NovaDreamer and the REM-Dreamer
Here's a comparison of the REM-Dreamer and the NovaDreamer.
I bought the Nova Dreamer about a year ago, the REM-Dreamer in November. I have several friends doing 3-year retreat in the Karma Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, and, as many of you know, one part of that retreat is devoted to the Six Dharmas of Naropa, one of which is the practice of dream yoga. My friends asked me to try out both models, intending to buy 10-12 of whichever model I recommended for the retreat center. They, like many others with an interest in this, were quite put off by the exorbitant charge for the NovaDreamer, and were hoping the REM-Dreamer would do the trick. I do a one-month solitary retreat every year and agreed to test both units for the month of February.
The NovaDreamer is well designed, expensive, and comes with a comprehensive manual. I believe the unit is no longer available, but I’ve heard that a redesign is in the works. The controls are easy to use. In fact, after working with it for a while, there's no need to refer to the instruction manual. This comes in handy during times of total darkness and night-time fumbling. If you're rich, stop right here, this is the unit for you, if you can find one. I would say that both the NovaDreamer and the REM-Dreamer are really worth about $150-200. The NovaDreamer, in particular, goes for 3-4 times that price. If money is no object, go for it. It’s a fine unit.
The REM-Dreamer arrived in November. In contrast to the NovaDreamer, the controls and settings require that you have the somewhat confusing manual with you when you set it up. My REM-Dreamer appeared to register movement (its motion detectors make a sound in the set-up protocol that tells you it's registering) but it didn't give any cues during the night. I went over the somewhat garbled instructions very carefully, replaced the batteries, tried different settings, and gave up. No luck. I emailed the guy who sold it to me (from the website for REM-Dreamer) and he said, "Send it back." I did so. I didn’t get it back in time to take into retreat.
I got out of retreat in March, and had the REM-Dreamer returned to me in May. It seemed to work. Either the unit "fixed itself," or I was reading the directions incorrectly. Probably the latter. I offered to help the man who sold it to me write a more comprehensible manual in English. He agreed that would be a good idea. I’ve almost put that together to send to him. However, since I didn’t have it for my retreat, I was unable to do a side-by-side comparison.
So, I spent the month of February in sealed retreat at DKD retreat center in southern Colorado with the NovaDreamer. "Sealed retreat" means that once you're up in the cabin, you stay up there and don't see anyone until retreat is finished. I worked with the dream practice in the traditional Karma Kagyu way during the day, and used the NovaDreamer each night.
I've found that the practices of the Six Dharmas in general and dream practice in particular are very personal. They work right off the bat for some, and never works for others. I have a friend who spent about 4 years in sealed retreat, and didn't have much luck with dream practice. His girlfriend, with no experience in meditation, could lucidly dream immediately, just by hearing about it. The traditional dream curriculum is to engage in various acts of increasing complexity in one's dreams. She could do it. She'd wake up and say, "Well, I did it, what's next?"
So, for me, the NovaDreamer wasn't much help in clicking into lucidity. I did use the dream-alarm feature of the NovaDreamer, and in doing so, my dreams became easy to remember, and much more clear. That was good. It was sometimes amazing, and often tiring; after a long day of sitting meditation it's sometimes nice just to turn out the lights, turn off one's mind, and drift away. Sometimes, with the NovaDreamer, I felt like I'd been up all night watching movies. Very strange movies.
In the end, I suggested to my friends going into retreat that they just do the practice in the traditional manner, as outlined in the texts on the Six Dharmas, or maybe buy just one unit and try it out. But I couldn't recommend buying 10-12 of either device. I just don't think the dream devices are a magic bullet for implementing lucid dreaming. I think each person has to sort through all the lucid dreaming techniques and find what works for them. Implementing lucid dreaming can be a daunting practice. For some, it will take a lot of patience and development of intention. In fact, it might work for lots of people. It just didn't work for me either with the lucid dream devices or the night visualization practices of the Six Dharmas.
Here's what finally did work. In retreat, I set an alarm to go off every hour, on the hour, 24 hours. I used a clock (called an "Identiflyer") that tweeted like a bird. This was not as obnoxious as a beeping or ringing alarm. When the alarm went off, I'd stop whatever I was doing, whether on the meditation cushion or not, and do a short state-test. Then, each morning I'd write down all I could remember of my dreams. I'd spend about 20 minutes before going to bed writing affirmations regarding dream practice. I'd get up about 3:30 AM, have a cup of tea, and meditate on the cushion for about 15 minutes. Then, back to bed, and dreaming. All of this can be quite difficult to implement, but it was much easier for me to pull off consistently in the cloister of retreat.
After 21 days my dreams had become quite vivid. However, no lucidity. Then, I was splitting wood one afternoon outside the cabin when I heard a sound in the woods. I thought, "A person." I was quite startled. It wasn't a person, it was a rabbit. But it clicked; it would work as a dream-sign. A person. The only time I'd seen anyone for 21 days was in dreams. My dreams always revolve around people and my interactions with them. However, it's only after 3 weeks of sealed retreat that I could safely say "The next time I see a person I'll know I'm dreaming." So that's what I did.
