# Sleep and Dreams > Beyond Dreaming >  >  lucid dream or other world?

## longtimelucid

Hello all Ive been lucid dreaming for over 30 years and Im almost convinced that our minds or souls are transported to another world when lucid dreaming. Based on the realism including sight, taste, touch, smell and real coversations with people Ive never met. Also based on questions I ask others in my lucid dreams. Your thoughts on the possibility that they are not dreams but real?

----------


## LiquidOneiro

As cool as it is to imagine that you are being transported to another world, I think as with most things the simplest answer is the correct one.

Considering your brain is what makes you experience your senses, I would assume your brain is simulating your senses while dreaming.

----------


## dutchraptor

In my experience lucid dreaming has proven the exact opposite to me, the fact that once you get to know your dreams you can recognize patterns and see that everything is controllable and easy to change it really would make no sense to assume it is in a different world. The mind is well capable of creating a fully realistic world often surpassing the quality of waking life. 
Assuming that dreams take place in a different world is just adding a level of complication which is not needed. Could you maybe give some better examples as to how you came to this belief?

----------


## longtimelucid

When I first started lucid dreaming I thought it was cool, all the sex you want and with who, flying, etc.
Then after many years I asked myself is this just my imagination, dreams or other worlds.
Yes I could manifest anything or person I wanted to and in any location and then I stopped thinking while lucid.
I wanted to see what would happen if I did not think it true, just go with the flow however never forget Im lucid.
I would meet people and have conversations with them.  It got to the point where I turned my lucid dreams into tests and would ask the same questions everytime I met someone in a lucid dream.
I would first clear my mind to not inject any answers then ask the following 3 questions:
1. What is your name?
2. Where are we?
3. What year is it?
Everytime no matter who I asked the answers were the same.
Try this the next time you are lucid with a clear mind as not to speak your thoughts through whom ever is in your dream.
I will tell you what the same answers were but first try it so I do not influence the outcome.

----------


## dutchraptor

Okay I will definitely try it, but you do know it is almost impossible to stop your brain from thinking something, so hence even if all your dc's give you the same answer it could be because you subconsciously expected it, it's still not solid enough to base anything off unfortunately.

----------


## LiquidOneiro

> When I first started lucid dreaming I thought it was cool, all the sex you want and with who, flying, etc.
> Then after many years I asked myself is this just my imagination, dreams or other worlds.
> Yes I could manifest anything or person I wanted to and in any location and then I stopped thinking while lucid.
> I wanted to see what would happen if I did not think it true, just go with the flow however never forget Im lucid.
> I would meet people and have conversations with them.  It got to the point where I turned my lucid dreams into tests and would ask the same questions everytime I met someone in a lucid dream.
> I would first clear my mind to not inject any answers then ask the following 3 questions:
> 1. What is your name?
> 2. Where are we?
> 3. What year is it?
> ...



Not sure if trolling..  :Confused:

----------


## longtimelucid

Possibly
I do not have the answers and if just another dream state or another world I can not prove it is or is not...nobody can.
What I can do is share my experiences similar to most others here.
I have yet to read about someone who can take it to a level I have however I have yet to reach the end of the internet  :smiley: 
Once you have confirmed you are lucid after performing all the lucid dream tests now test where you are.
Why just have fun with it and why not try to question it? What it really is?  Where you are? What you are? 
Some have walked through walls.  I've put my head in walls and look at their construct, whether stone or wood or drywall with insulation and electrical wires.
I have layed on the bottom of the ocean, swam with the sharks, glided through whales and looked at their insides.
I have let others guide me through my journeys as I just float and watch and feel my amazing surroundings.
I've melded with a tree and felt the ruffness of my bark, my leaves each and everyone of them blowing in the wind and my roots spread throughout underground gripping mother earth and her holding me.
If it sounds like an acid trip it's because it is similar however I'm fully conscious, aware and awake and one with my spiritual self and everything else.
You see it is not just a dream. 
It can be a gateway to other worlds and/or a level of spirituality.

----------


## Sensei

So because you have answers to those answers you think it is a real place? That is strange. If I think back in a lucid dream I can create tons of "fake memories" with a fake life and all, without interjecting anything. The past is different each time as well as who I meet and who I am. 

Also:




> I have yet to read about someone who can take it to a level I have however I have yet to reach the end of the internet



What level are you talking about? Control? Lucidity? Spirituality? Please explain.





> If it sounds like an acid trip it's because it is similar however I'm fully conscious, aware and awake and one with my spiritual self and everything else.
> You see it is not just a dream.
> It can be a gateway to other worlds and/or a level of spirituality.



It sounds like a lucid dream. I really don't know what you are getting at with the things you have done. They seem like things most people do in LDs. It is an amazing feeling and is different with each venture. To a non LDer it sounds like you are tripping. But Lucid Dreamers know the emotions that can be activated that you didn't even know existed in your dreams.  :smiley:

----------


## longtimelucid

Yes every level you mentioned and more.
Understand that I did not just recently start these tests I've been doing.
I probably started the tests and questions roughly 20 years ago.
When I first started the answers varied but I realized it was because I was thinking prior to or during the questions.
Once I blanked my mind prior to and during the questions the answers were always the same:
1. Everyone always knew their name (the names were always different and some names I've never heard of)
2. Nobody ever knew where they were (a common answer was "here" however nobody ever knew city, country, planet, etc)
3. Nobody ever knew the date (nobody ever had an answer for date, just blank stares or shrugs)
I've asked other questions throughout my experience however these are the 3 I've asked since the start.

----------


## Sensei

You sound very prideful about this. It sounds to me like you have limited yourself, not reached another level. I am not trying to be rude.  :tongue2: 

I am afraid I agree with DutchRaptor on expectation playing a part. Even if it is a dream, it is quite hard to flush all expectation away. 

It is not that I am completely against the idea... I just don't know how these things come up with your answer to "it must be another world" I would love to hear the whole reasoning behind it.  :smiley:  It is very very interesting.

----------


## Darkmatters

This is fascinating - I have a few questions:

1) So, have you determined that every lucid dream takes you to the _same_ world, or each one to a different world? What does it mean that these worlds are populated by your family and friends and celebrities? 

2) What are DILDs, which start as normal dreams and suddenly you become lucid? This must mean that every non-lucid dream also takes place in these other worlds, right? 

3) What happens when you begin a dream there - do you suddenly appear out of nowhere? And disappear when you wake up or the dream ends? Do the other people notice you appearing and disappearing, and what do they think of that - have you ever asked them? 

4) Does it seem normal to you for people not to know where they live or what the date is?

----------


## longtimelucid

I dont think I can convince you they are other worlds or dimensions or whatever the other place is called. Nor can you convince me they are not. I am a very spiritual person and maybe that is why I believe and feel differently than you. If I enter my lucid dream with no thought or expectations then the people and places are always different as if Ive fell into their lives or experiencing their world via someone else.

----------


## longtimelucid

Ive always been intrigued by the spirit world and a couple years back I spoke with a friend of a friend who is a medium. We spoke mostly about her experiences but 2 things stuck out. Those she communicates with never no where they are or what time/date it is.  So am I speaking with the dead, the unborn or the living from different worlds? No idea but I will continue with an open mind.

----------


## Darkmatters

Ok now you're starting to make some sense. I wasn't trying to convince you of anything by the way, simply asking questions. I'm not just a diehard materialist trying to debunk everything, I'm open minded about certain things like the possibility of shared dreaming/telepathy (basically the same thing) and have had a couple of experiences that might have been shared dreams. In my case though I thought the environment was completely created by my dreaming mind, even if another person was somehow communicating with me through it. I also think the characters that I 'see' in the dreams are created from my own thoughts and memories and expectations, but that possibly some things they say or do are controlled by another person. This is how it seems to work in the examples of possible shared dreams I've seen from members of the board too - there are overlapping factors in the two dreams but only a few, and they see each other as totally different characters. So it seems to me that each dreamer creates their own imagery and environment through which some level of communication or contact can occur. It seems to be only the gist of the message or action that's the same or very similar for both dreamers. This idea in fact correlates nicely with what science knows about dreaming and the mind.

It's now clear that you aren't saying this other world or other worlds are physically real, that's what I was trying to understand. Also, it seemed you had taken at least a somewhat scientific approach, by asking the three questions to many of the DCs. I just went ahead and listed the next few questions that I would want to try to get the answers to if I were in your place. The next point that comes into focus for me is this - in what way or to what extent can a world be said to be 'real' if it isn't physical? Please don't get defensive and assume I'm saying "it can't" --- I'm _not_ saying that - I honestly want to discuss this. To me, what's real about shared dreaming (assuming it happens the way I said above) would be the communication - the similarities in the 2 dreams (the part that is the same between them). The rest would be imaginary and totally different to each dreamer, just symbols dreamed up in their minds around that communication.

----------


## dutchraptor

There is one problem I can't get my head around. If we travel to a different world every night, why is that we can exert full control over what happens, to the perfect detail. If we really are in a different world with sentient entities it must mean that we should not be able to exert full control over everything in that world, the only way that would be possible is if the dreamer himself was actually interpreting the stimuli received from this world and then changing them in his own mind to suit himself. But is the latter is true then the existence of another world is completely unprovable to both science and the person them self. Since you know that your brain *could* be making it all up you cannot say for sure that you are traveling to a different world because there are some processes in the brain which you just can't observe.
Even if you do believe in spiritual things like talking to the dead it would still not require the dreams to be set in a different world.

----------


## PlanesWalker

This is a very interesting topic.  It will be hard for you to convince some of these skeptics, longtimelucid, for many of them have beliefs that directly conflict with the idea of other worlds or dimensions besides what we know, such as some religions. It is harder for them to believe something like this exists because it goes against what they've been taught to believe.  These lucid Dreamers see how crazy real these Dreams can be and how similar to waking life they are, yet many of them think that its the Dream that is fake.  Why can't both be fake? Or both be real?  What is real?  Bottom line is nobody knows, so your theory of Dreams being part of another place is conceivable. It sounds no crazier than many of the things ive heard in my life, things people shape their lives and thoughts around, ideologies that have no more "proof" than what you speak of currently.  If you've been actively lucid Dreaming for 30 years then it sounds like you have ample experience to produce this theory, a theory by the way that you are not alone in.  

Humanities perceptions of its own existence are constantly evolving, people cannot say for a fact that Dreams reside wholly within the brain because we haven't proved it.  We don't know everything about Dreams and we don't know everything about the human brain either, so it seems to me that lumping them together is a bit premature.  But it happens, and will continue to happen.  

There are some good questions here in this thread, and I too would like to hear more about your experiences.  

@Darkmatters.
 I'm trying to get my head around your interpretation of shared Dreams.  I've never had one, that I can recognize as such, so I'm very intrigued about your own experience with this occurrence.  But if two Dreamers were merely in the same general area as one another, and experiencing separate imagery and so forth, then how are they to know they are truly sharing the Dream?  I'm very interested in shared Dreaming, but I'm baffled as to how people can know they are in they same Dream if they don't experience the same thing?  I would think that's how you would be able to verify that it was in fact a shared experience.    

Or are you saying that in a shared Dream there would be enough similarities to identify the Dream as Shared, but everything else would be unique to each respective Dreamer?  But if that is indeed the case, hypothetically, then what does that imply?  The act of sharing a Dream.  Does it therefore imply that this takes place on an actual plane of existence?  Can anyone do it?  Or perhaps only the most advanced Lucid Dreamers?  Does it happen by accident or do they agree on a meeting place before hand?  If so, then how do they know they didn't just end up at two different but identical meeting spots, created within their own separate Dreams, and summoned a DC copy of their meeting buddy?

