HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: miket@hermes.tcs.com (Michael Turner nmscore Assoc.)
Subject: Re: Author of Dreams, etc (was Re: Lucid Dreaming FAQ)
Organization: Teknekron Communications Inc.
Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1993 03:55:28 GMT

In article <7167@m1.cs.man.ac.uk> mshute@cs.man.ac.uk (Malcolm Shute) writes:

>How do I know that if I took up the original author's advice to take control
>of my dreams, I'm not going to deprive myself of the relaxation which I
>need from my sleep.  (Taking control of something, surely, at the very least
>involves the expenditure of much mental effort?)

I've never figured out if lucid dreaming is, itself, more exhausting,
or whether lucidity is made easier by dreaming more (for whatever
reason) which would be exhausting in any case. 

Taking control of something can take something out of you, but not
always -- in particular, many of the practices that seem linked to
ease-of-lucidity (getting enough sleep, taking naps, meditation)
have the main effect of giving you more rest.  Occasional lucid
dreams become the frosting on the cake.

>If lucid dreaming is such a good thing as the original poster suggests,
>why hasn't my brain learned to do it already (the rewards gained by doing
>it 'training' me to do it, like a dog being taught a new trick).

Lucid dreaming is a somewhat artificial practice.  So is Yoga.
There are plenty of things that can be good for you that don't
spontaneously arise out of basic urges.  A lot of these are quite
dispensable, too.

There is some missing context, here: humans became human as wandering
hunter-gatherer bands who slept together around fires at night, waking
one another periodically to keep watch.  Lucid dreaming might have
been much more common, useful, and personally rewarding during this
phase of human evolution.  The lack of a social context for dreaming
might be like the lack of a certain nutrient in the soil of your
country -- you'll never KNOW what you're lacking, but that doesn't
mean you aren't lacking it.

>In article <1isbmdINN9s3@nz12.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de> s_titz@ira.uka.de (Olaf Titz) writes:
>>You, subconsciously, worry about lucid dreaming perhaps
>>being 'wrong' in one way or another, and this prevents you from going
>>further into it. Your mind is tricky, beware.
>
>I see you last sentence as a warning, not an encouragement!!

My ambivalence about lucid dreaming has never gone away, because
my ambivalence about DREAMS has never gone away.  In this sense,
I understand what Olaf is saying.  You'd like encouragement without
having to deal with warnings.  But courage isn't not being afraid --
courage is being afraid and doing it anyway.
---
Michael Turner
miket@tcs.com
Newsgroups: alt.dreams,alt.hypnosis,alt.magick,alt.out-of-body,sci.psychology,talk.religion.newage,alt.self-improve,misc.health.alternative
From: poirier@bnr.ca (Daniel Poirier)
Subject: Re: SmartPC (was: Requesting relaxation exercises ...
Keywords: relaxation, visualization, autogenics 
Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Canada
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 18:12:25 GMT

In article <C0K5DF.GGG.1@cs.cmu.edu> drake+@cs.cmu.edu (Drake) writes:
  >poirier@bnr.ca (Daniel Poirier) writes:
  >
  >>The brochure is from Smart PC, and contains software (mostly for IBM
  >>PC, and some for MacIntosh). Within the brochure, there were a few
  >>things which I noticed:
  >
  ><stuff deleted>
  >
  >Sounds interesting.  Can we (or at least I) have a phone # or address for these
  >people?
  >
  >-- 
  >Love and Laughter,             | NOTE: Private mail must go explicitly
  >Xeper and Remanifest,          | to drake@seismo.soar.cs.cmu.edu
  >                       DRAKE   | or it'll bounce back to you...

Sorry, I should have included at least the information I have. I do have an 
address, but no phone number (although your friendly 555-1212 directory 
assistance operator will gladly give it to you...):

   SmartPC
   231 Technology Circle
   Scotts Valley
   CA 95066  

P.S. And I repeat, I have NOTHING to do with these people, and have never 
tried any of the products I listed in my original posting. They just sounded
interesting and appropriate.

