Thread: Michael Raduga's The Phase?

Originally Posted by mimihigurashi

So far this technique worked 3 out of 4 times for me. The exception being when I woke up really tired for some reason. It even worked this morning when it took me over an hour to fall asleep after the 2 minutes WBTB. Though I wish I didn't suck so much at dream control, so many wasted opportunities..

congratulation sister!
this method is working so great for you...may i know what exactly you do after you wake up? (i mean what are you anchors? for example rotation....)

Originally Posted by yaya

congratulation sister!
this method is working so great for you...may i know what exactly you do after you wake up? (i mean what are you anchors? for example rotation....)

Thanks XD
Nope, no anchors at all. The point of this technique is to WILD very quickly upon waking up, within seconds. In the book it says it must take maximum a minute. Did you read the instructions? They are easy to understand and to the point. In my case, I just wake up, remain in that super-relaxed state you're in when you're sleeping, and roll left to right a few times. So far I didn't need to switch to another exit technique, rolling has worked every time. From waking up to exiting it takes me like maximum 7 seconds, there is no need for any anchors.

thank you!
um sorry, by anchor i meant the sleep cycles in his technique (like 5 seconds for rotation....5 seconds for phantom wiggling....5 seconds for looking at the closed eye-lids... and then this cycle will continue).
i see what was my mistake...i never did what you do (trying to roll of out bed within seconds after each time we wake up) and i just did those boring cycles...
so as this DEILD technique doesn't interrupt with my DILD practices, then maybe i start to give it serious tries....it doesn't kill me to stay awake for some seconds in the morning....

@Mimihigurashi how long is your WBTB?
In my case it seams that if I don't do a WBTB that last at least 30 min, I am not aware enough and I just sleep or notice few micro awakenings but then I' am unable to keep myself from just falling back to sleep unconscious.

In the other case when I do a long enough, I am successful

Originally Posted by yaya

thank you!
um sorry, by anchor i meant the sleep cycles in his technique (like 5 seconds for rotation....5 seconds for phantom wiggling....5 seconds for looking at the closed eye-lids... and then this cycle will continue).
i see what was my mistake...i never did what you do (trying to roll of out bed within seconds after each time we wake up) and i just did those boring cycles...
so as this DEILD technique doesn't interrupt with my DILD practices, then maybe i start to give it serious tries....it doesn't kill me to stay awake for some seconds in the morning....

Rotation and the other ones are also listed as exit techniques, I don't think they're useless. But try rolling, the movement in this technique might be more effective. Yeah you have to start immediately after you're awake, and don't forget to remain relaxed, if you tense up or move, it will take longer or it might not work anymore.
Good luck then! It's really not a complicated technique at all, the 'hardest' part is waking up and getting out of bed for a minute, then it's all about catching the micro awakening and rolling out. Again, complete relaxation is vital! Have fun, let us know how it went~

Originally Posted by Kaan

@Mimihigurashi how long is your WBTB?
In my case it seams that if I don't do a WBTB that last at least 30 min, I am not aware enough and I just sleep or notice few micro awakenings but then I' am unable to keep myself from just falling back to sleep unconscious.

In the other case when I do a long enough, I am successful

My WBTB is literally less than 2 minutes, lol. I never experimented with staying up longer, so far.

Originally Posted by mimihigurashi

So far this technique worked 3 out of 4 times for me...

My case was... 5 successes out of first 5 PROPER attempts (!) and then another 5 fails...
(I don't count as proper attempts 1-2 nights that being tired I slept all the way through and I speak of success and not lucids as one LD was ruined by my child crying as I was exiting and 1 one was of very low quality - i.e. 3 good quality, enjoyable lucids).
I hope you do better than me, keep up the success rate, and luckily I will soon follow !

Originally Posted by SearcherTMR

My case was... 5 successes out of first 5 PROPER attempts (!) and then another 5 fails...
(I don't count as proper attempts 1-2 nights that being tired I slept all the way through and I speak of success and not lucids as one LD was ruined by my child crying as I was exiting and 1 one was of very low quality - i.e. 3 good quality, enjoyable lucids).
I hope you do better than me, keep up the success rate, and luckily I will soon follow !

What happened in those 5 fails? Maybe it's something you can help and improve it.
Thanks, I'll keep it up, lol I don't know why I'm still so excited about this technique, I guess I've never had one work so well before, but I find myself sometimes impatient for the day to pass so I can try it again, not really a good sign XD
Btw I love your signature, great quote :] A lot more true than most people think.

If I only count my PROPER attempts (or nearly Proper) I think my successes are about 100%.
What is not so easy is to do Proper attempt (you have to sleep enough before the WBTB, you have to do the proper WBTB style that works for you, you have to program yourself to notice micro awakenings, and you have to do the proper cycles that works for you).

