LD and ND: a terminology analysis

I think it’s an issue with the conception, every LD is a ND.
For some reason, we have the feeling of LDing being something distant and hard to reach.
There are two kinds of people in this case,
The first kind is the people who WANT LDs, who percive LDs as a rare and a struggle needed experience.
And the second kind, is the people who GET LDs, (the neturals) who percive it as a ND.

Actually, when you go to the definition of LD, it can be a situation when you just say - “Wow, what a spooky dream I’m having right now.”
Isn’t that a normal dream?

If we want to get LDs, we should act and think like people who GET them.
And if a term will help that, so lets go for it!

ND = A dream, Lucid or not - doesn’t matter.
One quality of a dream can be lucidity, consciousness or awareness.
If that specific quality doesn’t exist in a particiular dream, we can call it NL, NC or NA. (Non-Lucid, etc.)

The problem is not the word “normal”, but its use: having “nonconscious dreaming” instead of “normal dreaming” makes next to no difference, if your dream journal still sees conscious as the only class of dreaming worth pointing out — all else being “nonconscious”, not even a treat, merely the lack of one — which in turn makes “conscious” the only interesting treat dreaming can ever assume.

What I’m saying is, ideally people would never call a dream “normal” simply because there’s more to it than its being lucid or not: what you propose, then, that we substitute “nonconscious” for “normal”, doesn’t resolve the problem that those will be the only two labels people will ever care about — nonconscious will be your new normal!

As for the rest, I don’t know… I for one ain’t joining your change until you actually make it sound urgent and useful. What I’m afraid of is that no-one in this audience will choose to switch if given a choice — and hey, we’re all grown ups here: we know that no matter how successful you are, many people won’t join you. So why don’t you try to convince us instead of repeating how you’re not forcing anyone to do anything? You might as well get more people to join you this way, you know?

I agree with Chor,
The SC is a really powerful factor in dreams, and if the SC classifies LDs like something hard they will be hard to achieve. In terms LD and ND you make them opposites, when, rather they should be thought as a choice. Using the terms CD and NCD ,or non aware, you remove that SC suggestion that they are hard, and implant to see them as something both normal that you can choose to have, and remove the thought of them being opposites - which ,in fact, makes them harder to achieve.

As for impact that use of them could have on community, there isn’t anybody that can for them to use that term. Maybe there’s no need for acronym descriptions yet, but, Chor, no one can force you or me to not use that terms, all we have to do is put a header note in posts or DJ that for reason this-and-that we will use CD and NCD in place of LD and ND. If community will like it then the acronyms should get a description.

All of what everybody spoke of here is 80% the same, there are this-and-that differences but you all fail to see the point that we strive to make LDs easier. There’s no need for intellectual duels that you did here, we are not at war.

For the end i would like to say that both sides are right in their own way, the problem we need to discuss is harmless intergration of terms-of-choice, and if, in the first place, there is any need to intergrate them. IMO there is only need for individuals to use the “new” terms, and no need for all of the community. If someone wants let him use them, if not, nothing happens. You must take in account that acronyms LD and ND have very strong positive impact on SC of seasoned dreamers, while CD and NCD could help only newbies in getting the right mindset.

Thank you, Spider

Well, I already said in various topics that I prefer writing down my ND’s on pen and paper, for various reasons, and copying them on my online DJ would take 1 more hour a day (and I already make very long posts); besides, I posted various interesting and/or enlightening ND’s of mine here and there; I could explain all the reasons, but there’s no real need to talk about it here.

That’s where I wanted to end - if people call their non-lucid dreams “non-conscious” (only if they want, of course), they could still be their norm, but they won’t feel like the norm, and so they will be more motivated torwards getting what they strive for; what I’m trying to acheive with this is simply a further push for those who want to get to lucidity among us.

As for

and

: That’s the reason this topic was created in the first place, to discuss the reasons why these terms should be a valid choice to use, and to get people to understand those reasons. If I wanted this for myself, I could have just started using it in my DJ and posts, and leave it at that. I want people to understand, and that’s why this topic is here: I’m explaining the reasons, to which people will be free to agree or not; and if enough people in the community will agree to this, only then there will be a valid reason to use these terms.

And even if it they’re accepted, probably a lot of users will continue using LD and ND, and that’s their right, and I completely agree about that; the only thing that I want to see is, a simple, alternative, recognized point of view about what Lucids and Non-lucids are, so new people could get a better view on the whole thing.

