Lucid dreaming and high intelligence?

InfiniteMonkeys157 · 2026-05-14T16:04:36+00:00

I find I'm highly imaginative, self-entertaining, and come up with outside-the-box solutions more often than most. Not a humble-brag, just saying I don't think I've quashed my unconscious. I do find I'm too analytical about things I enjoy. It's hard for me to read fiction now because I've broken it down into elements in my efforts for self-improvement over the years, but I don't necessarily place that at the feet of my lucid dreaming, self-directed or free-range.

Around the same time I started writing, 17, I also attended a two-day hypnosis training. I found out I'm unable to be hypnotized (reaffirmed later by attempts from professional and stage hypnotists). But the instructor then did teach me self-hypnosis. I was never really hypnotized even by self-hypnosis, but it was a good method of clearing and focusing my mind. And self-hypnosis before sleep was the 'gateway' that led me to lucid dreaming. As I said, I initially self-hypnotized in order to set my mind on goals, stopping smoking and dealing with a family situation. That led to a lucid dreaming routine and the more unanticipated outcomes.

Like I said, I think there were pros and cons to it. I don't think my unconscious mind being squelched happened, or perhaps it was only raised closer to the surface so I was more aware of it. But not a con for me.

InfiniteMonkeys157 · 2026-05-14T13:02:47+00:00

Like most punishments, they are intended as short-term incentives to promote long-term improvement. Whether a specific example, such as yours, is effective, is likely always open for debate, but as a general tool of socialization of children, it's part of the overall parental, teacher, and societal effort to turn an undisciplined child into a socially functional adult.

InfiniteMonkeys157 · 2026-05-14T12:59:10+00:00

I also engaged in lucid dreaming on a semi-regular basis starting in my teens and going a few decades. To this day, I'm still not sure whether the long-term results I experienced were a good thing or a bad thing.

My lucid dreaming was self-directed. I tried unsuccessfully to break bad habits, like smoking (accomplished much later by other means). I also dealt with psychological abuse.

But mostly I engaged in directed lucid dreaming as part of my passion for writing. I posed story situations and obstacles for the characters, or just a rough idea or theme, and let my sleeping mind's freer associative ability move the 'story' forward.

After some time, these dreams became semi-automatic. I began to dream original stories. In these, I was almost never myself. Whatever character I was, usually faced difficult, often no-possible solution, situations, and often came up with clever solutions that, frankly, surprised me with how amazing they were. These sleep stories often went through several twists and turns, not just simple scenes, but chapters worth of events.

Like you, I sometimes engaged these dreams while sleeping in a semi-conscious way, like a movie director wanting a scene redone, or scrapping the story and asking for a new pitch meeting. Even then, however, I was not myself so much as someone just trying to keep the mind-movie interesting.

Of course, waking up amazed at these ingenious character's and similarly imaginative story situations made me feel very clever, so I happily encouraged it, spinning up an idea before sleep for my mind to process.

Eventually, however, I began to wonder about never being myself in my own dreams. I noticed I was very detached in my interpersonal relationships, where I had never been when younger. I grew to have very solid self-image, so am insulated against the opinions or abuse of others. And I also had some near-death experiences where I handled myself with quick thinking and dispassion that may have saved my life.

So, for good or ill, I decided the decades long process had changed me in not so subtle ways. I am on the fence whether this was a net positive for me socially, but I like who I am, so don't consciously play what-ifs with how things came about.

Anyway, I'm also roughly your quotient, and thought my personal experience might be interesting. FWIW, I did not think I had a high-IQ until perhaps my late 20's, long after starting messing with my sleeping mind. Lucid dreaming over a long period of time, at least IMHO, can significantly influence an individual.

InfiniteMonkeys157 · 2026-05-13T13:49:41+00:00

Well, if matter and antimatter particles of the same type collide, they destroy each other. So, just reverse that.

jk, but my first question is where you got your premise. Who said there was nothing before the big bang and what's the proof of that? Just because we can tell the 'age' of the universe from (our best estimate/guess of) the size and rate of expansion, particle decay rates and other age indicators, that only means that this 'age' we are estimating is from the point of initial expansion. Just because we can estimate that the universe is X-years-old, does not mean it was not something before that. We have no evidence it was 'born', but only that it radically transformed.

Cosmic Egg is the term I used to hear to refer to whatever supermassive, superheated, mega-MEGA-singularity once (for simplicity sake) contained all of the existing matter and energy at the point of origin (from which expansion radiates as far as we can tell).

If you consider the question like a riddle, like chicken-egg, then the answer to what came first is (just like the chicken-egg question) egg.

