Is lucidity an obstacle to dreaming

[Occipitalred]

Hello, I wanted to reflect on the idea that lucidity is an obstacle to dreaming. Some say that awareness and control corrupt the true insights of dreaming. I want to argue against this by talking about my latest dream. In the dream, I was in class and everyone had done their homework except for me. I didn't know what to do, I was not prepared. When the teacher got to me, I felt embarrassed and searched my book for a quick answer. I saw that the word "pentagon" rhymed with "table" and said so but that felt off. Even throughout the following dreams, I was trying to make sense of that rhyme, repeating "ta" from "pentagon" and "ta" from "table" and thinking "that's wrong". Also, I met the teacher again who made a sly remark about me being unprepared. If I were studying my dream for insight or looking at it as a reflection of my life, I might see stress, anxiety, unpreparedness, worthlessness. Yet, I don't think this dream provides such insight. It seems that all the feelings of the dream are not a result of my mentality or my life. It seems to me that they are a mere consequence of my lack of lucidity. It is simply not possible to be prepared for a nonsense homework in a nonsense course. I never had a chance to study or do my homework because the dream began in the class and the topic was nonsense. It seems to me any classroom dream must lead to frustration unless the dream made sense and was about a known topic. Had I been lucid, I could have understood the nonsense was not a failing on my part and the dream could have gone on, without spiraling into frustration. If dreams have insight, they might be easier to find by being aware that it is a dream and not staying stuck on failings of the dream. For example, dreams about lost items or difficulty moving are not necessarily insights that you feel lost or out of control, but may simply be due to the nature of dreaming (objects are not really physically somewhere specific in space and you are not actually controlling a physical body).

[Silence11]

Hmmmm. I think the problem with your example is that it is only one dream. Why do we need to acquire any insight from this dream? What is lucidity going to add that we cannot glean right now the way it is? What happens if you wake up from this dream and go, "huh, that was a weird dream."? Maybe that's all you needed to gather from this experience. Is that not enough? Perhaps it would be better if this was something you dreamt about repeatedly. For example, I've had dreams about school, too many I'm afraid. Whether it'd be trying to escape school, or alone in school, or stressed in class, or wandering about, I can't stop dreaming about this place. But also, there's nothing new I need to learn from it that I don't already know. Like, I get it, It was a hard period in my life. I didn't have a particularly good time when I was a kid but, you move on. I don't think these dreams hold any secret insight that need revealing through a lucid dream. Then again, there was one dream, I have it on my dream journal here. It was a dream about a tree and my unusual connection to this tree and how it made me feel. So, a very surreal, very different experience. Compared to the random number of meaningless dreams I see every night, maybe this one could be of use had I been lucid when it happened. Or maybe it was just another bizarre dream I had, albeit far weirder than the rest. But, to answer your question: what obstacle?

[Occipitalred]

