Morality in Lucid Dreaming.

I recently had an experience in a Lucid Dream that made me start to think about the way we treat DC’s and how that reflects our waking mind. Most of the time I treat DC’s the same as i would IRL (more or less, I never have sword fights with real people :content: ) but if we mistreat a DC what does that say about our character?

I know the obvious reply is that it’s not real so it doesn’t matter but the quote that comes to mind goes something to the effect of “Any man can be moral when he is powerless, but give him power and his true colors will show” or something like that. :smile:

Well, there are two different opinions on this.

Some people (including myself) think that it’s OK.
You see, everything in dreams happens in our minds.
Nothing can hurt you, nor can you hurt anyone.

Many people to it to blow off some steam.

Some people think that’s there’s more to it.
They think that DC’s are much more than characters in our minds.
They think that they have their own personality and that it’s immoral to bully them.

There have been discussions about this… :wink:

The difference is when in an LD, if you do something destructive, you KNOW it isnt harming anyone at all. So no it doesnt affect anyones self character, an exception would be if someone were to do these things in NDs, then you could maybe question their character, but at the same time you cant control your dreams when your not lucid.

So I would say no, the actions in dreams cannot fully represent someones “destructive or evil side”, but thats my opinion.

@Antares, I don’t believe the issue is whether or not people think DC’s are real people, or are treated as real people. The issue seems to be the morals behind performing the actions in the first place.

@Slanderous, I think it all depends on the motive behind your actions. For example, if you spawn someone you don’t like just so you can take revenge and cut them to ribbons with a scythe, that would be something I would consider as immoral, and should be avoided. However, if you are just looking for some adventure that just wouldn’t be possible in real life (I.E. Fighting a pirate, or stopping a mad scientists from world domination) I would assume it is fine. The reason being, your motive behind the fighting is not an immoral desire.

That overall is really what I think it boils down to, are your motives moral or immoral?

If you do evil things your mind will become a little more evil. Just like if you go around with evil thoughts all day, not good. But it’s such a minor and unnoticeable difference if you do it in your dreams a few times, especially if you’re already a good person IRL.
Go ahead and chainsaw your friends in your dreams if you like :smile:

Hmm, I’m not sure I agree with the definitions of ‘healthy’ and ‘immoral’ so far. Personally I see a big difference between the terms. ‘immoral’ assumes there is some form of objective morality, ‘unhealthy’ relates to how that behaviour may affect you or your development.

Personally I do not believe there is any objective morality, which means it would be impossible for me to declare doing X in a dream is wrong. I could say doing X in a dream feels wrong to me, but since I am of the ilk its a dream and I believe characters who may be more will reveal themselves in such a way as to diffuse things (or withdraw), I see no issue with letting rip with the full range of your, very natural, emotions or anything else you can dream up.

As for unhealthy, I see it as no more unhealthy than imagining the same situation. If somebody annoys you, its easy to imagine attacking them, you don’t do it however. I would say it was unhealthy to try and suppress such thoughts actually. Personally I just embrace it as a manifestation of my emotion. If you find yourself devoting all your time to imagining maiming people though, then yeah, I’d say that probably wasn’t a healthy mode of thought, and I would ask myself why and if I wanted to continue to do this.

Experiences which make you wonder, are DCs concious, can be explained as a manifestation of your belief that they should/may be. Your mind has the DC react as you’d expect, if you expect the response to be one which causes doubt over their sentient status, you’ll be thinking this at some level when talking to them, along with the sorts of responses that could do that, presto that gets weaved into the dream and before you know the DC reacts that way. This is the explanation that makes sense to me at the moment.

I think LDs could have the potential for a safe outlet for the pent-up agression that resides inside all of us. IRL, those who are not able to control emotions that cause them to harm other people are locked away in prisons to protect the rest of us who are more capable of supressing the desire to hurt other people (even though it is natural to “feel” like doing so in a fit of rage).

However, violent prisoners don’t have an outlet for their thoughts and actions that could hurt others, so once they are behind bars, the emotions fester and often prison fights are the result of that outlet.

What if in the future, LDs could be used as a form of constructive therapy for inmates who are unable to control their violent tendencies? They certainly have the time to practice and get better at LDs. I think it would be therepudic for a violent person to exercise their demons in their dreams, and as a result may feel less inclined to behave that way in real life.

Or, it could just make them more evil, like someone mentioned above…

Who really knows?

I know, I separated them in those two groups to explain how people think about morality.

There are people who think that it’s perfectly moral, but some think it’s not.
It depends how you view DCs.

I personally think that it is OK.
You are allowed to sometimes blow off some steam.

It’s your own mind, it shouldn’t be anything bad.

EDIT: This is my 666th post :ebil:

Hmmm, interesting topic. Personally, I think I would like to use LD to be the best person I could be. To practise things which I can find difficult and hope that they can translate to RL. But then again lots of people want different things from LD, like adventure, power etc.
I’m not really convinced that violent LDs would really help someone with anger management issues, wouldn’t it just indulge them?

