Can you die?
Someone has put me off practicing lucid dreaming by telling me that if you see your waking body in a lucid dream you can die. Is there any truth is this?
Of course not.
0% true.
If seeing your sleeping body would awake strong emotions in you, then yes you can but the odds are still much under 1%. Keep in mind that any strong emotion waking or sleeping can kill you if it lasts too long - the Old Hag does kill some people who are afraid of her. I've been in a lucid nightmare that lasted 6 hours with no escape. By nightmare I don't mean scary dream images I mean in the emotion of sheer terror for 6 hours, obviously I'm still alive (unless I'm a ghost typing, than again you could all be dream characters and I never woke up from having my head split open ;) )
Snaggle wrote: If seeing your sleeping body would awake strong emotions in you, then yes you can but the odds are still much under 1%. Keep in mind that any strong emotion waking or sleeping can kill you if it lasts too long - the Old Hag does kill some people who are afraid of her. I've been in a lucid nightmare that lasted 6 hours with no escape. By nightmare I don't mean scary dream images I mean in the emotion of sheer terror for 6 hours, obviously I'm still alive (unless I'm a ghost typing, than again you could all be dream characters and I never woke up from having my head split open ;) )
You've been in a lucid nightmare that lasted 6 hours! Sorry but I don't beleive you, and I don't think anyone else does either. NO dream (lucid or not) lasts 6 hours. And why did'nt you just wake up or take controll over the dream, if it was lucid?
Hi, don’t worry about dying in your dreams. I have done the falling dream, many times and told myself not to wake up so I die. Yes it’s was scary dark and cold but I didn't die. I have jumped off buildings, bridges, mountains and dams, normally very high up places. (I have a normal fear of heights if I am on the very edge of something high, otherwise I fine with heights) just to test the theory of dying within a dream. Or it’s a nightmare and no matter what I do I going to fall, so I just jump saying to myself it’s just a dream this is ridiculas and can’t be true. I normally end that dream there and then and move onto another one not so violent. It can be very exciting playing with your own one big human legitimate fear and that is of death. The thing is I worry that one day I may think I am dreaming and am not, it’s real, then that’s going too really hurt. I do not have a death wish; however, I am truly not afraid of death. Maybe my Christian faith helps on that one.
You've been in a lucid nightmare that lasted 6 hours! Sorry but I don't beleive you, and I don't think anyone else does either. NO dream (lucid or not) lasts 6 hours. And why did'nt you just wake up or take controll over the dream, if it was lucid? -Berggg
It does not matter whether you believe the truth or not. There are certainly many people evenjust on this forum alone who have been in LD for more than six hours. If you do a direct WILD, you're conscious the whole time your asleep and have unbroken consciousness throughout the sleep process. I'm not the only one who has been trapped in lucid nightmares either.
I did not know one could even control dreams when I experienced that nightmare, though I did try to control the fear and transform it into courage. My will was broken like a trig, even though in real life I can almost always transform fear. Fear is cool because one can ride it into such an intensely pleasurable experience. I think that any dream control attempt would have failed and intense fear tends to destroy rational behavior and make you it's slave. Lucid dreams open the gate to more intense emotions than one normally experiences in waking life and one has to learn to control emotions again just as if one were a child.
My longest and only lucid nightmare did definitely last about an hour real time. But I still am uncertain if dreams could really last longer without REM states to fuel them. Dreams can definitely extend into NREM sleep, but not for a very long time I do not think. Contrary to a general belief, you cannot always control your lucid dreams, in the case of a lucid nightmare, you can be aware but have no control. I am quite certain you won't die in a dream though.
Goldkoron wrote: My longest and only lucid nightmare did definitely last about an hour real time. But I still am uncertain if dreams could really last longer without REM states to fuel them. Dreams can definitely extend into NREM sleep, but not for a very long time I do not think. Contrary to a general belief, you cannot always control your lucid dreams, in the case of a lucid nightmare, you can be aware but have no control. I am quite certain you won't die in a dream though.
It's not my opinion that one can die from intense emotion. There have been a number of MD whom have studied this question, most notably Martin A. Samuels, MD. Stress hormones (catechomines) can cause cardiac arrhythmias and myocardial necrosis in healthy people without anything wrong with their hearts.
Snaggle wrote: It's not my opinion that one can die from intense emotion. There have been a number of MD whom have studied this question, most notably Martin A. Samuels, MD. Stress hormones (catechomines) can cause cardiac arrhythmias and myocardial necrosis in healthy people without anything wrong with their hearts.
That would require some extreme stress which I don't even think a normal scared person would generate in a dream. They would have to be absolutely hysterical and completely fearing for their life. If you accept that nothing can hurt you in a dream, it will not happen. Placebo can extend to everything.
