How has Lucid Dreaming Affected your Life?

[lucidresearch]

Hello, I am conducting research on the topic of lucid dreams, external LOC and depression, and am looking for responses to a few questions. All and any data here will not be used in my paper unless given consent. If you are interested in my paper or wish to give me consent to quote you, consent can be emailed to me at [email protected]. Data will remain anonymous if chose to be used. Thank you. All responses are helpful to my generalization. --- Questions--- 1. Frequent lucid dreamers, how do you believe that lucid dreaming has affected your life? Family and friend relationships? Mentally, how has lucid dreaming either positively or negatively affected your thinking? 2. After answering the questions above, please choose one of the statements below that you feel you identify with the most. - Sometimes I feel that I don't have enough control over the direction my life is taking. - What happens to me is my own doing.

[Threeofeight]

1. Family and friends. Well, they think I'm a little weirder now and that's alright because that doesn't mean much but my enthusiasm for the subject serves as great conversational pieces. I am not the most avid lucid dreamer but when I was just starting it was a fricking blast just talking about it! Now it has become a lifelong rocky road and practice to attain lucidity. As for mentally. I always felt so warm and fuzzy feelings and felt the urge to watch Neverending story with my grandma because I hoped it would give me dreams. Dreams always make me feel warm inside. And the requirements for lucidity urged me to follow mental meditation and maintain a healthy lifestyle. 2. - What happens to me is my own doing. Definitely. Although, the factor of other people's effect on me is always an unknown factor. How I let that affect me is definetely my own doing.

[Laurelindo]

I have noticed that I am more aware of my emotions (since I am more "lucid" and aware of myself even in waking life), and this has made it easier for me to be relaxed and stop myself from reacting to things on impulse. For example, in situations when people would normally become impatient (like while standing in line at the supermarket etc), I actually spend that time on checking out random items that are close to me and remind myself that even those things are "a form of dream", since my brain interprets their physical existence and simulates them to me. This kind of "daydreaming" puts me in a very relaxed state, and gives me some time to be "lucid" in everyday life. It is also a very interesting state to be in, since it kind of gives you a foretaste of a lucid dream - like you are "practising" for the lucid dreaming state while you are awake.

[Dream_King]

1. I haven't had lucid dreams nearly as frequently in a while but thanks to a combination of a very rare side effect of a medication and a need to escape life at the time given the circumstances I could achieve lucidity virtually on demand every night for a few months in high school. I realized recently how much this experience affected my thought process for the best. I was severely bullied in childhood and as a result became very paranoid of people. Learning how to lucid dream gave me the toolkit to step back and reevaluate my expectations and overcome that anxiety for the most part. I also have severe anxiety and probably thanks to lucid dreaming I tend to try to determine what I know for sure about whatever is stressing me out and how much is just my anxious brain making things up. I can't completely attest to the therapeutic value of this, it does very little to alleviate the anxiety and the experience is akin to being stuck in a lucid nightmare, but I imagine it is better than taking whatever my mind comes up with as fact. It has also positively shaped my professional life as well. I'm a historian in training and I realized how much that experience affected me. Lucid dreaming gave me an appreciation for how much of reality is constructed by the mind (not in a new age, there's no such thing as objective reality way, just how much our schemas and expectations shape how we view reality) so some of my favorite projects have been on how people view situations they are in and how that changes over time as a result of major events. 2. What happens to me is my own doing.

[Courga]

1- I feel that I can parse the effects of my lucid dreams on my life into two subcategories. On one end, they act as a hedonistic release. The dreamscape is a place to explore, to live out fantasies, and to release stress. When my day-to-day life becomes so inundated with stress and I become too busy to focus on fun, I can escape to a dream and engage in my hobbies there. Essentially, it feels as if I have given myself an extra hour or two of life so that I have time to de-stress without consequences. On the other end, when I commit my dreams to more serious business, I can practice self-exploration, skill building, and self-reflection. This is especially true for dreams where my dream guide (subconscious conduit) is present. In these dreams I can work on my technical skills, such as public speaking, or investigate what might be causing me internal distress/depression. There have been a few cases where these dreams have helped me solve emotional or interpersonal problems in real life, and that has been extremely beneficial. 2. What happens to me is my own doing.