Thread: Lucid Dreaming book reviews and recommendations

i really like : robert waggoner: lucid dreaming gateway to the inner self
it is not about how to attain lucidity but what you can do with it. find your inner self, find out what is behind the (lucid)dream, dreamhealing and so on. if you are not only interested in playing around and do fun stuff with your lucids this might be interesting.

Actually minutes before your reply i just purchased this exact book! Coincidence
Also bought me a special dream journal as well! Hope this will keep up my motivation!

I moved your posts here, guys. Read up on the books you mentioned.

I have Gateway to LDing, and I really like it. If you need inspiration, just read around on the forum or join a competition Tasks of the Month & Year

Good luck and happy dreams.

Free e-book https://alexdefoe.files.wordpress.co...d-the-body.pdf

‘Consciousness Beyond the Body: Evidence and Reflections’ presents the latest theories, research, and applications of out-of-body experiences (OBEs) and other consciousness states that transcend the limitations of one’s physical body space. It features original chapters from leading international researchers, educators, and practitioners who specialise in OBEs. As a modern compilation on the topic, the book aims to meld contemporary scientific evidence with the latest and most compelling practical applications of OBEs.

Contributors: Nelson Abreu, Luis Minero, Ed Kellogg, Ryan Hurd, Robert Peterson, Preston Dennett, Graham Nicholls, Jurgen Ziewe, Clare Johnson, Robert Waggoner, Alexander De Foe, Natasha Tassell-Matamua, and Anthony Peake

Open Access:
This pdf may be freely distributed.
The copyright license specified enables resharing of this document provided its contents remain as presented and unaltered. You may not sell or make a profit from the contents herein.

Just found it, didn't read it yet.

Brilliant find Gab; thanks for providing the link!

Hey, nothing wrong with necroposting if it helps someone :-)

'The Phase' by Michael Raduga is fantastic - it is all about DEILD (dream reentry)

Dreams of Awakening by Charlie Morley is worth a try. Charlie gives new insights on lucid dreaming by not only discussing Western techniques but also Buddhist techniques. He wrote lots of new lucid dreaming ideas that I have n't even seen in other books.

The author of the excellent book "Are You Dreaming?" (I highly recommend) has a Kickstarter project working with Dreamviews. Please check out the thread and then the project. Thread: http://www.dreamviews.com/general-lu...de-cosmos.html

Originally Posted by fogelbise

The author of the excellent book "Are You Dreaming?" (I highly recommend) has a Kickstarter project working with Dreamviews. Please check out the thread and then the project. Thread: http://www.dreamviews.com/general-lu...de-cosmos.html

I was unable to find the file using those links, but I did turn up the PDF for free download here: Dreams and the Ways to Direct Them: Practical Observations, by Marquis d'Hervey de Saint-Denys, translated by Carolus den Blanken.

I've started reading it - very intriguing so far, though occasionally hard to read - due I assume mainly to awkward translation. I believe the translator is Dutch (?) and not fluent in either French or English. Apparently there is a new better translation underway that will eventually be released in book and ebook form. Looking forward to that, but of course this is an incredible milestone until that arrives! A little awkwardness now and then is a small price to pay for such a treasure.

This is huge and a book translation that I have really been looking forward to! I just found out about this minutes ago. It's a free (no money, no email sharing or info, no cost at all!) download of the English translation of an important book in the history of lucid dreaming! It's from author d'Hervey de Saint-Denys, a true pioneer of lucid dreaming and the the book is "Dreams and the Ways to Direct Them" (1867). If you go to the link in my previous post just above this one, it provides the link directly to the The Lucid Dreamer's Guide to the Cosmos Kickstarter page. If you start scrolling down the Kickstarter page (check it out too and please consider supporting the Kickstarter campaign) an updates tab will pop up. See the June 14th update for the link to the free book download. Also, you can get a free copy of Daniel Love's excellent book (mentioned in my previous post above) at any contribution level made before June 19th 2016. For details on that, see the May 31st update.

^^Thanks for the link to the St.-Denys book, I've been wanting to read that for years (the cheapest hard copy I've found to date is over $250).. and very clever how you wove a plug for Daniel's Kickstarter project into the mix!

Oh I just heard about that the other day on the episode of the LucidSage podcast Daniel Love was on recently! It's great that such an important book for lucid dreaming is now accessible to so many people, I'll definitely be reading it soon.

Dream Yoga: Consciousness, Astral Projection, and the Transformation of the Dream State - Samuel Aun Weor

He explains how lucid dreaming isn't about how to sleep, but about how to awaken from sleep.

For those of you initiated into the mystic teachings this book is a must or it can be used as an initiation itself.