That would require some extreme stress which I don't even think a normal scared person would generate in a dream. They would have to be absolutely hysterical and completely fearing for their life. If you accept that nothing can hurt you in a dream, it will not happen. Placebo can extend to everything.
- Goldkoron
The fear just has to be intense and last long enough or any other strong emotion. The ability to practice reality control/magick which is what the placebo effect is would effect the results somewhat, but not generally decisively.
Of course just because you're experiencing intense and prolonged fear does not mean that ones body would be effected. The links between Consciousness, Brain and Body are not absolute. Multiple consciousnesses exist and any of them might be linked to your brain and body while the ego consciousness is in a dream. Everyone has multiple consciousnesses. It's only rare people who have multiple personalities with separate personalities in them. Most of us have multiple consciousness which are all us, even though they perceive, think and member separately from the Ego Consciousness we think of as ourself.
berggg wrote: You've been in a lucid nightmare that lasted 6 hours! Sorry but I don't beleive you, and I don't think anyone else does either. NO dream (lucid or not) lasts 6 hours. And why did'nt you just wake up or take controll over the dream, if it was lucid?
Yeah, just not buying that at all. it may have seemed like 6 hours, but no way was it really 6 hours. People are lucky if they are even able to get a full hour, let alone 2 or 3, let alone 6. 6 hours would be the world record LD. Dream states, LD or not, simply don't last that long. Not even close.
berggg wrote:
Snaggle wrote:If seeing your sleeping body would awake strong emotions in you, then yes you can but the odds are still much under 1%. Keep in mind that any strong emotion waking or sleeping can kill you if it lasts too long - the Old Hag does kill some people who are afraid of her. I've been in a lucid nightmare that lasted 6 hours with no escape. By nightmare I don't mean scary dream images I mean in the emotion of sheer terror for 6 hours, obviously I'm still alive (unless I'm a ghost typing, than again you could all be dream characters and I never woke up from having my head split open ;) )
You've been in a lucid nightmare that lasted 6 hours! Sorry but I don't beleive you, and I don't think anyone else does either. NO dream (lucid or not) lasts 6 hours. And why did'nt you just wake up or take controll over the dream, if it was lucid?
I don't believe Snaggle's impugnable claims, either! :-D
First off, people who die in their sleep -- who have not been murdered, I should add for the sake of precision -- already have precursory health problems such as cardiac arrhythmias and sleep apneas. (They could just as easily have died in wakefulness for the same reasons.)
So I disclaim, with gusto, that such people were killed by dreams; rather, they were victims of poor health. Moreover, how would one even come to know for sure that those who perished in their sleep experienced the 'Old Hag'? They obviously (pardon my morbid tautology) did not live to tell the tale of whatever was consciously experienced -- hence no reason to presuppose here.
Finally, 6 hours is just absurd. This is a gross misjudgement -- or mischaracterisation -- or exaggeration! :mrgreen: -- of the passage of time.
Also, anyone who says the placebo effect is 'magic' clearly does not understand it! :-)
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First off, people who die in their sleep -- who have not been murdered, I should add for the sake of precision -- already have precursory health problems such as cardiac arrhythmias and sleep apneas. (They could just as easily have died in wakefulness for the same reasons.)
So I disclaim, with gusto, that such people were killed by dreams; rather, they were victims of poor health. Moreover, how would one even come to know for sure that those who perished in their sleep experienced the 'Old Hag'? They obviously (pardon my morbid tautology) did not live to tell the tale of whatever was consciously experienced -- hence no reason to presuppose here.
Link to Martin A. Samuel's paper, The Brain-Heart Connection. Intellectuals my read the article, Summerlands can go to figure 4 and see a medical explanation of Sudden Death in healthy people by emotional stress. Just as I stated that the majority of the believers in Scientism don't believe in Lucid Dreams because they base their opinions on their prejudices and dogmas and not on investigation and science, Summerland demonstrates that they do the same thing in many areas ;)
http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/116/1/77.full
Finally, 6 hours is just absurd. This is a gross misjudgement -- or mischaracterisation -- or exaggeration! :mrgreen: -- of the passage of time.
Summerland as I fall asleep quickly and usually look at clocks before going to sleep and after waking up I know with reasonable precision how long I was in a dream. I'm also not the only person whom has been trapped in Lucid Nightmares all night. The ability to quake out of them is an acquired ability.
Also, anyone who says the placebo effect is 'magic' clearly does not understand it! :-)
Magic is practicing reality control in the waking world and the Placebo Effect is certainly will altering reality, though a very crude form of magic as the change was not intentional. For that matter Lucid dreaming is itself magic as it's taking control of ones brain and intentionally altering it's state according to will.