P.P.S. I received numerous EMail messages requesting their address, and also 
some pricing info. Based on the catalog, here's a list of prices:

    Product         Regular     Sale-price
    --------------  -------     ----------
    IQ Smarts:       $39.95      $29.95
    StudyWare          -         $39.95 to $49.95 for various modules
    IQ Builder      $129.95      $89.95
    CalmPute         $99.00      $84.00 (including GSR sensor - need serial port)
    
I think that's it... I may have listed more in my original posting, can't really
remember... Maybe I need their memory enhance software! ;-)

-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Daniel Poirier  e-mail: Daniel.Poirier@x400gate.bnr.ca  (613)763-5185
    Standard disclaimers... - BNR does not own or share my opinion!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Peter_Mcnamee@kumear.apana.org.au (Peter Mcnamee)
Newsgroups: alt.dreams
Subject: Re: REM Sleep, Dreaming...
Distribution: world
Date: 7 Jan 93 18:31:49 EST
Organization: The DUNGEON BBS

In a message dated Thu  8 Jan 93 16:35, Jvarley@crash.cts.com (j.j. Varley)
wrote:

 JV>  Perhaps someone can answer this for me.  Although I know that
 JV> everyone
 JV> dreams, is it true that we dream every single night, even though we
 JV> might
 JV> forget our dreams? Or do we dream only sometimes? Thanks.

In my opinion, you dream every night.



-- Via DLG Pro v0.992

Newsgroups: alt.dreams
From: katherim@fraser.sfu.ca (Katherine Merle Mason)
Subject: One way to lose lucidity....
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 21:24:44 GMT

Last night I dreamed I was dreaming again.  This is a strange phenomenon
and is particularly annoying because the dream I dreamed I was dreaming
was a lucid dream, and when I dreamed I woke up, I lost lucidity because
I thought it was real.  I just reread that.  It sounds like a joke, but
it's not, really.

Has anyone else experienced this dreaming of dreaming phenomenon?  Is
there any way to keep lucidity aside from constant reality checking?
From: brogers@pro-storm.cts.com (Brian Rogers)
Newsgroups: alt.dreams
Subject: Re: can't be lucid dreaming
Date: 6 Jan 93 17:28:13 GMT
Organization: ProLine [Pro-Storm] -- Dallas, TX -- 214/644-5113

Perhaps your visions are related to the neuro-chemical responsible for
dreaming...  I wish I could tell you more about this, but I only know that
one of my good friends has an irregular way of expending this chemical --
while awake.  He tends to accumulate the chemical then burn it while awake
every few days.  It really messes things up when he's on the highway :)
 
Brian Rogers
------- Brian Rogers -------+-------------- The Angel of Java ----------------
 "Staying Sane is Hard....  | Internet: brogers@pro-storm.cts.com          
  Drinking Coffee is Easy!" |   Bitnet: brogers%pro-storm.cts.com@nosc.mil
----------------------------+-------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.dreams,alt.meditation
From: George Paap <george_paap@email.sps.mot.com>
Subject: Sound and light machines
X-Xxdate: Tue, 5 Jan 93 16:18:44 GMT
Organization: Motorola RISC
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1.1d16
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 22:23:26 GMT

Does anyone have any recommendations on electronic
meditation devices (maybe this has already been
covered but I missed it)?  I read an article summarizing
them in the Nov. SKY magazine (American Airlines?)
but lost it (along with addresses). Are they effective?

I'd be willing to spend more money for ones that
really work than a couple of hundered for those
that don't (or are marginally usefull).

[In case not obvious, my goal is to reach a
meditative/dream/trance state more rapidly than
without such a device]

Thanks in advance,

George Paap

I am my opinions.
(which almost certainly are not those of my employer)
From: farris@ruhets.rutgers.edu (Lorenzo Farris)
Newsgroups: alt.dreams
Subject: My Lucid Dream and How I got there.
Date: 10 Jan 93 19:45:21 GMT
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.


Over the past several years I have remembered very few of my dreams.
This has been frustrating as it has prevented me from the various
explorations I wanted to do in the dream state. But I guess my
unconscious knows better than I do.

