Which would you choose? Why?
A softer question is, if you could spend the rest of your life in a lucid dream, would you (the alternative being reality with occasional lucid dreaming through practice)?
Which would you choose? Why?
A softer question is, if you could spend the rest of your life in a lucid dream, would you (the alternative being reality with occasional lucid dreaming through practice)?
Reality.
Dreams are as mysterious as life on some elementary level. But on the level we experience them, they might just as well be called "illusions". For all practical purposes I can say that I know to what point dreams are limited, I know the power I hold over them and I get the idea to what it would be like for them to replace waking life. If I disregard everything else, the thought of knowing everything that can be known would screw me up pretty good. The mystery of the universe as something I'll never understand fully is what makes my existence interesting and worth living. Lets just say I couldn't continue to live in "The Matrix" after I'd have been told the truth. Which is pretty much what you're suggesting.
A reality that isn't real, which is how never-ending dreams would probably be experienced, seems like a hellish place to be in, at least experinced by my current state of being. I might not care if I was some buddhist on a serious path to enlightenment, or super-God-lder, but since I'm not, I'd most likely go crazy - the prospect of such a life seems like schizophrenia, but worse.
Right now I would choose waking life, but I think later in life I would choose dream life. There are certain kinds of human relationships I want to explore first.
I need wonder. I need awe. As Bonsay said, reality is more interesting. Not knowing all of the "why" is what makes life so beautiful. In a dream, you are alone, and not just with respect to other people (but it's the same concept). The dream is just you. All your dream characters were created by you. It's not infinite.
I mean, I do get awe in lucid dreams. But only as a contrast/comparison to reality. I will think that it's amazing that my mind can form such a complex scene, but that depends on a physical mind, the awe stems from mechanics of reality. I will lust over dream sunsets and detailed scenery, but that's a sense of wonder that is most intense, if in moderation. And what better moderator of sunset and scenery than the brownian equations at play in reality (which are in and of themselves something to marvel)?
I am going to step out of the norm of this thread and say that I would love to live in a lucid dream. My only reason being that the monotony of life has just got me so depressed, it's the same crap every single day. In a dream, since it's created by me, I could make it close to reality. Make myself even believe it's reality, but still hold the power to change my life in ways that destroy my hatred of it. I could make sure it stays new, where I haven't had a new experience in real life in a long time.
Do I live for, say, 25 years then go into the dream?? Because otherwise I wouldn't know anything and my dream, whether I knew i was dreaming or not, would just be nothing, because I wouldn't have ever known anything.
Maybe before I die I could go into a lucid dream forever ... :) That would be nice... Living forever, having experienced the world enough so that life as a lucid dream wouldn't be too boring... Or maybe... What if that IS what happens when you die!? What if that's Heaven :O
Waking life, because there are other people here. I hope to experience death fully, too, so I'll stick with the occasional LDs I have now :)
hehe, that's a pretty good description of samsara, i.e. how we experience reality now.Quote:
Originally Posted by bonsay
waking life, for sure. the unpredictability of a world that does not revolve around you, creativity and imagination from inspiration, those who have influenced me throughout my life to make me who i am today, and just simply because this place is real, and the other place is not... it is always just a manifestation of the wonderful world we live in.
in another 30 years, that when i would want to. That way i've gathered enough information to apply it to my dreams. I would not be lonely because i believe the Dc's would always be all the others way you don't look at everything so they would seem to be different people then you, also after experiencing most of what this world has to offer, i would be able to experience a reality influenced by my mind and i would be able to do so much and have so much more than i ever could. I know some dreams can seem to last for a long ass time, so maybe this, maybe the month before i die i go into a super long ass dream... but i for sure would want to be awake when i die. I've paid for my tickets, i wanna go on that ride lol
Yeah, But it's not percieved "in your face", like dreams are relative to waking life. Not for your everyday human... That is, if you don't "make" yourself percieve it - which is where the hellish existential angst I was talking about may kick in.Quote:
Originally Posted by Taosaur
Well, I think that real life is more predictable than dream life. Using such sciences as psychology, physics, and chemistry, we can (to an extent) guess what's going to happen in normal circumstances. However, you can't truly guess what those circumstances are going to be.
Conversely, in dream life, you still won't be able to know the circumstances of any situation before they happen, and they'll be much less predictable. Although, with a lot of willpower, you can control everything that happens, I imagine that being a tiresome existence. However, you can't really be sure that waking life is anything more than a perception, or something our mind has created, the same way a dream is.
I believe we have all already chosen on that.
Honestly, my first reaction is
"Lucid dream forever? Hell yes!"
Some people have said reality would be better because dreams have limits. Well, reality has a lot more limits! I'm pretty sure the combined imaginings of my concious and unconcious mind can come up with at least as much variety as I'll find in waking life, which, let's face it, can get depressingly monotonous if you let it. Not that I'm not going to try to avoid that - but we all have routines of some kind, and I've always longed for exploration.
