Thread: Lucid Dreaming going mainstream

I don't know man. It seems that culturally we're heading in a direction of instant gratification. Patience is rare nowadays and Lucid Dreaming takes a lot of practice and time.

I agree with lotsofface, it does take patience which is rare nowadays.

A part of me doesn't want it to go mainstream either.. and I honestly don't think it will, even though it would be fun. Many people just don't think it's possible.. or fear it being some weird evil phenomenon. Other people think it's really unusual and wacky to simply write your dreams down.

It's not the kind of thing that's easily accepted.

I think LD will go mainstream once it requires absolutely no effort to induce a quality LD, and it can be done cheaply.

yer, a lot of people don't have much patience, have you seen how many one-weekers(guys who only go on DV for a week then leave) we have around here

I guess that is just the way some people are (including me, I only LD on an off). Parkour went mainstream and that takes a lot of motivation and work. Things like martial arts are mainstream and that's work too. Maybe there is hope.

The way I see it is that society is obsessed with materialism (how much stuff you have, what you look like, ect.), and since dreams are a much less "real" form of reality it isn't taken seriously. What mainstream doesn't understand is that both are merely internalized projections based on sensory or imaginative imput. What i'm trying to say is that either could be an illusion (my opinion of course).

And like lotsofface said, patience is becoming rare. For example, a huge number of people smoke Marijuana for an instant high. A drastically smaller number of people (including us) has the patience and determination to learn to do something like lucid dreaming.

Like Mario said, the day someone figures out how to induce them effortlessly and make a profit. Which is inevitable.

I dont think it will EVER be thought of as something like weed, (instant comfort ) but it might be able to help determined people with depression to see how things could be if they be happy.

Like Matrix said, society as a whole is being filled by the minute with views of materialism. This is where I begin to diverge from his opinion.

I think the main reason why materialism is becoming such a popular perspective is because science helps back it up. Not only that, but the majority of science is based on events/things we can observe with our physical senses. In other words, it's tangible. The exceptions in science are like atoms, black holes, and some concepts such as quantum mechanics and the big bang theory. However, their effects can still be observed today. This is the major Western view. When you go into the East, information starts to incorporate a materialistic and a non-materialistic view, i.e. the supernatural with spirits in comparison to science and math. With society aging as time flies by, the desires of each country to become recognized in the world increases. Now you tell me; does it give you more comfort to know your country has the highest amount of psychics or the highest amount soldiers with sophisticated technology? While an afterlife does seem promising, the potential to stay alive in a reality which you experience daily, in my opinion, gives a greater sense of security. In other words, money, which is tangible, gives more potential happiness, especially where money practically equates to power in today's society In other words, beliefs aren't very helpful if they can't feed you or your family or give you the means of meeting daily necessities. And Westerners want their tummies to be full with a constant feeling of being safe and protected.

Obviously the world's economy is shifting from being based on labor to now being based on someones intelligence and education. The educational system follows a materialistic view towards the universe. In other words, people are being set up from birth to be a materialist for the sake of the country's income. Ones childhood highly influences their later adult-hood beliefs (I can try to find some articles); the individual is then set up from the beginning of their birth to incorporate materialism into their own personal ideology, yet they usually don't have a chance to change their beliefs on their own later on in their life.

If you take up the information and thinking I've proposed from before, it's not that surprising that the general world doesn't pay much attention to dreams. 1) It's completely subjective, 2) it doesn't give you money, and 3) you can spend tons of effort but might get no where within a span of a month in terms of lucid dreaming. Dreams are also very difficult to understand, while at least for the majority of people I know their recall is crap. From a logical stance, it's pretty pointless to even pay attention to dreams in the first place. There's no obvious gain from the whole system. Nightmares only further exacerbate an individual's lack of care for dreaming.

