Lucid Dreaming and the Spirit

[Durzan]

(Not sure if this is the right place to post this thread...)

Okay, so for those of you who do not know, lucid dreaming is the capability of gaining consciousness and awareness within a dream. When in a lucid state, you can interact with the dream world as if it was the real world, and be fully aware of just what the heck you are doing, and you can interact with the dream world that you obviously couldn't do in real life. If you are conscious within a dream, and you are able to realize that you are in a dream, without waking up, then you can do some pretty interesting things with a bit of practice, such as interviewing your subconscious, flying, etc.

For the past six months or so, I have had a desire to teach myself how to lucid dream, but have never followed through with it. That being said, I will now move on to the main reason I posted this:

So I was at work, and I was pondering the fact that I wanted to lucid dream, when a thought popped into my head along the lines of "can you communicate with Heavenly Father by initiating a lucid dream?"

This perked my interest, of course, and I began to use some logic...

God can communicate with people by sending them symbolic Dreams, or allowing them to see visions. The scriptures seem to indicate that some prophets were aware that they were receiving a Dream. Lehi's vision in 1st Nephi 1 to me seems states flat out that he was asleep when it occurred. If I assume that Lehi was aware and conscious within the vision, as I am sure he was, then I can logically conclude that he was Lucid Dreaming.

If that is the case, then I can reasonably conclude that some if not all Dreams sent by Heavenly Father have the potential to become Lucid, at least to the point of self awareness within the dream. Thus a Dream sent by Heavenly Father is always a lucid dream (Without the ability to change the dream itself), but a lucid dream does not necessarily = a Dream sent by Heavenly Father.

(Does my logic make any sense to you? Do you see any flaws? I do have a different wiring of my brain than most people, as I show some Asberger tendencies...)

So, now that we established that a lucid dream can be a way Heavenly Father can communicate with us, we are now left with a few interesting follow up questions:

1. Is this a one way communication, or is it two way, like prayer? Heck, it could be both, depending on the circumstances. To this question, I have no definite answer. I would have to think and ponder on it some more, although I suspect it would count as two way communication.

2. If this is a two way communication, (Which I suspect it is), then could we potentially, initiate a conversation with Heavenly Father and/or the Spirit through Lucid Dreaming, assuming of course that we were worthy, had a tremendous amount of faith, had the Spirit with us at the time, AND if Heavenly Father was willing to communicate with us this way?

3. Would this be just as effective as prayer, more effective, or less effective? I think I can see both advantages and disadvantages to this when compared to prayer. (such as the risk that you end up communicating with your own subconsciousness instead of the Spirit... yes, you can do that.)

Now after all this time, I decided to get an iPhone app or two that can help me start to Lucid Dream. The question is could I use Lucid Dreaming as a way to draw closer to Heavenly Father?

Edited February 15, 2014 by Durzan

[missmollymormon]

I've always found lucid dreams to be quite interesting. It is actually quite easy to train yourself to do. I was once at a stage where I was lucid dreaming every night.

I think it would be possible to connect with the spirit through these dreams, however I am not sure it would be entirely advisable to do so. There is an entire spirit realm so beyond our comprehension, that what may appear to be of the spirit could in fact be of the bad guy. Maybe test it with the handshake test in D&C? Sorry, I am not close enough to my scriptures to give you the exact referrence, but I am sure someone here could.

[Anddenex]

So, now that we established that a lucid dream can be a way Heavenly Father can communicate with us, we are now left with a few interesting follow up questions:

1. Is this a one way communication, or is it two way, like prayer? Heck, it could be both, depending on the circumstances. To this question, I have no definite answer. I would have to think and ponder on it some more, although I suspect it would count as two way communication.

If Heavenly decides to communicate with his children via dreams then it would and could be both. At times the Lord communicates through dreams directly without any communication from us (in other words we are instructed), while at other times the dream may allow a two way communication between the receiver and the Lord -- we don't dictate to the Lord the dream situation. All scripture evidences point to the Lord initiating visions or dreams, at least I have found none myself where we are able to say, "Tonight, or through more practice, I will have a lucid dream (like a prayer) and communicate with God through my dream." Is it impossible -- all things are possible with God -- I find no scriptural evidences to support the theory that we dictate to the Lord when he will communicate to us through dreams or visions.

