Thread: How many DVers think LUCI will work?

Thanks StephL for that.

I did have to do some research on The Internet trying find, double-check and cross reference information which took a little time. Hey, but if it makes people think deeper ard read between the lines then I would like to think that my post has served a purpose.

I do have a background in Electronics and testing however, although it is a while ago so I'm quite rusty now as I haven't been following the trends, etc. This has wetted my appetite however!

Originally Posted by StephL

By the way and off topic - my husband has a very early commercial version of an EEG and eye-muscle movement detector, with which you can play simple computer games.
The thing with the eye-muscles is relatively easy to learn - but going by consciously manipulating EEG waves was beyond me - or lets say beyond my patience and interest - but he can do it.

I don't think it is off topic as such. In fact I have got an NIA myself. I did try the EOG function post-WBTB one time where it did 'detect' eye muscle movements (and occasional artifacts.)
However you needed the patience of a Saint as you had to keep your head reasonably still. The setup/wiring was uncomfortable, plus with the computer wirring away in the background and being on the bed upside down didn't help matters.

My main computer went into powesave mode after 20 min which ruined the test which was to produce a 'bleep' (either left/right) depending on sensitivity levels and the EOG NIA settings.

The good thing is you didn't have to worry about the calibration, which is more of an issue with the EEG part of the NIA.

I would like to try a hack or another go when I get more time as this sort of thing fascinates me.

Originally Posted by StephL

It makes very much sense what you have to say - and I agree - a great idea to have a DV quality testing.
Is this possible, though - with this site not allowing "competition" in which form it might be defined - not sure there - not allowing direct links?

I don't really see an issue providing you don't add the website link. I'm pretty sure people have posted their experiences and thoughts on the REMee dream mask (and other lucid dream-related devices) on the forum before now.
It gives other like-minded people an idea of how the product performs in the real world, and not that of the boardroom. At the end of the day you could be helping other member's with time and money. It would provide feedback to improve or modify the said (or updated) product should there be any issues.
Providing you're not (as a poster or contributor) blatantly advertising and work for the company then there shouldn't be a problem.

Whether the company would release a product early for a popular LD forum to test is another matter.

Ah - thanks for this post again Highlander!
I might actually dig the NIA out of my husband´s den and take a look again - and ask him, for how long he´s been at it in one stretch.

He´s from a mathematics/informatics background and was fantasizing about hacking the thing as well.
And he became quite amazingly good, too - he also regularly meditates - that might help with such things, I guess.

In the moment - I´m not really interested in technology for LD - maybe my husband - and I will report if he does test something one day - but that would first be him digging deep in The Internet and choosing hopefully well.

Edit: I´m working on further responses..

Originally Posted by Araishu

Although that is a very good point, I don't see what makes those of us who have experienced it by chance and looked it up any different from the general public.


The kind of people who are willing to make Lucid Dreaming their only priority in life are most likely already occupied by things like video games and the sort.

Lucid dreaming does not cause people to lack feelings of responsibility in real life, it simply gives those who already lack those feelings another medium to escape through.

I really like that first statement - something to do with justice and equality.

And Sageous is basically saying, if I understand him correctly there - it´s the more potent agens in a variety of contexts of escapism.
And accordingly - the potential damage is significantly higher.

I fully agree on the point of potency - and that with only less than a handful of experiences (as an adult..?).
So - from a glimpse alone.

My question is now though - could not maybe the very act of becoming skilled in the art of LD sort of have a spill-over good effect on waking life quality?
Maybe even most of the cases?
Maybe it can lead people from escaping where ever and however they usually do - towards filling their actual real lives with meaning and awareness over the bridge of evolving their consciousness in LD?

Originally Posted by Araishu

Lucid dreaming is unimaginably exciting the first few times you achieve it and it's often all you can think about for a few days after. However, after a while it becomes a tool open for use for whatever you want and the obsession is dropped. It becomes a part of your reality rather than becoming your reality. At least, that's what I think anyway.

This definition sounds like I´m in for life-long passion!!!
As I am with playing darts - just on a level in no way comparable.
And - who drops off drops off because of not evolving enough to make it worth it?
So - they can safely go back play video games.

Hm - what is my opinion now??
I do not know.

Originally Posted by Sageous

Excellent question. Here's my totally arguable take:

I think the simple answer to this is that LD'ing is a fundamentally unnatural event. It isn't that evolution doesn't allow easy LD'ing as much as it is the case that there is simply no "natural" inclusion of self-awareness in the mechanisms of sleep and dreams. At all.

To expand this a bit, I'm not even sure that self-awareness was meant to exist in waking-life either. Sentience may just be an accident of natural evolution (or God's plan, depending on your perspective) that came about as a side-effect of the amazing complexity of our brains.


In other words, our brains became so powerful we became self-aware --

Agreed not only on the last sentence..

But - I have one misgiving - evolution in my view is not something, that allows or not allows something - it throws it out as random mutations and puts the combinatorics to the test of time in a habitat (which follows the laws of physics..) - well - as I understand it - without proper post-preparation - I admit.

It also has no meaning or higher plan for us - from which we could ever deviate - it just doesn´t work that way.