The obstacle I am talking about is a sentiment I have heard from many people, that dreams have insight and being lucid detracts from the dream. Someone that is lucid might disregard the dream and seek to fly and experience fantasies instead of letting the dream unfold naturally. My dream is one dream but it is indeed one of many dreams in the school setting and although they are not stressful per se, I am constantly frustrated with being unable to accomplish nonsense tasks. That is why I am giving thought to this dream. There are many other dreams too that have this problem. For example not finding my way or looking long for something. That's why it's worth thinking about. What can lucidity add? I think being lucid in these dreams is an asset because you can think this is a dream and the task is nonsense because of the unstable nature of dreaming so I need not try to do this homework. I did not fail to study, I only exist in this moment but I did not exist in the past of this scenario. Then I might choose to let the homework go on and listen to the lecture instead or I might try to talk to my peers or just do something else. My point is non-lucidity leads to a cul de sac in a dream. For example, once I dreamed I was driving and my passenger and half the car was gone. I almost panicked but a bit of lucidity informed me this was due to the nature of dreaming and I kept driving until they came back. This is an example of lucidity stabilizing the dream vs non lucidity spiralling dreams into nonsense frustration. About waking up from dreams and just saying, "well, that was random and meaningless, let's move on"... Well, that's interesting. Isn't that a bit nihilistic? I do agree dreams have a lot of randomness but I do think they arise from real experiences and can be a reflection of my daily life so I do like to look at it as if I were looking at my reflection in the mirror to check that my face looks healthy and well kept. Others are looking for symbolic meaning, which I don't adhere to. About your tree dream, I don't know what lucidity would have added either. Perhaps this is a dream others would look for symbolic meaning from and lucid, they might abandon it to go flying (losing the insight) and others might start asking it question (and I believe they would receive meaningless/expected/random answers). I think if I were lucid in that dream, I would just soak in the experience and let myself be in awe of the tree, for what that's worth. I guess a follow up question would be, how do you redirect your focus when lucid. Personally, it often disengages me from the current narrative, leaves me purposeless (without narrative), perhaves indecisive due to the infinity of options, powerful, in awe of the dream world, in fear of its ephemeral nature. I think it's worth thinking about how those feelings (due to lucidity) affect the dreams (compared to those of non-lucidity, which on the other hand might lead me to feel confused, frustrated, powerless, etc)

[Silence11]

About waking up from dreams and just saying, "well, that was random and meaningless, let's move on"... Well, that's interesting. Isn't that a bit nihilistic? Well, it's not that all dreams have no meaning, but many do. I just feel like both sides in this debate put too much focus on the plot of the dream, and I like to look at it more from a general point of view. I keep getting confused why there's this sudden restriction about when and what is allowed as necessary for a dream to be insightful. I look at those that proclaim lucidity takes something away from their non-lucid dreams, but they're still there. Prior to you getting lucid you were dreaming non-lucidly. Why can't we study that part of the dream? What part of it is incomplete? The same is true for your dream. Why do you think it needs to continue after you get lucid? And why is the plot you were following that important? Of course, I mean to gather close to nothing from a dream that has you missing your homework, or being late to class, or not arriving in time for an exam. Everyone has had these dreams in some form or another but, why should I attempt to correct the frustration I was feeling as part of this dream? Recognizing it was nonsense diminishes the value of this dream now. But it's not like I can't remember back to when it was before. To me that frustration is valuable. But frustration means nothing when it's one in a sea of countless dreams. From the dreams I've had in school I've been chased around, I've fought, arrived late, underdelivered, hid, escaped, and it doesn't matter. It does not matter what I'm doing in these dreams, but it is noteworthy that many of them follow a general theme with regards to conflict. That's what I take with me when these dreams end, not the plot. Forget about the plot. Dreams are like short stories. They don't need to be longer, not for this purpose. We are perfectly capable of reading whatever it is we need to in the few seconds or minutes they appear to last. Lucidity is not needed in my opinion. Lucidity takes nothing away from them either.

[Occipitalred]

