DEILD Difficulty - Returning to Lucid Dreaming

Hello Dreamviews,

I am eagerly returning to lucid dreaming after a hiatus of roughly five years, during which for whatever reason my practice fell by the wayside. I am trying to perfect DEILD, but am unfortunately experiencing some difficulties, and am hoping to get some advice. Through autosuggestion/repetition, I am increasingly able to wake up from a non-lucid dream (no alarm) with my eyes closed and while remaining motionless.

However, I find that when I have the goal of lucid dreaming, my mind is too active and I cannot fall asleep. The times when I have been relaxed enough for something to start happening (vibrations), I focus too closely on it, get too excited, and then the experience stops. How can I overcome this? It seems like you have to navigate this frustrating paradox of trying while not trying. How much awareness is really required during DEILD to avoid slipping into a non-lucid dream? How do you hit that sweet spot of being conscious enough, but not too aware?

Thank you,
McDreamy

Welcome back! :D

Very good question.

Personally the way I combat this is, I've built up a recognition for that excitedness. Whenever I feel that familiar excitement, I automatically calm myself down.
In waking life, the common way to calm down is to stop and breath. But here, it's really subtle, you're not really stopping anything, and you don't want to change your breathing pattern.
Instead, you continue with the transition but "let go" of the excitement. To me, the excitement feels kinda like tensing the muscles in my brain. It's like something in my mind "grips on" to something. The idea here is to let go of that grip.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by McDreamy

Hello Dreamviews,

I am eagerly returning to lucid dreaming after a hiatus of roughly five years, during which for whatever reason my practice fell by the wayside. I am trying to perfect DEILD, but am unfortunately experiencing some difficulties, and am hoping to get some advice. Through autosuggestion/repetition, I am increasingly able to wake up from a non-lucid dream (no alarm) with my eyes closed and while remaining motionless.

However, I find that when I have the goal of lucid dreaming, my mind is too active and I cannot fall asleep. The times when I have been relaxed enough for something to start happening (vibrations), I focus too closely on it, get too excited, and then the experience stops. How can I overcome this? It seems like you have to navigate this frustrating paradox of trying while not trying. How much awareness is really required during DEILD to avoid slipping into a non-lucid dream? How do you hit that sweet spot of being conscious enough, but not too aware?

Thank you,
McDreamy

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Those vibrations are you transitioning from the wakefull state into rem sleep. Once you are in REM the vibrations will stop. All you need to do is get out of bed

Thanks for the replies! I will keep in mind that after feeling the vibrations, there is a chance I am already asleep.

Slash, I kind of get what you're saying but it sounds like it's the sort of thing I will have to experiment with. Hopefully after enough repetition it will become less exciting as well.

I was wondering: should my goal be to hold onto a slight bit of consciousness while falling asleep, then come what may? Or, should I actively be trying to form the dream through imagining my previous one, and then "enter" it?

Last night I was laying in bed after waking up again, and tried the former without any success. I am finding that when I try imagining the dream I just came from, nothing happens either. But at least I woke up last night feeling groggy enough to almost doze off. Most of my attempts so far have been waking up with my eyes closed, but too alert.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by McDreamy

I was wondering: should my goal be to hold onto a slight bit of consciousness while falling asleep, then come what may? Or, should I actively be trying to form the dream through imagining my previous one, and then "enter" it?

Last night I was laying in bed after waking up again, and tried the former without any success. I am finding that when I try imagining the dream I just came from, nothing happens either. But at least I woke up last night feeling groggy enough to almost doze off. Most of my attempts so far have been waking up with my eyes closed, but too alert.

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Hi McDreamy, sometimes its hard to help people as they are usually not prepared to listen to great advice, they say you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink. The following advice will get you lucid dreaming on a regular basis. Go and buy Michael Radugas book 'The phase' and read it cover to cover. Id you do this then you will be able to successfully DEILD most nights. If you have not ordered the book within an hour then its unlikely you can be helped :-)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by McDreamy

I was wondering: should my goal be to hold onto a slight bit of consciousness while falling asleep, then come what may? Or, should I actively be trying to form the dream through imagining my previous one, and then "enter" it?

Last night I was laying in bed after waking up again, and tried the former without any success. I am finding that when I try imagining the dream I just came from, nothing happens either. But at least I woke up last night feeling groggy enough to almost doze off. Most of my attempts so far have been waking up with my eyes closed, but too alert.

