Thread: Who or what should we blame for the lack of lucidity ?

I also wonder how to factor in the idea that a child's brain isn't finished growing yet? We know for instance that up to a certain age kids don't really understand ideas about right and wrong, they're just selfish egotistical want-machines. Surely a brain with an as-yet undeveloped cerebral cortex (the part responsible for advanced human-level thought setting us apart from the rest of the animals) doesn't act the same as a fully developed adult brain?

Well, as I said, I think children lucid dream according to this definition: They know a dream is happening (Children know what dreams are and can make this observation) and they have higher sensory awareness, they become more observant of their dreams because they are very observant creatures in waking life, a bit like animals because they are exploring the world. I agree that they lack some experience with self-awareness to have a higher consciousness lucid dream though.

But what is the age range that defines someone to be a child?

Originally Posted by Sageous

....And by dismissing the fundamentals in favor of flashy techniques, machines, or drugs that just get you to the door and no further, you are building a new, locked, door in front of then open one.

Sorry to disappoint, Steph -- for some reason it really bothers me...

Well - if something brings me to the door - that realization - why does that build a new and closed one up in front of me?
If I gain lucidity with a certain alarm-device tuned to my REM cycles - I am as much there as the next person.
And can start the journey - with abilities - whatever they are.

Originally Posted by Zoth

On a small break at work so can't continue my previous post, but just wanted people to consider a small thing regarding this "what is lucidity" that StephL and Sageous are still discussing:

StephL, I honestly wouldn't be surprised if children had a much higher lucid dreaming frequency than most people expect: after all, they're forming brain connections at incredible rates, and unlike adults, at a huge development period when it comes to integrate experiences into their mental schemas.

It is actually not so, that they build up new connections and synapses - they get pruned down - we loose an enormous amount of them after birth - it is more a process of carving out the final pathways - like with a chisel. Oh where do I find the citations now - almost didn't mention it..

Originally Posted by Zoth

My question is:

What does that have to do with lucid dreaming being hard-wired into humans, or even being an evolutionary intention?

Nothing much - it is the prerequisite for the idea though - and Sageous was at the outset last page doubting, that there could be - lets better say soft-wired pathways for LDing in brains, which have not yet undergone specific or at least extensive other awareness practice.

Originally Posted by Zoth

You do make a compelling point regarding lucidity as a process that would arise in our evolutionary path, but you're assuming that lucidity is an evolutionary product of consciousness, which in itself would be another evolutionary product. But we don't know this, and this is (I think) where Sageous makes total sense: how can we state that lucidity is an evolutionary intention when consciousness itself might just as well be an evolutionary byproduct of language?

Really?
If you do attribute anything at all to evolution - why on earth not the mind?

Is is not what distinguishes us from all other animals - and is it not us, who have conquered this planet in almost all conceivable ways - who subjugate, use and kill all other life more or less at our leisure?

Why call exactly the biggest success story of any species on the planet not due to evolution - I really don't get it!
We are biological, or aren't we?
That again comes from wanting to have a need for a soul in the equation - why on earth else would you exclude the mind - a trait of living things - from the realm of evolution?
And why want to believe in a soul? For fear of death. Ultimately only for fear of death*.

Listen to the one hour plus/read the 9th chapter on consciousness in Nick Lane`s "Life Ascending - The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution" - you will change your mind there, I think.
*Death has chapter number ten devoted to it..

Originally Posted by Zoth

It makes much more sense that lucidity is a byproduct of the dreaming mechanism (a "glitch" if you may) then a trait for evolution. Why? Because children alone cannot possibly account for a trait that would make evolutionary sense: high lucid dream frequency would have to be present throughout the whole period of human life.

Yeah - I want to try to argue the case - I am not sure about the invention part - but I think, this argument of yours is not valid.
Especially in former times life-span was much shorter - and whom we view as children/kids today - where the ones doing the procreation to a significant degree.
But I actually came off it a bit - maybe it is just better to subsume LDing under the great invention of human consciousness and good is.
Shame - and I liked the idea so much..

Originally Posted by Zoth

... There are several other aspects to consider, but even then, evolutionary designed and hard-wired are completely different things: hard-wired meaning innate, meaning it would stick forever, and be present on everyone. Clearly we aren't hardwired.

Aahm - yes and no.
Being hardwired is maybe the wrong term - it came up to oppose the theory, that completely new wires would have to be connected for LD, and not just using ones, that are already there. Being there of course does not mean being static - that is not how the wiring works.

But you are right - being soft-wired so does in itself not say, that LD is a specific evolutionarily significant factor.
As opposed to just spill-over from human consciousness into the pre-existing animal-dreams.
And yeah - makes more sense - even to enthusiastic little me..
But who knows!
Arguing the case could bring forth a compendium of possible benefits - well - can be done for the mere fun of it, too..
Original ways to foster LD-wiring in the gene-pool or something..

Originally Posted by Zoth

Now, if we assume some of these common definitions, then lucid involves more than knowing you are dreaming:

you can't be lucid if you can't think properly and rationally.
If we take the literal translation of lucid dream "being aware that you are in a dream", then unconscious lucidity would be in the same category of higher-level lucidity (which would be really insulting indeed, because we're practically talking about radically different experiences).

No - being aware, that - means for me being aware of the fact that you are dreaming - and that of course includes knowing, what a dream is, and that there is waking life in contrast to that - where other laws are in power etc..
What you are getting at I would name - being aware in a dream - some sort of awareness is of course in all our dreams - otherwise no narratives.

Originally Posted by Zoth

If "lucid dream" was coined after the "lucidity" that you experience in the waking life, then being aware that you are dreaming wouldn't cut it: we can't be considered "lucid" while hallucinating with LSD while knowing we are in the train hallucinating and not in disney land riding pluto, can we?

It was coined after the German word Klartraum - and that is in itself seen as a bit unlucky in the German community**. Klar means clear, not lucid - we have "luzide" - but it was supposedly meant as a translation historically.
It was from the onset a rather poetical naming - playing on the connotations of clear.
**Into which I will foray a bit - strange I didn't already..

Originally Posted by Zoth

Hmmm now I'm undecided lol, unsure if we should stick to the traditional definition and go from there( so I'd agree with StephL because lucidity would just be another part of the spectrum of consciousness) or integrate lucidity as something that transcends the dream - after all, "lucid" was being used for waking life before it was used to describe a certain type of dream (in that case, I'd agree with Sageous completely). Back to work!

Well - no need for deep confusion here - it was not a god bound to name everything to it's true nature, who came up with the term - and neither a taxonomist - distorted in translation - is all.