Okay - a god would indeed work that way.
So there we have the questions..
Are you theist or a leaning agnostic? In this context I could understand.


I tend to think, everything we do and perceive - also our technological philosophical and cultural phenomena is our evolution.
It is all one thing.

Originally Posted by Sageous

just like Skynet (only we're taking a skosh more time to destroy the planet than the machines did in Terminator ).

Well - there goes a question of it´s own right in disguise..

Originally Posted by Sageous

This is why we still have a lot of trouble realizing we exist during waking-life, much less the dream state.

Come to think of it, we might not have ever been meant to dream at all, so it makes sense that dreaming is normally a quickly-forgotten jumble of generally meaningless events* (at least until we wake up and start interpreting them) that occurs not for some evolutionary purpose but simply because that supercomputer in our skulls keeps whirring away long after sleep has ensued. Indeed, about the only thing nature seems to have done is create barriers to your waking-life self when sleeping, like denying access to memory, to keep this accidental thing called sentience out of the "natural" process of sleep.

At the point of meaning in evolution/creation once more - and at the point of a culture of lucid dreaming before recorded time possibly presenting an incentive even, like power functions in the form of shamans and priests - not (all) celibate - surely!

Actually - doesn´t evolution keep the option in relatively easy reach?
If you want to - you can learn it!
I mean - if you get sex for it - come on!
Could be..

Also the "simply" might be debatable - it is not random, but the brain actually consolidats and archives memories into long time store while sleeping - I will post studies - if they are not already here somewhere ..


There is something in evolution, though, which leads to convergence.
And this can give very much the impression of pre-planned meaning.
But there might indeed be rules.
Like life being likely around suns, which emit light, which can be used by compound or camera-type eyes best - so besides some other 3 or so ways of analysing optics - the latter esp. have been evolving over and over independently on earth.
Even using the same chemical crystals, but from different sources - because they can be used - that´s another level of "because"..

Just next door in my "What We Still Don´t Know" - we would be close to the 3 videos towards I have to restrain myself to refer in detail here now..

We can go on as in - are we a simulation..?

Originally Posted by Sageous

Because of all this, bringing our self-awareness into dreams, or LD'ing, is a very unnatural process. But, just as bringing self-awareness into waking life has become routine for many, there is no reason LD'ing can't eventually be routine as well... we just have to get nature accustomed to the concept. Or, to be on topic, we just need to trick nature with machines or drugs. So we might ultimately counter natural evolution with an evolutionary step of our own making; one of mind -- our own intellectual evolution might pick up where nature left off (or screwed up).

Yes - to your statement I put in bold - and nobody suggests for real that enhancement of general waking life awareness - meditation - could be a bad thing - nobody - it even brings brain-cells to grow!

These "barriers" might just as well be a cultural phenomenon.
I actually could well imagine that - lets say in the stone-age - there might not have been a much stronger and more culturally evolved lucid dreaming skill abound, than we might not be able to imagine?
Pet theory of mine - fresh from my mind..

Originally Posted by Sageous

This unnatural condition is not necessarily a bad thing though: Since LD'ing is not a tool created by nature, it might possibly be able to do more than nature allowed (or never programmed at all, as it were) to effect our dreams, explore our unconscious, and perhaps tweak that supercomputer to do even more amazing things.

tl;dr: We are not naturally meant to lucid dream, so our effort to do so is an uphill battle against nature (or God's plan) itself. Which kind of sucks, but also might point to LD'ing as a powerful tool for growth of the same scope that self-awareness i waking-life is.

I am afraid I disagree - it is a tool in nature´s box - it has been thrown out and is still active - it works - see many people profiting from it with the surrounding work.
But with your conclusions - I full-heartedly agree - lets grow!!

Originally Posted by Sageous

* Quick note about meaning, before folks chime in to correct me: Yes, given that that same sentience is sourced in the unconscious, there is an excellent chance that some of the stuff popping up in dreams are relevant to your life and your mind's current unconscious concerns swimming around in the otherwise random projections of dreams...but this too is an accident of nature, I think, not its intention. By extension: If they exist, things like dream-sharing, AP, etc, are also either accidents or rather very carefully produced events of self-awareness holding no place in nature at all (which again is not a bad thing, just another hurdle).

Well - here is meaning as in what does a dream mean - agreed on that.
It is connected and it also somewhere has came about with evolution, that this it is so.

Why dream at all?
There is a function I believe - not a meaning.

Originally Posted by Sageous

All true. But keep in mind that folks (like me as well) who stumble upon LD'ing are likely already intellectually prepared on some level to cope with and work with the novelty and escapism potentials of lucidity.

Well - I stumbled on lucidity as a child for the first time, I am pretty much convinced..
Am I something special in any meaningful sense here?
Hope not!

Originally Posted by Sageous

Because we were able to draw the conclusion that "this is a dream" based on our own existent self-awareness and mental wherewithal, we were able to temper our reaction and make thoughtful decisions about working to learn more, explore more, or walk away, without much negative effect on our waking lives. Not everyone is equipped to do that, and if LD'ing suddenly becomes available to all without any mental or work prerequisites, there likely will be a large group of people who could be swept up by the activity... in an even more effective manner than what happened with TV, the internet, and video games.

