Question: I’ve only rarely been unaware that I was dreaming at the time of dreaming. This doesn’t mean I have any control over what happens – it’s just that I know I am in a dream. This knowledge starts out as a visceral doubt or suspicion that what I’m experiencing is not real, and evolves into a full awareness that this is the case. I increasingly emotionally dissociate from the events – which are disjunctive, and not obviously narrative in any case – as the realization manifests.
Isn’t there some evidence to suggest that whatever we mean by ‘the subconscious’ does a fair bit of problem solving without conscious intervention? Might lucid dreaming actually prevent ‘organic’ troubleshooting? I’ve heard anecdotes about scientists and the like (well, a chemist, and Einstein) enjoying the problem solving benefits of dreams as dreams. As I remember, the chemist and Einstein both devoted extraordinary and concerted attention to their subjects in their waking lives, and also described their diurnal ‘imaginations’ as fairly visual and symbolic in nature.