Senses Initiated Lucid Dream (SSILD)

I tried again last night, I went to bed at midnight and I set my alarm clock at 5:30. I fell asleep in 30 minutes or something trying to do a MILD, when I woke up at 5:30 I stayed in my bed and I started the SSILD I think I still doing it wrong because it takes me 1 hour to fall asleep again but I did a FA and I didn't do any RCs during it :(

The worst part is that during my FA my mom came into my bedroom and give me a phone but it was my previous phone and I said "It's not my phone ?!" She looked at me like I was crazy and I said "Oh sorry I forgot it was this one".

When I woke up this morning I was a little sad but I'm happy because I succeeded having a FA and I questioned reality even if I didn't get lucid :)

But I'm still wondering why I can't fall asleep faster after a WBTB, if you have any idea let me know :)

^Yes, very realistic scenarios can pop up in FA's making them more of a challenge to catch. That is good progress to have had enough awareness to question the phone that she was giving you. Don't forget that you could also get a FA of something with nothing questionable in it so it is a great habit to always RC when waking up, but one thing at a time for now perhaps. I would say you are getting closer! When you first go to bed MILD is less effective but if you are going to do it, and 30 minutes to fall asleep is long for you, you might want to do MILD before lying down for the first time of the night. As for SSILD at WBTB, some people find that it keeps them awake, some find that the feeling of being awake is actually a dream of lying in bed trying to get to sleep (me last night! but I caught it when I heard myself snoring!) so motionless RC's are great for testing for that, and some find that it relaxes them to sleep quickly. When I started 3 years ago I thought I was also having trouble going to sleep and saved my attempts for the weekend or anytime I could sleep in but *the great news is* the longer it seemed I was trying to get to sleep, the better my chances of having an LD! Keep it up, even if only on the weekends! :)

I'll try to do MILD before going to bed it seems to be a good idea and about the SSILD I knew that it induces a lot of FAs but RCs are not a habit yet I guess and maybe I was already dreaming while I thought I was doing SSILD I'm not sure because I was pinching my nose time to time but I should try motionless RCs, by the way which RCs are you doing ?

The most common RC's are motion based and thus could delay onset of sleep. If I am not in bed, my current RC is counting fingers, but your nose pinch RC is a great one! It is always good to have a back up RC though in case the nose pinch tells you that you're awake, double check with a 2nd RC, you might be surprised! If I am in bed, I like trying to see through my closed eyelids, floating up off the bed, focusing on any odd feeling in my eyes, or a glottal check (I do a glottal click and occasionally it will sound weird and I know I must be dreaming). I think we are still on topic enough since this is regarding getting SSILD to work for you but if you want to create a workbook for tracking your progress and getting assistance, I encourage you to start a workbook here: DILD where myself and FryingMan help or if you prefer here: Intro Class where you would also be in very good hands. Also, see the 1st link in my signature if you haven't!

I'm doing 2 differents RCs pinching my nose and looking at my hands and I don't really understand what you're doing in bed (sorry about that I'm French and my English is pretty basic) ^^
I tried to post a Workbook but I'm a member only for 2 days right now so I'll post tomorrow :)

I'll be adding this to my WBTB routine as an addition to what i'm already practicing. Based on how successful people seem to be, this should work for me just fine.

I think I will be trying this tonight :)! I just decided to get back into lucid dreaming and was planning on building up my recall before attempting any techniques with WBTB, but what the hell, got nothing to lose.

Hello everyone!

First let me say that it had been well over a year since my last lucid dream. I had just fallen out of the routine, life got in the way, I stopped recording dreams and doing WBTBs altogether. During the past few days I had been wanting to get back into lucid dreaming. Yesterday marked my first recorded dream since last year (I should note, last year I also only got into lucid dreaming for the month of march, and 2012-2014 I wasn't much into it). An old friend of mine from this forum, MadMonkey, mentioned SSILD and I looked into it. I am familiar with the way it works as that's how most of my WILDs used to be, but this tutorial gave it much more structure (I read the tutorial that was attached in a link on the first post). So, last night I went to bed a bit late, but I still put a WBTB alarm for 4.25 hours after going to bed. Here is the non-dream portion I wrote on my DJ:

Spoiler for WBTB:

I woke up 4.25 hours after going to bed. I remembered right away that it was time to attempt SSILD; I got out of bed and felt extremely tired. I stayed inside my room, just walking around and staring at things. After 5 minutes I went back to bed and laid on my back. I did 4 shorts cycles, but kept getting distracted by toughts; instead of worrying about these thoughts I just let them pass by and got back to the cycles. Then I started doing the long cycles, I probably went through 1 or 2 until I noticed I was falling asleep. I switched positions to my sleeping position (laying on my stomach) and focused on hearing my sleep fan. I don't know how much time passed or whether I fell asleep and then woke up, but I started hearing the buzzing that I am all too familiar with from my WILD experiences. I started feeling the tingling in my legs, and the sound coming and going. I waited a minute or so, and then stood up from my bed.

