Atheism and Lucid Dreaming

[Fugue]

Evening. While lurking around these boards I've found it mentioned in a few places that a lot, or even a majority, of the members here are atheist or agnostic. I myself identify as an atheist and was wondering what my fellow atheist LDers (or Christians/other believers as well, doesn't matter) think about the relationship between their interest in lucid dreaming and their religious/spiritual standing. Maybe I'll start to give you an idea of my thoughts. Personally I think my interest in lucid dreaming and subsequent discovery that it is perfectly real and unimaginably vivid as well as my particular experiences in that realm have only served to reinforce my position as an atheist. The more I study about the brain the more it makes perfect sense to me that such notions of the soul and the spirit, and perhaps god or gods have evolved over time out of what otherwise appear akin to walking hallucinations, given that these things had no way of being explained many thousands of years ago. Recent study however, and my own experiences and conjecture into the nature of the experience as well as the apparatus underlying it seem only further proof that we are materialistic beings in a materialistic universe and that this most sophisticated simulation chamber I house in my skull will cease to be upon my death just like anything else. That certainly doesn't make it any less amazing however, and it certainly doesn't have to be sad. Thoughts?

[PlanesWalker]

Why does the experience have to cease? Just because you don't believe in a god doesn't mean you have to end.

[Descensus]

Why does the experience have to cease? Just because you don't believe in a god doesn't mean you have to end. That's what death is: the end of your life. Hard to do any sort of "experiencing" once your brain is toast.

[Photolysis]

Lucid dreaming has increased for me what was already a healthy respect for the brain's capabilities. It's also driven home just how easy hallucinations can be conjured up and how fallible the brain can be. What I'm really surprised about is the number of religious people on this website who accept lucid dreaming, but knowing how well their brains can be fooled... still somehow believe in their own personal experiences as 'proof' of a god and suchlike.

[PlanesWalker]

Death is the end of your Shell good sir. Lucid dreaming has increased for me what was an already a healthy respect for the brain's capabilities. It's also driven home just how easy hallucinations can be conjured up and how fallible the brain can be. What I'm really surprised about is the number of religious people on this website who accept lucid dreaming, but knowing how well their brains can be fooled... still somehow believe in their own personal experiences as 'proof' of a god and suchlike. It's hard to believe that anyone who has experienced a Lucid Dream can call them a trick of the mind. You have no imagination, so therefore no hope. It's amazing that someone with blinders on can still experience a Lucid Dream. I'm not here to convince you otherwise, but just as you speak lowly of religious nuts, I think the same of you for shutting out the possibility of Anything existing beyond your own little world.

[Descensus]

Death is the end of your Shell good sir. Death is the end of human life-supporting biological activity, particularly the activity in our brains. Now, unless you have some really good reason to show that we live on after our "shells" end, I would love to see it. Good sir.

[Darkmatters]

Fascinating subject, and a great opportunity for me to once again try to find the words to present my ideas concering secular reincarnation. First, let me make it clear - I don't believe in any kind of afterlife or a soul or spirit or anything - nothing supernatural at all. I believe when my brain dies my mind is extinguished, along with my consciousness and sense of awareness. Nothing is 'passed on', there's no chance of remembering past lives. However, who's to say that later someone won't be born (human or animal) that has a sense of self - an awareness, that subjectively is me? I made a thread about this long ago, and most people completely failed to understand what I was saying. They mostly latched onto existing ideas about reincarnation that are spiritual in nature and involve memories or the personality itself somehow being reborn into a new body, but that isn't what I'm talking about - there would be no passing on of anything - you die completely. End of story. But later, without any sense of continuity or memory, you are born as someone completely different. If you understand the difference between the mere awareness and personality or consciousness, then it's only awareness I'm talking about - in life there is one me and billions of others, none of which are subjectively me. It's this subjectivity I'm talking about. Separate it from everything else about me - my personality, my memories, my mind, everything. And I am not saying that sense of subjective awareness passes on or anything either - it is extinguished completely when I die. What I'm saying is how do we know when billions of new lives are brought into being one of them won't subjectively be a completely new 'me'? And just to circumvent the arguments this brought on in the other thread, I'm not saying this definitely happens or even presenting it as a theory - all I'm saying is that it could happen, and as a rational person I see absolutely no reason why it wouldn't. Ok, that's the best I've ever been able to word it. ** Edit I suspect if this idea would be made widespread, people wouldn't need to latch onto religion for a sense of security, since it seems to be mostly the fear of death being final that lies at the core of religions.