Of course I could be wrong...

Didn´t you say, even with technology - you can´t ever circumvent the mental preparation and awareness-practice needed for it not only to set on - but continue.

Last two nights I had two futile onsets - looking at my hands - maybe that is what you can get the short-cut to..?
And the rest up to you as per usual?

Gaah - I should sleep - or meditate! Both would maybe be asking too much ..
But I enjoy debating loads as well!

I hope I do not overly much have the desire to edit "tomorrow" - I start rambling - it´s late - I just press submit now!

tongue.gif

I wanted to leave a comment on the L-K site, addressing some of my concerns about the product and lack of information. However you have to be a backer in order to do so.
Even then it appears a lot of questions and concerns (from backers) are not being answered by GXP (for whatever reason?) which is causing a bit of angst.

Hm - sounds not so good - but I always smile when I find "angst" - or other things like "schadenfreude" or "gestalt" used in English!
But good, that such a product testing would be possible and such was done on here before..
Bit scared to re-read my above post - will do that later..

Originally Posted by StephL

I really like that first statement - something to do with justice and equality.

And Sageous is basically saying, if I understand him correctly there - it´s the more potent agens in a variety of contexts of escapism.
And accordingly - the potential damage is significantly higher.

tongue.gif

The ability to make choices and be responsible for your own actions is the brilliant thing about being conscious. The risk factor is always there with every single choice we make, but that doesn't mean we should not be allowed to make choices for ourselves. If somebody does choose to disassociate from society, that is their choice and they should be free to make it

Originally Posted by StephL

My question is now though - could not maybe the very act of becoming skilled in the art of LD sort of have a spill-over good effect on waking life quality?
Maybe even most of the cases?
Maybe it can lead people from escaping where ever and however they usually do - towards filling their actual real lives with meaning and awareness over the bridge of evolving their consciousness in LD?

tongue.gif

Mastering LD does have many positive impacts on waking life which is one of the aspects that drew me towards it so it could certainly be seen as good thing if it were to be discovered by more people.

Originally Posted by StephL

This definition sounds like I´m in for life-long passion!!!
As I am with playing darts - just on a level in no way comparable.
And - who drops off drops off because of not evolving enough to make it worth it?
So - they can safely go back play video games.

tongue.gif

Indeed. If you choose to do so, you keep the skill for the rest of your days. You are in control of how you use it/for what reasons
I don't think it's a case of not evolving enough though. Anybody can master it so long as they actually want to.

Originally Posted by StephL

But - I have one misgiving - evolution in my view is not something, that allows or not allows something - it throws it out as random mutations and puts the combinatorics to the test of time in a habitat (which follows the laws of physics..) - well - as I understand it - without proper post-preparation - I admit.

It also has no meaning or higher plan for us - from which we could ever deviate - it just doesn´t work that way.

Sorry about all that; I agree completely. Evolution is certainly not an entity, has no plans, and no actual long-term designs about which we know. I am a writer by trade, and I guess I did a little anthropomorphizing there just to make the words flow a little better. My bad.

Okay - a god would indeed work that way.
So there we have the questions..
Are you theist or a leaning agnostic? In this context I could understand.

Although at first I would repeat that my phrasing was more style than deeper meaning, your question made me pause.

I am neither a theist nor agnostic as classically defined (I like to think we're all agnostic, given that, when the truth finally presents itself to us, we will be capable of accepting it and adapting to it). I don't really care how things were created or who might've been in charge, and I like to think that we are responsible for creating and nurturing our own "immortal souls" through the energy of our thoughts and the quality of our actions, with that soul being the vessel for my consciousness after death... God, or His plans, doesn't fit well into this, so for now there isn't much reason for faith.

But then there's context: In writing that post I had thought I was offering the gamut of sources for evolution of mind to illustrate that this idea works regardless of whether you're a fan of evolution or God, or both. But, upon rereading my post, I can't help but see the fact that I was born and raised a Catholic (including all my schooling in catholic institutions) announcing itself quite clearly. I guess the idea of God's plan is so engrained in me that I can't avoid including it in my opinions -- even when I don't hold that opinion anymore!

I tend to think, everything we do and perceive - also our technological philosophical and cultural phenomena is our evolution. It is all one thing.

It is now.

That may have been my point: this sort of evolution -- one driven by our thoughts, controlled by our deeds -- is extremely new, and runs fully anathema to the natural evolutionary process of successful random mutation. And, instead of following nature's pattern of random mutations taking thousands or millions of years to update or create a new species, we are creating this change in a matter of decades.

So yes, it is all one thing, but it is our thing this time, and not just another natural event.

Yes - to your statement ["But, just as bringing self-awareness into waking life has become routine for many, there is no reason LD'ing can't eventually be routine as well."] - and nobody suggests for real that enhancement of general waking life awareness - meditation - could be a bad thing - nobody - it even brings brain-cells to grow!

... not even me! Just as bringing self-awareness into waking-life is not harmful at all, bringing self-awareness into a dream will be a harmless event as well, and to do so would certainly be a growth event.