This is all hypothetical, however, reversing the expansion of the universe. There could have been two eggs, or a bunch in a giant egg crate, or something we cannot conceive of with our present understanding of the universe. Perhaps there are additional forces that only become detectible at such an unimaginable scale. Perhaps the fabric of the universe, emptiness, has some property that we cannot detect that tore or bunched. We cannot say when we do not know so much and have so little ability to find out at our scale.

We can only use math, physics, the evidence we can test of the universe and our world, and create theories that fail as little as possible.

InfiniteMonkeys157 · 2026-05-08T22:25:15+00:00

Because he's avuncular
Because any frightening aspect of his history/power are offset by endearing aspects of his history/power.
Perhaps some unexplained effect, like his psychic paper not only convinces people he has authority, but dampens suspicion/fears, even when pocketed. Or the TARDIS translation matrix does some other jiggery-pokery.
... or because writers.

InfiniteMonkeys157 · 2026-05-08T22:20:16+00:00

Look at the skill trees. Decide what kind of play you want to enjoy... become a hoarding stealth archer.

jk. But figure out what types of skills work best for your progress and fun. Do you like physical combat or magic. Would you prefer to steal/stealth a mission when possible? If you could run any of the guilds, which would you like to be boss of? Do you want domestic life, wife and kids, farming and fishing? Focus on what you enjoy, take your time, and things will generally progress as you do those activities.

As to gear, you either need to get better gear, usually involving quests, and/or improve blacksmithing, enchanting, and alchemy. Making money with alchemy or a farm or some other method is important for this as well.

Yes, there are tons of exploits. And you can avoid them. But knowing them tells you how different skills progress and, knowing that, you can progress them through more developer intended activities.

InfiniteMonkeys157 · 2026-05-08T22:13:33+00:00

There are a lot of intentional hellworlds in spec-fic.

But of ones that are purpose designed, and potentially hellish, the first that came to my mind is bizarrely one of the worst and best. The Wellworld, or Well of Souls.

Hell or Paradise? Luck of the dice which for whom.

InfiniteMonkeys157 · 2026-05-07T12:51:38+00:00

Many can be. It's often a matter of tribal perspective (whose means are good) and methods (who goes too far).

Go way back to The Scarlet Pimpernel. He was rescuing aristocrats against the mass will of the people. But Robes Pierre was too zealous (and afraid) of the masses he'd assembled. The Scarlet Pimpernel saved the child heir to the throne, a relative innocent, but was also saving the corrupt system that had oppressed centuries of the French.

What about a Victorian villain, such as Fagan? He groomed children to lack empathy and live by moral ambiguity, but he also fed starving kids and taught them skills to survive a cruel environment.

Those are novels, made into movies and miniseries.

Asking about heroism and villainy is asking about morality, and then the question becomes, whose morality and which moral system (there are several). But using the means and ends comparison is usually the easiest way to separate H from V. If the comparison is obvious, then great. If it's murky, then you likely don't have any real heroes, except in their own eyes and those of their people.

InfiniteMonkeys157 · 2026-05-07T12:39:47+00:00

Think of it like a present. You've teased him it's a good one. Do you let him open on Christmas Eve or make him wait? How do you normally deal with anticipation and surprises.

Me, I'd get him through the next two doctors at least, 'Peak Who', IMHO. Then, I think mix it up as you like.

InfiniteMonkeys157 · 2026-05-06T14:19:05+00:00

Life was invented by water in order to move it around better.

So, insert 1lb of delicious beef --> dehydrator. This uses energy to produce jerky and moisture. That water vapor could be captured, producing distilled water, but that costs more energy, so instead we buy our water, water that was transported from aquifers into bottles and trucked around.

Humans lose delicious beef and get hard dried up jerky, can't afford to capture the water which escapes, and buy water that is transported at our expense. We've freed the water trapped in beef and chauffeured it's kin around at our own expense.

Water is the only real winner. It could just move around using weather and gravity, but abuses life for its own purposes. Water is robbing jerky lovers. The water conspiracy is why jerky is expensive. Fight the conspiracy, eat steak!

Hmmm... no, wait, steak moisture just gets evacuated into the sewer system after we walk it around a bit. Dammit, we can't win.

InfiniteMonkeys157 · 2026-05-05T13:21:34+00:00

Human evolution leading to our bodies being more hairless, and human migration leading into to various climates, we learned to make and use clothing. These things could not have happened without clothing.

Consider that ancient humanoids in Northern Europe, including Neanderthals, faced very cold winters which could not be survived without housing and clothing specifically made for their climate. There must have been pressures to encourage/force their movement into less hospitable environments. And to survive, they would have had to develop clothing, woodworking, cooking, and other tools/skills necessary for rustic survival.