[Fugue]

Fascinating subject, and a great opportunity for me to once again try to find the words to present my ideas concering secular reincarnation. First, let me make it clear - I don't believe in any kind of afterlife or a soul or spirit or anything - nothing supernatural at all. I believe when my brain dies my mind is extinguished, along with my consciousness and sense of awareness. Nothing is 'passed on', there's no chance of remembering past lives. However, who's to say that later someone won't be born (human or animal) that has a sense of self - an awareness, that subjectively is me? I made a thread about this long ago, and most people completely failed to understand what I was saying. They mostly latched onto existing ideas about reincarnation that are spiritual in nature and involve memories or the personality itself somehow being reborn into a new body, but that isn't what I'm talking about - there would be no passing on of anything - you die completely. End of story. But later, without any sense of continuity or memory, you are born as someone completely different. If you understand the difference between the mere awareness and personality or consciousness, then it's only awareness I'm talking about - in life there is one me and billions of others, none of which are subjectively me. It's this subjectivity I'm talking about. Separate it from everything else about me - my personality, my memories, my mind, everything. And I am not saying that sense of subjective awareness passes on or anything either - it is extinguished completely when I die. What I'm saying is how do we know when billions of new lives are brought into being one of them won't subjectively be a completely new 'me'? And just to circumvent the arguments this brought on in the other thread, I'm not saying this definitely happens or even presenting it as a theory - all I'm saying is that it could happen, and as a rational person I see absolutely no reason why it wouldn't. Ok, that's the best I've ever been able to word it. ** Edit I suspect if this idea would be made widespread, people wouldn't need to latch onto religion for a sense of security, since it seems to be mostly the fear of death being final that lies at the core of religions. Interesting thought. I've considered it myself before actually. I completely understand what you're saying, and it's a really cool idea. I guess the main hole lies in the fact that not only is it not falsifiable but it's also impossible to prove given the fact that there is no continuity of memory under such a system, so you have no way of knowing. Also, it's hard to know how this subjective sense of self even exists. Sure, I have been me for the past 20 years, and no one else, and all of my experiences have played out seamlessly before the sme eyes, all actions carried out by the same hands, but oddly enough my body is comprised of cells that weren't even originally present at my birth, nor probably even as recently as a few years ago. Yeah I still have the strong suspicion that I'm still...me, I guess. I suppose it's this realization that causes many to posit the existence of the soul, but that really just complicates the picture because it requires a whole other set of explanations, which are usually skirted around quite obviously in the face of such lack of evidence. Still, it is a fun thought to entertain. You might ask yourself though...is it not that very subjective experience of "being me" that IS me? So what would it mean to inhabit this world again as something else? This obviously flies directly into the realm of pure conjecture, so you could say almost anything, but it's fun to ask the questions, even if the answers are impossible to get at or even don't exist to begin with. Thanks for the response. It's hard to believe that anyone who has experienced a Lucid Dream can call them a trick of the mind. You have no imagination, so therefore no hope. It's amazing that someone with blinders on can still experience a Lucid Dream. I'm not here to convince you otherwise, but just as you speak lowly of religious nuts, I think the same of you for shutting out the possibility of Anything existing beyond your own little world. I really don't mean to make this a debate...unfortunately that's what all these must decay into. There's no reason to say any of this because it won't sway you either way, and maybe it doesn't matter anyway, but...I dunno, I just can't agree with you. What blueline said stems from his confidence in the nature of physical reality and causation, and what you said basically boils down to something like, "well it COULD exist so I believe it DOES and you're lost for not sharing in my delusion." Because that's really what it has to be: a delusion. There's no proof for what you said, you just like to believe it because you think it makes you open-minded or something. Of course blueline probably thinks himself open-minded for not being scared of the quite likely possibility that he will cease to be along with his body upon death--and I'm inclined to agree with him. Because what he said actually has some evidence behind it--namely that the brain performs a multitude of processes every single day, dreaming amongst them, that are responsible for your ability to walk and talk and see and feel and even breathe. Along that line of logic, it stands to reason that one's very conscious awareness is the result of biologically-grounded processes that take place in the brain, and that upon braindeath, all these processes cease. What those with religious reservations fail to realize is that there is no distinction between the shell and the ghost inside it. The subjective experience of the ghost is a direct result of the shell itself. In simpler terms, there is no distinction between the brain and the mind. They are one and the same. I don't think anyone was trying to insinuate that you religious folk are "lowly" in any sense of the word, but if you want to counteract such a sentiment you might start by showing some proof for your claims.

