Faulty Logic In Dreams

Original video by Stephen Berlin. Official website of Stephen Berlin's Lucid Dreaming Discourses: here, YouTube account here. The following text in this entry is a transcript.



Hello, friends and neighbors near and far I’m not going to introduce myself tonight because I’m getting sick of hearing my own name! But I am going to talk about faulty logic, one of three key ingredients in your dreams, according to me, which also include day residue and false remembrance. But the topic today, faulty logic, I first want to nail that word, “faulty”. You know, in the waking world, faulty logic might get you in trouble. You might walk in front of a bus! But what happens if you walk in front of a bus in the dream world? Well, you might wake up. Gee, what a shame. You know? So, consequently, logic in dreams doesn’t have the consequences, or failure of logic in dreams doesn't have the consequences that a failure of logic has in the waking world. Now, therefore, for creative people like you and me, we can use that as a tool because we are not bound by the logic of the real world, we are not restrained by it. It’s flexible, and we can use that flexibility to experience things we otherwise would not be able to experience. Now, anyone that’s had transcendent dreams or mystical states of consciousness, or even those that have taken hallucinogenic drugs like LSD and those kinds of things, will tell you that the logic in those altered states seems to be when you’re in those states, a “higher logic” or all-inclusive and all-encompassing.

And from my own experience in transcendent dreams, I would have to say that seems to be true. So, anyway, now that I’ve taken the sting out of the word “faulty” let me now move on to what is the number one logical flaw we all make while we’re dreaming?

(pause)

Time’s up. You think you’re awake! And with all of this bizarre, weird crap going on all around you, you think you’re awake. That’s the number one logical flaw. Now, for lucid dreamers who become aware that they’re dreaming during the course of the dream, does their logic suddenly become better? Well, the answer to that is, not necessarily, and I’m going to give you a couple of examples. Now there are degrees of lucidity, but I can’t go into that tonight, it’s another subject entirely, there are really all kinds of degrees of lucidity, and it’s a fascinating phenomenon in and of itself.

But, to give you some examples of faulty logic—When I was completely lucid—My daughter, Hillary, about ten years ago, she was in her upper dreams, hadn’t had a lucid dream yet, so I was, you know, kind of like trying to get her interested in this and get her to have one—And then, one night, she suddenly appeared in one of my lucid dreams. Well, what a perfect opportunity to teach her lucid dreaming, right? So, I taught her how to walk through a plate glass window, and I took her outside, and we went flying together! And, of course, I pointed everything out, and, you know, and I was really jazzed during the dream. Of course, when I woke up, and I’m sure you see where this is going, I knew that if I picked up the phone and I called Hillary and said, “Hey, Hillary, what do you think about that lucid dream we were just in?”—she would think I was drinking again.

I also want to point out that in that dream, we walked through a plate glass window, then I took her outside to start flying. Another logical flaw. You know, why take her outside? You can fly through the ceiling, you can fly through the wall! But the reason I did is—and I’m going to cut myself some slack on this, and I think most lucid dreamers would agree with me on this—in dreams, even when we’re lucid, we still tend to walk through doorways instead of through walls. We’re creatures of habit from our waking world, and it’s just a natural tendency to therefore follow the same behaviors.

So, okay, now the second example I have of faulty logic when I'm lucid, and this one’s very recent, maybe a couple of weeks ago, I was in a dream and I was in this antiquarian book/antique store, and it had all these really curious, quaint volumes of forgotten lore, the kind of things that I would really relish, and all of these weird artifacts, another kind of thing I like—Although, you know, in this American consumer society where we have to have more and more stuff, and I have to gratefully say I’m getting a little bit past that, thankfully, I’m liquidating—less is more—but that’s getting off the subject. But nevertheless, despite the fact that I’m liquidating and less is more, in the dream I was drooling over this stuff I wanted. So, it’s hard to break habits, as I just discussed a minute ago.

So, while I was despondent in my dream that I’m retired now, I’m on a fixed income, I have to think before I buy, what a drag, I can’t be flopping down those credit cards and transferring balances…So, anyway, then I suddenly became lucid. And when I became lucid, of course, I thought, “I don’t have to pay for this stuff! I don’t have to worry about being on a fixed income! It’s my dream! It’s mine!” So I loaded up all this stuff and out I walked.

Well, woke up and…you know…

(looks around and lifts the books on the table and looks underneath them as if searching)

…didn’t bring any of it back with me! A failure in logic. So, that’s that. Well, this, this might go on record as being my shortest discourse, so I better get going while the going’s good. So, anyway, the next talk is going to be on false remembrance, which is really fascinating, and we’re going to have to give that some extra time and organization because there’s parts of that I really don’t want to miss talking about. So, until then, everyone out there stay healthy, and I leave you to the wisdom of the night.