Agreed. I've yet to have ego death, or the overwhelming feeling of solipsism when sleeping. The only time I've had even a remotely similar experience when sleeping was the time I had a fever that caused me to hallucinate. That's once in my life, you know of entering a dream state every day of my existence.

I've also yet to have a dream that can overwhelmingly shift my perspective and motivation. An LSD trip made me "take the risk" and move continent with no support to be with my girlfriend. I say "take the risk", because I can just walk into any police station and get my ass deported and land right back at my parents house. Everyone thought I was crazy, but LSD made me see the real probability of risk in that it was negligible.

Mushrooms made me motivated to lose weight. I remember standing in my bathroom naked looking at myself and I came to the conclusion I wanted to be in shape for my son.

Another mushroom trip made me reevaluate risk and see that I have to start my own business. In fact, I just registered a business name and got insurance so I can get licensed.

Funny that dreaming did none of this for me.

In debates about what is considered soft drugs I often see opinions of people claiming

that persistent use shortens your attention span?

I like the way calling it a "waking dream" hints that, during a trip, the subconscious (whatever it is concretely) expands its connection with the conscious mind.

The fact that lucid dreaming is a way to explore your mind ("psychonaut" is a name that both psychedelic users and lucid dreamers use) is more evidence of that, for me.

good point. i'm just hesitant to throw lucid dreaming, meditation, and LSD into the same bucket. it's like comparing a hammer to a paintbrush to a belt sander.

i mean, they may very well all belong in exactly the same bucket. i am just hesitant to jump to that conclusion.

on what basis do you base the assumption that the subconscious mind is something "concretely" ? Isn't it's non-concreteness kind of the point of calling it the subconscious ?

"Calling it a "waking dream" also kind of undermines how insane dreaming actually is and how little we know about it."

-- Absolutely true.

Sleep itself is insane. At least in dreams you're concious more or less, but losing conciousness every night? We'd increase the human lifespan by 50% if we could only eliminate this helpless dependency we have.

http://xkcd.com/203/

You don't want to eliminate the source of imagination, do you?