My technique. Any sugguestions?

[night_watcher]

Ok, I'm trying to get all out of the tutorials that I can, so I'm sorta making up my own techniques as I go. Not much use to me, considering I still haven't had a lucid (that I remember....), so I'm wondering what I'm doing wrong. I go to bed consistently on schedule. 11 pm every night, my body isn't too tired and my mind is still with me. For about an hour I am on DV before that, trying to fill my noodle with thoughts of LDs. I finally hit my bed, and roll around until I can get comfortable. Then I keep thinking to myself, 'I can have a Lucid Dream' or 'I will wake up after I dream' or something to that effect. At this point my body is relaxed, and I try to dream up a small dream. Nothing huge, just a quick dip into dreaming potential. I have my DCs remind me that I am dreaming, and I will think I am dreaming. Of course, this is not lucid dreaming, just me talking to myself. When I feel I am falling asleep, I refocus on reality, and try to stay still for SP. At this point my body has been resting for about 5-10 minutes, so I expect SP. But....at this point I really can't remember what I do, because usually I'm asleep. Any suggestions to how I can use this to get to SP, and then LDs? Thanks! NW.

[XxJOxX]

Well, It seems that you might be getting to sp and then you fall asleep because your not conscious enough. What you should try to do is keep your thoughts focused on one thing, but ever so vaguely, so that your body thinks that your mind is asleep. Then you will probably start to see sone hypnagogic (i think thats how you spell it) imagery. Focus on this and start to "form your dreamland" and enter it from there.... If you're having trouble with that, try a WBTB and see if that helps..

[night_watcher]

So....if I was to focus on my toe for example? (And do I need to have my eyes open to see HI?)

[XxJOxX]

So....if I was to focus on my toe for example? (And do I need to have my eyes open to see HI?) Umm, no. You would need to focus on something involuntary and repetitive. YOUR BREATHING! YAY! No, you don't open your eyes to see HI, it is like those colours and shapes and stuff that you see when you close your eyes, but probably more vivid.

[night_watcher]

Ok, so focus on my breathing to keep me awake until I start seeing colors. I can do that. But....then what? I haven't gotten that far yet, so how does the transition into LD work?

[XxJOxX]

I'm not EXACTLY sure, but to save you from reading that extremely long article, I'll tell you as much as I can. But as I said before, what I do, even if I don't see stuff, but I'm still "awake", I create a "dreamland" and sortof run into it and imagine it a tv and you running into it. I really can't tell you, it's different for evveryone. Try whatever you want once you see the HI, or try my suggestion. If you're still having trouble, go to the tutorial section (its on the homepage) its full of useful stuff.

[Conquer]

I'm no pro but I'll give it a shot at helping you out some-what. First, SP isn't needed to lucid dream. You can be dreaming and randomly realize you're asleep. SP is just what your body does when its falling asleep, otherwise you'd move around in your dreams like someone moves around during a saliva trip (lol) But SP is a cool experience, to get it you just need to let your body fall asleep. To do this, theres different methods varying from focusing on a sound (a noisy central air fan.. cough cough) or focusing on an imagine in your mind (picture an apple, or something you're very familiar with). Focus on this sound/object(picture it in your mind) from about 5-45 minutes. If you don't feel your body numb by then, try getting heavy exercise during the day to physically tire your body out. Spoiler for My Sp Technique: Lay still (try stretching before if it helps you relax), however you are comfortable (I prefer to sleep on my back for SP) and count to about 30 with breaths (breathing in is one, breathing out is two, breathing in is three, etc) A note that I don't count past this point because I aim to get my breathing going subconsciously. (Easiest if you memorize these two giant steps) 1. Focus on your hand. Try to feel its temperature, and where it is exactly in proportion to your body. You should feel some form of tingling, vibrations, warmth, or just a general odd-feeling about it. If not, try counting more then try again. 2. Expand your focus on to more parts of your body. Example: Start focusing on both your hands, they should both feel slightly wrapped in paralysis. Once you've done this, keep focusing on your hands and then focus on your arms from your hands to your elbows. Eventually you should be able to feel paralysis over all of your body. During this concentration, you might feel slight racing-thoughts or hear conversations (more common then you think) but try to keep your mind somewhat neutral in thought, still focusing on your sound or object. If you lose concentration and start to follow the random thoughts, you'll probably end up falling asleep. If you're just starting lucid dreaming, I'd also recommend you write down your dreams. It's a pain but eventually its worth it because you'll begin remembering more, and you will be able to tell what things are common in your dreams. This will help a lot with DILDs (I have a feeling that random-realizations are actually a result of subconsciously recognizing dreamsigns) For the record my sleep paralysis technique is a combination of many tutorials I read on this site a long time ago.