skeptics!!!! ugh!!!

Best thing to do, when you’re into a lot of things that are out of the mainstream (think LDs but really this goes for even more out there topics in the realm of spirituality) is to know when to keep quiet about it. Lately I haven’t been doing so much in the lucid scene, although i was big into it a couple of years ago.

Thing is, i don’t really talk about any of the things I’m really interested with any of the people I know in real life. There may have been one or two that I’ve known over the past few years that might make good canditates. The people I know just aren’t the right audience, period. And that seems to be the same story for a lot of people.

I usually intuit things from the personalities of the people I know and act accordingly so that things go smoothly with them. there are a lot of thoughts and perceptions that i have which i largely keep to myself in the social scene. everyone’s got their own interests and drives in life, and really, you just need to go your own way while accepting everyone else’s path. ya know?

trust me on this: I know what kava means when he says that other people are frustrating! Indeed they can be; but we have the choice of wasting our energy and getting into negative states of mind by excessively worrying about everyone who is a skeptical arse, or dropping it and focusing on our own needs and interests.

do not engage !

argument :

hm,
“its very fun to fly in my dreams, I do it weekly, sometimes I jump off of tall buildings and float out of body consciously.”

Skeptic : :confused: :confused: :confused: LUCIDITY ISN’T REAL YOU’RE LYING!

actually i went to some forums that had a very different crowd, being aware of being in a dream must be odd to the average person

Well to be fair that portrays sceptics in a bad light. Being sceptical can be a good thing, even in relation to lucid dreaming. Stating vehemently that lucid dreaming is not real however, is not scepticism, it is a belief that it is not real. Scepticism would be asking for proof or some form of evidence that something is true. Living without a dose of scepticism would be to accept everything you are told without question. I doubt anybody would say that was a good thing either. :wink:

Although I don’t agree with the branding of sceptics being like this, I agree it is very frustrating to be greeted with such assumptions. That something is untrue, when the person who makes the statements appears not to have researched the topic at hand. I don’t think there is much you can do when that happens, only to say you disagree and leave it at that, maybe try to link them to studies or other relevant information. If you try to prove yourself, I doubt it’s likely to lead anywhere productive.

When I tell my friends about lucid dreaming, they believe that it’s real, but they could care less. One of them simply says that he prefers to leave dreams alone, which I can totally respect. But another friend claims that he can have just as good an experience by daydreaming during school! (This is the same friend who is convinced that he sometimes doesn’t have any dreams at all.) He refuses to listen when I tell him that LD’s actually feel REAL, and daydreaming doesn’t make you feel anything at all.
So yeah, I get where you’re coming from here. It’s REALLY irritating.

I really don’t talk about it, when I was little (6 years) I had many “weird” experiences at night and when I told my parents they though I was crazy. (they even did a sight test at home) So I have learn to keep new experiences that are hard to believe by others to myself. I did questioned my husband if he ever had a dream in wich he realized he was dreaming and he also gave me the crazy looks, so yea me, myself and ld4all.

I can really relate to all of you, I am in the same situation. I can understand if they question if it’s really possible. I know I didn’t believe it was possible while starting to train to have LD, until I finally had one.
What I cannot understand is how can you not be interested in the possibility to do whatever you want and to for the first time communicate with your sub counsciousness. Many of my friends are open to many ideas, many of my friends have used psychedelic drugs, I speak with them about religion, philosophy etc, some of my friends are from the psychedelic trance scene where buddhism and philosophy and most importantly a connection with nature is part of their life.
But when I menion LD and OBE they say they belive me, and they might think they do but they don’t really. Thing is they are just not interested. :eh:
This have annoyed me sooooo much it’s not even funny. I have met 1 friend who really believes me and asks me about it, like how’s your dreaming goin. She even tried herself but lost interest (!) but that’s about it. :confused:
I agree with what’s been said, thanks ld4all for being here!

ps. (I forgot my password and had to create a new :smile: )

hm,

what we are talking about is an attitude of deliberate ignorance (belligerence) and an unwillingness to look into research and an unwillingness to trust the experiences of others ,

which seems either dogmatic or skeptic,
what better words are there?

