Thread: Trouble with MILD, remembering RCs

When I first started to try to LD, I had pretty good success with MILD the first three nights. However, it doesn't really work now. My mind tends to wander away from a topic I focus on, leaving my train of thought to take me into the dream world. It's very annoying to find yourself more interested in what you just ate than remembering to wake up after each dream period. It feels like a loss of self -control.

With control in mind, I'm also having trouble remembering to do RCs. During real life, I try at some awkward moments to honestly believe that this could be a dream, and do a few RCs. But if they always come out right -- would that mean that in a dream I would believe them to be right without really analyzing the RCs? It's a lot to think about.

hyper_angel

Obviously, keeping your mind on dreams is the hardest part of learning to induce lucid dreams. When you've just started trying the whole lucid dreaming thing, your mind will be on it all the time, but over time, lucid dreaming will not be your first priority during the day anymore and you'll have a harder time concentrating on it (I'm saying this from my personal experience btw).
The only advice I can give you is to not get annoyed with yourself. It might be better to just accept that your mind can't be on dreaming all the time (which doesn't mean you should stop doing your best). The most important thing seems to be patience. If you find your thoughts have drifted off, just set them back to where they need to be, and accept it.

As for the Reality check part. What the above goes for that too. However, I don't know what kind of reality checks you do, but if you're afraid your RCs will "trick" you in your dreams (which is indeed possible) it's probably best to use the nose RC (see below) which is as reliable as they get.
I personally just try to go through waking life being aware of everything around and seeing it all as a dream, while doing the nose RC on the way.





The nose RC:

Originally posted by Techboy
The Breathing Test
This is a nice all-rounder. Pinch your nose closed and keep breathing.
Try not to think about your breathing while doing it, just leave your
usual 'automatic' breathing to do its work. Then check if you actually
managed to breathe. If you can, you're dreaming.

Originally posted by hyper_angel
When I first started to try to LD, I had pretty good success with MILD the first three nights. However, it doesn't really work now. My mind tends to wander away from a topic I focus on, leaving my train of thought to take me into the dream world. It's very annoying to find yourself more interested in what you just ate than remembering to wake up after each dream period. It feels like a loss of self -control. hyper_angel

The wandering off effect may be why many use WBTB. By getting out of bed and engaging more of our waking minds it can be easier to then focus on a technique such as MILD or WILD.

The other part is motivation. When we first want learn LD we are more interested, after a few LDs we may lose part of the excitement and enthusiasm leading to weaker effort. To motivate try thinking of a really fun LD activity that you want to experience.

Thanks for the insight!

I tried using CILD (Chakra Induced LD) last night, worked pretty well. Except for the lucid part. :sweat1: I'm gonna try WBTB tonight along the chakra to awaken me (and an alarm). I'll have my dream interpretation book and a bunch of papers on LDs to read about for a bit.

Sorry for bumping, and I mean REALLY sorry for bumping, but I'm really pissed off right now. I can't focus on LDing at night.

My subconcious woke me up around 1 last night (thank goodness)...so I turned off the 2AM alarm and started reading a whole bunch of papers on Lucids and Chakra and dream interpretation. After about 30 minutes, I was totally prepared and got back into bed. I started to MILD, then thought about a dream in which I remembered I was dreaming. Unfortunately my train of thought took over and instead of thinking about Lucid Dreaming I went off on a strange story...and then I woke up to my alarm at 5:30. Urrgh! I'm so mad!

I recently managed to get my hands on the Hemi Sync® Lucid dreaming series, which is basically a set of LD induction casettes.

Apparently "The Hemi-sync sound patterns on these tapes were designed to facilitate the brain-wave states found in naturally occurring sleep cycles"

Now I'm personally a bit sceptical about this sort of stuff, however, after converting the tapes to mp3, I left them playing all night and managed to get 5 LDs in a row.
Now, I personally believe this to be a kind of placebo effect but if it works then who cares?
I think the main reason for my success is that everytime I woke up (even for a few seconds) I was instantly reminded about LDing, this then carried on into the dream world. Or maybe the whole "facilitating the brain wave states" isn't a load of BS.
Maybe you could try something similar. If you can't get induction tapes, maybe a set of 3-4 songs that remind you of dreaming that you can leave playing throughout the night.
Just an Idea.
Hope this helps

Well, I'm really finicky about how I sleep. There has to be absolutely NO lights on (even the tiny LED on the CD player bothers me), and it has to be very quiet. Music could either:

a) distract me or
B) keep me up all night

I don't even think my CD player has a 'loop' function, and I don't use in-ear headphones for my iPod...so I'm pretty much screwed. I'll try the music, though. Are the .mp3s big? Could you email one / some to me? That'd be great.

If not, where can I get my hands on them? If they're free...

Do you know where to get those Hemi Sync CD's (Tapes) at a discount?

I have a few that are more related to other things like a quick catnapper cd.

Originally posted by Ubik
I recently managed to get my hands on the Hemi Sync® Lucid dreaming series, which is basically a set of LD induction casettes.

Apparently "The Hemi-sync sound patterns on these tapes were designed to facilitate the brain-wave states found in naturally occurring sleep cycles"

Now I'm personally a bit sceptical about this sort of stuff, however, after converting the tapes to mp3, I left them playing all night and managed to get 5 LDs in a row.
Now, I personally believe this to be a kind of placebo effect but if it works then who cares?
I think the main reason for my success is that everytime I woke up (even for a few seconds) I was instantly reminded about LDing, this then carried on into the dream world. Or maybe the whole "facilitating the brain wave states" isn't a load of BS.
Maybe you could try something similar. If you can't get induction tapes, maybe a set of 3-4 songs that remind you of dreaming that you can leave playing throughout the night.
Just an Idea.
Hope this helps

Something strange happened over the weekend. I'm kicking myself because of it.

I came home late (midnight) after a long tiring day. I told myself "I don't want to try tonight, I'm waay too tired." That night I had a dream in a dream - a false awakening. I dreamt that I was in a lucid dream - I looked at my hands and bold yellow text flashed on the floor "You are in a lucid dream"...I was so excited, then I woke up and was so happy. And then I woke up (in real life) and screamed.

The funny thing was, during my dream - in - dream, my dream self was completely aware that I was about to do an RC - like an observer watching myself.

that's pretty funny But also good progress. FA's are close to ludidity and good routes to lucidity.

But now I can imagine using this experience in MILD...
When I see in yellow writing on the floor "You are in a lucid dream....

I'm glad to hear that I'm doing something right! I've lost a lot of my dream recall...but I've heard a lot of people have no DR, then they get a whole bunch in a row. I'm gonna stick with MILD for now and combine it with NST.