Thread: How much time might it take for practice to make its way into the dream and trigger lucidity?

There is no definitive time period. From what we know, your affinity towards lucidity is based on how well you utilize the tiny bit of activity in the frontal lobe.

The logic behind dream signs is that seeing them will cause a temporary higher activity in the cognitive zones of the brain, and similarly awareness practice should increase you ability to discern those temporary activations. Unlike waking life were you switch between awareness and unawareness, dreams are generally situated in unawareness with only those temporary bursts.

However your ability to do so seems to be based quite a lot on genetics. Natural lucid dreamers demonstrate that it is possible for the brain to become lucid almost every night. There is a spectrum of people ranging from those natural lucid dreamers to those of us who must spend a lot of time and devotion into awareness practices.

How long it takes will depend entirely on your own abilities as well as you devotion. To give you an idea some people spend over a decade before they become proficient at lucid dreaming.

Took me around 3 weeks for my practice to kick in, but it's different for everybody. It's just important that you keep up and you WILL have one soon. And once you do have one, they'll start to come in a lot faster.

I had some small jumps in dream awareness after the first month, but it really started to kick off until the third month of practicing the thing all day.
Also assuming you mean a practice that takes all day like ADA and not from start of dream practice onwards, because then thats a completely different story.

So yeah, it is different for everyone.

I know i am not answering your question but have you considered practicing first easier and less depleting techniques?

From the depths of my heart i don´t encourage anyone to buy into the effortful stuff without first trying easier approaches.

I mean you can gather a huge motivation to pursue ADA or some all day obsessive technique if you can have a few lucid experiences.

The decision is to to chose from a technique that delivers consistent 2-3 lucids a week ( alarm-WILD/DEILD) versus one that «promises» daily or everydreamislucid but which has been poorly reported about.

But that´s just my instinct to save people from the struggle of effort..

It took me around 2 months, and even after that I am still getting more lucids every week. Usually I become lucid once or twice every night, but I also "Almost" become lucid many other times throughout the night. It all depends on how much practice you put in and if what you are doing really fits to the way you think. For instance, some people are natural WILDers and some are natural DILDers, either one would find it way harder to do the opposite. In the end, one month of training is still the beginning really, but as others have said- it all depends on the individual. Just keep at it man.

If we're talking about archieving an isolated LD then it might take anywhere from a week to several months of practice. I assume you mean having a constant rate of lucidity we might be talking about several years, the thing that makes it difficult is not learning the techniques, it's finding the right technique for you which can be hard considering the large amount of techniques there are.

Thanks guys for your responses, much appreciated.

@dutchraptor: I think I see where you're heading, though I have some curiosity as to why certain behaviors or any behavior for that matter takes more time to manifest inside the inner workings of the dream, in comparison to that of waking reality, without the need for it to trigger something when it happens. Like a habit, assuming the action I want to replicate in the dream doesn't necessarily trigger lucidity in the beginning (that much I can work later), but that it at least manages to appear in the dream. Fortunately, patience is something that comes easily for me, and I also tend not to worry about the time the practice might take to kick in. I'm of the idea however, that if no progress is being made after so much time with a certain practice, then I should note about it not working and change it.

@VagalTone: I can understand how the practice might sound particularly taxing, though the sole action of becoming aware doesn't have to be such a demanding task. I tend to break down my practice in order for a more consistent and easier time with it. You know, a step by step process instead of a full forward dive into action type of thing. My focus goes almost entirely to the DILD method. The thing is, much of the techniques for approaching DILDs seem very unreliable to me, and sometimes feel I'm not doing anything at all that could help me improve. The case is different with practices that rely on awareness.

It's a relief to me that many of you have shared at some point this little obstacle. I was beginning to fear the practice was getting me nowhere, but then again a month and a half of practice isn't enough to form a solid conclusion about it. Fortunately, I can see progress being made right now in waking reality, so that can only mean I must be doing something right. I'm a patient man and will continue my practice as usual. Hopefully the lucids will come as the days go by. If not, I can always learn from the experience, change the practice, and go at it again.

