Am I doing something wrong?

**Alien348** · 03-14-2015 06:08 AM

My last lucid dream was a week ago with WBTB. Since then I have not had any lucid dream and my dream recall has decreased (I do keep a dream journal). I feel I am doing something wrong. I go to sleep between 9PM and 10:30PM and set my alarm to wake me up at 6 hours. When I wake up I sometimes do the SSILD technique and sometimes I just stay awake for 15 minutes for WBTB. I do option 1 about 25% of the time. My strategy is the following:

Wake up later from 6 hours.
Voice-record my dream.

option 1: SSILD (I take from 10-15min). If I succeed, lucid dream. If I don't, its a WBTB and will better my chances in the future.
option 2: WBTB (I remain awake for 15min). If I succeed, lucid dream. If I don't, it will increase my chances in the future.

Go back to sleep.

If I want to WBTB correctly do I really have to stay up from 20min-1hr? Also, I have tried SSILD for about 5 times now and nothing. Could this be a dry spell? or maybe I am just desperate to have another lucid dream.

**dolphin** · 03-14-2015 06:37 AM

The purpose of WBTB with DILD techniques is to wake yourself enough to give yourself time to set a strong intention to lucid dream. It sounds like your WBTB is long enough.

Try doing SSILD or otherwise maintain your intention to lucid dream until you fall asleep. Letting your mind wander as you fall asleep can sometimes impede your in-dream memory you need to lucid dream.

Also, try catching more than one awakening to do your lucid dream induction routine. If you catch 4 more awakenings, you get 4 more chances to lucid dream.

**spellbee2** · 03-14-2015 06:50 AM

It sounds like you're on the right track. 6 hours is a good amount of time to sleep before waking, so you should be primed for WBTB. However, I can offer a couple tips to help improve your WBTB attempts.

First, I'd say a good amount of time to stay awake for WBTB is 30-60 minutes. The longer you stay up, the more likely you will have a WILD or DILD, but it'll also be harder to fall back asleep. I personally try to stay up for 30 minutes, which is usually short enough for me to fall back asleep within 5-10 minutes, often with a WILD.

Second, although getting up and staying awake is important, what you do during your time up is also important. You definitely need to get out of bed - maybe go to the bathroom, or get some water. Some other less important but more helpful things you can do are to read your old dream journal entries (or some online DJs here if you want inspiration), practice visualization, practice reality checks, or set your lucid intentions. You mainly want to put yourself in the mindset that you will have a lucid dream.

As for SSILD, from your post it sounds like you're just waking up and then doing the cycles. From my experience with SSILD, it works best when paired with a full WBTB, and not as a replacement for it. So I'd say trying staying up (and getting up) for about 20-30 minutes at least, and then try SSILD as you fall back asleep.

And as for the dry spell, it is possible that that could be part of your problem, since your recall is decreasing as well. Don't sweat it, though, it'll pass soon enough, especially with constant practice. Just be sure to write down anything you remember upon waking, even if it's just a few words.

**Alien348** · 03-14-2015 03:54 PM

Thanks for replying, very helpful! btw today I had what felt like a 20 minute dream, very vivid and already wrote it all. Seems that my dream recall is getting back