Autodidactism (from the Greek αὐτοδίδακτος, meaning self-taught) “is self-education or self-directed learning. An autodidact is a mostly self-taught person, as opposed to learning in a school setting or from a full-time tutor or mentor. Autodidacts might spend their time reading either in solitude or in public spaces such as at libraries or via educative websites. They may or may not have designed a plan for their course of study. They may or may not engage a network of experts for guidance.” [Wikipedia]

I would like to spend my summer break reading books, learning about and trying things I am interested in. If I raise at least $1,400, I will do these things in addition to writing and self-publishing a book composed of essays written over the course of the summer. The money will go towards my college education.

Flexibility is an important element for any autodidactic pursuit, but I do have a starting point. I maintain a list of books that I would like to read on Goodreads (http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/543548…. I am studying the Great Books at St. John’s, so I would like to supplement that knowledge with more modern works of non-fiction and literature. Some general areas that I am interested in studying this summer include psychology, linguistics, education, Eastern religions and philosophy, mathematics and science, and history.

As far as the experiential part of my summer, I have a few projects I will investigate and probably try: polyphasic sleep, Vipassana meditation, new exercise routines, learning languages such as Esperanto and Latin, attempting programming, etc.

I will self-publish the book on Lulu.com, a print-on-demand self-publishing company.

Thank you in advance for your generous support! I’m very excited about this project and with your help, I can achieve something that will not only be formative and educational, but I will also have a tangible final product, my book.

Senior Project Night was last Wednesday, and it was quite successful. People seemed to enjoy my project, I had some productive discussions, and many of my handouts were given out. One person had a lucid dream that night after using my tips! So while I still have to write my paper, Senior Project is effectively done. My investigations into Lucid Dreaming, however, are not. My reason for choosing this project was always personal interest in mastery, and while I’ve made some great progress, I have not fully mastered the skill. I define mastery as being able to have lucid dreams at will, with a high level of flexibility and control over the dream for the majority of the dream. I can’t yet have them at will, I’ve only started to control the dreams, and they usually only last 30 seconds to a minute. Hopefully by the end of the summer, I will have made decent progress in this direction.