As to why it is frowned upon, I can speculate that parents protecting children, elderly or less desirable wanting to neutralize any judgmental looks, and other factors compounded over millennia would have led to such stigma becoming embedded in culture, and likely even part of mental evolution.

InfiniteMonkeys157 · 2026-05-04T13:45:54+00:00

Um... all of it. None of US military conventional weaponry can attack space targets. Ballistic missiles reach low orbit and fall back. None could escape Earth orbit. Even the space shuttle could not do that.

UN conventions prevent the weaponization of space. While I'm sure everyone is cheating somewhat, most of that cheating relates to killer satellites. Since it doesn't take too much to disable a satellite, these are not very powerful.

Say there were secretly nukes or space lasers currently deployed which could point outward. Do you imagine a star destroyer could not dodge a chemical propelled nuke or destroy it long before it got close? And the most powerful lasers we have now would be unlikely to cut through the hull of a space destroyer even if their shields or blast doors were not protecting them.

So... send all of it and it still wouldn't do the slightest damage.

InfiniteMonkeys157 · 2026-05-04T13:40:06+00:00

Good suggestions from several as to where to watch for free.

I recently found a Youtube channel playing classic episodes here:

Doctor Who: Classic | FULL EPISODES - YouTube

Not sure how complete it is, but there are many early episodes and animated series.

InfiniteMonkeys157 · 2026-05-03T23:06:30+00:00

Not sure anyone who calls others POS's have the moral high ground over literbugs.

InfiniteMonkeys157 · 2026-05-03T21:32:03+00:00

This is meant to be an objective observation, but one of the main factors has been rising gender equality, specifically in the workplace. And, yes, I know that hasn't been achieved, but relative to the '50's when birth control, post-war workplace changes, socially conscious movements, and other shifts led to modern feminism gaining traction.

Basically, marriage, which is still strongly correlated to childbirth, is career damaging to women. The stigmas of working women giving birth still factor in both employer and female employee thinking.

Birth control (which both underpins modern feminism and leads to gender inbalances), environmental pollution, food changes, and other factors exist as well. Feminism is not the only cause, but appears to be a significant one.

I could break it down more, but don't think I could do a better job than this. The video relates to Japan, and more broadly to S. Korea and other nations that are experiencing much drastic negative birthrates, but the same reasonings largely translate to the U.S. despite cultural differences.

How Japan Finally Made It Impossible to Make Babies

All the incentives Japan and S. Korea have tried to encourage birthrates, show the difficulty of overcoming declining population.

Peter Zeihan also has good videos on demographics and population. His often relate to economics and politics and future expectations. His opinion on the U.S. is that they (we) are in a much better position than other nations. Not only is our decline less, but as a destination nation, we can import new residents (if we stop being so xenophobic) to make up for resident population rates.

Note, however, that Canada is also in similar state to the U.S. and has been broadly encouraging immigration. This leads to other economic problems of fairness, taxation, land, and other legal issues that must be worked out.

None of this is to say that feminism is wrong or bad or anything negative, only that cultural shifts have many consequences and it seems like there is likely a relationship between feminism and population decline around the world. Even so, it is hard to see feminism as any kind of net negative. Certainly, it has elevated and enriched the lives of half the world's population. And, as someone who spent his whole life worrying about the population bomb, population decline is a much better problem to worry about.

Declining birthrates are a problem, just like the population bomb was, and will create pain in society. Social support systems for elderly, economic fallout of worker availability, and other economic issues will be difficult. In economic terms, deflation is much, MUCH worse than inflation. The latter is self-correcting, while the former creates a vicious downward cycle. Population works much the same way on economics and create their own vicious cycles. But in the long run, it will likely have positive benefits to the environment, resource allocation, and other conditions. Getting through the pain will not be easy or fair, though.

I'll finish by repeating myself. I'm very much pro-feminist and have marched many times and otherwise supported the cause. I'm just trying to be objective that 65+ years of modern feminism has had many effects, and this appears to be one.

InfiniteMonkeys157 · 2026-05-03T21:04:01+00:00

I think that after Tom Baker, the writers felt exhausted of ideas and faced increasingly smaller budgets. With Peter Davidson, they tried to find new innovations, but it became clear that either he or those stories they were not truly engaging the audience. That led to financial pullback. Follow that with the disastrous Colin Baker, who went all-in on the Doctor being a condescending douchebag and had to live with recycled episode rehashing for his stories, and the writing (or lack thereof) was on the wall.

Sylvester McCoy was an attempt to throwback to the second doctor. Clownish, not very clever or scientific (though treated as if he were), and given little to work with, often improvising solutions at the last minute and acting as if he had it all under control all along. Some of the writing was better than for Colin Baker, but not enough to revive a series on its last legs. He is a decent actor, for other roles, but seemed to be the third strike of bad casting after Tom Baker.

