Is lucid a sin?-Part II

Once about every month someone asks this question, and the answer is always the same. Lucid dreaming does not conflict with any known, established Christian church. There may be some that no one has ever heard of, like the twice reformed amphi-Baptist church (made up, but you get the idea), but no well known sect of Christianity has ever taken a stance on lucid dreaming. At least in recent history.

Oh no, not again.

DeadDuck pickes bebaptized.org, puts in closet, and flushes it.

Astrals and things like that doesnt exists. Lucid dreaming is state of brain, and it doesnt have any connections to things like that. Give a look for link to page called…

Looks crappy for me.

That’s a matter of opinion deadduck…

As a christian myself I say God does allow lucid dreaming. My mom was actually talking to me about this the other day, she also doesn’t believe in it because she says if God was trying to give me a word in my dream I’d be controling it, and that wouldn’t be good. I responded that God can do anything, including interupting my lucid dream to tell me something, and even using it to teach me something from the experience. Yes God approves of lucid dreaming, and I even believe it can lead you closer to God. I don’t know anything about astral projection but I believe if you’re “leaving your body” as people call it you should simply be careful, you will need God’s protection wherever you go.

I also disagree with that website on one major point, the guy says that fear is in us to keep us from doing stupid things, and maybe that’s partly true, but I do not believe fear is from God, fear and caution are different, if you can distinguish between the two than you are ready to take certain risks…

If you’re not embracing Satan, he can’t do anything to you. If you’re being faithful as you are, I think god has no problem with you LDing. As far as you don’t believe in spiritual stuff, it’s only a dream. I’m not Christian neither btw. I see it as metaphors. :smile:

oh really! Has he been whispering in your ear “i can’t wait til you get lucid boy, I’m gonna give you a nightmare and make you a dope fiend!”

How so? Some sort of king (nebuchadnezzar?) in the Bible was in communication with God in his dreams. I am relayed an awful lot of information from “God” and other people when I am partially asleep, especially if I am praying while falling asleep.

it is sometimes profound, sometimes not, often times forgotten. But it generally is informative.

SATAN is FEAR. Fear created by the Bible to make you paranoid. Why would you let fear keep you from doing something amazing and helpful to your mind? If you think SATAN is after you, then he will show up and go “boogey boogey boogey” just like if I think Freddy Krueger is after me he’ll come out of the TV and chase me.

If there were a devil as powerful as God, and he wanted to mess with you, by all means, you would be messed with man, and lucidity would have nothing to do with it. He could try to mess with you probably even better if you weren’t lucid, because you wouldn’t be conscious enough to resist “him”.

Now listen here man. Get 666. out of your head. Get Satan out of you rhead.

If you are a Christian all you need to care about Jesus. And what did this man have to say about matters of the metaphysical… of so called “evil” or “occult” (occult means hidden, not evil) practices…

of things like this:

egodeath.com/images/theologue.jpg

well Jesus had this to say friend.
The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.

Jesus the Christ, Matthew 6:22 (KJV)

See also Luke 11:34

This is in direct reference to the third eye, located between the eyebrows, responsible for trasncendent, visionary, psychedelic phenomenon, including lucid dreams.

The Bible is clearly in complete advocation of meditational disciplines (of which lucid dreaming is a symptom of, i.e. a proficien tmeditator will have lucid dreams).

Matthew 23:13 But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.

GO IN. do you understand what this means? It means that your “Christian” upbringing, that has you afraid of looking inside your own mind, is a complete hypocrisy! Look at those words, woe unto the pharisees, church hypocrites, you do not go inward into yourselves, nor do you teach others to!

You are afraid of literally nothing!

Here’s more.

“the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21)

within YOU! Do everything you can to be a free, enlightened, liberated, and saved person. Many believe the energy body (holy spirit or for the jews, merkaba [body of light used to travel] can be activated and used during the dream state in order to navigate spiritual planes.

fear is your own enemy, and the devil is only inside of you, a personification of all your fears. nothing more. if you intend to be a light unto this world, how can you not be?

you know, this is actually quite true. the consequences are upon your mind though, they form habits. it’s similar to simply fantasizing about something. eventually you get a fixation over the fantasy and keep doing it.