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I think that DEILD will come to you in time, like it did to me. I just gradually got the hang of it through repeated experiences. Like you are describing, I got vibrations, got SP, had to go through it, mess it up, whatever and eventually it started to click.

I don't know if anyone can expect to 100% control DEILD but I think over time the likelihood increases. So just be patient with it and it will come.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ezzolucid

Hi McDreamy, sometimes its hard to help people as they are usually not prepared to listen to great advice, they say you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it drink. The following advice will get you lucid dreaming on a regular basis. Go and buy Michael Radugas book 'The phase' and read it cover to cover. Id you do this then you will be able to successfully DEILD most nights. If you have not ordered the book within an hour then its unlikely you can be helped :-)

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Thanks for mentioning this fellow. He has a great YT channel.

https://www.youtube.com/user/OutOfBodyTraveler

I am sure that the OP can still be helped with or without this, because there are lots of paths that all work just fine. But it is definitely one great resource among many. And if you hadn't posted it, I would have never known! So, thanks.

EDIT: He also generously put the old version of his E-book online for free:

http://obe4u.com/files/the_phase.pdf

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Charles3

I think that DEILD will come to you in time, like it did to me. I just gradually got the hang of it through repeated experiences. Like you are describing, I got vibrations, got SP, had to go through it, mess it up, whatever and eventually it started to click.

I don't know if anyone can expect to 100% control DEILD but I think over time the likelihood increases. So just be patient with it and it will come.

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Thanks Charles for the encouragement! I am already noticing some improvements with regards to my initial problem, so I am sure that my first actual DEILD will happen soon. Will check out the youtube channel as well.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by McDreamy

Thanks Charles for the encouragement! I am already noticing some improvements with regards to my initial problem, so I am sure that my first actual DEILD will happen soon. Will check out the youtube channel as well.

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I was trying to think of when I got my first DEILDs. For one, listening to lots of youtube tutorials over and over might help, because thats basically what I did. Even if they say the same thing over and over, it sometimes helps to hear it in different words and such. There are probably at least 50 DEILD tutorials on youtube by various lucid dreamers.

In my actual experience of it, it was almost by accident. I would be laying there, thinking through a dream, when another would begin. I'd wake up from that, try to remember it, and then, another dream! Sometimes they would go on and on. So far I can't really control it, it is more when the timing is right. Although I study a lot, I think the study is more just to be aware of whats happening, as the things seem more to happen on their own.

I guess the DEILD is a "Dream" "Induced" by "Dream Exit" so there's not really "Me" in there. It's not called a "Me Induced Lucid Dream". So the factor of just having exited a dream does a lot of the work for me. And you know what also I think helps with this? Is when its something like I get a spontaneous DILD but then wake up prematurely. So there is still REM left in that sleep cycle. Where as if I just had a super long dream already, and was just dropped gently off in my bed by means of REM being over, I probably don't get any more REM. BUt when the dream ends abruptly, and I stay still thats when there is still more REM in the tank, to pull me into another DEILD.

If you already got a DILD, you might as well just stay in that. But if it de stabilizes too soon, that's where DEILD comes in. And I am not the best at stabilizing so I got more DEILDs! :)

I think it is more a natural function of REM. The REM cycle is like, "Hey, bro, what do you think you're doing? You haven't got your REM yet" and pulls you back in.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Charles3

I was trying to think of when I got my first DEILDs. For one, listening to lots of youtube tutorials over and over might help, because thats basically what I did. Even if they say the same thing over and over, it sometimes helps to hear it in different words and such. There are probably at least 50 DEILD tutorials on youtube by various lucid dreamers.

In my actual experience of it, it was almost by accident. I would be laying there, thinking through a dream, when another would begin. I'd wake up from that, try to remember it, and then, another dream! Sometimes they would go on and on. So far I can't really control it, it is more when the timing is right. Although I study a lot, I think the study is more just to be aware of whats happening, as the things seem more to happen on their own.

I guess the DEILD is a "Dream" "Induced" by "Dream Exit" so there's not really "Me" in there. It's not called a "Me Induced Lucid Dream". So the factor of just having exited a dream does a lot of the work for me. And you know what also I think helps with this? Is when its something like I get a spontaneous DILD but then wake up prematurely. So there is still REM left in that sleep cycle. Where as if I just had a super long dream already, and was just dropped gently off in my bed by means of REM being over, I probably don't get any more REM. BUt when the dream ends abruptly, and I stay still thats when there is still more REM in the tank, to pull me into another DEILD.

