The Loneliness of Lucid Dreams

This has probably been mentioned in another thread, but not that I've found.

That said, I'd like to know how common loneliness in lucid dreams is. Recently, I've noticed how lonely I am in them. Sort of like, "this is amazing, but who cares, if I have nobody to share it with?" Don't get me wrong, it's worth it, but it just sort of adds to the distrubing surrealism of lucid dreaming. A lucid dream at it's fullest is unsettling enough as it is, entering another plane of reality and all, but when you throw in the notion of being completely alone literally "in your own little world," it's rather almost emotionally taxing.

I dunno, it just sort of feels fucked up. Unbelievable, but unbelievably fucked up as well.

i dont know about you but I see a lot of my friends, and family in ld's. It depends on the level of control and how long the LD last.

Interactions with others... In a lucid dream, we know they are false. I could let my sister fly, too, but her real self will not reap any enjoyment...

That's why I tend to seek out dream characters that bear no resemblance to people I know in real life. That way I can be in my own little world with my own little people, too. It's much easier to continue a dream plot with someone you only know in the dream because it prevents the falsification in real life you'd experience with familiar dream characters.

I've never thought this way. Lucid dreaming is a personal experience and that is fine with me. When I see people I know in dreams and they do something remarkable I always think of telling them in real life when I can.
My close friends are aware of what lucid dreaming is, although they can't achieve it for themselves, so I can share experiences that way.

Why not try engage yourself in and explore the world you've created instead of focusing on the loneliness you feel. Perhaps more dynamic dream scenes would help you enjoy your lucid dreams. And yeah, I know that's easier said than done but worth a shot.

mr beelzy:I think you've really got the idea, I like that perspective.

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Originally Posted by Vex Kitten

Why not try engage yourself in and explore the world you've created instead of focusing on the loneliness you feel. Perhaps more dynamic dream scenes would help you enjoy your lucid dreams. And yeah, I know that's easier said than done but worth a shot.

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I suppose I was being a little dramatic. I DO enjoy my lucid dreams, and do not focus on the loneliness. I just can't help but notice it. It's a very bizarre thing lucid dreaming.



and westonci: for me, it is undeniably obvious that the characters in my dreams are NOT true exterior consciouses, and that's the problem. It isn't that I'm literally alone in the dream.



and abra: interesting philosophy. I will have to see in future LDs if that helps any, creating more obviously fictional characters.

Maybe I've never had a full lucid dream before, but when I interact with people I know from real life, I tend to be under the false impression that they are in a lucid dream of their own.. that we've somehow met up on this different plane of reality and are now experiencing the phenomenon together.

At the time, I truly believe that. Once I wake up, I realize it was all an illusion. I do find it peculiar though, that the only person I don't see in my lucid dreams is the person I spend most of my time with. He refuses to believe lucid dreams are possible and, obviously, has never had one of his own.

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Originally Posted by Casualtie

Maybe I've never had a full lucid dream before, but when I interact with people I know from real life, I tend to be under the false impression that they are in a lucid dream of their own.. that we've somehow met up on this different plane of reality and are now experiencing the phenomenon together.

At the time, I truly believe that. Once I wake up, I realize it was all an illusion. I do find it peculiar though, that the only person I don't see in my lucid dreams is the person I spend most of my time with. He refuses to believe lucid dreams are possible and, obviously, has never had one of his own.

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I suppose you haven't had a full lucid dream, or rather you have obviously never been fully aware in one.
But hell, for all we know maybe you are actually talking with these people in that alternate plane.... who knows?

One question, can a lucid dream last or feel like it lasts for hours?

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Originally Posted by oscepott

One question, can a lucid dream last or feel like it lasts for hours?

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as far as I know, yes. The longest I've had felt like about 10 minutes.
So, I can't say I know that they can last an hour, but I've heard accounts of it.

Why this thread??

Ok, all mine just lasts for like 2 minutes max.

