(Apologies if this is in the wrong place)

So I'm browsing the lucid dreaming forums, and every once in a while I see a newbie asking about how to lucid dream. And then people tell them about what lucid dreaming is, about how you're aware that you're dreaming, and so on. The next thing these kind teachers always do is start describing reality checks. The OP asks more questions, and before you know it, it's a full-blown DILD tutorial.

Now I can understand why newbies would gravitate towards DILD, and why experienced dreamers would naturally tend to explain DILD before any other technique. It is the easiest to understand, and the technique also helps reinforce the basic concepts underlying lucid dreaming.

BUT, is DILD really a technique that most dreamers use on a regular basis? There may be a poll about this floating around somewhere, but I bet that if you took a poll asking what the most-used technique (or set of techniques) was, the answer would be WILD, not DILD. I'm not even sure that DILD would come second in such a poll.

Indeed, DILD is a horrible technique, in my opinion. I've said this so many times over the years, but it's true: DILD sucks. It's a huge personal commitment to actually pull off, it rarely works, it's unreliable, and it results in lucid dreams that are prone to losing lucidity. The only potentially redeeming quality of DILD is that you don't have to go through SP. But I think anyone who's ever in a lucid dream will end up in SP accidentally anyway. If not on the way in, certainly on the way out.

In fact, if you think about it, DILD inspires a very passive attitude on the part of the dreamer: "I might have a lucid dream tonight I remember to RC in my dreams". Do we want people who are new to lucid dreaming to think that's there so much chance involved? I mean, Compare this to WILD: "I'm going to WILD tomorrow morning at 6:30am, period". No room for random chance. Either you succeed, or you did something wrong. And if you did do something wrong, you're driven to do better next time. With DILD, if it doesn't work, who the hell knows why! It might be you, it might not!

So why aren't we teaching lucid dreaming from the WILD perspective?

In many ways, this DILD/WILD situation is similar to how students of computer science are taught to sort numbers using Bubble Sort before any other sort. And this is despite the fact that Bubble Sort is literally the worst sorting algorithm known to man. But, it illustrates concepts better than something like Quicksort, so it's taught. And then these students are surprised when they discover that there's sorts that don't take polynomial time! And they wonder why their brilliant professors taught them useless Bubble Sort.

/end rant

I'm going to try to add a poll to this.