2. If this is a two way communication, (Which I suspect it is), then could we potentially, initiate a conversation with Heavenly Father and/or the Spirit through Lucid Dreaming, assuming of course that we were worthy, had a tremendous amount of faith, had the Spirit with us at the time, AND if Heavenly Father was willing to communicate with us this way?

Refer to the answer previously given. Heavenly Father will communicate with us in his time, and in his own way, that will be most beneficial to us.

3. Would this be just as effective as prayer, more effective, or less effective? I think I can see both advantages and disadvantages to this when compared to prayer. (such as the risk that you end up communicating with your own subconsciousness instead of the Spirit... yes, you can do that.)

Now after all this time, I decided to get an iPhone app or two that can help me start to Lucid Dream. The question is could I use Lucid Dreaming as a way to draw closer to Heavenly Father?

The best method to communicate with God has already been given by our Master, our Savior, when he instructed his disciples, "When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven..." When we read our scriptures those who experienced visions and dreams were individuals who already knew how to communicate with the Lord through prayer. Dreams and visions were a method of added witness and impression that they waited upon the Lord to receive.

[skippy740]

Nothing wrong with communicating with your own subconscious. Sometimes we can get our best inspiration from within ourselves. Being able to get that inspiration... and giving our Father the praise for it is not a bad idea.

Not the same as a prayer, but recognizing that all inspiration for good comes from Him, then anything that helps with that is a good thing.

We can read in D&C 129 about what to do if an evil spirit comes:

Doctrine and Covenants 129 

[Durzan]

I've always found lucid dreams to be quite interesting. It is actually quite easy to train yourself to do. I was once at a stage where I was lucid dreaming every night.

I think it would be possible to connect with the spirit through these dreams, however I am not sure it would be entirely advisable to do so. There is an entire spirit realm so beyond our comprehension, that what may appear to be of the spirit could in fact be of the bad guy. Maybe test it with the handshake test in D&C? Sorry, I am not close enough to my scriptures to give you the exact referrence, but I am sure someone here could.

One, I'm guessing that the handshake test would probably be moot in a dream, as you and your subconscious can bend the dream to your wishes, which means that if you want to be able to shake hands with the figure, then you will be able to, and if you don't, then well, it doesn't happen.

Two, I'm more worried about accidentally confusing my subconscious AS the Spirit than I am about receiving a visitation from an evil spirit. An evil spirit would only be able to try to influence you through your subconscious. This I think is downright difficult, as Satan a) cannot read minds, and thus b) would have no idea what you are dreaming, and c) would have little direct influence with which to tempt you, save the ability to plant thoughts in your head... which brings us back to point one: your subconscious is the main thing you have to deal with/worry about in a lucid dream. Normally, it wouldn't be much of a problem, however, if your trying to communicate with the Spirit in a Lucid Dream, you run the risk of your subconscious somehow interfering, or trying to fulfill the desire on its own. In a lucid dream, you are the one in control... unless you are lucid in a Dream that God sent you, in which case you are aware but probably have little to no control unless you choose to wake up.

If Heavenly decides to communicate with his children via dreams then it would and could be both. At times the Lord communicates through dreams directly without any communication from us (in other words we are instructed), while at other times the dream may allow a two way communication between the receiver and the Lord -- we don't dictate to the Lord the dream situation. All scripture evidences point to the Lord initiating visions or dreams, at least I have found none myself where we are able to say, "Tonight, or through more practice, I will have a lucid dream (like a prayer) and communicate with God through my dream." Is it impossible -- all things are possible with God -- I find no scriptural evidences to support the theory that we dictate to the Lord when he will communicate to us through dreams or visions.

Somehow I get the feeling that you both understood what I was trying to say and misunderstood it at the same time. Perhaps I should clarify:

I am not saying that we dictate it, as it would be a two way street. Most of the time, I think the Lord initiates the dream. However, I think that it would be possible for us to get into a lucid state and put ourselves into as spiritual environment as possible. This isn't based off of Scriptural evidence, but rather using logic. Like you said, there is no scriptural evidence to support this theory that we can initiate a Dream with God ourselves, save the assumption that whenever God communicates with us through a Dream, it seems as though we are at least partially aware of what is going on. If we are aware that we are in a dream, we are, by definition, lucid. If we can get into a lucid dream without the Spirit communicating with us through visions, (which we can) then it stands to reason that we could also potentially communicate with Heavenly Father while lucid.

