Thread: Stop Drop and Roll. Why Lucidology and Nicholas Newport are creating misinformation.

Originally Posted by Suby

"I agree 100% and think that this should be stickied in the newbie zone."



THANK YOU SO MUCH. and YES STICKY it. I hate how a real phenomenon such as lucid dreaming is being overcome by all the new age filth like dream signs/meanings/guides or meeting up in a dream with somone else... I find it difficult to sift through all the BS on here sometimes. But otherwise, there are some damn good guides here if you bother to search and a great forum community for the most part.

My thinking exactly. Lucidology is a thinly veiled sales scam, promoting misinformation and bad-science (as in totally made up nonsense pretending to be science).

It's a shame lucid dreaming is so often tarnished with the brush of nonsense.
It's worrying and sad that people newly interested in the subject will be mislead, fed bad information or simply lied to in order for others to make money or boost the ego of the snake-oil-salesman.

It's nice to know though, that so many lucid dreamers, like yourself suby, share the same passion and enthusiasm for lucid dreaming, and want to help promote it as a genuine, intelligent subject.

I've no problem with people speculating on theories or exploring dreams as a means to self understanding and exploration. As long as it is made clear that it is speculation or personal experimentation. It's when people muddy the water with claims of "facts" about lucidity that are false or misleading to promote their own agendas.

What's more worrying is how many people seem to have been sucked in by these style of infomercial videos. I'd always assumed most lucid dreamers were a little more discerning and thoughtful than the average Joe.

Originally Posted by spaceexplorer

My thinking exactly. Lucidology is a thinly veiled sales scam, promoting misinformation and bad-science (as in totally made up nonsense pretending to be science).

It's a shame lucid dreaming is so often tarnished with the brush of nonsense.
It's worrying and sad that people newly interested in the subject will be mislead, fed bad information or simply lied to in order for others to make money or boost the ego of the snake-oil-salesman.

It's nice to know though, that so many lucid dreamers, like yourself suby, share the same passion and enthusiasm for lucid dreaming, and want to help promote it as a genuine, intelligent subject.

I've no problem with people speculating on theories or exploring dreams as a means to self understanding and exploration. As long as it is made clear that it is speculation or personal experimentation. It's when people muddy the water with claims of "facts" about lucidity that are false or misleading to promote their own agendas.

What's more worrying is how many people seem to have been sucked in by these style of infomercial videos. I'd always assumed most lucid dreamers were a little more discerning and thoughtful than the average Joe.

Well... sadly, people like easy fast fantasy rather than the harder reality. Even though reality can be weird and wonderful if you look carefully enough and take the time to try and understand it.

Also sadly, I am not a lucid dreamer. I wish I was, but I lack the motivation for that or much else. Maybe sometime in the future I'll try again. I've only had a couple lucid dreams in my life.

On the body testing mind subject (which I think we all agree means the mind testing the mind via the body) during a number of Wilds
I have experienced the incredible itching reported by a number of others.
After ignoring the itching, I soon ended up in a lucid.
This may not be co-incidental.

Its not that these videos dont have truth in them. They do have truth in them. He understands the general idea of lucid dreaming, maybe more than just the general idea, but he is simply trying to sell you his product. They have truth but he beefs it up and makes it sound good. I personally think it sounds like shit and makes me want to find where he lives and set his house on fire (not really ). Its like if somebody, lets say a true teacher of some sort, said "Hey everyone look i found out how to conjure twinkies from thin air, i will teach anyone who wants to know because this should not be a secret kept from anyone as it is just too great." and then a dirty little slimeball of a man comes along and sais "Hey everyone, I know all about conjuring twinkies, follow my step by step program and you will know how to do this incredible technique in no time!" and then he throws in a little fine, and gains more popularity because he knows how to advertise, and soon enough a whole bunch of people are oblivious to the teacher but pay this scum bag their hard earned money for something that works, but all those unfortunate people are buying only part of the bigger technique, so the guy can make more profit, while the people learning under the teacher get it for free and are probably a lot more informed and better at it. Bottom line...dont buy this guy's b.s. its not fair to yourself, or any one else.

On the subject of not moving...
The exact same thing happens to a lot of meditators, they too can "get past the pain barrier" so to speak, but this does not result in them having sleep paralysis, nor does it mean they fall asleep. Instead they remain in a relaxed medatative state, with an awake mind, and awake body.
It seems to me to be pretty obvious, that if one turns one attention inwards, and cuts of most sensory input, either via meditation or lucid dream WILD practices... the mind will latch onto any small urges, and magnify them into an almost compulsive desire to give them your full attention.
I don't think this is any kind of testing system, I imagine it's akin to sitting in a completely bare room, with nothing but a red rose in the corner... of course your attention is going to be drawn again and again to the one piece of stimuli, the rose, or in the case of meditation and WILDs bodily sensations and itches.

