lucid dreaming book

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Originally Posted by Kromoh

Well, just for the matter of it, we could tell people to put changes into a different colour. You will see that's what I did with Gestalt's first revision, some pages back in this thread. Spelling and grammar mistakes could or not be put in the new colour as well.

About the Google docs: we could easily create a Google account for the whole team. But something just tells me people will prefer to post on this forum. We'll have to hear people's opinion then.

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Originally Posted by Sugarglider11

I vote for forum.

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Cool. I'm not mad on Google Docs. I just wouldn't feel very happy with Word+Rapidshare.

"I can't download / upload". "It doesn't open in my version of Word".
"I can't post it right now, it's at home". "My computer's playing up and I can't access it right now".
"I'm working on my chapter in Word and I'll post it when I've finished."

I look forward to getting the introduction into shape here on DV. I'd just like to suggest that if, at any point, anyone finds themselves reaching for Word - you're going to be spending a fair amount of time working on it, so why not take 5 minutes to try out Google Docs first.

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Originally Posted by Kromoh

Right now, I lack time, but when I'm back I'll post what we have of the intro chapter.

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Poke, nudge, kick :-).

well we could try google docs, that makes sense, but I still think it will end up getting worked on in the forum.

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Originally Posted by Sugarglider11

well we could try google docs, that makes sense, but I still think it will end up getting worked on in the forum.

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Sorry, I should have said I was voting to use the forum too. That's what I meant to say but I wasn't clear.

Everyone knows how to use the forum, and it's already used for tutorials, so I think it's the way to go.

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I suggested Google Docs initially because that was closer to what we seemed to be doing at the moment. You can upload Word documents to Google Docs in the same way Kromoh did with Rapidshare. In fact, for downloading word documents Google Docs is better that Rapidshare because you don't have to click through a "No, I don't want to pay you" button. I'm naturally conservative and I didn't like to say "Stop! You're doing this the wrong way and bad things will happen. You should do this my way, which is radically different but I think it would be much better".

I wouldn't asking people to try Google Docs before they start posting chapters in the forum. I would ask people to try Google Docs if they think they're going to spend more than a few hours editing their chapter in Word, and then post it back on the forum. I won't insist on it, but I really think people keeping documents on their own computers would be a bad idea.

im not against profits going to charity, but another possibility could be to have profits go to making available free information, like e-books, online journals and magazines, art websites etc. It could make the website grow, and become a larger center for dreaming, learning, thinking, art, etc.

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Originally Posted by Bisch

im not against profits going to charity

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I'm not against profits, but I do have a background of a free software user (otherwise known as a leech :-). My view is that the book would be most successful if as many people as possible contribute to it, and copyright / royalty distribution is a potential obstacle to it. If the book is successful enough to earn money, it will at least be successful enough to increase the donations / course fees / novadreamer purchases of the Lucidity Institute, or any other lucidity organisation.

Royalties are not a necessary consequence of publishing a book. In fact I wouldn't expect this book to get accepted by a traditional publisher. In that case it would have to go through some variant of "vanity publisher", where you simply pay for printing costs and are left with a stack of books to sell. Obtaining orders and payment in advance would be recommended :-P. But the point is that there's nothing stopping you from publishing the book at cost.

*ahem* *louder AHEM*

Just thought I'd mention a small but very important chapter that should be added.

"Common Misconceptions About Lucid Dreaming".

My phat 5 pence.

*edit* oh and

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Originally Posted by Bisch (and edited by cloudWalker!)

im not against profits going to charity Clairity.

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rofl, just had to do that.... what a typo.

we should add common dream misconseptions

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Originally Posted by cloudWalker

*ahem* *louder AHEM*

just thought id mention a small but very important chapter that should be added.

"Common Misconceptions About Lucid Dreaming"

my phat 5p

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There's a lot of interesting information that would fall under that category, yes.
I think it should be, short and to the point, and close to the start so it can be coupled with the initial explanation of what lucid dreaming is and why you might want to do it. Most of it would be very fundamental to motivation: most of the misconceptions would be that lucidity is either too dangerous or hippy for them, so you want to answer such concerns early on.

maybe we should put the misconceptions in the intro

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Originally Posted by Sugarglider11

we should add common dream misconceptions

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Sprinkled throughout as opposed to in a section of their own though, no?

Recall -> "dreamless sleep" misconception (which is actually just sleep you don't remember your dreams from)
Vividness -> the "dreaming in colour" question
Interpretation -> "dreams as a message" (i.e. viewing dreams as a single coherent messages from subconscious/god, which is a misconception because you don't lose your free will in a dream and your will very much affects the dream - so if anything it's more like a discussion with your subconscious).

Similarly I would expect the "Placebo effect" to crop up throughout (please, please, don't keep on repeating the word placebo): the effect your expectations have on what you perceive, e.g. if you think you can't say your name i a dream, you're going to wake up if you try it. Another common theme hinted at in the introduction is relaxation techniques.

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Originally Posted by Sugarglider11

maybe we should put the misconceptions in the intro

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Agreed. Again, that's effectively what I said, but I wasn't very clear.

Do you use chat/instant messaging? I'm going to bed now (after washing up, urg), but I thought if I could get to know people better in chat I could communicate a bit more effectively with them :-). I should be able to use any chat, and I'm willing to so. It will take some time if I have to install Flash to use the DreamViews chat or similar :-(.

I'll be back by 10:00 GMT.

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Originally Posted by cloudWalker

*edit* oh and

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Originally Posted by Bisch

(and edited by cloudWalker!) im not against profits going to charity Clairity.

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rofl, just had to do that.... what a typo.