Anyway, moving on...

The word dictate would imply that we force the Spirit to come to us, which as you stated earlier is impossible, and IMO also sinful in nature to even try. Do we force the spirit to come to us when we wish to have a spiritual moment? No, we can't. Just as Heavenly Father cannot force us to do something, neither can we do the same to Him, as such would violate the Law of Agency. Rather we put ourselves in a situation where we can feel the spirit, and then just listen hardly for the spirit. We INVITE the Spirit to come to us to tell us God's will.

I imagine that something similar is what you would do in while lucid, if you wanted to communicate with the Spirit.

Refer to the answer previously given. Heavenly Father will communicate with us in his time, and in his own way, that will be most beneficial to us.

Like I said above, a better way of articulating what I am trying to say is that we INVITE Him to communicate with us while we are lucid, and then let Him decide. We put up the spiritual decorations and then open the door. What happens next depends on God's will... If it were to happen it would happen IN His own time and His own way, as it would require the consent of both sides in the party, aka you and God.

The best method to communicate with God has already been given by our Master, our Savior, when he instructed his disciples, "When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven..." When we read our scriptures those who experienced visions and dreams were individuals who already knew how to communicate with the Lord through prayer. Dreams and visions were a method of added witness and impression that they waited upon the Lord to receive.

...Good point. You seemed to have brought up the response I was going to give... Dreams and visions are an added witness to prayer. God initiated visions and such because the prophets were already extremely faithful.

I would also point out that visions are probably easier to communicate with, simply because of the fact that humans are usually visual people, and having access to a visual form of communication allows us to grasp and understand certain concepts better. Through dreams, the Spirit is making it easier for us to comprehend the the concepts and points the Lord is trying to make. Images that come to our minds in answer to our prayers would also be in the same vein. Often its easier for us to understand something in visual terms, rather than it is to have it described to us.

However, I would rather say that using lucid dreaming to communicate with the Spirit would act as an extension of/to the communication method that prayer is based off of rather than as a separate method of communication. I would liken this to how FaceTime uses the same method of transmission that a cellphone uses, but adds video to the audio. Audio only is the most commonly used, but those who learn to use FaceTime can have visual aid to help with communication. However, both are depended upon one making the call, and the other picking up the phone to answer.

In my opinion, Prayer functions like a telegram or email. We send a message to Heavenly Father and then he responds. that response can arrive at you immediately, while you are having the prayer, or in a few weeks. Can it become a communication like a cell phone? Absolutely, but such requires great faith.

During the day,it would definitely be more practical for us to use "e-mail/audio only" aka prayer. Its quick and easy. It gives time for Heavenly Father to prepare a response (He probably already had one waiting.), and gives us time to ponder and listen for the Spirit.

But at night, when you are already asleep, prayer is less practical, as well, most of the time you are unconscious. Heavenly Father has to either wake you up, wait until you wake up, send you a dream and have you be able to remember it, or make you lucid in order to communicate with you directly through the Spirit. But if you are already lucid, then it becomes even more practical you have the ability to add in the visual aspect communication to prayer, by manipulating your dream into a prayer. If Heavenly Father replies as part of the dream, then you have this two way communication going on that is really flipping awesome, with you being able not only articulate your thoughts verbally/mentally but also visually, and Heavenly Father being able to show you his responses in a way that prayer and scripture study as we know it just can't do... (I think.) Not to mention that the communication would be almost instantaneous.

Of course, such a form of communication would most likely require sufficient faith and righteousness in the first place in order for it to take place, as well as the ability to lucid dream, should we be the ones who wish to invite the Spirit to communicate with us this way.

Makes sense?

Edited February 15, 2014 by Durzan

[Lakumi]

Nothing wrong with communicating with your own subconscious. Sometimes we can get our best inspiration from within ourselves. Being able to get that inspiration... and giving our Father the praise for it is not a bad idea.

Not the same as a prayer, but recognizing that all inspiration for good comes from Him, then anything that helps with that is a good thing.