Now, I have gone exploring. I've tried new things, visited new places, and life is good. But there is so much more we could do in a dream, and all the time. No responsibilities is another massive bonus. I'm a very responsible person, and I do what I have to, but a life devoted to personal enjoyment would be just that - more enjoyable.
Also, from a metaphysical, philisophical standpoint, you can't really prove that waking life is any more "real" than dreams at all.
In the end, there are only two things that tie me to reality. First of all, the joy of learning. Would there be mysteries in a dream world? Would it contain a sort of science, which I would still be able to explore, wonder at, and learn? Maybe it would, and I could spend my life mastering control of the dream world and discovering how to do all that crazy telepathic stuff some people talk about.
And secondly, other people. Since all DCs would ultimately be a product of my own mind, I doubt they could be as interesting as other people in the waking world (not for long, at least). So it might be lonely.
Here's my final answer: if it's at all possible to mentally progect, to connect with other people in dreams, then yes yes YES, I would give anything to live forever in a lucid dream. If not, then I would have to explore lucid dreaming more, to learn about its possibilities and limits, before I could decide.
With regard to the normal laws of physics: reality. Dreams are too...strange and fuzzy, I guess. It can be hard to keep up a plot, and remembering what to do is a bugger. Also, you'd never get any input from others, which is sort of troubling.
BUT
If you were to ramp things up beyond normal restrictions, basically real life with virtual omnipotency, I'd take dreaming any day.
Not that it might be lonely... We are social beings, we would go nuts in short time without real contacts. Only a suicidal person would seriously choose that kind of lower reality.Quote:
Originally Posted by Squirx
Well, look around you. Many people on this planet would call your life a fascinating lucid dream. There is so much to explore and be grateful for. Who's to say this reality isn't a dream after all? :)Quote:
Here's my final answer: if it's at all possible to mentally progect, to connect with other people in dreams, then yes yes YES, I would give anything to live forever in a lucid dream. If not, then I would have to explore lucid dreaming more, to learn about its possibilities and limits, before I could decide.
This reality of course.
If I wanted to stay in something alike a lucid dream I wouldn't have come here in the first place, there is a good reason we are here, now.
My first post exactly.Quote:
Originally Posted by Specialis Sapientia
What, exactly, is the difference?
None, that question was stupid in both.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xaqaria
No, I mean what is the difference between a dream and reality?Quote:
Originally Posted by TheLucid
In a dream, you're basically with your subconscious....you just kind of jive with what your brain already knows. You don't take in any external knowledge or experience, so you don't really grow at all. In reality, you interact with others, gather new information and data, and improve yourself (typically).
That sounds like an opinion to me. I learn things I didn't know before in dreams all the time. You might say I just 'didn't know' I knew them already, but then that logic can be applied to the supposedly new things I learn in my waking state as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mario92
Okay...when you're asleep, all you have to work with is what your brain has already learned. Sure, you may "learn" new things, develop new skills, and the like, but really, you aren't taking in any new information. There is a good chance that you won't be able to teach yourself advanced thermonuclear dynamics in your dreams...
Hmm. How do you know?Quote:
Originally Posted by Mario92
Hmm...I suppose no more than you know. HOWEVER, you do seem to be implying a positive claim: "Our minds already know a great deal, and instruction only draws out this knowledge." If this is the case, then the burden of proof would be on you...
But along the same lines of logic, I could conclude that I am a brain in a vat and you do not exist. This could be true, but is highly unlikely.
You don't know anything about the likelihood of that particular possibility, only that it is impossible to test and useless to base ones worldview on (until it becomes possible to test that is) since it was only a hypothetical philosophical question in the first place.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mario92
Whereas, my suggestion that what one experiences during the waking state is no different than the one that is experienced in a dream is supported by several worldviews that at least suggest the possibility of testing for oneself. See; Buddhism, Advaita Vedanta, Sufism.
...but, taking this degree of uncertainty into account, would you commit yourself to a lifetime of dreaming? What if, five years into your dream, you found out that you were dead-wrong? Could you cope with the fact that you'll never know any more than what you do now?
My original thought was that given a certain amount of time in a dream, one would tend to just forget they were dreaming in the first place. Characters in dreams can often seem as real as characters in waking life. The longer you stay in the dream, the more those characters would develop and the more real they would all seem. The only reason I ever know I'm dreaming is because it is compared to waking life. Without the waking life there to compare, I think I would soon forget that there could be anything else but the dream world, and so it would be reality.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mario92
As for not knowing any more than I do now, your opinions on the subject are hardly able to convince me that it is not possible to learn new things in a dream, or that it is possible to learn new things while awake. Some of my most profound discoveries have occurred in dreams and often times when I'm awake I feel like I already know how things will go. You make a distinction because you've seen other people asleep and feel like that is evidence that you do not take in information when you are dreaming, but I've never seen myself asleep. In other words, my experience does not match your assertions.
Reality. I would die being from being alone. We can't live isolated like that, especially if we know that all the things and people we interact with are only figments of your imagination.