What should new LDers be told

Me and r3m0t are having this interesting discussion (via PM). Should nebies be encouraged, telling them LDing is easy. Or should they be given other peoples expereinces, of both easy and hard.

As I have already said, we should telll them it’s easy. This is not lieing to them, because if you set up a placebo, to make them think it is easy, and then they find it easy, you havn’t lieed. Because you have guided them correctly.

r3m0t argues that it is lieing though. And that people may begin to leave the site if they found out that everyone was lieing.

Just to sway this post into my favor ( ), I think that everyone who find it hard, has a placebo effect to make them find it hard. In wich case, the entire lucid dreaming motivation is based on placebo and attitude.

I think r3m0t thinks that we should tell them what we find lucid dreaming has been in the past. So the fact and truth. Am I right r3m0t?

What are everyone elses opinions on this matter?

Tell them all it takes it a positive attitude and patience. Point out that it could take take them anywhere between a couple of days to about a month.

It’s up to you whether you tell them it’s easy or not. It’s not out right lying, as many poeple do find it easy.

And be sure to point it out when they make progress .

I think that newbies should be told about the 2P’s. Practice and Patience.

I think they shouldn’t be told any negative thoughts because this could stunt there progress.

i think i’m gonna have to disagree technodreamer and side with r3m0t on this one

i don’t think you should tell newbies it’s easy. if they don’t find it easy and everybody around is telling them how simple it is, they may very well feel bad about themselves–feeling like they’re some how below average, and give up

i think lucid dreaming is a lot more complex than the placebo effect. we’ve all had our share of dreams where we tried to do something and it failed. whether flying, walking through walls, etc, something has failed. and we know that we’re dreaming… we know that we can do anything, but our mind’s not ready to accept it yet, our will is not focused just yet

i think lucid dreamers should be told that this won’t happen for the average person overnight, and that it takes… well… practice and patience. i think some LDers think they’re gonna go from regular person to neo status overnight, and i don’t think that’s realistic at all.

anyway, that’s my two cents

For most newbies 20 minutes per day is all they need to have for succesfull start.Cant see how hard this can be.I think the key would be pointing out benefits compared to little effort,but at the same time mentioning that there are also more sophisticated methods.Those methods arent needed for most ppl.Who wakes up after 6 hrs of sleep and practices WILD is a person whos greatly motivated inside,not someone just starting.
So its not hard at all to have lucid dreams like its not hard at all to ride a bike.It gets harder when you feel you want to became pro- then u have stabilization techniques and all that stuff.
Keep it simple and that solves it i guess:)
take care:)

I agree, they should just be told the truth. It varies from person to person and for most it takes some practice.

I am convinced. They should be told the truth. We shouldn’t say that it is hard. We should say that it takes practice and patients. Saying it’s hard makes it sound difficult. Although it’s not easy, it’s not difficult, it just needs patients.

Probably the best point made yet. It is also very important to give encouragment, pointing out sucesses, while letting them point out failures?

So if I were now to tell a newbie, it would be:

Another thing to consider is wether to tell them that avoiding negative topics will give them motivation. What are your opinions? I would recommened that they try to read more posotive suceess of other people than failures. I feel that failures drag you down, and then it takes effort to recover.

What are your opinions on this?

I have thought about this a lot over the last couple of days. My opinion right now is that I don’t think we should use term like “easy” or “hard”. I think we should avoid those words altogether. If we find LD ing easy and some are struggling with it then, that person may erroneously feel like a failure. If we tell people it is hard then some people will make it hard. I think we should send a positive message that everyone can learn to LD it just takes time and practice.

As for reading negative posts:

I am sort of on the fence on this. It could be good for people to read about other peoples experiences and how they have over come barriers and pitfalls. However, just hearing about peoples struggles may put the belief in someone head that LD ing is harder that it is. I do think that we should have a thread where people can share there just success stories. I created a thread for that last night. My hope is that people can walk away from the tread with a positive message that they will be able to learn to LD.