We can read in D&C 129 about what to do if an evil spirit comes:

Doctrine and Covenants 129Â*

I get most of my inspiration from my dreams, from plots to characters to a whole religion my mind invented (for a book I wrote for nanowrimo) along with its "Gods" whom I "talked to"

dreams, for me, are a true gateway to my mind-and what a strange gateway it is:lol:

[Durzan]

_________________

Nothing wrong with communicating with your own subconscious. Sometimes we can get our best inspiration from within ourselves. Being able to get that inspiration... and giving our Father the praise for it is not a bad idea.

I never said that communication with your subconscious is bad... just that it can potentially confuse/distract you or get in the way IF you are trying to communicate directly with the Spirit while lucid. But then again it could also help you in some form or fashion. Its just that I imagine that dealing with your subconscious would be a natural challenge should I or anyone else try to communicate with the Spirit while lucid.

Not the same as a prayer, but recognizing that all inspiration for good comes from Him, then anything that helps with that is a good thing.

I do believe that you can get spiritual inspiration from your subconscious, but that is another topic for another thread.

We can read in D&C 129 about what to do if an evil spirit comes:

Doctrine and Covenants 129Â*

Definitely useful information if you are awake, which is clearly what D&C 129 is supposed to be addressing. A dream however, is much more fickle than reality, and is subject to the whims of you and your subconscious.

One, the fact that you are asleep and inside your own head acts as a protection against evil spirits... I think. Two, an image of an evil spirit could be your subconscious trying to tell you something, or it might be the real thing, albeit that I would be skeptical because of reason 1 given above. Three, If you are in a dream, then reality is subject to the whims of you and your subconscious, because your desires would become real, and thus this method may or may not be reliable while you are lucid.

_______________

I get most of my inspiration from my dreams, from plots to characters to a whole religion my mind invented (for a book I wrote for nanowrimo) along with its "Gods" whom I "talked to"

dreams, for me, are a true gateway to my mind-and what a strange gateway it is:lol:

A gateway that I myself am trying to open...

[Lakumi]

For me, it took some time, and sometimes I found it very draining and sometimes depressing, but then again my emotional state wasn't exactly strong.

Not that "talking" to something calling itself the Lord and Lady of Death is all that positive lol

(weither you dreamed it or not)

[Anddenex]

Makes sense?

The clarification you provide appears to be the way I understood what you were emphasizing with your initial post.

These would be my concerns when deciding to "invite" the Lord to speak with you via a lucid dream:

1) We have no evidence in scripture of "anyone" attempting to open, invite, communication with the Lord through dreams. Non scriptural evidence doesn't though specify that it is impossible, nor that it can't be done. Scriptural evidence only points to the Lord initiating dreams and visions...never his children.

2) How will one know when God is actually instructing you and not the adversary? The Lord has given us instruction regarding ministering of angels and how we can tell from a just or an unjust spirit. What evidence, instruction, do we have if we initiate communication within a realm we know little about to protect us from false communication (lest we become like Sherem or Korihor)?

3) What if you never wake up? No, I am just kidding on the this.

[Durzan]

The clarification you provide appears to be the way I understood what you were emphasizing with your initial post.

These would be my concerns when deciding to "invite" the Lord to speak with you via a lucid dream:

1) We have no evidence in scripture of "anyone" attempting to open, invite, communication with the Lord through dreams. Non scriptural evidence doesn't though specify that it is impossible, nor that it can't be done. Scriptural evidence only points to the Lord initiating dreams and visions...never his children.

2) How will one know when God is actually instructing you and not the adversary? The Lord has given us instruction regarding ministering of angels and how we can tell from a just or an unjust spirit. What evidence, instruction, do we have if we initiate communication within a realm we know little about to protect us from false communication (lest we become like Sherem or Korihor)?

3) What if you never wake up? No, I am just kidding on the this.

Number one is an interesting case. I could make the case that Nephi was the one who initiated the vision that he saw in 1st Nephi, by asking the Lord to show him the things which his father saw. If we can do it in the waking world, then surely we can do it in the dream world as well.