@Dutch
Good point Dutch.  Many problems with us taking over someone else's world every night, especially when many of us are in standby mode when we do, unaware to a certain degree of what we are doing and oblivious to the possibility of other entities being there with us. Dangerous for them.  The Dreamscape being another world doesn't necessarily have to mean there are entities that reside there, spirits, Oneiroi, etc.  Try this one on...  Imagine yourself as a being of unlimited potential.  A being that will never cease to exist and has innate abilities it must learn to control.  How then to calm your abilities until you are able to control them?  We must learn to walk before we can run, right? Our bodies put a limit to the amount of power we can use, but if we were separated from our bodies, we could obviously do more.  Enter the Dreamscape...  Here we get an idea of what its like to create with only our thoughts.  What other entity can you think of that is capable of doing the same thing?  GOD perhaps?  What does that make us then?  After all, the holy book does say we were created in his image.  The amount of detail contained within a Dream suggests that it is more than mere make believe, although some may point out that the human brain is highly complex and capable of performing billions of calculations per second, so in essence is capable of creating a believable world.

So many questions, so little time...

----------


## Zoth

> Hello all Ive been lucid dreaming for over 30 years and Im almost convinced that our minds or souls are transported to another world when lucid dreaming. Based on the realism including sight, taste, touch, smell and real coversations with people Ive never met. Also based on questions I ask others in my lucid dreams. Your thoughts on the possibility that they are not dreams but real?



First of all: hi! Welcome, I hope you have a good time around DV  :smiley:  now I'll focus my speech on the question you made and attack half the world (in the respectful sense  :Cheeky: )





> Im almost convinced that our minds or souls are transported to another world when lucid dreaming. Based on the realism including sight, taste, touch, smell and real coversations with people Ive never met.



Why would you think this? When you hallucinate you'd also say that you're in another world? If science already proved that reality is a construct of our minds, I don't see any surprise on why dreams are real, that doesn't indicate any possibility they are real.
Your experience of asking 3 questions also doesn't prove anything: as DutchRaptor and other people refered, expectation might be the only reason you got those answers. Nothing you experience in the dream world can signal an existence of another world.





> I do not have the answers and if just another dream state or another world I can not prove it is or is not...nobody can.



Then it's non sense to believe other worlds exist, according to your own statement. Yes, it might exist, but since you can't provide valid justification, there's literally no reason why anyone, including you, should accept the claim. Linking spiritually also doesn't make any sense, because the fact that you believe in spirits and other dimensions doesn't have anything to do with whether they exist or not.





> You see it is not just a dream.



We've yet to see a valid argument that indicates the possibility of that not being a dream. What you just told seems exactly like a lucid dream, nothing more than that. Even if it didn't sound like a dream, we'd have no reason to believe it wasn't. It's great that you have such strong beliefs, but your tests lack any scientific approach, because for sure they are no falsifiable in any way. The fact that you're not willing to consider the possibility of being wrong doesn't reveal any open-mindedness, but exactly the opposite. You're being close-mindedness by accepting anything without any sort of filter (proof or logic), which is good until you start letting "bad" structured ideas to go inside and cloud your judgement.





> Also, it seemed you had taken at least a somewhat scientific approach, by asking the three questions to many of the DCs



How? A scientific approach is falsifiable, and by his test, any result he got can be proven to be significant. I'm curious on how people here would think of making an experiment that could prove that those worlds are real. It's impossible 0o trying not to mix things here, but it's exactly the same thing as anyone would want to prove god, and they would say "That message in the sky that says "I'm god, and I exist!"": that wouldn't prove anything.

Two very good videos I would encourage everyone to read when you discuss these kinds of things:
Open-mindedness
Critical thinking

PS: Even though I reject your arguments due lack of logic in them, I appreciate the opportunity for discussions like this, they're somewhat rare  :tongue2:  I only sound a bit too "agressive", because I think we can still upgrade these topics to approaches that don't necessarily base themselves in "black and white" thinking, but merely a questioning of any possibility, without taking it for granted. But for all means, let's keep debunking each other's ideas if justified, that's the fun of the it  :smiley:

----------


## Darkmatters

> How? A scientific approach is falsifiable, and by his test, any result he got can be proven to be significant.



I meant that asking the questions seemed like the beginning of a scientific approach, so I brought up a few more questions that would continue that trend. However it quickly became clear that he isn't talking about a physically real world, so most of your points are invalid. Are you prepared to go where the conversation is leading, in a more spiritual direction, or if the other world isn't a scientifically verifiable physical reality are you done? 






> @Darkmatters.
>  I'm trying to get my head around your interpretation of shared Dreams...



I'm working from the concept that shared dreaming might be a form of telepathy, as I've heard suggested on the board before. To set the stage for this idea, think about the fact that, in waking _('real')_ life, several people can witness exactly the same event and report it very differently - so even if there's a physical reality at its basis, shared human experiences can be viewed quite differently by the people who experienced them. Now think about what we know about dreams - they're built in the mind from memories, thoughts and feelings, and manipulated in sometimes bizarre ways to be symbolic rather than literal. If you encounter another dreamer and you have no idea what they look like, your mind is going to make something up, and their mind will make something up for what you look like right? This seems likely to me, especially considering the extremely malleable nature of self image in dreams - I can be a child in some dreams, an animal in some, and have no body at all in others. Why would I look to another dreamer - especially one who doesn't know what my physical body looks like - the same way I do in waking life? 

Environment - we've all had dreams about being late for class on test day, not having a pencil, not being able to find your locker etc.. personally I've experienced this dream in many different classrooms and school corridors - some of which looked realistic or resemble actual classrooms from my past, some of which were totally surreal and maybe a cross between a _little house on the prairie_ type one-room schoolroom and a cave. Regardless, they're all in some way the same dream, right? The central message of being unprepared to meet what life is throwing at you is the same. So if I were to find myself in such a dream and then see in somebody's DJ the next day that they also dreamed of being in a classroom - even if the visual trappings are totally different, in some sense there's a possibility we were in contact. But I wouldn't say that in itself is enough. Most likely we both managed to activate the familiar 'messed up school dream' schema. 

But let's say in my dream I saw one of the other students jump on top of his desk, fly around the room, and then go out the window while shouting "Tally Ho!" and in the other person's dream they were in a classroom where they couldn't find a pencil, which caused them to go lucid, at which point they jumped on top of their desk, flew around the room, and went out through the wall shouting "Fuuuuck Schooool!"

Now add to that whatever I did in my dream - maybe in my dream I folded a paper airplane and threw it and that's what I thought caused the other student to decide to fly. Maybe in their dream they saw a student throw a small turtle with wings and it flew around the room, and perhaps that's what sparked their lucidity. 

Not totally the same, but so similar that to me anyway it raises the serious possibility of being a shared dream. Of course to anybody who demands proof, it's not verifiable, but then if you demand proof of everything you don't believe in much, including the 'fact' that dreams are created solely by the mind. To refuse to consider the possibility of something until it's been proven is obviously not a scientific approach - if it was then nobody would ever have investigated _anything_ in order to prove it in the first place! A scientist is willing to suspend judgement and investigate a possibility even if it seems unlikely. (Not aimed at you PlanesWalker).

Also, as verified in the Robert Stickgold video I posted recently: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmRGN...layer_embedded it's known that when dreams are serving the purpose of helping us to learn something we struggled to learn that day (one of their primary purposes) they tend to extract the _gist_ of the experience and present that realistically, while exaggerating or distorting other factors like visuals or story. The test consisted of letting people play a video game where they have to solve walking through a maze, then letting them sleep and waking them to ask what they were dreaming about. Many reported walking through mazes, though they didn't necessarily look like the one in the game, there were additional elements added like checkpoints and people standing around that weren't in the game. One person said he dreamed about walking through a cave like he actually did once when he was younger.  And this demonstrates the way dreams will call up memories of similar experiences to help you solve the current problem. In some ways walking through that cave as a child taught him things that the sub-c thought would help him to solve this current problem of the maze, so it sort of melded the memories with the maze. Though the visual experience was quite different, the gist of the experiences was the same - navigating a maze.

----------


## Zoth

> I meant that asking the questions seemed like the beginning of a scientific approach, so I brought up a few more questions that would continue that trend.



It can be _an_ approach, but the act of purely asking questions doesn't put it automatically in the "scientific" field. I guess the key point in your phrase was "somewhat"  ::?:   Also, since we're both on that page, I find it interesting that nowadays there seems to be a negative trend towards positions of skepticism. Specifically speaking:





> I'm not just a diehard materialist trying to debunk everything, I'm open minded about certain things



Well, I'm also open-minded, and I could may as well be a "diehard materialist trying to debunk everthing". The fact that an idea with X set of arguments shows that those same arguments are illogical, doesn't put anyone in a "close-minded" perspective when they debunk those same arguments. In fact, it makes the discussion more centered about critical thinking AND open-mindedness. )Of course I don't need to say that this isn't a "you belong to this group!" paragraph, because I think you get where I'm going with this  ::D: )





> However it quickly became clear that he isn't talking about a physically real world, so most of your points are invalid.



That's a rushed accusation  ::shock:: . When have you ever seen my points refer specifically to a physical world? Never. So most of your points are invalid in that same way  :smiley: 





> Are you prepared to go where the conversation is leading, in a more spiritual direction, or if the other world isn't a scientifically verifiable physical reality are you done?



Once again, who said I'm talking about a physical world? I don't find anything in my post regarding "physical reality". And no, I'm not a diehard materialist that debunks everything, I'm merely someone with the opinion that illogical arguments don't make valid points, and the fact of the conversation is heading towards a more "spiritual direction" doesn't invalidate any debunking of illogical arguments. Isn't it far more interesting when we discuss with logic? It doesn't kill the topic, quite the contrary  :smiley: 

Some possible definitions of "real":
Actually existing as a thing or occurring in fact; not imagined or supposed
Being or occurring in fact or actuality; having verifiable existence

Considering one world to be real, whether physically or spiritually (although these concepts still confuse me: how do we even know what "spiritually" means to each one of us? How do we know that we're all using the same definition of real?), just due the sensorial vividness/realism of experience or because there's a pattern in the reality's content, is first of all, something we should analyse AFTER we understand what the OP means by real. And if by real he merely state that "they exist", then it's not a dichotomy. Then the experiences can be dreams AND be real. If he implies that they are real in a sense of "not being dreams", then we have no way of asserting that as true, due lack of reasoning as how that would be possible.

And PlanesWalker, I think it's a bit rushed off your part to assume that every skeptic here is someone who discards the idea of "other realities". We didn't even settled about what the OP means by "real" and you're already making some sort of accusation that skepticism from some people here is exactly the same as close mindedness. Your post reflects perfectly this negative trend I mentioned. I probably sounded the biggest "skeptic and diehard materialist" here, and I believe in other realities...it depends all on which terms you define "real" as ^^

----------


## Darkmatters

Haha... case in point - we're experiencing a supposedly shared discussion here, and yet our interpretations of it are very different.  ::lol::  You don't seem to understand what I meant by some things I said and apparently I misunderstood you as well. Maybe you could drop your insistence on the exact wording I used (which admittedly wasn't perfect) and understand that all I was saying was _"It seemed he was beginning to take an investigative approach by asking the three questions, so I posed some additional questions that could take that farther and make it more scientific"_. 





> Some possible definitions of "real":
> Actually existing as a thing or occurring in fact; not imagined or supposed
> Being or occurring in fact or actuality; having verifiable existence



So part of being real means it can't be imagined or supposed? Then are thoughts, memories and feelings real? How about dreams, are they real? They're just imagined, right?  I'd like to hear your honest thoughts on this. 

