a lecture about LD

Hi!
I’m going to keep a lecture about lucid dreaming as a part of a philosophy course and i was wondering if somebody has experiences about speaking of LD to people who don’t know what it is and who might be very skeptical about it. If somebody has good tips about how to approach to theme or what i should concentrate on, i would be more than happy to receive some.
Is it even wise to talk about LD in public or are they going to consider me as a freak? :grin:

Haha, I’ve always wondered about that myself. I’d be funny if you cause LDs to your entire class, especially if it were full of skeptics. Just bring the book EWLD by LaBerge. If you word yourself properly in the introduction, you could probably get some big skepticism going. Then pop out the book and you’ll certainly get their attention.

I don’t know but bring up the movie Vanilla Sky. Mostly everyone’s seen it by now unless you live in a cave. Also I’ve heard about that movie Waking Life. I could also recommend the movie Sphere when talking about nightmares, but Vanilla Sky should do good.

I’d love to get a chance to do that. Maybe in one of my psychology classes coming up…You’ll probably have a few LD, along with many people from your class. Maybe even the teacher, and he/she will be very surprised. But I’m sure most people have heard about LD by now, they probably just don’t care enough about it, or fail to see the potential of it. I think many people don’t like the idea because they think it’s ‘just’ a dream, and there are bigger concerns IRL than dreaming. Some poeple may think of LD as that ‘New Age’ stuff, and I can see that being a problem. LaBerge is a doctor and highly scientific person, so just include that.

You have a lot to work with, especially if you’ve kept up with the forums. There’s so many debatable subjects, so much to talk about, and so many ways to make your presentation good. Plus you can just about ask us anything as you already have.

Make it good and professional!

As with everything - it isn’t what you’re talking about, it’s how you talk about it. Start loose, go more intense with information slowly.

Well, I never did this, but when explaining LDing to others (what I don´t try very often) there were some problems coming up:

Many people say they already know it (not the term “lucid” , but the thing).This is difficult, cause you can hardly tell wether they really know what you are talking about, or if they just think they know.
My advice: Emphasize that you have to really know that you are dreaming, and that you have to know about your waking life.
Don´t try to use the word “control” while explaning what lucid dreaming is, cause many people had non-lucid dreams in which they were in control

One to whom I talked didn´t want to believe me at first.After some talking, he thought that lucid dreaming existed, but that it was completely different from normal dream/sleep.He thought of it as something like using your imagination to create pictures in your head while half-awake.In his opinion the definition of “sleeping” is that you have lost your counciousness

If it is wise to speak in puplic?
Don´t ask me, I never tryed :wink:
But I think in a psychology class this might be more tolerated.Anyway, depends on the auditory.

Traumgänger

Frost:)
Ill be prolly repeating myself here but what usually helps in explaing what lds are is a metaphore i read in "The sun and the shadow"by Kenneth Keltzer.
Someone said before it would be good idea to avoid word “control”.Agree.Anyways here it goes:

A normal ,regular dream can be compared to unexperiensed sailor on the sea.Hes got no idea whats going on aroun,gets lost often,cant get where hes planning to.Wind and water are playing with him.
On the contrast:ld is when you are an experienced sailor.You know HOW to get from A to B and whats the best way to do it.How to steer,how to put your boat against the wind and waves.But still-theres no way he could influence or control the forces of nature.
Roughly thats it:)Whats worth to mention here is that people get little dissapointed when you tell them that they cant control everything.Well,thats where the magic of lds is.In the element of suprise,adventure so on.Its allways exciting to see what your mind(or independant world as some want it) prepared for you this night and take great feeling of joy when you can act conciously according to circumstances(which are pre-done for you)
Well,thats all:)
Good luck there:)Keep us posted what reactions you got:)
take care

If you have some really skeptical people you could direct them to this site and we could help you persuade them!

Good luck :smile:

Thanks for all the comments and I’ll keep you informed on the result, but the lecture will propably be in mid-january so don’t wait too anxiously.

I also thought that i should tell about the history of LD and it’s place in old cultures. Since the theme of lectures is “science or pseudoscience” i think i should tell about false beliefs and mysticism connected to LD. Like in one Carlos Castaneda book he speaks about an indian belief of waking up from the place you have dreamt about. If somebody knows more about these subjects please tell, 'cause I havent found much information dealing with these aspects of LD.

Here’s my two cents: They probably wont think you’re a freak, b/c a lot of people have at one time or another realized they were dreaming during a dream, so I suspect a lot of people will realize lucid dreaming is possible.

Do you have the book “Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming” by Stephen LaBerge and Howard Rheingold? It discusses some practical uses for lucid dreaming, such as creative thinking, overcomming nightmares, and practicing real life situations (public speaking, etc).

Best of luck,

I have explained, and introduced lucid dreaming to a few people, one of them is our chosenone :smile: Another person got a lucid dream the same night I told him about lucid dreaming and he then went through the mirror. So I suppose it has been succesfull. I found it a bit troubling on how to explain it.
I think you should say that it is being aware that you are sleeping and that you are having a dream. Maybe its good to mention that there are different levels of lucidity…

What I suggest you do is explain lucid dreaming to some people who dont know about it, introduce them to the subject. Then make notice of things that you tell them, about what worked and what confused them more. This is probably the best thing you could do…