Thread: Codename N2D2: NovaDreamer 2 incoming.

Well, its about time. I'm going to wait for reviews first, though.

Originally Posted by splodeymissile

Well, its about time. I'm going to wait for reviews first, though.

I can relate with you ^^ with all the buzz of the several lucid dreaming masks in the few years, skepticism never hurts

Hooray an update at last!

Let's hope they strike gold with this. It would great if it could produce consistent results.

Wanna bet they will only will include north-american residents for beta-testing purposes? Almost makes me want to mail them asking it right away

Originally Posted by Highlander

All we need now is for the way overdue Novadreamer 2 to be released. Maybe that would set the cat amongst the pigeons.
Or maybe not... as I would be the first person to do a reality-check if I saw it on any website, let alone on kickstarter.

The cat is about to be let loose... one nose-pinch later!

Well, "we can dream, can't we?"! Haha. I hope it works. Or maybe it's just LaBerge trying to cash in the LD mask money mania. It sounds like they've really tried to do it right, however. I will very likely pick one up if it's < $200. Reviews under 1 year old will probably be useless since with all things LD it takes time and training to get lucid, especially using a new device/technique. The successful non-natural LDers are a fairly rare breed since it takes immense dedication and commitment, and most people just want their own personal holodeck without putting in any effort.

Really, though, honestly, what is the difference between training yourself to notice weird things in dreams and training yourself to notice flashing/bright lights?

Maybe it's like a super-consistent reliable dream-sign?

Is there a downside? Would you become dependent on the flashing lights and could not get lucid without the device?

Maybe as a mid-level training device it's very useful: if there is a noticeable LD frequency boost, then the more the brain is lucid, the better you get at LDing, and can progress faster? (Progress = getting lucid more often, and getting lucid earlier and earlier in REM for long, stable LDs)

Originally Posted by FryingMan

... Or maybe it's just LaBerge trying to cash in the LD mask money mania. It sounds like they've really tried to do it right, however.

I wouldn't have thought that the Lucidity Institute are deliberately trying to cash in on the LD mask hype. In saying that, they are running a business and they certainly cannot be ignorant about the current product market and social media, including the plethora of LD related mask products and projects that have been crowdfunded in the last year.

I bet those who ordered a rival device aint too happy right now!

In my view the Lucidity Institute probably have the most to lose due to the built up reputation. The Novadreamer set the benchmark... the others simply followed.
We all know that fllm sequels are usually terrible - hopefully not in this case?

According to the Lucidity Institute the Novadreamer II has had 5 years of R and D! (Source - Lucidity Institute - see OP.)
After such a long time people have bigger expectations. People were getting sick of the wait. Others muscled in on Laberge's turf.
In that time you would have thought the boffins would get it right?

A REM-detection 'algorithm' is referred to in the bulletin. It doesn't (yet) give a clue to how the REM is being detected.
Is Laberge sticking to the original Novadreamer 'tried and trusted' IR system of detection, or will the N2D2 be accelerometer, EOG, EMG, EEG-based, or a combination of these methods that are more in vogue thanks to the current trends?

I just hope it is not simply 'over-engineered!' I mean if it has continuous Bluetooth then that would put me off. If I were to consider owning one then I would only use it post-WBTB.

Why do some of these designers try and re-invent the wheel? You don't need to wear an EILD device all night when you are most likely to have lucid dreams early morning!

I want an absinthe fuelled 'steampunk' mask version!

The Lucidity Institute do however claim that the N2D2 will be more user friendly and the price sounds competitive too.

Originally Posted by Highlander

Why do some of these designers try and re-invent the wheel? You don't need to wear an EILD device all night when you are most likely to have lucid dreams early morning!

Well I'm certainly hoping to get lucid in the middle of the night, too.

Wow. All this technology just to make some lights flash that get interpreted by your sleeping brain as anything but flashing lights.

Originally Posted by Highlander

<snip>grumpy old man rant</snip>
I just hope it is not simply 'over-engineered!' I mean if it has continuous Bluetooth then that would put me off. If I were to consider owning one then I would only use it post-WBTB.

So would I, but I'm sure there are plenty of people who would want to use it earlier in the night, either because they don't use WBTB or because they are just wired differently than you and me. It seems there are plenty of people here who get lucid at sleep onset or in the first hour or two of sleep.

Originally Posted by Highlander

I want an absinthe fuelled 'steampunk' mask version!

Now this I can get behind!

Great to see an update on the ND2 - thanks for posting this Zoth!
I owned (and still own) a novadreamer back in the mid 90's - and never got lucid with it at the time despite months of trialling it, I even purchased the PEST (Personal Electronic State Tester) they brought out to link in with it afterwards.