The mind does not control the body. On the contrary...
Some people can't help but be depressed and need medication. Low levels of serotonin can affect brain activity and will ultimately influence your mind. You don't pick your urges and your emotions. If you did, you'd be able to choose to be happy--ecstatic, even--all the time. This is not possible. It is precisely the other way around: cells beget your state of mind. Physicalism as opposed to the existential absurdity you espoused...People claim to improve themselves through meditation and yes, it is true that meditation is good for you--neuroscience surely reveals that it is beneficial to the brain--but do not make the mistake of thinking that you chose to take up meditation out of free will or that you manipulated the firing of neurons. For starters, there is no free will. There is will but it is not free. Influence is indeed the key here. Your environment, what happens to you, what you come across in life, how your organism reacts to such exposures determines what you will feel and ultimately think. Believe it or not, but scientific experiments, such as Libet's, demonstrate that decision-making happens in unconsciousness, meaning, the relevant brain activity starts before the subject becomes aware of making a decision.
This is you spouting some of the dogmas of your religion. Choosing to firing of neurons and control of the brain is exactly what one is doing in LD. It's also what one is doing in meditation and biofeedback.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFFMtq5g8N4 = demonstration of brain control being done. The facts that you've never been a Martial Artist or Nyingmapa really shows, as does that you've never been in "the clear light".
Believe it or not, but scientific experiments, such as Libet's, demonstrate that decision-making happens in unconsciousness, meaning, the relevant brain activity starts before the subject becomes aware of making a decision.
This experiment only demonstrated muscle memory and demonstrated nothing for or against free will. If you attack me you'll automatically be countered and counter attacked without me deciding to do anything - I have programmed defenses that kick in automatically when attacked. I choose quite consciously to create them, but once created they stopped being volitional - there are lots of martial artists or street fighters with auto-defenses that kick in without any decision when attacked. Likely some are even members of our forum.
Snaggle wrote:
'Just as I stated that the majority of the believers in Scientism don't believe in Lucid Dreams because they base their opinions on their prejudices and dogmas and not on investigation and science, Summerland demonstrates that they do the same thing in many areas.'
Again with the fallacious word 'scientism' which I have revealed to not represent science in any way as part of the refutation of your argument regarding Christianity. Ironically, 'scientistic' would be a word that best describes your approach (although I prefer specious :mrgreen:) since you jumped to the conclusion, and made the affirmation, that Thomas Paine was an atheist when he was, in fact, a deist:
http://www.world-of-lucid-dreaming.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=16543
Snaggle wrote:
'Summerland as I fall asleep quickly and usually look at clocks before going to sleep and after waking up I know with reasonable precision how long I was in a dream. I'm also not the only person whom has been trapped in Lucid Nightmares all night. The ability to quake out of them is an acquired ability.'
Looking at the clocks before going to sleep and after waking up does not prove your avouchment as it does not rule out the possibility of having been unconscious for most of that time, and, as we all know, the passage of time during unconsciousness cannot be experienced. It is more likely that you woke up, looked at the clock, and made the assumption that your conscious experience lasted for that long whilst disregarding the fact that two minutes of dreaming can seem like a couple of hours in retrospection. Your assumption is akin to those people who experience NDEs and believe them to have taken place while their brains were 'clinically dead' when it is more likely that they happened as they were gradually coming to and the brain thus active. Who subscribes to scientism? :D
Snaggle wrote:
'Magic is practicing reality control in the waking world and the Placebo Effect is certainly will altering reality, though a very crude form of magic as the change was not intentional. For that matter Lucid dreaming is itself magic as it's taking control of ones brain and intentionally altering it's state according to will.'
This statement is fallacious as lucid dreaming is explained here to not be an instance of free will at all (let alone magic :lol: ):
http://www.world-of-lucid-dreaming.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=15086
Placebo is analogously akin to someone smiling -- which can cause the brain to release 'happy' juices and reinforcing the immune system. But the act of smiling was, in turn, caused by something else (external). If fake medicine is believed by patients to be the real deal (an antidote to their illness) they will smile; cerebral analgesics are released; they will start feeling better; and this state may aid a speedy recovery. Nothing magical, just cause and effect. I won't go too much into this topic as it pertains to the free will link above and those who are interested can look into it and see why Snaggle's statement is ludicrously false.
Snaggle wrote:
'This is you spouting some of the dogmas of your religion. Choosing to firing of neurons and control of the brain is exactly what one is doing in LD. It's also what one is doing in meditation and biofeedback.'