I just wanted to make sure people keep the differences between a child's brain and an adult's brain in mind for this discussion - I doubt anyone can really say with any certainty exactly what the differences are, or which functions of the brain go online at a particular age (unless somebody is a child psychologist?). As for defining the age range - I wonder at what age (or range of ages) kids typically start lucid dreaming, and stop? I guess it coincides with when they tend to have nightmares. I wish I could clearly remember my own dreams from childhood, but I'm sure even if I did by now the memories would be hopelessly filtered through my adult concepts.

I wish we had studies!!

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

I just wanted to make sure people keep the differences between a child's brain and an adult's brain in mind for this discussion - I doubt anyone can really say with any certainty exactly what the differences are, or which functions of the brain go online at a particular age (unless somebody is a child psychologist?). As for defining the age range - I wonder at what age (or range of ages) kids typically start lucid dreaming, and stop? I guess it coincides with when they tend to have nightmares. I wish I could clearly remember my own dreams from childhood, but I'm sure even if I did by now the memories would be hopelessly filtered through my adult concepts.

I have a famous book on the subject in my lap, I just don't know for what particular function to look into. Firstly we need to limit the age right? Well, it seems that children can perform the mirror test at around 1.5-2years, and you can't be lucid without sense of self I'd say...
According to this other book regarding sleep on children, we have N-REM to REM cycle relatively equal to the adult at around 6 years of age.
Wait....behold:

Lucid dreaming: an age-dependent brain dissociation

Has someone mentioned this study yet? Wow, that prevalence is high indeed 0o And there is a lot of (seemingly) signifcant information. According to this: Dream lucidity is moderately related to dream recall, but unrelated to duration of sleep or napping. So much for my thought about children having more ld due possible higher amounts of REM....this would mean that REM rebound would also be useless for non-WILD lding.

I wish we had studies!!

Ahahah, same! Well, maybe we can find something interesting by ourselves. I'll reply to your reply in a bit, but have you thought about compiling the brain regions mentioned in that meta-consciousness studies and check for any particularities (like, aren't they located in a part of the brain known for slower development?)

Wow!! Yesss!!!!
Thank you Zoth for unearthing this!!

That proves my theory of LD being very common in children and they found it declines from age 13 on and usually drops significantly around age 16.
There are so many data - and analysed so many ways - hard to find the best number to cite - but no doubt at all.

Based on previous research on lucid dreaming, we are
inclined to interpret the current results as evidence that it is
an exceptional mental state occurring naturally in the course
of brain maturation. The fact that lucid dreaming is more
pronounced in students of higher level secondary schools
implies that lucid dreaming is linked to the development of
cognitive functions.

The phenomenon of lucid dreaming is often only vaguely
understood, even by those who claim to have had lucid
dreams in the past. Most studies of lucid dreaming rely on
questionable or not properly validated sources (for a review,
see Gackenbach, 1991). Our own experience shows that
especially online questionnaires, which are currently quite
popular, invite unreliable reports that compare meagerly with
those collected in the laboratory after REM-awakenings or
paper and pencil tests with proper instructions (Voss et al., in
preparation). Accordingly, reports of lucid dream experiences
in adults (at least once in a lifetime) range from 82% (Schredl
and Erlacher, 2004) to 26% (Stepansky et al., 1998) 4 .

In this survey, we found an overall prevalence rate of 52%
which compares well with a recent representative survey by Schredl
and Erlacher (2011), who reported a lifetime prevalence of
51% in adult participants. On the other hand, our group of 18
and 19 year olds had a lifetime prevalence of more than 70%,
which shows how important it is to provide age-related
incidence rates of lucid dreaming. Another shortcoming of
past surveys on lucid dreaming was that they did not
distinguish between past and present lucid dreaming inci-
dence. This was one objective of the current study.

Our findings strongly suggest that, although most adults can
remember having had a lucid dream in the past, they rarely
experience them at present.

Miscellaneous findings
Concerning sleep and dreaming, we found no evidence of a
confounding effect of sleep duration or napping with regard to
either frequency of dream recall or lucid dreaming (Table 5).

We confirmed sex differences in dream recall (Schredl and
Reinhard, 2008), but did not observe an age effect. The
literature in this regard is controversial, some sources cite a
significant decline in older age (Schredl, 2008; Stepansky
et al., 1998), while others do not (Schredl and Piel, 2003;
Schredl and Reinhard, 2008). Because our age range does
not compare with those studies, we refrain from an in-depth
discussion at this point. It appears, however, that young
children in our current survey were as reliable in their dream
reports as their older peers.
Similar to a recent study by Schredl and Erlacher (2011),
but to a lesser degree, frequency of dream recall was
significantly correlated with frequency of lucid dreams,
suggesting that the ability to remember one?s dreams
facilitates lucid dreaming or the memory of it.

Clinical implications
Lucid dreaming is of immense value for the study of conscious
states. We must ask ourselves, however, what the conse-
quences are for our subjects: will training of lucid dreaming
alter cognitive and ⁄or emotional processing capacity in
waking? Can lucid dreaming be applied to clinical settings?

What we have observed in the children and young adults of
the current survey is what seems like a preparedness for
lucid dreaming.
Interestingly, plot control was not automatically coupled with lucid dreaming.
Does this indicate that they do not recognize the possibility? Is that in turn a function
of a Piagetian kind of causality mystery? Do they later learn
it?
Obviously, it is available to frequent lucid dreamers
(Fig. 5), which indicates that plot control must be susceptible
to training. Indeed, several of the interviewed young boys and
girls stated unasked that lucid dreaming commenced at a
time of need when nightmares prevailed.

Narrative 3: (girl, 10): Someone was haunting me. And I
was with my girlfriend. The chaser stood before me and
wanted to kill me. And then I realized it was only a dream.
So I made the person disappear and then suddenly, it
wasn?t dark any more.
Students described lucid dreaming in combination with plot
control as a sort of self-remedy that helped them not only to
sleep through the night but also to achieve a sense of
mastery over their emotions.

This is especially relevant
because plot control was mostly reported in connection with
aggression, violence directed at them, or flying. It is espe-
cially remarkable because these students had no training and
lucid dreaming occurred spontaneously. The present survey
did not assess these aspects systematically, but the asser-
tiveness with which students described their experience with
lucidity leads us to speculate that lucid dreaming may prove
clinically useful in the treatment of children suffering from
anxiety disorders or nightmares.

Lucid dreaming might even prove useful in abating excessive impulsiveness.

So there.
And all adult people, whom I ask - really all of them - have poor dream-recall.
That seems the main difference to children - if I got this right - recall and lucidity are intimately connected.

Wow - look at you two go!!! Haha - Steph, you wished for studies and suddenly there they were!

Discussions like this one are why I have stayed at this forum. I don't have anything to really add this time, but regarding self awareness I will say that all of my experience is mostly in agreement with Sageous's; if I understand him correctly, that is.