Hi Occipitalred, nice to see you still visit here. It’s been a while for me. Likewise! Well, it's not that all dreams have no meaning, but many do. I just feel like both sides in this debate put too much focus on the plot of the dream, and I like to look at it more from a general point of view. I keep getting confused why there's this sudden restriction about when and what is allowed as necessary for a dream to be insightful. I look at those that proclaim lucidity takes something away from their non-lucid dreams, but they're still there. Prior to you getting lucid you were dreaming non-lucidly. Why can't we study that part of the dream? What part of it is incomplete? The same is true for your dream. Why do you think it needs to continue after you get lucid? And why is the plot you were following that important? Of course, I mean to gather close to nothing from a dream that has you missing your homework, or being late to class, or not arriving in time for an exam. Everyone has had these dreams in some form or another but, why should I attempt to correct the frustration I was feeling as part of this dream? Recognizing it was nonsense diminishes the value of this dream now. But it's not like I can't remember back to when it was before. To me that frustration is valuable. But frustration means nothing when it's one in a sea of countless dreams. From the dreams I've had in school I've been chased around, I've fought, arrived late, underdelivered, hid, escaped, and it doesn't matter. It does not matter what I'm doing in these dreams, but it is noteworthy that many of them follow a general theme with regards to conflict. That's what I take with me when these dreams end, not the plot. Forget about the plot. Dreams are like short stories. They don't need to be longer, not for this purpose. We are perfectly capable of reading whatever it is we need to in the few seconds or minutes they appear to last. Lucidity is not needed in my opinion. Lucidity takes nothing away from them either. It's been interesting reading and reflecting on everyone's responses, especially this one, which seems fresh to me. This contemplation has led me to an interpretation of this dream pattern. It's a very broad and non-specific interpretation, and though it's nothing new, it felt like a realization to me, or I liked how it felt to think of it. I'm thinking in terms of meditation, how the narrative mind is a subconscious part of the brain that produces a narrative in which the perceived self exists. It seems to me that in these scenarios, I am being controlled by the narrative mind. Not only am I dreaming that I am in a classroom, through my senses, but also, my narrative mind is producing a narrative which binds me to the events of the dream even more strongly than my senses of the dream. Even though I see the homework questions don't make sense, I trust the narrative instead, that I did not prepare. In another example, which is only one dream, part of a broader pattern, I am walking a street and see people, that I assume to be villains on the verge of assaulting me. However, the dream characters don't attack and I flee all on my own. This dream is one of many which has made me doubt that dreams form purely out of expectation. It is my experience that very often, the narrative of my dreams does not match the dream. For example, here, the characters were not antagonizing. Yet, my narrative said so, and I responded to my narrative, not the dream. This is relevant to me in my waking life. For example, someone insulted me in a mindless passing comment, and I'll stay mad even after they are gone and no one has given any mind to the comment. My brain continues the narrative in which I must defend myself and continue to argue, in a debate with myself and an imaginary proxy for my antagonist. And yet, I am angry and even upon realizing that I am my sole gatekeeper to peace in that moment, I struggle to escape my narrative mind. I wonder if becoming more aware and in better control of my narrative mind in waking life might not help me do the same in dreams and increase my lucidity. Or perhaps, to rely more on the dream senses than the narrative. Although Silence11's comments make me think that I should not ascribe more importance to my dreams senses than my dream narrative. In any case, I will pay more attention to my narrative, waking and dreaming.

[Tiktaalik]

Hi Occipitalred, nice to see you still visit here. It’s been a while for me. I generally agree with what you’re saying. The idea that dreams are these cryptic puzzles to decipher is an enticing idea, but I’ve never really found any evidence of this either. Humans love to find meaning in things and if you’re looking for meaning, you’ll likely find it, but that doesn’t mean the thing itself actually has meaning, at least not a purposefully fabricated meaning conjured up by some all knowing unconscious mind, which is how some people see it. In fact, it’s more likely that dreams are worthless nonsense as you say and that’s why they are mostly erased from memory upon waking. With that said, I do think you can glean valuable insights into how your own mind works by closely analysing the dream to see how particular schemas/ ideas connect and how you, the protagonist in these dreams, react to the situations that arise. For example, I’m quite often heroic in my dreams and quick to help someone in danger. Would I actually risk my life like this in waking life? I hope I would, but I’ve never been in a situation to know for sure. Observing how I dealt with the perilous situation however was quite encouraging and made me feel that maybe I can be heroic. If I was a dream interpreter I may look at your dream and say something generic like, “you’re feeling anxiety in your life and you’re feeling unprepared for a task that’s troubling you”. Now, stress and anxiety certainly do effect our dreams, there’s good evidence of this and maybe it did have some influence on your mood in the dream, but it’s also likely your anxiety was caused by the confusion and panic that arose due to the situation you found yourself in. I would instead look at it like this: the dream begins to form and the mind expects you to be in a setting. With no reference to go off it builds up a familiar or archetypal setting, in this case a school. This activates school schemas in the brain bringing up imagery of desks, teachers and homework. With your memory impaired during sleep, you feel confused and have no memory of having had homework, creating the belief, “I forgot, I haven’t done it!” This naturally leads you to feel embarrassed as you likely would in this situation. In panic you look at the book for an answer, the mind needs to guess again and the word “pentagon” arises, maybe because the dream is activating a “Math book” schema now. The word pentagon associates with the word “table” in your mind due to the similar sounding “ta” sound, and on it goes. So as I’ve laid it out here you can see there is no meaning in it, you and your mind are simply in a feed back loop as it fills in the blanks and you react to what arises. Some may find this conclusion unsatisfying but I find it fascinating. To answer the subject question now, I would say that becoming lucid in a dream doesn’t interrupt any important insights the brain is conjuring up for you, so I don’t think changing the plot and doing your own thing whilst lucid is a bad thing, but by becoming lucid you may actually be interfering with other important processes going on in the brain that shouldn’t be interrupted by the change in mental state as you become lucid. There is no strong evidence yet that lucid dreaming is bad for the brain but it does appear to be an unnatural mental state and there may be a very good reason for the lack of it whilst we sleep. Anyway, that’s just my thoughts on the matter. I’d love to know what you think.