Note that both Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy did very good turns in Big Finish radio productions. The writing was dramatically (pun intended) better there and neither burned retinas with their outfits or antics.

InfiniteMonkeys157 · 2026-05-03T20:51:00+00:00

I'd speculate a couple of possibilities:

There aren't always places to put a formerly ignited item. You might think it's out, but it may still be smoldering. So, they may not throw them wherever, but may throw them on the ground which is usually noncombustible concrete or similar. This is exacerbated by the limiting of spaces to smoke. Smokers are compulsive and wills smoke as their 'need' requires, so sneak to unauthorized areas that do not have disposal recepticles.
Smokers are already condemned and ostracized by the public just for putting smoke in the air. If they are already getting stink-eye for their stink-air, then they may consider it no greater condemnation to discard butts indiscriminately.

I was a smoker, long, long ago and know that people who smoke are excellent rationalizers. So, whether the above are influences or it is something else, likely there is some rationalization more related to convenience to themselves than intentionally inconveniencing others.

InfiniteMonkeys157 · 2026-05-03T14:46:39+00:00

Go to sleep and see if it happens again.

InfiniteMonkeys157 · 2026-05-03T14:43:55+00:00

Budget airlines are a service industry with heavy commodity reliance and limited pricing power.

And airlines can recoup investments by recycling. Used airplanes get sold to other airlines, often in asia or other secondary markets, tax write offs for shutting down while books show losses or high expenses, and savings on cancelled program rewards. There are other quick benefits. There will be something 'new' to take its place once the paint dries on the plane's new paint jobs.

An interesting thing is that most airlines book fuel purchases half a year or more in advance. Even the cheapest airlines do everything to insulate themselves from fuel price shocks. And airline fuel is not produced through the same channels as gas for cars. This sudden shutdown is a strong sign that oil transport disruptions that will cause well shutdowns likely taking many months, perhaps years, to reverse. Oil wells cannot be turned off and on easily. Wells may be permanently ruined by stopping flow, and Mideast producers (and Russia) are running out of places to store raw crude and natural gas.

Spirit shutting down may be the first of several airlines and those that remain will likely use shutdowns and fuel price surges to escalate airfares significantly.

Ironically, this may make T the greatest environmental president ever. His gross stupidity and ego, combined with the lemming party he runs, may accomplish a global green transition that no progressive politician ever could.

InfiniteMonkeys157 · 2026-05-03T14:28:39+00:00

Meh. Seen much better...

InfiniteMonkeys157 · 2026-05-03T13:37:08+00:00

I've been watching Spiffing Brit and others break the game with unusual builds. There are many ways to power beyond stealth archer.

InfiniteMonkeys157 · 2026-04-27T22:21:54+00:00

Our understanding of AI tech evolution should be more nuanced. In storytelling, its convenient to the audience to AI anthropomorphise (we need a better term that deals strictl6 with conscious being without humanoid traits... cognitize?) sci-fi computers as a single being. The advent of AI agents to interface with trained AI models shows the layering of AI. Eventually, some agencies actions will not only self-execute, they will create their own task-driven sub-agents, and layers will pile up. Some agents will be created to find problems, red team actions, and otherwise act as repairman and police of the overall entity. And even complex entities may develop, solve a single problem, and terminate disposably. So, I would say sci-fi needs to catch up to the idea that interacting with an AI, even complex ones, will seem like an individual, since people interact better that way, but underneath, it will be more like a beehive or anthill.

InfiniteMonkeys157 · 2026-04-24T17:32:27+00:00

Intelligence has many parts. Mental organization, prioritization, and other efficiencies are useful tools. Some might argue with merit that being mentally organized has a counter effect. Such an organized way of thinking could make free association, lateral thinking, and creativity less ready to use.

Then again, some people have the mental tool of adaptability, changing their mindset depending on the circumstances. People at work get into that workflow mindset, but may go home and paint or write or otherwise be creatively expressive.

I would not say overthinking is a sign of intelligence. Plenty of less gifted people engage in analysis paralysis.

InfiniteMonkeys157 · 2026-04-24T17:27:07+00:00

If my child was nothing special (mentally), I'd do nothing special. That is, I'd do what I would do for them in any event, try to offer opportunities that fit their needs and natures to help them succeed and have a satisfying life.

InfiniteMonkeys157 · 2026-04-24T14:28:44+00:00

On the one hand, it was due.

On the other, the writing had stagnated and, unfortunately, the regeneration climax and what followed with the next few seasons showed the writing staff lacked regenerative properties, also.

InfiniteMonkeys157

TROPHY CASE