"State awareness" sometimes combined with MILD and dream control practice (during the day) is more than enough to make me lucid. Then self awareness naturally kicks in after practicing it for some time. Once I developed these two over the years, memory usually kicks in as soon as awareness does, or if it does not, I can choose to switch it on or remain ignorant of it at that point. Without self awareness however, memory would always be a problem for me, as would a high level of lucidity (and obviously a very real sense of self awareness). Yeah, confusing. Finally, there are times when self awareness makes me lucid when even state awareness fails; at least that is the way I interpret it.

Sometimes low level lucid dreams are great. Sometimes I like thinking I am still 17, but when memory is limited, so is virtually everything else. Practice in drilling techniques (including memory) can alleviate this to some degree, but not entirely. Think of a tree with many branches and no trunk.

Apologies for the incoherent babble.

EDIT: I think my purpose for posting this is that while it is great (and very important) to delve into the hows and whys, it is also important to not lose sight of what works (in pursuit of convenience), even though we may not be able to see it under a microscope yet. I think this is Sageous's fear, and it would be mine as well. I find it difficult to believe that a high satisfaction level can be reached otherwise. I am sure we all mostly agree, but I think it is an important reminder.

Great study Zoth!

This does not necessarily go against what Sageous was saying though (Although, I am not him so I might be misinterpreting what he said).

You still need to define lucid dreaming. Yes, lucid dreaming is when you know you are dreaming but that is not a good enough definition for me. But that's just "Lucid Dreaming" which is not as amazing as "Conscious Dreaming". You can easily have a dream where you know you are dreaming just like you can have a dream where you know you are in Harry Potter. It's not because you're right about it being a dream that it makes a difference. Self-awareness goes deeper than just "this is not the real world".

This is their procedure in the research:
Participating students were provided with a detailed
description of lucid dreaming (lucid insight into the dream
while remaining asleep) and ample time was given to make
sure they had understood the concept. Students were then
asked several sleep-related warm-up questions (Fig. 1),
followed by seven dream-related ones. If a lucid dream was
reported, the interviewer requested that an example of such a
dream plot be shared (Narrative 1).
Narrative 1 (boy, 7 years old): I dreamt I was playing
soccer with my friends, and when I looked at my legs I saw
that they were distorted. Then I realized it must be a dream
because they did not at all look like my own legs. Then I
looked up and saw that I was in a giant soccer stadium and
I was able to play with my favorite soccer team (the adult
team). I could run real fast, faster than in waking.
For validation purposes, the student was then asked to
describe why he ⁄ she believed the dream had been a lucid
one (Narrative 2).
Narrative 2 (boy, 11 years old): I knew I was dreaming
because the houses and streets looked different from
reality and I was able to climb up the walls, like Spiderman,
just like that. And then I thought about what I could do up
there on the

The study does not prove they had "conscious dreams". They did indeed have "lucid dreams" but I don't count my own dreams where I know that I am dreaming as lucid if I do not have a higher consciousness. This definition that Zoth brought up is already much better:

Clarity (Klarheit) about the status of consciousness: Awareness that one is dreaming
Clarity (Klarheit) about the freedom of decision: The ability within the dream to choose a course of action...
Clarity (Klarheit) of consciousness, as opposed to a state of confusion
Clarity (Klarheit) about the waking life: about who you are and what, if any, your plans were for this dream
Clarity (Klarheit) of perception: what can be seen, heard, smelt, tasted or felt sometimes much more intense
Clarity (Klarheit) of recollection of the dream. You know, that you will remember this dream, that you can remember other dreams already dreamt while dreaming
Clarity (Klarheit) of meaning: You know, why you dream this dream and you know, what the (hidden) meaning is

I don't know what else to say.
If you have a dream for example, in which you know you are in love with said DC and that affects your behavior in the dream scenario. For example, you look for them before leaving a house, OK... It's a "romantic dream". But it's not the same as actually experiencing love in the dream and feeling a deep connection with them. This doesn't seem like a great analogy but I don't really know how to explain it.

Originally Posted by Occipitalred

This does not necessarily go against what Sageous was saying though.

No, it does not.

Great post, BTW, Occipitalred; nicely said!

About the lucid dream defenition, I think that a lucid dream should be defined as only being aware that one is dreaming and recall the goals he put(like Laberge). I believe it should be like that because of technique assesment. Sageous makes a very important point, that self-awareness is very important to experience a good LD, but it should be related to the techniques only, not to the defenition itself. What I mean is that, to evaluate a technique, one should make sure the technique provides LDs, and does not hinder self-awareness.

As for the attaining lucidity topic, I studied the types of memory, and still think that memory is an essencial factor of LDing, as well as self-awareness(no environmental awareness is needed to be trained bcz we already poses it in dreams, but lack the other factors). Expectation and intention are very important too(seems like Sageous's fundamentals are truly the right way, but we need to study them more). I will study this more and report my results.

It's impossible to stick to one premise in this thread xD Regarding lucidity, even though there are strong arguments for both sides, jumping to conclusions like the ones below doesn't solve the problem. I feel like many of us are facing the discussion on the basis that someone is right and the opposite thinker is wrong (no one in particular), instead of promoting a discussion to find what what's truth:

Yes, lucid dreaming is when you know you are dreaming but that is not a good enough definition for me. But that's just "Lucid Dreaming" which is not as amazing as "Conscious Dreaming".

The study does not prove they had "conscious dreams". They did indeed have "lucid dreams" but I don't count my own dreams where I know that I am dreaming as lucid if I do not have a higher consciousness. This definition that Zoth brought up is already much better:

It's just it doesn't really matter how we personally view lucidity: our experiences have limited value. Awareness in a dream, and by awareness I mean the realization that you are dreaming, already gives you significant cognitive "freedom": it allows you to change your state (waking yourself up), it allows to perform dream control (even at a basic level, like directing your attention to a certain aspect of the dream), and it changes the experience. Tholey, who came up with that table of prerequisites for lucidity, did not have access to fmri or other tools: if low lucidity and high lucidity presented themselves as mere differences (low and high) in terms of brain activation, should we still say lucid dreaming has to be something more than being aware you are in a dream? And (this is important), just because control and memory greatly enhance the lucid dream, making it the "experience we are chasing", does that mean anything below that threshold should not be considered a lucid dream? So many reports in LaBerge's book reveal a clear lack of dream control and low lucidity, but nonetheless, intense feelings of joy and a significant kind of experience that I'm sure those dreamers wouldn't mind repeating.

Expectation and intention are very important too(seems like Sageous's fundamentals are truly the right way, but we need to study them more). I will study this more and report my results.