Also, do you accept, even just as a thought experiment, the idea of telepathy and dream sharing? Neither has been verified, but does that mean they're not possible?

----------


## Sensei

I am sorry. This is not another world then, if it is a spiritual place. Worlds are physical places. 

I agree with Zoth on all points. You may believe what you wish, and I can normally see from other people's point of views well, but I haven't seen you express why you have your point of view. The questions could be answered like that in any normal lucid dream. What you are saying is that because you got the same answer many times in a row, and you don't think you effected the outcome it means it is another world? This is the part that confuses me. Explain your logic. You are jumping from point A to point D without bother to talk about B and C. I think that both points look like something fun to hear about and would love to hear the other points.  :tongue2:  Please express them and do not think me a fool who will not understand.





> If I enter my lucid dream with no thought or expectations then the people and places are always different as if Ive fell into their lives or experiencing their world via someone else.



This is a point I do not understand. I think it is lost in translation. Are you saying that when you go into a lucid dream you "become" someone else? 

Also, I am not a skeptic as PlanesWalker would have you to beleive.  :tongue2:  I have heard a lot of what you believe PlanesWalker and it is interesting and a logical idea. 

And Zoth. I think there are very few that do not believe in other "realities" in a broad sense. Any Christian believes that there is a place that loved ones go after death and that there is a spiritual reality that coincides intricately with ours. This is 3 different realities by my definition, though they are all linked. But as you said. We might not all be talking about the same idea of reality. For some might not see what I said as a "different" reality, but an addition to ours. Also dreams are a reality by themselves as they "really" happen.  Whether or not they continue on when you are gone or that they are just a place your mind comes up with makes no difference. For they are "real".  Just my random thought. I agree with you on your points. Especially to know what he means by reality. I do not like asking defintions of things over and over like sloth and original poster (not trying to bash either of you, it is how you do it though  :tongue2: ) do, but this is one thing I would like defined.

----------


## Darkmatters

Brandon, I think you're doing the same thing Zoth is doing - taking things too literally. 

At first I started to do exactlty the same - but then it suddenly occurred to me - maybe he doesn't necessarily mean that the environment itself is a real place, but only that the spirits themselves are 'real' in some sense. 

Do you for example believe Heaven is a real place? With maybe palaces and harps? Or do you believe that's more of just an artistic convention - a way artists have found to represent a more esoteric idea that can't be precisely defined? 

I totally agree with you guys that dreams don't take place in any physical space like a 'world', but I'm willing to grant that maybe the OP just isn't using precise terminology. I suspect all he's trying to say is that the experience itself is real, the spirits are real.

----------


## Sensei

I see what you mean, but* if you broaden the meaning of real too much then there is no point in believing something is real.* Does he mean they are real consciousnesses? Real humans? Real parts of his subconscious? Real spirits?

He partway explained something and then said that he couldn't convince us and gave up.  :Sad:  I am intrigued by what he said, but he hasn't explained it.

----------


## Darkmatters

Yeah I know - I think he left because of too many skeptics tearing into his ideas.  ::lol:: 

And I may well be arguing too hard here for something the OP never intended at all. The way he said it, he definitely seems to believe the environment itself is a real place, and he doesn't seem to mean real as in _"it's a dream world and dreams are real experiences"_, he seems to mean that he thinks it's an actual place. I suppose my reasoning was that I could open his mind to the idea that it doesnt have to be a real _place_ in order for the experience itself - the spirits  he meets - to be real.

----------


## Sensei

Yeah. I wasn't trying to be skeptical, but I might have appeared that way. I hope he comes back.  :Sad:  it hasn't yet been 24 hours since he last posted. We should continue this discussion when he returns, if he does.

----------


## Zoth

Aye I got what you were trying to say now, sorry for being too strict with the wording, it was more oriented towards the OP  :Cheeky: 





> So part of being real means it can't be imagined or supposed? Then are thoughts, memories and feelings real? How about dreams, are they real? They're just imagined, right?  I'd like to hear your honest thoughts on this.



Yeah! This is exactly my point: we've not yet settled into a definition of what "real" means. Maybe the majority of us were taking into account these definitions of real, unlike you Darkmatters, which was why we disagreed. BrandonBoss talks exactly about this point in his post. Oh, but there's something I cannot not adress, which is the _"Then are thoughts, memories and feelings real?"_

What do you define real as? If you're talking about simply existing, yes dreams are real. If your definition is "is not imagined or supposed" then dreams are not real. You get the point? It differs completely on the definition of real. But when you talk about physical, it's completely different subject:

One cannot conceive non-physical entities. Why? First of all, how could we even affirm they exist? Can you see non-physical ghosts? If they are non-physical, then they do not possess physical attributes, because that's a requirement of physical entities. Where do you get sensory information from said ghosts if they are non-physical?
When we refer to worlds, we know they are physical, because they possess physical attributes, and we can perceive them. And yes, I know you want to ask "what about dreams, thoughts and memories zoth? how can you say they're physical if we cannot see them? Answer that you bald monk!  :Cheeky: " But we know that dreams, thoughts and memories ARE physical. They possess physical attributes, because they possess electric-chemical properties. You cannot see thoughts if you cut my brain? Yes you can, you just can't see the information stored in them; you cannot see the thought "I like banana", and that just indicates encrypted information, because you can sense the physical attributes of the thought. Hope this explanation is clear.





> Also, do you accept, even just as a thought experiment, the idea of telepathy and dream sharing? Neither has been verified, but does that mean they're not possible?



No, it does not necessarily mean they are not possible. But if you mention "non-physical" characteristics inside the process, then yes, it means it is not possible (that way). What are we left to discuss then? Exactly! My point of view is if we keep debunking these logical errors, then we eventually gonna be left out with a scenario of "wait...that actually makes sense!". It's how you discover stuff: you say "impossible" until you find a possible way.

----------


## PlanesWalker

Maybe he's just trying to catch up with everything you all have written. I left for only a few hours and had some posts I needed to take in.  Or perhaps he is trying to formulate the words in order to better convey his meaning, in either case I hope he returns as well.

Don't take it personally zoth, but yes, many religious people are VERY close minded.  Fortunately there are open minded ones as well.  The same goes for skeptics.  Maybe you will be the one to change my viewpoint on them?

@Darkmatters
So since you don't believe there is any "physical" world containing the Dreams, how then do the spirits interact?  Where do they reside when he isn't Dreaming?  I see what you mean about different experiences, but I feel the memory aspect of it falls into a slightly different category.  In the waking world, when people remember something differently it isn't because they experienced something different, but simply because memory is unreliable much of the time when it comes to small details.  That seems a bit different than what you propose for shared Dreaming.  You propose that the actual experience itself, while shared by two or more people, is presenting itself differently to each, not that they remember it differently.  May just be splitting hairs here, but do you see what I'm getting at?

Also, maybe we can help this guy in his endeavor.  After all, how many of you have done something similar to this and investigated the Dreamscape to attain a better understanding of its nature? I would love to hear any and all theories as to what it is we are dealing with.  I don't mean investigate your Dreams to better understand yourself, but to explore the nature of the Dreamworld and ponder from within what its purpose is.  How can this be done in a way that would minimize the amount of self interference?

----------


## Darkmatters

> One cannot conceive non-physical entities. Why? First of all, how could we even affirm they exist?



What does affirmation have to do with existence? If non-physical entities exist we would not be able to prove it, but that would not stop them from existing. Why would we need to be able to affirm their existence before we can conceive of them? I have an imagination, therefore I can conceive of many things that haven't been proven, including the possibility that non-physical entities might exist. I'm not saying they definitely _do_, and I'm not trying to convince anybody else they do either, I'm just saying why can't we have a conversation about them AS IF THEY DO EXIST - without needing to first _prove_ that they do? 






> When we refer to worlds, we know they are physical, because they possess physical attributes, and we can perceive them.



Wait - _why_ do worlds have to be physical? In particular, why would a world of spirits be physical? Does _World_ mean the same thing to you as _Planet_? 






> It's how you discover stuff: you say "impossible" until you find a possible way.



No, not quite right. Because if you believe it's impossible, why would you even search for a possible way? Maybe what you meant to say is "Not _proven_ possible until you find a possible way"? But of course something doesn't have to be proven possible in order to be real. Were lucid deams not real until they were proven in the sleep lab? Was the earth flat until it was proven not to be? Of course not. And obviously the scientists who finally did prove these things didn't believe they were impossible even when there was no proof yet. They thought it _was_ possible and set out to find that proof. 

You said earlier that you believe in other worlds - can you explain what kind of other worlds?

----------


## Darkmatters

> @Darkmatters
> So since you don't believe there is any "physical" world containing the Dreams, how then do the spirits interact?  Where do they reside when he isn't Dreaming?



First let's be clear - I didn't say I either believe or disbelieve in spirits or non-physical worlds. I simply asked - if the spirits aren't physical, why would they need a physical environment? Wouldn't it make more sense for non-physical spirits to exist in something more akin to a dream environment? Or maybe no environment at all, similar to when we dream of having no body and existing simply in a black empty void or a white light. I mean, if we're talking about spirits that a dreamer can interact with, then it's a given that they can somehow inhabit a dreamscape or at least show up in something that the dreamer percieves as a dreamscape. 

But why should I have to provide feasible mechanisms for what these spirits are or how they interact? If such spirits do exist how would I or anyone else know anything about them, other than maybe people who can communicate with them like the OP? 

If the theory of shared dreams being telepathy is right, then the 'bodies' of these spirits that show up in the dreams would be simply something the dreamer's mind created to represent them. Same for the environment. Telepathy (if it exists) is _thoughts_ that enter your mind. I neither believe nor disbelieve in telepathy (just to get that straight), but at present I'm thinking a lot about it and how it _might_ work. And it seems to me that if you recieve thoughts from an external source while you're dreaming (could be from the mind of another dreamer, a waking sender, or maybe a spirit) then your mind is goint to interpret those thoughts in dream form and build bodies and environments around them. Isn't that what it does when you hear sounds from the 'real' world while you're dreaming? You might hear somebody talking near you and weave it into the dream. Or you might feel something - your cat jump on your chest maybe, or a sudden sharp pain or something, and that shows up in some distorted way in your dream. Why would it be any different for thoughts or feelings entering your mind from a different source? 






> I see what you mean about different experiences, but I feel the memory aspect of it falls into a slightly different category.  In the waking world, when people remember something differently it isn't because they experienced something different, but simply because memory is unreliable much of the time when it comes to small details.  That seems a bit different than what you propose for shared Dreaming.  You propose that the actual experience itself, while shared by two or more people, is presenting itself differently to each, not that they remember it differently.  May just be splitting hairs here, but do you see what I'm getting at?



It's not just memories that are different - no 2 people experience things in exactly the same way. For various reasons - perspective for one. Different people see things from different places and some can see more than others. Also because of differing amounts of knowledge or different backgrounds causing people to interpret things in very different ways. For instance, imagine how differently several people might have experienced 9-11 - one of the terrorist pilots, a passenger on the plane, a person inside one of the towers as it's struck by a plane, and a person on the street seeing it happen. To the person on the street a plane just flew into a building out of the clear blue. To the person inside the tower there's no telling what the hell just happened - could be an earthquake or explosion of some kind, or armageddon itself... who knows? Many people died never knowing what the hell had happened. 