I find the most rewarding LDs are the ones I use for self-exploration, usually by talking to DCs. I'm endlessly fascinated by these apparent 'others' that derive from my own consciousness, and particularly when I talk to them about the situation--most of them just dismiss that they're DCs, like it doesn't matter.

When people from waking life turn up in my LDs, tho, it almost always indicates something wrong or stressful in the relationship.

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Originally Posted by oscepott

One question, can a lucid dream last or feel like it lasts for hours?

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Yes it can. I have lucids that seem to last hours frequently.

I'm actually glad I'm the master of everything in my lucids. I like the fact that I'm alone in my own infinite world that I control:D

It is true that you are alone in your dreams ( unless you believe the spiritual/dream sharing/ astral-traveling view of dreams ).

What can be done to relieve some of the loneliness, is share your experiences with others ( while you are awake), discuss with others technique and insights - basically what we do in the forum.

But it's best if you find non-virtual friends ( friends that you physically meet ) that share with you the enthusiasm for lucid dreams.

Think about it as some kind of exploration that can be done only alone:
for example say you are a scuba diver. and there is some amazingly beautiful underwater coral-reef tunnel, but it is narrow, so you can only enter it one person at a time.
So you meet with your scuba diving friends, you go together to the location of the reef, you set up your gear, you dive together down to the entrance of the tunnel, and then only one person at a time enters.
After you all get out of the water, you share your experiences and impressions. This way, the lonely part is only the actual core experience ( reef tunnel exploration, or LD experience ), and everything that surrounds it can be a source of social interaction and sharing.

Not to get too philosophical, but how are you sure what you call the real world isn’t a dream as well? I mean, we are all alone inside our own heads, and we interact with people whose minds we can never get into. Our bodies can interact, and our actions can have an effect on those people, and you can say you have a spiritual connection with a spouse or girlfriend, but in the end, we are really all alone. And you can have the same feelings and interactions with DC’s, can’t you?

What is reality but a long, incredibly vivid, lucid dream, that picks up where you left off every morning? These things we do at night are only different in that they don’t resume where we left off and therefore, there are no repercussions for our actions. Of course, I’m not saying that if you believe it enough you can stop bullets Mister Anderson. ;) Just that with respect to being alone, even in real life, that is the case.

Maybe this is another way of looking at what the religious people have been saying all along. Life is just a lucid dream. When we die, that’s when we truly wake up and the real reality begins.

This post is getting too deep for me.

We all know that, but we still live as if it wasn't true. I don't drive the body, I am the body. If I thought too much about all being a hallucination I'd go psycho :P.

Reality can't be a lucid dream, unless you are a buddha?


Back to the topic:
I feel the same way. Lonely in the dream. It doesn't effect me when I'm lucid, but when I try to achieve lucidity.

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Originally Posted by unseen wombat

This post is getting too deep for me.

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From one point of view we are all alone, but also consider that none of us could exist outside the context of the people, objects and events surrounding us. Everything in this world is deeply interdependent, and we only appear to be singular entities in contrast to everything around us. The world as we perceive it, as various singular objects, some inciting fear and others desire, is quite dreamlike, and realizing it does grant you increased control, or at least equanimity, though I have yet to meet a human in the shared dream who can fly ;)

I know I'm all alone in my dreams, but I never feel alone. Whether the DCs who are with me are like those from RL or not, it doesn't bug me. They only exist in my head.

If I'm alone as far as the eye can see, I worry not. For, though I am truly alone, I can make the world what I want and do what I want. Then I can wake up and share it with people who agree that lucids are an interesting thing.

Consider your motivation to lucid dream. Why do you want to be able to control your unconscious projections?

Many will look at it as an escape from the reality that they cannot bare. Unfortunately, they make the mistake of believing that a solution rests in control of dreams. The good thing is that learning lucid dreaming simultaneously teaches oneself how to be happy with ones life. This is what I have come to know. I used to think that controlling my dreams would be "cool" and exciting and I realized that I was searching for an exuberance that I failed to find in waking state.