ignorants, ?

ex : , you are speaking about a dream you had, and describe your consciousness, clarity, lucidity, and what you did within it, even describing your experience of consciously leaving the body to enter the dream-state in the first place

“i don’t believe in that” is not a valid answer, because it is a real experience!

i see great goodness in scrutiny and the desire to research and learn, and though skeptic is cut into (positive and negative connotations) deliberate ignorance a :yinyang: nd vigilance with information ( though not in the dictionary ? ) i cannot think of a good word for someone who is scrupulous in research and learning, for the word skeptic seems to befall a negative conditioning

skepdic.com/lucdream.html
this is simply a power struggle “no you didn’t really just eat an apple, you thought you did” “what are you talking about man i just ate an apple”

it is so very divisive.

that someone is deliberately as conscious in dreaming reality as this one, and that someone refuses to accept this testimony, not good!

For the few years that I’ve been on LD4All, I’ve had to deal with skepticism a whole lot due to my Lucid Dreams. Whether or not someone believes it is possible, it doesn’t change the fact that I as well as many other individuals can Lucid Dream. As I’ve said several times in the past, I post my Dream Accounts on this forum simply to share my experiences with others, not to debate whether or not a reader believes in me. The same goes for when I read someone’s Dream Accounts, I read them to see what others experience, and to have fun as a fellow Lucid Dreamer.
A skeptic has no place in a forum of people who strive for something that requires self-confidence and belief.
To come here wanting to learn how to lucid dream while being a skeptic about the subject is highly self-defeating.

Kudos to dragongirl for making this topic.

well I don’t think we have any skeptics on this forum, the ones who are are healthy skeptical…you should always be a bit sceptical when you here something the first time, don’t believe anything people tell you.

I think it’s a very human trait, fear of the unknown. When a person hear about such an experience it is very alien to that person, and doesn’t fit into hers/his life and beliefs. Hence that person simply rejects it, by fearing it might be true denies the possibility.

I know if someone told be they got abducted by aliens last night I would not believe it, even I know it might be true it is such a change to my world view that I need some “proof” of it’s existence before changing my world to fit. People are afraid of changes, more or less.

I can understand the feeling someone with a boxed in lifestyle gets when told this “truth”. I thought the same this when I was first introduced to LD’ing. But what I don’t understand is the lack of curiosity to find out what if…
It was this curiosity that led me to practising and finally my first LD which came as a shock to me…its all true! even if I know so many people talked about it, and there was so much published books I didn’t believe it 100%, just 50% until I had the experience.

Bottom line, people need to be more curios of the world they life in!

@WritersCube- Why not? If I heard people talking about moving things with their minds, I wouldn’t believe them, but I would try anyway.It’s not bad to be skeptical and TRY!

@Cc- I knew lucid dreaming was possible when I heard of it.I didn’t wonder is it true or not, I just knew.

Exactly.

Hi, I’m brand new here, but I figure I will answer anyway!

Yes, there are definitely skeptics out there… One of my friends is one. You just have to ignore them, and continue working towards what YOU want!

Hope this helped, even a little! :smile: :wolfbite:

LOL I just thought that smiley was hilarious…:smile:

What I said was more towards the people who outright deny the existence of things they have had no initial contact with beforehand and using solely their ignorance as grounds for their disbelief.
I have no objection towards having a degree of skepticism or curiosity–I’m a person who has a good bit of both, especially curiosity, but I keep an open mind on things until I’ve found definite evidence that something is indeed true or false.
All I meant in what I said was stubborn ignorance makes a poor basis for disbelief. I apologize if my initial post was too vague or misleading.

i am getting really into this : forgive me, perhaps it is useful !
skeptic isn’t the right word here ,

a skeptic is skeptical and thereby willing to learn and grow towards understanding, they are not prejudiced or biased against learning , rather have encountered something that creates dissonance with other ideas within them

should we bother coming up with a word for this ?

for LDs :
negative skepticism could arise from a jealousy of abilities and a feeling of incompetence in lucid dreaming mastery ,
hence a willingness to state that everyone is somehow lying ,

