Work Area for SP sticky thread.

[Sageous]

Wow. Well Sivason, the gods of DV have spoken: SP stays, period. I hope you continue to fight the good fight to end the festival of misinformation surrounding SP on these forums, thereby bringing new dreamers closer to actual lucidity, and more experienced dreamers back to their roots. But you may be doomed to revising your definition of SP right back to what it was when you started. That is a shame. Nina: I must join Sivason by repeating that I too have never, ever been unable to move after noticing that I was still in REM Atonia (I woke ahead of my body). How can that be, given that I've been doing this for well over 30 years and have had thousands of WILDs and DEILDs? Shouldn't I have gotten stuck at least once? Could this be because I developed my LD'ing skills on my own years before Internet forums and all this SP mythology existed, years before even LaBerge cared a wit about SP? Could it be that the voluminous Internet-based SP mythology has created an expectation of SP in Newbies and Veterans alike? Hmm... Yes, REM Atonia is a powerful thing, but so are my consciousness, my reticular system, and my fundamental awareness throughout the experience that this is my body and it is not going to do anything to hurt me or hold me if I need to do something else. I'm not sure why you are so adamant about holding to the fallacy that SP is a force to be reckoned with, rather than just another factor of sleep. Yes, you did properly define SP as the conscious recognition of REM Atonia, but your posted exceptions and laundry list of often difficult corrections seem to betray that you are fine with the more popular definitions. Yes, the novelty of consciously experiencing REM Atonia is complicated, and will vary from dreamer to dreamer, but I think that is the point in all this: That complication has led dreamers and would-be experts to misinterpret their passages through NREM and their moments noticing REM Atonia, and those misinterpretations have taken on a life of their own, to the point where a pillar of the DV forums has deemed it okay to call SP important simply because everyone thinks it is. Is that a good thing? Not for the many dreamers who come to this site looking for sincere guidance. The trouble with a poll is obvious to me: All it will do is continue to fuel and codify the misunderstandings about SP. Yes, you'll get a high percentage of dreamers who are sure that they experience SP regularly, and many will say you must "reach it" in order for a WILD to be successful. I think Sivason's whole point about tapping the experience of dreamers with long-term success sans SP was to show that the conventional wisdom in this regard is wrong, no matter how popular it might be. I have a feeling you already know that, Nina, yet you want to return this endeavor to a popularity contest rather than an attempt to break the withering falsehood that SP matters. Is that really what DV wants to do? If so, what does that say about DV's opinion of accomplished dreamers' experience and wisdom? Do you want us to stop posting what we believe, or, more importantly, stop sharing what we know? Sorry for my tone, Nina. Please keep in mind that I respect your experience and wisdom, and that everything I say was meant in the best of faith and in an effort to support Sivason's action -- an action that I apparently think is far more important to the successful education of new dreamers and to the long-term credibility of this site than do you. Could it be I misunderstood? I hope so! At any rate, if you're still with me, please forgive any unintended callousness.