[jjacob]

Originally Posted by AFGNCAAP

Yeah, you could, and that's exactly my point: that there is no way to tell the difference from inside the dream. I'm not arguing that lucid dreaming is impossible, just that unless objective science supports this idea more, it really comes down to a personal belief. So whenever someone claims he can control his dreams, my sceptic alert goes off. I mean, he felt he could do anything so it must have been true? By that logic, I would have to accept everything a schizophreniac believes.

Well I figure it *does* really come down to personal belief I believe you had lucid dreams, when you say you were aware that you were dreaming (and as you said, used that knowledge to your advantage, I'm assuming you meant taking control of the dream). You've had two of these kinds of dreams, and you apparently do distinguish them from your other dreams It doesn't really matter what you or I believe or even call it - it was notably different from other dreams in that you were conciously dreaming (lucid is perhaps the wrong term, concious dreaming is more accurate) versus being on a fixed rollercoaster ride, so to speak. I'm a very sceptic person as well, so I thought this was all just some new age crap when I heard about it from my friend. But imagine experiencing it as I did; hearing about it, trying it, experiencing it and vividly remembering it. Wouldn't you be convinced you manually induced it, and that it was in fact a lucid/concious dream? It was so radically different from other dreams, so much less random and more 'controlled' - I could just 'transport' from location to location etc. It really stands out as one of my more memorable dreams (as opposed to the more 'mundane' ones you tend to forget). I suppose there's no way of proving scientifically that I was in fact in control of the dream instead of merely dreaming I was in control, but for me that's just semantics, and doesn't really matter that much. From what I've read, it's been 'proven' by REM-sleep eye movement patterns, the monitoring of brainwave patterns etc. but I think mankind knows relatively too little about the brain to present definitive scientific proof.

Originally Posted by AFGNCAAP

Maybe I used the word "ontology" too hastily. I did not want to imply that you say lucid dreams themselves are more real. But, if I get it right, you (that's plural "you" referring to lucid dream believers) sustain that the control is more real, the dreaming person's choice - more conscious, than in a regular dream. And that's something that could just as well be another illusion produced by your brain, just like a literary character "aware" of being in the book still does exactly what the writer made him do.

I (or we, counting Jaz and Silvsie etc.) wasn't/weren't just saying the control felt more real, I was implying it was more than just control over yourself an your actions in your dream, it goes wayyyy farther than just that. Imagine having full control over your imagination in your dream, where everything is possible and nothing seems implausible. It's not just choice over your actions, it's near total control over the dream; locations, people, things, events etc. suddenly it's all before your very eyes with a single thought. Ofcourse one could argue that even this is still just a normal dream, perhaps just an extraordinary one, well, as I said, that is semantic, and very hard to counter because I can't just turn up with a link to some scientific research or a recording of my lucid and non-lucid dreams. I suppose you'd have to try inducing one and judging for yourself afterwards. Scientists until recently dismissed the possibility of one's brain "speeding up" during (for example) car accidents, where everything seemed to be happening in slow-motion and every detail, however small, was noticable. Since it has been proven in tests, where a person would wear a screen with LEDs flickering two numbers at imperceptible speeds; that person would be put in a 90-feet free-fall into a net and afterwards he would accurately name the two numbers on the screen, proving our perception fo time does slow down in adrenaline-rushing moments. And even that is so much more easy to prove scientifically than lucid dreams, as it's something that can be measured, unlike dreams and much less the contents of them.

Don't get me wrong, I like your analogy, and we could even move on to using Plato's shadow-cave allegory, but it wouldn't get us much further, as it's just so damn subjective and inmeasurable. I totally understand your scepticism though, hell I wasn't even sure of it myself the morning after, but my friend reassured me it fit the desciption of a lucid dream to the letter. Ofcourse all these new-age pseudo-scientific books on the subject don't help, but seriously, there are things (especially in our cerebral area) that science possibly may never be able to fully comprehend, even in thousands of years (however unlikely that may seem; our brains are made up of tens of billions of connections, a cluster of a cluster of a cluster of supercomputers wouldn't even begin to approach our brain's capabilities). I mean, I already have difficulty with the fact that there are more connections in my brain than stars in the galaxy. Perhaps though, one day (in a galaxy far far away ), man will have fully explained the brain and all its marvels.