To think God would disapprove of spiritual practices is rather absurd. It’s part of the Churchey-guilt mongering, and it actually goes against the Biblical teachings in the first place.

If you use your lucid dreams “sinfully” then perhaps, but if you use them improve yourself and to seek out truth, peace, and unison with the unfathomable, then… God will give you a thumbs up.

anyone who says otherwise, remmber matthew, they don’t go within and are acting as an obstacle, controlling and keeping people from accessing the Kingdom of Heaven.

now can I promise lucid dreaming will set you free? No… for some it has. For some it’s just a fun playground. But really, saying not to lucid dream is like saying that you aren’t allowed to pay attention while you are driving, but instead to listen to tons of music and be distracted.

now, we all dream. lucid dreaming is just that your mind is sharp and perceptive enough to realize “wait, I am dreaming” it means your mind is not lazy. It’s similar to how if you are say, reading my reply right now, you might be doing a lot of other things like thinking about your day, wondering what time it is, and not paying tons of attention.

Well, in that way, our lack of attention in the daily world, our lack of mindfulness and appreciation for the holiness of each moment we breathe (and how many times have you inhaled while reading this? do you know? that’s another example) is refleted in the dreamstate.

the only reason we are not naturally lucid is because we don’t pay a lot of attention to things, and are often running on auti-pilot. See the film Waking Life for an excellent illustration.

One of the first real lucid dreams I had, wound up with me stumbling into a place of such incomprehensible beauty that all I could do was break down crying, thanking God so much for letting me see it.

I haven’t had an experience like that really since, but boy was it amazing.

You can choose to read about God, or you can choose to connect to God. Or you can do both. But dude, don’t live your life on auto-pilot. work on being free. work on really manfiesting the symbolic power of Jesus into your life, and bcoming unified with the holy spirit. You can use dreams as a good way to really explore why you do what you do.

There is literally no reason not to be lucid.
Would the devil come after you for doing yoga? What about deep relaxing breathing? What about going on a nature retreat? Well, people use all these things to connect to God… why should dreaming be different?

Frankly I do not think this interpretation makes sense… it is saying that you need to remember God before you die (and your spirit leaves your body for good)!!! what in the world does this have to do with not astral projecting?

there are 3 schools of thought on AP that I am familiar with.

  1. all dreams are astral projections, lucid or not. we are in the astral everytime we dream, because the astral is simply a world of thoughtforms, our own, and other people’s.
  2. astral projection requires a volitional attempt to leave the body and lucid dreaming is not astral projection, you have to be in a lucid dream and desire to reach the astral plane.
  3. there is no astral projection.

now. last night i went and walked over a vast canyon… i flew and bobbed up and down, working energy into my hands to pilot myself. i then shot it out my feet, propelling myself very high, until my elevation lead me to a new “plane” which I was hoping the astral. i then saw my imagination unfold as it showed me some chakras aligning, and i was in my grandparents house hows that for some dangerous “out of body” state ? I chatted with them as to why I often dreamed of being in their house, and my grandmother had me drink some water.

i think the only possible plane i have ever been to was the first one I told you about, the place of beauty… and that… that was a closeness to God.

above all else you really have to come to your own conclusions. I could tell you what to believe, and if you questioned me I could terrify you with verbal abuse, so that you eventually accepted everything I said as ultimate truth, but really… our only source of authority should be GOD himself… not the Bible… not people with agendas… everything else should just be a tool… you read the bible… does it make sense? Does some of it seem nutty? Well, you make your own judgements, and you take it up with GOD.

and if you are channeling God like how Jesus did, then maybe you have the right to tell other people what to think, otherwise you are just the blind leading the blind, and that’s how many many churches and preachers are.

i mean like me. i can just relay what i’ve experienced, and what I think… I’m hoping to help give you some insights, but you should neither completely reject what I am saying because it is foreign and “blasphemous”, nor should you immediately accept it.

truth really, is a state without words, judgements, and labels. to me.

