"lucid dream" means just that you're dreaming and are aware that you're dreaming?
(says wikipedia. I ask because some here doubt it exists)

Then I had this, sort of. In times where I also had a shitty sleeping schedulde...

In these times, I almost had such a dream every single night. It always was a sort of bad dream, and at some point I noticed this isn't true, since my brain seemed to have brought in some facts that countered the happenings of the dream, omehow making it cleat to me it was a dream. Then, as always on thise nights, I tried to escape the bad dream, in trying to move parts of my body to show me I'm awake again. Which was really horrible, since it just didn't work for very long. I tried and tried and tried, but my body won't answer. It was always this unpleasant struggle, and after some time, an arm began to move a little, and a while after that I could move my whole body, turn round to sleep on the other side, opening my eyes, having a look at the clock "damn, just slept one and a half (or two) hours), I have to sleep again to be awake in school... then I fell asleep again pretty quickly, for I knew I just had dreamt and now everything was under control.
It was always the same every night, and just one dream, and I think alwys in the first half of my sleep time, which was five hours per night at that time.
And three hours in the early evening, right after school, everything 100% alarm clock controlled. But these nightmares always only occured in the night's 5-hour sleep.
I throw such kind of sleep schedules overboard completely, and didn't have such kinds of dreams again, ever. This all was 6..7 years ago.

Ah yeah, and I didn't have any control over what happened in the dreams, which is sopposed to be another feature of "lucid dreams" if I got that right.
Just that I was aware I was dreaming, and fought to wake up until some time later I woke up.

But is there a real dichotomy of the mind? A difference between the "dreaming self" and the "realizing self" such that you can "realize" that you're dreaming? Is it like realizing that you're drunk, or realizing that you're spaced out at your desk, not getting any work done?

The notion of "dreaming" as a distinct condition, like a place you go or a thing you become, is not convincing to me. My notion of what dreaming is makes it hard for me to reconcile lucidity with it, so the name "lucid dream" becomes an oxymoron.

Lucid dreams are either dreams that you are lucid, no more significant in this respect than dreams that you're a pirate or dreams that you're being chased by a dog and you're running in slow-motion (I had that one in college, scared the poop out of me) or else they're not dreams at all, but are instead some kind of meditative hallucinations, day dreams with brighter colors.

Either way, there's a romance and mystery and general enthusiasm for them that I find off-putting.

Quote:Original post by Iron Chef Carnage
But is there a real dichotomy of the mind? A difference between the "dreaming self" and the "realizing self" such that you can "realize" that you're dreaming? Is it like realizing that you're drunk, or realizing that you're spaced out at your desk, not getting any work done?

The notion of "dreaming" as a distinct condition, like a place you go or a thing you become, is not convincing to me. My notion of what dreaming is makes it hard for me to reconcile lucidity with it, so the name "lucid dream" becomes an oxymoron.

Lucid dreams are either dreams that you are lucid, no more significant in this respect than dreams that you're a pirate or dreams that you're being chased by a dog and you're running in slow-motion (I had that one in college, scared the poop out of me) or else they're not dreams at all, but are instead some kind of meditative hallucinations, day dreams with brighter colors.

Either way, there's a romance and mystery and general enthusiasm for them that I find off-putting.

Some interesting points raised there, philosophically speaking (and also picking up on the adolescent attitude toward dreams that the likes of Castaneda seem to promote -- dreams as a route to "ultimate power" or similarly embarrassing stuff). Still though, I think you're much too quick to give your own opinions precedence over the experience of others -- particularly since, from what you say, it seems that you may not have ever experienced it yourself.

Dreaming is obviously a deep and interesting subject, and one about which it's hard to make absolute statements. But there's plenty of research done that identifies dreaming, and lucid dreaming, as being, at least in some senses, "real". To be sure, it's possible to "dream of being lucid". But equally sure is that people have also had genuine lucid dreams under laboratory conditions. LaBerge and others have conducted two-way communication with sleepers in the middle of lucid dreams. They were definitely asleep, they definitely were communicting with the outside world in knowledge of the fact that they were dreaming, and their post-awakening subjective reports of the experience describe it as being a lucid dream like any other. Is it really useful to try to redefine their experience as being not a dream? I think you might find LaBerge's work an interesting read -- and I speak as someone who's only had a handful of lucid dreams over the years, but I still find the subject very interesting.

On topic: there's lots of questions raised. Is it bad to have all your wishes come true? Who knows? To me at least, lucid dreaming is much more interesting as a world to explore, shaped by the subconscious, rather than some sort of way of attaining your desires. If you're worried about the effects, then maybe you could leave your dreams alone more: stay lucid in them, but exert less influence on how they express themselves.

Is it unhealthy to be lucid every night? From what I recall (and it was a few years ago that I read him), LaBerge ended up having many lucid dreams every single night. I can imagine that would leave you feeling tired -- although I seem to remember that LaBerge didn't think so. You could do an experiment and find out. Try to stop lucidity for a few weeks. If you do go lucid, try to let it go; approach your dream in a very passive way and try to fall fully asleep again. After a few weeks of this, ask yourself whether your sleep now feels better, worse or about the same. It's definitely worth looking into.

Are lucid dreams immoral? Surely there's a simple answer to that one: of course not. Maybe if your religion doesn't allow you full freedom of conscience, then lucid dreaming might be "wrong" morally speaking, but for anyone else, thinking, imagining and feeling whatever you want, is a basic freedom inherent to being a person. Dream whatever you like -- the only person it (directly) affects is you!