Can it be that, with everyone coming here for advice on how to LD, it negatively influences you by exposing you to post after post of failure? Aren’t “new methods” ways to stop failure at LDing? Isn’t this forum based on the recognition and treatment of failure?
Can it be that people get discouraged by coming here, despite the “success stories”? Can it be, that by celebrating when someone gets an LD, people are reminded of its rare and celebration-worthy occurance?
After all, the people who LD the most, naturals included, take LDs with a grain of salt. They know it will happen. It’s not a big deal.
No I do not think the “forum” is a problem. I believe it is helpful. You can read posts from people who have been helped as well as failures. I do think it would be counter productive to someone who is new to lucid dreaming to focus too much on the failure stories. In my opinion thinking or believing that LD ‘s are hard will make them hard. You should check out the “what new ld ers should be told” thread.
The reality is that LD ing is not as hard as most people think. It is a skill that anyone can learn with practice.
With that said. I also think the forum is a great place where lucid dreamers can get tougher and share experiences. We help each other further explore lucid dreaming and develop new ideas I think there is more information on ld4all than any other site.
I’ve been a natural lucid dreamer since I was a child. This was before I even knew the word “internet.” I have checked out every book about lucid dreaming at my local library.
My years of growth as a lucid dreamers was horribly slow until I found a useful community on the internet. This community has done more for my dreaming ability than years of research and reading.
Why?
because this forum provides an exchange of information between lucid dreamers.
This collaboration is nothing but helpful in understanding the nature of lucid dreams.
For many people, this is the only place to openly discuss their dreams. Not many people have a chance to discuss lucidity daily in their life.
I understand this reasoning, but I don’t see too many of these “failure post.” I personally think if someone authors a thread with the theme of “failure,” then they most likely will indeed fail. I agree these threads don’t help.
I think this forum’s main focus is improving the lucidity we do obtain. Many resources and time are funneled here to help people become lucid, and many do. but I think lots of energy is directed towards stabilizing, altering, and utilizing LDs.
They are celebration worthy because of the surreal experience of the episode, and not simply because they are rare. You might see a few threads celebrating a LD, but it’s usually a person’s first, or they have broken out of a dry spell.
m2k961, the simple answer to your apparent problem is to stop visiting the “Lucidity Intro” section.
Although, my perspective is from a lucid dreamer trying to improve his skills. I’ve never visited here to try to obtain lucidity for the first time.
This is a very large and active community. Anyone can visit here daily and find new things to read. Newbies can come to learn new things, Novices visit to improve their skills, and talented LDers come to learn and help. The many sections and threads allow you to choose your own path.
It’s been advised many times to not over do the forum, but it has also has helped induce many LDs.
To conclude my long winded reply:
This forum must induce, help, or influence your lucid dreams more than hurt. Anything that raises your awareness to lucidity helps more than hurts.
That’s no paradox! Here is just another melting pot of resources from all perspectives, but you must be the one to extract the useful resources, and use them.
Actually I think this forum would be encouraging to new LD’ers. Many people who become interested in LD’s don’t know many people who LD, so they would be curious if it was “for real.” By seeing people here who have LD’d for a long time as well as people who are new like them and are learning how to do it, it would be helpful.
i was ecstatic when i found this forum… and i don’t get ecstatic. but i was just a novice LDer who had read half of leberge’s book and didn’t have anybody who could relate to it pretty much or shared my passion until i found this forum… i was like "what ??? you mean there are people like me out there ??? "
i may have eventually figured it out on my own, but i owe it to the people on the forum for successes i’ve had with walking through walls and most recently telekinesis (still need to work on both of them) besides the fact that simply reading this forum has given me a bunch of ideas i would’ve never thought of
I agree that the paradox factor could exist and be an influence with some individuals. Some might be discouraged at least and the way the subconscious works is a mystery nobody can claim to know 100%…
On the other hand one should take ‘reports’ with a pinch of salt since everyone is different and you cannot expect everything to work/help in the same way with everyone else. The best advice is not to worry too much and you get fed up reading ‘negative’ reports, just don’t read them. Or take a break - you might get more LD’s as a result… It does happen.
Presently, I have many lucid dreams.
It took me more than 6 months to achieve this.
Once you get your first lucid dream, it becomes MUCH easier…
So keep trying.
I became interested in lucid dreaming when a dream character asked me something along the lines of, “what would happen if you were to discover that you are dreaming?”
I was completely oblivious to this and woke up shortly after.
Lucid dreaming isn’t necessarily some kind of innate skill.
After researching dreams and discovering learning about lucid dreaming (local library, folks!) I still did not have much luck.
So I decided to look through the internet.
This was one of the first sites I have found.
Communication between lucid dreamers helped me immensely.
Fellow strugglers can share tips and ideas while the experienced dreamers can give you advice and inspiration (which may seem intimidating, but it’s definitely inspiring).
The techniques you find here should be experimented with.
Why not?
If it worked for some, why not you?
It doesn’t hurt.
Even if it does not work, it still allows you to focus on lucidity.
The best advice that I can give is to stay focused on the topic of lucid dreaming. Read books over again, read over articles, think about lucid dreaming in your spare time.
Techniques and strategies may help, but general familiarization is priceless.
Early on, I used to have dreams of reading through this forum (well, the Network54 one at least). This led to instant lucidity.
Other times you just suddenly achieve lucidity without any apparent causes.
So the more you read and talk about lucid dreaming, the better you’ll get at it.
There are no deadlines, take your time, have fun with it. This should be a personal project, not a race.
Check out the ideas and strategies, make your own, share them…
Anything goes.
All I can say is that this forum has done nothing but help me. Yes, I beilieve if you read every failure post and dewlled on the fact that you think it will be hard then it could have a negative impact. Overall though most people aren’t negative.
Also I implore those of you that think of LDing as a hard to achieve state to stop doing so now. You will probably find this makes it much easier to have LD’s
This forum has only helped me. I don’t think I have been discouraged one bit by people who post about troubles with either achieving lucid dreams or WILD. I have had my own success since coming to this site and forum and finding about about it. If this forum has a negative effect on the person, they were probably not going to stick with it very long anyways.
I agree these threads don’t help.
but I think lots of energy is directed towards stabilizing, altering, and utilizing LDs.