Thread: Lucid dreaming in older generations?

Hello Hito, and welcome to dreamviews.

Video games, television, movies, comic books etc do have an impact on a person's imagination, so by extension their dreams as well. Many of the older generation lived a different life than we have. They lived in a time where much more emphasis was put on having a house and a family, working hard and being a good citizen. Worldy things. They didn't have much time to fantasize about or dwell on Dreams they had the night before or dreams they would like to have soon. Many people today still have that same lifestyle.

This is how I view the reason for why older generations either haven't had or can't remember having a Lucid Dream.

Originally Posted by PlanesWalker

Hello Hito, and welcome to dreamviews.

Video games, television, movies, comic books etc do have an impact on a person's imagination, so by extension their dreams as well. Many of the older generation lived a different life than we have. They lived in a time where much more emphasis was put on having a house and a family, working hard and being a good citizen. Worldy things. They didn't have much time to fantasize about or dwell on Dreams they had the night before or dreams they would like to have soon. Many people today still have that same lifestyle.

This is how I view the reason for why older generations either haven't had or can't remember having a Lucid Dream.

yea I guess you are right, just wanted to check if it's just my feeling or truth

You might like to try some different terminology in your questions - such as false awakenings and sleep paralysis. I've spoken to a few people about lucid dreaming (without revealing my interest in the subject) and it's clear that they've experienced a sort of lucid dream where clarity has been like in real life but they have experienced things that have left them terrified like visits from the devil etc. They often think these experiences were real.

Edit: Oh there's astral projection too, of course. Many people think they've left their body in some way.

It largely depends on where you live. Are you really in the Czech Republic? I don't know much about what things are like there, but in America there's long been a strong emphasis on practicality and an aversion to dreams or other esoteric things. Depending on what groups of people you're talking about of course. I mean, Hippies would be a lot more likely to think about their dreams in a positive way than businessmen or lawyers.

If you live in a largely Buddhist community older people probably pay a lot of attention to their dreams, or in many indigenous communities.

From what I understand the CR has a long tradition of surrealism, and I would expect dreams would be pretty well accepted there, though I'm sure there are also lots of working class people who just don't care about that stuff.

The only other person I ever met in real life who has admitted to me to having lucid dreams is a woman who is my mother's generation (so in her 60s I think), and she is originally from the Czech Republic (though now she lives in the US).

The only person older than me that I know that confirmed having lucid dreams is my uncle, I think he's in his late 40's. I've never asked my grandparents though.

I know that my mother (she's 44) has lucid dreams sometimes. I don't think she's aware of the things that she can do, though. She just told me that when her dreams are going wrong, she realises she's dreaming, goes back in dream-time and handles the situation differently.

I've never had an older individual speak to me about having lucid dreams, rather, it's always been that they seldom have dreams, or that the idea of controlling their dreams is something they've considered but never attempted or understood. To many of them, it seems foreign a concept to them.
Coming from a community of people who typically were hard-workers, yet poor gainers, I always assumed that the common stresses of life hindered their ability to remember dreams, or that they would just disregard them all, seeing that they had more important worldly matters to aatend to, just as Planes mentioned.

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

It largely depends on where you live. Are you really in the Czech Republic? I don't know much about what things are like there, but in America there's long been a strong emphasis on practicality and an aversion to dreams or other esoteric things. Depending on what groups of people you're talking about of course. I mean, Hippies would be a lot more likely to think about their dreams in a positive way than businessmen or lawyers.

If you live in a largely Buddhist community older people probably pay a lot of attention to their dreams, or in many indigenous communities.

From what I understand the CR has a long tradition of surrealism, and I would expect dreams would be pretty well accepted there, though I'm sure there are also lots of working class people who just don't care about that stuff.

Yea you are right. Our country lived under Russian occupation for some time and people had other things to worry about.

I believe all people have some kind of lucid dream. If you ask someone if they had a nightmare and they tryed everything on that dream to wake up... that was a lucid dream. They knew they were dreaming, didn't like it and tryed some technique to wake up. It happened to me when i was a young boy, it happens to my father and even happens today to my grandmother.
But today, we have more and new experiences because of the internet, tv, radio and all the knowledge and discussions that are happening. This forum is a great example of how we can discuss this subject in an easy way with people around the world. The old generation didn't have those things.
I didn't knew about the name Lucid Dream and all the techniques and experiences we can have until last year. The old generation think it's a normal dream. They only had books about the meaning of dreams, nothing more. Dreaming was not a curious and exciting subject that it is today.

Originally Posted by DreamHighlander

I believe all people have some kind of lucid dream. If you ask someone if they had a nightmare and they tryed everything on that dream to wake up... that was a lucid dream. They knew they were dreaming, didn't like it and tryed some technique to wake up. It happened to me when i was a young boy, it happens to my father and even happens today to my grandmother.
But today, we have more and new experiences because of the internet, tv, radio and all the knowledge and discussions that are happening. This forum is a great example of how we can discuss this subject in an easy way with people around the world. The old generation didn't have those things.
I didn't knew about the name Lucid Dream and all the techniques and experiences we can have until last year. The old generation think it's a normal dream. They only had books about the meaning of dreams, nothing more. Dreaming was not a curious and exciting subject that it is today.

Well I tried to explain. Didn't just asked them if they had LD. Yea it is possible that they never paid attention to it.

I thought this thread might have been about the ability of older people to have LDs, not whether people in the past could do it.

I suspect the only thing that has really changed is global communication. Now more people know about LD because of this site, Inception etc. etc.
Before I'm sure a few people stumbled into LDs naturally, and many will have had vivid dreams but just not known there was another level.
Even today, if you ask people, a large number don't know about LDs, young or old.