Peace.

I extremely recommend Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self by Robert Wagonner.

Originally Posted by naturespirit

I extremely recommend Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self by Robert Wagonner.

I'm reading that now and getting a lot out of it. I started the book last week and had my first MILD Friday Night!

I just finished "Dreaming Wide Awake" by David Jay Brown. I loved this book because like Waggoner's book, it is more about the experience of lucid dreaming as opposed to teaching how to lucid dream (but he does a few short sections on how to). He touches quite a bit also on Pyschedelics and compares his experiences to lucid dreaming and discusses what supplements, herbs and drugs impacted his lucid dreaming experience the most. I also like that he goes into subjects like communicating with dream characters, Dream telepathy and out of body experiences. I enjoyed this book as much as I enjoyed Waggoner's "Gateway to the Inner Self". The Author has a master's degree in psychobiology and was a neuroscience researcher, so he brings that experience with him.

Originally Posted by AmicusSomniatus

I just finished "Dreaming Wide Awake" by David Jay Brown. I loved this book because like Waggoner's book, it is more about the experience of lucid dreaming as opposed to teaching how to lucid dream ...

Thank you for the recommendation. I also loved Waggoner's book because it's first hand accounts about lucid experiences. Practical stuff rather than the theory. I must say though that I also love lucid dreaming theory books, like LaBerge's excellent book.

I read "the paradox of sleep; the story of dreaming" by Michel Jouvet a few years back. Not specifically about lucid dreaming, but fascinating anyway. Sort of a memoir where he could relate some of the anecdotes and personal hunches that don't really belong in the neurological research papers he published. I'll be re-reading it soon.

My favourites are
"Are You Dreaming" by Daniel Love.
It provides a solid, no nonsense, indepth foundation for both beginners and veterans.
"Dreaming Yourself Awake" by B Alan Wallace is a great intro to the practice of dream yoga. It explains how to focus and calm the mind using shamatha meditation and how it supports the day and night practices of lucid dreaming and dream yoga.

^^ After many years of looking forward to the read, I finally downloaded and struggled through that (truly terrible) translation of Dreams and The Ways to Direct Them, but found myself more than a little disappointed overall. The quaintness and prescience of Saint-Denys' concepts and ideas -- as presented -- sort of wore off after a few chapters, just as, I suppose, driving a 1920 Model T might for the first few miles be an exhilarating romp into history, but it eventually will become an uncomfortable ride where there's more noticing what's missing relative to modern cars than what was so clever in 1920. By "quaintness" I mean that his vision of lucid dreaming was firmly landed in 19th century philosophy and science; and by "prescience" I mean that his overall concept of LD'ing seemed spot on relative to what we know (or believe, I suppose) today... or at least I think it was; the translation was so bad that I found myself doing a lot of projecting and assuming about his meaning (it was almost like the translator simply changed all the words to English but didn't bother to also change the grammar to English).

That said, I'll definitely be looking for a new translation of the book, because I believe that there is an excellent chance that the translation currently available effectively erased its original quality.

[It's good to see you posting again, Darkmatters!]

Originally Posted by Sageous

^^ After many years of looking forward to the read, I finally downloaded and struggled through that (truly terrible) translation of Dreams and The Ways to Direct Them, but found myself more than a little disappointed overall. The quaintness and prescience of Saint-Denys' concepts and ideas -- as presented -- sort of wore off after a few chapters, just as, I suppose, driving a 1920 Model T might for the first few miles be an exhilarating romp into history, but it eventually will become an uncomfortable ride where there's more noticing what's missing relative to modern cars than what was so clever in 1920. By "quaintness" I mean that his vision of lucid dreaming was firmly landed in 19th century philosophy and science; and by "prescience" I mean that his overall concept of LD'ing seemed spot on relative to what we know (or believe, I suppose) today... or at least I think it was; the translation was so bad that I found myself doing a lot of projecting and assuming about his meaning (it was almost like the translator simply changed all the words to English but didn't bother to also change the grammar to English).

That said, I'll definitely be looking for a new translation of the book, because I believe that there is an excellent chance that the translation currently available effectively erased its original quality.

[It's good to see you posting again, Darkmatters!]

Sageous, I belive you're refering to Carolus den Blanken's translation (the one I have available to download on my website)?
I think you're a little unfair on all the hard work he has put in, bear in mind the guy neither speaks French nor English as his first language - so it's a miracle he's done as well as he has. The original text is very flowery and quite a challenge to translate. Considering he did this for the community and for free - being one of the world's experts on Saint-Deny, we should be thankful to him. If you'd read the previous incomplete translation published by Duckworth - you'd see just how much of the original spirit (and content) was lost in their translation. I think Carolus did a good job considering his restrictions. I can't imagine ever being in a position to translate a book from one language to another, neither being my mother tongue. I think it's dangerous in these modern times that we so easily forget that things don't simply pop into existence and someone spent months working on the things that we consume at no cost. Certainly I agree it's not a perfect translation but I think we owe Carolus our thanks for putting in all that work.