This of course will be even more hightened if part of your practice or what you've been taught tells you to "ignore" them... because it suddenly becomes part of what you expect, and something you want to avoid... which ironically primes your awareness to notice it.

Of course if you ignore something long enough, it will pass, that's just life.
Does that mean you've "passed a test"?
I don't think so.
What you have done, is moved into a state of deeper relaxation, where your attention can settle down. Personally, I think the same thing can be achived by simply not giving any importance to the body, and just relaxing in the normal way you'd fall asleep (as in just getting comfy).

But to me, the fact that meditators get the very same experience, yet do not fall into deep sleep or sleep paralysis even though they too ignore it... is kind of enough evidence to prove that it's not some kind of special testing system, and instead just a natural example of magnified awareness.

On the subject of Lucidology.
I fully agree with Mitch.
I'd go one step further and say:
Not only is lucidology sneaky in the fact that it contains small elements of truth... but it also then goes on to seemingly build upon that truth with nonsense... but people believe the nonsense, because it had a seed of truth in it initially.

I've no problem with people making money from a subject, I have huge respect for Laberge and other dream researchers.
The difference between them and Newport, is that they have some kind of integrity. They stick with the facts, make it clear when they are speculating, and educate in a sensible, intelligent fashion.
Newport on the other hand, pretty much behaves like he is the final word, "knows it all", and then spews out a load of meaningless pseudo-science and made up terminology... all of which is basically nonsense.
In an attempt to confuse and bamboozle the naive and gullable into parting with their money.

Sure he may have a few bits of knowledge, but no more than any member of DreamViews. In fact, I'd say he knows less... because he is so caught up in his lucid-dream-messiah complex, that I expect he has even started to believe his own nonsense.

I just feel sorry for the newcomers to the subject, we were all naive to lucid dreaming once upon a time. And it's very easy to be sucked in by confident sales men, selling sparkly "perfect" systems. But as the old saying goes... If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is.

Newport needs to go back to school and study some basic psychology and biology rather than just confidently pretending he understands.

Newport wants your money. Dont buy anything from him, he is a salesman.

EDIT:
Cleaned up..

Ghost, why would spaceexplorer respond to some random and fairly crazed off-topic trolling.

So looks like you've won 10 Euros mate.
Maybe you should by yourself some nice relaxing herbal tea.

I was half tempted to ask you a half dozen random questions.
But your efforts here are actually beyond parody.

Originally Posted by moonshine

Ghost, why would spaceexplorer respond to some random and fairly crazed off-topic trolling.

So looks like you've won 10 Euros mate.
Maybe you should by yourself some nice relaxing herbal tea.

I was half tempted to ask you a half dozen random questions.
But your efforts here are actually beyond parody.

Yeah, sorry about that post. I just get pissed off sometimes because this spaceexplorer and that DeathCell are always going offtopic and negative and rebellious. So I wanted to do that too..

Originally Posted by Ghost94

Yeah, sorry about that post. I just get pissed off sometimes because this spaceexplorer and that DeathCell are always going offtopic and negative and rebellious. So I wanted to do that too..

Don't worry Ghost, I understand where you are coming from. But have since decided to simply avoid beyond dreaming, as it brings out my anger and frustration at all that kind of nonsense (and yes, i have been quite negative in that part of the forum - I think it's important to stand ). So you'll not see any more of that kind as I'll be hanging out in the sensible part of the forum. If you take the time to read my recent posts, i'd like to think that I can actually be quite a decent and helpful member of the forum too.

We're all lucid dreamers together, and it's our duty to look after the subject.
It's bought me years of joy and pleasure, and I want people who are new to it, to find the same pleasure without having to wade through nonsense and misinformation, the kind that Newport peddles.

Read the previous three pages. Interesting thread spaceexplorer. Very interesting.

Originally Posted by Jeff777

Read the previous three pages. Interesting thread spaceexplorer. Very interesting.

Cheers Jeff,
Always appreciate your opinion, and I know you'll understand that nothing I say is criticism of you. In fact, it goes to show that you're an intelligent and open minded guy, to be able to take onboard different perspectives on this kind of thing. You're a good chap.

I think you did a great job of explaining the original method, and I do still agree that the fundementals of staying still when trying to induce a WILD can be useful (but as we've seen not for everyone), I just have problems with people like Newport, who confuse the newcomers with theories and terminology they pluck out of the air purely for their own gain and fame.