I'll play a bit of devil's advocate: can you elaborate why? Intention might help, but is not necessarily crucial: I can have no intention of becoming lucid, but if you train me to reality check whenever I see NovaDreamer's light, chances are I'll get lucid. This isn't a guess, it's simple classical conditioning, and I already mentioned that study in which Group A, which was given no task, still memorized words better than Group B, which were told to memorize them. My point is: saying that intention is relevant for anything doesn't replace the review of the effectiveness of the method. We could say: yes, but intention has to almost necessarily have an impact on memory (like prospective memory) and thus, be beneficial to lucidtiy: and that seems to be the case for beginners. But what good does intention to someone like Sageous, who experiments low-lucidity in practically all his dreams, and who I bet doesn't even need to think about lucid dreams before laying down to sleep? Could it be that intention is just "prospective memory" in disguise, in the sense that it's very useful while you're building the habit of self-awareness/reality checking/whatever you use, but effectively "not important" as your progress increases?

Sageous regarding this point, you told us some posts above that you need to be ready to be lucid: could you develop that?

PS: Darkmatters, wasn't it you that created that thread where atheists should pose arguments for the validity of religion and vice-versa? I think we would greatly benefit for such exercise in this thread, sometimes it seems everyone's marching their own way xD

Zoth

PS: Darkmatters, wasn't it you that created that thread where atheists should pose arguments for the validity of religion and vice-versa? I think we would greatly benefit for such exercise in this thread, sometimes it seems everyone's marching their own way xD

I agree and I will try to incorporate that at the end of my post. However, I must admit that I agreed more with you and StepL at the beginning of your discussion and did not agree with Sageous but as I wrote my post, it took a weird twist and made me talk about the opposite and now I have become committed to my new view

LouaiB

About the lucid dream defenition, I think that a lucid dream should be defined as only being aware that one is dreaming and recall the goals he put(like Laberge). I believe it should be like that because of technique assesment.

Zoth

It's just it doesn't really matter how we personally view lucidity: our experiences have limited value. Awareness in a dream, and by awareness I mean the realization that you are dreaming, already gives you significant cognitive "freedom": it allows you to change your state (waking yourself up), it allows to perform dream control (even at a basic level, like directing your attention to a certain aspect of the dream), and it changes the experience.

To be honest, this to me sounds like Dream Induction.
"You want to experience a specific experience in a dream? Just start practicing Dreaming Induction! (People call it lucid dreaming…) How do you do it? Well, you are gonna need a trigger to activate a chain of events but first use any technique that works for you. The chain of events will look like this:
1. Your dream body will realize that he is in a dream.
2. Your dream body will stop doing whatever his goal was and will embark in doing what you had set yourself to do next time they were in a dream.
3. You wake up and remember a dream about what you wanted it to be."

The result: a dream about something else that was initiated by changing the goals of your unconscious self. It’s not a lucid dream, it is a normal dream, an induced dream. And yes, you can evaluate techniques and all to assess this.

But then, you will disagree with this, because you experienced it and your experience of such a dream is more vivid, and you had memories of your waking goals. It must be a different kind of dream. Well, some normal dreams are also very vivid, whenever you become more observant, the dream becomes more vivid, and being more observant and having a more vivid dream might be the cause of your sudden realization that you are dreaming.

If as lucid dreamers, we are seeking to experience being awake in our sleep, then we must seek to have a higher awareness in our dreams. That is what creates a dream where we are awake, the ultimate paradox that makes lucid dreaming such a peculiar and amazing experience.

LouaiB

(no environmental awareness is needed to be trained bcz we already poses it in dreams, but lack the other factors).

I think that being more observant in real life makes us more observant in dreams which allow us to realize that we are not in real life but in fact, in a dream. If this is true, environmental awareness would be necessary like your other stated factors.

Zoth

if low lucidity and high lucidity presented themselves as mere differences (low and high) in terms of brain activation, should we still say lucid dreaming has to be something more than being aware you are in a dream? And (this is important), just because control and memory greatly enhance the lucid dream, making it the "experience we are chasing", does that mean anything below that threshold should not be considered a lucid dream? So many reports in LaBerge's book reveal a clear lack of dream control and low lucidity, but nonetheless, intense feelings of joy and a significant kind of experience that I'm sure those dreamers wouldn't mind repeating.

I see Zoth, that you like very much the idea of looking at brain imaging. Yes, that is very interesting to understand the physiological meaning of our experience. However, whatever the results of a brain image are will not change our experiences. Our experiences are therefore the main factor to look at when considering whether an experience is valuable or not, unless we are seeking to see if a certain experience helps develop parts of our brain gradually, which we would not feel ourselves.

I do agree with you, that we cannot discard lucid dreams with low level consciousness as garbage. Hell, I don’t even discard my normal dreams as garbage. I think all dreams are great and give me information about how I react to extreme situations if I lack time to reason. Low level consciousness dreams are different, they are more vivid, they have greater consciousness and they tend to have us do crazy things, it’s awesome and great. But, so are normal dreams and I would tend more to put them in the category of normal dreams, it’s just, part of the dream story is that I am in a dream and I am aware of it. It’s like watching the Matrix movie. Yes, the main guy knows he’s dreaming and it makes for a very entertaining dream except the guy is not actually aware of it, it’s just an image on a screen.

Zoth

Intention might help, but is not necessarily crucial: I can have no intention of becoming lucid, but if you train me to reality check whenever I see NovaDreamer's light, chances are I'll get lucid.

I agree with you here.
What I would argue however is that, since I seek more than just dreams about me knowing that I am dreaming, and I seek more than a waking life where I react to conditioning and automatic reflexes, I try not to depend on machines to get me anywhere and I would rather develop my ability to focus my attention where I want it to be, and to get the habit of connecting with myself through self-awareness and connect with the world around me by being more observant and just feeling those mystical feelings of interconnectedness. Using a NovaDreamer will not achieve that for me, although it will possibly give me a dream about being in a dream and knowing so.

I’d like to do what you said and argue against myself but I forgot what we were arguing against… what really is lucid dreaming? Isn’t there just a spectrum of consciousness that we might have in dreams and we have different expectations for ourselves? There’s nothing to really argue about. It’s as if we would be arguing about what set of grade in school we should seek to have. The higher the better but if you don’t get those high grades, the experience that lead you to the lower grades are not to be dismissed. People with low grades are still good people, who perhaps are struggling with learning or are not putting enough effort in that specific part of their lives. These people are also great people and their lives should not be devalued. Obviously though, you would wish them to have better marks and also that they would not be using mental steroids to get there. ;P

I agree and I will try to incorporate that at the end of my post. However, I must admit that I agreed more with you and StepL at the beginning of your discussion and did not agree with Sageous but as I wrote my post, it took a weird twist and made me talk about the opposite and now I have become committed to my new view

Ahahaha, same xD ! I "feel" the perspective that lding is more than awareness that you're in a dream, but I "think" lding is merely awareness of a dream. I've been trying to put myself in different sides of the argument (which is why some of my posts might of sound confusing to Sageous, this also happened in the ADA's thread), because as good skeptics, we shouldn't be afraid of suspending our judgement ^^ Let me try it:

Premise: What constitutes lucidity?

