation to. Example- in my last lucid, I couldn't do things I can usually do in lucid dreams such as flying etc, and when I asked my DC friend what was going wrong, he just acted like I had asked him to work out the exact age of the universe using pythagoras. When another friend tried to help me to float by lifting me up, I ended up just falling and completely flattening him, which seemed to take him by surprise just as much as me.
Oh a long post again....damn. Well...I guess to sum up, DCs are wild. Literally feral.
Damn, you don't believe that. You KNOW it.Quote:
which I entirely believe are simply constructs of my own mind
I also think whatever happens in a dream is simply constructs of my own mind. But I can't make up my mind about dream characters: A) They only exist when I'm dreaming they disappear when I'm awake. What they tell is my words, what they feel is my emotions and what they know is what I've acknowledged. Boundaries of their behaviour is boundaries of my mind. They can't supposedly surprise me because what they are capable of is already within me.
B) They are in my mind but they keep doing their stuff when I'm awake. They have consciousnesses of their own caused by my anatomical formations. They can reach implications that I haven't before. Therefore they can form information I haven't encountered. (New ideas in my dreams lead me to think about this one, they're not groundbreaking but still exciting to be inspired when not conscious)
C) A little bit of this, a little bit of that. (Partially A, partially B)
What does everyone else think? I'm really curious about your opinions
I thought that's obvious.Quote:
They only exist when I'm dreaming they disappear when I'm awake.
When there's a chair in your dream, do you think it is still in your mind when you're awake? No, because it was just a part of your dream. Same with people. When you read something and then a DC is talking with you about that in a dream, it doesn't mean he was reading too. It's your brain, your memories and your temporary creations. Duh.
I also agree on most part but I can't ignore the fact that in my skull there is material needed (a healthy cortex fed/drained by veins) to create consciousness so why let it be only mine. There could be very well a little part of your brain that's activated in your REM period and runs the cognitional procceses of dream characters.Quote:
Originally Posted by anonymous
What I'm saying is there is not much difference between the real word and your thoughts in terms of neuronal conduction except for the part where you sense the stimulation. Briefly when you see a real life character it goes like:
Eye > Optic Nerve > Thalamus > Cortex > ...(depends on your reaction)
when you see a DC it follows the same pathway after Cortex. My point is existance of waking life characters is just as much dependant on your perception/senses as dream characters.
I like this notion... it also may explain why I can have dreams that I am someone completely different! Hmm, would be nice to do a study on this, or at least read one! hahaQuote:
Originally Posted by firat