I think the main thing they should realize is they can’t just jump into it and LD over night. It’ll take some time but it is well worth it

Wahey, I win! By the way everybody, patience, not patients in a hospital. Sorry, but it annoys me.

In my opinion things which need patience and practice are hard. Why say that they aren’t?

That is not completely true. There are people who have LD ‘s the first night they try. Many people can experience their first LD in just a few days to a few weeks. Though it may take some time for people to experience their first LD we should avoid making it sound like it will take a long time. Because it doesn’t.

mmm Not quite. Though I don’t think we should say it is easy I don’t think we should say it is hard either. In truth neither of you won or lost yet. I think the debate will continue…

1. Yes, but only because they have been thinking intensively about it, reading all they can, etc. They aren’t using a method to get LDs reliably.

2. I hope it will!

Well sort of. I was aginst telling them that it was hard. And I still am. But prehaps we shouldn’t tell them it was easy. Just the two P’s.

I beleive you were for telling them the truth, which you thought to be hard. So do we tell them that it’s hard?

Anyways, carry on being annoyed

Yes, we should compare it to learning to ride a bike. Then with one hand off of the handle bar, and then two. And then sometimes, adding tricks to it, going beyond the initial goal. But it takes practice.

We can’t overload them with things to od though. It’ll make the task seem impossible.

And prehpas this is our fault then. By reading, we want it so much. So we are wishing for lucid dreaming to hard.

Didn’t I just win it?

I would like to comment about the negative topics…

I’m firmly against telling newbies about negative experiences, or having them read negative experiences in the first place.

Keep in mind that the very nature of dreaming is (theoretically) entirely refined to YOUR MIND…

It’s just like if you watch tons of horror movies, you might not necessarily have horrible nightmares, but you are going to dream about those types of scenarios, zmobies, etc… a lot more.

If someone comes here who is really really uncertain about LDing, and say they read a thread where a bunch of people are saying “OMG… you guys need to be careful, LDing can be dangerous, there are energy vampires ou there just waiting for people to stray from their normal dream environments…”

and a lot of people are talking about that… what do you think is going to happen IF the poor guy manages to have an LD in the first place? It’s not going to be a fun one… he’s not going to be like a carefree child, innocently exploring… he’s going to be thinking “okay i need to do this this and this to keep myself safe…oh no what if so and so happens” and that makes for a bad dream…

Much like bad thoughts tend to lead to be trips…

So… there isn’t much of a problem with that kind of demon talk on here… but… I can say from experience that reading those kinds of stories does mess with you, and create a negative environment for your dreams and OBEs… when I started OBEing I got caught up in all the spirit/demon/neg talks… and it really dramatically affected me…

Whereas if everyone said “no way, that’s all superstitious nonsense” i wouldn’t have had nearly as much of a problem.

Debating whether they do exist is pointless and doesn’t go anywhere, but we all know that if you dwell upon something and are exposed to tons of stories about it, it’s going to be more likely to happen to you. We know the placebo effect works, especially for dreams and OBE’s and whatnot.

so I would first of all, point out to the new person, that they are going to read milions of different opinions and thoughts about LDs, but when it gets down to it, everyone’s experiences are different, everything everyone says is OPINION… we don’t even know that there is an unconscious mind… it’s a THEORY… it can be helpful to read such things from experienced LDers, but they are still just stating their own subjective experiences… and just because something is “true” to them , or that something works for them, doesn’t make it the case for you.

Like… some of us think flying is easy, some think it’s hard… but it is in fact neither… it can be anything inbetween and it seems to soley depend upon the person… which is the “ultimate truth” of LDing if I’ve ever seen one.

So basically I wouldn’t tell them to run and hide from negative posts, but that to keep in mind that nothing is universally true or stable in dreams, and that what happens to you ultimately depends upon what’s in your head, what you think, what you expectations and beliefs are… and that is largely, if not wholly, subjective.