Considerations:

1. Lucidity (specific term relating to lucid dream) is a state of consciousness describing awareness that the individual is dreaming while dreaming.
2. Lucidity as a state does not integrate any additional actions: a dream in which the individual is aware that he's in a dream but is passive regarding the experience is as much as a lucid dream as a dream in which the individual is aware that he's in a dream and is active regarding the experience.
3. Lucidity, as self-awareness of the individual's conscious state, does note integrate any other cognitive functions that might extend beyond self-awareness:
a) an individual with Anterograde Amnesia can still experience a lucid dream, even though he cannot perform any set of intentions that require long-term memory, which would include tasks designed before the dream; MEMORY
b) an individual with Aboulia can still experience a lucid dream, even though he may not be able to fully perform certain set of intentions that require will or initiative. INTENTION

I can't go any further for now I think, what do you guys think?

The result: a dream about something else that was initiated by changing the goals of your unconscious self. It’s not a lucid dream, it is a normal dream, an induced dream. And yes, you can evaluate techniques and all to assess this.

But then, you will disagree with this, because you experienced it and your experience of a lucid dream is more vivid, and you had memories of your waking goals. It must be a different kind of dream. Well, some normal dreams are also very vivid, whenever you become more observant, the dream becomes more vivid, and being more observant and having a more vivid dream might be the cause of your sudden realization that you are dreaming.

Nononono, that it's entirely possible indeed, I don't disagree at all: while we may feel inclined to state what we experienced a lucid dream, the scenario you presented seems at least perfectly valid! Can I just call it dream incubation (think it's the term most people use I think)? Okay, so (already got what's wrong with this, but let me follow your thought), there would be 2 types of lucid dreaming experiences:

- Incubation dreams with topic of lucidity in a dream and consequent performance of a pre-defined task (like...Task of the Month just for the sake of example)
- Lucid dreams without any constraint regarding consequent actions.

But is very easy to reject this (sadly, because it's an awesome hypothesis): the study mentioned above mentioned a high frequency of lucid dreams right? But it makes no mention regarding the intention of lucidity: the children were no onironauts (intentional explorers of the dream world), they simply became aware they were dreaming without any type of encouragement. So while that phenomenon exists, it would still not be highly statistical significant, because it doesn't take into account the majority of people who have lucid dreamers: those who don't go out to intentionally induce them.

However, whatever the results of a brain image will not change our experiences. Our experiences are therefore the main factor to look at when considering whether an experience is valuable or not, unless we are seeking to see if a certain experience helps develop parts of our brain gradually, which we would not feel ourselves.

My point is not the value of experience: it's the categorization of the experience. Take a look at the small segment of this video between 0 and 1:50 (disregard the video as a whole, it's just an easier way of telling you to read a whole page of text) - it mentions perspectival switching. You'll understand my point as to why any lucid dream experience has the limited value I mentioned.

What I would argue however is that, since I seek more than just dreams about me knowing that I am dreaming, and I seek more than a waking life where I react to conditioning and automatic reflexes, I try not to depend on machines to get me anywhere and I would rather develop my ability to focus my attention where I want it to be, and to get the habit of connecting with myself through self-awareness and connect with the world around me by being more observant and just feeling those mystical feelings of interconnectedness. Using a NovaDreamer will not achieve that for me, although it will possibly give me a dream about being in a dream and knowing so.

I think that's what is holding us back. For those of us who went past the initial series of 20-50 lucid dreams where everything seems new, the goal is to reach high-level lucidity, perform specific tasks, and have a as crystalline clear experience as possible. And maybe that's interfering with our ability to recognize or assess what a lucid dream - in it's essence- is.

Spoiler for Small Off-topic regarding the 2 of 2 part of lucid dreaming (1 being the induction)::

But fear not: I think that if we know little about lucid dreaming induction, we know far less about lucidity development. I didn't want to bring this up until I could make some experiences myself, but you know about dream stabilization right? What about lucid stabilization? What cognitive exercises can a lucid dreamer implement to boost lucidity in a dream, while maintaining himself in the same point of the rope between the asleep and awake spectrum of consciousness? This is largely unexplored (I mean at a scientific scale), and once again, while amateurs practically have been dictating lucid dreaming as it is (in terms of techniques for example), we still got a lot of study/exploration ahead to determine how dream control exactly works. This is already a bit off-topic, but let me just give you an real example:

- What's the number one aspect for dream control:
a) self-awareness, regarding introspection ability to differentiate yourself from the memory input (aka, dream scenario), and understand you are in a dream;
b) conditioning, regarding the fact you don't disregard the memory input (aka, dream scenario), but you instead act based on what you learn with it.

Hint: what is the cause of failing dream control? Lack of self-awareness - something that according to the study mentioned declines through age (dream control that is), when it should actually improve (the more you lucid dream, the better the dream control right?);
Or conditioning processes, where you learn that you can't read in a dream because the dream content first showed you that you couldn't, or that you couldn't see the time, or that you couldn't close your eyes, etc etc?
We'd still need to include expectation on dream control, but I don't know exactly how it fits, and since this is off-topic mind-wandering that might have several of thinking errors, I'll stop here. Maybe it's much more complex and both self-awareness, intention, conditioning define subsequent control, along with the other variables regarding neurochemistry.

Just a couple of specific, probably irrelevant at this point, responses to your earlier post, Zoth; I hope I don't interrupt the conversation you're currently in too much:

Originally Posted by Zoth

So many reports in LaBerge's book reveal a clear lack of dream control and low lucidity, but nonetheless, intense feelings of joy and a significant kind of experience that I'm sure those dreamers wouldn't mind repeating.

I think that "intense feelings of joy and a significant kind of experience that I'm sure those dreamers wouldn't mind repeating" kind of trumps just realizing that you are dreaming for a second or two -- and if those intense feelings come after you wake up and realize you "did it," I'm not sure that counts as what LaBerge was talking about. Speaking of LaBerge, let me wax cynical for a moment: LaBerge's entire academic and financial life is dedicated to and hinged upon proving that LD's are real and making sure that his paying customers have what can be called a lucid dream; therefore, LaBerge has lowered the bar of what lucidity is to about the lowest point it can possibly be without seeming just silly. I've argued with him about this, but, in spite of agreeing with all my points (the same ones made here) he would not budge -- I don't think he could allow himself to do so. This arguably self-serving perspective from the grand poo-bah of LD'ing has helped to fuel the consensus that the experience of lucid dreaming need be nothing more than having that "Ah-ha!" moment, and then waking up. I guess, in a democratic sort of way, that makes it right, and there is little to be done about it, save try to help the many people who don't understand the point of LD'ing when, after doing all that work, all they get is a flash that in the end is pretty meaningless.

