Draiocht and the wonders of caffeine

Just thought I'd relay my recent experiences with attaining lucidity.

For 13 years I worked to isolate and adjust the variables involved in willfully attaining the lucid dream state. During the winter of 2008-2009 I succeeded in creating a variation on LaBerge's MILD technique that has been the most effective method I've found thus far.

Last winter I was diagnosed with cancer and had to do chemotherapy. During chemotherapy and ever since I've found it very difficult to attain lucidity and my success rate has taken a tumble to say the least. I assume this is because I'm more fatigued and am both having difficulty concentrating and falling asleep too soon. I know I'm falling asleep too soon because my technique is designed to give me feedback. The farther I progress in the technique each time I try it, the more likely I am to have a lucid dream.

I've experimented with small amounts of caffeine in the past as a means of adjusting the balance of alertness, but I never liked the idea of having to rely on a drug, and I was already having great success at any rate. But everything changed when I went on chemo and I was afraid my lucid dream adventures were finished. Recently, I wondered what would happen if I dramatically escalated the dose of caffeine I was taking in my experiments. Initially, I had only been taking 25-75 mg with no noticable improvement in my success rate between the lower and upper ends of this range of dosage, and was afraid to take more for fear that I wouldn't be able to fall asleep.

For the past three nights I've been taking a 100 mg caffeine pill along with a cup of green tea for a total dosage of 125 mg. I've noticed a marked improvement in my ability to concentrate and to avoid falling asleep too soon. And yet I've had no difficulty whatsoever falling asleep as soon as I've completed the exercise. I've had success on each of the three nights I've tried this for a total of four lucid dreams. And I no longer care whether or not I need a drug to consistently attain lucidity. It's well worth the sacrifice.