11 ms·

This title seems quite misleading, dream control has been practiced by individuals for thousands of years and is easy to learn if you just do some reading and d

by ve55 9y ago

This title seems quite misleading, dream control has been practiced by individuals for thousands of years and is easy to learn if you just do some reading and dedicate yourself to it ('lucid dreaming' and everything related to it). It doesn't require any devices or technology, although some techniques can involve using technology to make various things easier or more reliable. If you learn it well you should be able to perform just as well as this device allows you to, although this device seems a bit more focused on the state before lucid dreams, it could be just as useful as a consistent trigger to attain lucidity. It's strange that the title says 'dream control' yet 'lucid dreaming' is barely mentioned once in the article. It seems like they just mean more awareness in a hypnagogic state, or the ability to wake up quickly after entering one, which can also be attained just by practicing. The data provided attempting to show the benefits of this is severely lacking as well. A sample size of six with little specific description of their alternative use task is not useful in the same way saying they spent 158 seconds longer writing stories is not. I'm sure someone who remembers all their dreams can tell you a long and 'interesting' story, but it's not necessarily useful.

ShorsHammer 9y ago
Just to extend on that: Learning to recognise a dream state is quite trivial with some regular practice, there's many methods, one example is reading a street sign multiple times a day, looking away, re-reading and confirming to yourself that it hasn't changed (Written words will not stay the same in a dream). It's an amazing feeling to repeat such a boring inane boolean task only for it to suddenly be true. The common hurdle for practitioners seems to be remaining calm while maintaining the lucid state, which takes far more effort and skill overall. It essentially becomes a meditation finely balanced between waking up and falling back asleep.
emiliobumachar 9y ago
There's still value in making it substantially easier and more practical.
- bdamm 9y ago
  What is the value? I've never been able to do it, nor have I tried much, as I don't see the difference in my life between controlling my dreams or simply allowing them to happen. My dreams are, to me, a vacation from the chore of trying to control the awake state. Why should I learn to bring that stress into my sleep state? Is there any evidence that lucid dreaming makes being awake any easier or more satisfying?
  - Shikadi 9y ago
    In the words of Macklemore, "One man's trash is another man's come up"
  - ksk 9y ago
    > I've never been able to do it, nor have I tried much, as I don't see the difference in my life between controlling my dreams or simply allowing them to happen. Talk to the grand parent. They seem to think its this easy thing that people have been doing for thousands of years. I'd love to know the easy way too..
chiefalchemist 9y ago
Not being snarky but...It's not mentioned because it would belittled the "accomplishment." Publishing "We've Done What's Already Been Done" isn't a milestone for the CV. It's not news if it's old is it? The press isn't going to investigate. Instant buzz...over (next to) nothing. Welcome to the modern world.
- ksk 9y ago
  That is one explanation. The alternative explanation is that someone found something cool and decided to write a blog post. How many front-page posts have there been on some algorithm or bloom filters or seemingly "advanced cool stuff" that people have already figured out decades ago?
  - chiefalchemist 9y ago
    Yes. But I think the point the comment (that I was commenting on) was getting at was that there are in fact refernece points that should have been mentioned for completeness. That void is either intentional. Not good. Or due to a lack of awareness (or the obvious). Again, not good.
    - ksk 9y ago
      Or, neither? There are alternate benign interpretations which admittedly are very non-dramatic and boring. I've found that people are most often neither malicious nor stupid.
dosycorp 9y ago
I think it's interesting. Tech to create a feedback loop to keep you in a particular state. When I was a kid I really had this thing for switching a light switch between off and on. Know what I mean? There's a spot you can hold it between off and on where the light flickers, and buzzes, at low power, sort of randomly. I guess this is like that for wake-sleep. Cool state to be in and to get there without drugs, concentration, or whatever else. Very simple. Can you lucid dream/OBE? Was it possible to learn?
- OnMyPhone 9y ago
  I'm not who you're replaying to, but... When I was learning how to lucid dream, one of the triggers that I used to tell I was in a dream was flipping a light switch on and off. When I saw nothing happened, I knew it was a dream. Another big one I use is looking at any words, numbers or clocks to see if they were legit, or random characters / garbage. I started to "feel" what a lucid dream was because I would get some nightmares that would eventually wake me up. It felt real and I could remember everything about it (for a few minutes). The big ones always involved me falling from a building, and waking up once I hit the pavement. Over time, I forced myself to try to mostly stay asleep during these nightmares. I remember falling from stuff, hitting the pavement, waking up, but keeping my eyes closed and trying to keep from waking up. It got to the point where I would "half" wake up, but still be in the nightmares. Then with some practice, I could do that to normal dreams too. I can't really do it on demand, so it's more if I am having a crazy dream, I can usually snap out of it and fully control everything about it.
  - kfrzcode 9y ago
    One day, when you wake up and the power's out you're going to have an existential crisis
  - basementcat 9y ago
    +1 on looking at words. I once was having dinner with a girl and the topic of conversation drifted to dreams and how one might tell if one is in an "Inception" type scenario. I used the menu as an example-- read a line from the menu, close the booklet, reopen and reread the same line. I told her if the two lines aren't the same line, you're dreaming (the rendering hardware in your brain apparently uses different PRNG seeds for procedural texture generation). I paused awkwardly as I realized that items in the menu kept changing each time I reread them. She was very offended when I told her she was a figment of my imagination.
baxtr 9y ago
Can you share any interesting links on that topic? I am interested to see how I could use this myself.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
superkuh 9y ago
Yup. And if you look in the usenet archives back in the mid to late 90s on alt.dreams.lucid you'll find people were building eye movement monitoring glasses that would trigger flashing LEDs even then.
chipuni 9y ago
The article isn't about lucid dreaming. It's about the liminal state. It can take months of active practice to have lucid dreaming. The liminal state takes about five minutes to learn. The article has a story about Thomas Edison dropping balls on the floor; this works well.
- evincarofautumn 9y ago
  Yeah, I’m quite experienced with lucid dreaming, but this particular hypnogogic state is something I actually try to avoid lingering around in, because it’s very uncomfortable for me. The process of falling asleep feels like having my mind squeezed through a narrow gap, surrounded by random proto-thoughts like fragments of words and images. I wonder if that’s just my perception of the lower frontal lobe activity they describe in the article. Once I’m out on the “other side” in a dream, I feel like my mind can stretch out and relax again.
  - tedeh 9y ago
    Not to mention feeling the conscious control of your breathing slipping away. That was always a slightly freakish experience for me when I used to do lucid dreaming in my teens.
    - evincarofautumn 9y ago
      Yup, not my favourite, hah. I usually notice the lack of conscious control over breathing at the other end, when waking up in sleep paralysis—which unfortunately is triggered by lucid dreaming for me. Thankfully since I’ve had SP my whole life, I’m used to it by now and can just try to relax and wait for it to pass.
ksk 9y ago
What has your experience been with lucid dreaming? What tasks were you testing with and what improvement did you see?

