The Erratic Oneironaut - Issue #59
February 16, 2011
Patience, so they say, is a virtue.Lucid Dreaming can be among the most amazing, exciting and profound of human experiences. Once an aspiring lucid dreamer really begins to grasp just how magical it can be, the natural human tendency to get there as expeditiously as possible starts kicking in. While excitement and enthusiasm are great motivators, they do tend to wane if results aren't quickly forthcoming.
Lucid dreaming, (in spite of what many who would love to sell you the Secret would have you believe,) is a discipline in the same way physical fitness, playing a musical instrument or learning to draw are disciplines. Patience, determination and ongoing effort are necessary to achieve and sustain lucidity. Results do vary widely, as they will between individuals practicing any discipline, but The REAL Secret remains true -
there IS no Secret. The temptation to resort to paying for hidden secrets, purchasing gadgets or using supplements is great indeed when you are just starting out, but these all prove frustrating and useless, (not to mention expensive,) until the basic skills are attained. An 18th century Cremona violin may produce amazing results in the hands of Itzhak Perlman, but in my hands it would be a costly joke because I never learned to play at all. So it goes with gadgets and supplements; they may become useful and interesting later on, but they have no place in the beginner's arsenal.
Everything (and much, much more) that anybody needs to get started in Lucid Dreaming can be found right here in The Mist, and the price is right. Dreaming is free. So is lucid dreaming. . . but "free" doesn't mean effortless or instantaneous. Lucid dreaming is a discipline, and disciplines take patience.
Dream Catcher NewsDrTechnical, wolvendeer and mu are undertaking a major rewrite of the Dream Catcher package at the heart of our Dream Journaling system here. The goal is to improve access and functionality, while vastly enhancing flexibility in gathering data and making it available for analysis. (I'm sorry, but the discussion is too involved to even attempt to summarize.) Join the discussion here:
http://mortalmist.com/forum/technical-guild/dreamcatcher-2-0/The original Dream Catcher has been released under license for use by other dreaming communities, after a request from our French friends at
Attrape-songes. Thank you,
Raklet,
wolvendeer and
mu, for making this sharing of our innovation and effort possible.
Fighting The Good Fight Against SpammersA great deal of time and effort is invested in keeping our forum free of spammers and other exploiters. The results speak for themselves, but success tends to hide the effort that really goes into keeping us clean and healthy. While it would not be in our best interest to reveal all that is done in this regard, you should be aware of a couple recent changes.
Mortal Mist is now proudly participating in
Project Honeypot. This is a global effort to identify and trap spammers, email address harvesters and other exploiters, and publishing findings through a common database. Our participation includes donated mx records for use in trapping email harvesters and the installation of two Honey Pots. Honey Pots are special pages that appear to be ripe for exploitation, intended to be found only by bots and spiders. We benefit through access to the common database and gain satisfaction by doing our small part in helping to rid the world of these ubiquitous parasites.
Using these new capabilities, we have been able to purge our user database of quite a few "sleepers" - registrants who were not known or recognized as exploiters when they registered but have since been caught exploiting other sites. You may have noticed that our member count recently dropped dramatically from nearly 700 to around 630. The difference represents the number of exploiters purged from access to our home here in The Mist.
For more information on Project Honeypot, check the link below. If you are running an SMF forum or WordPress blog and would like to learn more about how we manage to keep this site so clean, feel free to send a personal message to pj.
http://www.projecthoneypot.org
February's Lucid ChallengesFebruary's Basic Lucid Challenge: to meet
Dreambot or, alternatively, to complete one of your own goals. If you're running short on personal goals, browse through our Lucid Challenges section and complete one of those.
http://mortalmist.com/forum/featured-monthly-challenges-and-meeting-place/february-basic-lucid-challenge-3943/February's Intermediate Lucid Challenge: to have a conversation with an inanimate object.
http://mortalmist.com/forum/featured-monthly-challenges-and-meeting-place/february-intermediate-lucid-challenge/msg105960/#msg105960February's Advanced Lucid Challenge: to play matchmaker between two dream characters.
http://mortalmist.com/forum/featured-monthly-challenges-and-meeting-place/february-advanced-lucid-challenge/msg105961/#msg105961February Monthly Meeting Place - The Forgotten Graveyard.
Going to The Forgotten Graveyard in a lucid dream, and finding another person there, either from the physical or the other side, and communicating with them, will earn a Gold Award. Going to The Forgotten Graveyard and finding another person there, but not not communicating with them will earn a Silver Award. Dreaming of going to The Forgotten Graveyard in a non-lucid dream will earn a Bronze award.
The same awards will also be given to anyone who is able to meet with a special person of their choice at a place of their choice for Valentines day.
Have you read a dream you would like to have considered as February's Featured Dream? Remember to be on the lookout and submit your recommendations here:
http://mortalmist.com/forum/community-and-general-dreaming-projects/featured-dream-of-february-make-your-proposals/
Regarding Supplement DiscussionWhile we have no real rules here at Mortal Mist, one area where we hold a very careful line is in the discussion of supplement usage. Put as simply as possible, we do not permit ourselves to become a direct or indirect publisher of information that may end up leading to abuse or harm. If a supplement, drug, herb or substance is known to be dangerous or can be used to achieve altered waking states, we do not discuss or promote its use here, no matter how common, legal or effective said substance may be as a lucid dreaming supplement (LDS).
This is a touchy matter that occasionally results in confusion and hurt feelings, but the policy protects all of us. As mutual owners of Mortal Mist, we also share mutual responsibility for any harm done, even inadvertently so. We are here to explore and promote lucid dreaming, not to get into the wider realm of altered states of consciousness.
If you have any question about the whether discussion of a specific substance is OK, please send a personal message to Moonbeam and ask before investing a lot of time creating a post that might need to be removed.
From around the Mist:- Discussion about the Ambassador's Guild is ongoing. If you have interest in helping to promote lucid dreaming and Mortal Mist around the world, please join the discussion here:
http://mortalmist.com/forum/ambassadors-guild/ambassadors%27-guild-reform/
- A new forum has been created just for tracking your lucid dreaming goals - check it out for some inspiration and ideas:
http://mortalmist.com/forum/goal-tracking/
- You may have noticed that we are now recognizing Search Engine Spiders in the online lists. They have always been here, but were previously only recognized as guests. Remember that they have the same limited access as guests. Nothing in the Members Only areas is visible to them.
- Work is ongoing toward a migration to SMF2.0. It is a big project, as every modification and custom package installed here must be gone through in detail to make it work with the updated forum software. The new SMF forum brings with it some really nice enhancements and security.
Closing ThoughtsWe are enjoying a steady and sustained increase in activity over the past couple months. Our viewer stats are way up, we are seeing several new members registering per day (rather than the several per week we have become accustomed to,) and there seems to be a special focus on those who are just getting started with Lucid Dreaming.
As a well established group of mostly experienced Lucid Dreamers, it has long been our hope and ambition to share our experience and knowledge with others. It can certainly seem intimidating and confusing to those just beginning to learn about lucid dreaming when they discover the myriad techniques, devices, supplements and theories we discuss and experiment with here. Don't let all this good stuff distract you! Just start at the beginning and learn to swim before you go deep diving.
Have patience. You'll get there soon enough, if you stick with it. And believe me - it is sooooo worth it.
Until next time,
pj. . .
CARPE NOCTEM