Anyway, last night I lay down to sleep at about 3am after too many
cigarettes and coffee, and couldn't. I decided then to take advantage
of my various meditative practices at that point.

I first entered a meditative state, and then gave myself the
suggestion that I would maintain conscious awareness in my dream. I
repeated this three times. (I don't know why, I just like threes ;-)

I had also had a very powerful meditation earlier in the evening, so
maybe this contributed as well.

I won't go into great detail on the dream, just what is relevant to
this, I think. 

I don't remember precisely the beginning of the dream. I do remember
doing a reality check (RC). That is the first time I have ever had
enough awareness in a dream to do that. As soon as I did it, and
realized it was a dream, the dream started to fade. I tried spinning,
as some have suggested, but I woke up anyway. 

When I woke up, I remembered about false awakenings, and did another
RC. Lo and behold, I was dreaming still. I gave a little hoop and
holler, and proceeded out of the house. When I stepped outside, I saw
some white faces in the sky ala Peter Max or Monty Python, and that
gave additional confirmation that I was dreaming.

When I stepped outside, I tried flying. In the past, when I wanted to
fly, I would just imagine myself floating up, and could will myself to
go where I wanted. In this case, I just fell on my face a couple of
times on the cement. I decided to run, and found that it was
effortless, except for when I would start to examine the expected
physical processes, at which point I would begin to feel myself
breathing hard.

To answer the inevitable questions about how I meditate. The part with
suggestions about dreaming comes from the Silva Method (See Jose
Silva's book)

My main daily meditation is a form of Buddhist Yoga, which I do for 2
hours a day, so this may be a bit extreme for most people, and I don't
know for sure that that was a contributing factor, but I think it was.

				cheers,
					Lorenzo
-- 
Happiness is just a                     ******************************
remembrance away.                       *  Lorenzo Farris            *
                                        *  farris@ruhets.rutgers.edu *
                                        ******************************
Newsgroups: alt.dreams,sci.cognitive,misc.education,sci.lang.japan
From: miket@hermes.tcs.com (Michael Turner nmscore Assoc.)
Subject: DREAMS
Organization: Teknekron Communications Inc.
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 17:45:44 GMT

I'm beginning to wonder about the connection between dreams, stories,
and learning.

Followups to alt.dreams, please.

------- STORIES AND LEARNING

I just read an article in Whole Earth Review that I thought was very
interesting.  It's about a teaching technique that seems to be getting 
miraculous results -- things like 4-year-old retarded kids with IQs as
low as 20 learning how to read.

The gist of the technique is to build a little story around each new
small cluster of material.  Letters of the alphabet are learned by
building the letters out of some basic shapes, making up a strange
and funny story that provides clues to pronunciation.  Before learning
anything like the whole alphabet, words are built out of the letters
learned, again with each couched in the context of some story.  Very
little is done by rote.

The results teachers are getting with this are so profound as to scare
them -- some teachers are backing off from it, because the kids are
"getting too smart."

Oddly, the technique corresponds to one I learned from a course in 
Chinese characters: to build each character out of pieces, into a
story, where each piece might have its own story (or be a primitive
element.  The important thing was: the story had to be STRANGE.
In some ways, the less logical, the better.  In fact, it's exactly
the same technique.

In some ways, this is not surprising.  Spoken stories had huge
survival value in prehistoric times.  The Songlines in Australia
served as a map and navigation system for the aborigines for
thousands of years.  American Indian tribes had memorizers for
their huge geneologies.  The ability of humans to remember vast
quantities of narrative material goes relatively untapped in
modern times.

------- STORIES AND DREAMS

Both American Indians and Australian Aborigines (and countless
stone-age cultures elsewhere, I'm sure) are known to revere dreams.

------- DREAMS AND LEARNING

I also read recently that REM sleep is very important to retention
of learned material.  There is something in dreams that helps us
learn.

------- STORIES, DREAMS, AND LEARNING: A PARADOX.

Strange stories help us learn.

Dreams are nothing if not strange stories.

Dreams (in some way not yet understood) also help us learn.

And yet, DREAMS THEMSELVES ARE HARD TO REMEMBER!