Number 2 is one reason why I started this thread... and one reason why I intend to proceed cautiously. I intend to learn more about being lucid before I do anything else there, but I need to actually become lucid before I can start learning. However, I think I already answered the question at least partially in at least one of my previous posts:

I'm more worried about accidentally confusing my subconscious AS the Spirit than I am about receiving a visitation from an evil spirit. An evil spirit would only be able to try to influence you through your subconscious. This I think is downright difficult, as Satan a) cannot read minds, and thus b) would have no idea what you are dreaming, and c) would have little direct influence with which to tempt you, save the ability to plant thoughts in your head... which brings us back to point one: your subconscious is the main thing you have to deal with/worry about in a lucid dream. Normally, it wouldn't be much of a problem, however, if your trying to communicate with the Spirit in a Lucid Dream, you run the risk of your subconscious somehow interfering, or trying to fulfill the desire on its own. In a lucid dream, you are the one in control... unless you are lucid in a Dream that God sent you, in which case you are aware but probably have little to no control unless you choose to wake up.

I remember reading somewhere in the Doctrine and Covenants that Satan cannot read the thoughts of man, but that God can. Logically this extends into dreams, because dreams are in essence, thoughts you are having in the form of images while you are sleeping. The parts in bold above are the main points.

This means that the only real spiritual influences you can have in your dreams are due to you, your subconsciousness, and the Spirit of God. Thus the only false communications you have to really worry about are the ones that you trick yourself into believing, which is a very real and distinct possibility in a dream.

As for council for protection, well, I would guess that a few of the other bits of council we received would apply here... Such as "Hum a favorite hymn", dwelling on only righteous things, etc. As far as protections specific to the dream world however, I think that it would probably be a good idea to seek advice from Heavenly Father and an inspired priesthood leader before attempting it... . Dreams can do practically anything so the specific advice for dealing with lucidity is likely to be different from advice on how to deal with things in the real world. After all, if I go into a lucid dream with the specific purpose of communicating with Him, I want to make sure that I have a way to make sure that I am actually talking with Him and not a conjuration made by my subconscious to fulfill that request to talk to God. I want to talk with a manifestation of the Spirit, not myself! (Although I could learn a lot about myself from that experience, such an occurrence would defeat the entire purpose of me lucid dreaming in that particular instance in the first place.)

...and number 3... well...

Edited February 15, 2014 by Durzan

[Quin]

I prefer to talk to HF & the Spirit while awake.

Most of my dreams are lucid, and have been since I was a child.

Not sayin your reasoning is flawed. Just my own personal preference. I don't trust dreams. Physics (and everything else) works entirely different, there, lovely as it is. I can rewind a dream 49 times in order to get the conclusion I want. With that much control, I wouldn't trust anything I was told as not being self engineered.

Q

[Guest LiterateParakeet]

I have experienced Lucid Dreaming a few times. Never intentionally, and it was not as fun as it sounds. The way people describe it, it sounds like the perfect fantasy world. It was not like that for me. When I did it, it was out of desperation. The times I remember I was in a nightmare and had tried everything else. Just at the moment of pending destruction, I realized it was a dream, and therefore I could control it. That helped ease the panic a bit. Still I was only able to make very small changes, with great concentration. Once I saved myself, or someone else from destruction, I woke up. I didn't get to stay and "play."

An example, would be once I dreamed I was falling. This doesn't seem that scary unless you take into account my terror of heights and falling. As I was sure I was going to hit the round and die, I realized it was a dream, and with serious concentration I was able to change the falling into flying. I only flew long enough to realize I was no longer in danger, then I woke up.

That was a mild bad dream for me. I have PTSD from severe childhood abuse, and if I told you some of my dreams, you might find yourself subtly inching away from me, LOL! So perhaps Lucid Dreaming is different when PTSD is not involved.

About communicating with God through dreams. I think that Heavenly Father uses, what the culture at large is ready to accept. Remember in the story of Joseph of Egypt, several people had dreams that they felt has meaning--so God used that avenue to communicate with man.

Notice that Joseph Smith did not have a dream, but a vision. I have heard that it was common in his time for people to talk about having had visions. (Which makes his story, even more reasonable to me--after all why would he be persecuted so for having had a vision when everyone was having them--unless Satan were behind the persecution.)

In our day and age, the preferred method of communication with God seems to be Prayer and personal revelation, which can come through dreams, but generally comes through feelings, and impressions, and less commonly a voice.