Tosxychor, I really like your idea, especially because the terms you suggest aren’t neutral by any means - you made a point youself in the 1st post that they’re supposed to make having CDs a much more “desirable” thing than just having “abnormal dreams” (subconciously, of couse).

I’ve read the whole topic, but excuse me if I’ll not mention every single point. I’d just like to address a point that I found missing from the very 1st post: Bruno said conciousness is a better word because it implies degress, not just an on-off switch.

Tonight I dreamt of being alone in a party, I wanted some company and then I thought “heck, this is a dream, I’ll just approach anyone and start a conversation”. Believe me or not, it wasn’t enought to get me truly lucid. So I think, the two terms (CD and NCD) aren’t enough.

So, we can’t change “lucid” in this sentece to “concious”, because I was concious in my dream and it wasn’t fun at all in comparison to true lucidity. As we can’t change the meaning of LD to “100% conscious CD”, I suppose we would need a new term: CD, NCD and maybe SCD (S for super) or ULD (ultra), etc… This way we could describe three theorical possibilities of concious dreaming:

NCD (0% conciousness)
CD (1-99% conciousness)
SCD (100% conciousness)

I guess I made my point. I’ll leave the definition of the new term up to you guys, SCD and UCD aren’t very good. But, Tosxychor, I really like your idea, and if anyone add this to the cool ld4all forum’s dictionay (you, that automatic-underlined-mouse-over cool things), I’d try to use them. And if I’m writing this, surely there are several others who also would but who are keeping quiet.

tukkek, I see your point, and I’m very glad to see my view was shared by some afterall (I guess I gotta thank mattias, Phoenyx, Spider and Leeh aswell ^^), and about the lucid-conscious comparison:

Lucidness have various dregrees, as many have percieved themselves, and the fact the lucid is used as a precise description, only for particular dreams, is mainly beacuse we forced the meaning to do so: we wanted a clear distintion about if a dream is lucid or not, and that’s what we mostly got, with its side effects of course, like the one you mentioned (we know it’s a dream somehow and we still can’t call it lucid).

In this sense, if we accept the word “conscious” in the context as a synonim for “lucid”, the I’m sure the words will be surely interchangeable, since this way “conscious” would be referring to a particular state of mind too. :smile:

Moreover, we still do classify various degrees of lucidity, calling them semi-lucid, low-lucid, high-lucid, and everything inbetween; in the same way, there would be nothing to invent all over if we apply the same principle to the term “consciousness”.

What I meant is that if we’re gonna trade LD and ND for only CD and NCD, I’d rather stick to the first pair, because it gives us a higher standard to hope for (better to hope for a “true lucid” dream than to a mild-to-poor conscious dream as mine). What I liked most about your idea is how it can positevely subvert a begginer’s mind. If we don’t have a third term I think there’s no much use in adopting new terminology, or that maybe it even does worse (subcounciously) an effect to the begginer as the actual common terms do.

I’m perfectly fine about that, what i wanted is for both terminologies to coexist :smile:
Besides, I didn’t really understand the second part of ypur post. Could you please elaborate?

Sweden needs a new word for Lucid Dream. Right now its Klardröm, direct translation= Cleardream. I disliked it since the first time i heard it (the word, i love LD’s :smile:).

Course! :content:
What I meant is that having only two terms (CD and NCD) is rather poor, 'cause a CD can be either a cool lucid dream or a mild-to-poor lucid dream (low lucidity, as my example on the 1st post on this thread). I suggest another term to specify a “high-lucidity” dream: SCD (super) or UCD (ultra). I’m bad with naming, maybe someone has a better idea for this 3rd name…

Well, the fact is, we had two terms before (LD and ND), and people thought of various levels, such as semi-lucid, low-lucid, high-lucid, etc., for describing their dreams a little better. What I’m suggesting is, we just let the CD and NCD terms follow the same road, to avoid confusion, and let things flow more naturally, letting people using CD in the same way that the term LD was.

You mean, let those terms take the road of a folk saying, having them made more effective and memorable by telling and re-telling ?

I was thinking more among the lines of ease-of-use :tongue:
The usage of LD and ND has sedimented with years in various, accepted forms, and it would be a pain if those new terms had completely different rules to follow in order to be used; so I was thinking, let them be just simple synonyms: anytime you would use the term LD, you can use CD instead, since it has the same exact meaning (I effectively want them to mean the same thing here), and the same with ND and NCD.

