Thread: Practicing VILD for 30 nights.

Night 27:
Just one DILD. The dreams were a lot more vivid tonight. I still missed a couple of FAs, though.

I'll try the same thing tonight. I must trust it.

LDs 36 (27 DILD, 9 WILD)

Night 28:
Just one DILD. Still wasn't focused enough.

I'll try to add my "I'm dreaming" mantra to help keep me focused.

LDs 37 (28 DILD, 9 WILD)

dolphin: when do you perform these approaches? How many wakings do you typically notice? Do you WBTB? What does a timeline of a typical night look like in terms of wake/mantra/back-to-sleep ?

I always perform these approaches until I fall asleep. I notice around 5-7 awakenings a night. I don't WBTB except for the occasional snack or drink. I don't usually check the clock unless I get a snack or drink but a night goes mantra/wake/mantra/wake/mantra/wake/mantra/wake/mantra/wake/mantra/wake.

Did you train yourself to notice wakings? How long did it take you to notice wakings consistently? Do you do recall at all during these wakings, do you journal at all during the night? Or is it just immediately mantra + right back to sleep?

I didn't really train myself to notice awakenings, I've always noticed awakenings as long as I can remember. I gradually started noticed even more awakenings when I started perusing lucid dreaming seriously. I recall dreams during most awakenings. Right now usually only journal to remember lucid dreams. I usually fall asleep to my mantra right after I wake up unless I want cookies or water.

Night 29:
I had a WILD and a caught FA.

Mantra didn't go so well so I decided to simply lie down and wait for the dream to start. I had both LDs this way. Maybe this is all I need to do.

Tonight, I try to just tell myself my lucid goal and then wait for something unusual to happen.

LDs 39 (29 DILD, 10 WILD)

Originally Posted by dolphin

I didn't really train myself to notice awakenings, I've always noticed awakenings as long as I can remember. I gradually started noticed even more awakenings when I started perusing lucid dreaming seriously. I recall dreams during most awakenings. Right now usually only journal to remember lucid dreams. I usually fall asleep to my mantra right after I wake up unless I want cookies or water.

Well I set strong intention to notice wakings last night and I felt like I noticed 10+ wakings during the night. Which is great because I've been drawing a blank before about 6 hours for the last few weeks. No dreams for a number of the early ones (I was not trying hard for recall, though, just instantly back to sleep with a mantra/intention), but the dreams got really vivid and present for the morning.

Night 30:
No LDs. I did have some vivid dreams, though.

This is the last night! I didn't really get anywhere with this but it was fun posting my progress.

LDs 39 (29 DILD, 10 WILD)

Originally Posted by dolphin

night goes mantra/wake/mantra/wake/mantra/wake/mantra/wake/mantra/wake/mantra/wake.

Tough life of a lucid dreamer

congrags Dolphin!!!!!!! that was great! you had more than 1 LD for every day on average....
I think it was a very nice method for a great LDer like you!

Originally Posted by Nfri

Originally Posted by dolphin

night goes mantra/wake/mantra/wake/mantra/wake/mantra/wake/mantra/wake/mantra/wake.

Tough life of a lucid dreamer

Or, much more likely, like last night, mantra/wake/mantra/wake/still awake/Still Awake DAmnit/STILL AWAKE/finally get drowsy again/sleep/wake/mantra/wake

3 hours insomnia starting at just before 5 hours.

Dolphin: You may have mentioned this earlier, but how exactly do you perform the Lucid goal method you keep mentioning?

It's just basic auto-suggestion. I would simply remind myself of my lucid goal right before I fall asleep, assuring myself that I'll have an LD soon. It's a lazy technique but it's worked for dozens, maybe hundreds of times. It's best when I'm stressing too much with other techniques.

I've still been experimenting with different stuff this month, although it's been a relatively dry month for me in terms of lucid dreams (37% less). But, I've had success with other intention based techniques similar to VILD, that is, techniques that rely on something you repeat while falling asleep until you do it during the dream and become lucid. I've gotten it to work with mantras (I'm dreaming) and staring at the back of my eyelids (If I can see, I'm dreaming). This gives me some confidence that VILD will work if my visualization stamina becomes good enough...I could use some work on my visualization skills anyway for dream control...hmm...

Maybe I'll reboot this thread next month and give VILD or a variant of it another go. That is, if people don't think off me as a show-off with this thread which I think I seem at times.