Feeling Frustrated

**Clover956** · 10-03-2018 12:36 PM

Ok so here is what I do every night. I try to wake up 4 and a half hours after I go to sleep and do MILD. (not writing down dream). Then I wake up 20-30 minutes before I normally wake up to write down a dream. Also before I go to sleep I keep repeating a mantra. I feel frustrated because I feel like I am not making any progress. Can anyone give me any tips? Also when I do MILD I often struggle to find something that stands out in the dream as a dream sign.

**dolphin** · 10-03-2018 02:50 PM

A dream sign is anything that let's us know that we are dreaming. It is an imperfection in the dream's reconstruction of reality. These can appear in the form of the dream, the action occurring during it, the context of the dream, or in our thoughts during the dream.

The point of MILD is to learn to identify dream signs so that we can identify them as such during the dream, which allows us to become lucid from them. To learn to identify dream signs is to learn to identify differences between dreams and waking life.

**mBULXfhgBBwO** · 10-03-2018 04:50 PM

try experimenting with it.
With everything in lucid dreaming. DO NOT. Follow things word for word, experience for experience as if it is objective.
There may be similarities, but at the end of the day, you are looking at someone else's experience, trying to look for your own.

Take general advice, but don't follow it to a T.
however, with MILD, you could try doing this and see how it benefits you
https://www.dreamviews.com/attaining...-lucidity.html

Use it as a boosting point for your own lucidity.

**Clover956** · 10-09-2018 10:49 PM

Perhaps I will give it a try, thanks

**Clover956** · 10-09-2018 10:51 PM

I just thought that it had to be something that was out of place I didn't know that it could be so general. What if you don't have a frequent re-occurring dream sign though?

**DarkestDarkness** · 10-10-2018 09:02 PM

Originally Posted by Clover956

I just thought that it had to be something that was out of place I didn't know that it could be so general. What if you don't have a frequent re-occurring dream sign though?

There's a couple of things you could do if you don't have an obvious or frequently recurring dream sign...

For one, you could simply create/incubate your own dream signs; how well this works seems to vary from person to person and as with many dreaming techniques requires a certain amount of genuine intent or determination. There's no point in spending time introducing an artificial dream-sign you're not interested in or that you have no real connection with. In fact there may be a few posts on how to do this here on DV but I'm afraid I don't have any direct links I can give you at this time (though I'm sure I've spotted some posts about it).

Alternatively, consider the following: MILD does not necessarily require dream signs, it's more about memory, so that can mean that if you can remember an intent to do a reality check, the "dream sign" could simply be whatever behaves in a way that is not expectable of waking reality as you perform the check.

Regardless of my opinion on this, Dolphin is absolutely right in saying that the point with dream signs is to identify where the differences lie, not necessarily what each specific difference is. It's easier for our minds to understand a set of rules than to understand every single concept under that set of rules;

To exemplify, if you want to do arithmetic or multiplication you don't need to memorise every single possible combination and result... That would take more than a lifetime - you simply need to know how it works. Memorising does work, of course, but it is inefficient. Look at your problem the same way; you could memorise every single dream sign and recount a list as you fall asleep, or just before bed. But you will spend a long amount of time and potentially have short-term blanks of what some of them were. If you seek to understand your dream-mind's way of "screwing up reality", you might get to where you want to be more easily.

Also, like Skipper1100 says, I'm not saying this is "the way", but hopefully it helps you think of your problems in a different way.

Oh, and finally, I know it can be difficult, but don't get frustrated; if it's not working, don't force it and don't obsess about it; maybe try something different - and if you think that it will work in time, then keep doing it anyway, just be patient.