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Ok.. I feel the need to clear something up. :P

Jeff had posted the following:

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Originally Posted by Oneironaut_Jeff777

It could be a collective book with DV's best tutorials as well as a testimonial section as to what that tutorial did for those people (must be positive of course) and I vote all who chip in, in making this book a reality, receive a dividend of the overall residual proceeds!! yay!

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So when I was subsequently approached by Kromoh, I replied that he was free to use my technique but that if the book was to be published outside of Dream Views for commercial profit.. that the issue of compensation for those whose ideas/techniques were included be again brought up for discussion prior to publishing.

That's how the compensation conversation came about. :)

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Originally Posted by Clairity

Ok.. I feel the need to clear something up. :P

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I did wonder whether Kromoh mentioned money when he was asking permission to use the tutorials :-D.

EDIT: I don't want to sound suspicious. It's just when I heard royalties being mentioned I went back to look at the permission list and was puzzled to see no mention of it. There's nothing wrong with that, and I'm sure no-one would be denied the opportunity to withdraw their permission if they didn't think they were being paid enough!

Well sourcejedi, being this an open-ended public project, if anything is agreed by the several authors, then we'd have to contact people again and mention the changes. I did (and do) not want to create high hopes like this book becoming a best seller. I'd love for that to happen; but basing a project on the money we're gonna take from it is simply not a good idea.

At the time I offered to request tutorial use permissions, I implicitly made myself responsible for warning the authors about changes in the use of their material.

Finally, I suppose I like the idea of money going to open-source projects. Information is unvaluable.

I don't think many of us are in it for the money, I'm not, I'm in it because I want to educate people on lucid dreaming. I suggest we give the money to Charity, they need it more than we do.

I hope this book is a popular lucid dreaming book, but that would require us making it sold at book stores, and when we know what is at the book store we have to make the cover and title more appealing to people, that way they would choose ours.

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Originally Posted by Sugarglider11

I don't think many of us are in it for the money, I'm not, I'm in it because I want to educate people on lucid dreaming. I suggest we give the money to Charity, they need it more than we do.

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If everyone agrees.. I'm all for donating the money! :)

what if I happened to ask my name to be changed to charity, just after the book was done, I and the money was accidentally sent to me.

sugarglider, I'll ensure we wpon't have problems with that myself. I mean, if you did do such an evil thing... I'd want my 40% xDD

(for the ones without sense of humour, I am kidding)

gogo people I'm excited about this book

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Originally Posted by Kromoh

sugarglider, I'll ensure we wpon't have problems with that myself. I mean, if you did do such an evil thing... I'd want my 40% xDD

(for the ones without sense of humour, I am kidding)

gogo people I'm excited about this book

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yeah, he wants 60%:D

this is a test post

I just (supposedly) finished my chapter: posted it in another thread. Just like with chapter 1, feel free to revise :>

Project sketch has been updated.

Great! Thoughts on the book in general so far:

In general I think we're a little heavy on the commas. In chapter 3, it's because longer sentences are broken up into shorter parts, just like when you talk. The commas are all in the right places, but some of them aren't quite necessary and some of them could be removed be restructuring the sentences a bit. In the introduction it's more because we're telling people how amazing, fantastic, wonderful lucid dreaming is - in other words there's a lot of lists, where a single word might do the job.

I'm suspicious that it sounds a bit too much like Laberge's books (I've got ETWOLD). E.g. below, "schema" is used in a single sentence; it's clear what is meant from context but it's not explained, and I have a feeling it's only there because Laberge uses it a lot. It is a widely used word/concept in psychology, so on it's own this wouldn't ring any alarm bells. However there are other similar instances and as a whole it looks slightly suspicious.

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Originally Posted by Clairity

If everyone agrees.. I'm all for donating the money! :)

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gasps... i dont care if im not helping. i want my 5p back.

rofl j/k

*edit* oh and, i hear all this talking about profits. buuutt. who is going to have enough spare money to donate to the publishing of the book?
for a small time publisher, it would cost a few thousands bucks for book binding, small advertising, etc.
i know this because my dad used to be involved with all that stuff.

so, where is this money going to magically come from?
i mean, paypal donations towards the cause sounds like a good idea if anyone is 18+ but getting it sorted out would take time also. also, asher isn't active on some of his forums nowadays (including this one) there's some reason behind it, but he hasn't said anything about this book yet, has he?

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Originally Posted by cloudWalker

so, where is this money going to magically come from?
i mean, paypal donations towards the cause sounds like a good idea if anyone is 18+ but getting it sorted out would take time also. also, asher isn't active on some of his forums nowadays (including this one) there's some reason behind it, but he hasn't said anything about this book yet, has he?

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How far upthread did you look?

Kromoh already said it's really not about the money, and if it gets to that point, we'll have to look at it again anyway.
I pointed out the first step would be vanity press, and I think it goes without saying that we'd start by seeing how many people would buy it on DV. Hey, if no-ones interested in it in DV, no-ones going to be interested in it full stop.

And when I said "vanity press", I was really thinking minimum-volume print on demand. And that's much easier than you might think, though one would still need to be very careful about the legals.

Don't believe me? Why not order my new best-seller, "Test". For just £2.51, UK residents can order this 1-page masterpiece created from a random text file I had on my computer. (Unclear what postage is charged though). I didn't even have to pay anything to prove you wrong :-). Unfortunately there isn't a "donate proceeds to charity" option, so we'd have to have someone trusted to receive the money and pay to charity. Personally I'm voting for the simplicity of not taking a profit, which is what I did for my example book.

http://www.lulu.com/content/1279486