Thread: Is it ethical to hurt your DCs?

You're only confined by your morals, kill all you want, nothing bad will happen to you, except maybe some guilt

Originally Posted by n00bf0rlyf3

You're only confined by your morals

This is what I believe about this issue, too. I also believe that all the things that I consciously choose to do, even in lucid dreams, "count" and have moral weight simply because I have consciously chosen to do them. I believe that what we do and the choices we make define who we are.

At the same time, I've found that I'm less inhibited when lucid dreaming. I think whatever neural circuits store my conscience are still inactive, even when I'm lucid. This leads to occasional expressions of guilt in my dream journal when I've done something I would have refrained from doing in waking life, like vocally proclaiming my desire for accolades and acceptance.

It all depends on your beliefs and morals of course. I would never maliciously harm or kill a living creature in real life, but I feel more than comfortable doing it within my dreams.

This question is hard. I have morals so don't get me wrong, I am just a bit philosophic.

What is ethical? I mean is knowing stealing and killing is bad something programmed in our genes? No it's something we have learned. Sorry if you are a religious person although the same principle applies.
Either if the ethics are from god or the law, we still resist because of one reason. Punishment. If we knew we wouldn't go to jail or have to pay fines when we stole something would we still not do it?
A more extreme case. If we was able to turn back time would we resist to do something completely unacceptable like killing someone we hate or worse.
My point is that it's the consequence we fear not the actual act. If we were raised to kill, we would kill, like the knights in the Dark ages. Although killing is always hard for a man to do, so maybe it is biological for survival purposes I don't know. But when it comes to dreams hmm 4 years ago I would say "Wohoo no consequences I can be terrorist one day and president the other".
Well in these for years I have become a little more spiritual, because of weird experiences with information beyond previous knowledge. So how can a dream/ astral not be real?
Well either way I am not sure. It sounds weird I know, but at least make sure that before you kill the DC:s and so on check that they are just DC:s...

I sometimes hurt my DCs, but they never bleed or stuff like that, i don't want to murder them like that or anything. More like i throw them away or something.

But yeah, since they are just DCs, i don't think that it matters what you do to them.

I see it as being no different than a video game. You can always tell yourself that the DC will just respawn somewhere else if you are worried about the guilt associated with it. As long as you keep it in the dream world you're fine. Just do a quick RC before pulling the trigger on anyone to make sure

I think it depends on your intentions. I like to sword fight in lucids. They usually end with me "killing" a DC. But my intention is not to kill the DC. It's to experience the sword fight. If I told the decapitated DC to stop being a pussy and put his head back on he would. And we'd laugh about it afterwards. No harm done.

Now if you're goal is to simulate killing for the sake of killing I would consider that unethical. Summoning that annoying guy from school and slowly disemboweling him seems like the wrong thing to do.

But in the end you can no more kill a DC than you can kill a rock. If killing a DC makes you feel bad then don't do it. If you enjoy killing them just for the sake of killing then check yourself.

Originally Posted by dms111

I think it depends on your intentions. I like to sword fight in lucids. They usually end with me "killing" a DC. But my intention is not to kill the DC. It's to experience the sword fight. If I told the decapitated DC to stop being a pussy and put his head back on he would. And we'd laugh about it afterwards. No harm done.

Now if you're goal is to simulate killing for the sake of killing I would consider that unethical. Summoning that annoying guy from school and slowly disemboweling him seems like the wrong thing to do.

But in the end you can no more kill a DC than you can kill a rock. If killing a DC makes you feel bad then don't do it. If you enjoy killing them just for the sake of killing then check yourself.

This. I've had so many battles in my dreams and never felt bad about them, but one night I had a non-lucid where I was just going around a hospital beating up patients and their families. For some reason I was being forced to. I woke up the next day and felt like shit all day, like I was really sick in the head. Wasn't fun.

If you have the urge to kill for the sake of killing in a lucid dream you may want to get yourself checked out.

I would ask whether it is psychological damaging rather than morally wrong, in attacking figures in our dreams, are we in a sense attacking elements of our own psyche? Or are dream characters just reflections?

I tend to see morals as (necessary) social constructs. There are many things I've done in the disinhibited state of non-lucid dreams that I would never think of in waking life.

I wouldn't be surprised. I've had many instances when I'll dream about something and the next day not be sure if it really happened or not. Sometimes I'll feel like I need to remember to do something, only to realize it was a task I'd wanted to do in my dream. If you kill somebody in your dream, I think you are (in a very small way) killing them in your mind. Whether that in itself is enough to actually feed a psychological disorder, I can't say.

It depends a bit on how u look on these things. I personally killed some dream characters, did i feel guilty? Not really, but that's because i know it was a dream. For me it feels the same as killing somebody in a videogame, i know it's not reality. And like some people sayed u can just wish them back. I don't really see the big issue.

But then again, if u kill somebody that u hate for example in real life. And u keep doing this, cause it brings u so mutch satisfaction. It may bring those actions/thoughts into real life. And that's unhealthy ofcourse. And i would advice to seek some help right away.

It's all about do u know the difference between dreaming/reality? If yes, then don't worry about it. Don't get me wrong, not saying u should kill in every lucid dream. To mutch of something may bring u harm in some ways. But if it's once in a while, i wouldn't worry about it. I think it may even help u release some anger, afther a stressfull day. But that depends completely person on person though.