One of the key things I would hope they would address with the ND2 is comfort. I personally found the old unit pretty uncomfortable to sleep with, this meant that you'd often wake up having either completely removed it (I know others who have mentioned waking up to find in the morning they'd thrown it across the room!) or having pushed it up onto my forehead - thus moving the IR REM detectors out of alignment. I ended up using a double sided bit of tape on the foam to literally 'stick' it to my head at night! I know the Remee was meant to be comfortable to wear (I don't own one of these) but perhaps the positioning of the REM sensors (which the Remee lacks) means this is problematic for such a device. Any way hopefully this will be a much more comfortable unit to wear otherwise it'll be difficult to perserve with it.

I agree with the idea of wearing the mask mostly after a wbtb. I've been experimenting with using vibration as a cue to initiate LD's. Obviously increasing awareness is the massive factor here, doing a wbtb with a sort of MILD mantra increases the chance of becoming lucid significantly (what La Berge reported - MILD + Dreamlight were syngeristic in increasing lucidity) But what I also found is that if the stimulus is presented too many times you may become habituated to it during the night reducing the chance of it being incorporated into later dreams (the ones where you are more likely to become and stay lucid due to the natural lengthening of the REM period and the natural increase in awareness as the night progresses). The other key thing I've noted is the level of the intensity of the stimulus required to get it incorporated into a dream will vary throughout the night. ie if you set the novadreamer to a particular setting at the start of the night, this might be a very different threshold to what would be required at the end of the night. It will interesting to see if the new ND2 allows some sort of customization like this. I thought the idea of the REM Dreamer where you could set it to increase the brightness to increase until you communicated back to it with eye movements was a pretty smart one - so this would be a smart solution for the ND2.

sorry if this is a really long post! (my wifes asking me what the heck I'm writing )

Originally Posted by Tlaloc

sorry if this is a really long post! (my wifes asking me what the heck I'm writing )

Not at all, thank you so much for that insightful contribution! Most of us never tried any lucid dreaming mask, so it's always great when a veteran takes the time to feed our imagination a bit more. Sageous mentioned PEST once, but I didn't realize it had come after the NovaDreamer.

One of the key things I would hope they would address with the ND2 is comfort. I personally found the old unit pretty uncomfortable to sleep with, this meant that you'd often wake up having either completely removed it (I know others who have mentioned waking up to find in the morning they'd thrown it across the room!) or having pushed it up onto my forehead - thus moving the IR REM detectors out of alignment.

I agree with the idea of wearing the mask mostly after a wbtb. I've been experimenting with using vibration as a cue to initiate LD's. Obviously increasing awareness is the massive factor here, doing a wbtb with a sort of MILD mantra increases the chance of becoming lucid significantly (what La Berge reported - MILD + Dreamlight were syngeristic in increasing lucidity) But what I also found is that if the stimulus is presented too many times you may become habituated to it during the night reducing the chance of it being incorporated into later dreams (the ones where you are more likely to become and stay lucid due to the natural lengthening of the REM period and the natural increase in awareness as the night progresses).

*zoth pays heavy attention to this paragraph*

Hmmm. Well, in this particular case I'd say a good degree of prospective memory would give you the best results. The big weakness of MILD is that it relies heavily on the specific cue, making it fallible in terms of dreamsigns (they don't always show up), or "universal dreamsigns" (one example being negative content: it requires self-monitoring that once again, it's exactly the think you're lacking when you're not lucid). With NovaDreamer - initiate hypothethic mode - you would solve that problem. Regarding what you said about habituation (because we see the stimulus is presented many times during the night), I'm actually not sure if I understand it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is the image I have of the event:

1. During day, good PM (prospective memory) results in 50 occurrences of individual executing response (Reality Check) in face of cue (light from a targeted source);
2. During night, cue shows up, generating traditional response: this time a light source leads (eventually) to a Reality Check: reward (lucidity) achieved.
3. Next day, repeat step 1: 50 occurrences of cue showing up and generating 50 responses, but no reward.
4. Next night, repeat step 2: eventual cue and response is once again awarded with lucidity.

What we know about contigency in operant conditioning:

If a consequence does not contingently (reliably, or consistently) follow the target response, its effectiveness upon the response is reduced. But if a consequence follows the response consistently after successive instances, its ability to modify the response is increased. The schedule of reinforcement, when consistent, leads to faster learning. When the schedule is variable the learning is slower. Extinction is more difficult when learning occurs during intermittent reinforcement and more easily extinguished when learning occurs during a highly consistent schedule.

Meaning as long volition is present, extinction would become harder and harder because of all the attempts the individual would make during the day that result in nothing. Right? Or does your experience with the NovaDreamer indicate that habituation can occur? I got no clue regarding how many times per REM cycle the device must shoot light hmm.
What makes EILD so good is that you can rely on a single cue for all your purposes. You don't even need to "think" about it: just train yourself like a dog to respond in the same way every time you see a source of light. Frustration will hardly be present once that response becomes more and more automatic and deeply ingrained in your routine. This is what it happens, but so far I haven't seen any reports on it....what do you think fails in this chain of thought?