I'm going to give my two cents as to how I understand his "prescriptions", please tell me, if you think I got something wrong concerning that or general things. But I'm going to read it once more and take notes and plan my endeavour properly, I'm going to follow it exactly as he says, "robotically" and with no deviations.

Why? Because he puts a lot of effort into trying to persuade readers not to change anything, because he always has it in his seminars that many or even most people just wouldn't listen and change crucial parts, or forget crucial parts. I'm not saying anybody here is doing that, just that I will take pains to follow him to the letter, including practising the different techs in the day.

All of it is quite crucial I'm afraid...
If his success-stories were fake, I think, I would have heard about it, but I heard only good things, and again - it makes intuitive sense to me.

I like the idea of doing a WBTB not to try anything directly, but to prepare for noticing micro-awakenings further on and to keep eyes closed and don't move then. But if you do move or open eyes - he urges readers to go ahead anyway, there's still a chance, never throw such an awakening away, or do it all only half-heartedly. Generally he recommends an energetic, even aggressive approach to the techniques.

This is meant to result in an OBE style DEILD, a DEILD is formally a type of WILD.
Anyway - goal is the experience of leaving your physical body with your dream-body.
And he says that about 50% of the success comes in this first step after noticing awakening, the initial separation-attempt for 5 sec, which you should always do before starting cycles:

STEP 3: SEPARATE THE INSTANT YOU AWAKEN

Each time you wake up again, try not to move or open
your eyes. Instead, immediately try to separate from your
body. Up to 50% of success with indirect techniques comes
during this simple first step - one that is so simple that people
don't even suspect that it could work.
In order to separate from your body, simply try to stand
up, roll out, or levitate. Try to do it with your own perceived
(i.e. subtle) body, but without moving your physical muscles.
Remember that it will feel just like normal physical
movement. When the moment comes, don't think too hard
about how to do it. During those first moments after
awakening, stubbornly try to separate from your body any
way that you can and no matter what. Most likely, you'll
intuitively know how to do it. The most important thing is not
to think too hard and not to lose those first seconds of
awakening.

Then the cycles consisting of repeating two to three different methods, and then go through them four times, each getting a few seconds only.
But it's not about completing cycles, your chances sink the further in you are with the repetitions. So it's about trying out what works fast, and every tech getting several chances. He says, you should stay with the first technique which yields any results, even small ones, and try to enhance them, but also try to separate then, not that the effects wane and the chance is over and you need to cycle on.

It's basically the normal DEILD procedure just with aiming at using the metaphor to leave your physical body with your dream-body instead of re-entering a previous dream or specific visualizations. So if it works with "separation" it leads to an experience of being out of the body, that's what it is in my eyes, an experience in a dream, not reality, but one's conceptualization doesn't matter for the technique, which is great.
Would be a bit strange, but fantastic as well, if I really came to use an LD technique I found in Beyond Dreaming.

Soo - I just need to do it now, and knowing my sluggishness, it can take a while until I have something to report...


@Searcher: Could it be that it stopped working when you started with your chalkboard thing, and such eventually over-complicated the basic techniques from the book? Too many senses involved in too complex an activity-visualisation maybe?


Btw. great that he offers his knowledge for free and good that the link is allowed here, even while he does sell his hard-copy books from there as well...

Steph's post just made me realize I never did something that was mentioned in the book. And apparently the author insists it's important to follow the instructions completely. Did you guys re-read the instructions during the WBTB? In step 1 it says

On a night before a free day when you won't have to
wake up early, go to bed at your usual time and set your
alarm so that you'll only sleep for about 6 hours. When the
alarm goes off, you must get up to drink a glass of water, go
to the bathroom, and read these instructions once again.

I totally forgot lol, will start doing that from now on, should boost awareness and make it easier to wake up and notice micro awakenings.

oh my god!!! WTF.... it is too stressful for me then...too much strain isn't counterproductive? i mean following every f... steps in the book?
i will only do what mimihigurashi has done.

Originally Posted by yaya

oh my god!!! WTF.... it is too stressful for me then...too much strain isn't counterproductive? i mean following every f... steps in the book?
i will only do what mimihigurashi has done.

Huh, what's wrong? As far as I could see, there are only 5 steps to the technique..

^^ Given that a "standard" DEILD has pretty much just the one step (remember your last dream while returning to sleep), five steps does seem like a lot -- especially when you must remember to do them during a very groggy, memory-challenged time.

*shrugs* Seems pretty simple to me, do a quick wbtb, wake up and lay still, roll out. Besides, you're only gonna get out as much as you put in, sometimes even less. LDing obviously requires a lot of work, if you're not gonna work for it, you're not gonna get it, and for me, so far this technique is actually the most effective one considering its level low level of difficulty.

I would really love it if we could get this to Research and get some reliable stats on how well it performs long term.

