Let's get my Hands on MILD! - 1 YEAR test

NIGHT 13

Basic Routine: ✔
Meditation before bed: -
Sleep time: 11.30am-8am
Awakenings: -
DJ: 1 non-lucid dream fragment recalled.
LDs: -

NIGHT 14

Basic Routine: ✔
Meditation before bed: 5 min
Sleep time: 0.30am-8am
Awakenings: Natural at 6-7am but forgot to try entering the dream.
DJ: A few non-lucid dream fragments which I forgot during the morning.
LDs: -

NIGHT 15

Basic Routine: ✔
Meditation before bed: -
Sleep time: 11.30pm-8am
Awakenings: -
DJ: A few non-lucid dream fragments - pretty vivid -, but I forgot them during the morning.
I have to remember to write in the DJ as soon as I wake up.
LDs: -

* Updated Routine *

I obviously have to upgrade my practice if I want to see results.
The main point I have to do is actually keep a consistent meditation routine before bed.

Daytime:
- Presence/Self-Awareness practice.
- Hands anchor -> Detective Mindset ("Am I dreaming?").

Before Bed:
- SSILD-based Meditation.
Sight: Visualize hands / dream setting / random objects.
Feeling: Hands clapping and touching dream setting.
Sound: MILD affirmation: "When I see my Hands, I'm dreaming."
- Awareness into Sleep.
If I haven't fall asleep yet, I'll try to retain awareness for as long as possible by alternating passive awareness on Sight, Feeling, Sound and Thoughts. I'll use the FILD-style finger tapping to stay on the awake-sleep threshold.

Night Awakenings:
- I Keep Still and immediately Enter the Dream (FILD-style finger tapping).
- If I don't manage to enter directly the dream, I'll do the same meditation method outlined above.
- Dream Journal.

NIGHT 16

MILD: ✔
Meditation before bed: -
Sleep time: 0am-8am
Awakenings: -
DJ: 1 non-lucid dream fragment recalled.
LDs: -

NIGHTS 17-18-19-20

MILD: ✔
Meditation before bed: -
DJ: 1 non-lucid dream fragment recalled per night.
LDs: -

* Simplified Routine *

Daytime:
- Presence/Self-Awareness practice.
- Hands anchor -> Detective Mindset ("Am I dreaming?").

Before Bed:
- MILD Intention: "When I see my hands, I realise I'm dreaming".
- Breath Meditation.
- Awareness into Sleep.

Awakenings:
- I Keep Still and immediately try to Enter the Dream by visualising my Hands.
- If it doesn't work, I'll retain Awareness into Sleep.

Morning:
- Dream Journal.

NIGHT 21

MILD: ✔
Meditation before bed: 5 min
Sleep time: 0.30am-8am
Awakenings: -
DJ: 2 non-lucid dream fragments recalled.
LDs: -

Hi there DixonHill. It looks like you're on a good path. I've seen you mention consistency, and consistency is king. I see you mentioned my Unified Theory post, so I won't repeat that.

I'd add to your resources:
+ The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep, particularly the practice section and *particularly* the introduction to the practice section (a link is in my LD bibliography)

+ Dream Yoga: Illuminating Your Life Through Lucid Dreaming and the Tibetan Yogas of Sleep by Andrew Holecek

Holecek writes for a western audience for the most part and fills in gaps and provides concrete visualizations and exercises.

While not flitting around from technique to technique is probably good, it is also good to gain experience in all the main LD modalities: MILD, WILD, DEILD. Each one comes with a different "feeling" of how it works for each dreamer. Very successful LD practitioners learn to recognize the signs when one approach may work particular well during a particular night. DEILD is perhaps the simplest of all, but only when conditions are right. Training alarm-DEILD may be very profitable, but it's not something I practiced enough to get good at. I'm also a slow-back-to-sleeper once I cross a very short threshold of how long I'm awake.

Developing a consistent pattern that you run through when you find yourself awake in between sleep cycles could be something like:
+ immediately try to DEILD -- 1-2 minutes max
+ [optionally, not every waking, not every night, best for when you plan to try] try for a full WILD with a time limit -- maybe
+ if the DEILD/WILD don't work out, aim for sleep with MILD

For me by far the most important factors affecting dreaming and having great recall and vivid dreams (precursors to LDs IMO) are:
+ having dreaming and recall be very important -- daily DJ, always recall dreams first thing after waking, spend time after waking recalling dreams and fortifying them in your memory
+ practice mindfulness: active attention to and self-awareness, awareness of life experiences
+ exercise memory of (life) experiences: day review in the evening, dreams review in the morning
+ treating the practice as a joy, something you deeply value and enjoy -- love all your dreams, not just the lucid ones

Specifically for lucidity:
+ for me, it takes maintaining very strong intention to be lucid in dreams
+ have specific LD-goals that I'm excited about and want to achieve in-dream: "I want to be lucid every night" is too vague for me. TOTMs and TOTYs here are excellent ways to maintain interest in specific goals that come with a reward (those cool images you get for the remainder of the month/year).

Happy Dreaming!

NIGHT 27 - SUCCESS!

MILD: ✔
Meditation: 10 min
Sleep time: 1am-8.30am
Awakenings: -
DJ: Colourful dreams, but forgot a lot of details.
LDs: 1 LD in the middle of the night. I remembered it during breakfast. (Semi-lucid - Estimated Duration: 2 seconds)

P.S. Fryingman, thanks a lot for the tips, I'll treasure them.

Off of practice for a nearly a month. Damn!
Now getting back on track with a basic routine:

Daytime:
- Self-Awareness practice with Hands anchor.

Before Bed:
- MILD Intention: "When I see my hands, I become aware".
- Hands + Dream Setting visualization while falling asleep.

Night Awakenings:
- I Keep Still and Enter the Dream by visualising my Hands.

Morning:
- Dream Journal.

*

♪ No retreat, baby, no surrender! ♪

DH

Hey Dixon, I read your post and realized my practice is pretty similar to yours except of using the hands as an anchor during the mantras.
In your experience,
Did you keep your mantra the exact same? Or tweaked it a little daily. If you tweaked it did you find it out was more effective when it was shorter or longer?

I'm wondering if it's more effective to keep it same no matter what (so it engraves better in your mind). Or switch it up so you find the magic words that really tickles your mind (or maybe just force some area of your brain to adapt slightly and change your paradigm faster).

I'll let you know as soon as it starts working! :D
At the moment I'm staying with the mantra "When I see my hands I become aware", just because I can use the same one during daytime practice and during the night. But in general I concentrate more on the feeling of becoming aware when I spot the anchor than on the words themselves.

DH

Getting back on track with Dream Journal and Self-Awareness training. Never give up!

A total of 12 dreams recalled in the last three days! Dream beach house, I'm coming! :mwahaha:

Excellent!

You'll be dropping right into one of them soon now. :nodyes:

Hello fellow Oneironauts!

Giving this another try.
I'll write here in order to keep consistency.

Hey DixonHill! Not sure if you're still here to read this, but I want to thank you for making this. I used your practice, and had two lucid dreams in two days! Thanks so much for this.