One thing I really would never tell them though is things about spirits and demons, especially if they are religious or superstitious.

The problem is there are some people that so adamantly believe that these negs exist, that they will warn anyone because they think they are saving them from some sort of horrible evil.

But I don’t know… it’s kind of like the archetypes… if thousands of people believe in demons and have for ages… sure, you are probably gonna dream about them too… especially if you regularly talk to those people, but that doesn’t make them real…

The ultimate message to them is it’s all in your head, you might find it very easy, you might find it very hard… but if you dedicate yourself to it you shouldn’t have terrible problems in achieving it.

and I think that would instill a proper placebo effect in them providing they truly are serious about taking it up.

oh and I don’t necessarily think it’s 100% confined to the insides of your mind… I think paranormal things and telepathy and the likes might be possible, based upon my own experiences…

but that’s not somthing they should even be thinking about until they are able to LD at will and get lots of proper exploring and experimenting in… IMO.

stay away from the more abstract parnormal theories and ideas until you’re not a beginner… it’s just too much to fill your mind with…

They most certainly are it is called the power of resolution technique.

Some may even argue that it could be similar to MILD. But any way, there are plenty of people who use techniques like MILD, WILD, etc and see results very quickly.

I have also seen people who were progressing quite well then somehow got the I idea that LD should not be this easy and as a result started to have less LD ‘s.

Paul Tholey wrote that people who practice his technique will see results on avrage in 3-4 weeks, and under favorable circumstances will have a LD on there very first night.

Sounds like it.

I guess what it all comes down to is that it all depends on the person.

I think newbies should be encouraged to find out as much as they want on their own. If they for example want to read this particular thread on ld4all they should. If they only want to know positive things they’ll only read the things about positive experiences.

Why would you want to “trick” someone into thinking LD:ing is easier than it is and have them dissapointed at their lack of success and at you who lured them into it?

For me, the more information I can see “at hand” on a subject, the more likely I am to take the subject on - such as lucid dreaming, in fact. When directly giving advice, though, it certainly isn’t nice to give lots’n’lots, especially when leaving the course of action to the reader (and how else could we learn?)

We should always tell newbies that there’s no such thing as lucid dreaming, and to go about their business.

Yay. That’s the spirit. Lol.

Yes, and is it unfair to newbies to setup what could be potential placebo effects? If placebo is lieing, then I submit that there are good lies, and bad lies.

Yes. It is very dependent on the person. I think it is even more dependent on their attitude towards it. A negative peson or attitude will make it hard. A posotive person or attitude will possibly make it easier. I think it is more based on attitudes than the actual person.

All I can do is try to setup a posotive attitude towards lucid dreaming. If I said to you, riding a bike is really hard, and then you try it, you are going to find it harder. If I say it is easy, then you are going to most likley find it easier.

So by giving them sugestions, you increase the chance, so that there is more easy, and less hard.

This is why I am for telling newbies lucid dreaming is easy. Reading negative topics has seriously hindered my ability to lucid dream. All I can do is try to recover, and help newbies avoid such situations.

By giving them suggestions, and telling them that it’s easy with practice and patients, you can make their lucid dreaming career easier.

It is however, important to point out to them that it take some practice and patients, but giving them a promise that their efforts will be well worth it. It is also beneficial to comment highly on their sucesses, in order to make them feel as though they are doing well.

I don’t stop them from reading topics. I just tell them to read much more posotive topics, and not to over read on the negative ones. Also, not to take negative topics overly seriously.

I think that people often try to hard as well. If you tell them it’s easy, they are less likley to try to hard.

One last question. Who said lucid dreaming was hard? Prehaps, this is a placebo effect.

It is my new aim, to try help newbies to enjoy learning to lucid dream, as though they were learning to ride a bike. While it takes practice and patients, they must enjoy the learning process. I want them to find it easy, instead of hard, and a pain in the back.

My new website, which is ages off of completion, will attempt to help newbies enjoy and find the learning process easy.