How to master MILD (Mnemonic Induced Lucid Dream)
For you newbies, MILD is simply a method for attaining lucidity. It is considered to be quite an effective technique. Let me explain this in a step by step guide:
1. First off you should just go to sleep. Thinking about lucid dreaming and perhaps writing down your eager intention of becoming lucid will help, though this technique of feeding your subconscious suggestions (aka. autosuggestion) is more efficiently practiced in the middle of the night, right after waking up from a dream (I will tell you more about that below).
Additionally, do you know if you are a visual, auditory or kinesthetic person? Some people think that the chances of becoming lucid increases if you do autosuggestion in a way that is specifically suited to your way of learning. For example, if you are a kinetic and visual person, like I am, write down your intention and then read it repetitively. But if you are an auditory person, repeating your intention verbally or inside your head would be most beneficial, according to this theory.
2. Wake up from a dream. You can either set your alarm or wait for random awakenings. To help these random awakenings you may use autosuggestion, repeating your intention of waking up after each REM-period (you dream during REM-periods) before you fall asleep.
3. Combining MILD with WBTB (Wake Back To Bed) has proven to be particularly efficient. If you feel sick just thinking about setting your alarm in the middle of the night to wake yourself up, I recommend that you only use WBTB randomly, meaning after your spontaneous awakenings from dreams (with help from autosuggestion).
If you feel too tired and just can’t motivate yourself to get out of bed, you may just stay in bed doing MILD right away. This works for some people, although it’s generally considered to be more effective if you get out of bed and stay up between 10 and 60 minutes, and during the time you spend awake you write down your dreams and do whatever you feel like. I have heard that some people like to take a short walk around the neighbourhood, while others prefer reading about lucid dreaming or visiting some lucid dreaming forum on the web. Though practice you will find what’s suitable for you.
4. Now go back to bed and try to make your mind void of thoughts, like meditating. Then start with the autosuggestion – feeding your mind positive thoughts about lucid dreaming and toy with them. Visualize your previous dream (if you remember any) and think of what you are going to do when you become lucid (notice “when” and not “if”). It’s important that you firmly resolve that you are going to have a lucid dream in your next sleep session. If your find your mind wandering, just let go of what you were thinking of and get your attention back to lucid dreaming. You will get better with practice. If you successfully fall asleep while thinking about having a lucid dream it’s fairly likely that your subconscious mind will remember this while dreaming and you will become lucid!
I think it’s necessary to explain what it feels like to “MILD”. I will try some analogy here: Imagine you are watching your dream on TV. You don’t feel very excited because it doesn’t feel like you are living inside the TV, you’re merely observing it. Suddenly you remember your intention of becoming lucid and then it feels like you’re pulling your conscious mind into the dream world, inside the TV.
In summary, MILD reinforces your intention to become lucid, so that you may reach that state in the dream.
Once you get a hang of it it's pretty easy. Good luck :)