He basically took a simple principle (Staying still whilst trying to WILD)
and then ran with it, adding his own terminology and wacky theories as to why it works. This would be fine, if he was humble, and stated they were simply theories, possibitys and not facts... unfortunatly he dosn't, and his claims are filled with an uneasy arrogance that dosn't sit right. And on the surface he's quite convincing as he's so confident in his assertations. Problem is when you examine the theorys and extrapolations he's made, they don't add up. Reminds me of evangalistic preachers or hardcore salesmen.

I think we have to accept there are no soild rules with lucid dreaming as each of us has a different physiology and psychological makeup, and we should be suspicious of teachers who claim or hint that they are the final word on the subject (especially those whos claims contradict basic scientific knowledge).

We're all pioneers exploring the wilderness of our own personal universes. We can share travel stories with each other, and discuss things that have made our own lives easier... but we all know that in the end, it's a personal journey.
The only real "facts" with lucid dreaming, are the discoverys made about the physiology, neurochemistry and more objective observations about the processes underlying the sleeping patterns of humans.
How our own personal "brain software" interprets and uses those impulses, biological aspects, cycles and psychological components, is a personal and subjective experience.

For example Rapid Eye Movement is something we can certainly call a fact about the sleep cycle.

But, what, when and how we use our imaginations to bridge the gap between waking and sleeping, are certainly more personal and prone to individual differences in physiology, psychology and personality.


We can look to more experienced travellers for guidance and inspiration... but when they start taking advantage of the trust of newcomers, and sell them glitzy misleading ideas as if they are "soild facts" (and could actually put off, and certainly waste the time and effort of newcomers) then the rest of us, need to stand up for the new guys, and keep the subject as transparent and honest as we can.

Guys like Newport seem to want to make a name for themselves at the cost of others time, energy and money. They seem to care more about their own position as an authority, than about the subject they discuss. They also seem, and I think this is what gives them away, that they cannot be wrong, that they have some kind of "higher knowledge".

I've always thought a good judge of a teacher, is their ability to be humble and admit where there knowledge is lacking or incomplete.
Those like Laberge, Green etc. all are very open about what they do not know, they make it clear that there is much study to be done, that they are not the final authority, simply people who have dedicated their time into uncovering some of the more universal aspects of the dreamworld.
They may speculate on possible causes, they may hypothesize on methods,
they do not however, claim an ultimate knowldge. And they certainly never rule out the possibity of being wrong. It is the search for knowledge, the constant and often tedious process of working slowly to uncover the secrets, that show a true love of a subject. It demonstrates that someone truely wants to improve a subject, rather than make grandious claims for their own short term gain (at the cost of truth and knowledge).

Sure over time, certain facts will emerge... for example, we all know that WBTB is a very effective way of having a lucid dream. What is still to be discovered (if it ever will, because it may be completely down to an indivduals psychological and biological makeup) are details like what time to awaken,how long to stay awake etc.

I think Newport, and others like him, give themselves away by thier excessive confidence. For a subject as new and vast as lucid dreaming... there is so much to learn, and so much to discover, that anyone who confidently claims they have "cracked it", for everyone, is clearly missing the humble understanding, that the human mind, the dreaming mind... is a vast, complex subject.

Choose your teachers not by how confident or charismatic they are...
choose them by their love of the subject, ability to be humble in the face of mysteries, their ability to accept that they themselves are not special - but their love and obsession for a subject is what makes them tick, what gives them value... and most of all, those who are not afraid to say "I don't know, but i'd love to, and am working on it..."

If you have ever experienced the E-book sales culture before, alarm bells start to ring within about 10 seconds of those videos. Not being a very experienced LDer, particularly a Wilder. I was almost sucked in myself, had it not been for termninlogy and the "Underserved" confidence in which the man speaks with highlighting his obvious script like marketing techniques. The guy practically sums up internet niche marketing, research a little around the subject. Put a few seeds of truth at the core of the product, and then proceed to BLOW IT FAR FAR out of proportion.

I'm glad that others have sniffed the BS also, nice one spaceexplorer.

Hey, sorry spaceexplorer. I just read your opening post a bit and then expected that this is going to be like the BD threads.
You´re totally right about Newport.

I actually fell for Newport´s advice. But then I remembered that he is a salesman. He just wants my money.
Whenever I open a page that sells me stuff, I piss off totally. Expecially if I read some of that stuff. When I trusted Newport, I didn´t understand that he had a page like this.

Advice to everyone: Never buy anything that promises something and is marketed to you.

