Thread: How to say "Lucid dreaming" in other languages?

Originally Posted by ludr

I'm no anti-patriot, but Chinese people do not have any knowledge of lucid dreaming. I've went into the biggest library in China (which is quite near my home!) and couldn't find any reference to lucid dreaming in both the neuroscience and the philosophy sections.

MUCH more people know about near-death experiences and "prophetic" dreams in China than lucid dreams. I think this is because Chinese tradition regards dreams as something coming from outside the mind, be it from spirits in ancient times or food in recent times. Nobody even cares to study dreams. When I introduced my friends to LDing, they bombarded me with questions like:
1. How long were you into this stuff?
2. Is this studied by other people?
3. That sounds too much like Inception!
4. Well, if that were true, how great it would be!

Another great example follows. I go to my friends house for dinner, and his mom is there. We talk about another guy we know who can LD, or in our words, can control his dreams. My friend's mom overheard it. Her reply was, "Was he stuck in a state between sleeping and dreaming, in which he knows he is asleep, but just can't end the dream?" We just said, "No. He does it on purpose." and she was very surprised.

I think that the big thing that China lacks is lucid dreaming. Science, Christianity, free-market economics, and all other good stuff have been successfully introduced into China, but LD, little trivial LD, is still foreign to most of us in China. I believe that a good term for lucid dreaming is the key to solve this riddle. It's up to us here at DV to come up with it.

BTW, I am working on a translation of an abridged edition of LaBerge's Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming. Stay tuned!

Very cool that you are bringing lucid dreaming to China! That's being a pioneer. When I first learned about lucid dreaming, I was equally shocked that noone ever told me that dreams could be controlled! This project would bring a lot of joy and excitement like that.

I'm surprised that with the emphasis that both Buddhism and Taoism place on meditation and mindfulness, there's not already a well known phenomenon of lucid dreaming in China.
Would something like "clear dream that you can control" or varieties sound better in chinese?


PS. Russian term for lucid is " ясный ", which is too similar to "clear" to accurately convey the meaning of "lucid".

Hungarian: Tudatos Álmodás

In portuguese is " Sonho lúcido", don't forget the ú

Wow, it's so great that you've revived this topic!

I realized how hard it may be to find information on lucid dreaming in other languages, so I've included the languages listed in the iphone4 lucid dreaming app's description and reduced the price to 1$ for 4 days in honor of the international promotion! If you've been looking for an iPhone lucid dreaming app, now's the time to get one

In the last summary you didn't add the Dutch one, so perhaps you missed it. It's either 'lucid dromen' or 'lucide dromen'. I'm not sure there is an official term for it, the only persons I talk about LD with use the English term like me BTW, about your avatar: that's from the cover of Raduga's book right? Love it

The Polish for lucid dream is
"Świadomy sen" - literally "Aware Dream" or "A dream in which you are aware"

Originally Posted by Spyguy

In the last summary you didn't add the Dutch one, so perhaps you missed it. It's either 'lucid dromen' or 'lucide dromen'. I'm not sure there is an official term for it, the only persons I talk about LD with use the English term like me BTW, about your avatar: that's from the cover of Raduga's book right? Love it

Haha, no, it's a picture of the sun with yellow replaced by blue


To summarize:
Italian: Sogni Lucidi
Swedish: Klardrömmande
Dutch: lucid dromen
Polish: Świadomy sen
Portuguese: Sonho lúcido
Hungarian: Tudatos Álmodás

Originally Posted by Spyguy

I It's either 'lucid dromen' or 'lucide dromen'.

it's lucide dromen i'm pretty sure, at least my friends say lucide droom or lucide dromen and i think i read on a news site something about lucide dromen.
i use the english term myself, i think it sounds better

Осъзнато сънуване in Bulgarian, and it sounds more like 'conscious (or aware) dreaming'.

In Denmark we don't have a term either. I'm not aware of any literature or articles in danish on the subject.
If I'm explaining it to others I'll say "bevidste drømme" It means conscious dreams, just like the swede mentioned earlier. But that would be a translation of "Lucid dreams" and not "Lucid dreaming". Lucid dreaming would then be "bevidst drømmen", but that sounds a bit weird to my ear.
To myself or the few people who knows about it I simply say "Lucid drøm"

-Strit