These "barriers" might just as well be a cultural phenomenon.
I actually could well imagine that - lets say in the stone-age - there might not have been a much stronger and more culturally evolved lucid dreaming skill abound, than we might not be able to imagine?
Pet theory of mine - fresh from my mind..

I'm not so sure of that. Though it may be a pleasant bit of nostalgia to imagine that human cultures were once more "in touch" with their inner selves before all this modern complication and materialism threw us culturally off our spiritual paths, I honestly think that we are currently at a pinnacle of conscious development (indeed, we are always at a pinnacle, as the development only improves from generation to generation). Yes, lucid dreaming has probably existed exactly as long as sentience has, but those lucid-dreaming cavemen may have been aware that they were dreaming, but they were not yet able to work with that awareness as we are now...humans simply hadn't collectively learned enough yet. Indeed, I would imagine that quite a bit of religion and mythology can be sourced in dreams, as very early shaman struggled to attach some meaning to their experiences (and yes, "cash in" on them).

In other words, our primitive ancestors certainly had lucid dreams, but they did not yet understand what was going on, and the explanations of what was going on tended to be much farther removed from the truth than our explanations today (even though we likely still don't really know yet -- but we will).

Originally Posted by Sageous:This unnatural condition is not necessarily a bad thing though: Since LD'ing is not a tool created by nature, it might possibly be able to do more than nature allowed (or never programmed at all, as it were) to effect our dreams, explore our unconscious, and perhaps tweak that supercomputer to do even more amazing things.

I am afraid I disagree - it is a tool in nature´s box - it has been thrown out and is still active - it works - see many people profiting from it with the surrounding work.
But with your conclusions - I full-heartedly agree - lets grow!!

Well, disagreement here is okay, as I'm used to it; and I very well may be wrong.

Why dream at all? There is a function I believe - not a meaning.

Given that most higher animals dream, there likely is a function to it. Maybe "function" is the wrong word. Perhaps instead dreams are representative -- a side-effect -- of some other function, like the process of storing long-term memory or even an opposing process of cleansing the brain of all the loose scraps of information it gathered during the previous day.

Sleep could also be the time that our unconscious mind does whatever global repair work it can do on its lesser, often miscreant conscious counterpart. Dreams then might represent our mind's metaphoric attempt to talk to itself... that might even explain people's innate need to attach meaning to their dreams (and that caveman's attachment of mythology or religion to his dreams, because he knew they had to mean something).

But I think when you put part one (debris from your brain's memory processing/day residue cleanup) beside part two (communications from your unconscious), you'll find part one the far larger bit, and from that it's easy to conclude that most dreams are likely just random, meaningless images until we attach meaning to them later (which is not a bad thing).

Well - I stumbled on lucidity as a child for the first time, I am pretty much convinced..
Am I something special in any meaningful sense here?

Sadly not. I think most, if not all people, stumble on a form of lucidity during childhood. There is something about a child's incomplete view of waking life that makes it easier for her to realize she is dreaming. By incomplete I mean that she is still in the process of defining a world that may still mostly be very much like a dream -- everything beyond things like Mommy, Daddy, Home, and school don't really have solid definition yet, and a child still sees herself as the center of her universe; just like a dream. Keep in mind though that, just as a child lacks true self-awareness in waking-life, she is not truly self-aware in the dreams -- it's just that, consciously-speaking, her dream-life is so close to waking-life that being in a dream isn't a real problem. In other words, by the nature of their incomplete wiring kids are likely to sort of lucid dream.

The special part, though, is remembering later in life that you did so, and feeling a need to "know" you are dreaming again -- this time with your more mature Self in the formula. Holding that thought is very special, given how few people do it.

Didn´t you say, even with technology - you can´t ever circumvent the mental preparation and awareness-practice needed for it not only to set on - but continue.

Last two nights I had two futile onsets - looking at my hands - maybe that is what you can get the short-cut to..?
And the rest up to you as per usual?

Yes, I did say that, and still do: all the machines and the drugs in the world will do nothing for you if you have not prepared yourself to lucid dream. If you are prepared, and your self-awareness, memory, and expectation/intentions are all set for LD'ing, then yes, the machines might be a shortcut to lucidity, but you were going to get there anyway.

And no, the machines won't even get you to look at your hands -- you are doing that yourself as well. All they can do is help remind you to look at your hands -- you still must hold them up and realize what you're looking at.

I just found out about the LUCI yesterday and I admit I was very excited for it! Although I have my own techniques that work fairly well when I have time to focus on LDing, I still may give the LUCI a crack once it comes out and I know it's not a scam. Looks very promising though!

I love your answer - there are not enough like buttons in this whole thread to express just how much I love it!

Originally Posted by Sageous

..
Although at first I would repeat that my phrasing was more style than deeper meaning, your question made me pause.

..

Wow - just heartfelt WOW!!
Sneaky thing, how constructs, which get deeply ingrained - esp. in childhood - even after having been thrown overboard - still manage to find their ways into our very style and language..

Originally Posted by Sageous

That may have been my point: this sort of evolution -- one driven by our thoughts, controlled by our deeds -- is extremely new, and runs fully anathema to the natural evolutionary process of successful random mutation. And, instead of following nature's pattern of random mutations taking thousands or millions of years to update or create a new species, we are creating this change in a matter of decades.

