Thread: Self Awareness + Senses Initiated LD - 1 Month Test

Hi,

First of all thank you for all the info you gave me by sharing your experience and knowledge.
I'm still in the process of learning to achieve lucidity.
I wanna start giving something back to the community by doing a 1 month test of what I think are the techniques most suited to me to gauge their effectiveness and finally start to obtain some consistent result. If I see some positive effects, I'll continue the test; otherwise I'll change the techniques used.

What I'll be doing:
- Daytime Self-Awareness
- Visualization practice during the day
- SSILD during night awakenings (active imagination or passive awareness according to level of wakefulness)
- Dream recall in the morning (writing down only LDs)

p.s. I'll try to achieve night-time awakenings without alarm, with a little meditation before sleep.

Every suggestion, question and criticism will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance!

One thing that *I think* you should change is only writing down LDs. I don't know you as of right now, so I do not know your recall capabilities and so on, but either way it seems that you should write down all your dreams(to find dream signs, etc.)

Best,
glen

Originally Posted by glen

One thing that *I think* you should change is only writing down LDs. I don't know you as of right now, so I do not know your recall capabilities and so on, but either way it seems that you should write down all your dreams(to find dream signs, etc.)

Best,
glen

Hi Gurdjeff, It will be interesting to see what you come up with. Welcome to Dream Views[ please start a thread in the intro section telling us a little about you. The very first thing I thought matches Glen's comment. I have been at this for 30 years, yet if I do not work on recall I loose it. In fact, I go in and out of good practice. Because I have not been working it I forget my lucid dreams. I have trouble remembering more than flashes. The way I fix that when I am motivated is to work on recall of what ever dream I was having just before waking. It does not have to be lucid or I would have few to record, due to recent slacking off. I would write down or record a few key words as soon as you wake up. Later in the morning look at those words and try to remember any more details. It is something you can work on every day and perhaps a few dreams every day.

Bedtime: 11pm
A little meditation.
Natural awakening: 6 am.
Complete SSILD cycles.
Borderline between sleep and wakefulness until 7 am alarm (passive awareness, but couldn't properly fall asleep).
A few NLDs fragments recalled (thanks for the suggestion, I'll register also normal dreams with key words).

1st night LDs: 0
Total: 0

Bedtime: 11:30 pm
SSILD Meditation before bed, reaching a state of light trance
Natural awakening at 3 am, but fell asleep without doing the cycles (I should put myself in uncomfortable position at the beginning).
Result: vivid and long NLD recall for my standard, with a few extra fragments. Strong presence felt during the dream, albeit never lucid.
Awoke at 7 am alarm with pleasant tingling across the body. I feel that with a little extra time I would have become lucid.
Fired up for next night!

2nd Night LDs: 0
Total: 0

Same as yesterday.
I have to wake up a little bit more during night awakenings.

Any tips?

3rd Night LDs: 0
Total: 0

Hi Gurdjieff, when you have a natural awakening in the morning (or anytime during the night) why not remain dead still and perform DEILD?

Makes sense. I'll try to enter the dream immediately upon awakening and perform SSILD cycles if attempt fails.
Still going to mantain the sensory meditation before sleep in order to enhance awareness and prompt more conscious awakenings.

Updated practice routine:

- Daytime Self-Awareness
- Visualization practice during the day
- Meditation + MILD before bed
- Natural night awakenings: try immediate dream entering; if it fails, sensory meditation (SSILD).
- Dream recall in the morning

I'll keep this routine consistent and write again only after first success.

Success this morning!
Just a semi-lucid of a few seconds, which for many of you will seem like nothing, but for me it's very important as I broke a dryspell of two months.
The main thing I changed is having upped the quality and quantity of meditation before bed, even without waking up during the night, and keeping a consistent routine of DJ in the morning. I hope I have found what works for me and that by keeping it consistent I will be able to increase the frequency.
The goal now - in these remaining days of January - is to beat the previous record of 3 LDs in a month.

19th Night LDs: 1
Total: 1

After one year in which for various reasons I didn't do consistent daily practice, becoming lucid only sporadically as a result (more or less one time per month for just a few seconds), I'm now back at it!
To come back to a consistent practice, I'll do this simplified routine:

- Self-Awareness practice during the day
- SSILD meditation before bed and on night awakenings
- Dream journal in the morning (only key words for NLDs)

Last night this brought me a lucid of a few seconds, which for me it's still an important achievement.
The goal is to progressively increase my awareness in the dream realm with the final objective of becoming lucid at least one time every night.

Originally Posted by Gurdjieff

After one year in which for various reasons I didn't do consistent daily practice, becoming lucid only sporadically as a result (more or less one time per month for just a few seconds), I'm now back at it!
To come back to a consistent practice, I'll do this simplified routine:

- Self-Awareness practice during the day
- SSILD meditation before bed and on night awakenings
- Dream journal in the morning (only key words for NLDs)

Last night this brought me a lucid of a few seconds, which for me it's still an important achievement.
The goal is to progressively increase my awareness in the dream realm with the final objective of becoming lucid at least one time every night.

Hi Gurdjieff - im going to give you a really good piece of advice - read Michael Radugas book 'The Phase' which is a practical no nonsence guide to DEILD. In fact the SSILD technique is based out of that very book (whatever the 'creator' of SSILD like to think)

Dont read the free version - buy the paperback - it will really help you. Something that may change things around for you also is to WBTB after 4-6 hours as this will make sleep lighter and you may notice more nighttime awakenings.

I have mostly worked on MILD and would like to DEILD, but it seems to be at the cost of not remembering non-LDs as much. Is there a good way around this?

And that book, The Phase, sounds interesting, ezzolucid. I'll have to put that on my reading list.

Hey, Gurdjieff, .....I have been doing something similar with very good results. I do SSILD at bed time sitting up (and I don´t agree with ezzolucid that cosmic.iron copied the technique from Raduga), hearing my own recording guiding me through the cycles. This for some reason causes me to wake up during the night after dreams, at the end of sleep cycles. At one of those wake ups, usually around 5 hours later I do WBTB and sit up to meditate this way: I do 20 minutes of focusing on breath, then I do SSILD again, all sitting up. Then I go back to bed with the intention to WILD by focusing on just falling asleep with a mental anchor like a mantra. Since I started this routine 8 days ago I have had 8 days in a row of stuff happening: 1 almost WILD and a mix of DILDs, DEILDs and OBE experiences. Most pretty short lived and not high level lucidity, though. Routine:

- SSILD guided recording at bedtime sitting up
(if wake up after sleep cycles, just recall dreams and sleep again)
- WBTB at around 5 hours, sit up (might go to bathroom)
- Meditate 20 minutes sitting up
- SSILD guided recording sitting up
- WILD with focus on falling asleep with anchor