My point is: saying that intention is relevant for anything doesn't replace the review of the effectiveness of the method. We could say: yes, but intention has to almost necessarily have an impact on memory (like prospective memory) and thus, be beneficial to lucidity: and that seems to be the case for beginners. But what good does intention to someone like Sageous, who experiments low-lucidity in practically all his dreams, and who I bet doesn't even need to think about lucid dreams before laying down to sleep? Could it be that intention is just "prospective memory" in disguise, in the sense that it's very useful while you're building the habit of self-awareness/reality checking/whatever you use, but effectively "not important" as your progress increases?

Agreed.

First: yes, I don't do a lot of intention-setting (I never did -- I simply cannot generate the necessary focus), though it would certainly have done no harm if I did, and probably would enhance my dreaming. If you notice, whenever I talk about intention it is included with expectation, as sort of the conscious manifestation of expectation (written as expectation/intention). Intention by itself is not a singular route to LD'ing... indeed, as someone already said, intention works just as well -- if not better -- with NLD dream incubation, or, accidentally of course, with false lucids (i.e., you fervently "ask" for a lucid dream, so your unconscious dutifully provides you with a dream about being lucid -- a thing that I believe happens more often than many would like to admit, BTW -- oh great, now I'm in more trouble! ).

So, though setting intention is a fine thing to do, it is by no means a singular path to lucidity, and likely will work against you if tried that way.

And yes, Zoth, I've always considered setting intention quite similar to prospective memory. I have a feeling that (cynical hat on again here) LaBerge may have actually started using "setting intention" in place of "prospective memory" because the former phrase was more easily understood and memorable than the latter.

Sageous regarding this point, you told us some posts above that you need to be ready to be lucid: could you develop that?

Given the overall cadence of this thread, there seems no point in doing that -- what I say would both go on for thousands of words (interrupting the nice flow of ideas you guys have going here) and also fly in the face of the accepted assumption that lucidity is all about getting there quickly and easily, and not about being there... any elaboration I make will be seen as an argument, and that's not helpful at this point. If you'd still like to read my expanded view about why you must be "ready" to be lucid, I suggest you look at the first few posts of my Lucid Dreaming Fundamentals thread, or perhaps session one of my DV WILD class.

Great thread, guys!

Wanted to link up to this thread before:

http://www.dreamviews.com/dream-cont...naturally.html

Next thing - repeating myself:

Like you said before, Zoth - and me as well - lucidity has been shown to have a characteristic pattern of brain-activation - easily discernible.
So - the question can now be answered not only by recording pre-agreed on eye-signals - but by looking at fMRI as well.
That actually does away with the possibilities of doubting the phenomenon in the first place - and can secondly also be used to get an objective measure of lucidity yes or no.
Eye-signals should be enough, I suppose.
So where is the problem?

The three regions, which newly light up:



Their jobs:

“The general basic activity of the brain is similar in a normal dream and in a lucid dream,” says Michael Czisch, head of a research group at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry. “In a lucid state, however, the activity in certain areas of the cerebral cortex increases markedly within seconds. The involved areas of the cerebral cortex are the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, to which commonly the function of self-assessment is attributed, and the frontopolar regions, which are responsible for evaluating our own thoughts and feelings. The precuneus is also especially active, a part of the brain that has long been linked with self-perception.”

So to dismiss the significance of these findings in favour for personal, subjective notions of what is and what is not lucidity seems - questionable at least to me.


Aand - your spoiler is interesting, Zoth - especially I think, it might be better to try to stabilize lucidity as such, too - as the cognitive realization it really is - instead of stabilizing-efforts directed at the dream only.
Probably on the danger of arriving in the void - I do not know it.
I have to put some effort in again - which I do not feel like at the moment, it seems - but I could well imagine that a lot of the "techniques" people start pulling off at the onset - can distract from the actual fact it is all about.

Next big topic emerging in this thread - but VagalTone gave his okay..

I do indeed believe, that the community on the internet has a dynamic to it, where "rules" come to be real, by people reading and believing things - having the expected - for example problems - reporting them - and enforcing a maybe entirely artificial aspect for the next person to come up with or come up against.


Well - won't force it at the moment - sooner or later, I'll try out these sentiments.

Small update: I'm reading about the precuneus, and it gets more and more interesting. Look this abstract from Parietal cortex and representation of the mental Self (just the link, not the pdf):

To determine whether medial parietal cortex in this network is essential for episodic memory retrieval with self-representation, we used transcranial magnetic stimulation over the region to transiently disturb neuronal circuitry. There was a decrease in the efficiency of retrieval of previous judgment of mental Self compared with retrieval of judgment of Other with transcranial magnetic stimulation at a latency of 160 ms, confirming the hypothesis. This network is strikingly similar to the network of the resting conscious state, suggesting that self-monitoring is a core function in resting consciousness.

Can we kidnap Sageous and put him under a fmri and analyze the level of activity in his precuneus during REM when compared to control? Pretty please ?
What's curious is that his idea of self-awareness, while always being completely unrelated to any neuroscience talk, it's remarkly similar: self-assessment, self-perception, and self-monitoring (which is a +1 for self-awareness imo).
On another topic, I'd love to see in that study how did the test subjects reached lucidity. Maybe the type and degree of activation depends on the technique? Maybe a simple reality check would be less effective than an actual self-awareness "habit" (I still didn't answer to Sageous's reply regarding this word I recall now). Or maybe it isn't about what you do to reach lucidity, could we actually increase brain activity in all the areas as long as we reached (at least) minimal lucidity? Like climbing the stairs.

Spoiler for Quick Response to Sageous on why there's so much attention to this thread regarding induction and not the experience as a whole:

"By the way Sageous, I'll explain why my perspective in this thread is so much about lucid dreaming induction, and not the rest: it's because for the nature of the topic VagalTone made, induction is extremely relevant. Wouldn't you agree that 10 low-level lucids would be more helpful to a beginner than 2 high-level lucids? What you want is quantity in order to have more chances to eventually improve quality right? Don't shut down on this one, we're not discarding the relevance about the state of the consciousness itself, we're just discussing if it's not equally feasible - I'm gonna talk here in really straight-forward terms - induce low-level lucidity and go from there. Wouldn't you agree that way more people would lucid dream if they could experience the effects of low self-awareness skills in a series of lucids that would come by much more frequently in the first weeks/months? I got the luck of having loads of lucid dreams in the first weeks that I tried, but many people practice for months, and you practiced for years.

