Originally Posted by
Sageous
They've given me pause.
Aside from the obvious stuff, like the fact that my decades of mental calisthenics for the sake of readying me to LD have helped establish a sense of “self” that I would never have had if I weren't interested in LD'ing (my memory still sucks, though I blame genetics and age for that!), I find myself taking a moment, usually without noticing I did so, to step back and look carefully at situations I might be in, decisions I might be making, or just what I'm really doing as I waste hours in front of the TV. In other words, I have a tendency to remove myself from reality for just a second, a pause, to give it a good once-over -- just like I do in almost all of my dreams. I'm not sure that made sense, but it is the most interesting influence this work has had on my waking life.
Also, my time in LD's has given me an opportunity to wonder if there really is something more out there, something beyond this mortal coil. This opportunity has no counterpart in waking life, period. And, as an added bonus, LD'ing is a hands-on method for exploring that something more, whenever I think I've seen it, rather than just imagining what it could be, or, worse, choosing to believe what someone else told me it is. That, I think, may have changed me, right down to the core of my being, in ways that would never have happened had I never "woken up" in those dreams when I was a teenager. And, when the core of your being is changed, so too I imagine is your view of everyday life!
My wife insists that LD’ing has affected me in other ways, among them my unwavering optimism -- countered by a cynical skepticism of pretty much everything shown me; my infinite patience; the fact that I will not get mad at annoying people or situations that cross our path, because they just don’t matter; and that I have a habit of putting myself in other people’s shoes and defending them, even when they’ve hurt us. But I’m not sure if I would have been that way had I never LD’d, so I can’t say for sure that my dreaming life influenced me. She would say it did, though!
I’m sure there’s more but I’m afraid I’m a wee bit too close to the subject to really know.
Great question, fOrceez; you’ve given me something to think about for the rest of the day. Thanks…I think.