So in short, my answer is no. No, I don't think you can force communication with Heavenly Father through lucid dreaming.

[Anddenex]

Number one is an interesting case. I could make the case that Nephi was the one who initiated the vision that he saw in 1st Nephi, by asking the Lord to show him the things which his father saw. If we can do it in the waking world, then surely we can do it in the dream world as well.

To be more specific, and for clarification, I was actually referring to "lucid dreaming" and particularly that our invitations produce fruit when it conforms with the Lords will, but then again, who inspired Nephi to want to know, see, and hear as his father saw? For example, I have pondered the tree of life and have desired the same desire, even prayed, even memorized the whole chapter...and still to this day I have not been able to receive the same witness as Nephi...although I would sure love to experience the instruction in the same manner Nephi and Lehi received this instruction.

Number 2 is one reason why I started this thread... and one reason why I intend to proceed cautiously. I intend to learn more about being lucid before I do anything else there, but I need to actually become lucid before I can start learning. However, I think I already answered the question at least partially in at least one of my previous posts:

I remember reading somewhere in the Doctrine and Covenants that Satan cannot read the thoughts of man, but that God can. Logically this extends into dreams, because dreams are in essence, thoughts you are having in the form of images while you are sleeping. The parts in bold above are the main points.

This means that the only real spiritual influences you can have in your dreams are due to you, your subconsciousness, and the Spirit of God. Thus the only false communications you have to really worry about are the ones that you trick yourself into believing, which is a very real and distinct possibility in a dream.

Satan doesn't have the power to read our thoughts but he does have the ability to influence and tempt the mind, even our dreams (at least I see no reason for him to be blocked from tempting us through our dreams, especially the method we use to dream, or by which we induce our dreams).

[LENNOXLEWY]

Hi, I just joined lds.net. I was led here through my desire to research ministering angels after reading Moroni 10:14 tonight. I have had some dreams where I felt that my spirit was actually out of my body. Is this possible or was that part of my dream. I have written these experiences in my journal. It's funny, in one of my dreams I was in the spirit looking at my bed. But, my body and my wife's body wasn't laying on my bed. Instead, there were two other spirit beings sitting on my bed. In physical form my wife and I were sleeping on our bed. In spiritual form I couldn't see our bodies there. My spirit was having a spiritual experience with other spirits. We were playing a game together. The game was actually played with members of my family who are not yet born. Please let me know if you have any insight into this? I am fascinated by this! It is very very exciting stuff to me! 

[Seminarysnoozer]

Hi, I just joined lds.net. I was led here through my desire to research ministering angels after reading Moroni 10:14 tonight. I have had some dreams where I felt that my spirit was actually out of my body. Is this possible or was that part of my dream. I have written these experiences in my journal. It's funny, in one of my dreams I was in the spirit looking at my bed. But, my body and my wife's body wasn't laying on my bed. Instead, there were two other spirit beings sitting on my bed. In physical form my wife and I were sleeping on our bed. In spiritual form I couldn't see our bodies there. My spirit was having a spiritual experience with other spirits. We were playing a game together. The game was actually played with members of my family who are not yet born. Please let me know if you have any insight into this? I am fascinated by this! It is very very exciting stuff to me! 

Only you can know where the information is coming from but here is one clue, messages from the Spirit are enlightening whereas the made-up story line from the brain's circuitry during REM sleep is mostly random, imagined or strung together various thoughts and memories that for the most part do not provide any new enlightened understanding.  I would suggest if you have a hard time gathering the meaning of it and the meaning is not something that pushes one down the path of righteousness, then it probably wasn't a special message from the Spirit.

 

Realize that the human brain can make up information that is not there.  For example, that is what the "blind spot" is in your visual field.  We don't see the missing visual information that is created by the optic nerve's location on the retina because the brain fills in the hole with made up information as if there is actually something there to see.