Back to the brain talk: thought experiment (gogo StephL):

- Assuming that people like Sageous would have an greater overall activity on precuneus (disregarding the other parts now because it's just a test), was it possible that we could correlate lucid dreaming frequency with precuneus activity? Because:

Functional imaging has linked the precuneus to the processes involved in self-consciousness, such as reflective self-awareness, that involve rating ones own personality traits compared to those judged of other people.

If we could use that personality trait test on a range of lucid dreamers in the forum....wouldn't necessarily be causal, but if there was a correlation...would be worth the try ?

PS: Incase you're not much of a neuroscience's talk fan, here's an article explaining the article linked by Steph. Bonus: loads of lucid dreaming references that can be used to the discussion (I think I can link the pdf of some of them here if someone asks for them).

edit: it's on the PS StephL (it's not a scientific article, just a blog post commentating the study).

Where is this article Zoth??

Again - not much time - sorry for not reading and considering it all - but:

Found a short BBC feature on conciousness - with this mirror-recognition test Darkmatters mentioned - they show, that basic self-awareness sets in between 18 and 24 month of age.

Not really fitting in here maybe - but this is already a "hopeless mix-thread" - so I throw it in anyway..

Originally Posted by Zoth

Can I just call it dream incubation (think it's the term most people use I think)?

Yes, that’s what I was referring to. Sorry.

Originally Posted by Zoth

[It] doesn't take into account the majority of people who have lucid dreamers: those who don't go out to intentionally induce them.

Good point. Now, I do not think this endangers the hypothesis that a lot of lucid dreams are actually just dreams of being in a dream and knowing you are in a dream, but I just have to add two types of such dreams:
1. Dream Incubation of a dream about Lucid Dreaming: The person trains so that in the next dream, once they recognize certain cues, they will dream about doing a pre-defined task, like the task of the month.
2. Simply a random dream about being in a dream and knowing that you are dreaming.

This parallels a dream in which you are in the Harry Potter Universe and you know it (you also have a feeling that this world is otherwise fictitious but now that’s where you are) and that affects how you act in the dream, for example, you use brooms to fly and you use Harry Potter spells.

I think a lot of people, even kids, simply dream that they are lucid dreaming without actually being lucid dreaming.
How can they dream that they are in a dream if they are not familiar with the concept of lucid dreaming? Simply because they are very familiar with the concept of dreaming and knowledge of the additional word “lucid” that comes before dreaming is not necessary to have a lucid dream. To dream about being in a dream, you only just need to know what dreaming is.

Originally Posted by Zoth

My point is not the value of experience: it's the categorization of the experience. Take a look at the small segment of this video between 0 and 1:50 (disregard the video as a whole, it's just an easier way of telling you to read a whole page of text) - it mentions perspectival switching. You'll understand my point as to why any lucid dream experience has the limited value I mentioned.

Thank you for that video, I watched it all actually (it was very insightful).
I think the point of the video is that you must choose one point of perspective and not mix them together. For example, you can say:
1. (1st person perspective) When I become aware of myself and that the world around me is a creation of my own, I feel so and so, and this is what I define as a lucid dream because what I experience is not the same as what I experience in normal dreams
2. (3rd person perspective) When a person’s certain regions of the cortex are activated during sleep which comes with a set of physiological characteristics, well… what happens?

I was going to finish the 3rd person perspective but I really don’t know. It’s not like a movement, where you can see an activation in the brain, a signal travel through the body and a limb flexing. Is the activated regions of the brain that we see in a lucid dreamer the cause or the result of a lucid dream?

I feel like I can give a reasonable definition of lucid dreaming using 1st perspective but not 3rd .

Another point is, how is consciousness observed with technology? By looking at brain waves? I don’t feel like alpha and beta waves and the rest of them have too broad of definitions to explain consciousness.

In the 3rd person perspective, is it “consciousness brain waves or whatever it is” that affect the activated regions or the opposite?

Zoth, it appears to me like you are interested in knowing which factors are important of mastering at different stages of lucid dreaming development rather than what is a lucid dream in general and that seems very interesting to me. I’ll think further about this later but I’ll have a rapid go at it:
1. To be a non-lucid dreamer, you need to first practice memory. For memory to be stored, you have to pay attention. Therefore, first step should be to do something like ADA (being observant) just to make dreams more vivid and to be more memorable. Also, the dream journal is a big thing because it allows you to remember more dreams.
2. For a non-lucid dreamer wanting to become a lucid dreamer, they most just train to question their worlds through RCs so that they may ask themselves that question in their dreams and also having that prospective memory of when I see this, I will do that.
3. For a lucid dreamer to last in the dream, they most train stabilization which involves having a balance in your attention given to your knowledge that you are dreaming and to the dream so that the dream will be stabilized and at the same time you will stay lucid. That is just a matter of training your attention, may that be by meditation
4. Once the dream is stabilized, the lucid dreamer must try to attain control thanks to being good at having faith in their own abilities and also probably an ability to visualize.
5. Then, I would say, the lucid dreamer still needs to become self-aware but now, I would even say that self-awareness is not at all important for lucid dreaming… Wow, I didn’t expect that from myself. Instead, I would say that self-awareness is something completely different from lucid dreaming which has to be used frequently in everything we do, whether that be our waking life or our dreaming life and it adds value to everything. It makes doing martial arts better, it makes lucid dreaming better, it makes watching tv better, it just makes life better. But it does not have anything to do with lucid dreaming. Now, I have a problem with this. I feel that since lucid dreaming has a lot to do with certain types of awareness, being a self-aware person can only help the process.

I really can’t keep up with this discussion…

EDIT

Originally Posted by StephL

The three regions, which newly light up:

Just to clarify, are you saying this study shows that self-awareness is important for lucid-dreaming since they are all self-assessment related?

Also, as for the original question of this thread and about the physiological barrier to lucid dreaming,
why is it that we lose awareness during sleep and how would we go about changing that?
If we have not answered that question, I think it was what the thread was looking for initially.

Originally Posted by Zoth

Can we kidnap Sageous and put him under a fmri and analyze the level of activity in his precuneus during REM when compared to control? Pretty please ?

It wouldn't work -- I'm, perhaps ironically, a terrible sleeper, and would never be able to get to sleep, let alone stay asleep, in a lab environment (much less while being subject to an fMRI scan)!

"By the way Sageous, I'll explain why my perspective in this thread is so much about lucid dreaming induction, and not the rest: it's because for the nature of the topic VagalTone made, induction is extremely relevant.

Understood. I was perhaps inharmonious with the thread by insisting that, though relevant (and important), induction isn't the only priority in successful LD'ing... but you already knew that, obviously!

Wouldn't you agree that 10 low-level lucids would be more helpful to a beginner than 2 high-level lucids? What you want is quantity in order to have more chances to eventually improve quality right?