And like I said before - _this_ was an event that took place in waking life, in the physical world. Now imagine a telepathic connection shared briefly between 2 people who are both dreaming. Of course I don't know how telepathy works (if it does), but it seems like it would be rather dreamlike - a burst of image, thought and feeling. Probably not crystal clear and definite, but rather something a little vague, the way subconscious thoughts are. It expresses itslef not in words but in images and feelings and symbols. So it seems like each dreamer would show up in some form in the other's dream, but each would see the other and the environment according to their own schema, formed from their own thoughts memories feelings and expectations.

----------


## longtimelucid

I never said the other worlds, dimensions, places, etc I visit are physical however that does not mean they are not real. If are just memories and imagination well then my friends we are all the most brilliant beings that have ever lived. We are each gods with the ability to construct worlds with vast oceans, montains, cities, buildings, technology and best of all life.  We create people and animals, emotions in others, clothes, food, etc. 
Im not artistic yet Ive seen the most brilliant colors and beautiful artwork while lucid.  To create this whole living is impossible to do on the fly and graphically unless we are each gods...or we travel to another place where we are not bound by 3D or physical constraints and anything we can dream is possible. Maybe hell is real and it is 3D earth.  My point is still I do not know what that other place is and by not asking and by not experimenting it will always just be  a dream.  Oh and I have not been getting emails when posts are made which is why I have not responded. Can someone please fix that  :smiley:

----------


## longtimelucid

Has anyone asked of others the 3 questions while lucid and of clear mind? I'd like to know your findings. We are all lucky in that very few people have lucid dreams and even fewer can control them.  Maybe together we can experiment and research more effectively.

----------


## Sensei

I have not asked the three questions. But, we can make these worlds for sure, and go back to them. So their existence, though it may depend solely on us, is real, it just might be real only in our heads. Bit just because others don't see it doesn't mean it matters less. 

I might ask them soon if I think of them. To be honest my mind just gives me random objectives in dreams. Normally it is something that I heard randomly once and my mind decided it is a good task.  :tongue2:  I am working right now on doing exactly what I want in every LD. Even if I could remember my goal every other LD I would be happy. I want to be good at every aspect of LDing.

----------


## paigeyemps

**Moved to Beyond Dreaming**

----------


## melanieb

Looks like you got a healthy response on your question. Good to see people interested.   :smiley: 






> Oh and I have not been getting emails when posts are made which is why I have not responded. Can someone please fix that




You can solve this by scrolling up to the top of the page and clicking on *Control Panel*. There you will see all your setting info and a box on the left side that allows you to change your settings (see picture below). Click on *General Settings*. Scroll down a very small bit to *Messaging & Notification* section. You should see a line of text which says, "*Default Thread Subscription Mode*" which you can choose to set for e-mail notifications or through yuor Control Panel Only.





If you choose through your Control Panel Only you can click on the *What's New* menu at the top of the page and see your Subscribed Threads. Saves your e-mail inbox from filling up.


Let staff know if you have any issues or questions. We're here to help.    ::D:

----------


## longtimelucid

Nice! Thanks Melanie

----------


## Sageous

Very late, possibly too late, to this interesting thread, but a couple of thoughts anyway:





> ...I have yet to read about someone who can take it to a level I have however I have yet to reach the end of the internet



I think you have yet even to reach the _end of this forum_, Longtimelucid!  The accomplishments you list are fairly common here, and honestly don't come close to the transcendental things advanced dreamers have done.

Indeed, asking the same three questions over and over, and always getting the same response speaks to me of stagnation, not advancement.  Why not collect your skills, forget about proving this other world, and set about exploring, or perhaps leaving it?  I think if you take yourself beyond the dreamscape you've created (or, as it were, created for you), your new perspective might provide you with proof of its reality.


*I think it would be great if you could answer these questions from Darkmatters, which seem to have been brushed aside by the greater conversation:* 

. 



> This is fascinating - I have a few questions:
> 
> 1) So, have you determined that every lucid dream takes you to the _same_ world, or each one to a different world? What does it mean that these worlds are populated by your family and friends and celebrities? 
> 
> 2) What are DILDs, which start as normal dreams and suddenly you become lucid? This must mean that every non-lucid dream also takes place in these other worlds, right? 
> 
> 3) What happens when you begin a dream there - do you suddenly appear out of nowhere? And disappear when you wake up or the dream ends? Do the other people notice you appearing and disappearing, and what do they think of that - have you ever asked them? 
> 
> 4) Does it seem normal to you for people not to know where they live or what the date is?



*Next:* 





> …If [dreams]are just memories and imagination well then my friends we are all the most brilliant beings that have ever lived. We are each gods with the ability to construct worlds with vast oceans, mountains, cities, buildings, technology and best of all life.  We create people and animals, emotions in others, clothes, food, etc. 
> I’m not artistic yet I’ve seen the most brilliant colors and beautiful artwork while lucid.  To create this whole living is impossible to do on the fly and graphically unless we are each gods...



Yes indeed, in our dreams we are truly gods, creators of entire universes, mountains, people, technology, all senses, and so much more if we really try.  It’s a shame that over all these years of apparently advanced LD’ing you have failed to realize the power of your dreaming mind -- perhaps if you spent less time believing purely in this other world and repeating the same questions, and spent more time learning to explore, manipulate, and escape your dreaming worlds, you’d have either come to understand that your dreaming universe is all your own, or else laid tracks across a glorious multiverse of collective consciousness-based reality.

If you had truly advanced to the lofty levels to which you claim (higher than anyone else here, which is a very impressive claim from my perspective), I seriously believe that you would by now have no need to ask those questions, would have long since proven to yourself the true nature of your dream world, and would have created/explored so many new worlds and manners of existence that this “real” world of yours would have been a distant memory.

I highly recommend, Longtimelucid, that you find some humility and consider for a moment that you might have wasted a whole lot of time asking these three questions, over and over and over, and think about moving on. 


*Zoth, Planeswalker, Darkmatters, BarandonBoss, Dutchraptor:*

Great chat guys!  I’m sorry I missed it; you discussed so many things about which I like to make noise...

----------


## EricinLA

> Hello all Ive been lucid dreaming for over 30 years and Im almost convinced that our minds or souls are transported to another world when lucid dreaming. Based on the realism including sight, taste, touch, smell and real coversations with people Ive never met. Also based on questions I ask others in my lucid dreams. Your thoughts on the possibility that they are not dreams but real?



Well, I've been Lucid Dreaming for over 35 years and have total Dream Control for about 25 years now.  I've lately gotten bored with it so I have tried to move to another level and connect to another person in my dreams.  I have had no success that I can show proof.  

But on the other hand I've seen things that have come true later on.  That has made me pay more attention.  So for right now, I think dreams are in your own mind.  But at the same time we are getting some sort of influence from outside of our minds during a dream.  I just won't consider it another world.  This is my opinion until I can prove it to myself otherwise.

----------


## Runeword

> Hello all Ive been lucid dreaming for over 30 years and Im almost convinced that our minds or souls are transported to another world when lucid dreaming. Based on the realism including sight, taste, touch, smell and real coversations with people Ive never met. Also based on questions I ask others in my lucid dreams. Your thoughts on the possibility that they are not dreams but real?



a lot of this has to do with your own personal beliefs regarding NDE's and similar topics.  you have to decide for yourself as there is no real proof either way.

----------


## longtimelucid

Are you 100% sure your lucid dreams are just dreams?
If so then you should continue playing in your dreams and being the master of your domain...your choice.
I'm not wasting my time asking 3 questions but I did have fun just creating my own dreamscape, doing what every I want, etc.
I've moved beyond that.  I'm now in search of something else and to your point I may never find it...it may all just be a dream or eventually I may find what it reallly is...my choice and no need for you follow.
My intent is not to stop anyone from exploring LD and having fun with it since that is how you learn.
My intent is to find out what LD really is or what it can be used for.  Can it be used to communicate with the dead, with other humans, with undiscovered life forms?  I do not know as there are so many unanswered questions.  And to not ask the questions you are closing the door on what it can be and used for and what it may be.  Again your choice.
To answer some questions:
1) So, have you determined that every lucid dream takes you to the same world, or each one to a different world? What does it mean that these worlds are populated by your family and friends and celebrities?   Answer:Sometimes the same place sometimes different.  My family and friends are never in my lucid dreams except for my brother who passed.

2) What are DILDs, which start as normal dreams and suddenly you become lucid? This must mean that every non-lucid dream also takes place in these other worlds, right? Answer: I dont have an answer to that.

3) What happens when you begin a dream there - do you suddenly appear out of nowhere? And disappear when you wake up or the dream ends? Do the other people notice you appearing and disappearing, and what do they think of that - have you ever asked them?  Answer: I dont know if I appear out of nowhere as I do not see myself enter the LD.  Maybe I'm seeing through some else's eyes.  Maybe the other people are dreaming as well however I'm the only one LD which is why I can control the dream and they can't.  To them it is a simple dream or nightmare which they believe is 3D and to the person having the LD it is dreamscape.

4) Does it seem normal to you for people not to know where they live or what the date is?  Answer: Yes I find it very strange that everyone always knows their name however nobody knows of the place or time.

----------


## EricinLA

> Are you 100% sure your lucid dreams are just dreams?
> If so then you should continue playing in your dreams and being the master of your domain...your choice.
> I'm not wasting my time asking 3 questions but I did have fun just creating my own dreamscape, doing what every I want, etc.
> I've moved beyond that.  I'm now in search of something else and to your point I may never find it...
> 
> 4) Does it seem normal to you for people not to know where they live or what the date is?  Answer: Yes I find it very strange that everyone always knows their name however nobody knows of the place or time.



It is good you want to expand.  But try to use some basic logic.  People will only know things in your dream that you yourself know.  Because you created them.  You said many times you don't know where you are so how would they know?  They are just another extension of your own conciseness for the most part. 

I myself can create any world I want and see anyone I want.  Living or dead and I do it every night including family and friends.  Change them or myself to whatever I want.  Since you can't; this shows me your degree of control is not as good as you have brought yourself to believe.  This is what I know.  I think you should go about it in a different way and try to improve your control to be able to do anything, be anything and see anybody anytime at one thought from yourself.   Good Luck.

----------


## longtimelucid

It is very interesting that science does not have the tools today to comprehend dreams, to really understand, capture, diagnose, and monitor them let alone know 100% for certain what they really are.  And yet many on this site seem to have it all figured out and the brain is responsible for everything.
Did you ever think that your brain may just be a receptor/transmitter and possible gateway into non-physical worlds accessible via LD?  
When I ask the questions I ask of a clear mind because I know how to manipulate the answers, and I do know that I'm in a lucid dream and I do know the date when I ask the questions.  To clarify I can control any and every aspect of my LD and make anyone appear in my LD (family, friends, famous people, etc).  I choose not to for that leads to self manifested dreams.  Instead I enter my LD state with a clear mind and let things happen.  In this state I never see anyone I've seen in the physical world.   If we didnt question, didnt explore then the earth would still be the flat center of the universe.
I believe the world is round, well maybe oval  :smiley:  , and there is so much to be discovered beyond what we were taught to believe.

----------


## EricinLA

longtimelucid,

I do what I call "Free Dreaming" most of the time now.  I got bored over the years with total control.  I see my wife, friends, family in those dreams as well.  I wondered if I was connecting to them in a dream or just my minds representation of them.  So one time I was dreaming of being with my wife in Hawaii in a "Free Dream".   I thought this would be a great importunity to find out.  

I can force myself awake from a dream at anytime.  So I did.  I immediately woke my wife up and asked if she was dreaming.  She said yes.  I asked her to describe the dream.  She said she was dreaming back in elementary school.  It was a totally different dream.  I got my answer at least for that dream.