------- AFTERTHOUGHT

The purported inventor of the Chinese character (kanji) learning
technique I mentioned above said that after a while, it didn't matter
if you couldn't remember the stories after a while, as long as you
used the stories to finally memorize the characters permanently.

I wonder how much of what we "know" is imprinted on us through
unremembered stories?  And how many of these unremembered stories
are our own almost-immediately-forgotten dreams?

Followups to alt.dreams, only please.  (Heisig's kanji-learning
technique is a recurrent flame topic in sci.lang.japan.)
---
Michael Turner
miket@tcs.com
From: s_titz@ira.uka.de (Olaf Titz)
Newsgroups: alt.dreams
Subject: Re: Music and time (was Re: Inclusions)
Date: 7 Jan 1993 19:26:03 GMT
Organization: Fachschaft math/inf, Uni Karlsruhe, FRG
NNTP-Posting-Host: irau32.ira.uka.de

In article <0uVTwB2w165w@mintir.new-orleans.la.us> vortexae@mintir.new-orleans.la.us (Niki LeBoeuf) writes:

>It would be an interesting lucidity experiment.. if you know you're 
>dreaming and know the music you're hearing is  from the real radio, to 
>change it or transmogrify it within the dream -- like, the radio might be 
>playing country/western, but in your dream you've changed it so it sounds 
>like rock 'n roll...

From all my experience, impossible. I've often tried to get rid of the
commercials (as I'm used to in RL) :-(

Olaf
-- 
| Olaf Titz - comp.sc.student  |   o     | uknf@dkauni2.bitnet | old address |
| univ. of karlsruhe - germany |  _>\ _  | s_titz@ira.uka.de   | is still    |
| +49-721-60439                | (_)<(_) | praetorius@irc      | valid       |
  "My heart is human - my blood is boiling - my brain IBM" - Mr. Roboto
From: arantamaki@tnclus.tele.nokia.fi
Newsgroups: alt.dreams
Subject: Re: Flying in Dream...
Date: 6 Jan 93 07:41:12 GMT
Organization: Nokia Telecommunications.

In article <1993Jan3.042218.1@climat.geology.yale.edu>, 
zhang@climat.geology.yale.edu writes:
[text deleted]
> 	Any people out there who have ever dreamt flying (not in a plane. 
> of course) ?  Share you experience with me. Analyses of this kind of dreams
> will be appreciated.
> 
> 					Taiping Zhang

I used to fly in my dreams a lot when I was in secondary school
(and that was 10 years ago). I usually needed a windy day to help 
me up in the air. I would just jump off the ground like I was
diving into water, and then use the wind to lift me. No hand 
movement was necessary, but I would just glide in the air. Quite 
often I used flying as a way to escape. In an unpleasant 
situation I would suddenly remember my flying capability and 
jump in the air, leaving the threatening situation behind me. 
When I woke up, I never remembered where exactly I had been, 
until once I decided in the evening that if I fly again I'll 
check where I am. That happened and I remember flying over a 
large bridge in my hometown and looking at cars and people down 
there. Flying really is a wonderful experience.

Annu Rantamaki
From: idg39@jester.usask.ca (Inez Gowsell)
Newsgroups: alt.dreams
Subject: Re: Literacy in dreams
Date: 7 Jan 1993 06:16:49 GMT
Organization: University of Saskatchewan
NNTP-Posting-Host: jester.usask.ca
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL7]

Jonathan A. Kung (joak@ocf.berkeley.edu) wrote:
: Is there any truth to what Batman:The Animated Series stated
: about any reading done in dreams is really just looking at a
: bunch of gibberish?
: 
: I'm not so sure, because I am positive that I have read well-formed
: words and sentences while dreaming...
: 
: -Jon Kung

There have been a couple of times that I have tried to read something and
it has turned to gibberish, but these have been just as I was waking up.
I also wake up "clutching" the piece of paper I was trying to read, which
of course, quickly disappears.