Of course, society is also changing. You can see people such as Chopra and the Dalai Llama, while Westerners began the incorporation of meditation as a stress-reducer in their daily lives. While dreams are largely ignored, there is still hope; dreams are being scrutinized under the name of science (Laberge work), movies are being made (Inception!!!), and people majoring in psychology is on the rise in the West, i.e. mostly America. With science and science fiction blurring the line in terms of what's possible, I don't think it's far off until more information is gleamed from dreams. Once information is gathered then scientists will learn more about its nature, since truthfully science still knows very little about the brain; this includes the nature of dreams and their purpose. Since science is heavily used in daily life and its effects are noticeable--and people depend on science--,once dreams are recognized as things that can be understood from an objective level then people will begin to become more interested. Luckily for them, dreams can also be manipulated; more traffic for DV!

Going mainstream doesn't mean that it becomes wildly popular like television or weed.

As someone else pointed out, there are many extremely difficult past-times that are mainstream. Martial arts, rock climbing, playing musical instruments, forms of arts and crafts, cooking, learning a language, doing research... These things all require patience- there is no instant pay-off.

I think the biggest difference is that lucid dreaming is something that is personal. You can't perform it for others. You can't make it and show it to someone. It's just something that you do for yourself, you can discuss it with people and then write about it - but really most people don't want to hear about other people's dreams. So I think there is probably less motivation for someone to devote the time to it.

But I think it is already becoming more mainstream. I had never heard of communities of people helping each other lucid dream and using tricks and tutorials until just last month. My cousin saw Inception and found this website when she was staying at my place and then she told me about it. We'd both had the ability to lucid dream a little bit off and on naturally and never knew that this was something you could try to do or get better at. I bet there are tons of people who become lucid in their dreams without realizing it is a skill they can improve or that there is even a word for it.

It will become mainstream as more and more research is done or more people start to talk about it because of movies like Inception and websites like this. But also a lot of people will simply choose not to invest the time into it for the same reasons that people who love music choose not to learn a guitar. There is only so much time in life.

Totally possible. Try thinking back to when this site was founded. Before Alex (he's still in charge right? Haven't been here in awhile), before a lot of people. It was tiny. Right now we have 280 users online, with the most ever being 1,110. And that wasn't even a year ago. One thousand, one hundred and ten people, learning and talking about lucid dreams at the same point and time. And, that's just on this site. Not only that, but there is a total of 34,731. Granted, in the scheme of things, 30 thousand isn't absolute huge, but you can't deny that it's big. As more awareness spreads that number will only grow bigger and bigger. Sure, 30,000 doesn't mean mainstream, but you can't deny that it's something, right?

The current population of America alone is 308 million people. The number of total people registered at this site, most of which are inactive or have since given up, comprise a total of .0113% of the American population. This does not take into account the sizable number of Canadian or European members registered here. It took numerous years to get to this point. Being that lucid dreaming shows neither a rapid expansion of interest nor a significant number of practitioners, I conclude that it is not now, nor will it be in the foreseeable future, mainstream.

Ah well, at least I feel unique for LDing. This is a rather unique skill and I believe everyone should at least hear about it and be able to at least try it.

Originally Posted by Mario92

The current population of America alone is 308 million people. The number of total people registered at this site, most of which are inactive or have since given up, comprise a total of .000113% of the American population. This does not take into account the sizable number of Canadian or European members registered here. It took numerous years to get to this point. Being that lucid dreaming shows neither a rapid expansion of interest nor a significant number of practitioners, I conclude that it is not now, nor will it be in the foreseeable future, mainstream.

I have to agree.

I think it would be great if LDing became more well known, but the word mainstream kind of scares me. I really don't want to be watching 50 scam commercials/infomercials claiming that their special product is the BEST way to get lucid dreams FAST in only whatever number of days. That kind of misinformation could run rampant and lots of people could be scammed into thinking that some "natural-ancient-tradition-sciencey-magic" pill is going to replace the dedication and practice necessary to be a good lucid dreamer.

Despite all this I agree that modern culture for the most part does not care that much about dreams and therefore any such advertisement would likely be dismissed by the average viewer anyways. For me the best case scenario is that some crazily popular book or movie captures the public intrigue while still being factual and informative about the real nature of lucid dreaming.

I've been checking into this forum for a few years, and still have trouble lucid dreaming. I think that's a turnoff for most.

