Thread: PAT - Planning Ahead Technique

PAT - Planning Ahead Technique

This technique hasn't been tested fully yet. And should not be tested by people who are new to Lucid Dreaming. Please read through the entire post before posting any insults or anything that doesn't contribute to the Dream Views society.

This is not a main technique by itself, but is rather a different way of going at it. I haven't seen anyone mentioning this technique much before and I probably know the reasons for it. It goes against a few fundamental rules of how MILD works for example, but the more I practiced Lucid Dreaming, the more I noticed that I really didn't have a choice other than to use this kind of technique, because that's basicly what my life situation allows.

How does it work?

After practicing MILD constantly for a few months, I barely had any LD's during the weekdays. The Lucid Dreams only seemed to come on weekends despite my efforts. I realized this wasn't because of my lack of skills in MILD'ing, but because I simply didn't get enough sleep.

PAT is short for Planning Ahead Technique and that's exactly what you do. How many of you can truthfully claim to be able to sleep enough hours each night to be able to achieve lucidity? I can't. Unless I want to totally skip my social life and get a girlfriend in the dreamworld instead, I can't get more than 6-7 hours of sleep each night. I'll be lucky to get a dream or two.

What I did was to set up a few days during the week, days I knew I could sleep in on the day after. During the day, I focused on Lucid Dreaming extra hard. I did RC's, visualized and daydreamed as much as I could, when going to bed that night, I knew I would definitely get lucid. It was my "Lucidity Day" after all.

Set up a few days during the week which you treat as special days. The more special you treat these days, the higher chance of you achieving lucidity. It's very important to believe in yourself and those days. Days that aren't special, are used as preparation days. You prepare yourself for the lucidity day (or even take a day off and relax) and visualize as much as you can.

Not only days are important to plan ahead, but also tasks. Visualizing achieving them and getting those butterflies going is key. That, combined with the knowledge that you're soon about to achieve them because a special day is coming up, makes your chances of achieving lucidity go way up.

This technique is very effective when using the main techniques DILD and MILD combined. WBTB makes it even more effective and REM rebound is another thing you can do to make it work even better. It's all about belief and how much effort you've put into it and "prepared" for the upcoming night or day. Preparing more than two days ahead is not adviced. A failure after that much preparations can get anyone down.

Try to sleep as much as possible for maximum effect on those days. I always go to bed early if it's during the weekday and sleep in on weekends.

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This technique is not for everyone. You can get lucid each and every night of the week. It's more of a "last resort" kind of technique and should only be used by people who fits any of the following:

- Can't recall much when slept as much as ones life situation allows despite increase in overall recall.

- Have tried everything and really needs to achieve lucidity, no matter what.

- Are very lazy or have no problems getting lucid only a few times a week.

- Can take a failure and shrug it off.

The last line is very important and is a must for EVERYONE who tries this out. This technique basicly limits you to a few days each week you get lucid on (by will, not counting DILD) and if you fail, you might get very disheartened and perhaps even discouraged to go on.

A con with this technique is that if you rely too heavily on it, you might have trouble getting lucid by will on other days other than the special days you've set up. I have three days that I would consider special, but that's enough for me.


What I want from you!

Is feedback! Try this technique out. It's been working great for me and I almost always achieve lucidity on Saturday mornings. This technique will probably be frowned upon by some and not approved by others, but it's been working for me, so I want to know if it works for you too.

If you have any questions, feel free to post them. I'm sure something's been left out or not explained well enough. I also want results from anyone who decides to give this a try.

Keep on dreaming!