That's how most of my WILDs start; I stand up from my bed and perform a RC. I usually fly out the window of my bedroom but this time I just exited though the door :).
I will attempt this again tomorrow morning!

^ Another SSILD success story! Nice job! I have been using it for over 3 years and it is what I used on most of my lucid nights. I usually fall asleep and get a DILD, though it has also given me some WILDs.

Thanks! I have been trying it every day, these past couple of days I haven't been able to make it through the 4 quick cycles before falling asleep, so I need to figure out a way to wake myself up a bit more. I am aware that SSILD results mostly in DILDs, but it is very similar to the way I used to do WILD back when I was a regular lucid dreamer so I'm interested to see if it gives me more WILDs as opposed to DILDs.

I keep struggling to stay awake though the first couple of minutes after going back to bed, but a few days ago I did manage to find myself semi lucid after falling asleep during SSILD. This morning I had a WILD during SSILD :). I will keep experimenting with waking myself up a bit more, staying awake longer, etc and see what works best for me. So far, 3 LDs in week and a half thanks to SSILD!

Performed SSILD during a morning nap. It was weird because I was having intense hypnagogic images which were distracting at times. I continued doing the SSILD cycles; coming back to a step if I found my mind wandering away. I didn't count the amount of time spent on each sense. I just gently did a sense until I felt it was enough and moved on to another sense.

When I fell asleep afterwards, I had a vivid dream which ended into a false awakening. I did a reality check to become lucid and completed a dream-task that I had set out to do the night before in its entirety.

SUCCESS!!

Is there any suggestion or help for someone who is doing SSILD, can tell the technique is working, but then nothing happens afterwards?

Ive been trying SSILD after about 4-5 hours of sleep. A few cycles into the slow cycle and I can begin to feel hypnagogia kick in. I begin to get flashes of images, my body begins to feel heavy like its sinking through the bed, I cant sometimes hear buzzing noises. I keep a light focus on doing the cycles and allow the other sensations to come and go (like one would with random thoughts during meditation). Eventually during one of the slower cycles I will fall asleep. Then... nothing. I just wake up in the morning.

I have never gotten a result of entering the dream already lucid, never experienced a DILD, never even gotten a FA (i reality check everytime I wake up in the night and morning regardless of technique I use).

I can tell the technique is doing something due to all the sensations and feelings Im getting while practicing it, however after i fall asleep all I do is dream. So ive just been plugging along, sticking to only SSILD, keeping my dream journal, but i dont appear to be making any progress to actually having a LD.

Any suggestions?

I'll see if I can assist. How many attempts have you made using SSILD? What specifically do you focus on for the 3 senses? What are your day practices like?

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Originally Posted by fogelbise

I'll see if I can assist. How many attempts have you made using SSILD? What specifically do you focus on for the 3 senses? What are your day practices like?

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I have been using SSILD for 1.5 months now. When doing the cycles I do the following. For eyes I just gently watch the black space behind my eyelids with my eyes in a relaxed position, sometimes I begin to see patterns and shapes, but I just allow them to come and go without giving them too much attentions. For ears, I focus on the sounds of the room, my breathing, and hearing my heartbeat. For body I just become aware of my body, relaxing any tension, and feeling my limbs get heavy.

My daily practices are keeping a dream journal, Doing various RC's through out the day (hand check, breathing with nose pinched, etc), I also during the day do about 30 minutes of mindfullnes meditation (practicing Buddhist), as well as try to make mindfulness my main waking goal each day.

Im pretty sure I am getting the SSILD technique right, as each night when I try it after waking 4-5 hours after going to sleep, I can definitly feel myself enter into a state of hypnagogia. But thats where it ends. Eventually doing the cycles over and over I doze off, then wake up in the morning and record my dreams. I have not yet had a LD (ive actually never had a LD yet, even after 6 months of practicing various techniques), also never had a FA yet.

Thanks for taking time to help me.