If you already got a DILD, you might as well just stay in that. But if it de stabilizes too soon, that's where DEILD comes in. And I am not the best at stabilizing so I got more DEILDs! :)

I think it is more a natural function of REM. The REM cycle is like, "Hey, bro, what do you think you're doing? You haven't got your REM yet" and pulls you back in.

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Interesting thoughts about just letting things happening, REM, and your awakenings. I think one of my issues right now is that I am waking up after a REM cycle, or somewhere during NREM (I have a superficial knowledge of sleep cycles, though). Autosuggestion is waking me up, and I am sometimes able to remain completely still and keep my eyes shut, but usually nothing happens. Having no more REM left in the cycle as you mentioned could be why.

Perhaps this is not the explanation, but just in case I may try multiple DEILD attempts in a night. If the first fails, I will reset the intention to awaken, etc, until eventually it will be in a REM dominated phase of sleep. Alternatively, I am too alert upon waking for whatever reason. I am not sure if this makes sense for real, or just in my head.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by McDreamy

Interesting thoughts about just letting things happening, REM, and your awakenings. I think one of my issues right now is that I am waking up after a REM cycle, or somewhere during NREM (I have a superficial knowledge of sleep cycles, though). Autosuggestion is waking me up, and I am sometimes able to remain completely still and keep my eyes shut, but usually nothing happens. Having no more REM left in the cycle as you mentioned could be why.

Perhaps this is not the explanation, but just in case I may try multiple DEILD attempts in a night. If the first fails, I will reset the intention to awaken, etc, until eventually it will be in a REM dominated phase of sleep. Alternatively, I am too alert upon waking for whatever reason. I am not sure if this makes sense for real, or just in my head.

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I did more DEILDing recently. I woke from a kind of short dream and then was in and out of a dream or feeling like I was in my bed. It was back and forth and I would just stay still becuase that's what I do to practice dream recall anyways. But then I would pop into another dream, still recollecting the previous dream, when I would realize, "wait! Another dream has begun!" and do some more stuff.

Sometimes between DEILD dreams I will feel vibrations and that kind of thing. The Michael Raduga channel was one that called the whole thing "The phase". So I guess he was saying if you're in "the phase" you could enter a dream (or OBE) from there. But once "the phase" ends then the person has to wait til the next time they wake up from sleep to have another chance. And then DEILD is to WILD as the "indirect method of OBE" is to the "direct method of OBE".

I don't know if any of that helps though LOL! But I hope you find what works.

Great input Charles! When I was at the top of my game (working my way back up now hopefully), I was getting good at doing something I was calling Pre-DEILD explained here: https://www.dreamviews.com/dream-con...ml#post2177229

What I realize though from reading your input here is: just like I shouldn't assume that the dream has to end, I also need to get better at, when I do feel myself back in bed, not assuming that I won't be able to quickly go back in...or assuming that I am actually awake when I may actually be having a false awakening and still be fully asleep! Thanks! Hopefully I find a way to make it a consistent part of my sleep routine.

I know this thread is way old. I too am just settling back into a healthy lucid dreaming routine after a nearly three-year hiatus due to business stress, the cares of life, kids, etc. You know how it goes. I received Raduga's book yesterday, having already had some knowledge of it years ago when I was LDing regularly. Back then I was using FILD with some success. Then it stopped working and I experienced insomnia as result. The "phase" stuff reminds of that sort of technique: surface briefly during a micro-awakening, don't move, quickly perform a motor simulation, RC and separate. Lots of people say the phase indirect technique is really just DEILD, but I tend to think it more resembles FILD than anything else. I guess because coming out of an NLD with recall is not required; the goal is a classic OBE bedroom projection irrespective of any prior dream exit. FILD was amazingly potent for me in the past. But I soon found that simulating the obligatory finger movement was not always conducive to remaining in that precious "zone" between full-blown sleep and a sliver of wakefulness. I know full well this technique works and the 'Phase' is legit. My dilemma now is remaining in that sweet spot long enough (or short enough) to get through the cycling and separate. It's not as easy as it sounds! But then this should be expected for everything in life that offers the proverbial buttercup: anything worthwhile requires work. Any tips on staying in the "zone" (I say zone for lack of a better term and ignorance if there is one)? Has anyone mastered the art of maintaining optimal control during this period? If so, I'd love to pick your brain, get some pointers, encouragement. Thanks in advance!