[Darkmatters]

I guess the main hole lies in the fact that not only is it not falsifiable but it's also impossible to prove given the fact that there is no continuity of memory under such a system, so you have no way of knowing. Absolutely - it's completely impossible to ever test it scientifically, and more than that nobody would ever have any way of knowing if it's true or not. I just want to make clear, while that is a hole in it's scientific testability and even the ability for anyone to ever experience it for themselves, it does nothing to invalidate the idea itself. You obviously understand that, I'm just pointing it out for anyone else reading. Also, it's hard to know how this subjective sense of self even exists. Yes, we know nothing about it other than the fact that it's there. Why am I me and you're you? Why not the other way around? Why do I exist right now at all? How strange that my brief span on this dirtball happens to be right now... why wasn't it a thousand years ago and all over now? Or maybe a thousand years in the future? I suppose it's this realization that causes many to posit the existence of the soul, but that really just complicates the picture because it requires a whole other set of explanations, which are usually skirted around quite obviously in the face of such lack of evidence. Not only the idea of the soul itself, but all the bagage attached to it - the idea that there's a continuity of personality from one life to another, that you might see a cat born just after your grandpa dies that "has his eyes", or that Tibetan monks can go out and find a child born as the resurrected Dalai Lama that knows things only he could know. And the idea of karma. If you strip all that away and leave only that tiny spark of awareness - the part of you that's able to observe your thoughts and emotions without being a part of them - the part you discover through meditation - then it makes you begin to ponder the nature of that subjective sense of self. You might ask yourself though...is it not that very subjective experience of "being me" that IS me? So what would it mean to inhabit this world again as something else? It would mean only one simple thing - that you would be alive.

[Descensus]

What blueline said stems from his confidence in the nature of physical reality and causation, and what you said basically boils down to something like, "well it COULD exist so I believe it DOES and you're lost for not sharing in my delusion." Because that's really what it has to be: a delusion. There's no proof for what you said, you just like to believe it because you think it makes you open-minded or something. Of course blueline probably thinks himself open-minded for not being scared of the quite likely possibility that he will cease to be along with his body upon death--and I'm inclined to agree with him. Because what he said actually has some evidence behind it--namely that the brain performs a multitude of processes every single day, dreaming amongst them, that are responsible for your ability to walk and talk and see and feel and even breathe. Along that line of logic, it stands to reason that one's very conscious awareness is the result of biologically-grounded processes that take place in the brain, and that upon braindeath, all these processes cease. What those with religious reservations fail to realize is that there is no distinction between the shell and the ghost inside it. The subjective experience of the ghost is a direct result of the shell itself. In simpler terms, there is no distinction between the brain and the mind. They are one and the same. I don't think anyone was trying to insinuate that you religious folk are "lowly" in any sense of the word, but if you want to counteract such a sentiment you might start by showing some proof for your claims. Nailed it.

[Universal Mind]

Death is the end of your Shell good sir. It's hard to believe that anyone who has experienced a Lucid Dream can call them a trick of the mind. You have no imagination, so therefore no hope. It's amazing that someone with blinders on can still experience a Lucid Dream. I'm not here to convince you otherwise, but just as you speak lowly of religious nuts, I think the same of you for shutting out the possibility of Anything existing beyond your own little world. If you have evidence, my eyes and ears are open. Lucid dreaming is not evidence of anything more than consciousness and imagination. I have had zillions of lucid dreams, and a high percentage of them were absolutely mind blowing. I even pulled off being God and experiencing nirvana in one of them. I am still an atheist.

[Musicdreamer]

I never really got why people believed in an afterlife because back in the days when religion developed, the people had no explanations for the things that happend around them. they didn't know why the wheat grew or why the sun rose every morning so it is not very strange that various religions around the world thought of an explanation for death. I think that the main reason why people still believe in any sort of afterlife is because of fear, the fear of emptiness, that there is nothing after death and that you are just gone. However, who's to say that later someone won't be born (human or animal) that has a sense of self - an awareness, that subjectively is me? I would like to believe this, but if that is really what happens to you, that would mean that if you die you will subjectively be another person or animal,so unconciously live again in another body, right? what I like to know is how this happens and how you know about this if it isn't noticeable. if i misunderstood anything, please tell me

[dreamer7]

we are energy, energy cannot be destroyed/die

[dreamer7]

i know there is an after life because my mum and i saw a ghost standing there in our kitchen. a black figure, we both were looking at it saying what is that then it vanished into the wall behind it. it had no facial features... it was a pitch black shadow with the shape of a human (i am an atheist by the way...)

[Universal Mind]

i know there is an after life because my mum and i saw a ghost standing there in our kitchen. a black figure, we both were looking at it saying what is that then it vanished into the wall behind it. it had no facial features... it was a pitch black shadow with the shape of a human (i am an atheist by the way...) Have you ever heard of shadow people? That is what you described. Could it have just been a temporary shadow from outside light?

