Thread: you forget what reality is...

Originally Posted by blade7115

RANDOM THOUGHT, do you feel pain in a lucid dream? like getting punched or stabbed? XD

only if you want to.

and no i dont think you can get addicted to LD'ing

When I first found out about LDing the same thought occurred too. But after trying, I say it's very difficult to forget about reality, due to the inconsistency of LDs for a beginner. Unless you are a natural. Also, at younger ages, we are forced to go to school and that can sometimes kill our dream recall, or even make us forget about LDing for a while.

It's possible to get addicted to anything in life, anything. Drugs, hobbies, dreaming, food. Psychologically, of course. Only certain drugs cause physical addiction.
If something is psychologically pleasing, it has the potential to become addictive. Has anyone become addicted to LDing? Not that I've heard. I doubt anyone has. I highly doubt anyone will.
It differs from addictive hobbies like video games in that you can enjoy lucid dreaming while you sleep and enjoy real world hobbies while you're awake - things like WoW take up all of your real world time. If anything, lucid dreaming has improved the waking lives of many people, rather than taken over their waking life.

Yes, you can feel pain. The brain can't distinguish a dream from reality very well (especially a non-lucid). I've been injured in both non-lucid and lucid dreams, the pain will sometimes linger even after I've woken up. It's nothing to worry about, though. It's typically very dull pain.

No, you can't, as you can't sleep forever. Only a few lucky people get to sleep for weeks at a time. That deserves both a xD and a .

For your random thought, yes, you can, but you can block it out and expect it to not come.

EDIT: When I say you can't be addicted to it, I didn't mean that you can't feel an extreme desire to LD all the time, but rather that you can't be constantly be doing it like you can constantly do drugs or frequently drink alcohol.

I agree with what's been said about addiction. Anyone can, literally, become addicted to anything. With lucidity, there is physiological dependence - like what happens with most heavy narcotics and alcohol - but the mental desire to always be LDing is very real. It is no more dangerous than any other activity, though, in that regard.

And yes, you can feel pain in dreams. There are different factors that determine whether or not you feel a realistic level of pain (lucidity, dream vividness, apathy toward the situation, anxiety, etc.), and there are many times that you won't feel any pain at all. But yes, you can feel very intense pain, in dreams.

As what Snowboy said its pretty hard to get addicted to Lucid Dreaming because you cannot sleep all the time unlike drugs, WoW etc. Although it is not impossible. As for pain yes it is last night I had a dream that a red back spider (look it up really nasty) bit me on my hand it felt reallly painful it woke me up lol. Weird thing was is that my palm where I had been bitten in the dream state was really sore....

Regardless of the fact that I agree with everything that has been said about addiction, it's been my observation that those that harness the art of lucid dreaming find a renewed sense of passion for life in general. There just seems to be this connection between being able to be the master of your own dream world, and being able to master this one.

I wouldn't worry about getting too addicted to lucid dreaming. The fact is, in order to be a healthy, active, skilled lucid dreamer, you have to sleep well, eat well, be emotionally and psychologically stable, as stress free as possible, etc, etc...

In other words, if you begin to seriously focus on improving your dreams, most of the time the rest of you life improves as well. If there's anything worth being addicted to, you've found it.

-K

Well, you're only taking advantage of time that is normally spent doing absolutely nothing anyway.

Originally Posted by Supernova

Well, you're only taking advantage of time that is normally spent doing absolutely nothing anyway.

I contend that we both ARE doing things when we sleep that are vital to our existence, and that in order to TRULY take advantage of you dream time, much conscious effort must be put into waking life as well.

Originally Posted by Ketsuyume

it's been my observation that those that harness the art of lucid dreaming find a renewed sense of passion for life in general.

Where did you get that from? Never heard that before.

Like I said, just from my own observation. I'm not talking about occasional lucid dreamers, I'm talking about people that genuinely dedicate their lives to understanding and exploring their dreams/ altered states of consciousness. To be that disciplined, you're going to have to take care of yourself well in real life, too. You have to eat well, sleep well, practice often, meditation can help, exercise helps, etc... etc...

It's just sorta follows suit that dedicated dreamers are dedicated in real life as well. At least that's what I see from most people serious about the idea.

-K

Originally Posted by Ketsuyume

Like I said, just from my own observation. I'm not talking about occasional lucid dreamers, I'm talking about people that genuinely dedicate their lives to understanding and exploring their dreams/ altered states of consciousness. To be that disciplined, you're going to have to take care of yourself well in real life, too. You have to eat well, sleep well, practice often, meditation can help, exercise helps, etc... etc...

Oh, I see now. There's probably only a few people on here that are actually really dedicated to this kind of stuff. I doubt there's more than 20 or 30...

Count me on that list, fo sho!

As supernova said, your doing Lucid dreaming while sleeping, so you are not really wasting any time from your real life. Also, during Lucid dreaming as other mentioned, there is discipline required, such as the control of the self to maintain calmness so as to increase length and stability of the dream.

This can in turn improve your real life because just about everynight you practice keeping calm. Basically, its like doing meditation every night, that cant be bad for you, only good.

Of course, in just about every thing, there should be the consideration of moderation.

Also, you don't really forget what reality is, you get a better sense of it, a better understanding of it, you start to see the similarities of the dream world with the real world and find out that they are not that different or they just might be the same thing.

And hell, it seems better to just throw away our sense of reality anyway, it seems that we are better off that way since the sense of having a reality confines us to certain laws and stereotypes.

And lastly, it might feel like that at first, you will get used to it and it will all feel normal, trust me. The human brain is adaptive like that.