The salesmen are tricky bastards. Being a natural bodybuilder (no steroids), I know a lot about muscle gain, strenght gain, and fat loss, both in nutrition and training sides.
Now, thousands and thousands of sites promise that if you buy their product, they´ll make you hyuuuge, rippped and suuper strooong. They are all fake. At least 99% of the people selling that stuff arent even any kinds of professionals, all they do is train themselfs, at most.
The thing is, these sites and marketing videos and stuff look all right. But having so much information, I can see thru the crap. They obviosly dont even know what they are talking about. They just want your money.

BUT when it comes to lucid dreaming, I do not have enough information to judge these sites and salesmen. But even though their product, info etc. seems pretty good, I know that it is bullshit, because I know that if the physical transformation pages are bull, so is this.

Isn't some of what Newport said also on Saltcube?

I can only think of one example: the mind awake body asleep thing.

Mattt Jones also claims that if one lays down the body will test the mind to see if it's asleep.

"So what happens is the body tests the mind to see if it's asleep.
If you lay with a silent mind very still for about 25 minutes and are
nicely relaxed, your body will eventually send a very strong signal to
your mind saying "I'm uncomfortable, please shift your position in
bed.



EDIT: Jeff777, my apologies for using a part of your technique, but you have to admit, they are very similar. Plus, a lot of OBE/Lucid Dreaming (I don't know why the two are bundled together) say you can get lucid by rolling out of bed
But this is just a ruse! The body is not really uncomfortable, it's
just testing to see if it can get a response from the mind. If you
ignore this signal, your body waits a few seconds and says "Hmm, the
mind must have gone to sleep. Time for me to do the same."

In my opinion, Newport baically took the Saltcube methods and copied them.

I think anyone considering this methods put forward by Newport and others (that require forcing your body to stay still) should consider the following information in the excellent book "Counting Sheep - the science and pleasures of sleep and dreams" by Paul Martin (ISBN 0-00-768319-7)

"Sleepwalking aside, you normally stay in the same place when you are asleep. But you do not stay still. Unless you are very tired, very drunk, drugged or tied up (or, perish the thought, all four) you will normally change your body posture every 15-20 minutes during sleep, usually at the end of an episode of REM sleep or slow-wave sleep. This is just as well, because lying in the same position for too long could restrict your circulation, damage nerves and even cause pressure sores. Prolonged pressure on a nerve can cause temporary numbness and loss of movement in the limb"

and .....

"Your limbs may also make occasional jerking movments during sleep. known as periodic limb movements (or nocturnal myoclonus). They usually occur during light NREM sleep. We tend to noice them most during the transition from waking to sleep because they sometimes wake us up again. Limb movements during sleep are remarkably frequent. One study of elderly people recorded an average of 26 per hour. "


I would very much recommend this fantastic well researched book, for a detailed exploration of many sleeping phenomena.

Interestingly, it would seem that modern research into sleep and dreaming seem to contradict both the theory and the method. More worryingly, it would seem that forcing your body to stay still is an unnatural and unhealthy practice.

Basically in contradiction to Newports method, it seems that Dream researchers have found that:

1) Limb movments are a normal part of sleeping and falling asleep.
2) Staying deadly still, is actually very unsleeplike and potentially damaging.

Originally Posted by Anonymoose

While his "science" is off key, the method still works. He does use some common terms such as 'WILD' and his videos are neat, organized, and visual, which can be helpful for someone who does not benefit from our tutorials which are mostly just text.

Take Jeff777's tutorial for instance. It basically teaches the same technique, but is purely text. The videos have graphs and diagrams that allow LDers to visualize what he's saying.

I've had success with it and so have others. With new LDers, writing up a tutorial that says something simple like 'When you WILD, don't move much', they always have a lot of questions afterwards. Newport's videos are in depth and captivating.

I agree with everything you said about his flawed science, but if the method works, let people enjoy the videos.

are you trying to say jeff's wall of text isn't in depth?

>_> Nicholas is dumb imo.

Originally Posted by DreamQueen

This is such a good description of WILDing. This is exactly how it is for me too

I liked it too.

I do think the dude is obviously trying to make money, but I don’t think that he is nearly as evil as this thread has presented him to be. Here are my points.

The way I see it, he is a guy on the internet that for 98% of people is offering free advice, movies, pdfs, and timers. His information should be taken with a grain of salt (or a cube…. ouch. Sorry, I had too). When I see guys like him, I take what I want and throw away the rest. I would expect everybody else to do the same. And for the other 2% of people out there that actually buy his stuff, these are people that are probably buying all kinds of stuff. They either have a lot of money to blow, or are extreme collectors and buy everything related to lucid dreaming. If this is the case, I imagine they have already been ripped off way worse with other products than the small amount this guy is charging for what I considered to be run of the par information. I didn’t buy his stuff because most of what he was saying I was familiar with in one way or another, so why pay some more money to hear more information in the advanced material that I was still already familiar with? But if his advanced material is really well produced, I can see how the service he is providing could be worth a small fee. Like I said, if you know of someplace else I can get high quality detailed information that includes charts, pdfs, videos, computer programs… and has been organized in a well thought out manner for a cheap price, please let me know, I would love to spend my money on it. While this guy might not have achieved all the goals I just listed above, I get the feeling that would be the direction he would be attempting to take and that is worth something in itself.