 

The other thing to consider is that if spiritual messages were obtained by being "out-of-body" or semi-conscious (as is what happens in lucid dreaming) then our religion would promote things like ingesting Peyote or smoking pot or other psychoactive substances. Psychoactive substances activate the "what-if" part of the brain, in other words, they activate the imagination part of the brain to generate false information.  During dreaming our brain is putting together strings of false information, kind of like if you were to read just the title of the books on a shelf in the Library and try to make a story out of the various book titles alone. As the brain tries to determine where in the "library shelf" the recent memory should be placed, it goes through similar memories, like reading the Titles of books on a shelf, to determine where is should be stored. As it goes through this process, we normally should not be maintaining awareness.  Maintained awareness of dreams is when a person has poor quality sleep, as the wakeful circuits of the brain are separate from the sleep ciruitry it is possible to be half awake and half asleep.  That is what happens in sleep-walking, sleep-talking etc.  If the half awake and half asleep state occurs during REM that is what people sometimes call lucid dreaming and depending on the dream people also call that nightmares.  Altered consciousness is not the way we are told to communicate with the spirit, it should be done with full mind, pondering, listening carefully etc., not half conscious states. 

[LENNOXLEWY]

Thank you for the reply! There is more to the story than I indicated. But, I don't feel this is the appropriate place to share that. I will say that while I was asleep my physical body was talking, which woke my wife up, who immediately woke me up. That is when my spirit returned to my body. I was fully conscious and in that moment remembered everything that had just happened. I told my wife and later wrote it down in my journal. So I suppose I could have been lucid dreaming there. It was a spiritual dream and there were multiple messages received during and after that time (this happened a little over a week ago). I have been thinking a lot about it lately, especially when I read the posts herein last night. I am usually fully awake and conscious when the spirits are around. This isn't the first time I have played with them in my sleep. This is however, the first time I have ever been aware of my spirit being out of my body. That is a new concept to me. I thought that is what happens when we die? Maybe that experience showed me how we go from dreamland back to reality? It was pretty real though; because, my wife witnessed it and participated in bringing me back... Very interesting stuff! Thanks for the comment!

[Traveler]

Visions and dreams - visual and voices.  Historically there are rather interesting examples of wonderful revelations that come in visual form, often with interaction.  Not always does divine communication through such opportunities come through righteous individuals holding the priesthood or associated via baptism to the saints of G-d.  For example Nicola Tesla had an interactive vision of a brush-less electric motor that when powered in his dream had non-harmonic oscillations at various RPM's that Nicola was able to correct in completing the design.  In over 100 years there has not been a single improvement on Nicola's initial design.

 

However, my own personal experiences have been varied.  I have solved rather complex difficult engineering problems directly from such revelation.  I have also learned some astonishing spiritual lesson from such revelation.  I would really like to stand up and take a bow over such achievements - except I have also been caught up in some rather ridiculous  failures by such activity.

 

It seams to me that there is a realm of spiritual communication that comes to us through conscious and subconscious thoughts.  Many come with such power as to create visual and or audio sensation.   I have also experienced such thought communication with power to create sensation of taste, smell and touch as well sometimes with such power that I have been confused with weather or not the experience was real. 

 

I am inclined to believe that there is a lot more "spiritual communication" going on than we are generally willing to label as such - both as individuals and as a society as a whole.  Most often, for me, there are various thoughts that come to me from somewhere???  When I have explored these thoughts coming to me during quiet reflections I have become quite aware that a great many such thoughts do not originate with me.  Having learned to use such thoughts for my benefit I have been credited with a lot more cleverness, smarts and intelligence than what I personally really am.   Likewise I have come to believe that others have developed various behaviors from thoughts that come to them but are not initiated by them - and being do deceived they eventually think that such outside thoughts define who they are and have always been - they become and live out such thoughts believing that it is them.  When such influences become so strong - in religious circles (especially anciently) we have divined such condition as being possessed.  However, I am convinced such possessions are advanced stages of being caught up with thoughts that come to us through spiritual communications as we are discussing in part with this thread.

 

I think we should be careful in the possibility that such communications are as likely to be harmful as beneficial and especially mindful that if such communications are of G-d it always given through more than one witness or more than once. (See Genesis 41:25-32 - with special consideration for verse 32)

[Lakumi]

I always wondered what Yokoshima was, I was totally aware of the dreams and that I was dreaming (as per requirement for lucid dreams) but was not in control of them.

Other people saw her (as I described her) in their dreams too...

[LENNOXLEWY]

Nightmares!