The other key thing I've noted is the level of the intensity of the stimulus required to get it incorporated into a dream will vary throughout the night. ie if you set the novadreamer to a particular setting at the start of the night, this might be a very different threshold to what would be required at the end of the night.

Let me guess: the earlier during the night, the higher the level must be? It would make the most sense.

I thought the idea of the REM Dreamer where you could set it to increase the brightness to increase until you communicated back to it with eye movements was a pretty smart one - so this would be a smart solution for the ND2.

Yup! Except it would have to be a pretty well-defined sequence, to prevent any accidental responses xD

Once again, thank you for the contribution Tlaloc

Hiya Zoth - thanks for the great and thorough reply!!!! ps I've read your link on trying out MILD and found it very useful. There seems like theres alot to discuss on this ND2 subject, which is pretty exciting!

Can I share what I think is generally wrong with systems like the novadreamer or other systems using a light cue based on my experiences using the novadreamer and contrasting it with a system that doesn't (using a vibrating/tactile cue).

The first thing I found is that a light cue can be incorporated into a dream in an enormous amount of different ways. I've got the old novadreamer manual in front of my now and the lucidity institute list examples of how the light can incorporated over 2 pages, and the way the device or its buttons over another one. The initial thought might be 'wow - this gives me loads of potential ways to get lucid' but alot of these examples are pretty subtle. It also means during the day you are having to consider loads of different sources of light to do R/C's with, ie walking home at dusk do you do a R/C for every car that dazzles you with its car headlights on the street - because any of those could be the novadreamers flash!

The problem I found with doing loads of R/C's during the day with potential light sources is that it gets pretty tiring as you are constantly second guessing yourself (for example as I write this I've noticed the computer screen is pretty bright - novadreamer! ) and as you do more and more R/C's during the day without getting lucid it starts to weaken their effect - you'll start to do quick sloppy R/C (after the 10th car with its headlights on has blinded on your way home at night you can't be bothered do a R/C especially if this is happening night after night in winter). I looked at your quote about operant conditioning which I agree did make it sound like doing something intermittently should prevent extinction from occurring and this confused the hell out of me!!!! I googled extinction in this sense and found the following (from wikipedia if you can trust them!)

Extinction: Occurs when a behavior (response) that had previously been reinforced is no longer effective. For example, a rat is first given food many times for lever presses. Then, in "extinction", no food is given. Typically the rat continues to press more and more slowly and eventually stops, at which time lever pressing is said to be "extinguished."

And this mirrors my experience, when I first got the novadreamer I was dead keen on doing loads of R/C's in the daytime for lights but as I didn't get lucid at night I started to do fewer and fewer until I stopped doing the light based R/C's and stopped using the novadreamer.

However I think there is a way around this that would help - and thats to make the light a stronger dreamsign. I never tried this at the time of using the novadreamer 20 yrs ago (and I've moved onto vibration as a cue now) but looking back at others experiences I think the key to using a light based signal is to make it VERY VERY BRIGHT. That way during the day you would a more unique dreamsign to look out for in real life. Unfortunately I think alot of people don't do this as by making the lights flash VERY brightly you are more likely to wake yourself up (that bit we were talking about with the level of brightness varying throughout the night). I found these examples to help illustrate this (sorry if this is really self evident, or unhelpful to the discussion) - some of these are from dreamviews but the first is from the Lucidity Letter in Dec 1998 (Luc Institute) - aptly this is Lynne Levitan discussing the Dreamlight - having used it 130 times, had records for 101 of them and got lucid 40 times (pretty good!). She puts down that the main reason she got lucid from it was the BRIGHTNESS -

usually I realized, "Oh, thats the DreamLight', probably because it was so bright."

This is from someone called evildoctor using the REM dreamer:

'A few nights ago mine fired a series of cues during a very vivid dream. I was in my kitchen talking to some people when the flashing lights blinded me'

http://www.dreamviews.com/lucid-aids...ks-sort-2.html

This is from bluremi

'I'm back in college, and a few friends and I have entered the classroom of a math/economics professor. I've brought some pot paraphernalia so we can smoke inside. We are examining an interesting device at the front of the class that seems to record ambient sounds onto the blackboard as wavy lines, drawn with a piece of chalk on the end of a robot arm. Then someone enters the classroom and stands by the door, flicking the lights on and off quickly. The contrast between the lights going on and off is so painfully bright that I have to squeeze my eyes shut and can't look around me. After a while they stop and enter the room, it's just a friend of mine'

and this is my favourite

' While I didn't go lucid, I was having a dream speaking to a friend in a room, when all of a sudden about three or four minutes into the dream we saw these huge flashes of blinding lightning come from outside the windows -- in the dream we were pretty concerned what was going on out there. I even turned on a light on the desk to gauge that light brightness and it was WAY dim compared to the lights we had just seen. As we debated where those lights may have come from and were somewhat nervous about it, I woke up. The immediate realization was that the REM Dreamer lights had gone off and that was how it was manifested in the dream. To me, that was a win on Night #2 of the device. My learnings? At least I can go ahead and turn down the brightness of the lights, so they don't overwhelm the dream scape, and then start training myself to look out for these lights. I suppose that will get me closer to where I want to get to. Although, wearing the mask all night is tiresome.