When I was performing total "Dream Control" or "Free Dreaming" at least at that time she wasn't real.  She was only a representation of her in my mind.  I hope this helps.

----------


## Sageous

*longtimelucid:*

Okay.  I know my tone invited much of your response, but, still, you seem to have read many things which were not in my post.  So:





> Are you 100% sure your lucid dreams are just dreams?



I never said I was; indeed, I never said _anything_ about dreams just being dreams -- not sure where you got that from.





> If so then you should continue playing in your dreams and being the master of your domain...your choice.



That was fairly uncalled for, I think -- please note that I've been "playing" in my dreams for about four decades now, and to date haven't cared much about being "master of my domain." Please don't decide for me what I do in my dreams, when I never said a word about it.





> I'm not wasting my time asking 3 questions but I did have fun just creating my own dreamscape, doing what every I want, etc. I've moved beyond that.  I'm now in search of something else and to your point I may never find it...it may all just be a dream or eventually I may find what it really is...my choice and no need for you follow.



That's all good, and something I believe you failed to share earlier; thanks for clarifying.  And don't worry, I wasn't planning on following anyone -- no idea where you got that either.





> My intent is not to stop anyone from exploring LD and having fun with it since that is how you learn.



I never said it was -- did you even _read_ my post?





> My intent is to find out what LD really is or what it can be used for.  Can it be used to communicate with the dead, with other humans, with undiscovered life forms?  I do not know as there are so many unanswered questions.  And to not ask the questions you are closing the door on what it can be and used for and what it may be.  Again your choice.



Thanks again for the clarification... again, had you included all that in your original bona fides, I likely would never have posted. Again, what is this nonsense about my "choice?" Was I ever talking about choices, or following you?  Was your post directed at someone else, perhaps on another thread?





> To answer some questions:
> 1) So, have you determined that every lucid dream takes you to the same world, or each one to a different world? What does it mean that these worlds are populated by your family and friends and celebrities?   Answer:Sometimes the same place sometimes different.  My family and friends are never in my lucid dreams except for my brother who passed.
> 
> 2) What are DILDs, which start as normal dreams and suddenly you become lucid? This must mean that every non-lucid dream also takes place in these other worlds, right? Answer: I dont have an answer to that.
> 
> 3) What happens when you begin a dream there - do you suddenly appear out of nowhere? And disappear when you wake up or the dream ends? Do the other people notice you appearing and disappearing, and what do they think of that - have you ever asked them?  Answer: I dont know if I appear out of nowhere as I do not see myself enter the LD.  Maybe I'm seeing through some else's eyes.  Maybe the other people are dreaming as well however I'm the only one LD which is why I can control the dream and they can't.  To them it is a simple dream or nightmare which they believe is 3D and to the person having the LD it is dreamscape.
> 
> 4) Does it seem normal to you for people not to know where they live or what the date is?  Answer: Yes I find it very strange that everyone always knows their name however nobody knows of the place or time.



Thank you.  I'll leave it to Darkmatters to respond, if he cares.

Sorry if I riled you, longtimelucid.  I guess I was a bit riled myself.  I've been practicing and developing this discipline for so long, and have done so much (with so much left to do), that I get a bit annoyed when I'm talked down to by a self-proclaimed superior who lists as his skills stuff I got tired of doing back in the '80's.  I'm glad you offered some further explanations.  Still, it would have been nice if you had actually _read_ my post rather than simply glanced and assumed. That can lead to much confusion. 

'Nuff said, I think; sorry to trouble you.  I'll try not to do it again.

 ::cheers::

----------


## Sensei

@Eric
You might be really interested in wakingnomad and ravenKnight. They have lots of shared dream experience. I know nomad thinks that you should imagine opening a dimension between the dreams and either going in their dream and pulling them into yours. Something you might want to look into. 

I have a lot I wish to say about both your dream control, but I have to eat dinner.  :tongue2:

----------


## longtimelucid

My friend, maybe she just did not remember that dream. Or maybe what you experienced was not a dream.

----------


## longtimelucid

Sageous, my response was not to anyone specific but more so just putting more info out.

----------


## Sageous

^^ Okay, Longtimelucid; if you say so. Thanks for clarifying.

----------


## Zoth

> It is very interesting that science does not have the tools today to comprehend dreams, to really understand, capture, diagnose, and monitor them let alone know 100% for certain what they really are.  And yet many on this site seem to have it all figured out and the brain is responsible for everything.
> Did you ever think that your brain may just be a receptor/transmitter and possible gateway into non-physical worlds accessible via LD?



I really do think that you have, for the most part, no idea what you're talking about. Sleep and dream research is a relatively new science, and most of the reasons for it are due the lack of tools for the study of sleep, and the mysticism that surrounded dreams for many centuries. You, on the other hand, present investigation methods that may be easily falsifiable, and still claim they are valid. You think scientists don't have curiosity? You think you can really say "science" and pretend you're not a part of it? I doubt anyone here hasn't been a scientist in a certain aspect of their lives in the past week or even day. The difference between the "science people", and people like you, is that we're able to judge ideas critically and with the proper sense of reason and logic. Of course our brain could be a gateway into non-physical worlds acessible via LD? But the real question is: why the hell would you give credit to a proposition that has flaws in every 3 words?

Define how a non-physical world could interact with a physical thing?
Define how you could say that the non-physical thing existed, or possessed the attributes you claimed it did?
Define why would a physical process like a dream would generate a non-physical process?
And most importantly: what is something non-physical? If someone can conceive the concept of "non-physical" I'd love to hear about it (would make for an amazing discussion in another topic perhaps  :smiley:  )

All good questions that show the flaws on your way of thinking and lay your "theory" down to land. If you're saying things just because you think they sound cool, then by all means go ahead, but don't say you're open-minded because the ability to accept things uncritically is certainly not a sign of it. And don't come out and bash science for not having answers when all your doing is stating your belief based on faith, not reason or logic, and then state that "many on this site seem to have it all figured it out". We don't, we just can see through your lack of logic and coherence without even stating our own opinion. I find it completely hilarious that you are attacking "science" people for being "smartasses" when you're not even willing to admit the possibility of you changing your belief, like you stated on your 5th post in this thread.

----------


## EricinLA

> @Eric
> You might be really interested in wakingnomad and ravenKnight. They have lots of shared dream experience. I know nomad thinks that you should imagine opening a dimension between the dreams and either going in their dream and pulling them into yours. Something you might want to look into. 
> 
> I have a lot I wish to say about both your dream control, but I have to eat dinner.



Thanks for pointing me to both of them.  I've sent them both PM's and hope they respond back soon.  If you have any questions for me I'm glad to share what I've learned on my own over the years.  

I've been reading a lot of posts on here.  I guess Total Control doesn't come as easy to most of the others.  But then again it took about 10 years of practicing every night to reach it.  So I guess it didn't come easy to me or it wouldn't have taken me so long.  But I hope I can pass information on to others to speed up their progress.  I can't really talk to anyone else about this in real life besides my wife.

----------


## longtimelucid

Zoth00, correct I do not know what Im talking about when it comes to LD. Neither do you, scientists or others on this site know 100% what LDs are since nobody has the proper tools to research them. But my mind is open to the many possibilities of what LDs could be.  Too often do we associate the physical world to dream world because we think we  know what physical world is as we are comfortable with it.  Are LDs really a type of dream or do we just associate LDs with dreams so we can categorize them with something we are familiar with. A sheep herder who has never seen another animal would call a deer a brown sheep.  So I ask you..are you sure LDs are just a type of dream?

----------


## Zoth

> 100% what LDs are since nobody has the proper tools to research them



Actually, it's because we can never be sure of anything at 100% certainty. But that is so irrelevant that we don't go out and say "hey, I'm not 100% sure that guns actually kill people, so I'm going to try to shoot myself, I strongly believe that I'll transform into super-man".





> But my mind is open to the many possibilities of what LDs could be



Once again, don't mistake yourself. Open mindedness refers to the willingness to consider new ideas, not having empty beliefs. And just so you know, science promotes and thrives into open-mindedness. Now, because you clearly ignore things that are said to you, I'll tell you again:

The fact that you stated that we can't convince you to change your belief does not make you open-minded, it completely puts you in the category of close-minded. Hope you got this one clear.





> Too often do we associate the physical world to dream world because we think we know what physical world is



Oh, so no more references to the non-physical world? Clearly dodging the troubles of answering my previous post?

Dream is physical. We know that because it possesses physical attributes. The physical world is what we defined it to be. Non-physical worlds are undefined, thus, cannot be said to exist.





> Are LDs really a type of dream



Yes, they are.





> do we just associate LDs with dreams so we can categorize them with something we are familiar with



You make zero sense. A lucid dream is a dream....in which the person is lucid. Get it? the only difference between a dream and a lucid dream is the lucid part. What do you say that a lucid dream is? A non-physical world? If it was a non-physical world, how could you know it existed? You contradict yourself in every post.





> A sheep herder who has never seen another animal would call a deer a brown sheep



Yeah, then have a lucid *dream* without being *dreaming* and then talk to us.

----------


## Sageous

^^ I must agree with Zoth here; a lucid dream is indeed a dream.

This is not semantics, I think, and certainly not some close-minded rationale, as Longtimelucid kindly suggested earlier. Everything in a lucid dream is the same as a regular dream, except that we are aware we are dreaming.  Yes, LD's may open the door to experience that can exceed the natural limits of dreams, but until that happens, a lucid dream is indeed a dream.

_Unless..._

Longtimelucid, are you saying that non-lucid dreams _are not_ visits to another world?  I would have assumed they are, and we're just not aware of the trip.  If they aren't such visits, then what are they?

----------


## longtimelucid

I do not have the answers to your questions and I cannot prove not now nor ever that LDs are not dreams. But if I dont question what LDs are they will always just be my imagination and nothing more. I will continue to explore and continue to question because that is how we discover the man behind the curtain...we dont give up and we dont take things at face value.

----------


## Sageous

^^ You don't even have an _opinion_ about my question about whether a non-lucid dream goes to the same other world as a LD? That is odd... you seemed so sure of yourself about things earlier.

Oh well. I was hoping that might head us back to the OP... guess not.  After all, there's no sense discussing anything if the thread's creator is unable answer questions or even to express opinions, right?

Too bad, it's a good topic.

As a long- time LD'er who refuses to give up, I wish you the best of luck in your search whenever it commences!  :smiley:

----------


## Runeword

another typical debate thread really on this topic.  normally i don't like to even get involved in these types of discussions but here i go at 10 pm at night with a few beers down:  (did i comment in this one already ??? probably)  OP TO YOU DIRECTLY: there is nobody else in this world let alone these forums that can answer that question for you.  you need to make up your own mind based on the experiences that YOU have personally had yourself.  sad that it always seems to boil down to "man of science vs man of faith" but it really does.  just come and share your own personal experiences and let others take what they may from it that's my best advice completely from the heart.

----------


## longtimelucid

Could a non-LD  be in the same world as an LD? It could. I see dreams as an extension of the 3D world in that we believe we are in 3D therefore everything has physical properties.  Once we become conscious in our dreams they become something else and everyone and everything changes. LD may be a higher state of meditation that we must continue to try and understand.

----------


## EricinLA

> Could a non-LD  be in the same world as an LD? It could. I see dreams as an extension of the 3D world in that we believe we are in 3D therefore everything has physical properties.  Once we become conscious in our dreams they become something else and everyone and everything changes. LD may be a higher state of meditation that we must continue to try and understand.