Originally Posted by mimihigurashi

What happened in those 5 fails? Maybe it's something you can help and improve it.

Well, in most of them I was missing the awakenings (due to tiredness I suppose) or realizing them after quite some time, so it was late for the attempt. In some cases, excitement and tension developed during an awakening, that ruined the attempt - something that you helped me realize! I think I can work on both!

Originally Posted by mimihigurashi

Btw I love your signature, great quote :] A lot more true than most people think.

Thanks! I would also say that few people realize the consequences of our waking world being an illusion...
Btw I also like yours - I am a big fan of Eckhart Tolle...

Originally Posted by StephL

Then the cycles and rather four different methods, at least three, and then go through them four times, each getting a few seconds only.

StephL, I think you got this one wrong: it's 2-3 visualization cycled 4 times. For me, 3 took a lot of time to perform, so I just cycle 2 visualizations 4 times.

Originally Posted by StephL

@Searcher: Could it be that it stopped working when you started with your chalkboard thing...

I never used a chalkboard - that's Kaan's approach
And I don't think it's about complication. Like you said, Raduga suggests doing everything robotically and that's what I did. I practiced it while awake and did it automatically upon awakening. I believe my fails were due to tiredness and excitement. We 'll see..

Originally Posted by mimihigurashi

Steph's post just made me realize I never did something that was mentioned in the book...

Well, as long as it's working for you, why on earth should you stick to instructions? Just improvise!
For me, Raduga has some awesome ideas, but by no means that's the only possible way towards success!
The interesting parts in my view are: 1. Imagine separation UPON AWAKENING! ( that's sth that worked for me - and for you I suppose - in most of the cases).
2. Do the visualization cycles to PROLONG the window - and do them robotically, so no thought and complication will be involved...
That actually worked once for me and it was as he says - nothing in the initial attempt, nothing on the first cycle, and then suddenly the sensation on the second...

Originally Posted by Bobblehat

I would really love it if we could get this to Research and get some reliable stats on how well it performs long term.

That's a nice idea!
What I was thinking was to start a new thread in INDUCTION TECHNIQUES where we would treat it as a normal DEILD subtype (not an OBE technique) and let more people discover this, try and report.

I find that I usually don't even need to cycle techniques because the initial "forced falling asleep" step usually shifts me right out of my body. The difference I see between Raduga's technique and a standard DEILD is that his method generally results in the standard OBE/Phase/Astral Projection experience, whereas DEILD generally result in a lucid dream (not that one type of experience is better than the other, but there are some differences). I don't believe his method is complicated at all. The hardest part is simply to remember to do it when you wake up. After a few attempts, it begins to come naturally and there is less need to think about what to do next. What I sometimes do is practice the cycles before bed so my strategy is fresh in my mind in the morning. Simply wake up, don't move, force fall asleep. If that doesn't work, try the technique that seems the most natural, ideally combined with forced falling asleep for the most effective results, and cycle through your favorite techniques until you achieve the phase. I'm partial to floating up, climbing the rope, rolling over, falling, and squeezing the brain, although not particularly in that order. I usually feel it out and do whatever comes to mind and feels right in the moment.

Originally Posted by SearcherTMR

StephL, I think you got this one wrong: it's 2-3 visualization cycled 4 times. For me, 3 took a lot of time to perform, so I just cycle 2 visualizations 4 times.
.

The cycling techniques are more than just visualizations. They are meant to be felt sensations rather than simply mental images. This is an important distinction that can sometimes be the difference between success and failure. Raduga emphasizes feeling the movements of each technique as vividly as possible, and for good reason. It works and is far more effective than simple visualization.

I think by visualization SearcherTMR mainly means movements visualisations, with the dreambody feelings.
My two last successes (within the same night) where based on doing bicycle (sensations of moving the legs) for the first one, and just walking for the second one.
the second before it happens I didn't feel anything, it was hard to imagine myself feeling these movements, but in one or two seconds, it became easy and real, so I think many kinds of visualizing can work, it is mainly a matter of precise timing.
So if I am right, you event don't need to be able to imagine it very well, you just have to be attempting this at the good moment and it becomes real when you reach the exact window of the dream construction.

Sorry for the mixup, Searcher, I already suspected it...
And thank you - you're right with the two to three techs as well, I edited it. As said, I will first of all reread and take notes to make a plan, and seems I definitely should.


What word could one use for simulating a sensation in one's mind that is not visual? When they seem manifest in waking life, phenomena are usually called auditory/olfactory/etc. illusions or hallucinations, but we here seem to repeatedly lack a word equivalent to and as simple as visualization.

Imagination seems better to me from a German perspective, but then, we don't use the imago root for pictures, and it is basically visual as well. German equivalent to imagine would be "sich vorstellen" - can't deduce it better than putting something in front of oneself, but it wouldn't lead to misunderstandings. Sich movement vorstellen makes sense.
Sorry for balabering...