--
*******************************************************************
| Inez Gowsell                      | Gazing at people            |
| 129 Albert Ave                    | Some hand in hand           | 
| Saskatoon, Saskatchewan           | Just what I'm going through |
| Canada   S7N 1E6                  | They can't understand       |
| idg39@jester.usask.ca (temp acct) |              - Moody Blues  |
*******************************************************************
From: Peter_Mcnamee@kumear.apana.org.au (Peter Mcnamee)
Newsgroups: alt.dreams
Subject: Re: SUNSHINE IN DREAMS ?
Distribution: world
Date: 5 Jan 93 17:18:15 EST
Organization: The DUNGEON BBS

In a message dated Mon  5 Jan 93 22:07, Zhang@climat.geology.yale.edu
wrote:

 Z>  With only one exception, there is never sunshine in my dreams, and 
 Z> the milieu is always very dark, as if it were perpetual dusk, or the
 Z> sky were

I read once that it's very difficult (impossible?) to switch on a light
when in a dream.

Perhaps the light level in your dreams is set.  It doesn't have to actually
mean anythin I wouldn't think...then again...

-- Via DLG Pro v0.992

Newsgroups: alt.dreams
From: gj156879@alfred.carleton.ca ( gj student 156879)
Subject: Lucid Drunk
Organization: Carleton University
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 18:36:57 GMT

After an evening of drinking and socializing, I came home and slept.
I woke up at 8am, wrote down a dream, and went back to sleep (slightly
hungover).  I then had the following dream:
 
          I'm walking through my old house, where I used to live with
my parents.  I'm very drunk, drinking from a seemingly bottomless beer
bottle.  I go up to "my room" and suddenly think that I might be
dreaming.  I look at a calender on the door, look away and back, and
some text had changed.   Great, I thought, now I'll just get rid of
this drunk, and do whatever I want.  I couldn't shake it.  Rather
annoying but in the dream I was dizzy and acting the same way I would
while drunk, and going lucid had no effect on that state.  I then woke
up.
 
          The interesting thing to note is that I wasn't drunk when
the dream took place.  I was hung over, maybe a little dizzy, but not
drunk.  The effects of alcohol on lucid dreaming could be pretty
interesting, if checked into more thouroughly.
 
 
                                                            Nik
                                          If you're drinking,
                                          don't fly.
From: idg39@jester.usask.ca (Inez Gowsell)
Newsgroups: alt.dreams
Subject: Re: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Date: 7 Jan 1993 06:55:14 GMT
Organization: University of Saskatchewan
NNTP-Posting-Host: jester.usask.ca
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL7]

KLAUS WILLIAM WIK (kwi@stud.hsn.no) wrote:
: 	Pardon my joke.
: 
: There was recently a question about if deaf people spoke in dreams.
: I guess they do as a lot of them speak in reality too.
: My question is , do deaf people hear in dreams and do mute people
: speak in dreams???
: 
: 	Klaus Wik
: 

Good question.  I once asked a friend, who is confined to a wheelchair,
if she ever dreamed of walking.  Of course, I don't remember her reply,
although I think she said no.

I think I asked her because the previous two weeks I had dreamt about her
walking.  It was quite strange, because I know she can't walk, and every
time she did, I was surprised. 

--
*******************************************************************
| Inez Gowsell                      | Gazing at people            |
| 129 Albert Ave                    | Some hand in hand           | 
| Saskatoon, Saskatchewan           | Just what I'm going through |
| Canada   S7N 1E6                  | They can't understand       |
| idg39@jester.usask.ca (temp acct) |              - Moody Blues  |
*******************************************************************
Newsgroups: alt.dreams
From: jvarley@crash.cts.com (J.J. Varley)
Subject: Re: cliff falling/hit bottom
Organization: CTS Network Services (crash, ctsnet), El Cajon, CA
Date: 04 Jan 93 23:29:25 PST

	Reminds me of a dream I had.  Typical falling dream. and I did
hit bottom, but I could tell when I woke up that I had actually sunk
into the bed and just as I woke up, I was rebounding upward from the
bedsprings...made for a pretty neat experience.


Newsgroups: alt.dreams,alt.out-of-body,alt.consciousness