I only have that deeper control in my sleep state. It does help me stay very calm in my real life. But I think I can only achieve the connection in my sleeping/dreaming state. It would be considered Delta and/or Gamma brain waves out of the 5 known brain wave levels each person would need. I don't have that deep of control while i'm awake. To attain Gamma brain waves while awake would be really difficult for the best "Dream Controller". Check out the link below for different brain wave level information. 

click here --> Meet Your Brain Waves â Introducing Alpha, Beta, Theta, Delta, AndÂ*Gamma

----------


## longtimelucid

I agree Eric. The closest connection Ive had to the physical world during LD is awareness of my body being in bed and awareness of sounds.  Ive sometimes been able to see both worlds simultaneously but that is very infrequent. Very difficult to experience LD anytime unless you are enlightened I guess.  Ive heard some remote viewers are able to RV at anytime including while walking down a busy city street.  Requires extreme concentration or maybe non at all. My best LD experiences come during nothingness while meditating...you think nothing and feel nothing and it comes to you or maybe you are able to see it

----------


## elucidator

To bad this thread kinda died down a while ago.
   Well actually to bad I found this at this time, because I feel that I can actually answer a lot of these questions. I'm not the most experienced lucid dreamer, but I do know a lot about spiritual cultivation and what we would like to call dreams in the meditation/cultivating community. A lot of good points have been made up here about influence and control over other worlds while sharing it with other sentient beings. It is indeed very perplexing... no need to worry it can be confusing.  Long time lucid I have a lot of references and materials for you to read if you are interested. I can tell you on more accounts than I can count that i have been to other worlds, dimension; physical or non-physical. Felt pain, smell, taste, all the physical things one would feel. while simultaneously feeling my body lay in a bed, aware of the fact that I might be in two places at once. The Buddha School, The Tao School, and even many more have all discussed the issue of inter dimensional travel while in a state of sleep.
Let me know if any one is interested about this sort of thing.

----------


## longtimelucid

I guess we are in synch my friend. Last night was the first time I looked at this thread in a very long time.  Soon after you respond.  Please tell us more about your views and experiences.

----------


## JJFrank

Longtimelucid,

Your experiences and questions and suppositions are all 100% valid. You are completely correct that science really has no idea what "reality" is. Science attempts to understand what the physical senses perceive. Science is incapable of even elementary understanding of very common experiences like "thought", "emotions", "love", or even "gravity" for that matter (although they have made very primitive measurements of their electrical compliments). Respected scientists have formulated numerous untested theories such as String Theory and Multiple Dimensional Universes. Your theories, Longtimelucid, are just as valid as theirs. You do not have to be able to provide any supporting evidence to have a theory even if posters here criticize you for not doing so.

I have noticed a basic aspect of human nature is to be uncomfortable with the unknown and for people to take some kind of comfort in telling themselves that they "know" certain things. People utilize these ideas to help them to feel more comfortable in a very nebulous and unclear world.  So you find people posting here who know nothing about you and yet tell you that you are not experienced enough, or that you should work  little longer and come back when you have had the same experiences that they have had. Posters who repeat 10 times in a post that they "didn't say that" are obviously exhibiting defensiveness and insecurity. We should all feel insecure about our observations. None of us know anything, and certainly none of us know anything about the extent of the other's experience or capabilities. All bragging should be taken with a grain of salt and the ad hominem attacks should be ignored. 

I have tried your experiment myself and got the same result that you did. In my experiences, dream contacts never know the date or the place and look at me in a puzzled way like they don't even know what the questions mean. I posted an experience of my own in which I collected information about the dream environment that would identify the place, such as house numbers and street signs. Perhaps you could look for these in your future explorations as an alternative to trying to get answers from contacts. 

There is no way to know exactly the source, the mechanism or the purpose of lucid dreams. Since the history of life largely exhibits a propensity for evolutionary development, I try to see how lucid dreaming could assist in the evolution of humans. Since it seems to be a power of the mind, I suspect that the mind is evolving the ability to more effectively manipulate its environment. I have also posted experiences of "lucid wakefulness" in which I attempt to manipulate physical experience in the same way I would manipulate a dream experience.

I have also explored the possibility that the mind is simply a transmittter and receiver of information from other dimensions of experience beyond the one percievable to the physical senses. This is a definite possibility although I have not evolved enough to be able to offer any confirmation of this theory.

JJ

----------


## Sensei

Your hypothesis is interesting. Your experiments completely and utterly... Prove nothing. :/ 

A good experiment will solidify the hypothesis if it succeeds and disprove the hypothesis if it fails. Maybe you need to observe more and come up with a better experiment.

----------


## longtimelucid

Yes they always know their name but never the date or where they are.  since time is a man made concept maybe space is as well.

----------


## GenFalcon

I dont want to sound like a jerk or anything but Brandonboss your remarks are all the same and are pointless.  There is no reason for your posts as they make no sense for you to be posting them in the first place as all you say is .  your wrong you cant prove it you fail  (putting it in shorter term)   If your mind is not cappable to explore the unknown please dont post your negative comments as you are trying to bring down their CHi,spirit, or being what ever yo uwant to call it that is our dream self.  We have no proof and our tests will always prove to be invalid because it is a dream.  The only way we can prove it to be real or more valid is if we were able to bring objects itno dreams with us such as cameras or anything else that can capture a moment but that is not possible as it is not physical like the waking life it is different.   

Longtimelucid  I think what your saying is great and i think it is highly possible  infact to me anything is possible as by thinking its impossible is making it not possible to myself even if it was to begin with. By my brain simply thinking that its putting a cement wall infront of me.  Its like saying drinking my water is impossible.  I know for a fact it is but if i were to actually think that i woulnt be able to as my body would forget how to swallow and the water would just sit in my mouth not going down.   Is it a different world I dont know but how i see the dreamscape is like this

There is a giant bubble(or sephere)  Inside that giant circle is lots of small circles and inside those are even smaller circles.  Inside the small circles are our nonlucid dreams thedreams that are just in auto and do nothing to try and control it.  When we become lucid we are able to leave our bubble and move into other bubbles sometimes moving into other peoples or just simply going into the general public space.  This is where i believe you would find shared dreamign the most common.

----------


## Sensei

Actually... I think that your theory is interesting and wish you guys would come up with a better way to check it, because I think that it could be enjoyable to read. I made that last post hoping that you guys would be doing better experiments. Maybe ask someone with a better grasp on LDing (like sageous) about experiments that you could run. I made sure that my post couldn't come off as rude, but it still might have, and I apologize for that. I dont mind being proved wrong, but it annoys me when people don't work on interesting ideas. At the end of the day, I dont care if I have been proven wrong, I just want to learn more from it.ü

Also, if i brought down their "chispirit" then they need to grow a pair of "chiballs"  so that a conment on a random site online doesn't bring them down.

----------


## GenFalcon

haha  :smiley:    Love the Chi balls bit  :wink2:  

I would love to do more but im still at a begininer level for most of this so that is out of my reach right now but down the road I will gladly try and find some kind of evidence.  After i can get a staibilized dream for a while Im going to doing Shared dreaming and hopefully through that I can provide some more answers  :smiley:   I suggest checking out

http://www.dreamviews.com/internatio...aming-project/

as its a great bit about shared dreamers workign on this project for a while

----------


## Sensei

I used to be part of that.  :smiley:  I left to work more on lucid dreaming. Planning on going back when I have more consistent LDs. A lot of people there need to work more on LDing and less on shared dreaming. They would have more success with both I think. 

If you need help with anything LDing, let me know. And when you get better and do some experiments I would like to see.  :smiley:

----------


## GenFalcon

Just need to work on getting down what ever technique works for me right now.  Ive only had 1 succesful Wild  but i was in a dark abyss and only thought of saying clarity now. which worked made some light start to appear but i couldnt find an object and use it to keep my stabaility like i wanted to do.  

Most of the Lucidis ive had so far were DILDs



I will let you know once i start my tests with my partner we know each other in person and have met up in a physical location we want to meet and have hung out sessions to try and get a better connection for when we do want to try.   I was just testing out one night if I could communicate with him and we hd some resolts but it was probably just a fluke.   As i was drifting off to sleep / in a dream state of mind I was yelling his name in my head over and over and over.  not like saying it but yelling as loud as i could in my head.  it was around 3 AM  he had a dream but ignored part of it.  he heard somebody calling his name really loudly in the distant but decided to ignore it and went on about dreaming and woke up shortly after around 330.  so around the same time when i was yelling his name he heard somebody yelling his name.  Only flaw is he said it sounded like a girls voice but im by all means not a girl  :smiley:   But could be him hearing it different and his mind changing how it sounds if it was me.

----------


## JJFrank

Brandon,

You say others need to grow a pair, but really you need to grow up. 

Nobody here is trying to please you. I admire people who try to express their experiences, which are very difficult to give expression to. Others here are sharing their unscientific experiences and these experiences are valuable. Your criticisms are juvenile and useless. If you want proof of another's experience, then stop griping about what others are doing and come up with something more scientific yourself. Or suggest a method for verification and invite others to participate.

You can either choose to build upon what others have discovered or you can make your juvenile potshots about how their posts are not good enough for you.

I find your snide comments exceedingly offensive and not constructive. If this were a business strategy group, you would be thrown out for being unhelpful and destructive to forward progress. If you don't understand what I am saying to you, please ask for clarification and I will attempt to explain to you why your comments are  immature and actually inhibit others from deepening their explorations of lucid dreaming. I would make the same comment to those who upvote your comments and those you cite as comrades. 

JJ






> Actually... I think that your theory is interesting and wish you guys would come up with a better way to check it, because I think that it could be enjoyable to read. I made that last post hoping that you guys would be doing better experiments. Maybe ask someone with a better grasp on LDing (like sageous) about experiments that you could run. I made sure that my post couldn't come off as rude, but it still might have, and I apologize for that. I dont mind being proved wrong, but it annoys me when people don't work on interesting ideas. At the end of the day, I dont care if I have been proven wrong, I just want to learn more from it.ü
> 
> Also, if i brought down their "chispirit" then they need to grow a pair of "chiballs"  so that a conment on a random site online doesn't bring them down.

----------


## Sensei

I understand extremely well. A lot of my comments came from frustration at your previous comments and came off very rude when I reviewed them this is why I posted the part that you quoted in your comment...

And. 

I dont expect others to please me, but if you say that something is proven because of z and y and you dont account for the unkown variable, then I would like to see how you account for it. A lot of responses to my straight up questions were responded condescendingly, so when I asked more questions I decided to be more direct and to the point about why I was questioning them in case they were confused (these are the ones that came off as rude). People got offended because I disagreed with them and because I sounded rude. This is the point where I made amends and jokes back and tossed in growing a pair as a joke, which was taken as a joke.

Now I will explain some things to you. 

1) When someone disagrees with you online, and you get offended, that is childish. If you truly believe in something and someone doesn't agree with you, they can suck it (for instance I am a Christian and I dont believe in evolution, many people disagree and make fun, they can suck it. If you believe that your experiment is good enough to convince you, then to you, I can suck it). So the fact that you got offended is proof that you need to either grow a pair or decide in your mind what you believe, because what I believe shouldn't matter to you. This is why I say to grow a pair of chiballs (maybe you dont get the triple joke here?  :tongue2: 

2) kind of funny, but you did the most childish comeback. Taking what I said, rephrasing it and sending it back to me. Growing a pair coincides with growing up. Lol. And the fact that you send a childish retort at me calling me chidish is hysterical and I hope you meant it that way. 

3) note that i am not saying that the idea is bad i am saying that the experiment is bad. If i said that the idea was stupid, that would be ignorant and rude. I am just not convinced by the experiment. 

