Thread: Opinions Please, can dreaming be immoral?

Tough call, tough question.

We all have dreams that disturb us, or have us exhibiting behaviors we would never do in public or in real life.

The real thing is to examine your own feelings about the dream, and make sure you are at peace with those feelings. As long as it stays a dream and doesn't intrude in to your real life I would simply put it down to something that happened a long time ago and can't be changed and it likely has no place in your current life at 40.

If these thoughts are strong enough that you feel like they will impact your behavior...consider seeking counseling.

I once had a dream where I used a hatchet to cut off the toes of my cat, and I felt very bad about that, and I still do to this day though it was just a dream. What bothers me is that my mind would create those actions and allow my dreamself to carry them out. I dislike that I'm capable of imagining myself doing all kinds of horrible things even in my waking life, yet I would never do any of them.

Some dreams just need to be discounted and put down to bad sushi.

Hmm I have done things in my dream, that would be immoral, without feeling bad about it. But here's the thing, it's not really immoral, the only one you can hurt is yourself. Now you really can hurt yourself if it makes you feel like a bad person to be thinking about some things, so if you are uncomfortable that's reason enough to stop.

Yes and no, depending on how you want to look at it. Then again as lily said, I've also done things in dreams without feeling bad about it. i.e. fighting and killing, and I don't regret it either. I think "what happens in the brain, stays in the brain" is a good call. Again, like lily said, there's probably a limit, but that would again go by your own ethical judgement of when it's becoming too far.

Morals were designed to work in a reality with many other inhabitants to ensure maximum contentment for everyone concerned. Therefore the only morals that are relevant in a reality where there are no others are the ones you bring in yourself. Not that that means you can throw them off without possibly compromising something inside yourself, but it's important to keep that in mind when you're faced with a moral choice like this.

I may not have many lucids under my belt, but I do have a penchant for philosophy and ethics.

You can get addicted to immoral things in dream though IMO.

What is 'sexy playfull stuff' then lol...

For me, if it's morally wrong, then it's wrong, though it all depends on the situation... Morally I would never put a balloon over a cats head, though in a lucid dream it was f'in hilarious LOL. But yeah, depends on the situation. In your case, you was right to walk away, because, having sex with someone in a dream.. well, it doesn't matter who they are, it's just sex, sex is always the same, it's more the idea that you are having sex with (the idea of a younger girl, an older woman, a dinosaur whatever) its still the same sex isn't it? (though cant say for certain about dinosaurs) but the idea and the morals are different, and that's where your judgement comes into it.

Everything I've read has been helpful, thanks.
Shadowofself- the 'stuff' was heavy kising and maybe to much skin exposed. At that point in real life the age differance was 3.5 years and I did not feel immorral at that point. I think if it was a non-lucid I could feel less ashamed if the dream went furthur, maybe like just a memory replay. But, as I was aware and the moral choice was there for me to decide, I am glad I chose what I did. I am not ashamed that the dream came up, but would have been if I chose different.
In hind sight had I been more lucid, I could have created a big banner saying "10 year reunion" and advanced everyones age and created a story line to support that. I think I would have felt that made the situation innocent, but what a rare bit of lucidity that would have taken.

Any crime you commit in a dream is a victim less crime. You aren't hurting anyone, and what goes on in your head stays there. For me personally anything goes, I am not going to add rules of what is wrong and right, or what others think of morality, in the one place I will ever go where those laws and rules do not matter. I wouldn't feel bad about what happened in your dream if it were me, since she is really less than 4 years apart from you which isn't that crazy, is 17 which depending on where you live may or may not be above the age of consent, and it clearly wasn't rape. But in the end it comes down to a personal decision.

I would say that I have morals in my dreams, but there is a lot more things I can do in my dreams that won't bother me. However, if I was to torture someone/something, I would feel bad about it after I woke up. I would probably just ask myself how I could have even thought of that, and they dream would probably be with me for a lot longer than normal.

While dreams are not reality and consequences are minimized, it is not devoid of any affect on you. Going against your moral compass will probably affect how you feel about yourself in real life (even if minimally), which in turn may affect your relations with others. One episode may not do much harm but I know I personally prefer to keep my true self whole rather than divided, if you know what I mean.

Morality is entirely in your mind and it is different for each person. That is why it is so hard to dictate and regulate or keep any "master set" of morals. It is up to you what is considered immoral and what is perfectly acceptable. If you were uncomfortable with that situation and felt it might take an immoral turn then you were right to walk away. If you find nothing wrong with that situation, however, then it is not immoral because you do not believe it to be so.