I have a couple of ideas that I think will help based upon what you wrote and my experiences. I use SSILD and a variations of it primarily intending to DILD though I sometimes use it to WILD, so that DILD focus may come through in my suggestions. Some of this will break from the standard instructions, which it sounds like you are doing correctly, so I think it is time to change up something - assuming you haven't only made 6 attempts or so in the 1.5 months (1 per week for example). I will give you 3 levels of deviation from the SSILD technique.

If you want to stick more to the original technique: since you fall asleep doing the cycles you could try doing less of the "relaxing tensions" and maybe also just focus on one point of your body. Alternatively you can try staying up a little longer as the only change or add it to the above suggestion. (How long do you get up from bed and what do you do?) SSILD seems to work better for some people when they are almost having trouble getting to sleep but eventually do.

To try something a little different with the cycles: you can do what I started doing a good while back by combining the cycles into each breath. Vision while breathing in, auditory at the top of the breath, and body while breathing out. (I just focus on the slight feeling in my sternum that seems to be tied to breathing).

Or to try something quite a bit different: When you start getting HH's, do some basic MILD and then doze off. The basic MILD I am thinking of is: Envision a vivid dream from that night or a recent night and imagine becoming lucid in it and all of the interesting things that you would do while lucid. I think that the MILD has a better chance of making it into the dream and helping you to become lucid when it is done closer to REM like at the HH stage.

You can do it! :)

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Originally Posted by fogelbise

You can do it! :)

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Thank you for the suggestions. I will definitely give those a try. I like your suggestion of moving through all the cycles in a pattern of 1 breath. I will have be trying that tonight.

Thank you for trying to help me. I will report back with what seems to be working or not. Hopefully this will be what I need to push me that extra inch to get lucid. :thanks:

Well I tried again last night after a WBTB. I got through about 5 cycles trying it the modified way with cycling per breathe before the hypnagogic sensations came on strong. It felt like I was floating and spinning in my bed. But it never got further than that. I tried a few motionless RC's but found I was still awake. This continued for a while till I feel asleep.

When I woke up again an hour later I tried SSILD again but this time tried MILD when I got the HH, but did not get lucid. However my normal dreams were very vivid and more clear.

I'm also having problems with SSILD....and any other form of LD induction for that matter. I haven't had one since I was a kid. I've been focusing on SSILD for about a week now and I can't seem to figure out what I'm waiting for. I wake up after about five hours of sleep and have tried both just a quick trip to the bathroom and staying up for 5-10 minutes before laying back down. I see tons of HH which i try not to focus on. I hear a very high pitched tone in my ears (almost like a dog whistle) that seems to stimulate an almost dizziness in my head, and I get vibrations from my toes to just above my knees, from my fingers to my biceps, and in my sternum just below where my heart would be.....and nothing ever happens. I either eventually fall asleep and wake up in the morning with some ok vivid dreams for my journal, or I never fall asleep and wake up exhausted for the rest of the day. Never had an OBE, never had an FA. It's starting to feel like somebody is playing a sick joke on me. Sometimes I feel like I'm just about to pass through, but my eyes start vibrating as well, almost like they're moving REM style, but again, nothing ever happens. The entire sensation fades away and I fall asleep or I try to hang onto it like the original post says, and I just have a last few hours of no sleep and no dreams. I'm going to try the method mentioned above, incorporating the steps into a single breath, but can anybody analyze this and point out what I'm doing wrong here? I've been trying to become lucid for close to a year now with just one little two second blip of a DILD that was pure coincidence. My motivation is the possibility that one night I'll get the chance to speak with my deceased daughter, even if it is only a figment of my subconscious. Please help!

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Originally Posted by sreed628

I'm also having problems with SSILD....and any other form of LD induction for that matter. I haven't had one since I was a kid. I've been focusing on SSILD for about a week now and I can't seem to figure out what I'm waiting for. I wake up after about five hours of sleep and have tried both just a quick trip to the bathroom and staying up for 5-10 minutes before laying back down. I see tons of HH which i try not to focus on. I hear a very high pitched tone in my ears (almost like a dog whistle) that seems to stimulate an almost dizziness in my head, and I get vibrations from my toes to just above my knees, from my fingers to my biceps, and in my sternum just below where my heart would be.....and nothing ever happens. I either eventually fall asleep and wake up in the morning with some ok vivid dreams for my journal, or I never fall asleep and wake up exhausted for the rest of the day. Never had an OBE, never had an FA. It's starting to feel like somebody is playing a sick joke on me. Sometimes I feel like I'm just about to pass through, but my eyes start vibrating as well, almost like they're moving REM style, but again, nothing ever happens. The entire sensation fades away and I fall asleep or I try to hang onto it like the original post says, and I just have a last few hours of no sleep and no dreams. I'm going to try the method mentioned above, incorporating the steps into a single breath, but can anybody analyze this and point out what I'm doing wrong here? I've been trying to become lucid for close to a year now with just one little two second blip of a DILD that was pure coincidence. My motivation is the possibility that one night I'll get the chance to speak with my deceased daughter, even if it is only a figment of my subconscious. Please help!

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So sorry to hear about your daughter :(. Sometimes when you put too much energy and thought towards lucid dreaming, you set yourself up for failure. Most of my dryspells start with me trying too hard. It is only when I relax a bit (e.g. stop writing dreams for a few nights, stop setting WBTB alarms, stop spending hours on DV) that I can usually break my dryspells. As for failing with SSILD, and/or any kind of WILD/DILD coupled with WBTB, it's a matter of trying different things and finally finding something that works for you. I personally have never had "ambiguous" vibrations/HHs during a WBTB. For me, it's always 100% clear that I have hit SP (or HH, depending on who you ask), and for me it's just a matter of waiting a minute and then standing up (which always ends up resulting in me standing up in my dream bed). Everyone's experiences are different, but I would suggest trying mantras during your WBTB, and find a way to not wake yourself up too much. You should't have a hard time going back to sleep after a WBTB, although it is not uncommon. Also, if I may, try looking into DEILD. I found that to be the easiest method when I first got into lucid dreaming. And try being "aware" during your day. Stop a few times a day to ask yourself whether this could be a dream; do you remember how you get there? Does your context make sense? Do a RC. You get the idea, practicing that can make you be more aware during your dreams, and possibly leading to random DILDs

Thanks Andres! I've been incorporating rc's into my daily routine more and more. My favorite is to look at my left hand and really become aware of my calluses that firm just below my wedding ring. I get to a point in my technique where I think I might be lucid, but I'm to afraid to just "stand up" because if I'm not, then I have to start all over again. I'm clueless as to what sp actually feels like. I get completely numb, but never to a point where I couldn't move if I wanted to. I think my main problem is just that I haven't become lucid yet and so I just don't know what it is or how to identify it or even if I'm on the right track. I'm hoping that just tons of repetition will eventually pay off. I'm the kind of person that once I've done something one time, I can do it again the next time easily, but I just need that once.

SP and HH usually go hand in hand. I almost use them interchangeably, but HH describes my WILDing experiences more accurately, and they usually mark my transition to dreaming. Numbness itself is not quite SP nor HH I believe. I think you are taking the right steps, but might me worrying too much about it to the point where it hinders your ability to LD, whether through DILD or WILD. I would suggest giving yourself a small break, think a week or so, of no WBTB alarms or dream journaling (don't worry, you will get your recall back right away once you start recording them again). That's my suggestion, but feel free to not take it. Good luck!

@Rendar - It sounds like you are making some nice progress from your post in another thread and I think that you had two lucid moments that night based on what I read there! Sageous gave you some excellent advice and if you decide to take his suggestion of going the DILD route, you (and anyone reading this) are more than welcome to start a DILD workbook. FryingMan (mentioned by Sageous in that thread) and myself help run the DILD workbooks.

Its so good to be surfing the net and find a resource one has never seen before. This forum thread is great. I am an active ld and obe practitioner for many years. I am inclined to do this during the night as I awake a few times and can go to sleep or WILD if I want. However this seems like a gentle back to sleep inducement method that may be easer or more interesting to experience. The trick seems to be cycling the see, hear, feel without any other practice and ease into the WILD or ld once asleep. I can DILD as well so lets see if this is any different, easier or more interesting.

Had the first LD in a While thanks to the SSILD, my last one was 10 months ago, I left the LD away for a long time but I'm back on it since 10 days ago.

I usually use SSILD to fall asleep when I have an insomnia.
Generally my insomnia are near the beginning of the night, or near the middle, so they are never just followed by some REM sleep.
Hence, SSILD never induces a LD, but this night I was doing it after 6 h of sleep.
This insomnia lasted about 50 min, I struggled against the envy of get out of bed, and tried several times SSILD without being able to go back to sleep until I try something slightly different:

Instead of focusing on each sense during two breathing (which makes about 15 secs) I made it last 4 breathing for each sens.
I didn't wait long before falling asleep, and then, the dream was just at its beginning I just realize I'm dreaming, without any particular reason.
I opened the window of this unknown hostel and flew in the air. wow , I missed this feeling.

That's the way SSILD made me be lucid in the past : you become lucid for no reason, there is just this moment you know you are dreaming.