Welcome to the Research Guild

[DrTechnical]

The MM Research Guild. What is it? Who should participate? Why do we need it?

There are so many interesting initiatives centered around PJ's challenge to our members owned community. How do we thrive, how do we differentiate ourselves from other sites, and so forth. One idea which dawned on me was to try to leverage our vast experience and creativity to create a small but motivated group of people interested in genuine scientific research.

It all goes back to something I've heard people say many times over. I think I've said it myself. Why should Laberge have all the fun?

In my mind, there are so many interesting areas to explore. Those who have read my posts know of my interest in PSI phenomenon and use of CES to induce lucids. Both of these efforts probably need a kick in the pants. But there are countless other areas of potential interest. We have the work on CWILD. We have various informal experiments on dream sharing and dream communication. Etc ...

Deep Dreaming is an appropriate forum I think, for posting thoughts or individual experimental results. But one persons efforts or theories cannot possibly constitute or lead to a major find.

Hence the Research Guild. I see the mission of this guild as being a place to openly discuss and hone original theories and research. I think if we have a formal place to do this, we can build more momentum, than if the efforts are not focused or centralized. I see very little reason to limit content. We are all mature, capable and creative people. I am sure that anyone attracted to this space, will likely be pretty well informed on exisitng research, findings, options and theories. I suppose if you've read a few books on LDing, LDS, AP and so forth, then you are more than qualify  .

I know we all have interesting and unique backgrounds on this site. My academic background is actually research based. That was a very satisfying time in my life. True scientific research is among the more facinating and pure experiences one can have. From a professional perspective, those opportunities are no longer part of my life. But I would be very motivated to re-kindle some of that feeling on this site. Maybe I can help others to explore such pursuits and find that research spirit in themselves?

The role I am offering, is sort of a lead coordinator role. I have exisiting ideas, and if there are ways to pull people in, I will post and try to make that happen. I also have enough interest, time and "perhaps" experience on my hands to read ideas, and to use my knowledge of research and people coordination skills to set in place a well constructed set of experiments. I would try to champion some interest and find the right people to participate.

So all we need are some ideas. I will sleep on this. If this sounds interesting, I ask that you sleep on it as well.

I don't know where this is headed or what we will find. But I do know this. We are only scraping the surface of a much larger mystery. The dream world and lucid dreaming in particular will eventually help us uncover something monumental. Something which will force us to re-think much of what we think we know today. Anything we can do to play a part in this discovery phase, stands to be an exciting discovery indeed.

So please join me in some good old fashioned brainstorming, idea posting, experiment construction and implementation. Who knows what we'll find?

[Sunshine]

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[Alex Lou]

I really like the idea of this guild.  Thanks for stating it.

I am interested in researching supplements and drugs used to help induce lucidity.  Specifically, how they might affect the dreaming mind based on conclusions drawn from available formal scientific research.  Also dosing, safety, and side effects.

That said, I don't have time right now.  Maybe next semester.

[mu]

Dr. T, first let me say I applaud, welcome, and appreciate this, as a member here.  I don't want to write too much now, and I don't want to hijack this thread.  But I was thinking today about how to organize the front pages, and an idea that occurred to me would be to have both "art of" and "science of" lucidity sections.

If you would be willing to organize some kind of content, some time in the indefinite future (really--a lot of it depends on the outcome of the strategy threads) I would be honored to have you in charge of the science section of the front pages.  If you want to contribute, and help others contribute, articles about anything and everything about lucidity from a scientific standpoint.

Like I said, sometime in the future.  I just want to know if you're willing to write articles suitable for the front pages about this research.

[DrTechnical]

Hey Mu:

I am interested in building up the credibility and science behind lucid dreaming in general. Not that it is uncredible, that's not the point. But it is poorly understood.

I think it's a very logical extension to publish findings if and when we have them. I would be willing to do a write up, depending on the experiment, results and of course who really drove the work itself.

One thing I am toying with is coming up with some way to pull MMers into the CES project. The limitation here is the number of devices. If I could get my hands around that problem, we'd have something to work with. The other thing I might do is see if I can build out an audio file with similar spectral properties. I am just not convinced that audio is the way to go. CES is more effective than audio at other mind altering frequencies (e.g. theta band stuff, etc...).

One other thing which would make for a fantastic paper, is to apply an EEG to the CES experiement to prove "scientifically" what it is doing. This would have a great chance of being published in a credible scientific dream journal. But it would start HERE.

I think if the CES research is to be extended, I need willing participants, who are very accurate in record keeping, willing to discuss precise success/failure ratios with other supps and techniques, etc ...

[mu]

I've read your other thread here also, about the possibility of actually being able to accomplish this!

This is very exciting Dr..  Not only am I personally, as I'm sure many others are, very interested in an experiment like this, but it would lend a great deal of credibility to have professionally conducted research such as this here.

Please do whatever, whenever you want in this direction.  I don't want to seem like I'm pressuring you or anyone else in any way, just to have material for the front pages.

And.. thank you!

I'll try to think of a way to help get the community involved..  Let me know if there's anything I can do.