And of course, ideas are more effective if they’re wider spread, so I was just thinking of ways to make those new terms more easily accepted. :smile:

Ok, I haven’t read all the way through. But I have a few thoughts. First and foremost, I think that you would have no trouble at all being understood if you use the terms Conscious dream and non-conscious dream, because they are already used. Second, you are not suggesting giving up old terms, and you would completely understand what people mean when they say normal dream, so, what are you trying to achieve, actually? If it is to start the use of CD and NCD, it’s already been done a long time ago. Even before LD maybe. If it is not to stop the use of the old terms, what should be done with them? And if it is not to convince others to use your terms, then what is it? Seems a little funny to me.

I see your point, that saying ND compared to LD makes LDs seem more difficult. Psychologically, it might be better to say unlucid dreams or non-lucid dreams in order to not make such a fuss about lucidity as to inhibit them. I don’t see the criticism against its accuracy though. ND are more common, and as such are the norm for most people. LDs are special. There are more features to dreams that can be expressed, such as vividness and lenght and such, but what is our interest really? If you strive for long dreams, you will call some long, and some short, and there will also be a range of regular length dreams. If you are only looking for long dreams, you’d call those NDs. The same goes with all aspects of dreams. If you are looking for zombie-dreams, you will have ZDs and NDs. If the dream has no specific interesting feature on display, why not call them NDs? You can’t call a dream a long dream, just because it’s not a lucid dream because it might be short(, or a normal lenght dream). So in the context of lucid dreaming, NDs is a proper term. You could choose to make it more neutral by saying, perhaps, Other Dreams, but it only works in plural. What you call it just depends on how much you want to say. You could call a dream a Long Vivid Random Strange Lucid False Awakening (Dream).

As for what to call LDs themselves. Choosing the right word depends partly on the euphony and cacophony of the terms, and also on what you are focusing on about the dream. To call a dream a Conscious Dream, highlights the state of consciousness, implied to be high. But consciousness does not guarantee that you know you are dreaming. Take Pre-Lucid Dreams for example, they are just as conscious as a Lucid Dream, only you have not yet aquired the necessary proof that you are dreaming. It would be understood from the context what you mean ofcourse, but I tend to make a difference between high consciousness and knowing that I’m dreaming. Usually they go hand in hand, but they are not the same IMO. And technically, we have a degree of consciousness in all dreams we remember, because you can’t remember if you did not have consciousness. Every experience is conscious or it wouldn’t be experienced. “Lucid Dreaming”, highlights the clariry of thought you are expected to have, in order to realise you are dreaming. That is, to not be distracted by random thoughts. It should be possible though, to be aware that you are dreaming and still not have clarity of thought. But then, those are often called low level LDs. What you focus on is really a matter of what you think is important about the dream. The way you define the terms shows that. And if a different word fits your definition better, go for it!

My final words, might be the ultimate solution to the problem, even if it does not make it easier exactly, it does do away with the problem. The terms in themeselves, can have connotations that don’t do the dream justice. And since people might have different definitions of the same term, misunderstandings can take place. The important thing is not whether your dreams with neatly into a specific category. To obsess about that, will take the fun out of your dreams. If you make it your goal to fulfill the requirements for calling the dream you just had a conscious dream, or lucid dream or whatever, you are forgetting the reason you wanted to hae the dream in the first place. It is not about categorisation and technicality, it is about having the experience. And if you want to do it justice, just describe it without putting a label on it! Does it make you any happier to be able to say: “Yes, this dream fulfils all the requirements, I can call it a lucid dream. I have accomplished my goal”? What about the dream itself? Did you enjoy it? If you did, do you care whether it can be called lucid or not? So why bother with labels at all? just say: “I was quite conscious in the dream, I realized I was dreaming, and I had loads of fun”!

I highly suggest you take a read of the posts beside the first; most of your points have already been discussed.

About the last paragraph, I do agree with your view, and think dreams should enjoyed for themselves nonetheless, and I actively write down all significant dreams i can remember down to treasure them; however, I do find that IWL, i can appreciate way more any experience if i put awareness in it, participating consciously in it, without being simply dragged by the events and thoughts, but being the master of myself and trying to get the most out of any experience this way; I thought I could apply that principle in dreams aswell.