So yes, it is all one thing, but it is our thing this time, and not just another natural event.

This is true - I think, I should really de-simplify my concept there - we are indeed going about our evolution in a totally novel and - I also agree there after giving it some thought - unnatural way.
To see this - I actually would only have to have taken into account the temporal overdrive of change, we bring about without a putting to the test of time and environment in any adequate synchrony.
This is also why I sadly think, we could manage to destroy our planet before going about - well everything - in an enlightened way - meaning driven by true insight.
Thanks for making me aware of my short-sightedness there.

Originally Posted by Sageous

... not even me! Just as bringing self-awareness into waking-life is not harmful at all, bringing self-awareness into a dream will be a harmless event as well, and to do so would certainly be a growth event.

I think, I might open an anonymous poll - if possible - asking who on here feels that LD is taking over their lives in a drug-addiction like destructiveness..

Originally Posted by Sageous

I'm not so sure of that.
Though it may be a pleasant bit of nostalgia to imagine that human cultures were once more "in touch" with their inner selves before all this modern complication and materialism threw us culturally off our spiritual paths, I honestly think that we are currently at a pinnacle of conscious development (indeed, we are always at a pinnacle, as the development only improves from generation to generation). Yes, lucid dreaming has probably existed exactly as long as sentience has, but those lucid-dreaming cavemen may have been aware that they were dreaming, but they were not yet able to work with that awareness as we are now...humans simply hadn't collectively learned enough yet. Indeed, I would imagine that quite a bit of religion and mythology can be sourced in dreams, as very early shaman struggled to attach some meaning to their experiences (and yes, "cash in" on them).

In other words, our primitive ancestors certainly had lucid dreams, but they did not yet understand what was going on, and the explanations of what was going on tended to be much farther removed from the truth than our explanations today (even though we likely still don't really know yet -- but we will).

Oh yes - I am not sure as well - actually I fully agree with the point of not having an understanding of it even close to ours now.
Might be really this sort of nostalgia - while I actually try to cultivate a scepticism on this account -
My point was more, that dream-control could have been more developed - but on second thoughts - rather not.
My line of thinking being, that once you accept the dream to be coming from outside your minds - gods, demons, whoever living on that plane - would not exactly be conductive to this control.
I fully agree with you there now.

Originally Posted by Sageous

Given that most higher animals dream, there likely is a function to it. Maybe "function" is the wrong word. Perhaps instead dreams are representative -- a side-effect -- of some other function, like the process of storing long-term memory or even an opposing process of cleansing the brain of all the loose scraps of information it gathered during the previous day.

Sleep could also be the time that our unconscious mind does whatever global repair work it can do on its lesser, often miscreant conscious counterpart. Dreams then might represent our mind's metaphoric attempt to talk to itself... that might even explain people's innate need to attach meaning to their dreams (and that caveman's attachment of mythology or religion to his dreams, because he knew they had to mean something).

But I think when you put part one (debris from your brain's memory processing/day residue cleanup) beside part two (communications from your unconscious), you'll find part one the far larger bit, and from that it's easy to conclude that most dreams are likely just random, meaningless images until we attach meaning to them later (which is not a bad thing).

This might be true - yepp - it actually seems likely to me, that the majority is random flickerings - I see your point - okaay - we are getting somewhere in terms of reassessing our ideas and expressions - this is wonderful!

One thing, I heard in Young´s video yesterday I found interesting.
OBE´s also are common in near-death situations - and when he stated, animals would do it very often - he said, this could be nature´s very own anaesthetic - if the endorphins are not enough any more.
Makes sense to me to dissociate from perceptions - incl. pain - where it does not make sense to perceive them in the sense of alarming/warning..
Not sure there, though, if I follow him along completely.

Originally Posted by Sageous

Sadly not. I think most, if not all people, stumble on a form of lucidity during childhood. There is something about a child's incomplete view of waking life that makes it easier for her to realize she is dreaming. By incomplete I mean that she is still in the process of defining a world that may still mostly be very much like a dream -- everything beyond things like Mommy, Daddy, Home, and school don't really have solid definition yet, and a child still sees herself as the center of her universe; just like a dream. Keep in mind though that, just as a child lacks true self-awareness in waking-life, she is not truly self-aware in the dreams -- it's just that, consciously-speaking, her dream-life is so close to waking-life that being in a dream isn't a real problem. In other words, by the nature of their incomplete wiring kids are likely to sort of lucid dream.

This is true I think - didn´t consider it in this way.
But I have thought something like this before - or read it.
Seems in the 60s while hippieness etc. - some children were given LSD.
With the "amazing" - but explainable result - that they didn´t think a lot of it.
Reporting life wasn´t really that different from how it usually was. Need a source for this - might find one, even.

Originally Posted by Sageous

The special part, though, is remembering later in life that you did so, and feeling a need to "know" you are dreaming again -- this time with your more mature Self in the formula. Holding that thought is very special, given how few people do it.