http://www.dreamviews.com/lucid-aids...w-ongoing.html
Dohhh!! Don't turn them down!!!! Interestingly in the last 3 quotes (in all but Lynne Levitan from the lucidity institute) none of them got lucid from those bright lights - they just kept on dreaming - but at least afterwards they recognized them as a pretty obvious dreamsign.

The other thing to note is the frequency with which the lights get incorporated into the dream - again looking at the Novadreamer manual they say (pg3)

You will likely only see a few of the cues the NovaDreamer gives you

and pg11

You should only expect to see about 10-20% of the cues even if your dream recall is good

so even though the novadreamer is flashing at every REM period the evidence suggests your brain is not always incorporating the stimuli.

This kind of leads back to habituation - I know this sounds kind of vague, but I generally felt that the more I used the device (novadreamer, or vibrating cue) the less sensitive to it I became, like a desensitiztion to the stimuli. Maybe this is unconscious, like people get used to trains running at night next to their houses after a few nights? The novadreamer manual suggests '

take occassional breaks from using your novadreamer. If after uninterrupted use for an extended number of nights, you find yourself sleeping more deeply and not seeing the NovaDreamers cues, take a few nights off.

and the REMdreamers manuals (online) echoes this -

Its not recommended that you used the REM-Dreamer every single night, as your mind will become habituated to the stimuli and begin to tune it out

I have sensed this with using a vibrating stimuli, what works best for me is to use it after a wbtb, the first time it goes off it generally wakes me up slight (above my threshold = awakening) the next few times it has the highest likely hood of being incorporated into the dream, after this my brain seems to ignore it going off, so even within a short space of time the level of threshold required to get the stimuli incorporated into the dream can alter. I try and use it one night on one night off to limit habituation/desensitization. I like using vibration as it is a pretty unique dreamsign to recognize, and it doesn't occur that naturally in the real world (but it can be simulated for training/conditioning purposes pretty easily).

anyways - apologises everyone for an overlong reply - don't know if that helps at all - would love to discuss stuff more!!!! cheers - T

^^ I like the notion of external vibration as a EILD dream sign not just a DEILD waking tool. May need to spend some time on that!

Your has so much good information that I hope I don't miss anything important out!

First of all, many of your arguments reveal my ignorance on this concept of EILD. I may be biased towards thinking that a good deal of volition would "solve" most of the problem with successive encounters with the cue during the day. The fact - which you explain perfectly - is that despite this, the problem of (de)sensitization persists:

- Stimulus generalization: every light can be considered the ND (NovaDreamer). This means you perform reality checks like a mad man the entire day. But at some point, extinction will occur.
- Stimulus discrimination: it cannot occur at all. Since the stimulus is not specific at all (and add the fact that you rely on it's mysterious and unpredictable incorporation into the dream), you cannot risk training yourself to distinguish different types of lights. Even if the light is extremely bright, that can lead to a self-justification (like the report you showed)...

Still, (and this is something that I feel it's relevant throughout most of this reply), I may here sound arrogant or optimistic (definitively dwelling on confirmation bias I guess ), but there are reasons to wonder if the users are maximizing their chances with the instrument. Two examples:

- Majority of reports include people using it all night. Imo, this is a complete waste for several reasons: bright light affects your circadian clock, it might wake you up, and even if you achieve lucidity within the first sleep cycles, it's duration won't be big enough to compensate for the possible negative effects. Besides, couldn't that be the cause for reports of desensitization? How many flashes per 10 minutes are we talking about? Can you calibrate it?
- In this meta-analysis, it's reported a low-methodological quality of MILD studies. Regardless of the use of MILD and EILD being presented as one of the best methods for induction, did LaBerge really tested MILD or even EILD with several samples regarding their levels of prospective memory? That would be relevant.

However I think there is a way around this that would help - and thats to make the light a stronger dreamsign. I never tried this at the time of using the novadreamer 20 yrs ago (and I've moved onto vibration as a cue now) but looking back at others experiences I think the key to using a light based signal is to make it VERY VERY BRIGHT.

Great catch !

