Lucid Dreaming App

[MindGames]

Hi guys, I'm going to make a lucid dreaming phone application. I just need some thoughts on what it should include. So far I think that it should let you record your dream journals, remind you to do reality checks throughout the day, and it should have some exercises to increase LD frequency. An example of an exercise would be recognizing a change in some aspect of the app while you're using it, and that would help you with your situational awareness. I'm also thinking of including some games that would also help you be able to lucid dream. Once the app's done I plan on making an optional PC interface that you could sync up with your phone, and that should provide some useful additional functionality. So give me some ideas and I might include them in my app. You can make them as creative as you want.

[ShadowOfSelf]

Wow whats with all the lucid dreaming apps popping up, talk about collective unconscious lol? I like the idea of changing something in the app to question your awareness though.

[MindGames]

Lol I noticed that too. I decided to look into apps as a way to make money and lucid dreaming was one of the first things that came to mind. By the way, I plan on releasing this for free at first, then incorporating ads and a paid version at a later point. If you guys have any useful ideas, let me know so I can put them in the application Another idea that comes to mind is analyzing dream journal content and giving the user graphs that show the frequency of lucids, along with showing the user possible dreamsigns.

[MindGames]

Bump. Nothing?

[aerilith]

You mentioned analyzing the dreams entered in the App - I'm not sure to which extent you weer planning to analyze them? I'm sure you already thought about this, but yea... I thought a list of "Dream elements" so to speak, would be good - a collection of words, themes or elements which often occurs. That way, people who are inclined to study their dream-signs would have that option available right there in the app. I like the overall idea and as Shadow already mentioned, the idea of something in the program changing is very nice. I guess you could also incorporate an optional alarm function, just a sound or vibration that reminds one to do an RC. I develop programs too, but I haven't really looked into apps much, so I am kinda uncertain as to what their limitations are. Oo

[MindGames]

Mainly I plan on looking for common words, one possibility is to show the user a sort of word cloud that displays the most frequently used words, the most frequent of which would stand out more. That means I would have to implement a method for hiding words that commonly appear in language such as 'the', 'and', etc. I am also going to plot dreams and lucid dreams on a graph so that the user can see their periods of lucidity and dry spells. I will include a recording function for those people who would rather speak their dream journals, allowing the user to transcribe it later. I also already plan on adding a reality check reminder option. Apps are written in java, at least Android apps are, so you can do most of the stuff you can do on a computer. You just have to work within the limits of the hardware, which isn't that hard in my opinion.

[aerilith]

Yea, I had a brief intro to android programming - but I'm not too into Java in general. It does sound like you have a lot of what I wanted to suggest covered, all in all it might make for a good all-around app.

[Ev]

Are you going to be making an Android App or an iPhone app? If you are making a dream journal like app for Android, there's another programmer on these forums- IAmCoder, he's currently making a dream journal for Android. 2 brains is better than one From my experience building both Android and iPhone apps for lucid dreaming, ideas are cheap, but the implementation of them can take a very long time. My Android app took 2 months to code, somewhere between 12 and 16 hours per day. I took a few days off, but for the most of the day, I was glued to the monitor writing hundreds of lines of code, and some of the most complex parts, like statistics and math libraries I've just plugged into the app. The iPhone app is similar - 2.5 months of intense focus with most of my time spent on the computer, creating the app. Lucid Dreaming is still in its infancy. The Lucid Dreaming App for Android has about 70000 downloads, but only 15000 active installs. Even if there are really 15000 daily users, due to the crappy nature of Android advertising, the clickthrough ratios for those people must be abysmally small to really justify an investment. If you are looking at this as a way of making money, start with a sleep app, not a lucid dreaming app.

[MindGames]

It's going to start off as an Android app since that's the only thing I have experience in, then once it's developed I'll port it to iPhone/iPad. I definitely agree that two brains are better than one, perhaps I'll talk to him if I find that development isn't progressing as quickly as I would like There are a lot of complications that come with app development, like debugging (it's not as easy as when using a C++ compiler/debugger) since a lot of the time the app will just crash without much info, and it makes you want to rip your hair out. Can I ask what the app was, and how complicated it was? It would be helpful to gauge how long development will take. Also I'm not looking for a huge chunk of money. I just hope that it'll get me enough to afford a few nice things. I've never had a real job before so if I get into the 4 digits in profit I'll be satisfied. I plan on making the paid version of the app a lot nicer than the free version so I expect I'll get some profits that way. The free version however, won't be frustrating to use. I won't use the tactics that shareware/'crippleware' makers like to use, since I think there are better ways to make profits.

[Ev]

Here's my Android app for lucid dreaming: https://market.android.com/details?i...eamingapp.beta The basic app without many bells and whistles was done in a couple weeks. The rest of the time was spent introducing new features. If I can give you advice: limit yourself to just a few things that you do well, otherwise the complexity explodes and becomes unmanageable. I don't know if 4 digit profits are possible with an lucid dreaming app for the Android platform. Take a look at "Sleep As a Droid", they got like 50000 paid downloads in over a year and a half, compared to hundreds of thousands of free downloads. I dont remember if that app has ads, it probably does. If you aim your app to a more general audience, and include ads in that, you might be able to break the 4 digit mark.