by ve55 9y ago

ShorsHammer 9y ago

Just to extend on that: Learning to recognise a dream state is quite trivial with some regular practice, there's many methods, one example is reading a street sign multiple times a day, looking away, re-reading and confirming to yourself that it hasn't changed (Written words will not stay the same in a dream). It's an amazing feeling to repeat such a boring inane boolean task only for it to suddenly be true. The common hurdle for practitioners seems to be remaining calm while maintaining the lucid state, which takes far more effort and skill overall. It essentially becomes a meditation finely balanced between waking up and falling back asleep.

emiliobumachar 9y ago

There's still value in making it substantially easier and more practical.

bdamm 9y ago
What is the value? I've never been able to do it, nor have I tried much, as I don't see the difference in my life between controlling my dreams or simply allowing them to happen. My dreams are, to me, a vacation from the chore of trying to control the awake state. Why should I learn to bring that stress into my sleep state? Is there any evidence that lucid dreaming makes being awake any easier or more satisfying?
- Shikadi 9y ago
  In the words of Macklemore, "One man's trash is another man's come up"
- ksk 9y ago
  > I've never been able to do it, nor have I tried much, as I don't see the difference in my life between controlling my dreams or simply allowing them to happen. Talk to the grand parent. They seem to think its this easy thing that people have been doing for thousands of years. I'd love to know the easy way too..

chiefalchemist 9y ago

Not being snarky but...It's not mentioned because it would belittled the "accomplishment." Publishing "We've Done What's Already Been Done" isn't a milestone for the CV. It's not news if it's old is it? The press isn't going to investigate. Instant buzz...over (next to) nothing. Welcome to the modern world.