Holy reality, I like you already :colgate: I only wish there were more christians like you, we should talk sometime…

Personally, I think lucid dreaming is morally acceptable (and that’s enough for me). I don’t know whether it is acceptable from a christian dogmatics point of view, but I think it is, and I will try to convince you.

If you use lucid dreaming to indulge in your fantasies, you violate christian principles and ethics. That’s for sure.
If, however, you uphold the same christian principles and ethics you follow in waking life, in your dream, then I don’t see how lucid dreaming could be a sin.
An attempt to assure you even more that lucid dreaming is acceptable: you could use lucid dreaming exclusively to try to become a better christian. You would then be a good christian in waking life as well as in dreaming state. What can be wrong about that?

:grin:

I’m not a Christian really… I’m a confused truth seeker.

I did spend a long time this morning in sleepy prayer to “God” and “Jesus” and it was pretty good…

but you know. I don’t want to jump through hoops. If Jesus, God, Allah, Satan, Yahweh, Vishnu, Shiva, and every other deity under the sun, can be simplified to simply TAO… then tao is what I’m looking for.

but if the deities are all real, including Jesus, then I would probably gravitate toward being a Christian and professing faith in him, because I really like the idea of him being so full of unconditional universal love, that he would die for the whole planet, feeding everyone his Christ-energy so that they can transform and be complete.

but if it’s just a dogmatic way of control… then it isn’t for me at all.

In terms of Christianity I really just stick with what I agree with… I lean towards a gnostic approach with Jesus as an enlightened being, who spoke in ways which his culture could understand. Coming from a Jewish background himself this means that he spoke in terms of “God” (although his speakings were not in English so this is confusing to think about) and he kept it simple… then his disciples simplified it even more so that they could spread it easily.

Somewhere along the way, probably, things were corrupted by evil authority figures… the notion of hell and the devil were probably overemphasized and exagerated, and the true path to gnosis (union with God/Christ) such as forms of meditation and the application of Heaven being on Earth, and inherently a state of mind, were probably suppressed and labeled as “heresy”.

Because really. What mainline Christianity is, is a set of rules and dogmas to follow. I do think that you can “liberate” yourself that way, and borrowing from Buddhism, following scriptures is one way to be free. But a much more direct route is to simply go the journey yourself, and all sorts of practices involving meditation are designed soley for that.

So I lean toward belief systems that are less allegorical, less story-like, less superstitious, and more down to Earth for the guy who actually wants to do what he hears abuot. Buddhism, Taoism, gnostic Christianity.

Really, if you truely want truth, it’s a long road to walk, and it generally requires a lot of deviation from norms, a lot of hard journeying… I think the Christian religion is more just something to point you in how to live your life correctly, and to help you not be afraid of dying. Now if Jesus existed as the way they claim, that complicates it a lot, and then I would question… does this mean the other figures did not exist, and are not valid?

It’s a lot to think of. So really, I seek to condense it down to where if it prodcues results, I could eventually be a “mystic” Christian, and follow Jesus… it’s just that… the Jesus in my mind is so condensed and simplified in the Bible… and there is so much useless stuff in there… why do I care about what nation conquered what nation with God’s “favor” ?

I care about freeing myself, lol.

Love your enemy as yourself. That is a deep teaching.
Turn the other cheek. That is even deeper.

but if you look at the gnostic gospels, such as Thomas (the only one I’ve read) it really is a lot more applicable to the mystical life, to the seeker of truth. and in it Jesus says this “do not stop seeking until you find” he also heavily advocates that Heaven is here, and we just don’t know how to look for it.

if a mod sees this as overtly off topic I would appreciate it if they would copy and paste the entire thing and PM it to me so I don’t lose it, so I can discuss it elsewhere, or ask me to edit it out myself.

It’s a bit of a stretch, but, its very very applicable to how “mystic” practices such as lucid dreaming can cross into Christianity through interpreting the scripture with a different lense and looking more toward the gnostic side of things. My journey may be of help to the topic starter.

