New ways to bring up lucid dreaming with your friends

It is nice to be able to have someone to share your experiences with face to face. Although I'm not sure I agree with all of his theories the credit for this idea goes to Michael Raduga...or at least that's where I got it from after following link after watching a video on another thread provided by TiredPhil.

When talking to friends, acquaintances or family and you decide to try to breach the subject of lucid dreaming you could start by asking if they've ever heard of lucid dreaming. If no, you could ask them if they've ever heard of a false awakening or sleep paralysis and/or old hag syndrome or just describe those phenomenon. if still no luck, you could ask them if they ever remember a feeling like an out of body experience. Or have they ever known anyone that had a near death experience or thought they were the subject of an alien abduction or claimed to have experienced astral travel. Raduga believes that they are all connected to some degree and I also feel this way and he doesn't appear to believe that the people are actually experiencing alien abduction, for example.

Any thoughts or other ideas for avenues of discussion? I was watching something about religious prophecies by well-known prophets in history, sometimes while they may have been dreaming and that could be another avenue of discussion if you find yourself in a religious discussion.

What does everyone think?

I was reading an old post by CanisLucidus and it reminded me perhaps the first question to ask would be "do you usually remember any dreams?"

his quote:
It's a shame that your friends couldn't understand how cool this was, but it can be a difficult thing to imagine. Most people barely even remember their dreams, so the idea of actually controlling dreams can seem completely foreign.

I usually just mention lucid dreaming. When they make a "wtf are you talking about?" face, I say "you know, when you're dreaming and you realise you're dreaming? Then you can control it and it's awesome!"

Most people are mildly interested in it, they just... don't care enough to try it themselves.

I usually only bring it up if dreams are the subject or if I decide to start talking about my dreams... It's no big deal with my friends, they know I'm weird anyway :P

I prefer not to talk about lucid dreams with people I know, most of them will never understand what it is like. But sometimes when I have mood for sharing my dreams I will share whatever I want to. I started lucid dreaming with a friend of mine, it was great experience to share every dream, but now we live far from each other, in different countries...

Back in high school this topic somehow came up and me and three of my friends started practicing together and sharing our experiences. Needless to say, it was great. I'm not sure who brought that up and how exactly.
A few other time I tried to introduce my other friends (individually) and trust me I was trying to be as smooth as possible but they never took me seriously, changing topic because they didn't want to talk about "my weird stuff".
Recently I told my dad about it. We were chatting and he mentioned something about astral projections (actually he was mocking people who believe in those). This made me brought the subject of lucid dreams. He wasn't interest at first, it was rough but I think I finally made him sorta understand. He even said he was willing to try, but he was mildly interested at best so I don't think he will.
My advice: do not start with lucid dreaming. Try checking how much a skeptic is the person you want to share your interests. If they laugh at everything remotely weird/paranormal just don't tell them. You will be judged by that person as a weirdo and don't achieve anything.

I have two friends who know about lucid dreaming and have tried it, though they aren't very serious about it and just hope for DILDs. I remember the first time we talked about it was when one of us talked about a dream she had I mentioned that it was possible to control it and be 'awake' inside the dream. Both of them were interested right away, but like most people, gave up after a few fruitless tries.

Nowadays this is usually how the subject of lucid dreaming comes up (especially with old people who believe in the old ways of the had and demons, etc etc)

1 - Acquaintance talks about a recent dream, or sensations before bed like heaviness in the chest, numbness, tingling, hallucinations. They would believe they were paralyzed or haunted and stuff.

2 - I'd explain the scientific side of what really happened, that it was just normal if they were still mentally aware. If they talked about a dream, I'd chime in and say it was possible to control them, etc.

3 - If they don't ask further, I let the subject go. Usually you can tell by the look on their face if they believe you or are disinterested. If they seem interested and ask more, I tell them more, and some of my experiences. If they act violently, I just tell them they can check it out for themselves.

