What should new LDers be told

Quest for Lucidity
21

I have a few main problems with this approach at the moment:

  1. When do you tell the reader that some people find LDing hard? What if they know somebody who finds LDing hard, will they keep trusting your site?
  2. If something needs practice and patience, how can you tell them that it’s easy?
  3. Would you appreciate this lie? Not everybody would. I might have the feeling that somebody’s messing with my brain. Some people would consider everything a bad lie. Why lie to them if it is against their beliefs? You are the one serving them, after all - you are there reliable information source.
  4. The highly motivational writing made from this approach can be a pain to read.

By the way, we should remember that we can’t really have very much control over what newbies read. Granted, Technodreamer’s site will probably follow some sort of “midway” - i.e. something not far from his point now, and not far from my own - but apart from that, it’s beyond our control.

That said, I’ll be waiting for Technodreamer’s site with high hopes! :content:

I’m also hoping Atheist will pop along and comment. Not sure why, though… :eh:

22

It is not a trick. LD ing is nowhere near as hard as people make it out to be. It is simply a skill that has to be learned. A skill that anyone can easily learn.

23

When I first read about LD’s, I got the impression that it would be difficult and require a lot of effort, and I still haven’t had one after 4 years! (That’s soon to change though!!)

IMO, new LD’ers should be told it’s as easy as you make it for yourself, in addition to the cold facts.

24

I personally found lding quite easy… The majority of the people that tries, are successfull in having ld’s aswell, though the time it takes varies a bit from person to person. So i really disagreee when people say it is very hard to LD… Saying it is hard, might get the person to give up even before having tried… It varies from person to person, but it is sure as hell not as hard as some people here suggest.

25

It’s probably much the same as with any skill, like driving for example. Of course everyone can learn to drive a car. But it can be a difficult slow progress for some even if it is very fast and easy for others.

Compare someone who has trained 2 years and constantly failed to take his/her’s driver’s licence to someone like Michael Schumacher or Mika Häkkinen.

On the other hand suppose that someone who hasn’t heard about LD:ing is a natural that just doesn’t know about it yet - then it would be a shame to scare him/her away. It’s of course impossible to tell before he/she has tried how hard/easy it is going to be. I would also focus on the good stuff and everything i find cool about it if i was writing a newbie guide. But i would not over-exaggerate how easy it is to do, because that remains to be found out for each individual dreamer.

What placebo effect? I was half sure LD:ing wasn’t possible (fake) when i first tried it. I found out i was wrong by having one and it took me less than a week :smile:

26

That is all we are trying to get people to see.

Right now so many people think that LD ing is really hard and they are making it harder on themselves.

27

ianegg

That’s the right attitude. :bounce:

You just have to put forth the effort and practice and you will see results.

28

I’m going to reply by replying to people’s quotes.

They must regognise that not every body is the same. I don’t think they would just leave the site because it has a different view on something, unless they were strongly against something you say.

Who says lucid dreaming’s hard? Is this a placebo effect?

What makes something easy or hard? If it’s fun, it’s much easier. I will use the example of learning to ride a bik. Learning to ride a bike can be fun. This makes it seem easier, and more enjoyable overall. This learning experience will help them in the long run, giving them a posotive attitude for ever more.

Who says it’s a lie? It’s more of an opinion. There is no such thing as a wrong opinion.

Then I submit that I am not lieing, just giving my opinions. This is, that everytime I have said to myself, Lding is easy, it has been easy for me.

So does that mean that LDing is hard, and that this is a fact?

I would much rather read it than “you’ll find LDing really hard”. If you don’t like motivation, don’t read it!

My website will contain a midway point of view, but still stressing that they can make LDing an easy learning process, rather than hard.

It is beyond our control to control what they read. We can only advice them.

Yes, it’s up to them wether they make it hard or easy. I say it’s easy because it can be made easy.

If I’m noy mistaken, this severly stumped your Lding growth. I hope this can be avioded for newbies.

All we can do is try to make it easier by helping them. It’s better to have help than be left alone to tackle a challange.

And neither would I

I’ll resist the sarcasm. :tongue: I’ve already attacked your arguments to much.

OT. Will this just go in circles?

29

here’s a proposition:

newbie: is lucid dreaming hard ???
old head: it depends

let’s not try to impose our opinions or biases on them, cause just seeing how long this thread has gone on, we all have a lot of opinions and biases. i feel so bad for any newbies who have stumbled across this thread and has tried to figure out who was “right”

[i]When taxes are too high,
people go hungry.
When the government is too intrusive,
people lose their spirit.

Act for the people’s benefit.
Trust them; leave them alone.

-Lao-tzu (Tao Te Ching - Chapter 75)[/i]

let them find their own way :yinyang:

30

I agree. Leave them alone. If they ask how hard it is I will just say it depends on how hard you choose to make lucid dreaming. I will still say make it easy on yourself, but prehaps I won’t overload them with opinions.

THis topic is a good example of what could happen when you overload them with opinions.

31

We should tell them that lucid dreaming is very dangerous and stops you from ever waking up again. :tongue:

32

Tell them that if you die in a lucid dream you die in real life. The body cannot function without the brain… :smile:

33

Bloomin’ 'eck! Why are you encouraging us then if it can kill us? I’m not gonna try anymore if that’s how high the stakes are!

34

Morpheus is always right. Im just retelling what he told Neo. :wink:

You can come back to life if someone kisses you in real life while you are dying in the dream, that was also demonstrated in the Matrix :smile:

35

Lol./ I love this debate. It’s giving me motivation to lucid dream.

36

Shhh! Your sub-c might pick up on it.

37

Oops, you may be right, I read somewhere that your subconscious doesn’t understand sarcasm, or any jokes for that matter.

Dunno if that’s the casre though, 'cos it’s constantly playing pranks on me.

So you shouldn’t joke to the newbies.

I read something about AP once that said, “the only thing you have to worry about is having a heart attack,” in the first paragraph. Funnily enough, I’ve ignored it ever since.

38

Well I told you the debate will go on. This is a great discussion though.

Unfortunately I still don’t know what the right answer is. I am still 100% against telling people that lucid dreaming is hard.

Perhaps this is the safest middle ground.

We can just be supportive and encouraging with new LD ‘ers.

39

I beleive there is a new danger. If you hold your breath, you can pass out or die. No joking. So I suggest you don’t try to sufficate your self in an LD, or in RL for that matter.

Back onto topic, I am also against ever telling them that it’s hard. Because it’s not. Lucid dreaming is easy. I don’t understand why people fidn it hard. THey just make it hard. THey have to stop wanting lucidity so hard.

I just have to say this, because my teacher said it and didn’t understand why everyone was laughing at him. I guess this debate has become popular, and so we aught to call it a mass debate. Ha, ha, not funny!! :tongue: Awww, it wasn’t a bad attempt at humor!?

But we enjoy messsing with your minds. It means you will never be able to leave the forum again. Plants idea into heads :tongue:

40

I’ll pop in and just cough towards a relevant section of the wikibook which hasn’t even been changed since the debate started:

(the underlines are mine)

This is called Neutral point of view. I think that I’ll just pop in and say that I agree with what people seem to have arrived at, which is NPOV, so I win. :content: