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    1. #1
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      Lightbulb My uninformed a priori LD idea: The FAILD

      Falling Arm Induced Lucid Dream: the uninspirational acronym that Just Might Work Anyways. This is a supplementary technique meant to be used in conjunction with any form of wake-initiated induction - WILD, FILD, VILD, or anything else performed while still conscious.

      This technique is meant to be a sort of assistant or shortcut for other WILD or WILD-inspired techniques, which shortcuts you through the falling asleep phase and lets you start WILDing at the brink of sleep instead. This is a preliminary idea for a lucid dreaming method that I got the idea for during meditation sessions. If a similar idea's already been proposed or developed further, I'd love to hear so I don't have to waste the effort.

      During my meditations, I usually experience one of two different... journeys, I guess you could call them. The first is the Affirmative Experience, which is where I go into meditating with a clear purpose and an optimistic outlook. These tend to begin with a string of clear and calm affirmations that taper off into very relaxed, very constructed lengths of quiet mindfulness. In short, they're good meditations. I feel alert, refreshed, and relaxed afterwards. My other sort is the Soporific Experience, or the "bad trip" you could call it. Usually when I enter these meditation sessions I'm trying to escape a stressful situation or a set of circumstances where I feel I'm helpless or have no way out. In these scenarios I'm not really sure what I mean to achieve by meditating, only that I can stop thinking about whatever horrible thing is consuming my consciousness. I'm nervous and irritable, and these sessions tire me out, a lot. Within 10-20 minutes I fall into a trance and find myself almost falling asleep. I'll zone out and then catch myself suddenly in the middle of slumping over, on the cusp of sleep. Then I'll zone out, catch myself, over and over again. I'm a hair away from going into SP, but prevent myself from it because I want to meditate instead.

      Tensed muscles are a surefire safeguard against falling asleep without your permission. A traditional cure for "resting one's eyes" without risking falling asleep is to hold a spoon in one hand and to suspend it over a frying pan while you rest; if you begin to fall asleep your hand relaxes, you drop the spoon, and the loud clang will bring you to your senses. If involuntarily relaxing muscles are the last warning signs you can rely on before you fall asleep completely, then they make ideal waypoints for us to gather our consciousness at for a successful WILD attempt.

      The process behind a hypothetical FAILD is like this:
      1. Either at the beginning of sleep or during a WBTB, set yourself up to go to sleep as you normally would, preferably on your back or side. I'm not sure how you'd conduct this sleeping on your stomach.
      2. If on your back: take your arm (whichever) and rest it at your side. Bend it at the elbow until your forearm sticks straight up into the air. Let your hand rest parallel to the floor like you're being flamboyantly gay with somebody. You'll notice that it's possible to hold your arm like this with very little muscle effort, so little that you quickly forget you're doing it.
      If on your side: same as above, but you're forced to use the arm you're sleeping on... I think.
      3. Just go to sleep. Don't try any techniques at all; just relax and let your mind wander. Most importantly, forget that you're holding your arm up.
      4. Eventually you'll be brought back to your senses as you feel your arm begin to fall: this means you are on the cusp of falling asleep! You'll probably instinctively jerk your arm back upright, but now let it fall into a relaxed position.
      5. Employ a primary WILD method now. You should already be at the brink of sleep, and your body already wants to go into SP (as evidenced by the involuntary muscle relaxation). Transition into the dream state should be vastly easier from here.

      Keep in mind that this technique is completely theoretical. I've only attempted it a few times straight at bedtime rather than in WBTB, and while I got a few encouraging arm-drops and wonky states of consciousness, I never got near a lucid dream experience. If this technique sounds interesting or useful to you, I would love it if you were to use it and report back whether you find it useful or not. I'll keep on experimenting with it and see where it gets me.
      Last edited by Spamtek; 06-16-2007 at 12:53 AM.
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    2. #2
      No Fate Lunalight's Avatar
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      Interesting...I'll try it tonight and report back with results.
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    3. #3
      Veteran member CrazyInSane's Avatar
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      Lmao I love the abbreviation "FAILD"...hahhaa, it doesn't look good
      Stay lucid, stay WILD!

      My "CAN-WILD" tutorial (created Dec. 2009)

    4. #4
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      Quote Originally Posted by CrazyInSane View Post
      Lmao I love the abbreviation "FAILD"...hahhaa, it doesn't look good
      Ah, but will you try it?
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    5. #5
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      I will. Altho I am not good at WILD, so it doesn't work for me, it probably doesn't mean it is necessarily a bad technique.

      That would be cool if it really worked.

    6. #6
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      I've never done a WILD. I've tried...

      One time I was in the SP (no hynogogic) state for 2 hours. I gave up my attempt. So this might help a lot, thanks!

    7. #7
      DV's Vexiest Vex Kitten's Avatar
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      Interesting and worth a try.

    8. #8
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      this will shorten my wbtb times when i WILD alot! When i WILD lately i have been having to do reallly long wbtbs because if i dont, i fall asleep within 5 min, but when i do the really long wbtbs it takes almost an hour to WILD! I will try this technique. hopefully, it will help me out.
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    9. #9
      Member Lactating Billhonkey's Avatar
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      Awesome idea! I will have to try this out tonight.

    10. #10
      SKA
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      I heard of this before by someone else. He called it the Perpendiculair arm method. I found it too much effort to keep my arm straight up to be able to fall asleep like that. Too uncomfortable + I tend to roll over to my side and fall asleep like that, pretty much always. I think I can use the same principle though but then more like holding a spoon in 1 hand suspended over a frying pan. That would allow me to rest my arm and fall asleep easily. The only effort would be to hold the spoon which is little enough to fall asleep with.
      Luminous Spacious Dream Masters That Holographically Communicate
      among other teachers taught me

      not to overestimate the Value of our Concrete Knowledge;"Common sense"/Rationality,
      for doing so would make us Blind for the unimaginable, unparalleled Capacity of and Wisdom contained within our Felt Knowledge;Subconscious Intuition.

    11. #11
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      SKA, your memory outdoes you. I looked it up: sure enough, page 134 of EtWoLD:
      Stevenson was not explicit about whether his brownies were characters of lucid dreams. It
      appears from his reports
      that they were mental images that appeared during lucid hypnagogic
      reverie. The technique the writer used was to lie in bed with his forearm perpendicular to the
      mattress. He found that he could drift easily into his familiar
      fantasy workshop, and if he fell
      into a deeper sleep, his forearm would fall to the mattress and awaken him. Stevenson credited
      his brownies with coming up with the plot for his famous story, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll
      and Mr. Hyde.
      Still, the technique in this case was utilized to keep the user in a hypnagogic daze rather than to rally him into a WILD techique right before the onset of true sleep. I've been picking through EtWoLD but haven't gotten past page 50 or so, so this idea of mine evolved completely independent of LaBerge's anecdote.

      Anyways, tried FAILDing last night in conjunction with a WBTB and honestly I don't know what happened. I suspect I got to the arm-jerking point, let myself relax, and accidentally fell asleep after the fact instead of focusing for a WILD... I woke up far too early into my sleep cycle I think.
      Adopted by Richter

    12. #12
      Callapygian Superstar Goldney's Avatar
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      Yeah I have problems with faling asleep whilst Wilding. This may work. I'll give it a go.
      *............*............*

    13. #13
      Into the clouds... TalkingHead's Avatar
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      I wonder if this could be used in conjunction with the FILD technique?

    14. #14
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      Quote Originally Posted by TalkingHead View Post
      I wonder if this could be used in conjunction with the FILD technique?
      I'm not entirely certain, but as I know it the FILD is meant to be used in circumstances similar to what FAILD is supposed to put you in - that is, extreme sleepfulness (the moments of drowsy half-awakeness between dreams with FILD proper, or the limb-relaxation threshold with FAILD added in). That being the case, I think it's worth a shot, but with anything related to this I can't say for sure yet. But you should try it out!
      Adopted by Richter

    15. #15
      Member luv2dream's Avatar
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      finally I have a chance at getting the timing right with FILD! I'll try and it, i hope it works!

      by the way, lactating billhonkey, your avatar made me laugh out loud! (haha it made me lol)
      Last edited by luv2dream; 06-16-2007 at 03:42 AM.

    16. #16
      No Fate Lunalight's Avatar
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      I tried this last night, but then my hand started to hurt so I stopped. I'll try it again, this time with a little more determination.
      <img src=http://i122.photobucket.com/albums/o242/Yukimor/banner-1.png border=0 alt= />

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    17. #17
      ~Vivid Dreamer~ Vivid's Avatar
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      Great tut. I did try this last night. Let me just say it produced a very vivid dream. I don't know if it was the technique or what but.. thanks for the post.
      Last edited by Vivid; 06-16-2007 at 04:15 AM.
      Quote Originally Posted by SR
      Like the ocean needs the moon to take the tides away; all we need's a little time to chase the blues away.

    18. #18
      :) Man.vs.Mind's Avatar
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      this is how franklin or some other inventor kept himself awake while inventing he had a spoon and held it in his hand above a metal plate and when he was falling asleep the spoon would drop and wake him up and thus telephones were invented
      "Great minds talk about ideas, average minds talk about events, and small minds talk about people.”
      -Eleanor Roosevelt
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    19. #19
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      I tried this again last night and ran into a snag. Like Lunalight mentioned, having my hand bent at 90 degrees does tend to get uncomfortable after a while (I wouldn't say it hurt outright, though) which gets distracting, but what destroyed me last night was trying to keep my arm propped up under a blanket (I sleep in a basement and the air down there is frigid). This makes a tent which I can feel every time my arm moves the slightest bit, long before I'm tired enough to drop it completely, which keeps my attention focused on my arm and makes me unable to fall asleep.

      Hmm... Sleeping with a spoon and a plate sounds more and more appealing. I've gotten pretty used to falling asleep on my back in the past few years but there are still nights where my side just feels better to do it on, for whatever reason - next time that happens I'm going to get out the cutlery.

      Thanks ye folks, for trying this out.
      Adopted by Richter

    20. #20
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      This sounds like it might actually work! I tried to do a WILD twice last night, with no luck because I either couldn't get relaxed enough or would fall into normal sleep. I will definately try this!
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      Do you know the terror of he who falls asleep? To the very toes he is terrified, Because the ground gives the way under him, And the dream begins... - Friedrich Nietzsche

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