I just recently overcame tremendous fear of “Satan” and hell not more than a few months ago…

As Fiver notices it, the main streams of Christianity don’t find that lucid dreaming is dangerous by itself. Though I’m not a believer, I’ve been brought up with Catholic education. I never heard that Catholics were against lucid dreaming. You can’t find on catholic websites anything related to lucid dreaming or astral, neither on the CEF (Conférence des évèques de France - French Bishops Conference) nor on the official Vatican website.

On the Vatican website, they consider that all practices which are associated to the New Age movement are innocuous by themselves - I consider that lucid dreaming and astral projection can be included in the New Age practices. What is more important in their eyes is, that the whole New Age ideas create a system of beliefs that doesn’t agree with the Scriptures.

The further texts from the Vatican website are translated by myself, I hope I didn’t make any mistranslation.

“It is certain that the New Age creates its own atmosphere, and it is sometimes hard to distinguish between what is innocuous and what is questionable”.

What they think that must be contested is the belief that we can reach God by ourselves, without His intervention.

“The goal of the New Age techniques is reproducing at will mystical states, as it was a laboratory experiment. Rebirth, biofeedback, sensory isolation, holotropic breathing, hypnosis, mantras, sleep deprivation and transcendental meditation are attempts to try and experience those states continuously. All those practices create a state of psychical weakness .”

Notice that they even don’t speak about LD’ing. I don’t agree with the psychical weakness but it’s my own opinion. What they consider more important is:

“Though they consist in going into the depth of heart and soul, they do remain essentially human attempts of an individual who seeks to rise to the divinity by his own means. It is often about a “rise” of the consciousness towards what is regarded as the liberating discovery of the “inner god”. All have not access to these techniques, whose benefits are reserved for a ‘spiritual aristocraty’. […] On the contrary, the main element of christian faith is the descent of God amongst His creatures, particularly amongst the feeblest, the most humble and the less gifted. There are spiritual techniques which are useful to learn, but God can do without them. The christian method in order to go nearer to God doesn’t require any technique. […] All the meditation techniques must be purified of any presumption and claim.”

Moreover, they think that many ideas which are conveyed in the New Age are inspired from teachings of occultists like Helena Blavatsky, Rudolf Steiner or Alice Bailey - and their books have nothing to do at all with the Christian point of view.

And that’s what I find really dubious in the webpage you pointed out cause this astral theory is just the one who was invented by those three persons, plus spiritist theories about astral entities. I sounds like anything but christian! Moreover the one who wrote this text obviously doesn’t know anything about LD’ing and AP. He just copied things which have been said by those occultists. As for me, I don’t believe in this astral theory.

And like DreamerDavious and Holy reality, I completely disagree with the paragraph about fear. God is not there to spread fear but Love : this is the main message of Christ and if a Christian forgets this basic point, it’s grave. For all this reasons, I don’t consider that what is said in this page is Christian.

Anyway, according to the catholic texts, what can divert us from God is not lucid dreaming itself but the associated belief that it can lead to a spiritual enhancement and a possible communication with God by our own means. It’s a gnostic - thus heretic, according to the Catholic Church - point of view. From the catholic point of view, what is important is prayer and love and if you really want to act in God’s ways, lucid dreaming or other New Age practices are just a loss of time and energy, like trying to have a bigger car, a better job, a newer fridge, etc. with the exception that if you believe you’ll meet God by your own means through lucid dreaming, you’re wrong. It may happen that God gives you a spiritual vision or something like that in a lucid dream, but it’s because He decided to.

I used to study gnosticism, and I benefitted alot from the wisdom of the gospels, but I found most modern gnostics to be nothing more than a load of useless pseudo-intellectuals, at least the ones i met…personally I pertain to mystical Christianity as you mentioned, but I also find other religions beneficial to our understand of reality and God.

But yes this is way off topic isn’t it? Lol, terribly sorry…

I know why there would be sources embracing Lucid Dreaming, but surely condemning it is a great sin than participating in it. Who gives these people the right to condemn it?
The truth is, these people shouldn’t be allowed to influence your life. I believe that you should judge everything you do from a moralistic perspective. Is it right or wrong and if so, why?
For example: Murder is a big wrong because it harms many many people; family, friends and casual obituary readers.
But Lucid dreaming doesn’t harm anybody, at all so from this perspective it couldn’t be a sin.