For me - it only dawned on me later - but I did tell my mother back then, which is practical - I actually called her.
She was on an esoteric self-discovery trip, switching believe-systems on almost a monthly basis back then.
And such of course concluded back then, I was something special..
This she had to tell me now, though, I forgot.
But I know, she later said such often - she wanted to believe a lot - might have been good or not so good for me, who knows.
When I was a teen, I made it a hobby to crash her castles in an almost wicked way - she always built a new one - still does.
Sort of admirable.

Anyway - after this sort of rebellion - I came back to searching for the supernatural, for it´s sheer sensationality.
It fitted my general goings abouts back then - I read Castaneda and that was what brought me back.
I tend to rant - but - like next door - got to admit, if it hadn´t been for his books - I wouldn´t be here highly probably.
So - I got to be thankful for this - with a bit of teeth-grinding.

Originally Posted by Sageous

Yes, I did say that, and still do: all the machines and the drugs in the world will do nothing for you if you have not prepared yourself to lucid dream. If you are prepared, and your self-awareness, memory, and expectation/intentions are all set for LD'ing, then yes, the machines might be a shortcut to lucidity, but you were going to get there anyway.

And no, the machines won't even get you to look at your hands -- you are doing that yourself as well. All they can do is help remind you to look at your hands -- you still must hold them up and realize what you're looking at.

Yes and I fully agree - not on a basis like yours of course - reaching such a state of expertise is my long-term goal, though!
Oh - and lovely you are using the "she" - I should start my alternating as well, as I used to in the past!

heart-1.gif

That was a wonderful response, StephL, and a great exchange; thanks!

Just a couple very small things

Originally Posted by StephL

I think, I might open an anonymous poll - if possible - asking who on here feels that LD is taking over their lives in a drug-addiction like destructiveness.

That's not a bad idea, and though I wonder if we'd be surprised by the results, I have a feeling we'd be enlightened by the subsequent conversation about people's unnecessary but real fears of this sort of takeover.

One thing, I heard in Young´s video yesterday I found interesting. OBE´s also are common in near-death situations - and when he stated, animals would do it very often - he said, this could be nature´s very own anaesthetic - if the endorphins are not enough any more. Makes sense to me to dissociate from perceptions - incl. pain - where it does not make sense to perceive them in the sense of alarming/warning. Not sure there, though, if I follow him along completely.

I'm not sure I would equate an OBE with the natural anesthesia that happens when an animal faces sudden traumatic death. I think Young was making a point about potentials, and offering a nice jump-off point for attempting (or at least understanding) OBE's and not necessarily saying that animals are having them. I may have misunderstood this, but if I did I would then say he might be mistaken, or has misinterpreted the literature surrounding neurological reaction to trauma.

I think he may instead have been trying to instill the Vipassana-esque point of view, which is one of non-dual observation, if that makes any sense at all... and if that's the case he was spot on, and well worth listening to at length.

This is true I think - didn´t consider it in this way.
But I have thought something like this before - or read it.
Seems in the 60s while hippieness etc. - some children were given LSD.
With the "amazing" - but explainable result - that they didn´t think a lot of it.
Reporting life wasn´t really that different from how it usually was. Need a source for this - might find one, even.

I hope you'll post here if you do find one, as it would help unravel a lot of misunderstanding on these forums regarding childhood LD'ing.

For me - it only dawned on me later - but I did tell my mother back then, which is practical - I actually called her.
She was on an esoteric self-discovery trip, switching believe-systems on almost a monthly basis back then.
And such of course concluded back then, I was something special..
This she had to tell me now, though, I forgot.
But I know, she later said such often - she wanted to believe a lot - might have been good or not so good for me, who knows.
When I was a teen, I made it a hobby to crash her castles in an almost wicked way - she always built a new one - still does.
Sort of admirable.

Anyway - after this sort of rebellion - I came back to searching for the supernatural, for it´s sheer sensationality.
It fitted my general goings abouts back then - I read Castaneda and that was what brought me back.
I tend to rant - but - like next door - got to admit, if it hadn´t been for his books - I wouldn´t be here highly probably.
So - I got to be thankful for this - with a bit of teeth-grinding.

That is a great relationship -- especially for you; you mother must be a simultaneously curious and patient person, which is an excellent combination... I hope you thank her now and then!

Very good point(s) - will call my mother later once more!

^^ Tell her I said "Hi!"

From the Luci-Kickstarter home page:


A simple third-party signal amplifier (TDA7293) used for testing the prototype.

(N.B. Note that the Kickstarter page NOW refers to the TDA7293 itself.)


Quote - Creator GXP Technologies about 9 hours ago

Yes, we used a TDA7293 mono amp in our prototype. Hence the note below the image of the TDA7293. It works extremely well to amplify the signal coming from the electrode. In actuality, there are 2 electrodes. One of them, located in the front of the head provides the neutral reference signal.

The TDA7293 amplifier (shown) is overkill for an audio signal to a set of standard earphones.

It is useless as a front-end EEG amplifier.

Note also that a 'reference' electrode is NOW mentioned. This is clearly not shown on the headband photographs below. (It should be at the front according to GXP.)






No reference electrode is shown in the original design sketch; let alone mentioned. An oversight perhaps? Or...

A typical adult human EEG signal is about 10 µV to 100 µV in amplitude when measured from the scalp.

Source: Wikipedia


Here's what the front-end amp has to do.