[dreamer7]

Have you ever heard of shadow people? That is what you described. Could it have just been a temporary shadow from outside light? no it was night time, no lights were on just the TV but the tv was behind a wall u cant see it from the kitchen

[Musicdreamer]

i know there is an after life because my mum and i saw a ghost standing there in our kitchen. a black figure, we both were looking at it saying what is that then it vanished into the wall behind it. it had no facial features... it was a pitch black shadow with the shape of a human (i am an atheist by the way...) that could have been anything, i figure that your street has lights which could explain it,maybe someone was just walking on the street and created a shadow on your wall, or maybe it was the moonlight to cause it. there must have been a light source that created the shadow, and there is always light because without light we can't see.

[dreamer7]

that could have been anything, i figure that your street has lights which could explain it,maybe someone was just walking on the street and created a shadow on your wall, or maybe it was the moonlight to cause it. there must have been a light source that created the shadow, and there is always light because without light we can't see. nope we both stood up it was in the middle of the room not on a wall, and the blinds were down.. u could not see any windows (we always have them down at night) it was not a shadow shadow, just a very black figure we could not see the bottom half of it, since it was in the kitchen behind the counter, just from the chest and up. then it back away into the wall behind it after around 15-20 seconds of just standing there looking at us

[dreamer7]

to make it even more weird, this was around a month after my granddad died(my mums dad)

[Universal Mind]

I hope you understand that what you are saying isn't something people are going to be quick to believe.

[dreamer7]

yes i know, but i am not the only one reporting of ghost sightings on earth.......... remember people were in denial of lucid dreaming being real... in time there will be ways to see the dead...

[Darkmatters]

I would like to believe this, but if that is really what happens to you, that would mean that if you die you will subjectively be another person or animal,so unconciously live again in another body, right? what I like to know is how this happens and how you know about this if it isn't noticeable. if i misunderstood anything, please tell me It's not something I believe, and I don't know about it either. I'm just saying that it could happen, and it seems a lot more likely than an afterlife or any religious ideas of incarnation I've heard of, because it doesn't violate any known principles - there's nothing supernatural about it. Or wait - when you said "how do you know about this", did you mean how would you know you had ever lived before? You wouldn't. Each life would be completely separate from all others. I've already said this - I think you're just not understanding the central concept, which is pretty tricky to grasp. To understand it you need to think about the subjective sense of self - the 'me' that's inside you looking out through your eyes and seeing the billions of other people who are - not you. You see them all from outside, but you see yourself from inside - you experience your dreams but not the dreams of anyone else. It's only this interiority that I'm saying could happen again - and the hard thing to grasp is, it really wouldn't be 'you' again in any meaningful way. Let me try to explain it like this: You were born, and from that moment, maybe even sometime when you were in the womb, you had that sense of being inside the body that is yours. Experiencing those thoughts internally, but not the thoughts of anyone else. Experiencing those feelings the same way. You have a particular personality, a psychology, memories - and yet none of these things are identical to that sense of self. If you remove your thoughts, feelings, personality and psychology you are still there inside. None of those things are you. What makes you you is simply that interiority - the fact of looking out from inside this one particular body. Sorry, I know I'm getting really basic - this might help some people who are struggling with the idea, and writing about it like this helps me to sort out my thoughts about it better. Now, at some point this body will die, and that sense of interiority will no longer exist. For 'you' in fact nothing exsits at that point. 'Your' universe dies with you. Now, billions of new lives are created after your death. Billions of brand new awarenesses popping into existence, and each one of them is subjective to - somebody. Each new set of eyes has somebody's awareness inside it looking out at all the others. And of course, as I've already said, the awareness doesn't 'carry over' or anything, each one of them is formed as the product of electrical impulses firing in a developing brain. Think about all those dawning little senses of self - to each and every one of them, all the rest are "somebody else". What a weird thing to think about. When you were born, why were you you? Why couldn't you have been another 'somebody else'? Why do any of these awarenesses have to be you at all in fact? Why do you exist? You could be dead right now. Or you could never have existed at all. But somehow you've won the cosmic lottery and you exist, right here right now. Kind of weird, isn't it? I mean, compared to all the vast stretches of incomprehensible time before you were born, and after you'll die, what are the chances of you being alive right now, during this ridiculously brief stretch of years? This is me wrestling with that inability to imagine non-existence. But think about it - if you didn't exist at all for billions upon billions of years, then suddenly you're here for what - a mere flicker of 80 years or so, and then gone forever... what would the chances be of your existence happening right now? I know this is really a pointless question, and I'm not using it to try to say "I can't imagine not existing, therefore reincarnation". I'm just trying to get you thinking in various ways about self-awareness, about subjectivity - yours and everyone else's. About how that subjectivity seems to relate to the universe - these are the things you must ponder if you want to understand this idea. And I don't think anybody will read this and suddenly understand it, unless they've already pondered these subjects a lot. It's the kind of subject that requires a lot of pondering and unfortunately can't be easily explained. The key to grasping it (note I didn't say understanding it) lies in thinking about how that subjective sense of self comes into being in a tiny developing brain, and about why one in billions is you. Why that particular one? Is 'your' sense of self something inherent to that body, was it going to be 'you' no matter what? Or does it work differently? This is so hard to express, hard to think about. But essentially, I'm saying - once you're dead and gone, when all those countless billions of new awarenesses spring one by one into being and each one is - somebody.. why couldn't one of them be a completley new you? Sorry for the massive wall of text. A lot of words and I didn't say anything new. But repetiton of the ideas is what it takes.