I've had a fairly even split of DILDs and WILDs, but I've noticed a big difference in how they manifest. The DILDs seem fairly random: a few weeks of MILD (using the exercises from LaBerge's ETWOLD) got me started a few years ago, but since then I haven't been able to trace any correlation with how much I practice MILD or ADA or other daytime techniques and how often I experience DILDs. In fact, the only correlation I've been able to observe at all is that random DILDs seem (perversely) much more likely when I'm busiest in waking life. Just when my schedule clears up a bit and I'm like, "Yay, more time to dream!" they become irritatingly elusive.

WILDs are a little more reliable in that you can induce them directly -- with good technique, strong will, practice, and luck (or whatever you want to call the wildcard factor, "luck" is as good a term as any). If you're not having much luck with DILDs to start with, why not spend some time trying to learn how to WILD?

Yeah that's pretty much how it went for me when I started practicing for DILDs. At that point I hadn't even started using awareness as my main form of practice. The WILD method is something I'm really looking forward to acquiring proficiency at some point in my practice. It would be an incredible resource to have in the bag to use for acquiring lucidity. The problem I have with it right now, is the tightness of my schedule as of this moment, due to the upcoming tests and long hours of study that I devote to most of the days. Likewise, I tend to have some difficulty with getting to sleep in the nights, which adds to the impatience that I regularly feel when attempting WILDs. All this and the difficulty that I have with successfully inducing WILDs are the reason I chose and prefer right now the relatively easiness of the DILD practice.

Originally Posted by Wolfdog

Yeah that's pretty much how it went for me when I started practicing for DILDs. At that point I hadn't even started using awareness as my main form of practice. The WILD method is something I'm really looking forward to acquiring proficiency at some point in my practice. It would be an incredible resource to have in the bag to use for acquiring lucidity. The problem I have with it right now, is the tightness of my schedule as of this moment, due to the upcoming tests and long hours of study that I devote to most of the days. Likewise, I tend to have some difficulty with getting to sleep in the nights, which adds to the impatience that I regularly feel when attempting WILDs. All this and the difficulty that I have with successfully inducing WILDs are the reason I chose and prefer right now the relatively easiness of the DILD practice.

That´ts exactly why you should try WILD!!! It's as simple as snoozing your alarm (or let it stop by itself) and remain slighlty aware ( counting, body awareness..) for 2 minutes maximum, if no lucid just don´t keep your self awake and snooze later. Ideally you should start snoozing after 5h30 of sleep, like every 15 or 10 min.

All it takes is 3-4 awakenings coupled with short awareness practice. That´s too cheap not to try and it won´t mess up your sleep.

You can always keep your ADA practice too

Btw, sorry for disrupting your thread

Originally Posted by Verre

In fact, the only correlation I've been able to observe at all is that random DILDs seem (perversely) much more likely when I'm busiest in waking life.

Sure enough, after writing this sentence only yesterday, and then going to sleep on one of the rare nights when I had no time and no intention to LD, I ended up lucid dreaming all night, lol.

But this experience reminded me of something: if you learn good WILD technique, insomnia becomes your friend. WILD technique (at least the way I practice it) is an art of falling asleep under adverse conditions (i.e., while your mind is still in a somewhat wakeful state), so a bout of insomnia can be the ideal situation in which to practice it. Even if you don't end up with a lucid dream, at least you might overcome the insomnia and get some sleep, so it's a win-win all around!

Originally Posted by Wolfdog

Recently (a couple of months back), I started practicing towards a much more consistent lucidity rate in my dreams, by using an all day awareness form of practice through a thorough assessment of reality in order to tune in into a much more lucid mindset. I've noticed that a month after starting practicing, this mindset has made its way naturally to my normal day to day behavior. I've seen that it's easier for me to remain in this state throughout the day. Nonetheless, my dreams continue as usual as they have been, without much change in my ability to tune in into this mindset and become lucid. There's a slight difference I can see when dreaming, like some kind of small awareness about the whole situation, yet not big enough to trigger lucidity. Likewise, such difference is so subtle, I might as well just be misleading myself into thinking I'm making progress where there is none.

So, my question is, how much time might it take for me to see a substantial change of mindset in my dreams, the same as I can see right now happening in waking reality? I can see the change right now as I'm awake, yet it hasn't managed to make its way to the dream as I would like to. Just the same, I'm approaching now two months of practicing with this particular method.