Each electrode is connected to one input of a differential amplifier (one amplifier per pair of electrodes); a common system reference electrode is connected to the other input of each differential amplifier. These amplifiers amplify the voltage between the active electrode and the reference (typically 1,000–100,000 times, or 60–100 dB of voltage gain).

Source: Wikipedia


Data for a typical high gain component used in various general EEG projects:

http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/ina114.pdf


Goalposts ... moving...

^^ Great work, Highlander! I hope the creator appreciates your input, and I know his customers ultimately will (especially if that 2nd electrode found its way into the unit because of you).

I'm wondering how well the rear electrode will be able to pick up electrical activity through hair. Typical EEG procedures (in which shaving the head is not an option) involve the use of conductance gel and physically moving as much hair out of the way as possible in order to get a good signal. An amplifier is mentioned, which I guess must help by boosting the amplitude of whatever waves the electrode can pick up, but that leaves me wondering why all EEG isn't done with such an amplifier - thus negating the requirement for conductance gel and time consuming prep work. Unless of course all EEG is done with an amplifier (makes sense) and still requires gel. Although, this could be a much more sensitive electrode than I've seen before; I don't keep well-enough up to date with the technology.

Originally Posted by Sageous

^^ Great work, Highlander! I hope the creator appreciates your input, and I know his customers ultimately will (especially if that 2nd electrode found its way into the unit because of you).

I personally think IamCoder is the one to credit, because he raised his concerns directly on the Kickstarter comments page. GXP were forced to answer his valid concerns.
The information about the second electrode was then mentioned in their counter-argument.

It still remains about the vadility of the original design however.

Originally Posted by Highlander

I personally think IamCoder is the one to credit, because he raised his concerns directly on the Kickstarter comments page. GXP were forced to answer his valid concerns.
The information about the second electrode was then mentioned in their counter-argument.

It still remains about the vadility of the original design however.

I asked about it in the comment section, since I'm a backer.
I want to know why they only just started mentionning this second electrode, and why it doesn't show up on the first sketch, as well as the photos of prototypes.

Originally Posted by J.D.

I'm wondering how well the rear electrode will be able to pick up electrical activity through hair. Typical EEG procedures (in which shaving the head is not an option) involve the use of conductance gel and physically moving as much hair out of the way as possible in order to get a good signal. An amplifier is mentioned, which I guess must help by boosting the amplitude of whatever waves the electrode can pick up, but that leaves me wondering why all EEG isn't done with such an amplifier - thus negating the requirement for conductance gel and time consuming prep work. Unless of course all EEG is done with an amplifier (makes sense) and still requires gel. Although, this could be a much more sensitive electrode than I've seen before; I don't keep well-enough up to date with the technology.

They intend to use a 'dry' electrode which has little points on it to contact the skin. It does not need conducting gel. Like you say a good contact is needed to minimise noise, artifacts, etc.
There are different designs of amplifier, depending on requirements. It all boils down to time and money at the end of the day I guess.

Originally Posted by Sageous

^^ Great work, Highlander! I hope the creator appreciates your input, and I know his customers ultimately will (especially if that 2nd electrode found its way into the unit because of you).

Aaha!!
I quote you here, Sageous, but I read - and believe to have understood you Highlander - well, well, hm!
And agreed - great that "we" on here seem to be taken note of - and such possibly being influential.
Well done - it really looks, you have rattled their cages Highlander!!

Yours would be a most positive spin, Sageous - there being an exchange of knowledge and expertise..
Can´t see it (yet?) - can´t see them commenting on here, for example..

Originally Posted by Sageous

That is a great relationship -- especially for you; you mother must be a simultaneously curious and patient person, which is an excellent combination... I hope you thank her now and then!

Originally Posted by Sageous

^^ Tell her I said "Hi!"

I did call her just now, and it was great - she sends you greetings back and she listened to me and was very interested in LD, but she said, she now is in sort of an equanimity and likes it - and she stopped searching, being curious in such a direction, and building castles.
That is fine with me as well - I need not worry - and we laughed a lot!

Originally Posted by Sageous

That was a wonderful response, StephL, and a great exchange; thanks!

Just a couple very small things



That's not a bad idea, and though I wonder if we'd be surprised by the results, I have a feeling we'd be enlightened by the subsequent conversation about people's unnecessary but real fears of this sort of takeover.

Thank you!
I will not forget to do this - and I also expect a result, where addiction is by no means the typical thing to happen - will be interesting, I hope!

Originally Posted by Sageous

I'm not sure I would equate an OBE with the natural anesthesia that happens when an animal faces sudden traumatic death. I think Young was making a point about potentials, and offering a nice jump-off point for attempting (or at least understanding) OBE's and not necessarily saying that animals are having them. I may have misunderstood this, but if I did I would then say he might be mistaken, or has misinterpreted the literature surrounding neurological reaction to trauma.

I think he may instead have been trying to instill the Vipassana-esque point of view, which is one of non-dual observation, if that makes any sense at all... and if that's the case he was spot on, and well worth listening to at length.

That´s where I might not follow him either - but seen from a view of a higher animal indeed having a "higher" consciousness, than we tend to believe - in the sense of a point of view, on which can be reflected - then it would make sense.
Then there would be this need of dissociating this point of view from the body-awareness.