That would indeed allow for a stimulus discrimination: if the bright lights always pull your attention, that would divert much of the tiring process of looking out for them. Meaning you wouldn't spend the whole day trying to catch a "light". You would just need to develop a response regarding every light that produces negative responses (well, I guess this would still cause some problems during the night).
One thing that is relevant: I keep trying to remind myself to get that study, but it's present in the book The Mind at Night. It basically mentions that interrupting REM pressures your brain to experience even more of it, mentioning some significant changes that could be compared to a person that sleeps 1 or 2 more hours (don't know exact estimates because I don't have the book on me, and the text itself wasn't exactly explicit in the figures). Still, waking up wouldn't be the worst situation in the world, especially considering the opportunities that would create for a WILD (especially DEILD): people like VagalTone rely on this to achieve many of their lucids.

Interestingly in the last 3 quotes (in all but Lynne Levitan from the lucidity institute) none of them got lucid from those bright lights - they just kept on dreaming - but at least afterwards they recognized them as a pretty obvious dreamsign.

Now imagine what happens once your response towards that specific dreamsign becomes automatic ^^

You should only expect to see about 10-20% of the cues even if your dream recall is good

Once again, I wonder what they based those statistics on. What's interesting is that they seem to talk about 2 different things: seeing the lights (regardless of whether you become lucid or not) and recalling the lights are different things, especially assuming the amount of dream content that is lost especially in the earlier stages of the night. But the rules apply for everyone (sadly ): the huge chunk of REM is in the last hours of the night, so it's not like they can have failed taking that into consideration...Still, I can't help but feel skeptic towards those numbers, but it's unrealistic to expect a huge number of dream incorporation when that's most likely not the case.

after this my brain seems to ignore it going off, so even within a short space of time the level of threshold required to get the stimuli incorporated into the dream can alter. I try and use it one night on one night off to limit habituation/desensitization. I like using vibration as it is a pretty unique dreamsign to recognize, and it doesn't occur that naturally in the real world (but it can be simulated for training/conditioning purposes pretty easily).

Interesting. I hope you don't mind the question (just trying to see the overall image), but in LaBerge book he said that light cues were the most effective ones according to their studies. Do you agree and have some preferred taste for vibration cues, or you think that depends a lot on the person? Since I got no experience with EILD devices, one can only ask

I'm a little late to this thread, but I thought I'd throw in my 2 cents.

First, you guys all make excellent points, especially about the annoying fact that N2D2 (or whatever it gets called after the G. Lucas folks find out about that name ) can only offer a signal to you during the dream, and the actual process of converting that signal to lucidity is still up to you.

I can add my own experience with the Dreamlight (vastly superior to the Novadreamer, BTW; hopefully a good harbinger for N2D2) to the testimonials above by basically echoing what's been said: I used it regularly (once or twice a week) for a year, and I can honestly say that it influenced me to lucidity only a couple of times, and it did give me some very curious light shows during dreams that remained non-lucid -- in other words, the machine worked fine, but my own mind was unwilling to cooperate with its signals. This failure was certainly my fault -- hell, I bought the Dreamlight specifically because I didn't feel like doing daytime work anymore -- but it does for me illustrate how lucidity is always up to you, no matter how well the machine works.

A couple of smaller points:

* Zoth: fear not. A substantial portion, if not the majority, of LaBerge's DreamCamp patrons are from places other than North America -- mostly Europe. I don't think he would hesitate to have a Portuguese beta-tester!

* I thought the P.E.S.T. came out before the Novadreamer as well, not that it matters... I would like to see it come back into service though, as it was in my mind LaBerge's best toy.

* All this talk about light signals is interesting. LaBerge himself seemed frustrated at one point with all the light miscues (some quite hilarious), and introduced his pillow speaker (I forget what he called it) that offered a recorded audio signal instead. Unfortunately, I think it turned up right when Novadreamer production collapsed, so it went nowhere.

* Speaking of production, you guys shouldn't get too excited until you see the N2D2 listed as available on Amazon. LaBerge has announced being this "close" to production a half dozen times that I know of since the early 2000's, and it never appeared. I think the problem has always been not one of technology or design, but of management. LaBerge wants to control every aspect of design and production, but knows very little about either. So whenever he comes close to manufacture, something usually grinds it to a halt because everyone is waiting for LaBerge to finish some small step (like that last bit of programming mentioned, or perhaps choosing the foam for the back of the mask). I've heard that he is allowing some delegation to happen these days, so hopefully this release will really happen ... but don't hold your breath! This also explains the decidedly antique nature of his website, BTW.

* Somebody mentioned that the N2D2 needed to be on all night; this doesn't seem like a necessity, unless you are trying to map out your sleep cycle. The N2D2 should work just fine after WBTB.

I hope some of this is still relevant, even though I'm so late. I also hope someone from TLI is reading all this, takes note, and gives Stephen a good kick toward finishing this marathon project!

