All of this is thousands of years old. When the St Jerome translated the bible to Latin, he intentionally translated the Hebrew word for dream into the Latin word for witchcraft, and ever since then, dreams have been viewed as something not to be exploared.
Also, dreams of importance were also supposed to be God given to saints or kings, not common folk, another reason for “common folk” (who in those days were mostly christian or another religion) not to explore dreams.
Then came the Spanish Inquisition. Everyone was scared to share dreams.
If you look at all this, its understandable how the idea of not messing with dreams could be passed along by some Christians to this day.
I wouldn’t bring it up, but if your Dad mentions it again, juts explain what it is. Tell him its not Satanic or something, I dunno, I wouldn’t know what to say. My parents are pretty open minded and pretty unreligious.
Some christians find ld belonging to the occult witch is not so i think…but still some christians have difficulty in accepting this as a normal phenomenon…
I think u better talk with your parents and explain this good…or not at all but nothing in between…I think u know your parents best so make your choice…if u decide that u should not like John says…u can always do this if your father mentions this again…and then simply tell him and explain…
Good luck!
My name is Josh.
Oops i need coffee…strong one lol!
Sorry Josh!
first of all lucid dreaming is a natural thing. sure sum people hve their own lil things they do to help but im positive no summoning of satan is done. and they have no right to accuse it at all in the first place unless they researched it and actually had 1 of their own. For example i as part of this lik catholic youth group and they had this special retreat they did but they wouldnt tell us wut was on it or wut happened and that it was a secret. Well sum kids started saying it was a brainwashing thing or an occult cus it changed a lot of people that went on it from bad to good. Then they complain to the person sayin he has no right to accuse it of that because he never went on it. Thats lik the same case. they can be hypocryts.
the second thing id lik to say is kinda a respond comment.
I dont think its right that any type of dream should be given a bad name or restricted. In the real world there are many rules and restrictions and bad things with everything. Dreams are supposed to be a way to get away from all that and do “our own thing” w/o having limitations of any means. Dreaming and Reality are two different worlds. Whether u choose to believe the dream world is a real place or not doesnt matter. The point im making is they r seperate and shouldnt be criticized or commanded by each other.
Dream Addict - Sorry, I didn’t mean to be offensive. I wasn’t referring to Christians in general - at all. I was referring to the over-the-top Christians. I actually use to belong to the United Methodist Church for several years and very much respect their values and ideals - even if they aren’t right for me.
Josh - Thanks for sharing that about the word origin - I love linguistics!
[size=92]Thanks for the concern Meow. I noticed your claim was directed towards “hardcore religion,” so I was not offended. I was actually partly agreeing with you. If you knew me IRL, you’ll probably think that most “normal Christians” would think that I was hell bound! 
Though, I was hoping to make clear that some Christians do value lucid dreaming and don’t think of it as “bad.” but hell, I’m no “normal Christain” so don’t use me as an example.
I singled out your name at the beginning of my post, but only to joke about your “cat” comment. I was just pullin’ your leg, your post always seem to have a cat theme and that makes me laugh. 
SO! with that said. I am however a hardcore cat lover! So you are pushing some buttons Just kidding, seriously! … Hmm? is that an oxymoron? Aw well, back to topic.[/size]
Thanks for the history lesson Josh. I wondered why so many people relate LDs with witchcraft. This explains the deep roots of this mistake. Interesting.
Hmmm, the best thing (actually the only working solution in my opinion) would be to ask it himself. We can talk all day about christians being this and that but maybe he just said that because it’s the first time he hears about LDing and he just finds it nuts? It could have been an instinctive reaction, we are all more or less inclined to this type of reaction when we see things we don’t understand or find strange. So the best thing is not to worry too much about it because the only way that will help you find the answer is ask it himself.
I think you’re probably right BrainHacker, although from Hiveminds description it dosn’t seem as if his father had near enough time to actually read what Lucid Dreaming was. It sounds like he simply saw the title on the browser, and recognised the phrase. If that’s the case, maybe he has had some experience with the practise? Otherwise, maybe he’s heard of it somewhere and thinks it’s a waste of time and dosn’t actually work.
It would probably be like aksing my parents to buy me some books on meditation. Chances are, they would laugh and ask why I wanted them. Best not to get your parents involved, I’ve found.
If your right Atheist, and he did just catch the lucid dreaming thing out of the corner of his eye and judged it right then, it probably had nothing to do with being a christian. I know lots of unreligious types that may say the same thing.
Josh Redstone:
I’m certain it had nothing to do with his Christianity. What does lucid dreaming have to do with religion? Sure, some people might associate meditation + lucid dreaming with spirituality, but that is not the point I was making.
Putting religion aside, I’m only talking about peoples reactions to this kind of activity. I don’t think the average person would see the term ‘Lucid Dreaming’ and have any defensive reaction at all, hence my suggestion that perhaps he has had some experience with it in the past.