I may be missing something here, something I'm not aware of. Any thoughts on this? Thanks, in advance.

Hmmm. Very interesting lesson to get from this. This is what I would consider. There is two approaches you can take with Lucid Dreaming, and I do not take this pathway that you are taking. The first way you can look at dreaming is a thing to be manipulated, and most people do this by trying to emulate a waking state that you carry into their dreams through either RCs or something like what you have been practicing to get them aware. As you can see this isn't a guarantee that anything will happen and some things just never carry through. For example some things in my life would be a theme in my dream, regardless of my focus on it! Like perhaps an old house I use to live in, and then the new house just won't sink in, ever. Dreams are unpredictable like that. It is my belief that, this is how I approach it now. I don't consider my consious mind to be superior, and I don't see non lucid dreams as less important. That may seem strange, and it's not that i don't prefer lucid dreams. But the approach I take to get Lucid dreams is to look at it in a holistic way. For example if you start paying attention to exactly what is in your dreams, and how you are guiding your life in general. Things come up in the dream, patterns, messages, and it can get pretty fascinating to connect the dots. Lucids seem to come to people despite what effort they may make, or sometimes if you try really hard, you won't get a lucid, and then sometimes you will. And it's almost as if your not even in control of it. I think there is some truth to that in that this goes beyond just us as individuals. That might seem silly but what kind of person you are, and how you live, that definitely is going to weigh heavy on what type of dreams are going to come to you, good and bad. Mostly it's messy and all sorts of weird stuff happens. But I think it inhibits you if you don't look very closely at your dream life, even non lucid. If you focus on waking awareness constantly, that might not be what you need to have Lucid dreams, it could be something different. A dream journal is critical I think, and your attention to your dreams for a specific purpose. If you want lucid dreams just to have fun, I don't personally believe that is what they are for alone, even though they are extremely exciting I think such a thing is much more than just something that is fun to do. This is just my guess, but if I was you, I would try a different approach. You may have more success if you focus on your dream journal, and certain themes in your life. Such as what you did that day to contribute to something in your goals, something you struggle with or some job that you complete that needs to be done. And involve yourself deeply with that with meaning and purpose and not just a focus of 'im awake, im awake' sort of thinking. Then you may find these themes in your waking life they develop into the dream and are interlinked thoughts that produce certain effects in your dreams. So you are working with your subconsious minds and not just your consious. That way you are not just trying to induce a Lucid dream but you are taking the core of things in your life to make some sort of meaningful positive change, and then those dream will naturally respond to that, from there, your desire to be Lucid I think is going to express itself after effort and you will suddenly get Lucid dreams. If you want to make this effort I am very interested in what this type of approach will do for you, and if you get a different result.

Originally Posted by VagalTone

That´ts exactly why you should try WILD!!! It's as simple as snoozing your alarm (or let it stop by itself) and remain slighlty aware ( counting, body awareness..) for 2 minutes maximum, if no lucid just don´t keep your self awake and snooze later. Ideally you should start snoozing after 5h30 of sleep, like every 15 or 10 min.

All it takes is 3-4 awakenings coupled with short awareness practice. That´s too cheap not to try and it won´t mess up your sleep.

You can always keep your ADA practice too

Btw, sorry for disrupting your thread

I don't know, it does seem like a very simple process from the way you describe it. The problem is that every time I wake up it's considerably hard for me to go back to sleep. I have a very tough time getting myself into a relaxed state to sleep or induce a successful WILD. I remember the first times I practiced WILDs I failed big time, staying for hours just lying there in bed; it was very stressful. I'm obviously doing something very wrong in the practice, which is why I've looked at into ways to relax myself when going to bed in order to facilitate the whole thing.

All in all, my inability to quickly relax when going to bed is the main reason why I chose to stay away from the WILD method right now. DILDs just seem way easier for me to do. Still, that doesn't mean I'm not going to practice WILDs any more. I'm working on managing a more healthy sleep schedule so that I can have an easier time with WILD. But, right now I want to focus on this particular practice as I've been with it for some time now.