Personally, I view everything in my dreams as part of myself since that's all it really is, a movie I'm taking part in that's occurring in my mind. Therefore my morals in dreams are much lower than in waking life because I know the only "victim" is myself and I know what I consider to be offensive or immoral. I have encountered a few times where I viewed something in my dreams as immoral and that was when it involved real people I knew as DCs. One of them was a sexual act with a close friend whom is currently in a relationship and I would never want to jeopardize their happiness nor my mental feelings while around them such as wanting to be with them.

Aside from those few and far between moments I haven't encountered anything which I believe to be immoral though, as I said before, morality is unique for different people. It's entirely up to you how to interpret different occurrences in your dreams.

Where do "morals" come into it? Do you just avoid doing certain things because they seem wrong, or do you have actual reasons? Morals only exist so that we can cooperate with other humans -- you know, beings that actually exist and have thoughts and experiences of their own -- and morals are the way we respect and protect others' experiences. When you kill something in a dream you are not causing pain or infringing on anything's right to live because nothing is dying. Objectively this is not murder; it only looks like it. Maybe there is something to be said about the desensitizing effects of doing "immoral" things in dreams, but I doubt it's substantial. Or maybe you could argue that some use dreams in order to practice overcoming their aversion to things they consider bad in reality, in which case the intent and long term goal are really the issue, not the means used (since no actual harm is brought about just by practice alone.)

Honestly, it's worrying that people bring this up as often as they do. Either there are a lot of people who think that dreams have an existence of some kind separate from your experience of them, or that there are a lot of people who define their morals based on nothing but what seems like it should be wrong.

Originally Posted by ShadowOfSelf

What is 'sexy playfull stuff' then lol...

For me, if it's morally wrong, then it's wrong, though it all depends on the situation... Morally I would never put a balloon over a cats head, though in a lucid dream it was f'in hilarious LOL.

I wouldn't suffocate a cat either in real life or in a lucid dream. The thought of doing something like that in a dream for fun just sounds awful to me. At the same time, though, I would have no moral qualms with running through a dream city like a maniac setting everything on fire just for the fun of it. I'm not sure why that is. Directly harming an individual animal for no reason just seems to senselessly cruel that I wouldn't want to do it even in a dream. Also, ShadowOfSelf, please don't take this the wrong way and think I'm judging you or something. Reading your post just made me notice that inconsistency in my own morals, which I found interesting.

But yeah, depends on the situation. In your case, you was right to walk away, because, having sex with someone in a dream.. well, it doesn't matter who they are, it's just sex, sex is always the same, it's more the idea that you are having sex with (the idea of a younger girl, an older woman, a dinosaur whatever) its still the same sex isn't it? (though cant say for certain about dinosaurs) but the idea and the morals are different, and that's where your judgement comes into it.

I can't speak for dinosaurs, but I have reason to believe that the experience is essentially the same for turtles, so I would imagine it would extend to dinos.

Just because there is nothing stopping me from doing something doesn't mean I do it. My parents have made (sometimes disparaging) comments on my "almost buddhist" approach to life, insofar as harming other living creatures go anyway. I don't fish, I don't hunt and even so much as watching people crush an insect for no reason makes me feel angry and sad; I know that I can't do that even if the creatures in question just don't exist.

Not that I'm vegetarian in any way; I like the flavour and texture of meat, and I know that if I didn't eat it, either someone else would or it would be wasted. However, I do ensure to the best of my ability that everything I eat has lived fairly comfortably and died in a humane fashion. I learned the hard way that trying to ignore or remove inconvenient principles is not good for one's overall wellbeing, and that it's better to just accept it and make allowances.

Originally Posted by Rothgar

While dreams are not reality and consequences are minimized, it is not devoid of any affect on you. Going against your moral compass will probably affect how you feel about yourself in real life (even if minimally), which in turn may affect your relations with others. One episode may not do much harm but I know I personally prefer to keep my true self whole rather than divided, if you know what I mean.

yes they are, maybe you should go look up what victimless means? I for one have never been a victim of a thought crime. If it effects you, it was your choice, I wouldn't really consider myself a victim of myself,for making choices I knew the consequences of, and how it would effect my life (in this case not at all). Saying that it will probably effect how I feel about myself and how it effects my relationships with others is just a guess on your part that varies between individuals. If I did something in a dream I was strongly opposed to, if anything I imagine it would strengthen how I feel about that. For example, I would never kill a cat, but if I did so in a dream where I wouldn't feel guilty about killing a cat, and still didn't like it, that is great, I just discovered I really do love cats too much to hurt them. I don't want to guess on too many things, but maybe it is an indicator on how mentally stable you are? Maybe some people are afraid of doing immoral acts in dreams and finding out they like them and won't be able to control their waking life self, but for the vast majority of people they should be able to draw a line between what they like and what is acceptable for both waking and sleeping life, and be able to control their actions accordingly. I for one am not going to limit my one place to be absolutely free to conform to society when none of my actions will have a consequence.

moral is only moral to you.