I will just offer a few simple questions. Do you wish to be a calm spiritual person? Do you really find violent video game dreams more entertaining then any other dream setting? What do you feel you get out of violent fantasies?

If you have little concern for developing into a remarkable and spiritual person, then go crazy and do what ever occurs to you. I may find it sad, but to each their own. What can it hurt other than your own sense of self? I personally do not want to be a person who thrills at violence more than say flying or controlling a storm.
I may suggest that context can make a huge difference! In one dream maybe you murder everyone at your school and in another you break inti a pirate hide out in Somalia and free the poor hostages. I think the second could be thrilling and involve killing a blowing things up without meaning much. So context matters.

If it is a 'normal' dream then if you attack a DC well there isn't much you can do about it as you have exerted no (conscious) control. So there would be no point worrying about the moral question.

However in a dream where you can exert some degree of control, or a high level of control, or will as in a 'lucid' dream then I don't personally like the idea of attacking or humiliating a DC just for the fun of it; although I might argue this if I was attacked first. I would plead self defence in that case!

Just like real life I would try the diplomatic approach first. Try to find out the reason behind things rather than simply lashing out. You might find your own answers to your inner conflicts in real life.

As Sivason mentions in his above post that there is a tremendous opportunity for personal and spiritual development when practicing LD.

Anyhow, it's just my 2 cents!

I never really try to injure a DC, In a gunfight lately I shot one just wounding him and I felt awful about it while trying to patch him up.
I dont even hurt monsters, If theyre obnoxious I order them to the junkyard

I think that killing a DC can't damage your mind in any way just like ignoring a DC and make it disappear can't damage your mind. Even though I believe that everything you do in waking life and in dreaming life has an effect on your mind ,but it wouldn't be necessarily bad. You know one may think that killing a DC will damage his mind and another will just see it as a possibility to experience a sword fight where you can't kill anybody for real. I guess that just depends on the person.
Although I am quite a calm guy in waking life so I usually don't go on killing sprees and I can't recall killing anyone in my dreams.

I only kill DCs that are out to harm me.

I don't know, maybe if you start acting aggressively toward your DCs in your dreams you may start to become more violent in real life and develop bad habits :/
Maybe you should try summoning up an army of DCs that look and act like a person you really hate in real life and abuse them instead xD

It is ethical, but certainly not proper behavior for a gentleman

From my experience its pretty hard to hurt a DC, Their feelings may be hurt easier. I never really tried. I have sent them off or wished them away for getting out of hand but never did figure out how to hurt one, If I need one hurt I find someone bigger than me to do it, I had a monster friend blast a demon with his laser breath and even that didnt really hurt the demon. He did admit however that he wanted nothing more to do with me after that

Maybe because i'm quite a practical person, i would do it without a second thought because i know no-one is really getting hurt. i don't beleive dreams are anything other than in our heads. i mean, they can tell us things about ourselves but little else. i don't even think it would occur to me to kill a dc, but that's nothing to do with morals. i told one to eff off last night though lol XD

Zaktly, If we are at all lucid we know we can just wave them off into the sunset, Why hurt them And sometimes it pays to keep them around, I have a few really badass monster (not friends but we get along's) as big as the Empire State Building and even tho they dont special like me because I sometimes show up at dinner time they are handy to call on for favors. I would never hurt them.......

This was probably the best of these "morality of DC abuse" threads that I've read in a while... thoughtful posts all around! And yet, very little mention of what I see as the real crux of the question:

When you are lucid, everything you do is a reflection of you, and nothing more. It doesn't matter if DC's are real or not; what matters is that you know, with waking-life awareness, that you are killing something. You might be able to intellectualize, during or after the dream, that the folks whose heads you just severed were constructs of your own imagination, but during the dream they were still folks, and you were still doing the severing. Is it really ever a good thing to attach that kind of violence to your psyche?

Oh, and before someone points it out, I also use this argument with regards to video-game mayhem!

There is one thing that bothers me everytime I read similar question. If someone wouldn't kill a living creature for fun in waking life, how is it possible, that it brings you joy to kill in a lucid dream? It's not like your personality changes during sleep. Or does it? Is the morality center shot down while we dream?

I just don't understand, how can someone enjoy killing in dreams, if it's against his principles in WL. Would you then kill in WL, if there was no punishment for it?

And I assume, that most people don't do bad things not because of fear of punishment, but because they don't feel it's right to do bad things. So even if there is no punishment after harming a DC, (and this is under assumption that they are not real, although I'm not so sure about that), I don't feel comfortable doing it, and I would most certainly not enjoy it. The only time I would have no problem disposing of a bad guy in WL or in LD, is if it was to protect myself or other people, but I'm pretty sure I would feel like crap about it.

Sorry, if this comes off strong. It's not aimed at anybody, I'm just puzzled and looking for answers myself. Happy dreams y'all

Originally Posted by gab

Is the morality center shot down while we dream?

The morality center, if there is such a thing, would likely be shut down during a regular, non-lucid dream, but NOT during a lucid dream. All your morals, your sensibilities, and your general regard for yourself and others is intact and available, because you are fully self-aware in a lucid dream.

This doesn't mean that you can't do what you want to do in a LD, but it does mean that any decision you make reflects upon your true self, and is not happily lost to some nebulous "it was just a dream" excuse. If you are lucid, then you are aware and, right or wrong, the shit you do should matter, if to no one else, then to you.