@Verre: I'm intrigued to know how it is you practice WILDs? It would be very interesting to know how one can use WILD to overcome the difficulty with getting to sleep. The times I practiced it, it only managed to exacerbate my difficulty to sleep.

@Deanstar: I'm not sure, I've seen pretty much that awareness practices tend to have a tremendous impact in an ability for one to lucid dream, when done rightly. I agree with you though, dreams are in essence, unpredictable, which is why I don't focus my practice on reality checks, dream signs, or repeating a string of words (like "I'm awake") hundreds of times throughout the day. These practices are very inconsistent, the way I see it, because most of them aren't structured to produce a stable state of awareness that one can benefit from in order to induce lucidity. For example, dream signs depend on a certain event or something shown repetitively in a dream. However, the unpredictable nature of dreams makes it for dream signs to fall into that same unpredictability. Sometimes they appear, other times they don't. One would have to be dependent on what the dream offers or shows to you, in order to become lucid.

The reason I'm in favor of awareness practices is because they rely basically on us and what we do, nothing else. It's an internal process, independent of what may happen or not outside. Like a habit, when properly trained, changes the way you approach everything because it changes your whole perspective, your whole mindset. That way, we're not limited to what the dream might show, to attain lucidity. It'll all depend on the mindset that we bring into the dream, the one we have been training for, one that is consistent and brings results. This is why it fascinates me how people who meditate, or those whose practice have improved their overall sense of awareness (like many in this forum), have managed to induce a more consistent set of results in their ability to lucid dream.

By the way, I've been using a dream journal since day one of practice, and I consider it a valuable resource for my success in lucid dreams and dreams in general.

Originally Posted by Wolfdog

@Verre: I'm intrigued to know how it is you practice WILDs? It would be very interesting to know how one can use WILD to overcome the difficulty with getting to sleep. The times I practiced it, it only managed to exacerbate my difficulty to sleep.

The method that has worked for me most consistently is very simple in itself: breathing and counting. What makes it hard is to find the "sweet spot" between falling asleep too quickly or not falling asleep at all. I usually have the opposite problem from you in that I fall asleep way too easily, so I need long WBTBs to even have a shot. Since you have trouble falling asleep, I'd recommend keeping your WBTBs as short as possible, and maybe even try a soothing supplement like L-Theanine -- early on in my practice I had a much harder time getting back to sleep, and was even experimenting with galantamine for a while (a definite stimulant) and it seemed like L-Theanine really helped my ability to relax without diminishing REM.

As for the active steps, "breathing" is fairly self-explanatory, although I take slower, deeper breaths than usual -- try to mimic the way you would breathe if you were already asleep. Counting can be done in various ways, but usually I just count incrementally, one number per in-breath, at first maybe pairing it with an affirmation or something on the out breath, and then dropping that as I get closer to sleep. The fun part is, you can tell when your mind starts to relax and disengage because you'll begin to lose your place in the numbers. The more often you lose your place, the closer you are getting to a point where you might be able to fall asleep.

When I'm trying to WILD I'll do the counting phase on my back, a position in which I find it harder to drop off to sleep. I used to think I should be able to WILD directly from the counting phase, but this almost never happens. Usually at some point I'll find that I inadvertantly wake back up, disrupting the process. At this point I would give up the attempt as a failure, roll over on my side (my usual sleeping position) and fall asleep -- and this is the point when the WILDs would usually happen, though no guarantee. Even after lots of practice it remains a gamble. But the "giving up" so consistently preceded the WILDs that now I consider it a part of the actual practice.

If you're just trying to beat insomnia and fall into regular sleep, the counting and the breathing practice might still help, but it might be better to start in a position from which you're more likely to fall asleep directly or else "give up" the count sooner after you feel yourself beginning to lose track of the numbers.

Of course, you can always visualizing sheep when you're counting... and then this practice is as old as the hills.

Thanks for the suggestion Verre, will keep this in mind next time I go to bed. Hopefully I can lower the time it takes for me to relax and fall asleep.

It took me a full month, maybe a month and a half, to have my first Lucid Dream that I induced.

I used the DILD technique, checking my hands every once and a while for missing scars and anything else obscure on them.

And, of course, I kept a dream journal. I remember my dreams fairly well, even without a dream journal, but I should write them down anyway.