Thread: Anyone here does MILD regularly?

I'm not sure if I got this right (so please correct me if I'm wrong), but to my understanding this is roughly how MILD works:

1. Sleep with strong affirmations that you will get up after every dream and remember them.
2. Wake up in the middle of the night after a dream and concentrate on remembering it. Write it down in dream journal.
3. Go back to sleep picturing yourself in the same dream but this time becoming lucid in it.
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3.

So does anyone here use this regular with a good overall success rate? If so, how does it affect you in terms of health and alertness the next morning? I kind of have my reservations about MILD because it requires you to get up after every dream, which seems kind of disruptive. Any thoughts? Comments?

I know that MILD works without waking up after every dream. Use an alarm clock aimed at about 5-6 hours sleep. Although it makes awaking a little harsher and may hurt recall of the dreams you just had. ....Then start step 2.

Well, first off, i'm kind of a noob, so to speak when it comes to lucid dreaming. However, I had my first lucid dream since childhood using this technique, but I don't think it was on purpose. I pretty much did assure myself before bed that I would recall my dreams in great vividness. Then, maybe because I have been more focused on actually recalling, that I would wake up and write these dreams down after every awakening, or REM period. I ended up having 2 lucid in a row, like 5 min a piece. Then two days later I had the most intense lucid dream to date keeping this sort of technique. Basically, I would say the most important part is waking up after each dream and writing it down. It seems basic, but it's consistently working for me.

I have been trying other methods or techniques, but this one seems to be semi-fail proof for myself. I read the MILD technique last night in my book, and then I remembered that this is the way I was doing it in the beginning, minus the wake up after each dream period chant before bed, and minus the recognize and enter the previous dream, so I gave it a shot, and bam, last night I had another lucid, plus remembered having like 4 dreams.

Point 1 always seems to work for me, when I do it with conviction. (These last two nights have been crap for some reason). But I can almost always use the autosuggestion to wake myself after every dream and remember them. I can never seem to get lucid in the following dream, but I can tell you that in the morning, for me at least, I don't feel any less rested than when I sleep straight through. In fact, I think I feel more rested. I don't know why this is.

Originally Posted by Wattage

I pretty much did assure myself before bed that I would recall my dreams in great vividness. Then, maybe because I have been more focused on actually recalling, that I would wake up and write these dreams down after every awakening, or REM period. I ended up having 2 lucid in a row, like 5 min a piece. Then two days later I had the most intense lucid dream to date keeping this sort of technique. Basically, I would say the most important part is waking up after each dream and writing it down. It seems basic, but it's consistently working for me.

I have been trying other methods or techniques, but this one seems to be semi-fail proof for myself. I read the MILD technique last night in my book, and then I remembered that this is the way I was doing it in the beginning, minus the wake up after each dream period chant before bed, and minus the recognize and enter the previous dream, so I gave it a shot, and bam, last night I had another lucid, plus remembered having like 4 dreams.

So how long did it take you in the long run to have the lucids? Did you have to keep doing the same technique for a few weeks or did it come quite quickly to you?

I MILD frequently, often accidentally after writing down a dream during the night.

I've gotten into the habit of waking after pretty much every dream so I can write down some quick notes to help me remember it better later.

What I do follows:
1. Before bed, focus for about 5 min. on my goal to have vivid lucid dreams. Go to sleep.
2. Sleep for a while. After about the 3rd dream write them all down. Stay in bed. Day dream for a while about them, about what I would have done if I'd been lucid. Drift off to sleep.
3. Find myself in one of the dreams I just had. Think, hey, I did this already! and become lucid. Go on from there. OR find myself in a new dream, but lucid.
4. Repeat during the night as desired.

For me it works about 5 out of 10 times to return me to a previous dream, only lucid this time. But for just causing a LD, it works about 8 out of 10 times. On a good night I will induce as many as four MILDs successfully.

Because I usually don't do a WBTB too, I end up loosing very little sleep. Usually only a few minutes for the whole night, because I fall back to sleep so quickly. It is almost a mix between a DEILD and a MILD for me.

Cool. But do you need to wait for the method to kick in? How did you manage to wake yourself up?

Through practice and repetition the body gets used to waking up to recall then going back to sleep. I've not noticed any adverse affects. However, most people (myself included,) combine MILD with WBTB instead of just MILD by itself. This increases your chances for LDs tremendously . But doing so means you will lose overall sleep time and you could be tired the next day. The solution is simple though, just go to bed earlier.

Originally Posted by Aveligand

I'm not sure if I got this right (so please correct me if I'm wrong), but to my understanding this is roughly how MILD works:

1. Sleep with strong affirmations that you will get up after every dream and remember them.
2. Wake up in the middle of the night after a dream and concentrate on remembering it. Write it down in dream journal.
3. Go back to sleep picturing yourself in the same dream but this time becoming lucid in it.
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3.

So does anyone here use this regular with a good overall success rate? If so, how does it affect you in terms of health and alertness the next morning? I kind of have my reservations about MILD because it requires you to get up after every dream, which seems kind of disruptive. Any thoughts? Comments?

As for me, Mild works excellent when my brain is in specific state {still matter of research}.

When the circumstances occur i start mayby three hour after getting asleep. Then i try to remember the dream. Of course. I often dont remember anything at all. This is the time, when i usually start convincing myself, that I will wake up after the dream ends. I dont convince myself that i will lucid dream. Just this one is enough to make me more awake and my dreams more vivid. As I am more awake, i can remember more of a dream and at the same time can perform MILD. Successfull recall at night makes LUcid dreams way more probable. And thats when I have them.

What I use sometimes is pretty sleep consuming, but makes each consequent dream more and more vivid and eventualy lucid dream comes.

Yeah, MILD plus WBTB has been the most effective method for me too so far. LaBerge says to combine the visualization with the affirmation, "The next time I'm dreaming, I want to remember that I'm dreaming."

I almost always remember a dream upon awakening from my alarm after about 6 hrs of sleep. But on those rare occasions when I don't, I either use an old dream that has worked before, or use a WILD technique.

Ok, not sure if this is MILD, but this is what I do:

1. Sleep with strong affirmations that you will get up after every dream and realising I am dreaming.
2. Wake up in the middle of the night after a dream and concentrate on remembering it. Write it down in dream journal.
3. Go back to sleep picturing yourself in the same dream and still being lucid.

This is what I did after my massive dose of Seratonin and slept. I had 4 or 5 dreams last night. All lucid.

If I want to combine WBTB and MILD, when I get up after 5 hours of sleep, do I have to stay up for an hour or so, or just 5 minutes?

Originally Posted by Namwan

If I want to combine WBTB and MILD, when I get up after 5 hours of sleep, do I have to stay up for an hour or so, or just 5 minutes?

Yes, try to stay up for an hour then go back to sleep. If it takes you 30 minutes to fall back asleep, then you might want to just stay up for 30 minutes so that the total awake time is still an hour.