[Snakeboy]

I think I see what you mean, Occipitalred, are we bypassing opportunities to receive messages through dreams if we are too in control of the events? We might steer away from the events that unfold before us, ignoring what the dream was offering, and instead go on and do something more recreational. I was reading Laberge's "Exploring.." book last night and one passage reminded me of your post, Occipitalred. He was speaking on the potential one has to dig deeper into the dream if you are lucid, you could ask yourself or dream characters what things mean in the dream and get a more involved answer than what might be your best guess later on in the waking world.

[Tiktaalik]

The obstacle I am talking about is a sentiment I have heard from many people, that dreams have insight and being lucid detracts from the dream. Someone that is lucid might disregard the dream and seek to fly and experience fantasies instead of letting the dream unfold naturally. My dream is one dream but it is indeed one of many dreams in the school setting and although they are not stressful per se, I am constantly frustrated with being unable to accomplish nonsense tasks. That is why I am giving thought to this dream. There are many other dreams too that have this problem. For example not finding my way or looking long for something. That's why it's worth thinking about. . I think it depends what you believe the purpose of dreaming is. If you believe dreams are valuable messages communicated to us by the unconscious mind, then yes, becoming lucid and going away from the dreams intended narrative would be negative, but I don’t buy into this idea. There is good evidence showing things like memory consolidation and emotional regulation are taking place during REM sleep which are at least 2 possible reasons why we go through it each night. This suggests to me that our conscious experience in dreams, and its content, may not be what’s really important and is instead a byproduct of other processes happening in the back ground of our mind which appear to us as random and nonsensical dreams. If you believe this, then dreams and the plot we go through in them, is important to the mind in ways we may not be able to see or comprehend. For example, you mention using lucidity to escape frustration in your dreams, which makes sense, and sounds like a better use of your time whilst asleep, but perhaps this frustration is an important emotional response, one the brain needs you to experience in order to strengthen key neural pathways in the brain. I don’t know if this is what’s happening of course, but I think it’s worth considering and could mean lucidity is an obstacle to dreams and the processes that happen in sleep. That said, Lucid dreams can be a fun and interesting way to explore the mind and our inner workings and who knows what other benefits there may be. There is certainly a lot of exciting therapeutic claims surrounding lucid dreaming that could yet prove to be true and maybe breaking out of these repetitive neural cycles in dreams, as you suggest, could be beneficial and help the brain rewire in more positive ways. you could ask yourself or dream characters what things mean in the dream and get a more involved answer than what might be your best guess later on in the waking world. I am skeptical about asking the dream, or a character “what its meaning is” as the mind can very easily fabricate a response that may appear meaningful to us, but is actually just another flash of brain nonsense posing as insight. It’s always fun to experiment though, and you do get some curious responses from the dream.