I have simply made the decision to be a good guy in my dreamworld.
I don’t think that its possible DC’s could be more than our imagination, nor do I think that suppressing violent thoughts could be harmful.
I just think if you act those thoughts out it could condition your mind over time, in the same way that violent video-games would desensitize a 7 year old.
Those are my thoughts on the subject anyway.

I would be interested to see if they would die or not.
But however I think it is ok to be harmfull to a DC in a ld because you know they are not real and are not hurting anyone, and to know that you would not do it in real life. I think that most people have people they hate, however they most act responsibly in real life and keep away from them. However in a ld as long as you know it isn’t real. I have just realised it might be a good way to relieve stress.

I would never bomb, chainsaw, or spread Squaids in real life,
nor I would do that in dreams.
I mean, whats the fun of that? Id like to treat DC`s just like in WL.

EDIT Mwah, except if they try to kill me and try to hurt me like that fat boy did last night, I got stuck with an angry mother in my LD. xD

if you wanted to kill a DC for eg. its probably healthy, if thats how your ID feels in the dream than its good to get that out if there’s no danger.

well yea this argument has good points for both sides
it could be ok becaue as lsbf1 said, you know you wont be doing this is RL, and its ok to blow of some steam, but it could be bad as it indulges violence and I read a topic somewhere that after this one guy abused his DCs they stopped showing up and it was really hard to find one. Perhaps they do have a personality. I personally dont feel the need to kill people in my dreams randomly, or cut them into little pieces with chainsaws, but in my opinion, anyone who does shouldnt, as they will have problems finding DCs later cause they will be scared of you and will be hiding

The alternate explanation to that would be his expectation of their reaction caused this to happen. This would make your warning a self-fulfilling warning. :razz:

I would think that it would be also dependent on the types of situations in one’s Lucid Dreams that would help determine whether one’s actions are within moral bounds or are morally excusable. This also depends on what the dreamer believes is moral or not. Everyone’s got their own way of looking at things.
While it may be socially wrong and just downright menacing to go on a rampage in some little village, killing people and eating puppies or some other weird thing, getting thrown into a war may require that you kill for the sake of defending yourself and bringing an end to the conflict.
I’ve seen many wars in my Lucid Dreams, but as I’ve stated in quite a few of my dream accounts, I very much dislike war and violence.
Violence can be borne out of many reasons and circumstances.
Some people do it for the hell of it.
Some do it to relieve frustration. (Perpetual Lucidity has a good point. It could be used as a form of constructive therapy, I think.)
Some find it fun.
Some want to know what its like.
Some do it because they are defending themselves from a threatening entity in their dreams. (I know I often have to defend myself from many things that want to eat me or shoot me just because I fell from the sky!)
Some do it because the type of situation calls for it. (Wars, for example)
Some do it because that situation doesn’t give them any other choice. (Again, Wars, especially if the other side refuses diplomacy.)
Yes, power can draw out a person’s character–but if that person is not seeking that power or is consciously preventing oneself from exercising that power to its fullness, a certain judgment cannot be made, I wouldn’t think.
And besides–it’s in a dream, I’m sure it’s different when one exercises dream powers and when one exercises the power of… say a corrupt CEO in real life… unless Donald Trump somehow goes corporate-aggro-rage AND starts throwing fireballs out his window, well… then it’s a case of both dream powers and corporate rage.
Can this really affect how somebody thinks in their waking life? I think it only does if that person allows it to affect them in such a way.

I don’t think there is anything inherently wrong with acting mean, cruel, or evil in a dream. It’s not real, and no actual harm as being done.

BUT, if you obtain real pleasure out of acting this way, it certainly says something about your character. Being mean to a DC feels quite alot like being mean to a person IRL.

Also, I believe that if you make a habit of consistently over controlling, bullying, mistreating, etc. DC’s that it will start to carry over negatively into your life. It’s easy to get into a certain frame of mind in LD’s and have that start to carry over the the waking world. If every time a DC aggravates you you use telekinesis and smash him against a wall; you’ll start to develop unrealistic expectations of how you can deal with people in real life.

Basically, I don’t think you should make a habit of being morally corrupt in dreams.

I think this question is on the same level as whether video games encourage people to be immortal or violent. In video games, the NPCs are generally not viewed as people. They are expendable and in many cases, it is expected that the player is going to kill them. That may be the point of the whole thing. So it is any more moral or immoral to kill an DC?

In my case, I wouldn’t kill a DC. If I did, I’d want to learn more about them first. As it is, I’m have weird ethical discussions with myself/my DCs when I am either lucid or near lucidity. So if I did kill a DC, it’d be turned into a lesson. It wouldn’t be purposeless amusement. In that case, my mind would be guiding itself through some sort of useful exercise, so I don’t think it would be immoral in any way.

Personally, I think that the fact DC are part of your SC probably makes hurting them more immoral that hurting a game character. Especially if you believe that dreams can be interpreted and reveal hidden truths about yourself.

I disagree on the basis that most generic DC’s are essentially simulations run by your mind. To hurt them is no different that cutting down a tree or breaking a wall in your dream. While some characters aer specific parts of your unconscious mind taking a form you can understand, I don’t think all are like that.

Having said that, I could never bring myself to really hurt a DC unless they did something to me first. I guess it’s just who I am.