4) people often come on DV and at the first sign of someone disagreeing, they get offended and say that we just must not be "at that point yet" and honestly are complete jerks. When you think that the person you are talking to less of a person than you, you are no longer debating, you are "instructing lesser people". If you think that I am too stupid to understand (which I assure you, I can understand anything that you throw at me) then there is no reason for us to talk about this. 

5)this is not a business strategy group. If it was, I think that one person giving an idea that has very little bearing and another person questioning it and trying to seal up the loose ends wouldn't be thrown out. But yet again. This is a forum. Not business strategy. 

6) 



> if you want proof of another's experience



I do not want proof of their experience. I want to know how their experience led them to the conclusion. There is a big difference. 

I hope we can put all this behind us if you are going to be around the forum at all. I try to get along well with everyone.

I am not putting this as an apology or as an argument, It isn't aggressive (i told myself to suck it at one point, so you should see where this is coming from) nor is it defensive. It is a statement to clear up the things I have said before and explain why I said it in response to you and the other people on here.

----------


## dutchraptor

> Brandon,
> 
> You say others need to grow a pair, but really you need to grow up. 
> 
> Nobody here is trying to please you. I admire people who try to express their experiences, which are very difficult to give expression to. Others here are sharing their unscientific experiences and these experiences are valuable. Your criticisms are juvenile and useless. If you want proof of another's experience, then stop griping about what others are doing and come up with something more scientific yourself. Or suggest a method for verification and invite others to participate.
> 
> You can either choose to build upon what others have discovered or you can make your juvenile potshots about how their posts are not good enough for you.
> 
> I find your snide comments exceedingly offensive and not constructive. If this were a business strategy group, you would be thrown out for being unhelpful and destructive to forward progress. If you don't understand what I am saying to you, please ask for clarification and I will attempt to explain to you why your comments are  immature and actually inhibit others from deepening their explorations of lucid dreaming. I would make the same comment to those who upvote your comments and those you cite as comrades. 
> ...



No it was constructive. The experiment is weak and doesn't prove anything, it's that simple. Brandon pointed out that if you wanted to make a compelling hypothesis you have to get some real proof to back up your points, he never demanded anything. 

You are actually the one being sophomoric here. "Exceedingly offensive"? "juvenile potshots"? are you serious, where in any of Brandon's posts can you see that. The one you linked in your comment comes across as sympathetic and friendly. 

Perhaps you have innate hatred towards being reasonable, it seems so considering your over reaction.

This is a forum, a place where we discuss. I consider DV to be one of the more intelligible communities around here, maybe you don't know how this place works yet. When someone sets up threads like this, it's natural for a debate to form.

----------


## Voldmer

I think too much use is being made of the word "prove" in connection with lucid dreaming/AP experiments.

In this world we can never really prove anything. If we measure something meticulously with fine technical equipment, then the numbers coming from that equipment do not prove anything. The equipment may have failed, or the person reporting the read-out may have misread, or forgotten, or forged the data.

All we can hope for with experiments is to strengthen the belief in some (or several) hypothesis (hypotheses).

----------


## longtimelucid

I dont think we have anything to prove to one another. We all have the ability to transport ourselves to different realms whether dream or spiritual world or another dimension is just symantecs...we are all explorers venturing to places the physical body is not allowed and sharing those experiences

----------


## Sensei

> I dont think we have anything to prove to one another. We all have the ability to transport ourselves to different realms whether dream or spiritual world or another dimension is just symantecs...we are all explorers venturing to places the physical body is not allowed and sharing those experiences



Whether that realm is just in our heads or a spiritual dimension doesn't make too much of a difference. It is "real", it just may be a dream in the traditional sense, which we still don't understand why we dream. Haha. 
"Of course it is happening inside your head, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?"  :smiley:

----------


## leal

> Hello all Ive been lucid dreaming for over 30 years and Im almost convinced that our minds or souls are transported to another world when lucid dreaming. Based on the realism including sight, taste, touch, smell and real coversations with people Ive never met. Also based on questions I ask others in my lucid dreams. Your thoughts on the possibility that they are not dreams but real?



can you please contact me longtimelucid, i am exactly like you, i have just recently began to search for someone that has been having these experiences.  before i even found this thread i posted my own to try and find some answers, just like yours, exactly the same stuff, please read my first post.  I'm convinced i'm in other worlds too.  I am 37 years old and have been at this for years, i'd really love to communicate, please contact me.

----------


## Lb1025

Yes, ever since I have learned the ability to teleport to different dreams, the people, the scenery, their answers are all different. I feel as if we have found a path to the spiritual realm. The dream no longer feels like mine, more as if it has been there for a long while. I am unfamiliar with the whole scenery.

----------


## Lb1025

I stopped transportation about a year ago, when I had an odd dream. Someone flew up to me and grabbed and transported us to a dark space. Only '' it '' had the power to do and make anything it even changed its physical form. Anything I made it could destroy or change, My Lucid skills were no match. According to Buddhist I was with an entitie. I just now have started Lucid dreaming again this last month finally relearned how to teleport oncemore.

----------


## Lb1025

> I dont think we have anything to prove to one another. We all have the ability to transport ourselves to different realms whether dream or spiritual world or another dimension is just symantecs...we are all explorers venturing to places the physical body is not allowed and sharing those experiences



I don't think you are alone in your theory, and it is hard to find others that have shared in these experiences, I do believe transporting ourselves is the key to these other realms. Anyone I talk to in person about Lucid dreaming looks at me like I'm crazy but ancient civilizations have done it. my dreams really started to become unfamiliar when I learned to teleport and the people in it no longer seem like my projections. More like they know where they are and what is going on around them. I started asking if they use to be alive '' physical form of life '' I find odd answers, that I did not expect.

----------


## longtimelucid

What were their answers? Try asking what is todays date? Or what planet are we on? Or how many hours in a day, minutes in an hour or seconds in a minute.

----------


## longtimelucid

Their answers will determine if they are from earth as we are or elsewhere.  Time as we know it applies only to earth in terms of dates, hours, minutes and seconds.  And like I said previously they always know their names but nothing about earth history or time, dates, etc.

----------


## snoop

Why do you guys think you are visiting other realms rather than just being in your mind's projected reality? Do you really have any evidence that makes you think otherwise? What is it about your experiences that is so unique that it is not possible that you could just be in a false reality created by your mind?

----------


## longtimelucid

Why do you think you are not in other realms? Why do think it is just in your mind? Do you have any proof that it is only in your mind? Are you scared of believing it is anything but your mind? Try opening yourself up to the possibilities of what it can be vs sticking with assumptions of what it might be.  Nobody has proof of what lucid dreams are so until there is proof why not believe in what you were taught is impossible.

----------


## Sageous

^^ Actually, there is plenty of proof that dreams are just happening inside your head, including years of brain-scan studies using fMRI machines (devices that allow us to see brain activity as it is happening), psychological studies, and decades of sleep study.  As far as science is concerned, it's pretty clear that dreams are indeed manufactured inside your head, and you are not literally visiting other worlds when you dream, lucid or not.  In other words, the proof that we dream inside our heads is already in, and has been for years; no belief necessary.  But that, _I_ believe, is not the end of the story:

Even with that proof in hand, there is still quite a bit we don't know yet about the true nature of dreaming.  Sure, the worlds we visit are created inside our heads, but at the same time might we be making a connection to things beyond the workings of our many neurons alone?  Could we be psychically sharing our created worlds with other dreamers, and vise-verse? These are just a couple of potential aspects of dreaming that could exist just fine even with the scientific proof noted, and discovering that they are possible through lucid dreaming would open some amazing doors for all of us, and I for one would be delighted if they could be proven.  Belief in wonderful things is a fine stance for an open, inquiring mind, but to take that next step and convert that faith to actual knowledge is a far more powerful tool for that same mind.

So Snoop's question is valid, and sincere, I think:  If lucid dreamers can find some sort of proof that they are experiencing worlds beyond the confines of their own skulls, this world would become a much more interesting place!

----------


## calielizabeth

I cant be honest with you because im being censored, but find me on facebook if you want my real answer.

----------


## gab

> I cant be honest with you because im being censored, but find me on facebook if you want my real answer.



You were asked to keep your radical views on dreaming in off-topic sections. View, such as 




> Sleep paralysis, for example, can be a demon sitting on you trying to kill you.



are completely wrong and we don't appreciate anybody instilling baseless fears in our members. 

We have people here of all religions and beliefs. Everybody is influenced by it to certain degree. But our main focus in on-topic sections is lucid dreaming, please respect that.

----------


## PercyLucid

Sleep paralysis is a phenomena that occurs to every single human being (and possibly animals as well) including you, calielizabeth. Our mind paralyzes our physical body in order to not act out during our dreams. It may happen by accident or by preparing a WILD that we can be conscious during sleep paralysis. Last night I have experienced it twice and I can assure it is completely normal  :smiley:  

We will really appreciate if to keep religion to oneself. 

I invite you to post over Religion/Spirituality and share your believes there if you please, but without inducing fear. 

In my honest opinion, fear equals darkness, as it is a negative feeling, and you are proving that Christianity is fear-based... I am sure you do not want to think that, so please, be mindful about it.

Thanks a ton!

----------


## Voldmer

> ^^ Actually, there is plenty of proof that dreams are just happening inside your head, including years of brain-scan studies using fMRI machines (devices that allow us to see brain activity as it is happening), psychological studies, and decades of sleep study.  As far as science is concerned, it's pretty clear that dreams are indeed manufactured inside your head, and you are not literally visiting other worlds when you dream, lucid or not.  In other words, the proof that we dream inside our heads is already in, and has been for years; no belief necessary.



Not so fast! There is no such proof.

What we have are lots of measurements that coincide, time-wise, with self-reported dreaming. This means they statistically correlate dreaming with the various measurements. But correlation proves nothing - absolutely nothing! Ever!

Strictly speaking we don't know diddly squat about the causes of dreaming, nor about their true nature. There are theories aplenty (and the dream researchers do not sing in unison; as a matter of fact there has been - and there remains - professional disagreement), but we do not know which of the theories - if any - are correct.

And how could we ever know? Knowing that you know all about some field ... that idea is preposterous! Humanity learns new things all the time, and there was never a time where we knew it all. Not about dreams, and not about anything.

"Dream science" of the year 2100 will probably look at todays state of that science, in the same manner a grown-up looks at a child trying to act as a grown-up. We aint seen nothin' yet!  :smiley: 

And personally, I think what will eventually become uncovered will blow our minds.  ::aphiusiscrazy::

----------


## Sageous

^^ Hmm.  It's curious that you didn't include the second and third paragraphs of my post, which, though they don't line up exactly with what you said, come pretty close, and certainly show that I was saying that there is much we do not know yet about the nature of dreaming.  Maye you missed them, so here is the whole thing:





> ^^ Actually, there is plenty of proof that dreams are just happening inside your head, including years of brain-scan studies using fMRI machines (devices that allow us to see brain activity as it is happening), psychological studies, and decades of sleep study.  As far as science is concerned, it's pretty clear that dreams are indeed manufactured inside your head, and you are not literally visiting other worlds when you dream, lucid or not.  In other words, the proof that we dream inside our heads is already in, and has been for years; no belief necessary. * But that, I  believe, is not the end of the story:
> *
> Even with that proof in hand, there is still quite a bit we don't know yet about the true nature of dreaming.  Sure, the worlds we visit are created inside our heads, but at the same time might we be making a connection to things beyond the workings of our many neurons alone?  Could we be psychically sharing our created worlds with other dreamers, and vise-verse? These are just a couple of potential aspects of dreaming that could exist just fine even with the scientific proof noted, and discovering that they are possible through lucid dreaming would open some amazing doors for all of us, and I for one would be delighted if they could be proven.  Belief in wonderful things is a fine stance for an open, inquiring mind, but to take that next step and convert that faith to actual knowledge is a far more powerful tool for that same mind.
> 
> So Snoop's question is valid, and sincere, I think:  If lucid dreamers can find some sort of proof that they are experiencing worlds beyond the confines of their own skulls, this world would become a much more interesting place!



