Why didn't this work?

Last night, itried every trick in the book. I ate peanut butter and drank apple juice before bed, and i told myself i would wake up after every dream ad that i would remember them. I also set an alarm for 3am. I woke up at 2 AM and remembered a little bit about my dream, and wrote it down. Then, i stretched, went downstairs, ate a tablespoon of peanut butter and drank a glass of apple juice. Then i went back upstairs and reread my dream journal while performing constant reality checks. I then attempted to wild. After about 30 mins, (i keep my arms above my head while I sleep) began to seem like they lost circulation. At first i ignored this, thinking it a trick of the mind, but after about 10 more minutes, i moved them. Even after i moved them, they felt uncirculated, but they recovered in a few minutes. Also, I swallowed a few times, but not putting a lot of stress about it. i just swallowed gently. So, failing, my WILD, since I only got a little bit of HI, I repeated my mantra and went back to sleep. When i woke to my alarm, I only could remember 1 image from my dream.
My question is: Why didn't I have more success? what can I do to improve? Any tips?

Firstly,

Don't take everything you read on this forum too seriously.
Not every technique or idea is based on reality, some are the result of placebo, coincidence and the classic case of forum hype.
Peanut butter and Apple juice are both clasic examples of things that have got a lot of hype, but don't have a huge amount of foundation to them (at least yet), there is a very high chance both may not help lucidity at all.


If you are starting out in lucid dreaming, then the best chance for success will be with WBTB. Sounds like you tried this, but maybe too early in the night.
You want to aim for around five or six hours sleep. Stay up for a reasonable amount of time once you get up, I find that i tend to get the urge to return to sleep after about 20 minutes, and use this as my cue to go back to bed.

In my WBTBs i often have a sweet snack, and a weak cup of tea, and try to keep performing reality tests every few minutes, to get my mind primed for returning to sleep.

Then all you really need to do is set your mind the task of remembering to switch awarness on every 5 or 10 minutes. Same process you use when you are trying to remember to do something later in the day.

Then it's down to the luck of the draw, your brain chemistry, where you are in your sleep cycle etc. etc.

With this techinque you'll probably not get lucid every attempt, but you'll certainly have a reasonably high ratio.

Keep trying, stay positive, don't burn out.
These things take time, practice and a good deal of patience.

If at first you don't succeed, try try again (but also remember to keep changing what you try, until you stumble across the best method for you)



PS. a DILD isn't waking up after realisng your dreaming (as your signature says) it's realising you are dreaming in the middle of a dream.
Maybe you didn't mean it that way, but it seems like it from how it is written.

WILD is very dependent on timing, brain chemistry, and experience. Not every attempt is successful, even for people who have been doing it for years.

What did you do to help yourself get into a trance-like state? What were you thinking about as you lay in bed? You need to use some sort of mental trick to help you slip into sleep while staying aware.

I just thought to stay still, and tried to always have something in mind so I wouldnt fall asleep, and tried to watch the HI. I was probably asleep at like 10, so that was 5 hours. maybe i just timed it wrong. after all, i did "wake up after a dream" and not to my alarm. ill keep trying, even though i was alittle tired today. is it good to try WILD when im new? i am curious about SP and think that WILD gives me an extra chance

Next time don't try everything at once. You might have been too stressed knowing that you would feel bad if you didn't get lucid from trying everything.

Tonight you just might wanna take it easy and work on your recall. If your recall isn't good you could be having fantastic lucid dreams but not remember them. Just try a WBTB tonight and expect it to work and I'm sure that you will have a lucid dream soon. Good luck!

Ok, Dude I have tried tonnnns of foods and barely any have worked at ALL. The only thing that has worked for me is Iced Tea. I had some really weird dreams after drinking that before bed.
Just keep trying.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sugarglider11

Next time don't try everything at once. You might have been too stressed knowing that you would feel bad if you didn't get lucid from trying everything.

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I agree with this - too much effort can stress you out and that is bad. I recommend a different approach. Instead of trying to rely so much on the techniques, perhaps you should foster a sense of confidence in yourself and your mind.

I haven't WILDed successfully yet (grrr) but as far as the "Don't move! Don't swallow!" debate goes I've kind of combined Jeff's with Yoshi's technique:

I roll over at about every 7-10 minutes when my body 'tells' me to. Eventually I'll get so comfortable that for long periods of time I don't need move or swallow anyway.