Yes, I don’t agree with everything he said. Most people on this thread don’t agree with everything he said, even the people that like him. That doesn’t make him bad. It makes him a pioneer in a field that is in its infancy. All fields in their infancy have misinformation that is later corrected. What he is doing is no different in my eyes than any of the other countless authors that have written books about LD, all of which have misinformation and misguided explanations about what is going on. He at least gives away half of his information for free.

I have met a lot of pseudo-intellectual wanna be experts in my day. These people fully believe that they are really intellectual experts but sadly are not. They do no original research or experiments, and only lightly glance over the material real researchers are doing. Interestingly enough a lot of forums are filled with people like this because they are allowed to anonymously be “experts”, shout other people down and argue endlessly about almost pointless facts that boil down to semantics, subjective experience, or something even less. It doesn’t mean they don’t really believe in sewage they spew out. It just means they are misguided and want to feel like they are really important and smart when they really aren’t. Emotionally, they feel like they win and are deemed smart if they can outpost somebody else with a fight of childish point and counterpoint arguments. This saltcube guy might very well be one of these people who has evolved past shouting pseudo-intellectual non-sense on forums and moved onto 2009 style with a video cam and a knack for making overly complicated charts, but it doesn’t mean that everything he is saying is wrong, worthless, or evil. On the contrary for some people some of it can be very useful and as mentioned before is the same information that can be found on the very pages of this forum. It is true that this guy is not an expert in that he doesn’t have a Ph.D. and do research at a major research university. But he has had the discipline in life to collect lots of books, if not read them too, create multiple websites, and video programs. I would suspect that at least some of that discipline would carry over to actually trying to LD in a systematic way. I would trust him and his obvious experience above the regular joe who comes to this website, read a couple of books and tutorials had 30 or so WILDS and is now the new “expert” on a new type of LDing and wants to tell everybody how smart they are share and label a new LDing technique.

Also, the videos on youtube have been criticized for not being open to discussion. Actually, youtube videos are open to discussion. People post comments at the bottom of the video and can even post a video response. If a person doesn’t like what he says in the video, and many people don’t, then they are free to criticize him on the youtube page hosting the video. Or even better, if a viewer knows a better set of information than what he is mentioning, they can take the time and make a high quality video with better quality graphs and post them as a response. If their video is good, it will eventually get more hits than his.

I have read many books on LD, and they all use different terminology to some extent. I think to knock this guy is to knock anybody who has every written a book about lucid dreaming. If there is a “perfect” lucid dreaming book for 19.95 please let me know, I would love to buy it. Even on this website people regularly make up new terms that or acronyms. Some stick, but most do not. Probably will be the same for him. Most of his terms will not stick.

His information claims or infers to be the “correct” information, but so does every other book out there. I am not an “expert” but his information did not seem so bad to me. Yes, he might take 10 minutes to explain a point that can be explained in 1 minute, but that does not mean it is bad information. The 1 sentence explanation of “try to be still” is just telling a person what to do. He takes the rest of the 9.5 minutes to explain not just what to do, but in his opinion how best to do it, and why to do it. Many people appreciate this style of teaching/learning and that takes some lengthy explaining. And for the record many of us experienced in LD dreaming have often found on our own that after lying still for a long time and then rolling over a LD can occur pretty quickly. Maybe he isn’t completely right in his theory explaining this phenomena, but that doesn’t make him necessarily a scam artist, it COULD just make him misguided with good intentions like every other pioneer in a field that tried to make a theory that was later proved wrong. I mean seriously, you should read half of the doozies that get put on this website. Are the authors of those threads scam artists too? I come across some ridiculous stuff sometimes. Most of the time trying to find the good stuff from the bad on this site takes forever. I read 8 threads tonight before coming across this one. That being said, some of the best information and golden nuggets I have ever gotten, I have gotten from here, but it sure doesn’t mean everything here is correct. Likewise, not everything with this guys work is correct but there are a couple nuggets in his material that a person might find useful. I know I personally did when reviewing all his (free) stuff many months back. I didn’t buy the advanced material because the free stuff wasn’t that impressive to me, but like I said, it doesn’t mean this guy is as bad as this thread makes him to be.