/

or indoctrination through fear anger and negativity against certain activities as being “wrong” “crazy” or “evil”

or a very blind faith in “science” in such a way that the “science” rehearsed shed lucidity into the shadows of impossibility based upon fickle word paradigms and improper reasoning “dreams happen in sleep, sleep is not awareness, so dreams are not lucid”

these types of people have a pride in being an authority and telling people whats what and being agreed with, to the extent that to question their stances would expose a vulnerability,

properly it is satisfying to be confident and yet to be humble enough to learn and completely reconfigure your awareness, so we are always growing!

maybe we are thinking too much, and i know i just have been

I don’t know any “skeptics” but most people just don’t care.

I knew it existed, 'cause most of the youth in my family, including me, have experienced them. I had one, and then looked it up so I NEVER denied it. EVER. Well, I guess I just got lucky that way :tongue:

And lots of my friends do it. 3/4 of them. And out of my main circle of friends, only two don’t. Well, I kind of brought it up and I found out that my best friend does it too, so we got some other people LDing and now it’s kinda popular in my circles.

I met another LDer a couple of days ago, and we discussed LDing and told some others about it. Some where sceptic, and one guy told us to just do LSD instead. I told him LDs are free ;>
I don’t think we managed to convert anyone that night, though…

I consider myself a skeptic in general (I’m a metaphysical naturalist and an atheist), but it’s my understanding that, as EllyEve says, “LD’s have been proven [to exist] in laboratory settings.”

I don’t think you should be frustrated with someone just because they’re skeptical of something. If you want to persuade them, show them the evidence. Tell them to read up on the scientific research that’s been done on LD’ing.

:rofl:

i know what you mean, my friend wanted to know about it, and i told him about LD’s, and he started to get pissed, and saying its not real, and all that crap, when he’s the one who wanted to know about it :eek:

Skepticism is fine. To ask for proof is only smart. Those who deny the evidence, must have some sort of agenda. They are not skeptics, they are fanatics!
But Semantics aside. Bring the discussion down to the core. What are they denying? Consciousness during dreams? That is easy to prove. Without consciousness you cant remember your dreams, ergo, it is possible, because we do remember dreams. If they say that dreams are somehow quickly compiled when you wake up in a flash, they are not only ignoring REM sleep, but also claiming the existance of a strange phenomenon that they can’t prove. It is more than necessary, and therefore Ockham’s razor would shave that theory off.

So consciousness during dreams is possible, but control? Well, having had the experience you could simply say that you know what it is like in both reality and a dream, and that it is the same. The experience of controlling yourself that is. If they deny the experience as proof, they would likewise have to abandon the experience as proof for waking life as well. If they do deny it, then you can still say that dreams and waking life are on the same level, proving that the “control” we feel that we have in waking life, can exist according to our method of identifying it, in dreams as well.

If they claim that dreams are not “real”, then you obviously say that, you are not claiming that dreams happen in physical reality but in the realm of experience. The experience is as “real” as any waking experience, in the sense that it happens, you HAVE the experience. They cannot deny without proof that the experience is equally intense and realistic as waking expriences. But if they do, you should as why it SEEMS that way to you when you have lucid dreams. The only answer available to them is that you imagined it, thus proving your point that the mind is capable of producing experiences that feel as real as real life. If they doubt that, then point out the fact that their brain is creating their current experience based on external stimuli so it obviously has the hardware capability of producing all the senses as they appear to us.

So you have then proved that it is possible to have conscious dreams in which you have control and it feels as “real” as real life. What more can they say? Perhaps that they value physical experiences more than mental ones. You could point out that without the mental experience that comes along with the psycial one, they would have no enjoyment of anything they do. That in fact it is the mental part of the whole affair that they are enjoying, and nothing else. That means that if they still do not value mental experiences, it might as well be someone else doing the things they do and they should be just as happy.

If you’ve come this far and they still think you’re crazy, they obviously can’t be reasoned with.

I did before. Skeptics are ANNOYING.