[Tiktaalik]

I'm thinking in terms of meditation, how the narrative mind is a subconscious part of the brain that produces a narrative in which the perceived self exists. It seems to me that in these scenarios, I am being controlled by the narrative mind. This thinking really does lead you down a rabbit hole doesn’t it! I suppose you could make the argument that the conscious mind is controlled by the subconscious, which would lead into a bigger discussion about “free will” and if we really are in control of anything we think or do, waking or asleep, but I won’t go there. The brain does like to weave together narratives, it’s one of the ways it makes sense of the world. Even the “self” could be considered a narrative we tell ourselves about who we are and what we’re about. However, I wouldn’t say the subconscious is fully controlling the conscious mind in dreams, though it certainly is influencing it. I see it more as two parts of one integrated “whole”. Both are working together to make sense of the unfolding situation, piecing together the elements as best they can into the most plausible narrative. Since logic and memory are massively impaired during sleep though, the narratives are far from plausible, and this is why we, the protagonist in the dream, also go along for the ride with full belief and never question it. In a dream I had recently, which is somewhat similar to yours, I appeared on a stage in a theatre and suddenly realised I must be apart of the show. I had no idea what I was meant to do, I couldn’t remember rehearsing for it and I assumed I had forgotten my lines which lead to me fleeing in embarrassment. The setting of the dream was clearly influenced by a tv show I watched before bed involving a performer on a stage and this recently viewed scenario appears to have stuck with me and became the catalyst of the dreams narrative. The confusion caused by my unfamiliar setting and lack of memory about why I was there, caused the mind to piece together a narrative to explain it, which lead me to believe that “I must be a part of the show, but I can’t remember my lines? I must have forgotten them!” The term “feedback loop” often gets used to describe the interchange between the subconscious and conscious mind in dreams and I think it’s this interplay that creates the narrative. In another example, which is only one dream, part of a broader pattern, I am walking a street and see people, that I assume to be villains on the verge of assaulting me. However, the dream characters don't attack and I flee all on my own. This dream is one of many which has made me doubt that dreams form purely out of expectation. It is my experience that very often, the narrative of my dreams does not match the dream. For example, here, the characters were not antagonizing. Yet, my narrative said so, and I responded to my narrative, not the dream. Whether these figures appeared threatening upon reflection, I think is irrelevant. In that moment, your mind came to the conclusion that these individuals could be a threat and you reacted as such. This group were stood together on a street and you were alone. This maybe made you feel vulnerable and reminded you of scenarios you’d seen, or heard about, that were similar. Maybe you recently watched something involving a gang of threatening individuals and that triggered this fearful narrative, like in my theatre dream. Context is also important to your expectations and If you saw this same group in a school setting for example, maybe you wouldn’t have reacted in the same fearful way. Threatening strangers is a recurring theme of mine as well, I think it’s likely a common one, and suggests the mind may always be a little suspicious of strangers. I wonder if becoming more aware and in better control of my narrative mind in waking life might not help me do the same in dreams and increase my lucidity. Or perhaps, to rely more on the dream senses than the narrative - In any case, I will pay more attention to my narrative, waking and dreaming. Being more mindful in waking life can help you to become more aware of the narratives that arise from the subconscious. That negative voice that tells you that you will never accomplish something, is one such narrative you can identify and choose to ignore. I don’t think you can escape these narratives, they are integral to the mind and are meant to be helpful, but as you’ve pointed out with your insult story, they can be maladaptive. In these cases, it’s good to identify them and try to update the narrative/ belief appropriately. In therapy, this is sometimes achieved by visualising a more positive outcome, or trying to find alternative, more helpful solutions to problems. LaBerge in “ETWOLD” and others, claim that dreams can be used this way as well and I’ve had some success of my own trying to change my own negative narratives/ beliefs in dreams. I think being more mindful of the narratives of the mind would help with lucidity, especially whilst reality checking, as becoming more aware and critical of the situations we find ourselves in and asking the question “does this narrative make sense? Should I be acting this way?” can lead to more lucidity in dreams.