I dunno, I’ve had some defensive reactions before, they weren’t from religious people. I think they had just had those reactions because they arent exposed to that sort of thing everyday. Most new things are greeted with wierd reactions.
Anyway, your probably right. I’ve even met people who have been lucid dreaming thier whole lives, they just didn’t know what to call it because they had never been exposed to that term before. Perhaps thats whats going on.
I think HiveMind would not have mentioned his Dad’s religion if he did not think it was an issue. He quoted his Dad as saying “Lucid Dreaming eh,better not get in to that…”
That terminology leads me to think that his Dad believes LD’ing is dangerous. He says “Better not get into that” he didn’t say “don’t waste your time with that.” HiveMind was the only one there so he must of thought religion was an issue or he wouldn’t have mentioned it.
I happen to think that most Christians do have a problem with lucid dreaming. Just check some Christian websites that do mention LDs, most don’t have anything nice to say. They relate it to “conversing with spirits,” waking the dead, visiting other realms, opening yourself up to possession, and other spooky sounding things. All experienced LD’ers know this is horse hocky, but this is what they claim.
The only initial request that the author of the post asked was “Why did my Dad react this way?” All of our answers are useless, we can’t answer for his Dad. We can’t be certain on anything. The only way for Hivemind to have a correct answer is to ask his Dad himself.
Do you happen to know the URL’s of any of those LD bashing websites? I suddenly have the urge to read them.
Please be gentle to the LD bashers 
they know not what they do. 
I came across a few a long time ago when I was searching for lucid dream references in the bible. I’m unable to locate some of them. I may have confused the term “astral projection” with “lucid dream,” since the terms can be interchangeable.
One site that condems “astral projection” mentions:
It’s found here: What is Astral Projection and how does it relate to the Bible? - ltd.gentle.org
[color=red]the above URL was recently changed[/color], if it doesn’t work try:
https://ltd.gentle.org/astral.html
I’ll try to find other URLs if I can, I havn’t really read any recently.
What a childish way to think about things. “Willfully desiring to leave one’s body weakens the will.” I smell a contradiction in terms here.
People like that really tick me off. If it wasn’t okay with Jesus (which they cant even prove or confirm) its all satanic or something. I know you said to be kind, but geez! Makes me laugh thinking of what those guys are missing out on.
As I said in my sovereign reality post in the “Beyond Dreaming” forum (which no one comments on), I dicussed how religion is used as false answers, and how many people use religion as an ultimate rather than adapt it into their lifestyle to seek answers.
Also I think dreams are what the Bible and other holy books refer to as heaven, because there, time has no meaning and everything is possible, whereas hell is a nightmare.
And if we do dream forever after we die, tadaa! 
That sure would be great for all us LDer’s out there.
I really have no idea what’s wrong.I just mentioned that he was a Christian because I thought that a lot of people would automatically ask me,“Is he religious?”
Oh well.I was thinking that he thought that LDing was only one step away from something really dangerous like Astral Projection as DreamAddict mentioned,but it could be that he just thought LDs as a way of escaping from life.Although I don’t really think that can happen.
I think it would help if he watched Waking Life. 
He would not be completely wrong if he was pointing to the danger of using LDs as a way of escaping life: that is perfectly possible due to the nature of LDing (much more control and imagination power than in real life, blissful experiences are more rule than exception in LDs,…). LDing will not save you from waking up every morning in “boring” waking life so escaping can make life much more difficult than it is. But this is true for almost every “fun” activity (videogames, drugs, TV, chatting, visiting LD-forums,…) and IMO it is wiser to go to the roots of the problem (WHY do I want to escape, what in this real life makes me suffer so much that I don’t want to live it?) than to eliminate all fun and leisure. Because that is just another way of escaping.
Are you sure about Waking Life, did you see the end of the movie in which the guy is not able to wake up anymore? Horror! Quite funny BTW that many people (including me in a not so distant past) say that they would prefer to live in dreamworld all day and here in this movie is a guy that CANNOT wake up and still he’s dissatisfied!
Chosenone thank you for the effort of writing your insightful thoughts on this forum, I’m sure I’m not the only one who enjoyed reading it. I agree with a lot of what you said, but you said so much I would almost have to write an essay myself to comment on every part of it. Completely agree with the things you said about religion, religion should be seen as a helpful finger pointing to truth but we have to look and understand for ourselves if we want to find that truth. But you need a lot of guts, patience and doubt (faith alone will not do it) if you really try to understand for yourself and most people seem to be satisfied with the delusion that a book can give all the answers. We understand that we can never fully describe to someone else how it is to eat an apple when he has never eaten an apple himself but if someone says the ultimate truth is fully described in a book whe are happy to believe him so that we won’t have to understand for ourselves.