Most people I tell believe me, but are too lazy to put some effort into it, so they end up just asking me about my experiences instead of making their own experiences. ╮(｡❛﹏❛)╭

Well I tried it the other day with my friends who are a married couple and the husband said that he had a few lucid dreams when he was young. I started with do you remember any dreams? The wife still seems to remember a good number of dreams and told a few stories of what seem like a false awakening and someone being in the room(assume HH) but seem surprised that her husband have experienced lucid dreams when he was young and she does not remember any. I used a lot of "well, they say..." to talk about the different types of dreams people have but only hinted at the fact that I actively lucid dream.

If you are ever in a casual conversation, you could try saying like, "I had this crazy dream last night! I think you might have been there!" That will get them interested because I know that if someone has a dream about me, I'd want to know. From there, you could ask if they knew what lucid dreaming was or if tHey have had one. Most people I've talked to, think lucid dreaming is just sleep paralysis and nothing more, but when I try to tell them it's more, they don't believe me! So make sure who you're talking to may be curious, a good listener, and not too stubborn to grasp your knowledge of the lucid dreaming arts. :)

I told a friend once, and he said that it could exist and that I was crazy, or something along those lines. He's my best friend though, so I don't really care what he says ;) . I still have everyone here to talk to about lucid dreams. Actually...I had a teacher that told us (somewhat indirectly) about lucid dreaming, and didn't actually call it lucid dreaming. I wonder what he would say if I emailed him, and asked him about it, and if he was still interested in it. That...would be interesting :D

Perhaps, like people said above, don't start off with "Hey, do you know what lucid dreams are?" Sort of build up to it, then explain it to them. I'm actually going to create a Lucid Dreamers Club on one of my favorite forums I enjoy hanging out on, and see if I can get some people interested.

please don't share lucid dreaming with others you know IRL, it's best for both of you.Dreaming, lucid dreaming isn't mainstream, that weird part of our life which is better to forget.Also you can't force concepts, ideas, most people will hate if you take them from their comfortable idea of how their world worlds.You are not better than them if you practice lucid dreaming and don't worry, there will always be people that will be interested in lucid dreaming without finding out from IRL people.
The internet is best for sharing experiences regarding niche topics as this one

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Originally Posted by Gattaca

please don't share lucid dreaming with others you know IRL, it's best for both of you.Dreaming, lucid dreaming isn't mainstream, that weird part of our life which is better to forget.Also you can't force concepts, ideas, most people will hate if you take them from their comfortable idea of how their world worlds.You are not better than them if you practice lucid dreaming and don't worry, there will always be people that will be interested in lucid dreaming without finding out from IRL people.
The internet is best for sharing experiences regarding niche topics as this one

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Agree with you.

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Originally Posted by Gattaca

please don't share lucid dreaming with others you know IRL, it's best for both of you.Dreaming, lucid dreaming isn't mainstream, that weird part of our life which is better to forget.Also you can't force concepts, ideas, most people will hate if you take them from their comfortable idea of how their world worlds.You are not better than them if you practice lucid dreaming and don't worry, there will always be people that will be interested in lucid dreaming without finding out from IRL people.
The internet is best for sharing experiences regarding niche topics as this one

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I don't agree. Especially with LDing being the part of our life which is better to forget. I think that bringing up LDing is alright if the conversation is already about dreams, but I don't talk to everyone I know about it. Just those that I see getting excited about dreams that they have had.

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Originally Posted by BrandonBoss

I don't agree. Especially with LDing being the part of our life which is better to forget. I think that bringing up LDing is alright if the conversation is already about dreams, but I don't talk to everyone I know about it. Just those that I see getting excited about dreams that they have had.

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When you share something like lucid dreaming, people will hardly understand the true beauty of lucid dreaming. They are used to rare, not vivid, short dreams and they will comprehend your story as something similar to what they are used to experience.