[Occipitalred]

This thinking really does lead you down a rabbit hole doesn’t it! I suppose you could make the argument that the conscious mind is controlled by the subconscious, which would lead into a bigger discussion about “free will” and if we really are in control of anything we think or do, waking or asleep, but I won’t go there. The brain does like to weave together narratives, it’s one of the ways it makes sense of the world. Even the “self” could be considered a narrative we tell ourselves about who we are and what we’re about. However, I wouldn’t say the subconscious is fully controlling the conscious mind in dreams, though it certainly is influencing it. I see it more as two parts of one integrated “whole”. Both are working together to make sense of the unfolding situation, piecing together the elements as best they can into the most plausible narrative. Since logic and memory are massively impaired during sleep though, the narratives are far from plausible, and this is why we, the protagonist in the dream, also go along for the ride with full belief and never question it. Yes, it would be nice to understand the dynamics between the conscious and subconscious minds in detail. I think it's much like the feedback loop you then describe. In a dream I had recently, which is somewhat similar to yours, I appeared on a stage in a theatre and suddenly realised I must be apart of the show. I had no idea what I was meant to do, I couldn’t remember rehearsing for it and I assumed I had forgotten my lines which lead to me fleeing in embarrassment. The setting of the dream was clearly influenced by a tv show I watched before bed involving a performer on a stage and this recently viewed scenario appears to have stuck with me and became the catalyst of the dreams narrative. The confusion caused by my unfamiliar setting and lack of memory about why I was there, caused the mind to piece together a narrative to explain it, which lead me to believe that “I must be a part of the show, but I can’t remember my lines? I must have forgotten them!” The term “feedback loop” often gets used to describe the interchange between the subconscious and conscious mind in dreams and I think it’s this interplay that creates the narrative. I agree! Whether these figures appeared threatening upon reflection, I think is irrelevant. In that moment, your mind came to the conclusion that these individuals could be a threat and you reacted as such. This group were stood together on a street and you were alone. This maybe made you feel vulnerable and reminded you of scenarios you’d seen, or heard about, that were similar. Maybe you recently watched something involving a gang of threatening individuals and that triggered this fearful narrative, like in my theatre dream. Context is also important to your expectations and If you saw this same group in a school setting for example, maybe you wouldn’t have reacted in the same fearful way. Threatening strangers is a recurring theme of mine as well, I think it’s likely a common one, and suggests the mind may always be a little suspicious of strangers. It's made me think my mind prioritizes seeking harzards. Often, the narratives is quick to notice threats. To be simplistic, I'm thinking this is kind of like a prey mentality and I was wondering inversely about the predator mentality which seeks opportunity. Like you then mention, I don't think the mental habit of threat seeking can be so effectively suppressed directly. However, I am thinking that if I try to be aware of my waking mind narratives and attempt to inject more "opportunity seeking" maybe a new equilibrium can be achieved. In any case, I will try and I am interested to see how this might influence my dreams. Being more mindful in waking life can help you to become more aware of the narratives that arise from the subconscious. That negative voice that tells you that you will never accomplish something, is one such narrative you can identify and choose to ignore. I don’t think you can escape these narratives, they are integral to the mind and are meant to be helpful, but as you’ve pointed out with your insult story, they can be maladaptive. In these cases, it’s good to identify them and try to update the narrative/ belief appropriately. In therapy, this is sometimes achieved by visualising a more positive outcome, or trying to find alternative, more helpful solutions to problems. LaBerge in “ETWOLD” and others, claim that dreams can be used this way as well and I’ve had some success of my own trying to change my own negative narratives/ beliefs in dreams. I think being more mindful of the narratives of the mind would help with lucidity, especially whilst reality checking, as becoming more aware and critical of the situations we find ourselves in and asking the question “does this narrative make sense? Should I be acting this way?” can lead to more lucidity in dreams. I agree with this! I don't think it's very practical to change mental habbits in dreams but I like to look at them as a mirror and use them to more easily notice if my waking practice has had an influence on my psyche.