Are you a dreamer?

Obituaries
We spend about one-third of our lives asleep. During this time, we can literally have any experience we can imagine by lucid dreaming. Yet, so few people are trying to learn this skill, let alone trying to master it. Why is this? Can we change this? More importantly, why do I want to lucid dream? […]

We spend about one-third of our lives asleep. During this time, we can literally have any experience we can imagine by lucid dreaming. Yet, so few people are trying to learn this skill, let alone trying to master it. Why is this? Can we change this? More importantly, why do I want to lucid dream? Why do you want lucid dream?

Why do I do the things I do?

On Saturday mornings I practice martial art and yesterday a friend joined me. On our way back home from a tough, but productive training, he asked me in all seriousness, “Why do you do this?” Seems like a simple question. A ballistic punch to the solar plexus can hurt; why would any sane person want to go through this pain voluntarily? Sure, there’s the obvious benefit of learning how to defend yourself and others, but that’s not the main reason for me to practice martial arts. I could’ve listed a number of reasons and they’re all valid, but by themselves they’re not the source of my motivation. The more I thought about it, the more I realize the most honest answer is… “I don’t know”. I really don’t know why I do the things I do, I just know that I want to do them.

The same applies to lucid dreaming. I could give you a list of hundreds of applications of lucid dreaming (and in fact that’s what we’re doing in one of the forum topics), but that’s not why I lucid dream. I dream, because I can. I have this undefined “vision” of how I want to be as a human being and I trust my intuition that mastering lucid dreaming is one of the many steps on my path.

 

Then I wondered why most people don’t share this passion. After all, why wouldn’t someone want to have lucid dreams? When I drop the subject in a conversation, I often get that blank stare of someone whose mind prompts “does not compute” and has to reboot to its old programming. It’s gotten to the point where I just don’t bother bringing it up anymore. Sometimes people (usually women – probably because they’re better right-brain thinkers…) still surprise me though and are actually interested. There’s still hope. 🙂

Luciddreamsnews.com wrote an article on the subject of why anyone would bother learning lucid dreaming. They pointed out that the kind of people who practice lucid dreaming are significantly more reflective, intellectual, and creative than others. That’s probably true, but then why do most people lack these traits? Genetics? It doesn’t take a genius to see our Western culture influences our thinking. Our culture determines our beliefs, which determine the actions we take that will eventually shape our culture.