2. It's easy to lose track of reality.
3. Moral and ethical complications.
4. Confrontations with Supreme Deities and Supernatural Creatures.
Of the four concerns I've seen regarding lucid dreaming, only two are actually valid issues.
Morals and Ethics
Does hurting someone in the dream actually hurt anyone, or are they just a figment of your imagination?
It depends on your perspective on dreaming: is the dream a real world place like Charles deLint and Christopher Golden
paint in their stories? Or are your dreams simply contained in your own head? If the dream world is a real place, then not only do your morals and ethics still apply, but you need to be aware of those of the beings around you. If the dream world exists entirely within your own head, then I must defer back to the question I asked about paedophilia: does thinking about a sin count as sinning? Many religions will say yes, but that's a question you really need to answer for your own self.Confrontations with Supreme Deities and Supernatural Creatures
Every religion and spiritual lifestyle teaches a different behavior for meeting your God or Goddess face-to-face. In the dreamworld, such an occurrence is not only possible, it's downright likely.
Considering Bruce Balfour's "Prometheus Road
," the characters are raised and taught to be reverent to their aloof and mostly unconcerned overlords, and naturally that does not sit well with all of the characters (who are the ones who drive the story-line).Considering Charles deLint's dreamworlds, all dream creatures should be treated with a Native-American-esk reverence, and sometimes a ten-foot pole. Many of them are r were supernatural or supreme beings, and unlike Neil Gaiman's "American Gods
," their power is not based primarily on the dedication and quantity of their worshipers.If you decide that the dreamworld exists entirely and only inside your own head, you have little to be concerned about. But what if you're wrong?