Besides,

I’d say, yes, verily: for I have set an objective the day before, and I have accomplished it; and that means I’m a human being capable of getting what he wanted to reach; and that usually means I’m becoming a better, more balanced, more self-conscious person. Besides, I mostly use LD’s for the same reason (self-growth)

:content: I think this might actually be the best road to take for me, start with just plain “Dream” and if it’s more, label it so

But part of the psychological aspect of labels and such seemed to hit me pretty good yesterday with the word “Reality”… [ND] I was looking at a bowl, that now looked like from my Mother’s set of her favored dishes, instead of how it had looked a few minutes prior. As we were looking at it, and I was trying to explain how it Had looked, it changed even more. I exclaimed, “Hey! It’s changing as if I’m in a Dream!” [com] Great place to gain lucidity, one would think, but… [/com] I continued something along the lines of “But I know I’m in Reality!” as I looked around the dining room, and touched the dining room table, all as ‘Real’ as could be…[/ND]

I’ve been using IWL instead of IRL for awhile now, but just a quick anecdote of how a phrase or a word can impact our efforts… (don’t want to hijack the thread too far off base, but anyone know any used words for the ‘dream reality’ ?)

That makes two of us :content:

Dreamland, the dreaming and astral plane come to mind right now.

i vote for calling them supra-uber-mega-IRL-dreams

Yeah I got used to it too, since dreams are quite “the” reality for the time one spends dreaming.

And mopman, yeah, some dreams really deserve such a title :lol: but I don’t quite get the IRL part.

Tosxychor. I did read most of the first page, but I got too eager to write. I couldn’t wait any longer!! At that point,I was aware that some posts after might have said what I was going to say, which isn’t strange because I wrote a lot. I figured, maybe my approach was different anyway, so it could provide something. I didn’t think the issues had been adressed satisfactorily. Afterwards, I saw the amount of text and thought. Might come off a little agressive there and thought maybe I should add “don’t take me too seriously”.

I didn’t mean that we should not strive for a hihg level of consciousness in dreams. What I was trying to say was that why should we concentrate on whether we can call them a certain term, it’s the experience we desire. We can still describe he dream using the word consciousness, explaining that we were conscious. And that would still be to accomplish the goal, and you can still say it. But when it comes to accomplishing the goal of having “a dream that corresponds to the description of a certain term” I don’t see why that is interesting. If you simply change the definition, you have no longer accomplished had that type of dream. Then you have to accomplish a different thing to be able to say you did, and the thing you were so happy about, is now a stupid ND. See? But the dream is exactly the same the whole time regardless of whether it fits into the accepted definiton of the term you are pursuing. People ask all the time on this site, “did I have a LD?”. The only thing you can do to verify is to see if it fit the definition, by the requirement of knowing that you were dreaming. This question is a question of labels only. If you find a technicality, you say “no, it seems you did not havea lucid dream, it’s a FLD” or more often the conclusion would be that it was a “low level LD”. How much satisfaction is there really to gain in making the disticntion between a technically unlucid dream and a low level lucid dream? The only thing I care about is the dream itself. Not if I can put a sticker on it.

Did I do it again? Is it too much text?

Phoenyx- The word reality. Would it have affected the conclusion much if you had chosen to say “in waking life”, or “not dreaming” or anything else that means the same thing? Sounded like you had made the conclusion before you said the word. Seems to me the thought behind the sentence is the culprit. It’s funny when you know that you shouldn’t trust the solidity of the surroundings, but still you do. Then you wake up and think " dang it, I should have done a reality test." -That’s another term in this mess. Most people say “reality check”, but (Hello! Reality check!) that commonly means to look at the actual facts of reality, when it is used outside of a lucid dreaming context. “Reality test” is more accurate, but it has been repressed. In the interest of using terms that make lucid dreaming easier, it may be a god idea to use “reality test”, since “check” has a somewhat lazy connotation. “I’ll jsut do a quick check to see if I’m dreaming”, it does not give a clue that one is actually TESTING one’s reality by exploiting the known weaknesses in the reality simulation. It sounds more like you check your e-mail to see if someone has sent a message that you are dreaming. “quick check, not dreaming, ok back to where we were” vs “WOAH! Wait a minute, Stop everything! Let’s not do anything until we can determine for certain whether this is a dream or not.” But then again, we do mean the same thing and know just how to go about it.

When describing my dreams, I seldom say I did a RC, I usually describe what I did. “looked at my hand a few times. There was an extra finger so I knew I was dreaming”.