Is lucid dreaming a controversial subject?

I know from my own experience that lucid dreaming is very controversial. I’ve had countless discussions about lucid dreams with many people, some of whom embrace the idea that it exists and want to try it themselves, but also many who reject the idea for reasons beyond my knowledge.

It’s such a shame that so little people know about, and try to, lucid dream. Maybe one day some of us will understand why the idea of controlling dreams seems so impossible, but I do believe that dB_FTS is right to an extent, that lucid dreaming is controversial because people usually don’t pay attention to their dreams. Until I learnt of lucid dreaming I certainly never paid any attention to my dreams whatsoever.

I have to agree on pretty much everything said above: when i told my parents, they didn’t believe me and my sisters weren’t interested in the subject, even if they believed me (one of them even said to me she has had one once).
Most of the other people i told didn’t seem very interested except for my best friend who started trying right away :happy:

i think it is also a matter of how you approach the subject, it should be easier to convince them if you start with a question like “did you ever have a dream in wich you knew you were dreaming?” and tell them that in that case they can control it, rather than start directly with the control of the dream itself.

Yea I agree with what you all are saying. LD ing is controversial to an extent. Other than others being close minded about the whole idea I’ve herd of those who were too afraid to try LDing. In my opinion I find the close mindedness pretty annoying, but somehow manage to keep my cool about it.

It’s not controversial. That implies people have something against it. At most it’s controversial with people who think you’re “playing god” or “being possessed by demons”. As far as any rational debate could go, there’s no way it’s controversial in the slightest.

It just receives ridiculously high levels of apathy.

Not necessarily, a controversial subject is something that causes debate and differing opinions because it’s something people in general are not familiar with or uncomfortable with for some reason.

But yeah, it does seem like people don’t want to have anything to do with it and try to avoid the subject whenever it is brought up.

I don’t think they try to avoid it, it’s simply the complete lack of interest of most people in the subject (maybe because they don’t realise the possibilities of lucid dreaming).

And about the “demonic possession”?!? hahaha XD
i heared about lucid dreamers being called crazy, but thats even worse :rofl:

Haha, yeah it has to be because they don’t realize the possibilities, I sincerely believe that lucid dreaming would be of interest for anyone.
Everyone has desires in their lives, right?
Well, lucid dreams can fulfill almost any desires you can imagine and even help you defeat nightmares.
That’s why I believe that absolutely anyone would be interested in lucid dreaming if they realized what it truly meant.
Lucid dreaming even allows you to improve your memory in waking life, since you become more aware in general.

I told lots of people about lucid dreaming. Most of them told me that dreams are messages of god and you shouldn’t mess with them, and others told me that talking about dreams to others will “get you punished in the afterlife”.

Overly religious nitwits.

Kache, it sounds like you live in a fun place.

Anyways, in my personal experience, lucid dreaming hasn’t been terribly controversial. I’ve heard some say that they don’t believe that lucid dreaming exists, and others just think I’m weird for paying attention to dreams.

At the same time, it’s a lot less controversial than it used to be. In TV shows, people talk about having dream journals, though it’s occasionally used in a comedic context as dreams can be embarrassing, and then there are also films that include it, like Inception. If anything, it’s gone from being stereotyped as “weird” or “new age” (which it isn’t) to more of a “nerd” phenomenon. (and that’s using “nerd” in the more general definition, not the comic books/science/BBT/pocket protector image that the word creates)

In fact, I’ve talked to people about lucid dreaming without being aware that they know about it. I have had conversations where it’s just worked in organically as though it’s a common subject. And that’s without having discussed it with people before.

I’m just grateful that it’s lost the new-agey connotations. People I knew used to group it in with things like meditation and spirituality for some odd reason. Now, like others have said, it’s just ignorance. People don’t care about the subject of dreams.

Okay, so maybe it is controversial, I guess. But it’s quickly improving.

It’s actually really unfair for lucid dreaming as a subject to be labelled “New Age”.
It has been known for at least a millenium and can be so beneficial in so many ways.
People have no idea what they are talking about when they consider it “weird” and “not real”.

I have actually posted comments about lucid dreaming on Facebook a couple times in the past, just to possibly stir up some interest, but nobody ever seems to wanna respond to it.

I don’t understand why people aren’t interested in it. I guess they’re either lazy, or try one time and fail and then give up.

Everyone I told about Lucid Dreaming tried, failed and never tried again.

Yes, it seems like this mistake is a little too common among beginners, they seem to forget the fact that lucid dreaming is a whole lifestyle that is completely different from what most of them have lived like until they discovered lucid dreaming.
Of course it’s probably gonna take some time to actually become good at this, expecting a lucid dream after practicing for only a few days is like expecting to become an excellent car driver after taking 2-3 driving lessons.
Lucid dreaming requires a passion for dreaming in general, a mature and patient mindset and the understanding that lucid dreaming is essentially just normal dreams where your awareness has been improved; and it’s up to each lucid dreamer to find their own ways to improve their awareness and critical thinking.
Some of the most famous and successful echniques, like MILD, WBTB and WILD are examples of how to increase your dream awareness, they aren’t something that you actually “have to do” in order to succeed.

I agree and that’s exactly what people don’t understand… Learning is a process as for everything it’s exactly the same way for lucid dreams, sometimes even more.

approximately 80% of the people I have told about lucid dreaming seem to take it with extreme disbelief. Which is a darn shame. The rest of the 20% is divided into two categories, 15% who knew about lucid dreaming beforehand, and the 5% who did not know about the phenomenon before but believe it is possible.

The numbers stated here are illustrative and not entirely accurate.

Huh. I once succeeded in getting a friend with no prior knowledge interested in LDing. Moreover, the friend in question is a devout Catholic.
He did achieve an LD, but he got scared of not waking up and resigned.
Since then I graduated from primary school and moved house, so I don’t know about now.

I only told to 3 persons which are my closest friends. One of them is my brother who doesn’t like dreams because as a kid he had recurring nightmares… Even though this is the perfect tool to stop nightmares he just didn’t interested, I guess he is trying to have as little contact with dreams as possible.

My second best friend showed the most interest but as he says he doesn’t have a time for this which is bull! And my third friend is of course joking around on the subject like he does with everything else.

Later on when I was more into the subject I found out that one of my good school friends is a lucid-ish dreamer and another friend actually had a few LD’s and is interested in the subject actively.

I guess that there are people that are lucid dreamers but they don’t know that they are. Well, I hope I’ll find more people like those… :content:

I think (at least in my region) that the biggest problem people have with Lucid dreaming is that they are afraid that you are playing with things you don’t understand. Some people think that Lucid dreaming might siriously mess up some of your body functions. Specifically memory, personality and other brain workings (although there is no source to back this up. They give the argument that everybody would have lucid dreams naturally all the time if it was suposed to be that way. Now I don’t know why most people only have nd’s for 99% of the time, what it does? However, there are people that have dreamt luicdly naturally for most of their lives and they haven’t suffered any strange diseases or syndromes.

So I think it is mainly ignorance on the subject. But I find the fear quite understandable. The workings of the mind and brain is one of the frontiers of science which is really understood quite poorly. We are only just beginning to unravel the mysteries of the mind and there is still a long road ahead of us. The function of sleep and dreams is really a complete mystery. What people don’t know is what scares them the most! I think this is why it’s a controversial subject. We are all ‘playing’ with the unknown. And although it seems there is no danger to it, we really cannot know… :bored:

We can only hope :bored:

And what is more attractive and interesting then unknown and uncharted?! :content:
And you can experience it every night when you close your eyes…

Exactly.