Actually, no, I would not agree. I think if a beginner had just one high-level lucid, and also possessed the requisite mental wherewithal to have that LD in the first place, that single LD would be more valuable, both as an experience and as a primer for future lucidity, than any ten "Ah-ha!" moments. Or any 20, or 30. The experience of a high-end lucid is simply that valuable.

Quantity, especially in this department, does not necessarily guarantee eventual quality. I've known plenty of dreamers who have had many dozens of low-level LD's, and have never really gotten to the point where they could truly explore their dreams as themselves. Why? Because they were not interested in diving into the deep end of their dreaming pool -- the fact of induction was enough for them, so working on things like self-awareness and memory did not matter. Many of those people, BTW, eventually got bored with LD'ing; I wonder why?

- induce low-level lucidity and go from there. Wouldn't you agree that way more people would lucid dream if they could experience the effects of low self-awareness skills in a series of lucids that would come by much more frequently in the first weeks/months?

Sure. This would indeed be the way to go: baby steps, as it were, to learn the art of Ld'ing. But they must be considered as baby-steps toward greater discovery in the future, as their self-awareness improves, rather than assuming that, since they briefly got "there," then they've mastered the art. That may be all I was trying to say.

I got the luck of having loads of lucid dreams in the first weeks that I tried, but many people practice for months, and you practiced for years.

I did practice for years, yes, but I also wasted many good years -- when I was still young and strong -- locked in a smug cage of "success" built around the naive conclusion I made that simply becoming aware I was dreaming was enough (I too had loads of low-level LD's in the beginning; they were a lot of fun, but I had no idea what I was missing). I guess my stubborn streak on this subject stems from that experience, and the fact that I'd like to do what I can to help new dreamers avoid the years of wheel-spinning that can accompany a disinterest in learning more (fueled by the cool stuff you can do in low-level LD's, of course), or, perhaps, an assumption that just mastering a technique that gets you to notice you are dreaming is enough.

These questions actually bring me around to a point I may have tried to make earlier: These barriers to getting lucid could well be self-inflicted, because so much of the information available about LD'ing comes in the form of time-saving techniques that get you there, but little to no information -- or assistance -- in preparing your mind, your self, to be there when you arrive.

Originally Posted by Sageous

Actually, no, I would not agree. I think if a beginner had just one high-level lucid, and also possessed the requisite mental wherewithal to have that LD in the first place, that single LD would be more valuable, both as an experience and as a primer for future lucidity, than any ten "Ah-ha!" moments. Or any 20, or 30. The experience of a high-end lucid is simply that valuable.

I can attest to this. My first lucid dream was a brief unstable WILD, but my first DILD was a spontaneous, extremely vivid and conscious dream that it took me years to again equal. It inspired me (and still does) to an extent that is difficult to explain. Obsession followed.

I was thinking about what makes expert LDers lucid. I always hear that they just "know" they're dreaming. I wanted to start 2 threads (surveys) and get as much expert LDers' info about that as possible. They usually say that they "feel" the dream and become lucid. That is like an always existing DS, and prospective memory is a great way to exploit that. What I also wonder is, why don't we beginner LDers, who are training for months , just use a few LDs to memorize that "feeling" and train our prospective memory, so we become great at inducing LDs? But, I don't think it is that simple. We probably need hightened self awareness to catch that "feeling" while dreaming. Another thing comes up. We know that if you train your prospective memory on a single object, it becomes automatic(no need for intention).
I want to ask Sageous something:
Do we really need self-awareness if we can use prospective memory to detect that DS?( you may think that the below questioon for Zoth is the same, but I need you to also tell us how frequently does self awareness occur in NLD after we train it, and how powerful).

Also, Zoth:
Is prospective memory by its own enough to remember a single DS that we have memorized, and to detect it and remember that we are in a dream? Dont we need something else to help us detect it?(you know, it may be harder to detect than a normal DS)

So, if we only need prospective memory, then we should buy a REM Dreamer, make our main LD goal to feel that "feeling", and voala, easiest way to become great at inducing LDs. If we do need self awareness, then no problem, we already need to train it for dream control.

But beware, the main question is:
Are we able to feel that "feeling" constantly in our NLDs if we memorize it , and highten self awareness if needed?

Also, Sageous, you are right that a high-level LD is much more important than 10 low lucid dreams, because, I think, the better we feel the dream "feeling", the easier it is to induce LDs(Also, I think it is not like a normal feeling, more like a hunch, right?)

Definitively agree with all you say there Sageous - in especially that one high level event is more fruitful for a beginner to actually grasp, what one is on to.
And unfortunately - while having had my memory and having been able to do a lot of the TOTM and comp stuff for my novice-state - I still yearn for what I had experienced in the past. Not exactly the first one as it was - but that was really full-on realization, too. And so was one of the LDs around age 30.
Just to make it clear - I am very much with you in terms of awareness being the important thing - most important.

What galled me was your estimation of children`s lack of same - and lack of true LDs.
I might even go as far as to ponder, if not a child`s awareness for the world she lives in is more direct, immediate and - well yeah - higher.
Seeing the world with more open eyes and more curiosity as to what it has on offer.
In terms of self-awareness as such - trained adults are surely better at it - but untrained ones?
Not so sure there.

I have a nagging feeling, most people loose awareness with growing up and integrating themselves into society as it is.

And I also do not think, that an easy access to the flash of realization puts up new closed doors in front of LD-experience.
It just does not give you the abilities you need to go through the door and actually be lucid - that depends in my eyes not on the way of entry and how easy it is - but on your otherwise developed abilities.

But otherwise - you might feel more "under attack" than you actually are.




Another maybe interesting aspect:
The last paper Zoth linked up to spoke of dissociation in connection with LD.
The time, in which LDs seem to decline rather sharply is also the time, which some psychiatrists - since not so long - see as the "vulnerable" phase for certain wiring-processes going astray and leading to dissociative conditions - psychosis - in genetically predisposed youngsters - even if it shows up much later in life, when the environment takes a certain toll.
There is a connection to puberty somehow.
So maybe we are in a way on the same page here - would need to research further to come up with supporting data - but maybe there is a more intimate connection between mental health and LDing, than I thought.

also, another question for Sageous:
Do you feel the dream because you got used to it?(bcz you had a huge amount of LDs)
Do you use it as a DS?
Do you need self-awareness to help you detect that feeling?(feeling or hunch or whatever)
I don't know why you don't think NovaDreamer is helpful for improving your LDing skills. Using it with MILD and self-awareness will help you get more good LDs and to get a hang of that dream hunch. Isn't it that dream hunch that all expert LDers rely on completly?

P.S: Zoth and Steph, don't think I don't care about the brain stuff about LDing, I just didn't study them yet, but I am now. So, can I join the possy when I am done?