ksk 9y ago
That is one explanation. The alternative explanation is that someone found something cool and decided to write a blog post. How many front-page posts have there been on some algorithm or bloom filters or seemingly "advanced cool stuff" that people have already figured out decades ago?
- chiefalchemist 9y ago
  Yes. But I think the point the comment (that I was commenting on) was getting at was that there are in fact refernece points that should have been mentioned for completeness. That void is either intentional. Not good. Or due to a lack of awareness (or the obvious). Again, not good.
  - ksk 9y ago
    Or, neither? There are alternate benign interpretations which admittedly are very non-dramatic and boring. I've found that people are most often neither malicious nor stupid.

dosycorp 9y ago

I think it's interesting. Tech to create a feedback loop to keep you in a particular state. When I was a kid I really had this thing for switching a light switch between off and on. Know what I mean? There's a spot you can hold it between off and on where the light flickers, and buzzes, at low power, sort of randomly. I guess this is like that for wake-sleep. Cool state to be in and to get there without drugs, concentration, or whatever else. Very simple. Can you lucid dream/OBE? Was it possible to learn?

OnMyPhone 9y ago
I'm not who you're replaying to, but... When I was learning how to lucid dream, one of the triggers that I used to tell I was in a dream was flipping a light switch on and off. When I saw nothing happened, I knew it was a dream. Another big one I use is looking at any words, numbers or clocks to see if they were legit, or random characters / garbage. I started to "feel" what a lucid dream was because I would get some nightmares that would eventually wake me up. It felt real and I could remember everything about it (for a few minutes). The big ones always involved me falling from a building, and waking up once I hit the pavement. Over time, I forced myself to try to mostly stay asleep during these nightmares. I remember falling from stuff, hitting the pavement, waking up, but keeping my eyes closed and trying to keep from waking up. It got to the point where I would "half" wake up, but still be in the nightmares. Then with some practice, I could do that to normal dreams too. I can't really do it on demand, so it's more if I am having a crazy dream, I can usually snap out of it and fully control everything about it.
- kfrzcode 9y ago
  One day, when you wake up and the power's out you're going to have an existential crisis
- basementcat 9y ago
  +1 on looking at words. I once was having dinner with a girl and the topic of conversation drifted to dreams and how one might tell if one is in an "Inception" type scenario. I used the menu as an example-- read a line from the menu, close the booklet, reopen and reread the same line. I told her if the two lines aren't the same line, you're dreaming (the rendering hardware in your brain apparently uses different PRNG seeds for procedural texture generation). I paused awkwardly as I realized that items in the menu kept changing each time I reread them. She was very offended when I told her she was a figment of my imagination.

baxtr 9y ago

Can you share any interesting links on that topic? I am interested to see how I could use this myself.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

superkuh 9y ago

Yup. And if you look in the usenet archives back in the mid to late 90s on alt.dreams.lucid you'll find people were building eye movement monitoring glasses that would trigger flashing LEDs even then.

chipuni 9y ago

The article isn't about lucid dreaming. It's about the liminal state. It can take months of active practice to have lucid dreaming. The liminal state takes about five minutes to learn. The article has a story about Thomas Edison dropping balls on the floor; this works well.

evincarofautumn 9y ago
Yeah, I’m quite experienced with lucid dreaming, but this particular hypnogogic state is something I actually try to avoid lingering around in, because it’s very uncomfortable for me. The process of falling asleep feels like having my mind squeezed through a narrow gap, surrounded by random proto-thoughts like fragments of words and images. I wonder if that’s just my perception of the lower frontal lobe activity they describe in the article. Once I’m out on the “other side” in a dream, I feel like my mind can stretch out and relax again.
- tedeh 9y ago
  Not to mention feeling the conscious control of your breathing slipping away. That was always a slightly freakish experience for me when I used to do lucid dreaming in my teens.
  - evincarofautumn 9y ago
    Yup, not my favourite, hah. I usually notice the lack of conscious control over breathing at the other end, when waking up in sleep paralysis—which unfortunately is triggered by lucid dreaming for me. Thankfully since I’ve had SP my whole life, I’m used to it by now and can just try to relax and wait for it to pass.

ksk 9y ago

What has your experience been with lucid dreaming? What tasks were you testing with and what improvement did you see?