But if I ever get to the point where I can control the dream to the extent that I can kill, rape and all other sick and crazy stuff I would just be happy to have come so far.
Although I don't think I would ever want to waste my time on doing that stuff.

Just like in the real world you can spend your time learning valuable things or you can waste it.

In some situations you can not even control you actions and you can dream weird and disturbing things. My friend described a dream where he killed babies and liked it while he was dreaming it, but got really sad when he woke up. So be prepared for this, but don't take it too serriously.

I think why the question arose in my mind about the moral issue is it is to easy for an adult to find an under age girl attractive. I could dream about killing people in a war or fair fight and not have any bad feelings. Humans are better off in a culture that protects young girls from older men until they are a little wiser. Nature does not draw that boundry. The restraint is developed in the modern man. I just would never want to think of myself as the kind of man that would fantasize about an underage girl. I would never for instance say out loud to someone that I had sexual thoughts for a jr high girl (if I had), but I may say I had thoughts about hurting someone. Maybe it is just social grooming, but I do not have sexual thoughts about young people. If I took part in that kind of activity in a LD I would feel dirty and question what was wrong with me. I am not sure anything wrong would have taken place, but it is probably the one thing a man could feel ashamed for having thought about. In this case it was built off a real life memory from 24 years ago (when it was not wrong). It explains how such a image jumped into my mind, and that makes me feel better.
I would not judge anyone for anything they did in a dream, unless it was me doing it in my dream. Then I don't think I would beat myself up about it to bad, but that dream was such an amazing internal conflict. I wanted to let the dream progress, but I did not want to be the kind of man who would want to dream about it. I am still confused. Maybe acting out in ways you never would IRL can be theraputic, some kind of emotional pressure release. I am just not sure where I stand on it.

I think for anyone who can healthily distinguish between fantasy, dream and reality, LDs can't be immoral. I may fantasize about going around shooting people (for example), but if I never act (or intend to act) on these urges and my daydreams don't impact my respect for other human beings, they are harmless.

I may be biased because I use my LDs to do things I'd never get away with in real life -- there's a reason I don't keep an online journal of them But I'm only able to do these things once I'm secure in the knowledge that my actions don't impact anyone's waking life. No different from blowing someone up in a video game...we can laugh about video game fatalities not because we're heartless people, but because we can distinguish between a bunch of pixels (or a DC) and a real human being.

...and no, I don't waste LDs blowing people up

I am well aware of the divide between fantasy and reality, though in many cases I unconsciously ignore it. I cannot play a game as an evil character. I'm not saying that as a kind of moral thing. I don't say "My character is not evil because he is an extension of myself and therefore inherits my alignment," I literally cannot imagine doing an overtly evil deed in fantasy or reality (Though I do have a touch of schadenfreude which makes playing games involving mere violence tolerable.) I cannot do it. Given the choice, I cannot pick the path of the asshole. It doesn't interest me, it gives me no sense of pleasure, in fact, it wracks me with guilt.

Originally Posted by sivason

I think why the question arose in my mind about the moral issue is it is to easy for an adult to find an under age girl attractive..
.

Well you said she was 17 right? in the US that is under age, but if I remember correctly that is of age or even a year or two above. It depends on your perspective. IMO, there is no age where it becomes wrong for sex or attraction, but rather is the person aware of their sexual decisions, and is not being taken advantage of. A 13 year old probably doesn't know much about sex, however a 17 year old is old enough to be independent and responsible for their decisions. Also, the dc's don't really have an age, just a image. They are part of you, so can you really take advantage of them? they know just as much about their choices, decisions, and sex as you do after all. Again, there is no victim there regardless of what you do.

i had a Lucid dream once some guy i knew who i absolutly hated because he used to bully me was there i went straight up to him and twisted his head off i felt good about it lol Now when i woke up i felt good that i actually did it to him in the dream and not in Reality. So i dont have to worry bout it no more probably sounds messed up but was a good stress relief

I personally like to take my morals with me to my dream even if I do not know if the dream world is real or not.