Thread: My first two LDs this weekend. Some advice for fellow newbies

Hi all
This is my first post here after lurking for a couple of weeks.
I've spent so much time and read so many stories and tutorials that helped me so I thought I'd try give something very small back to this amazing community. Hopefully it helps someone

Some background:
I'm 38 years old, male, live in Cape Town South Africa.
I've known about lucid dreaming for almost 15 years and during that time I've experienced 3 spontaneous DILDs. Twice from flying and once from breathing underwater.
I've struggled with standard SP my whole life. Mostly manifesting as intruders or evil, dark entities in my room. Really awful.
My dreams have always been incredibly vivid, interesting and (mostly) entertaining. I sleep well (between 8 and 9 hours a night) and wake up spontaneously around 3/4 times between 3am and 7am after a dream.
My recall is generally very good after a dream and sometimes I can remember a dream for weeks afterwards.

So... just over a month ago, while my wife and I were on a short holiday, I had a typical "there's an intruder in our house" SP dream. The difference between this and the previous ones was that I realised that this was all happening in my head and I was dreaming. I woke up, opened my iPad and started reading about LDing. Landed on this terrific forum and started reading about how to start mastering this amazing gift.

I did a lot of reasearch and it took me about 2/3 weeks to fully commit to a technique. I decided to focus on DILD. So for the past 10 days I have done the following:

• Performed detailed RC every 45 mins. Believing that I'm dreaming. Thinking about what I did for the preceding 5 mins and what I was planning on doing with the next 5 mins. Followed by the nose-blocking RC.
• Attempt DEILD or FILD every time I wake up after a dream.
• Wrote in my dream journal every time I woke up when my attempts at FILD or DEILD didn't work. Each entry was as detailed as I could make it. Everything I could remember.
• Read DV forum every night before falling asleep.
• As I started falling asleep I practice visualising a dream. Not just what I'd see and do, but what I'd touch and feel and smell. I try to go into as much detail as possible here and keep it going until I fall asleep.

Like I said, I did this for almost 10 days. It was tough to stay motivated because I didn't see incremental improvement or progress. I found the journey quite binary. I was as oblivious to the fact that I was dreaming as before I was attempting to LD. My dreams seemed impenetrable.

Then, yesterday (sunday) morning, I had my first event, and this morning I had my second
I'll go into a bit more detail on each of them, but the common denominator was this: Each time, I gained a FRACTION of consciousness before I became lucid.
I know this means they weren't DILDs, but I'm confident I wouldn't have achieved them had I not been making such an effort and done the amount of research that I did.

Sunday morning
I can't remember the dream that woke me up, but I do remember my last dream-thought before I woke up was "Wow that is just ridiculous and makes no sense whatsoever. I'm probably dreaming."
I gained a bit of consciousness, but (having read about DEILD) I stayed still and immediately closed my eyes and tried to visualise the previous dream I was having. It must have taken 3 seconds for the dream world to form itself around me. It wasn't the exact world I came out of, but there were some similarities. In the second dream, I was conscious, giving a speech to a bunch of journalists. I made a point of feeling the podium with my hands. Looking at them in their faces. I had a strong suspicion that I was dreaming at that point. Feeling very excited. I walked away from the podium and did the nose-block RC. When I confirmed I was dreaming I stabilised and went flying! Awesome. I tried to string another dream on to this one when I woke up, but I was too excited

Monday morning
I had another 'intruder' SP dream. Some guy stalking my wife climbing up to our bedroom window. This time I immediately realised it was a dream and attempted to get up so I can enjoy my lucidity. But of course I couldn't, being in paralysis and all that. Then I remembered something I read on these forums that you must wiggle your toes and lips to wake up from SP. I did it and immediately woke up. Same as on Sunday, I kept my eyes closed and decided to attempt FILD. Unlike my previous attempts, I immediately felt 'pulled' into a dream world. The sensation is quite remarkable and calming. I performed an RC and confirmed I was dreaming. This time I didn't stabilise enough so it was quite a short flight around my neighbourhood

If I could summarise what this experience has taught me is: Learn ALL techniques because they kinda work together depending on your circumstance.

Thanks to everyone who has helped me so far on the journey
Peace