It is much more interesting to share to someone who is already involved in lucid dreaming.

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Originally Posted by flowofmysoul

When you share something like lucid dreaming, people will hardly understand the true beauty of lucid dreaming. They are used to rare, not vivid, short dreams and they will comprehend your story as something similar to what they are used to experience.

It is much more interesting to share to someone who is already involved in lucid dreaming.

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This is how it is when you share anything with anyone that doesn't share the same passion, be it sports, lucid dreaming, or anything. I think that LDing is quite an awesome hobby, but a hobby nonetheless. I think that almost everyone has had at least one very vivid dream in their life. If they think it sounds boring when explaining then start using better adjectives and be more descriptive. Some people really won't ever get into it, for instance my wife thinks that it is cool that I enjoy it, but she thinks that it is boring, even after having a few LDs. When I was 11 I never played basketball, but a friend of mine got me to sign up and I played for 8 years. I enjoyed it more than any other sport prior.

Also, how do you know that your friends don't lucid dream? When I just finished ETWOLD, I was talking to a friend of mine and I asked him if he had ever heard of lucid dreaming. He told me that he started LDing when he was in high school and has had about one every week for the last 5 years (he said that it is more if he tries). Not an extremely avid LDer, but he taught me a few things that I hadn't heard on here that I have been able to incorporate into my lucid dreaming experience.

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Originally Posted by BrandonBoss

Especially with LDing being the part of our life which is better to forget.

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for people not knowing about LD or with no interest in psychology this is the logical way to follow.We are teached that dreams are not important since you asked your mother what are dreams, add to that the fact that some dreams can make us feel really uncomfortable, no wonder you would try to forget it and don't give it such importance. Acknowledging them would imply that some bad things we did or where done to us and that emotions like rage, fear, lust, anxiety, sadness have a true meaning when in fact things require a much better analysis than some of us are willing to make.Keep in mind these are emotions people try to avoid and supress their true cause and personal significance in a society that expects you to be happy and cheerful all the time, but these emotions often resurface in addiction, fights with others, stress, unhapiness, endless worries.
Besides dreams are very intimate to us so others will not understand certain important parts of them, trivializing or giving a wrong opinion about them.Then arise other question for the uninformed such as "Will you have a lucid dream where you will have sex with me?Do you kill people you don't like in your dreams?Do demons attack you?", topics which are a reason for endless laughs, interesting replies and shenaningans here, but IRL they are taboos, and adjusted people are supposed to self-censor these kinds of thoughts, and getting too close to dreams/LD would get them too close to this messy,unknown, impredictable, a gray area of morality.
I'm just warning some people here that might take their enthusiasm to others only to be met with suspicious, uncaring or fearful looks, and things we say IRL to others can't be deleted and edited or even forgotten.

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Originally Posted by BrandonBoss

This is how it is when you share anything with anyone that doesn't share the same passion, be it sports, lucid dreaming, or anything. I think that LDing is quite an awesome hobby, but a hobby nonetheless. I think that almost everyone has had at least one very vivid dream in their life. If they think it sounds boring when explaining then start using better adjectives and be more descriptive. Some people really won't ever get into it, for instance my wife thinks that it is cool that I enjoy it, but she thinks that it is boring, even after having a few LDs. When I was 11 I never played basketball, but a friend of mine got me to sign up and I played for 8 years. I enjoyed it more than any other sport prior.

Also, how do you know that your friends don't lucid dream? When I just finished ETWOLD, I was talking to a friend of mine and I asked him if he had ever heard of lucid dreaming. He told me that he started LDing when he was in high school and has had about one every week for the last 5 years (he said that it is more if he tries). Not an extremely avid LDer, but he taught me a few things that I hadn't heard on here that I have been able to incorporate into my lucid dreaming experience.

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There is nothing bad to ask if somebody heard of lucid dreaming or even had lucid dreams, but trying to explain what is lucid dreaming to someone who never heard of it is something that i do not like.