As for whether or not it’s greedy or selfish, well it can be. But what’s wrong with a little self indulgence if it doesn’t harm anybody? Loads of things in life are selfish acts.Everything you ever do becaue you WANT is a little greedy. But it’s nothing major.
So long as you don’t take more than your share of something and you don’t take it from somebody else, without permission, then it is the minimal amount of selfishness.

It is our God-given ability to Lucid Dream. Whereas some may believe it’s evil to do so, who’s really to say that it isn’t evil not to? I mean, God gave us the ability and are people wasteful of it?.. Is that not also a sin?

I’m sorry for what I say next, but that’s the reason I stopped believing the whole religion thing. I didn’t want to be confined to a bunch of silly rules that contradict each other.
It’s okay to believe in God, but I think that the fact there are contradicting rules means you’re supposed to be free to make your own mind up. God gave us the ability to think things through for ourselves and he wanted us to use it.

As for the Astral Projection thing… Holy Reality already mentioned it, but some believe dreaming and astral projection to be very much the same thing. Robert Moss, in his fine book “The Dreamers Book of the Dead”, argues that all of us visit the Other Side and receive visitations from the Dead as we sleep. He puts forth some very intriguing anecdotes to support his view.

Why then, should Astral Projection, or Lucid Dreaming for that matter, be dangerous? To me both seem like perfectly natural states of mind. I mean, some have these experiences completely spontaneously. Should we assume that little Robert, 5, who wakes his mother in the middle of the night, explaining that he was able to fly in his dream, is possessed by evil spirits or something?

And why, should these fundamentalist (?) Christians be a trustworthy source of expertise? Heck, they haven’t even had these experiences themselves! (Well I assume they don’t)

To me it sounds ridiculous that God would have created us with all these wonderful spiritual gifts, just to let Satan use all of it as some gateway to evil.

I agree with everyone else, especially when it comes to the point about Satan; Satan is not going to get you. Forgive my bluntness, but if you have a lucid dream and you do something you regret or that makes you uncomfortable, you are the one who did it. No one else, especially Satan, is responsible - you are. Therefore if you want to lucid dream, you should make sure that you are comfortable with the fact that you can do almost anything you like, and if you consider some of these things sinful, then it’s your job to try to avoid doing them.

I don’t believe in God, but I think that if he does exist, it would be silly for him to have given us free will and the ability to lucid dream, and then expect us not to use it to do what we wish with these things. Also, like everyone has already pointed out, there is no mention of lucid dreaming being sinful in any of the holy scriptures. As a matter of fact, many people use it to seek enlightenment or to have mystical experiences.

…and of course, lucid dreams happen to a great many people by accident! :content: God wouldn’t get mad at them for that, right? :smile:

The bottom line is you have to do what you are comfortable with. If you don’t feel comfortable lucid dreaming because it conflicts with your beliefs, then don’t do it. To thine own self be true :yes:

Well, let’s see:
1- Are you really doing anything that will do harm of any kind to someone else?
2- There is NO logical reason for Lucid Dreaming to be a sin. Of course, if you want consider sins as thoughts too, the solution is simple: Just control what you want to LD with! If you want to kill people, have lots of sex, steal stuff, all this in your dreams, and you think that the mere thought would be a sin, then don’t do those things! On the other hand, the “normal” stuff is not a problem. What kind of God would He be if say, you wanted to fly around and He’d punish your or something (no offense meant).
3- About the whole satan thing: According to the Christian way of thought (which I disagree mostly… but let’s not get to that, right?) sins would get your near the devil, right? So, if you don’t sin in your LDs, you’re clear. If you believe he can reach and tempt you in your dreams, pray! It’s not because it’s an LD that you can’t have faith :happy: If you have faith, he can’t get ya.

I hope this clears things up :happy:

Wow, thankyou all so much. You have really allowed me to look at this from a more open-minded view. I will continue to experiment with lucid dreaming and embrace it with God in the process :smile:

I also found this article which gave me much re-assurance:
groups.yahoo.com/group/lucid-dre … ssage/4124

Though, the thought of astral projection still makes me weary. God wants for us stay away from evil forces like psychic abilities, and attempting to tell the future. If astral projection is real, and it is what many say it is, then could you be entering a realm of spirits, where evil forces may exist?

