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/r/LucidDreaming survey results 2014

The results are in! Sorry for the delay (again), I intended to run some statistics on it, but it turns out that the kind of statistics I wanted to do are a bit over my head, so here's at least what I've got.

The amount of people who responded is just about the same as last time; which I find a bit surprising, given how much the subreddit grew over the last two years - but this time, I didn't let the form open for nearly as much time. Anyway, let's get to the data!

Demographics

Demographics remained largely unchanged, most people are still guys from NA, around 18 years old (though the mean is 19.2).

Subreddit specifics

Compared to the last survey's result, there's a much greater number of people who discovered our little community because of the naming scheme, with Googling right behind (which figured last year very often in the "Others").

Speaking of "Others", the most common answers (seven responses) was the reddit ad we ran about two years ago, then mostly answers that fall under the categories present :) And finally, regarding subreddits, a lot of people found us from /r/AskReddit, or random posts on mostly unrelated subs.

As for the subscriber base, there's a lot of newbies (which is good!), but what I'd say is a fair number of long-time regulars as well :)

Lucid dreaming itself

An almost exact half found out about lucid dreaming through random posts on the internet or reddit (similarly to the subreddit, right after is the "Other" option, which is mostly people mentioning their natural experiences, Inception, Dreamviews (check it out if you haven't!), and third in global comes people sharing through word of mouth.

As expected, there's a big number of natural lucid dreamers :)

Most people took up an interest in lucid dreaming because of the possibilities of doing stuff in dreams, then simply because it's interesting (which it definitely is!) And from the "Others", there's people mentioning they can't not have lucid dreams, they want to talk to dream characters, or they want to remember their dreams better.

Regarding the number of lucid dreams, it's actually slightly higher than last year! Great job! :)

It turns out MILD is the most popular, as it was last year, with WILD second (both options combined add up to 91), and FILD even turning up slightly higher than simple WILD without WBTB!

The efficiency of FILD isn't apparently all that high though; or it might be because it's turned up fairly recently, so most FILDers have already had a lucid dream using one of the other methods. In any case, that doesn't mean it's not worth trying though! See what works for you!

The most interesting chart for me; how long do you have to wait until you have a LD. Well, apparently the answer's still around the 3 week mark. Dream on!

As for the when & where (this is where the statistics should have came in!), most people don't change their sleep habits too much when attempting to LD.

RCs are also fairly constant. There's a couple of the most common (including trying to breathe with your nose shut, which I for some inexplicable reason omitted), then the minority ones include:

  • Throwing something to see if it does something unusual (that's a pretty brave method, if you ask me)

  • Summoning objects

  • Jumping

  • Icon drawn on hand (totem!)

  • Scratch myself hardly and check if I feel pain

  • I look for something that doesn't make sense

Most people don't keep a dream journal (a mistake, if you ask me!), but there's a lot of those who do, and a lot of dreams logged in. Maybe we should share the logs sometime?

Sleep paralysis is still almost 50/50, with most people not afraid of such nonsense!

A total of 112 people entered an unpleasant experience, with some variations; and 81 people entered a neutral experience. A smaller portion still reported a pleasant experience. So all in all, SP is probably not all that fun; but it might still be something to look forward to, as it's a great opportunity for WILDing!

The "Other" option is mostly filled with specific experiences (pressure on chest, rapid familiar sounds, tingling, visual patterns), but its large portion on the chart is mostly caused by the absence of a "haven't experienced SP" option.

Miscellanea

We actually did better than last time in moderation, and the subreddit is apparently better too! Thank you!

Parting words

I still want to do the statistics, though, so you might see another post soon, this time with some data on how do different approaches affect success with LD, etc.

In case anybody knows how to and wants to do that, but also if they just want to see the raw data for themselves, here's the somewhat raw spreadsheet.

Hope you enjoyed this, and sweet dreams!

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