Having trouble with becoming lucid.

Hello, long time reader first time poster. I have been trying to become lucid for a couple of weeks and i feel really impationt:lol:. I can remember about 1 of my dreams every night and have been keeping a dream journal (kinda). I have just started reading EWOLD and its pretty interesting. How can I finally have that breakthrough? I tried MILD but I always ended up thinking of something else. I am a little scared of doing WILD because of sleep paralysis, and DILD just isn't happening for me. I can remember my dreams pretty well. Help!!

Hi spanky and :welcome: kind of.

One of the best tips I can give you is not to want it too much. If you do then you most likely will end up over-excited and scare sleep away, then you'll wake up the next morning very tired. Just try to chill a bit and maybe not try everyday, and as counter-intuitive as it sounds, its more likely to happen. Of course, I can't guarantee results either way, as in the end it comes down to a personal variable. For instance, I tried for about a month straight with no success, but then when I took a break and tried a lot more casually, boom. Lucid on my first try.

As for techniques, DILD is probably the best (again, I can give no guarantee as it is also personal). Give it time, do constant reality checks and ease up on the gas, don't burn yourself out. MILD has also given me personally positive results. Again, if you find your mind straying because of over-excitement, your chances are cut down, as relaxation plays a huge role in sleeping and proper dreaming.

Best of luck, and if you ever need any advice or help, feel free to shoot me a PM or ask me directly :)

Keep a dream journal and be as detailed about everything as you can, including both description of things and descriptions of events.

Welcome from me as well! I'm also working toward lucidity, for 2 months so far. As posted above, try not to stress about it. I've maintained sort of a calm form of excitement, a strictly positive feeling. Incorporate awareness into your waking life to ultimately carry it over into your dreams (see Rathez's "Awareness" thread in this subforum). Also see "Puffin's DILD Guide" if you haven't already. I personally enjoy daydreaming about what I'd like to do when I'm lucid... it's a lot of fun, and it keeps your intention in your thoughts. Just think of how happy you'll be when you get there.

Since you mentioned fearing the SP part of WILDing, I just wanted to encourage you not to try not to let it deter you -- should you ever want to try it. Although my goal has mostly been to DILD, just a few days ago I had a near-successful WILD attempt, and I found my personal sleep paralysis to be very mild -- though it varies greatly among people, for me it was just a rapid heartbeat and some shortness of breath, plus the common heaviness. True, I've read posts by others about creepy SP experiences that nearly made me fall out of my chair, and you probably have too. But I figure, if it's all that stands between me and a potential lucid dream, and since hallucinations aren't real anyway, I say go for it. (Not that you have to, I'm just trying to be encouraging...)

Best of luck!

Agree with all the of the above. I might also suggest exploring other topics related to lucid dreaming. Examples would be dream interpretation, the science of sleep, psychology, meditation, trance, hypnosis, relaxation techniques, visualization techniques, neuro-linguistic programming. Also various "beyond dreaming" topics like shared dreaming, precognition, astral projection, shamanism. This will provide an outlet for your energy and your desire to learn and make progress. Many of these can also strengthen your LD practices.

Keep a dream journal, don't slack off for even a day. Do reality checks, and very importantly be enthusiastic yet not overly so about gaining a lucid dream. Being to excited acts almost like reverse-psychology with your brain, and it won't give you one, but if you aren't enthusiastic at all it also won't give you one. (Not often anyway) Patience is key, it took me just over a year to have my first, which happened the exact same day I finally decided to give up. So sometimes if you are pushing for it too hard, the best thing you can do is just forget about lucid dreams for a week, then come back to it when you are refreshed.

Anyway, welcome to the forums, and I wish you luck!

Thank you for all of your replies. Last night I had a dream where I had a WILD. It was pretty weird because I went through sleep paralysis and then fell through my bed, and then I woke up from that dream. I started keeping a dream journal, and now I'm remembering 3 or 4 dreams instead of just one. Thanks again for all of your encouragement. It's going to happen for me!

Thank you, all of the stories showed that the first time it happened it was scary, but then it got better as they went on. I'm still a little uncomfortable, but I hear that doing it during a nap in the morning is a little less scary because there is light.

My advise for someone who has trouble attaining lucidity is to try to think visually before drifting off to sleep. Put on some soft music and imagine watching the orchestra from the audience or imagine an ice skater moving with the music. What this visualization is doing is prepping your secondary visual cortices in your occipital lobe of your brain. This is the same area of the brain that is active in dreaming. In a sense, you are priming the pump to dreamland.