I've had to do a couple of reality checks after I've guys like Zoth, Dutchraptor and Sageous attached their likes to the ongoing discussion! Its pretty amazing to join such a creative forum - so sincerely thanks to everyone (sorry for not mentioning everyone) for making me welcome -

I'll happily concede the dating of the P.E.S.T to you Sageous - I thought I was doing well having bought an original Novadreamer 20 yrs ago - but if you had (have) an original DreamLight then I am very much in awe - their can't be many of those around

I remember the Dreamspeaker too - (I'm pretty sure thats what it was called) and you're right it got brought out just as the production of the Novadreamer ground to a halt. Never got or used it. Its interesting to consider why LaBerge bought it out all - his inital studies always suggested audiocues were pretty poor at inducing lucidity - I think the fact that he brought out an audio cuing device at all shows how unsuccessful the novadreamer had been - people were wanting more - so he had nowhere to go but look backwards.

I have heard other people say that the DreamLight had advantages over the original Novadreamer as you mention Sageous. In particular one feature I recall them saying was that it had a sort of built in spirit level or gyro so if you turned your head with it on it cancelled out any potential firing of the lights. This would be a useful feature for the new ND2 to have as an annoying feature of the original Novadreamer is that it would often fire after brief awakenings during the night (presumably picking up some eye movts during this brief waking period which are often accompanied by brief head/body movements). Thus the original novadreamer could disturb the wearer with the flashing stimuli without the benefit of being in an REM period and again probably suggest to the wearer that the lights were 'too bright' (as they were flashing immediately after the brief awakening as opposed to deeper phases of sleep).

Hi Zoth to answer your question

I hope you don't mind the question (just trying to see the overall image), but in LaBerge book he said that light cues were the most effective ones according to their studies. Do you agree and have some preferred taste for vibration cues, or you think that depends a lot on the person?

This is a really good question - my personal experience is that a vibrating cue is much more effective than the novadreamer ever was. But looking at the general studies its more difficult to answer. LaBerge in EWOL says of his vibrating experiment 11 of the 18 subjects got lucid (61%) and of the first experiment with a lighting cue 24 of 44 got lucid (55%). So the vibration technique looked like it had more effective results, but La Berge says they moved onto other things (light stimuli) due to the 'technical difficulties' vibration cuing posed (EWOL). HOWEVER, as always its lies, lies and damn statistics - because La Berge doesn't say of these lucids how many were through the appreciation of the stimuli for the lighting cuing experiment. Of the vibration experiment he says there were 17 lucid dreams - 11 of them in association with the vibration (in other words some of the lucids weren't due to the vibration cue directly so maybe were due to being in a sleep lab and the expectation of lucidity this must generate!) but he doesn't give comparable data for the light stimuli experiment - how many got lucid in association with the light cue and how many 'just' got lucid. I'm guessing you could expect a similar number to 'just' get lucid for other reasons (expectation, novelity, broken sleep cycles causing short wbtb's etc) so maybe the vibration method did just come out on top, but was dropped due to the 'technical' reasons.

The other study that used a tactile type stimuli was Hearnes who used electrotactile stimuli on the wrist, in his study 8 of 12 got lucid due to the stimuli (66%) and 1 got lucid without the stimuli (expectation).

I've always been interested in La Berges notes on the tactile experiment since I read EWOL as a teenager so thought I'd give it go recently. Interestingly as Sageous will remember the P.E.S.T vibrated and could either be connected by a cable to the Novadreamer or the Dreamlight to trigger when they detected REM, or you could just set the unit to vibrate as set intervals (La Berge recommended 90 mins to hit the expected REM period) and stick it under your sheets or in your shorts at night! (it had a sort of belt buckle for this). Laberge I think made it to use either as a randomised reminding cue that would go off unexpectidly during the day (to make you question your reality regularily) or as an add on or stand alone cuing system at night. In fact the kind of racing writing that came with the instruction manual is worth quoting for the laugh factor - this is from the Chapter - Take Your P.E.S.T to Bed

'After spending all day in the company of your friendly little P.E.S.T, you might feel like inviting it to share your bed. Do not hesitate to do so, because the P.E.S.T is really good between the sheets. (!!!!)

I can't ever remember using it connected to the novadreamer (maybe the long wire connection from facemask put me off) and I can't remember any research on its effectiveness as a cuing device (I used it as a way of promoting r/c's during the day). Do you remember if any results came back from it Sageous????


Finally and sorry for the megalong post but I am really buzzing from having you guys to discuss this with - there is an interesting paper I found when I was getting interested in using the vibrating cue and it touches on what Sageous said

'the annoying fact that N2D2 (or whatever it gets called after the G. Lucas folks find out about that name ) can only offer a signal to you during the dream, and the actual process of converting that signal to lucidity is still up to you.

Now I agree with this pretty much and those previous bits I cutted and pasted about the flashing lights getting incorporated into peoples dreams but them not recognizing as external cues bears this out. But here is what LaBerge himself says of the experiment with the vibrating cue (note this is from a panel discussion, the timing is that LaBerge and associates have done experimenting cuing with audio and vibrating cues but are yet to investigation light as a cuing source - ie this predates the DreamLight)

La Berge says he did 1-2 days of training with the people in the experiment to do a R/C after they received a 5 sec vibration to their ankle (this occurred every 30-40mins during the day) by checking the time on their watches.