As you can see, I never said we know all there is to know about dreaming.  In my opinion we have barely scratched the surface, as the physiological part is the easy part, research-wise.  And yes, we still know very little about dreaming; yes, all that brain imagery and research might just be coincidental, because activity happens to occur at the same time that a subject says she was dreaming; and yes, as we are with so many things involving consciousness and cognition, research still depends on the testimony of possibly errant individuals.  

There is plenty to find out yet, but we do seem to have established that there is a physiological link between the brain and dreams... for all we know (and as I implied in the second paragraph of that post) the brain activity might just be our active perception of other worlds -- ethereal transmission and reception equipment firing up to put us in communication with distant spiritual places, and this equipment is able to defy all known laws of physics to connect us -- perhaps even deliver us -- to other worlds. I personally doubt that that is true (and, anecdotally, given the amount of traveling I've done in dreams to date, I think I would have at least suspected as much by now), but I would be truly delighted to find out it was.

I agree with you completely Voldmer, in that there is much to be learned.  I also hold as true that advanced lucid dreaming will unlock many wonderful truths and phenomena, probably some that haven't even occurred to us yet.  But I also think it wise to start with the obvious -- i.e., that brain activity and dream creation are related somehow -- and work out from there.  To assume from the get-go that we are visiting other worlds, and then say that such travel is possible because you can't prove otherwise, tends to create illusory concepts that conceal what's really going on in dreams, rather than reveal it. It is great fun to imagine that we visit other worlds when we dream, but there may be wisdom in first assuming that we are just creating those worlds in our heads, just to avoid deluding ourselves and leaving the path to real knowledge, distracted by wonderful misconceptions; later, with experience, we will learn the truth through LD'ing anyway; why risk obscuring that truth, or preventing its discovery, with possibly misleading fantasy?

*tl;dr:*  Yes, because the "proof" lies exclusively in the realm of physiological observations linked perhaps coincidentally to subjects' testimonies, we have barely scratched the surface of what we know about dreaming; I never said otherwise.  And, as the rest of my post implies, much more of what we learn might reveal currently supernatural connections between dreaming and other realms.

I hope I was clearer this time, and also that you made it past the first paragraph!  :wink2:

----------


## OneUp

Someone has probably said this somewhere in this thread before, I haven't read through all of it yet so forgive me if I'm repeating someone but:

Maybe those who feel that Lucid Dreams are other worlds simply just want to believe that because they wish for the hobby to amount to something more than life itself. When I say that I am not going against any transcendental experiences or possibilities, but maybe you just want lucid dreams to be real/other worlds because they mean alot to you in general. If that is so, I can see where you are coming from. 
Many of my lucid dreams have been truly empowering experiences, and I continue to advance in my Lucid Dreaming journey to find even greater things that I have never even seen before.
That being said, the mind is a powerful thing, it can create experiences that we have never even thought possible. The imagination itself is a good example. 

If Lucid Dreaming really does bring you to another world, Im sure alot of us would be seen as ethically challenged there-more over criminals- because of the actions of many male oneironauts in Lucid Dreams.

----------


## Darkmatters

^ You're absolutely right. The powerful lure of magical beliefs is that they promise special abilities - basically superpowers. Or an escape from drab reality with all its limitations. And since what happens in dreams can seem so real and is so emotionally overwhelming at times, a lot of people give in to the temptation to believe (or at least to very strongly _try_ to believe, and convince themselves that they do) that what happens in dreams and various dreamlike states is somehow another reality.

----------


## Voldmer

> ^^ Hmm.  It's curious that you didn't include the second and third paragraphs of my post, which, though they don't line up exactly with what you said, come pretty close, and certainly show that I was saying that there is much we do not know yet about the nature of dreaming.  Maye you missed them, so here is the whole thing:



Nope, didn't miss them at all. I read them, and liked them.  :smiley: 






> There is plenty to find out yet, but we do seem to have established that there is a physiological link between the brain and dreams...







> But I also think it wise to start with the obvious -- i.e., that brain activity and dream creation are related somehow







> I hope I was clearer this time, and also that you made it past the first paragraph!




I like what you wrote this time around much more, and the two quotes above (before the last one) phrase it exactly like I would have wished to see it the first time. It was simply because you used the word "proof", that I had to get involved. Proof implies certainty; a proof cannot be wrong. Therefore, by using the word proof, you were giving the impression, that dreams certainly must be a product of the brain.

I realise completely, that in doing so you are simply following the trend set by the mass media, and probably a good many of the leading researchers in dream research. But all these are still in error, because none of them are in any way capable of proving the cause of dreams, or that dreams are simply a product of the brain. They strongly believe in their various dreaming theories, but belief isn't proof.

Arguably, this is all about semantics, but I dread theories being presented as if they were facts. Being a physicist myself, I am all too aware of this problem. Newtons theories were taken for fact, but they were wrong. Einsteins relativity theory is taken for a fact, but it is unproven. Quantum mechanics is lauded as the epitome of truth, but it still remains an elaborate set of hypotheses. Etc. Etc. Believing that something has been proven, stops people from investigating alternatives, and this can potentially stop scientific evolution dead in its tracks.

----------


## Sageous

^^  Good points all; and sometimes semantics do matter.

  In my defense, and it isn't much of one, I used the word "proof" in response to the post to which I was responding; in hindsight, I probably should have used "evidence" and saved us both some time!

----------


## gab

Yes I believe, that sometimes I do travel out of my head. And tbh, I don't really care if it's true or not. : teeth :

----------


## Eonnn

I used to believe it was all inside your own head, but then I started to encounter DC's which seemed to have their own intelligence, DC's which had their own agenda and seemed to have their own mind. It's very hard to describe but you just instinctively know that its not a regular DC, their behaviour is much different and unique in some way. Often these type of entities are out to harm you and can come back into your dreams on multiple occasions, others are more benign.

On top of this I've had transcendental dreams of visiting heavenly places or other planets, meeting spiritual beings and experienced astral projection and different dimensions.

Surely this can't all be in my mind. The closest explanation is that there's an astral plane where everything dreamy - anything imagined and real - can exist and that sometimes we tap into that.

----------


## Mane

Yes. Another reality. 






> Hello all Ive been lucid dreaming for over 30 years and Im almost convinced that our minds or souls are transported to another world when lucid dreaming. Based on the realism including sight, taste, touch, smell and real coversations with people Ive never met. Also based on questions I ask others in my lucid dreams. Your thoughts on the possibility that they are not dreams but real?

----------


## Mane

I did that and the answers are always different; strange numbers or, for example: are we in planet earth? Yes,  I think so , they don't tell us the truth; or, what date is today ? It's something from the paste , now we don't count.

----------


## EricinLA

> ^^ Actually, there is plenty of proof that dreams are just happening inside your head, including years of brain-scan studies using fMRI machines (devices that allow us to see brain activity as it is happening), psychological studies, and decades of sleep study.  As far as science is concerned, it's pretty clear that dreams are indeed manufactured inside your head, and you are not literally visiting other worlds when you dream, lucid or not.  In other words, the proof that we dream inside our heads is already in, and has been for years; no belief necessary.  But that, _I_ believe, is not the end of the story:
> 
> Even with that proof in hand, there is still quite a bit we don't know yet about the true nature of dreaming.  Sure, the worlds we visit are created inside our heads, but at the same time might we be making a connection to things beyond the workings of our many neurons alone?  Could we be psychically sharing our created worlds with other dreamers, and vise-verse? These are just a couple of potential aspects of dreaming that could exist just fine even with the scientific proof noted, and discovering that they are possible through lucid dreaming would open some amazing doors for all of us, and I for one would be delighted if they could be proven.  Belief in wonderful things is a fine stance for an open, inquiring mind, but to take that next step and convert that faith to actual knowledge is a far more powerful tool for that same mind.
> 
> So Snoop's question is valid, and sincere, I think:  If lucid dreamers can find some sort of proof that they are experiencing worlds beyond the confines of their own skulls, this world would become a much more interesting place!



I have to agree with all my years of Total Dream Control and Experimentation.  I can only come to the conclusion it is in your head.  Maybe it's another reality, but only in your own mind.

----------


## Mane

:smiley: 



> I have to agree with all my years of Total Dream Control and Experimentation.  I can only come to the conclusion it is in your head.  Maybe it's another reality, but only in your own mind.



< Berlin, 1929. The poet and journalist George Sylvester Viereck has charmed an interview out of an initially reluctant superstar physicist¹. He asks: "How do you account for your discoveries? Through intuition or inspiration?" Albert Einstein replies: 
"Both. I sometimes  feel  I am right, but do not  know  it. When two expeditions of scientists went to test my theory I was convinced they would confirm my theory. I wasn't surprised when the results confirmed my intuition, but I would have been surprised had I been wrong. I'm enough of an artist to draw freely on my imagination, which I think is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world." 
Knowledge versus imagination. Einstein's aphorisms reflects a recurrent theme in human thought. The ancient dichotomy between what we know and what we dream, intuit or sense by instinct is found, in some form, in every field of human intellectual endeavour. It is seen in the contrast between rationalist and mystic interpretations of the world's great religions, between realism and surrealism in the visual arts and between the brutal number-crunching of much experimental physics and the feathery abstractions of superstring and membrane theory.
Was Einstein right? Is imagination more important than knowledge? As our realities become more complex we seem increasingly to prefer imagination, but that preference is culture-dependent. 
Yet cult doctrines, born in the fiery freedom of imagination, tend to solidify into the restriction of dogma, leading to the rejection of any information which does not fit. As social psychologists ( and I am) have noted, however, the pattern of growth, stability and attrition seems to be a fundamental one for human groups across many different fields of endeavour. 
So is imagination more important than knowledge? It depends on whom you ask, what you ask about, and when."
From Kathleen Taylor , a research scientist in the department of physiology at Oxford University >

----------


## Mane

Good resume discription . 




> Yes, ever since I have learned the ability to teleport to different dreams, the people, the scenery, their answers are all different. I feel as if we have found a path to the spiritual realm. The dream no longer feels like mine, more as if it has been there for a long while. I am unfamiliar with the whole scenery.

----------


## Mane

Normal dream is like watching a film you project mixed with ceneries  and in a LD  you jump into the interior of the movie itself

----------


## Posquant

> Normal dream is like watching a film you project mixed with ceneries  and in a LD  you jump into the interior of the movie itself



It is a multiverse. So some Physicists say：  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse

So ... yes, it's possible ... in dreams （not in everyday awake reality? really？）you go (see) there, either:  (i) by “see-through eyes” (s/he is there, you are "with": or (ii) as "yourself" (you are acting, controlling, "lucid").  

One way or another ... that "there" (the more defined, the more anomalous, the better)...  is real ... it is not just your self-contained neural-net video. 

"You" see. "You" go. "There". 

Ciao! See ya!

----------


## Posquant

It is a multiverse, perhaps.  If so, in this context：  I=E=MC2.

"I" = "information".

----------


## Dreammouse

Yes 'I think' - in the same way we are all 'now/awareness' experiencing information.   

Thus, I'm not sure if it matters were your awareness experiences information.

----------