Others may feel that life is difficult without others nearby. They feel the desire to be with loved ones and those that they care about and that, without them, life becomes bleak. However, we can easily be happy on our own and still be happy with our loved ones. We do not require others to be happy as it misleads us into believing that having others is what grants happiness. The contrary is that being happy leads to being with others. For these people, they will find that if they focus on the positive things in life, rather than the lonely and bleak, they will find their life much more fulfilling than living vicariously.

What do you think...?
~

This isn't always the case though. I've shared dreams with my grandma. She's great at LD's.

I still haven't been able to stay lucid for two long, but I've met up with her in forrests, replicas of my hometowns and on trains.

In the dreams, i used to usually assume that she was just a figment of my imagination, but when we had our first shared dream (on a train running through the middle of a jungle) I walked up to her and tapped her shoulder asking "Grandma?" but i couldn't maintain lucidity and i woke up.

The next morning she tells me at breakfast that she had a dream and that i was in it. She said she was on a train traveling through El Salvador (in central america--ie Jungle!) and that i came up to her and tapped her on the shoulder--and then just faded away, physically.

After that we came up with a code word for when we meet in dreams. Now, this doesn't mean that everytime "she's" in my dreams its my actual conscious grandmother--in fact sometimes thats how i know i dreaming---

but what i'm saying is,

i think its possible that we don't have to be alone while lucid.

i have no methods for inducing this, sometimes it just happens. But its facsinating when it does.

WOW. That is pretty awesome.

I really like this thread, I've gotten a lot of insight from it.

As for what Unseen Wombat was saying, about how real life is like a dream in that we are all really alone... I don't think that's quite accurate.

In a dream, you are talking to constructs of your own mind, your subconscious. With what Comoquiendice was saying before me, there may be some mind connection going on that we haven't been able to explain yet, who knows. But the bottom line is that dreams are mostly just you, yourself, and you, talking to people you create, people you dream up, literally. So it would follow logically that the dreams would be lonely. No matter how extravagant the dreamscape, or how exciting it may be, it is only you in the dream, and for the purposes of this argument, you might as well be sitting in your bedroom playing with action figures, making them talk to eachother. Hell, you could even talk to them. However, any sort of real, genuine satisfaction that you would get from real interpersonal relationships with other, real people will not be there, since the people in your dreams are really as hollow and empty as a G.I. Joe. A dreamscape is basically an incomplete, subconscious construct of your real, waking life.

That's not to say that they are worthless, they're actually very beautiful, and a unique expression of how you view the world, through your own filter, presented solely to you. BUT, to be so sad about your life that you seek escapism in a dream world is... well, sad.

Unseen Wombat said, "Maybe this is another way of looking at what the religious people have been saying all along. Life is just a lucid dream. When we die, that’s when we truly wake up and the real reality begins."

Have you read The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis? It's about a man who dies and goes on a bus to heaven, with some other souls who are coming from hell to visit and see if they like it and want to stay. In the book, Heaven is more real than "real life" (a philosophy that is consistent throughout all of Lewis' books) and much more real than hell. It is described really well, I forget exactly how, but what I do remember I wouldn't be able to do justice, so I'll just leave you with my recommendation.

To counter act lonely feelings i felt within dreams i usually summoned characters whom I've regarded as personal heroes (draco from the movie dragonheart is the most reaccuring DC). Whenever I would talk to them, though i knew I was essentially talking to a reflection of my inner self, my memory of the character was enough to give the DC enough essence to feel as though as I was talking to someone who wasn't me. When i applied that idea to my own waking life, it made me appreciate being awake and around other people so much more, because i know they are individual people.

Of course, then there is the philosophical argument that the real world is not much different than a dream world.

I guess basically what i'm trying to say is that, for me, feeling lonely was a choice. If i feel happiness and love when i am around characters, awake or dreaming, then it doesn't matter who i'm around, real or not ^^

If you feel alone go talk to somone :D