'In addition, because the answers always no, we wanted to do something else so that they wouldn't get in the habit of thinking "Well , I know its not a dream.' So the next step was to ask them, "All right, you know this isn't a dream, but what if it were?" this is similar to Tholey's technique of imagining it as if it were. We asked them to imagine, 'The next time I'm in the laboratory, when I feel this it will have been a dream.'........The key innovation was the association.......to the cue.....'

and heres the exciting bit

' We found, interestingly enough, that nobody in their dream felt the vibration and then looked at their watch and discovered their true state. Either people felt the vibration and thought, 'Oh, yup there it is. Its the dream,' or else the stimulus caused the dreams walls to start wobbling and other oddities and at that point people said 'This is a dream." Its a simple condition, no higher consciousness is required. (my bolding).

Interesting eh?!! La Berge seems to be saying that through brief conditioning to the stimuli in real life, application of the same stimuli during the REM period - MADE THEM LUCID. My feeling is that he is simplifying things here a bit (from what Sageous says about him, you can almost imagine him swaggering around the stage at the panel discussion at the conference) but this IS what he said at the time (he does the introduction to this part of the paper so obviously he was comfortable with the verbatim reporting of his discussion).


What do you all think?

Originally Posted by Tlaloc

I can't ever remember using it connected to the novadreamer (maybe the long wire connection from facemask put me off) and I can't remember any research on its effectiveness as a cuing device (I used it as a way of promoting r/c's during the day). Do you remember if any results came back from it Sageous????

I tried plugging the P.E.S.T. into my Dreamlight for a while, but my results were either a complete miss of the cue, or the cue snapping me awake...or the P.E.S.T. resting mysteriously on the floor after I woke up. So no, I guess I didn't get any results when it was plugged in. I think the P.E.S.T.'s real value was as a RC reminder, especially when set in a random mode.

Interesting eh?!! La Berge seems to be saying that through brief conditioning to the stimuli in real life, application of the same stimuli during the REM period - MADE THEM LUCID. My feeling is that he is simplifying things here a bit (from what Sageous says about him, you can almost imagine him swaggering around the stage at the panel discussion at the conference) but this IS what he said at the time (he does the introduction to this part of the paper so obviously he was comfortable with the verbatim reporting of his discussion).
What do you all think?

I think that sometimes LaBerge tended to wax optimistic, especially in the early years when he was still trying to sell his thesis to an unresponsive crowd. I think that if this brief prep period were enough, LaBerge would have incorporated it into his DreamCamp activities, and he did not. I've found that if you press him, LaBerge tends to do a bit of backpedaling when he explains positions like the one above; in other words, he knows that a good deal of mental prep is required for consistent LD'ing, and that often the placebo effect can drive up early statistics, but he also knows that those are not things that paying customers (or grants committees) want to hear. I'm not saying he wasn't truthful about his experiments -- he was -- but he might have been exercising a wee dram of hyperbole in order to accentuate the potentials of LD'ing.

I also think that abandoning the vibrating stimulus because it was too difficult to engineer into his machines is a nice example of what I mentioned earlier about why the N2D2 is so late, and not to be believed as real until it is on Amazon...

I agree with everything you said Sageous - and its interesting to get some information about Stephen LaBerge as a person. And it has been exhausting to have the idea of a Novadreamer dragged out for so long....

However.....I was thinking about what you said

I think that if this brief prep period were enough, LaBerge would have incorporated it into his DreamCamp activities, and he did not.

and I agree its weird if it were as successful as he had stated then why didn't he continue to roll with it? And then I started to think about it again (which is why this discussion is so useful) and I think maybe one other answer is to do with the nature of the stimuli - which kinda comes full circle back to what we other options might be useful in a new dream mask other than light (or audio) stimuli.

Requoting LaBerge again but with different emphasis this time

We found, interestingly enough, that nobody in their dream felt the vibration and then looked at their watch and discovered their true state. Either people felt the vibration and thought, 'Oh, yup there it is. Its the dream,' or else the stimulus caused the dreams walls to start wobbling and other oddities and at that point people said 'This is a dream." Its a simple condition, no higher consciousness is required. (my bolding).

I wonder if the vibration experiment worked well because people were only having to recognize one of two potential dreamsigns - ONE - a straight vibration on their ankle - which they had been conditioned to in real life just as it appeared in the dream so easy to identify (direct incorporation). or TWO a really bizarre dreamsign they just couldn't mistake for indicating it was a dream (presumably this was triggered when they buried the vibrating device in the foot of the bed). Hence LaBerge broad statement that no higher consciousness is required - he's basically saying - the signal is so obvious, as there are only 2 possible dreamsigns both pretty unique and easy to identify.