This "non-dual observation" - wow - the content-list for chapters on Wikipedia of different philosophical context is overwhelming - so no - I am not sure, how exactly you mean it. Since connected with Vipassana - there seems to have been a philosophical collision on a complicated framework historically - after some mini-research of mine - I backed out.
Maybe this: "seeing things clearly, free from projection and obsessive attitudes, with calm and insight into heart, mind and body"?

I am not putting it beyond higher animals - but there we are once more what is "higher" - I had to spend hours probably, and wouldn´t come to an opinion...?

Originally Posted by Sageous

I hope you'll post here if you do find one, as it would help unravel a lot of misunderstanding on these forums regarding childhood LD'ing.

Noted down under - well - "LD Stuff"..

Alright, about the second electrode, GXP just answered me in the comment section, here's their reply:

"The second electrode is in the front and the very thin wire is hidden under the folded edge of the headband and comes down along the same wire as the main electrode. Can't see it in the photos."

Originally Posted by StephL

Originally Posted by Sageous:
I'm not sure I would equate an OBE with the natural anesthesia that happens when an animal faces sudden traumatic death. I think Young was making a point about potentials, and offering a nice jump-off point for attempting (or at least understanding) OBE's and not necessarily saying that animals are having them. I may have misunderstood this, but if I did I would then say he might be mistaken, or has misinterpreted the literature surrounding neurological reaction to trauma.

I think he may instead have been trying to instill the Vipassana-esque point of view, which is one of non-dual observation, if that makes any sense at all... and if that's the case he was spot on, and well worth listening to at length.
That´s where I might not follow him either - but seen from a view of a higher animal indeed having a "higher" consciousness, then we tend to believe - in the sense of a point of view, on which can be reflected - then it would make sense.
Then there would be this need of dissociating this point of view from the body-awareness.

This "non-dual observation" - wow - the content-list for chapters on Wikipedia of different philosophical context is overwhelming - so no - I am not sure, how exactly you mean it. Since connected with Vipassana - there seems to have been a philosophical collision on a complicated framework historically - after some mini-research of mine - I backed out.
Maybe this: "seeing things clearly, free from projection and obsessive attitudes, with calm and insight into heart, mind and body"?

I am not putting it beyond higher animals - but there we are once more what is "higher" - I had to spend hours probably, and wouldn´t come to an opinion...?

That is partially it, but this "seeing" is done with the understanding, the confidence, that there is not a "you" separately encountering your reality, as is the standard stance of the duality we naturally practice, but that you are one with reality. This same sense of non-duality can exist when looking inward, too, where you can realize that there is no conscious/unconscious, no Id/Ego/Superego, no mind/body...only You. Non-duality is a very difficult concept, much less a functional perspective, for humans, especially for those of us from the Western world, whose philosophies, religions, and sciences have preached and assured duality for millennia.

From this non-dual perspective comes a certain clarity, especially in dreams, where you are not only one with reality, but you literally are that reality. By contrast, looking at a dream from a duality perspective is unhelpful to lucidity, as it amplifies the waking-life assumption that the real world is a place separate from you and thus innately unapproachable by you. This amplification makes you think that the dreamworld you are encountering is real, and separate from you, your will, and your imagination. Non-duality is a central tenet of dream yoga, BTW.

In terms of OBE, and the video, I think he was using the natural shock reaction of traumatized animals to show that we are all already wired to change our perspective when necessary, to the point where our consciousness can be apparently observing events from an external, safe, place while terrible things happen to our body. This can happen because, since we are already one with reality, shifting our consciousness to another position in that reality is not only possible, but quite natural.

Here's the catch, though: you might shift your perspective, but your consciousness hasn't actually "gone" anywhere. Just as the consciousness of that doomed critter in the video is still very much encased in its traumatized skull, a person experiencing an OBE isn't really going anywhere; she's just shifting her perspective a bit. Though this perspective shift should not be difficult in a non-dual environment, it is made difficult -- and exciting -- by the paradoxical attachment of duality to the experience. In other words, a person experiencing an OBE tends to be impressed (or frightened, as it were) not by the shift in perspective, but by the alarms set off by her duality-engine incorrectly announcing that she is in a different place than her body.

Did that help, or did I make things worse?

Also, though I don't intentionally practice it, Vipassana meditation seems a great foundation for lucid dreaming and its cohorts (OBE, AP), and well worth the research.

Quote - Creator GXP Technologies about 7 hours ago

BTW, detecting eye movement with an EOG monitor was the very first thing we tried. The results were extremely inconsistent. And the reference electrode didn't need to be mentioned since it doesn't serve any purpose as for the input. We will still call LUCI a single-electrode device since it reads from only one electrode.

The clue is in the name - a reference!

No Sageous - that does definitively not make it worse!
It actually sheds a lot of light on it!
Thank you!


And what else comes to my mind on topic - "hypocrisy-alert"..

Apparently LUCI's gone from kickstarter now. What a farce.

Kickstarted Luci Lucid dream inducer's creators leave backers deserted and cancel funding, completely contradicting with previous statements made less than a day earlier. : LucidDreaming