Is lucid a sin?-Part II

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.

I just want to thank everyone. You have all opened my eyes in some way and have helped me tremendously with my insecurities. I will confront lucid dreams with an open mind, while keeping God in mind.

If you are interested in seeing my progress, I have a post in the “First Steps to Lucidity” board.

Thanks to everyone who put in the time and effort to write long answers and really get me thinking. (cough…cough…Holy Reality, Basilus West…cough…) :content:

Seriously though, you have made a huge difference! :happy:

It’s all a matter of opinion. If you’re uncomfortable with the whole sex or murder type thing in lucid dreams, just don’t do them. You could view this from a perspective that the dream world is similar to waking life, only with limitless possiblities.

God created man in his image, so does that mean God can lucid dream?

Does your wise friend actually completly understand the concept of lucid dreaming? Or is he just pretending to know everything? In life, I’ve run into a lot of those type of people. Don’t be a follower, decide this one for yourself. By this guys logic, if lucid dreams can be used by Satan to tempt us, wouldn’t normal dreams be the same? Would it be a sin to sleep then, if dreaming is a sin? God created man. He gave us wonderful gifts, like love, beauty, and the human mind. Use these gifts, damnit. Don’t always live life in fear, just because something in the Bible says its a sin. A life lived in fear is a life wasted.

Glad to hear it slinger, good luck in your endeavors…

Thank you and good luck! :smile:

I don’t mean offense, as I’m a devout follower of Christ myself, but when I read your posts it depresses me. I get a sense that you are a devout follower in the worst way. That is, you seem to make major decisions based entirely on the opinions and ideas of others. True faith is never blindly trusting, but rather studies, questions and doubts what they trust objectively and constantly in order to continuously verify its truth.

Blind trusters are just asking to be abused, manipulated and decieved. Just look at extremists on in the Muslim world as an example. Know that this can happen to Christians just as easily, the inquisiton is proof enough. Not that I have ever caused harm to someone in that way, but I can tell you from personal experiance that it’s not that hard to do with a bit of patience. All I have to do is establish myself as a “wise man” whom you trust, and I can have you eating out my hand in no time. Incidentally, the greatest villians of society are highly intelligent charismatic people. They’re the kind of people that can establish trust and the “wise man” relationship easily. Of course, having this ability is not bad, but abusing it can lead to things like Nazism, the KKK, sucide cults, terrorist groups and their ilk. The responsibile person makes sure their faith is never blind, so that they can avoid these subtle and manipulative psycological predators.

God gave us a rational brain so that we could think for ourselves, not base our decision on the edicts, fatwahs, proclamations and whims of others. Jesus, for example, always told people not to blindly follow the “wise men” in the Jewish comminity at the time, the pharisees and such. He didn’t say everything they did was wrong, but rather stressed that people need to think for themselves to sort through right and wrong. His Apostles surely understood this, as they were able to continue doing great works without Jesus being around to explain things to them. There are still going to be leaders and followers though, but one would hope the followers follow because they know for sure that the leader is going in the right direction.

Of course, in regards to lucid dreaming, I assume that it is simple enough to lay bare the logical implications of it. This may not be the case for everyone though. I know my level of intelligence is far above average, and this will likely bias my perspective. However, at least I’m aware of it, and not blindly believing that my capability applies to everyone as some elitists do.

Life is like walking a very broad path in pitch darkness with most of it leading to damnation. Thus, it would be insane to blindly commit to a particular direction, without getting down to the ground and feeling out the terrain every step of the way. Although, I do admit that if you hap-hazardly choose the right direction and charge at it with full speed, you will make it to the end much faster. It’s just that that’s an incredibly risky and foolish thing to do.

For example, with temptations I don’t blindly label them as “Satanic” influnces, because more often then not they are actually errent behaviours and destructive memories embedded within me. When I confront a temptation, I don’t surpress or dismiss it, instead I seek out its source. I try to understand it.

Almost always, there is some reasonable kernal of thought that has been distorted and manipulated into the temptation or errant behaviour. Like with bondage and submission, there is a beautiful essence of trust and a realisation that too much responsibility can destroy a person. However, these two truths have been distorted by other factors into something quite disturbing. They have been warped into a fear and dislike of responsibility with the blind trust to give another complete control of one’s person. The sexuality of it is almost incidental.

Once you clear away the distortions, you can turn the “Satanic” behaviour into something beautiful. Bondage can become a loving relationship. Submission can become a way to judge when you are overloaded with responsibilities. Sure, Satan probably takes advantage of these root distortions to tempt you, but the fact is that the distortions themselves lie only within you. If you never solve and remove them, you’ll never close the door to Satan, and in order to do that, you have to understand them. Along the way, you might realise that they are not quite so evil after all, just very very bizarre.

Google things like cognitive therapy, meditation, hypnotism and NLP to see what I mean. I have saved some other posts where I have overviews (and personal theory) of the entire process, if you want to read them. I make no claim that they are absolutely correct though.