Sometimes, when I am weak in my faith, and fall into temptation, I get a feeling of vulnerability for, lets say, evil. I get corrupted in thought and I feel like evil is trying to influence me. More important, I just feel so vulnerable. Now, this is rare for me, but I just can’t stand the thought of being vulnerable to evil.

Now, I have no intentions to try and learn astral projection, but I feel that if I dwelve into my dreams I want to know a little bit more about the extents of dream travel.

Thanks again for your re-assurance, I will be dreaming lucid soon enough, I hope :wink:

Hold on. If you stopped being a Christian would you go out on a killing spree the next day? Would you kidnap children? Would you take over the world?

I know that feeling… it’s pretty overwhelming to feel like evil has overtaken you. But ask, what is evil?

Make a definition.

I don’t think you would ever do evil in your entire life, regardless of if you were a Christian or not.

Maybe there is a deeper reason you are fearful?
according to Jungian psychology we all have a shadow figure lodged in our psyches, which takes in everything we repress, deny, and refuse to think about.

So for a strict celibate catholic, the shadow may be an evil, lustful, disturbingly sexual looking beast… who brings great fear and disgust for the catholic to see.

Well, interestingly, Christians are given shadows by being told about Satan… and that’s a tough one to think about, because they say it’s real. Kind of like saying the Old Hag in SP is real. (and you have to judge… you’re the only one that can determine what is and isn’t real)

but so let’s say you systemtatically, everytime you feel doubt about your faith, shove it into your shadow and force your unconscious to deal with it, pretty soon there gets to be a sensation of something quite “evil” haunting you whenever you question, and it can be pretty strong. But it’s only because you feed it by refusing to allow yourself to feel certain emotions.

This shadow can be interacted with in dreams and hypnotic/psychedelic states, and is often responsible for nightmares, etc.

[googling Ann Shulgin , and Grof will prove some interesting reading on shadows and various psychedelic/hypnotic/dream interactions in order to heal]

What I’m getting at, is this feeling might have a lot to teach you… because you are giving it TREMENDOUS power by hiding from it.

Like, when I was little I got scared playing Sim Ant… it made me afraid of spiders. I systematically hid from spiders until I had a full fledged phobia. For a while they were literally the “devli” to me, the most terrifying, unthinkable, unfaceable thing imaginable! They were a clear shadow of mine, that I kept feeding and making stronger, always following me everywhere I go and influencing my behavior.

however… i was also made afraid of snakes because of my mother, but shortly after the fear developed, reading rainbow had an episode about them, and I watched and learned right away that snakes weren’t scary at all.

had I faced my spider fear when it was still “small” I would not have had a phobia.

In this way to me, this is how “Satan” is created and given power over the individual. It does not mean he is real, it means that he is everything you repress in your psyche. [but he is “real” in the sense that a dream character is]

Note that most people are tempted by trivial things like “Man that girl is hot” (and I consider lust very demeaning to women! don’t get me wrong!) or “I really really want to eat a ton of food but it’s wasteful” or “man that guy is a jerk, I hate him”

not “man tomorrow I want to start a genocide up and go vandalize my neighbors car!”

you may have a ton to learn if you let yourself doubt and pay attention to how it makes you feel. It doesn’t mean to not be a Christian, that is your choice and yours alone. It means to consider all possibilities, so you can be the sanest and healthiest individual possible

The right faith is one which completely frees your very soul in this current life that you are living. All people have morals and inclinations to resist “evil” regardless of their doctrine. Atheists do. Even practicing witches, wiccans, pagans, medicine men, etc.

so if you get those feelings, you can just breathe deep and explore, and say… “why, what causes this, and what do I think is happening?” let yourself doubt, till the problem is resolved. then you won’t doubt anymore!

