Lucid Dreaming: Too much of a good thing? (Everyone answer!)

Lucid Dreaming: Too much of a good thing? (Everyone answer!)
PostPosted: Thu 21 Aug, 2014 Reply with quote Edit/Delete this post Delete this post
Ok. As most of you know, lucid dreaming is pretty much staying conscious while your body rests. BUT! I know that when you sleep, your brain performs maintenance and repairs itself during normal sleep, which is when your are supposed to be unconscious. My question is this: If one was to lucid dream 2 nights in a row, in addition to being awake during the day, (Let’s just assume this person doesn’t take naps.) then wouldn’t the brain not have the chance to go through that period of repair and maintenance? Wouldn’t that make the brain active for 48 hours straight? (Answer below.)

If you say yes to the above question, then please answer this. Would it be best to lucid dream every other night or something like that? What would be a good lucid dreamimg pattern to follow? Lucid dream for 2 nights then regular sleep the third and repeat. Things like that. Let me know what you think!

The brain doesn’t only do its self-maintenance in a non-lucid dreaming state. What happens during a dream is that the brain is making new neural connections (in the early REM cycles) and reinforcing the important pathways from the previous day (in the later REM cycles). The eyes also benefit because, without nightly movement, the eye muscles would gradually become less usable.

Let it be known that, without lucidity, your brain is still active during the periods of sleep where you dream. The only difference is, when you’re lucid, sometimes the brain is slightly more active, to accommodate for your more active memory and awareness of the dream state.

There are also several stages of deep sleep (with very little activity) that your brain and body go through, regardless of whether or not you had a lucid dream that night. Also, with a few exceptions, most people don’t lucid dream every night, only some nights. I’ve only had two lucid dreams since joining, and they both were very short.

Slender Apple has a good grasp of things here. Yes, most of the repair will be done in a different phase of sleep. Lucidity has many advantages in this regard, as you can help choose which neural pathways you reinforce, making things like performing a musical piece, difficult martial arts move, speech, form (in sports), etc through muscle memory in your dream.

Most lucid dreams are 10 minutes or shorter. Only few LDs last longer than 30 minutes. And even in the case of a 30 minute LD, the usual night will still have non-lucid REM sleep. Two lucid dreams in a row are rare, too. So your question really only concerns a few people. And like SlenderApple explained, the brain isn’t inactive during non-lucid sleep either. So the difference isn’t a big one. The problems you’d expect from a lack of non-lucid sleep should be the same that sleep deprivation, or at least REM sleep deprivation, brings, if your assumption would be correct.

There are people who are mostly lucid every night. But they don’t seem to have these problems. They are annoyed from not being able to unwind as much, if anything. But if you become able to lucid dream every night through training, I don’t think that’s a problem you would face. Losing lucidity shouldn’t be hard, especially if you have so much experience with non-lucid dreams.

I would say that being lucid every night wouldn’t hurt… It could even help to better solve problems in WL[spoiler], that or enjoy yourself for a while :fly:

First post! Yay!![/spoiler]

In spite the logically placed argument, I have to submit my Personal experience.

So I can surely state that whenever I had consecutive LD nights, I was astonished to wake up the next morning in an exceptionally vigorous state that surprised me.
On the contrary of doing an extremely tiresome LD activity, (flying etc.) I discovered in awe that my physical condition was the best beyond any comparison.
As we know so little about the correlation of consciousness entangled in the life process, my only conclusion is that consciousness upgrades the field of energy whenever and wherever it is involved!

I honestly don’t see how the abstract knowledge that you’re dreaming should impair the essential process. However, I do suspect that excessive control could prevent your brain from handling what information it wants to sort.