This guy might come off as trying to be “scientific” and not actually be really scientific, but at least what he is saying makes sense in his own mind. I can at least follow what he is saying and see the possibility whether I agree with it or not. Has anybody seen an interview on youtube with Laberge? The dude comes off as a goof (with all respect the man knows way more about lucid dreaming than I do).

As a teacher who makes a lot of charts and powerpoints for my classroom lectures, I was impressed with all the time and effort this guy put into putting together a package as a starter kit for somebody. Some people don’t learn very well by reading books. This guy made charts, videos, timers, pdfs…. If he wants to make a buck and add to all the information out there on lucid dreaming, I think more power to him. This is the modern age of marketing. He is clearly marketing and trying to make money. All of us try to make money one-way or the other. I very seriously doubt that few of us are employed in truly noble companies that don’t employ some kind of dubious marketing scheme. Hopefully for our companies, our marketers do a better job as not coming off so infomercialish.

I have a lot of more things I could say but I don’t want to be redundant.

Originally Posted by Something Else

I do think the dude is obviously trying to make money, but I don’t think that he is nearly as evil as this thread has presented him to be. Here are my points.

The way I see it, he is a guy on the internet that for 98% of people is offering free advice, movies, pdfs, and timers. His information should be taken with a grain of salt (or a cube…. ouch. Sorry, I had too). When I see guys like him, I take what I want and throw away the rest. I would expect everybody else to do the same. And for the other 2% of people out there that actually buy his stuff, these are people that are probably buying all kinds of stuff. They either have a lot of money to blow, or are extreme collectors and buy everything related to lucid dreaming. If this is the case, I imagine they have already been ripped off way worse with other products than the small amount this guy is charging for what I considered to be run of the par information. I didn’t buy his stuff because most of what he was saying I was familiar with in one way or another, so why pay some more money to hear more information in the advanced material that I was still already familiar with? But if his advanced material is really well produced, I can see how the service he is providing could be worth a small fee. Like I said, if you know of someplace else I can get high quality detailed information that includes charts, pdfs, videos, computer programs… and has been organized in a well thought out manner for a cheap price, please let me know, I would love to spend my money on it. While this guy might not have achieved all the goals I just listed above, I get the feeling that would be the direction he would be attempting to take and that is worth something in itself.

Yes, I don’t agree with everything he said. Most people on this thread don’t agree with everything he said, even the people that like him. That doesn’t make him bad. It makes him a pioneer in a field that is in its infancy. All fields in their infancy have misinformation that is later corrected. What he is doing is no different in my eyes than any of the other countless authors that have written books about LD, all of which have misinformation and misguided explanations about what is going on. He at least gives away half of his information for free.

I have met a lot of pseudo-intellectual wanna be experts in my day. These people fully believe that they are really intellectual experts but sadly are not. They do no original research or experiments, and only lightly glance over the material real researchers are doing. Interestingly enough a lot of forums are filled with people like this because they are allowed to anonymously be “experts”, shout other people down and argue endlessly about almost pointless facts that boil down to semantics, subjective experience, or something even less. It doesn’t mean they don’t really believe in sewage they spew out. It just means they are misguided and want to feel like they are really important and smart when they really aren’t. Emotionally, they feel like they win and are deemed smart if they can outpost somebody else with a fight of childish point and counterpoint arguments. This saltcube guy might very well be one of these people who has evolved past shouting pseudo-intellectual non-sense on forums and moved onto 2009 style with a video cam and a knack for making overly complicated charts, but it doesn’t mean that everything he is saying is wrong, worthless, or evil. On the contrary for some people some of it can be very useful and as mentioned before is the same information that can be found on the very pages of this forum. It is true that this guy is not an expert in that he doesn’t have a Ph.D. and do research at a major research university. But he has had the discipline in life to collect lots of books, if not read them too, create multiple websites, and video programs. I would suspect that at least some of that discipline would carry over to actually trying to LD in a systematic way. I would trust him and his obvious experience above the regular joe who comes to this website, read a couple of books and tutorials had 30 or so WILDS and is now the new “expert” on a new type of LDing and wants to tell everybody how smart they are share and label a new LDing technique.

Also, the videos on youtube have been criticized for not being open to discussion. Actually, youtube videos are open to discussion. People post comments at the bottom of the video and can even post a video response. If a person doesn’t like what he says in the video, and many people don’t, then they are free to criticize him on the youtube page hosting the video. Or even better, if a viewer knows a better set of information than what he is mentioning, they can take the time and make a high quality video with better quality graphs and post them as a response. If their video is good, it will eventually get more hits than his.