[Darkmatters]

i know there is an after life because my mum and i saw a ghost standing there in our kitchen. a black figure, we both were looking at it saying what is that then it vanished into the wall behind it. it had no facial features... it was a pitch black shadow with the shape of a human (i am an atheist by the way...) Serious question - have you spoken to your mom about it since that night? The reason I ask - I had a similar experience long ago when I was young, not with a black figure, but I couldn't sleep and was looking out my window late on a beautiful summer night when I saw a couple of stars begin to move slowly across the sky. They had been frozen in place for a long time - just like the rest of the stars, but suddenly they were moving, and they weren't planes or anything. They made a circle in the sky and rotated around each other for a while, then started making all kinds of patterns, sweeping across the sky. I was amazed, and my mom was in the room just down the hall with her light on and her door open, so I went in and asked her to come look at something. I was afraid it would have stopped, but it was still going when she got there, and we watched in awe for maybe 5 minutes, then all the stars froze into place again and became nothing but ordinary stars. I had never believed in UFOs, but seeing this, and with my mom as witness to it, I began to believe. How could I not? Many (many) years later, I was thinking about it and mentioned it to my mom, and she literally had no idea what I was talking about. She acted like I was crazy, and the memory being very old, I began to doubt I had even seen it at all. Fast forward to finding this website and learning about sleep paralysis and false awakenings and related phenomena. In fact, here's a video about sleep paralysis and how it makes people experience all kinds of things they swear are real: Sleep Paralysis - YouTube Here's one dealing specifically with shadow people: Shadow People and Sleep Paralysis - YouTube So, maybe say something about it to your mom, see if she remembers it happening. And I realize you weren't lying paralyzed in your bed when this happened - but people frequently have the same kind of experience when they WILD, only without being paralyzed in their bed - they believe they're fully awake and walking around - usually in their house, and see these strange things. Anyway, learning this stuff was extremely enlightening to me, and I'm very glad I finally discovered what it really was.

[Universal Mind]

I had an experience in 2004 I have written about on this site a few times. I woke up, so it seemed, and saw a stuffed giraffe biting my toes. I also felt it. I was paralyzed and couldn't do anything about it. I still don't know if it was a false awakening or a hallucination upon partial waking with continued sleep paralysis. It was one or the other. I am pretty positive that there was no stuffed giraffe biting my toes.

[Photolysis]

It's hard to believe that anyone who has experienced a Lucid Dream can call them a trick of the mind. Despite scientific investigation providing a basis for this, not only from what we already know about how the brain functions, but investigations into lucid dreaming specifically? You have no imagination, so therefore no hope. That's quite a claim to make, considering you don't know me. just as you speak lowly of religious nuts, I think the same of you for shutting out the possibility of Anything existing beyond your own little world. Inserting a bunch of words into my mouth is disingenuous and dishonest. I did not say anything derogatory about religious people who accept lucid dreaming, and I'll thank you to actually look at what I wrote, rather than what you think I wrote. Accusing me of being closed-minded on absolutely no basis whatsoever is nothing but an ad-hominem. Fast forward to finding this website and learning about sleep paralysis and false awakenings and related phenomena. In fact, here's a video about sleep paralysis and how it makes people experience all kinds of things they swear are real Here's an anecdote from a few weeks ago. I'd started to doze off and encountered sleep paralysis. While this was going on there was an utterly convincing sensation of someone being in the room, which of course vanished the moment the paralysis wore off. What was interesting for me was despite knowing that there wasn't anyone moving around, it had no bearing on how real the phenomenon felt. If I were less educated on the subject, it would be easy for me to declare it a real experience, rather than a known quirk of the brain.