I've found a simple way to start it up;
You: Hey, do you ever remember any dreams?
Other; (Predictably), No, why? -or- Yes, why?
You; If it interests you, you should give lucid dreaming a shot.

@flowofmysoul
The fact that you don't enjoy it makes more sense then you don't agree that it should be shared. I enjoy sharing experiences with people, but I have given up on the friends that I know now except the two that do it off and on.

@ Gattaca
I don't put anything on here I wouldn't share with everyone I know.

Today, I brought it up this way with a new co-worker I like. I'll bring it to the middle of the conversation to save space. It went something like this.

Me-"I saw one of your facebook likes was Leonardo DiCaprio"
Her-"Yes! OMG I love him!"
Me-"You must have seen Inception then."
Her-"Yes! I love that movie!"
Me-"Yeah, lucid dreaming is one of my hobbies."
Her-"I like to lucid dream too!"

It turns out she's a natural lucid dreamer! I made a reference to Dreamviews and told her how to summon people.

But anyway, back on topic. Talk about movies, then Inception, then lucid dreaming.

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Originally Posted by dolphin

Today, I brought it up this way with a new co-worker I like. I'll bring it to the middle of the conversation to save space. It went something like this.

Me-"I saw one of your facebook likes was Leonardo DiCaprio"
Her-"Yes! OMG I love him!"
Me-"You must have seen Inception then."
Her-"Yes! I love that movie!"
Me-"Yeah, lucid dreaming is one of my hobbies."
Her-"I like to lucid dream too!"

It turns out she's a natural lucid dreamer! I made a reference to Dreamviews and told her how to summon people.

But anyway, back on topic. Talk about movies, then Inception, then lucid dreaming.

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Inception, vanilla sky, Adventure Time (basically a Lucid Dream). Any of these are easy ways to bring up LDing.

My father told me about lucid dreaming, my mother knows about it(don't know where from), I told my wife(don't know why), told my good friend but he does not dream at all.

Thank you BrandonBoss & others for your input. I am in agreement with BrandonBoss but I understand some of the other people's hesitation. There may be situations where you may not want to bring up lucid dreaming or a related subject. Heck, my wife thinks it is something scary. But I still talk to her about the dreams I have of her deceased father or living family (especially our son) and some of them are lucid and she seems more okay with hearing things like that. She has had sleep paralysis before and definitely thinks it is something to be scared of. I tried to explain to her that it is a natural phenomenon, as in not supernatural, at least in my opinion. It definitely depends on who you are talking to and if you are willing to put yourself out there to some degree. As shown in some of the examples above, you can decide how much you put yourself out there. You could just talk about dreams in general which usually would not a controversial subject depending on the nature and context of the dreams. As BrandonBoss eluded to, some specifics you just keep private.

flowofmysoul...it's funny I heard about lucid dreaming from my father also when I was a child. He lucid dreams and so has my brother quite a bit...he was more into AP which I think he got away from because of his church... perhaps a good place not to talk about it.

I'm pretty open when it comes to talking about lucid dreaming. I've always loved telling everyone about my dreams ever since I was a little kid, and I think there are ways of casually bringing up lucid dreaming without making it sound too weird/crazy. As others have already said, it can just be something like, "You know ... those dreams where you know you're dreaming so you can control it." When the subject comes up I usually find that my friends/family are interested in it, and that they've had lucid dreams before or they'd like to learn how to have them.

I don't think that it's something that should be kept to ourself. Atleast if you don't want it to. When I brought it up in a discussion we talked about games where you are a god and can do whatever you want. So I simply said "Hey, do you know a really awesome way to control the world and be a god?" and then I found out that he had heard about it before. So I explained how it's done and now he's trying to get one himself. But I'm not really sure how to bring it up with my other friends, but I think that I will find a way. Probably they will find it interesting when I start sort of a mini-company about Lucid Dreaming next week :)