I have read many books on LD, and they all use different terminology to some extent. I think to knock this guy is to knock anybody who has every written a book about lucid dreaming. If there is a “perfect” lucid dreaming book for 19.95 please let me know, I would love to buy it. Even on this website people regularly make up new terms that or acronyms. Some stick, but most do not. Probably will be the same for him. Most of his terms will not stick.

His information claims or infers to be the “correct” information, but so does every other book out there. I am not an “expert” but his information did not seem so bad to me. Yes, he might take 10 minutes to explain a point that can be explained in 1 minute, but that does not mean it is bad information. The 1 sentence explanation of “try to be still” is just telling a person what to do. He takes the rest of the 9.5 minutes to explain not just what to do, but in his opinion how best to do it, and why to do it. Many people appreciate this style of teaching/learning and that takes some lengthy explaining. And for the record many of us experienced in LD dreaming have often found on our own that after lying still for a long time and then rolling over a LD can occur pretty quickly. Maybe he isn’t completely right in his theory explaining this phenomena, but that doesn’t make him necessarily a scam artist, it COULD just make him misguided with good intentions like every other pioneer in a field that tried to make a theory that was later proved wrong. I mean seriously, you should read half of the doozies that get put on this website. Are the authors of those threads scam artists too? I come across some ridiculous stuff sometimes. Most of the time trying to find the good stuff from the bad on this site takes forever. I read 8 threads tonight before coming across this one. That being said, some of the best information and golden nuggets I have ever gotten, I have gotten from here, but it sure doesn’t mean everything here is correct. Likewise, not everything with this guys work is correct but there are a couple nuggets in his material that a person might find useful. I know I personally did when reviewing all his (free) stuff many months back. I didn’t buy the advanced material because the free stuff wasn’t that impressive to me, but like I said, it doesn’t mean this guy is as bad as this thread makes him to be.


This guy might come off as trying to be “scientific” and not actually be really scientific, but at least what he is saying makes sense in his own mind. I can at least follow what he is saying and see the possibility whether I agree with it or not. Has anybody seen an interview on youtube with Laberge? The dude comes off as a goof (with all respect the man knows way more about lucid dreaming than I do).

As a teacher who makes a lot of charts and powerpoints for my classroom lectures, I was impressed with all the time and effort this guy put into putting together a package as a starter kit for somebody. Some people don’t learn very well by reading books. This guy made charts, videos, timers, pdfs…. If he wants to make a buck and add to all the information out there on lucid dreaming, I think more power to him. This is the modern age of marketing. He is clearly marketing and trying to make money. All of us try to make money one-way or the other. I very seriously doubt that few of us are employed in truly noble companies that don’t employ some kind of dubious marketing scheme. Hopefully for our companies, our marketers do a better job as not coming off so infomercialish.

I have a lot of more things I could say but I don’t want to be redundant.

I like your post becouse It shows, that authors motivation and community reactions might not have to match everytime. Actually there are always variations in interpretation of what we percieve and what really was the intention behind.

Little background for what comes next: I myself am a software engineer. In our company, when we design new programs, we usually first create prototypes, which are not perfect, but give the customer an idea about what the program will look like. If there is a desire to continue, we improve the program again and again and actually fullfill the needs of customer, in areas he needs. What is nice about the prototype modelling is, that it creates overview, some kind of generalization which makes also people who are not quite Informed create a picture which they can use as reference for further decisions and refinements. Making a general overview is essential, becouse without it, the customer does not know, what actually wants.

I would like to mention that I watched Lucidology videos and the first thing which popped up in my mind was: Finaly someone, who tried to offer practical overview of HOW things might work. Of course it might only be mental model which does not have to have that much experience background, but it is a model which can be discussed and which could be IMPROVED (And it already is in process of improvement: As Lucidology is improved version of Saltcube). In Saltcube videos I found a foundation upon which I could build my knowledge. It is build on simple principles, which somehow connected my vague experience into something more coherent.

Might the Lucidology model be wrong in some extent, but it is a prototype, which gives some kind of overview, overview which is to be honest missing in many of our Dreamviews tutorials. What we could learn from Saltcube and Lucidology is that we not only should create step by step guides how to perform some techniques, but also that we should try to infer knowledge from our experience, that we should try to play with what we know and create somethin new, maybe inspiring and maybe working for someone. Nick was wery creative in his videos. He mixed his knowledge, experience and other peoples experiences. Created something, what sounds new and fresh. He created a prototype which - judging from this discussion - is interesting enough to be discussed and which is interesting enough to be improved.