However contrast the above 2 easily recognized dreamsigns (vibration on ankle, vibrating dreamscape) with what LaBerge says in EWOL for the light cue

The flashing red lights from the googles were incorporated into dreams in a remarkable variety of ways. The dreamers had to be fully alert for any sudden or peculiar changes in the lighting in their dreams (EWOL)

. He is saying something very different here - hes saying ALOT of higher consciousness is required.

Its REALLY hard to do mental prep for such a changing and indirectly incorporated dreamsign like light. Maybe thats a big reason why Laberge never did it at his camps? - you can't really because its so vague. You can't condition people to it like a vibration on your ankle because it really hard to know what to condition them for - it could be any of a couple of dozen different incorporations. You also can't easily simulate the conditon in your everyday life. In the vibration experiment people had the vibrator (oouch - I've been trying to avoid this using this term ) on their ankle and it went off as they went around doing their everyday life stuff. And when I've done this it DOES condition you to a response (in my case to do a reality check), it can go off when I'm in the middle of an eye test, when I'm talking to someone, when I'm eating - anytime, and I don't have to be alert to try and spot it, it just goes off and reminds me adn I react with a R/C. But with the light how do you practice in the same way? - its difficult to get someone to flash the lights on and off in the room you're in randomly, you can try and look out for bright lights in your environment but this requires you to be (as Laberge says) fully alert for any sudden or peculiar changes in the lighting - which is tiring and hard to do when you're distracted by other things - it almost becomes an all day awareness (ADA) project but just for light.

I'd thought I'd pin up some results I had with using the vibrating cue in case anyway was interested. I use a some vibrating alarm clock called an Invisible clock II. I'll just summarize the data because its very early days - anyway this is copied from my work book http://www.dreamviews.com/intro-clas...orkbook-2.html

Basically I have now done 19 vibe nites - on 10 of these I got lucid so thats a rate of 53%. 7 times of those 19 nights the vibration was directly incorporated as a vibration (37%), and of those 7 times I got lucid 5 times (26% of the total vibe nites). On the other 2 of those vibe nites I had the vibration directly incorporated into the dream as a vibration but didn't get lucid (in 1 I did a crappy rushed r/c, in the other the dream swept me along so I meant to do a r/c but forgot to do it).

Anyways just some thoughts! So to sum up for me - for the new novadreamer (if you're listening Stephen!) - I'd like a comfy facemask, something that would incorporate an ability to add on a vibrating signal (preferrably cabless), and perhaps an increasing light/vibrating signal with two way communication......Will I get that.....Well the novadreamer two is due out any time soon........yeah right!!!!!ha ha ha!!!!

I've throughly enjoyed reading the posts of all that have put in their two cents.

I must admit the idea of using vibration as a form of EILD has really sparked my interest. I didn't realize LaBerge had already experimented with this and despite the promising results decided not to integrate this function into his devices. I think someone may have mentioned earlier that this may have been due to practicality? Given today's technological advances surely this can now be utilized? Who knows, maybe it's not as easy as I presume...

Anway thanks Tlaloc for sharing your experiences with the vibration cue. Very interesting results. I'm tempted to trial it myself. Do you have a rough idea of your REM cycles and setup your alert times around this? How many times a night does the cue go off? Do you tend to activate after a WBTB or just after x hrs of sleep? Sorry for all the questions I'm just very interested.

Again thanks all for weighing in.

Hi Archvenom - thanks for the questions! - sorry for the delay in replying - I've just been super busy and I wanted to clear it with Zoth that is was ok to take his thread in a slightly different direction (thanks Zoth ).

I don't have time to reply in full right now - but I'll get back to you asap, as there is some evidence for what I am trying to do regarding the REM cycles - I'll try and post in the next day or two.

Thanks

Originally Posted by Tlaloc

Hi Archvenom - thanks for the questions! - sorry for the delay in replying - I've just been super busy and I wanted to clear it with Zoth that is was ok to take his thread in a slightly different direction (thanks Zoth ).

I don't have time to reply in full right now - but I'll get back to you asap, as there is some evidence for what I am trying to do regarding the REM cycles - I'll try and post in the next day or two.

Thanks

Thanks for the reply Tlaloc, I'm looking forward to your follow up.

Sorry Zoth for the lack of manners on my part and slightly hijacking the thread. I'm glad Tlaloc made sure you were okay with this!

Can anyone comment on whether any effectiveness studies were done (even anecdotally) for particular classification of user: someone who does a lot of serious of daytime practice, but is still in the beginning and doesn't get lucid enough (where I am): my goal is multiple LDs per night, and where I am is on average once per 8-9 days or so. Sageous I noticed you said it only worked for you a couple of times over the course of a year, but that you wanted to stop doing daytime practice. Are there any studies on effectiveness given that very specific target category? I.e., a serious LD practitioner (not Joe Random Public) putting in the daytime work, but not already an "expert"?