That said, I am currently working with a British translator on a fresh and complete translation. So far it's looking absolutely stunning. I picked the translator as he has a poets grasp of language and a deep respect for channeling the original spirit and meaning. It's very close to being finished and reads incredibly well. This verison won't be free, of course, as the chap translating deserves to be paid for his hard work - it's a very long and laborious process. Still, I think it will give people the chance to get the full picture and flavour of the original.

With that said, isn't it great that after all these years there will be a choice of translations available?!

^^ I was in no way offering my opinion of the knowledge, dedication, or quality of the person who did the translation, Daniel, only of the translation itself.

I'm sure Carolus' heart was in the right place, that he worked very hard, and that his intentions were as well-placed as you say (I've never heard of him myself; sorry), but either the final result of his well-intentioned hard work was very poor, or else the original itself was simply less than the visionary work that has long held the esteem of the LD'ing community. Respectfully, I'll be sticking with the former. Perhaps Carolus should have put all that knowledge and zeal into finding another kindred soul who is fluent in both French and English (instead of neither) who he could have guided through the translation? Clearly you are in some agreement with that last thought, Daniel, given your quote below

Maybe I'm not being fair, but I also assume that I am a typical audience for a book like this, and as such it was quite disappointing to sense how much might be in this book, but then be unable to properly grasp that substance due to a poor translation. Forgive me, but the best intentions don't make the work better ... and I really am unable to say that a poorly translated book is of greater quality because the translator was a good or dedicated person; in the end, I believe, it is the words on the page that matter, and not who put them there.

Originally Posted by DanielLove

That said, I am currently working with a British translator on a fresh and complete translation. So far it's looking absolutely stunning. I picked the translator as he has a poets grasp of language and a deep respect for channeling the original spirit and meaning. It's very close to being finished and reads incredibly well. This verison won't be free, of course, as the chap translating deserves to be paid for his hard work - it's a very long and laborious process. Still, I think it will give people the chance to get the full picture and flavour of the original.

That certainly seems to me how it ought to be done! I look forward to reading that translation...And please be assured that I, for one, am one of those old-world guys (and hard-working authors, for that matter) who fully expects to pay for the books I read, so I'll have no trouble buying your translation when it is released.

With that said, isn't it great that after all these years there will be a choice of translations available?

Yes, it is!

I had hundreds of lucid dreams when I was younger, and I also had about 100 of what I call bion-body projections, in which I would consciously exit from my physical body in a body composed of particles that I call bions.

In all my lucid dreams, I always became conscious in the lucid-dream environment and I never had any sense of my physical body. The movement to different locations that I often did in my lucid dreams, was my only clue during my lucid dreams that I was probably external to my physical body. However, because of all those bion-body projections that I also had, during which I would both consciously leave my physical body in a bion-body, and soon afterwards consciously return to my physical body in that bion-body, that made certain to me that my awareness/mind is not dependent on my physical body for my existence.

But the question for me then became how to explain it all, because I'm that kind of guy who wants to understand things. My background is computers, with a PhD in computer science from the University of Florida, and I have written a book, having just completed the final edition of it in September, which I have placed in the public domain. Its title is "A Soliton and its owned Bions (Awareness and Mind)" and it's free at my website.

There's also a printed book on Amazon, which necessarily isn't free, which just became available yesterday.

In my book, my focus is on the nature of reality itself, which I believe is best explained as being the result of computations by an underlying network of computing elements that fill 3D space. And I explain some of the details of lucid dreaming, such as moving in a lucid dream to where someone you know is, by a detailed algorithm given in subsection 5.2.1. Vision in a lucid dream is also detailed in Chapter 5. And interestingly, the matter of scale: What is the actual size, compared to human body size, of the persons whose constructed appearances you see in a lucid dream? This size question is considered in detail in subsection 5.1.2.

Any updates on the status of the new translation into English of "Dreams and The Ways to Direct Them", Saint-Denys.....???

Originally Posted by Fly_by_Night

Any updates on the status of the new translation into English of "Dreams and The Ways to Direct Them", Saint-Denys.....???

@Fly_by_Night : You might try sending a PM to author Daniel Love who maintains membership here: https://www.dreamviews.com/members/daniellove/

He was involved in some way with one of the translations and would likely know about any other possible translations.