I use the term "tactile imaging" for visualization pertaining to the sense of touch. This term was coined by Robert Bruce, who created (or at least popularized) a system of energy body work in which one moves feeling awareness through the body to stimulate subtle energy movements. Because the term visualization is most often associated with metal imagery (in fact the very definition of the word is "the formation of mental visual images), I think it's important to distinguish the difference. Perhaps "tactile visualization" would also be an appropriate term.

But I like Sich movement vorstellen. I think I'll start using that.

Dammit, I screwed up today.. I woke up after 6 hours and thought "I'll just wait a minute to wake up more until I go to the bathroom" and immediately fell asleep for a few more hours ಠ_ಠ *sigh* Raduga does mention not to try the technique every day though.. to only try it 2-3 times per week, otherwise the chances of success 'will decrease dramatically'.. Wish he explained why that would be.

Originally Posted by SearcherTMR

Thanks! I would also say that few people realize the consequences of our waking world being an illusion...
Btw I also like yours - I am a big fan of Eckhart Tolle...

Tell me about it, I looked into that stuff a lot, it's pretty mindblowing. I am a big fan of Eckhart Tolle too, but my sig quote is from the Buddha xD The advice also happens to be important for LDing, of course.

Well, as long as it's working for you, why on earth should you stick to instructions? Just improvise!
For me, Raduga has some awesome ideas, but by no means that's the only possible way towards success!
The interesting parts in my view are: 1. Imagine separation UPON AWAKENING! ( that's sth that worked for me - and for you I suppose - in most of the cases).
2. Do the visualization cycles to PROLONG the window - and do them robotically, so no thought and complication will be involved...
That actually worked once for me and it was as he says - nothing in the initial attempt, nothing on the first cycle, and then suddenly the sensation on the second...

Haha, that's exactly what the author mentioned, specifically, that people are stubborn and make the mistake of changing vital parts of the instructions. True, everyone's different and different things might work, but I've never seen someone insist so much on following the technique 100% so maybe it really is important, I'll give it a fair chance before judging and starting to change things.
Nice, see, he's not full of crap, lol.

Success! Or something! But something definitely happened. I had a few earlier attempts that didn't pan out, but this one apparently did…. definitely hopeful to make this a habitual "I just woke up" technique.

+ (The Phase success? lucid in the void?) power flight through structures, avoid titan, @parent's house waking at sunset, getting a slice of chocolate cake from the fridge (sister)

This is possibly my first successful "The Phase" attempt. I have tried once or twice earlier in the night but didn't find any success with it.

Clearly, *something* happened.

I'm lying on my right side and I realize I'm awake. I try to immediately separate by visualizing myself lunging out of bed but nothing happens. I then quickly visualize rotating on my vertical axis, hmm, something seems to happen, not sure, I move to attention to visual, and I see something like a pamphlet appear, so I "push" into this vision, and I feel like I've "entered" a scene very much like "getting lucid" feels like, and still see the pamphlet but a bit closer and more like "dream" vision. I think I've entered the dream state! But the pamphlet vanishes and I'm left with no visuals. I feel my wife moving in the bed but I remain in this dream like state in the void.

Then suddenly I hear a roaring grow in my ears, it gets extremely loud and it feels like my whole body is shaking. It subsides and then repeats, even more intense, sort of unpleasant, but I stay with it hoping it will lead to a dream (could already have been the dream in retrospect), but it subsides.

So I imagine a dream location I want to appear in and start flying, eventually I enter a non-lucid flying dream…(rest in my DJ)

full dj: http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/fryi...success-63307/

Hi VinceField.
Basically I agree with everything that you said
About forced falling asleep, Raduga suggests (later in the book when he discusses the indirect technique again) that it can boost success - not as a stand-alone movement. Can you describe how you do-feel it?
I imagine it's like feeling the drift - feeling carried away by the sleepiness - just let go.
Is that you are using for separation alone?
Also, I have heard of "squeezing the brain" before, but have difficulty imagining how that feels like. Can you describe this?
Perhaps I am asking you a lot, but could you also report about your success rate with this and how long you have been using it?
As for my use of the word visualization, it's - like Kaan and StephL suggested - used as a general term. Yes, I know that feeling is what makes the difference and I agree that we should better use words like tactile visualization, Sich movement vorstellen, or even Virtual Sensations.

Mimihigurashi, i suggest staying on topic - I will read your thread about Eckhat that I just spotted and continue this conversation there!
About Raduga's suggestion: only 2-3 attempts per week, I am also very curious - why is that necessary? If on is on vacation and can oversleep every day is it still 2-3 attempts per week?

FryingMan, congrats man!
Quite interesting experience!

Btw, I have read Robert Bruce's Astral dynamics and did all of his exercises but never got any results - contrary to Raduga's technique!