!!!!! !!!!! !!!!!
I certainly believe that Lucid Dreaming is going mainstream.
Just look at the signs: Inception and American Dad.
Some people may have seen an episode where Steve can lucid dream ((and has a whole heap of fun with it, till he's tricked into thinking he's lucid dreaming and tries to fly out a window with some girl....who get's impaled....yikes, remember to reality check guys! Know the Risks of Your Different Realities!))
....
Anyhow, lucid dreaming seems like one of the most interesting/Inspiring thing I've come across, and as word of mouth works the concept might spread till it's either done by many more people or the concept is brought up in conversation without people asking ''What the hell is LDing? You're a WITCH!''

Puts me in an awkward position though. I've tried to keep LUcid dreaming a secret from those I know, and once it's brought out they might catch on that I've been trying to lucid dream and that'll lead to annoying/awkward questions.


So yeah, it won't be long until Lucid Dreaming is out there, loud and proud....and just so I can say ''I told you so'', the beginning of the end is when Nicholas Cage stars in an assassination film with Lucid dreaming thrown in their somewhere..................it'll be the end of dreaming forever, and I'll be standing before the people with my message ''I TOLD YOU SO! I FREAKING CALLED IT!!!!!''

Have a good one

I'm with Mario, most people don't have the patience and determination to start LD'ing. I've thought about telling some of my friends about it, but they'd probably quit almost instantly and then think I'm weird for being interested in the subject.

@ Falsename, Nobody will watch that movie because Nicholas Cage is in it.

I also don't think it will go mainstream. Most people will think of Inception as a nice movie, but fiction. It was pure coincidence that i came across this as well. Even though more people will find out about it, it won't ever actually become mainstream. People don't have the patience, and it's hard enough to find out it exists at all. It could only become mainstream if someone like Obama would advertise it at the end of an internationally broadcasted speech... So the odds are small

PS. Even if it went mainstream, not everyone would do it. As mentioned before by others, some people will describe it as dark magic or something like that

We'd better get good at it now then, so if it does go mainstream we'll be more successful than everyone else!

Originally Posted by Mario92

I think LD will go mainstream once it requires absolutely no effort to induce a quality LD, and it can be done cheaply.

I agree. I recall an anecdote where my friend became extremely interested in having an LD after seeing Inception. She read LaBerge's book and everything.
Two months later, she was done caring. Patience is becoming a rare virtue, and I don't think the masses of this instant-gratification society will have the self-control to try and have lucid dreams.

I recently told a friend (after swearing to myself I'd keep it a secret) because I thought it would help him get through depression, and it took me a lot to do that. But I haven't told anyone else because I'd hate it to become mainstream at my school (my school would be bad enough, imagine everyone knowing...). I have a really small school -about 1000 kids- and pretty much everyone except the younger ones know eachother. I would just hate to sit at a table and hear people yapper on about it.

If things get too well known, people go crazy over it and it just puts me off.

Yeah I guess the whole patience thing is true. But I can't really imagine it with lucid dreaming because whenever I do I think "who the hell would give up an oppurtunity like that? I know I wouldn't". But I guess they would. I was so excited the day I found out about lucid dreaming! Someone had posted it on a forum I was on and I've always loved and been interested in dreams, so I looked into it. And now here I am, thinking "how many people can say they've jumped off a skyscraper, and flown, and used a giant catapault, and walked through walls and windows." Etc.

One day I was telling someone about a dream I'd had and he turned 'round and said "you talk about it as if you actually done it." and laughed. And I sat there feeling sheepish because I thought "well, I have."

Originally Posted by Mario92

The current population of America alone is 308 million people. The number of total people registered at this site, most of which are inactive or have since given up, comprise a total of .0113% of the American population. This does not take into account the sizable number of Canadian or European members registered here. It took numerous years to get to this point. Being that lucid dreaming shows neither a rapid expansion of interest nor a significant number of practitioners, I conclude that it is not now, nor will it be in the foreseeable future, mainstream.

I think that before instant gratification it will most likely be of some use to the medical field. psychologically improving someone's fear, anxiety and depression from the inside out.
i also think it will be very expensive to produce a machine that truly induces a lucid dream state. very fascinating=D

Did you know? Their are more people in America who beleive they have been abducted by aliens (0.8%) then their are people of dreamviews (and possibily other forums)