Glad to have you here. I remember that discussion. I think it is still going. It is important to always separate the ritual from the reality of dreaming. We create these models or rituals in order to trick ourselves into a slightly abnormal state of consciousness. Sure, the rituals work to induce a lucid dream, but you can't trust them as explanations. Sometimes, people get so caught up in their particular model that they start to mistake it for reality.

For example, I might imagine a giant orange octopus pulling me into a dream. It might work to induce a dream, but this does not mean I've discovered that giant orange octopuseseses are the cause of all dreams.

That is the problem I have when people like Newport start overexplaining their lucid induction tricks. They start to become limited by the models they have created.