Im a taoist myself, but I still read the bible sometimes, because there is great wisdom in it, allthough I may not use it. Im into the “New age”… Which brings me to a question I have… is New age a religion? It seems to me that lucid dreaming is a New age practice, and sometimes the New age way can easily become overwhelming, because it gives me a more direct line to God. I was angry with alot of the Christain ways methods, such as scaring you streight by telling you, if you have too much fun youll burn in hell forever. I didnt want to be angry with Christianity, because it would go agienst who Im trying to become on my spiritual path. I cant tell you what to do, but I myself believe it is OK to LD. It talks alot about dreams in the bible, and LDing does require effort, and dissaplen, and to me those are two possitive words.

Now what follows is just my point of view. It has nothing to do with religion and what religious people may think and I won’t look at things from a christian point of view. BTW I suppose that my opinion is mainly influenced by Gestalt and Jungian psychologies.

As for me, I don’t believe in AP’s. As LD’s content depends heavily on what you believe, and you’ll mainly find in them what you expect to find or what you’ve read about, I just think that AP’s are LD’s made by people who believe in AP.

IMO, the “evil” forces that AP’ers meet sometimes are dream characters made from their own fears or desires. I think it’s a good thing to consider those DC’s in this way and to not believe they could be “real” entities, spirits, etc. And I don’t think you can develop psychic abilities with LD’ing. Dreams are just dreams and I find it not healthy to see them in another way.

I’m another blasphemer who hopefully can throw a useful assortment of words on the pile for you to digest.

First off, Holy Reality and Larry Boy tried to push forward the idea that lucid dreaming and astral projection are related or even the same thing, and I’m inclined to say the same - not that lucid dreams are astral projections, but that APs are particularly psychadelic LDs. I know it’s super easy to start lacing lucid dreaming with mysticality since most of the people who practice it are engaged in other new age activities, but I need to stress that LDs are scientifically documented phenomena which have no innate interconnectedness with more occult or new age “temptations.” If someone is so inlined to color their LD experiences with such things then they can, but I for one (attempt to) lucid dream for lucid dreaming’s sake, and I consider trash like inner light and astral bodies and OBEs and supertranscendental akashic hyperjourney spirit guides to be, well… just that, trash. Long story short, please don’t worry that by LDing you are in any way shape or form putting yourself in a closer vicinity to fuzzy new ageism. Lucid dreaming is documented, scientific, and there is nothing esoteric about it.

You already said that you’d go ahead and explore what LDs have to offer, which is great, but I’ll keep on justifying for the heck of it. You said earlier that you knew LDs would be a way for Satan to tempt you… let’s try an experiment.

Eating is just a way for Satan to tempt us; indulge too much and we become gluttons and fall from God’s graces.
Holding a gun is just a way for Satan to tempt us; we might shoot someone with it.
Having a million dollars is just a way for Satan to tempt us; we might spend it on less-than-godly things.

These are all ridiculous statements, right? Obviously you have to eat to live, you could donate a million dollars to charity, and you can enjoy the fine hobby of skeet-shooting with that gun. The tool is not the means by which Satan corrupts you; it is you, but only if you so let him. LDs can be used for unchristian things like people have said, but so can knives, sun lamps, and pillows. Don’t be afraid to do something because the potential for doing misdeeds is there, because that potential comes from you and not that activity. Hold yourself in check and live according to God’s word and you can do no wrong - LDing or otherwise. So jump in and test the waters, or at least try to - I’m living proof that having a lucid dream is not always the spontaneously-occurring walk in the park that lots of people make it out to be.

(5 bloody years!)

Inner light is very real and I have experienced it first hand while awake. It is profound and related to a constant uninterupted attention upon energy flow. I obtained it initially on “accident” and then brought it back 2-3 more times.

[you may be interested in reading “DMT: The Spirit Molecule” if you are skeptical to the existence of trasncendent experiences. It goes into great length (scientifically) about how the brain’s pineal gland (aka mystical “third eye”) produces DMT, an extremely potent hallucinagen. from near death experience. from extreme shock. from religious practice.]

i theorize that if astral projection is real, it requires some sort of effort to separate oneself from the subjective dream world, such as perhaps by going back into the body and raising a large amount of energy.

OR simply trashing the dream and going into a hypnagogic state, to observe how dreams are created.