Negatives and Positives

Just curious if anyone can think of any thing bad that can come out of lucid dreaming. My question isn't directed at issues such as "My dream scared me" or similar issues. My question is more directed at it can cause sleep deprivation or other mental/physical health problems.

If you have experienced any negative effects of lucid dreaming or if you think that an effect you are having is from lucid dreaming please post it here.

Also if you have any positive effects I would love to read those as well.


Thanks guys

Well, even though you said you do not want this, but my aunt cannot post on here, so here you go:

When I first started lucid dreaming, my aunt who was a very Freudian psyciatrist at the time (abd is now a very conservative Roman Catholic nun), she was much opposed to the idea of lucid dreaming because coming from a Freudian psychiatrist point of view, she believed that we have dreams to work out issues that our subconscious needs to work out, and she believed that lucid dreaming would mean that your conscious mind would take over, and thus your subconscious would have less time to work out issues that it needed to work on.

Obviously, I disagreed with my aunt, and I pursued lucid dreaming anyway. I figured not all my dreams would be lucid after all, and if my subconscious needed to, it would find a way to do it.

However, I figured you might be interested in hearing about my aunt's point of view.

The only bad thing I've noticed happening is that I can go through phases of obession.

Meaning, I'll start sleeping 10-12 hours a day, and become really focused on dreaming/sleeping. I live out in the middle of nowhere by myself anyway, so its not that big of a deal.

I've never noticed any problems with lucid dreaming though decreasing the quality of my sleep. The only reason its ever happened is if I tried to WBTB when i was only gonna be getting 7 hours of sleep anyway. As long as you're getting a sum of 8 hours sleep a night, it doesn't matter wheter you're lucid or not.

JoannaB, I looked at what you said and find it very interesting. Thank you for responding. :)
Also, I took out that bit about personal experience only. I would rather have more replies and data than not. It was silly of me to say that. :P Thank you for posting regardless of what I requested.

Alucinor XIII, I already have the problem of obsessing over sleep. I love the feeling of snuggling into my bed and drifting away. For people who don't already have this that is a very good response and shall be noted if I ever compile my thoughts into one place. ;) Thanks for your response. :)

Didn't got anything negative from lucid dreaming and i believe there's nothing negative to speak about. :roll:
About positives, i have always ignored sleep for years, like i was not caring about it at all and often was skipping days of sleep before i got into lucid dreaming, but now i have a more-or-less stable sleeping schedule(even though a bit weird sleeping schedule for my timezone, but it works :lol: ). My memory is improving as well, considering i do dream recall and such.
Check out this thread as well: http://www.dreamviews.com/general-lu...-dreaming.html :)

Thank you Checkers! Very helpful. I will definitely take a look at that thread as well. :)

I can speak to some negatives. Personally, I live a pretty sleep deprived life nowadays. For the past week I even resolved to stop writing down my dreams because I realized that even though my dream recall was incredible (2 to 3 dreams a night each of which was about 2 or 3 pages in my DJ), every time I would wake up from a dream to write it down, it would wake me up so much that it would take at least 30 to 45 minutes to fall back asleep and considering I had trained myself to wake up after nearly every sleep cycle (I would probably wake up after about 4 hrs of sleep on average, sometimes as little as 3 hrs and sometimes as high as 5 or 6 hours) I realized I was getting very little good sleep even though I would be sleeping 10 to 12 hours a night. Other than that, I don't think there are any negatives to speak of other than a bit of escapism. A friend I introduced to lucid dreaming was complaining to me about how he doesn't want to get up anymore because of LDing and is sleeping so much nowadays but I don't think that's really a negative. I think the positives of lucid dreaming speak for themselves though.

Thanks solpic, I'll make sure not to train myself to wake up ;)

I'm sure there are more people with positives and negatives. Lets hear your stories. :)

The only negative I see is that your friends won't understand you. I only have 2 that see the benefits, not including my wife. But of course she knows I am crazy, so nothing surprises her.

Also, if you can wake up without an alarm, most people find it easier to go back to sleep. Not harder. I wake up about 5-6 times a night and am almost always well rested unless it is of my own doing. I recommend being able to wake yourself up as an almost must for LDing.

Hey Brandon, thanks for your input, I'll have to do some looking into that. :)

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Originally Posted by avery81

I'm sure there are more people with positives and negatives. Lets hear your stories. :)

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Not many positives mentioned yet, though I am sure we all have tons:

For me some of the positives include:
Adrenaline rush or good mood which carry over into the day.
Not being scared of nightmares, and transforming them into empowering dreams.
Improved self-confidence, memory, attention to detail, and patience in waking life. Less stress.
Fun, entertainment, amusement value.

Thanks Joanna, self improvement is always a goal of mine. Now if only I can get a hang of the controlling my dreams... and lucidity...