No, it's not. You only think you decide and control the lucid dream. You don't because you don't always achieve your goals, both in lucid dreaming and meditation -- otherwise people wouldn't spend years in retreats working hard to get a particular mental state (which they heard about and were inspired by -- and cannot explain why they did not feel disinterested like some of their friends on hearing it for the first time); or stumble upon epiphanies after taking psychedelics. You may decide what you decide but you cannot decide what you will decide. (See Free Will by Sam Harris.) Hence, you have will, but it is not free, it is contrived by urges that you have no control over. See now why your argument is a fallacy? 8-)
Consciousness is the last to know, so to speak. :ugeek:
About your link where Ken apparently stops his brainwaves at will, a commentator had this to say: :lol:
'Gang, this is an old Mind Mirror developed by Max Cade in England way back when, and it's use/research carried out by Anna Wise. It's a great machine, but this is totally out of context--which both Max and Anna would have said. That's the problem with all this tech these days--just because it's extremely scientific doesn't mean that it is being used scientifically. There's an attenuator that must be adjusted when someone is hooked up--deeper meditative states are almost always associated with less amplitude in the brainwaves--volume, you might say. on the Mind Mirror, it would display on the horizontals, i.e. how far out to the side they go. What he didn't do was adjust the attenuator. It doesn't mean he's not dropping into something deep, but he's not stopping his brainwaves.'
Wishful thinking again, Snaggle? :mrgreen:
Snaggle wrote:
'This experiment only demonstrated muscle memory and demonstrated nothing for or against free will. If you attack me you'll automatically be countered and counter attacked without me deciding to do anything - I have programmed defenses that kick in automatically when attacked. I choose quite consciously to create them, but once created they stopped being volitional - there are lots of martial artists or street fighters with auto-defenses that kick in without any decision when attacked. Likely some are even members of our forum.'
See Peter Cave's 'Mary, Mary, Quite the Contrary' in his Can a Robot be Human? and you will understand why this does not constitute free will. I think you will also find quite a coherent refutation in the link provided above which also demonstrates why the notion of free will is also absurd. You can't explain why on some instances you choose to reply when attacked (rather than not) other than to say that you 'felt like it' (caused by urges that you did not author). :ugeek:
Finally, I come to your scaremongering regarding sleep hallucinations (which include dreams) where I still maintain that it is not dreams that kill you. :twisted:
Granted, there are instances of neurovisceral damage to the heart, but, what happens when you have a strong, healthy heart? The problem is confined to the brain and it doesn't happen to everyone; and there is no evidence whatsoever -- none at all :D -- that cerebral electrochemical imbalances are caused by conscious experiences in your sleep as though these where something external, or metaphysical!
And then we come to Walter Cannon's paper on 'Voodoo Death', which is about death from fright, where he postulates (you must've read asserts here) that death was caused by prolonged action by the sympathico-adrenal system in cases where people believed external, pernicious forces were at work -- where he ostensibly blames 'superstitious, ignorant' beliefs as the likely cause of psychosomatically induced cerebral strains that led to the death of some such adherents -- not lucid dreams! It is quite apparent to me that it was the belief, and it could never be lucid dreaming -- seen as this one means that the dreamers are aware that what is being experienced is a product of their minds (thus harmless); not something that is objectively real by contrast as hysterically believed by some. :roll:
If you don't recognise that what you experience is a dream, you are not lucid dreaming. If anything, their vivid (should be the adjective here) nightmares were triggered by previously infused beliefs which, at bedtime, most likely had already got their adrenaline pumping and hence already scared of falling asleep. And there are other lethal external triggers besides a culture which promotes superstition. For instance, as indicated in your link, Snaggle, a huge intake of caffeine will stimulate certain cerebral regions -- such as the basal ganglia -- to the point of jeopardising the heart by triggering arrhythmias. :|
Dead people, or dead animals for that matter, with brain abnormalities and aneurysms does not constitute proof that they necessarily died from dreaming. The following is also quite telling from your link (I don't know if you missed it in your hurry to present it to me -- and note that you would not have presented it to me if I had not challenged your affirmations earlier, hence, no free will :mrgreen: ):
'The point is made that ECG changes seen in the context of neurological disease do not represent ischemic heart disease but are merely a manifestation of autonomic dysregulation, possibly caused by a lesion that affected the cortical representation of the autonomic nervous system.'
'...there is clear evidence that cardiac lesions can be produced as the result of nervous system disease.'
'It is likely that the increased tendency for life-threatening arrhythmias found in patients with acute neurological disease is a result of repolarisation change, which increases the vulnerable period during which an extrasystole would be likely to result in ventricular tachycardia and/or ventricular fibrillation.'
Whether the heart, or brain, or what have you, in the end the failure has corporeal causes (physicalism). To finally reiterate, abnormal fight-or-flight can have necrotic causes and not the other way around. ;)