I think, we should stop discussing the reasons why he created saltcube or lucidology and what kind of person he is (I personally dont know him, do you?). We should stop being destructive, when we have so many constructive options:

1. Contact Nick to try to understand model he is providing. (I thing DV have the authority to do it)
2. Maybe after swapping a word or two in his vocabulary, with more commonly used terminology, we will find out, that his model is more coherent with our community's view of the world (Doesnt it mean, that we actually give more emphasis on words than meaning behind them?)
3. Try to build our own models. Try to share them. Try to play with them, compare them, build metamodels. Argue about them..

As I see it, there are not many people as productive as Nick. And also there are not many people with great Ideas who also have LD experiences as YOU people here in dreamviews. Why not use obvious advantages of community and productive people to improve existing models and creating new ones? Why always just judging and personalizing. If we dont know for sure, we should assume that best motivation is also possible. Why win-lose if there is WIN-WIN possibility?

I agree with everything you just said Adraw. I know that there are very few J.K. Rowlings in the world that are able to produce a well respected work on a first try (whether it be a painting, book, video, speech, performance....). Most people start off slow, improve with subsequent renditions and attempts until they finally reach their peak. Later, they wean off. I feel like Nick is building and can still even do better and I personally look forward towards his next work. Why can't we help him or he help us? It sounds like a win/win for all.

Originally Posted by Something Else

Why can't we help him or he help us? It sounds like a win/win for all.

Well, personally, I think the reason I wouldn't want him "helping us", is because 99% of the information he is churning out is false and misleading.

I have no problem with people making money out of lucid dreaming, good luck to them. However, if in the process they cause confusion, misinformation and mislead people... well then I have a problem.

Compare Nick, to someone like Tim Post from Lucidipedia.com (who has made a great series of videos on youtube)

There is a world of difference.
Tim clearly knows what he is talking about, is passionate, shares what he learns freely, and dosn't seem determined to rewrite all the terminology, so that he himself is left the only "expert".

Nick, is misguided at best, but it is clear that it is his ego that is driving him.

I personally wouldn't mind if he was just some ego driven guru-wannabe, but the fact that he is actually pumping out false science and a whole host of nonsensical terminology, just to attempt to appear credible, well that's just wrong. It's misleading, and it's misinforming the very people who are out there looking for credible information.

We can try and justify what he is doing in all sorts of nice liberal, thoughtful ways, but personaly, i've had enough of the nonsense surroudning lucid dreaming, and I also can't stand people who lie about science.
Bottom line is, don't promote yourself as an expert if you don't really know what you are talking about.

Originally Posted by Something Else

Also, the videos on youtube have been criticized for not being open to discussion. Actually, youtube videos are open to discussion. People post comments at the bottom of the video and can even post a video response. If a person doesn’t like what he says in the video, and many people don’t, then they are free to criticize him on the youtube page hosting the video. Or even better, if a viewer knows a better set of information than what he is mentioning, they can take the time and make a high quality video with better quality graphs and post them as a response. If their video is good, it will eventually get more hits than his.

Not actually true, the owner of a YouTube channel has complete control on the comments and video responses posted.
Interestingly, Nick removes any negative or critical posts or video responses to his videos.

He clearly isn't interested in debate, which isn't suprising, because if he was open to debate it'd soon become apparant that most of what he's saying contradicts science and already established lucid dreaming knoweldge. Wouldn't be good for his sales or lucid-messiah complex that would it.

Originally Posted by spaceexplorer

Not actually true, the owner of a YouTube channel has complete control on the comments and video responses posted.
Interestingly, Nick removes any negative or critical posts or video responses to his videos.

He clearly isn't interested in debate, which isn't suprising, because if he was open to debate it'd soon become apparant that most of what he's saying contradicts science and already established lucid dreaming knoweldge. Wouldn't be good for his sales or lucid-messiah complex that would it.

Interesting. Certainly not good for him to be so unaccepting to negative feedback. I wouldnt mind, if he would remove rude posts, but if he removes opposing ideas, it makes the question about his intentions quite relevant. Still if I were you, I would operate with words more carefully. Mentioning messiah complex is a pretty big acccusion. Labelling someone as having messiah complex means that the person is in a state of mind in which the individual believes he/she is, or is destined to become, a savior. In Lucidology videos and Saltcube videos, I havent seen evidence to prove something like this.

I agree it wouldnt be helpful to his sales.

P.S: I like your pretty descriptive overview of your WILD experiences. Very helpful.

Wow i have been using his info for the past week... No ld.. Thanks for pointing this out to me he really sounds like a car salesman lol. ugh back to the drawing board. I printed 47pages of his crap that he sent my in my "explorors kit" that was nothing more than he stated in his videos. When i went to read it it made sense for a while and then boom trying to sell me lucidology 102 and giving no info at all. crap.