DJ Comments

this is why I stay in Zödra all the time!

usually have an easy time incubating this time not sure what to think of i guess

Not in this case: I try to avoid dreaming about aliens!

Yeah, I'm one of those lucid dreamers who've yet to have thoroughly "faced their fears" to have them weaken (as all the books recommend doing eventually), so I still get anxious about scenarios that are similar to scary accounts I've read. (one of which is alien encounters--I'm not actually that scared of alien encounters, as it's more far-fetched/silly than other scenarios, but it still causes some avoidance).

good job dreaming about aliens, have you been doing alot of incubating?

Hilarious!

Not so far, although I've only tried it twice now.

Interesting method. Do your dreams become have extended details to them?

Does your mind wander during the cycles (from starting to fall asleep)? And if not, what do you do to keep that from happening?

Sometimes. Most of the time, though, I'm awake enough from the WBTB to complete it all in one block without letting my mind wander. My mind would probably wander most of the time if I did it in the middle of the night like most people in the thread.

PS you should post this description of how you do it on the 30 day test thread, I think a lot of us are/were doing it wrong.

Good idea. It's nice to compare how we each do it, and learn from each other.

Thanks for explaining. Does your mind wander during the cycles (because of starting to fall asleep)? And if not, what do you do to keep that from happening?

PS you should post this description of how you do it on the 30 day test thread, I think a lot of us are/were doing it wrong.

I start out doing them for about 5 seconds each, and then each time I extend it by about 33%. So by the end of 7 cycles, it's something like:

Cycle 1: 5, 5, 5
Cycle 2: 7, 7, 7
Cycle 3: 9, 9, 9
Cycle 4: 12, 12, 12
Cycle 5: 16, 16, 16
Cycle 6: 21, 21, 21
Cycle 7: 28, 28, 28

Of course, this is just a rough estimation, even my multiplication above wasn't accurate. In reality, I do it differently each time, depending on how much feedback I'm getting, how tired I am, etc.

But I usually end up doing it for around 3 to 5 minutes. And no, I don't fall asleep while doing the cycles. I used to do that, but then I found out it actually works better if I just do it correctly for a short period of time, and then get into a comfortable position, relax, and just fall asleep thinking about whatever I feel like. This is nice, because I really enjoy thinking about stuff while in bed. (I like to analyze events and ideas, and in bed there are no distractions)

In retrospect, it takes only a few minutes for me to fall asleep, and I either find myself in a false awakening, find myself in a dream and become lucid, or just have a vivid non-lucid dream, (although these are becoming less common now).

EDIT: The hardest part for me with this technique at the start, is that I had trouble letting go and falling asleep without continuing to do any cycles. It made me feel like I was wasting time and not using it to improve my chances. (in fact, I kind of cheated and kept doing them anyway) But the cool thing about this technique is that I've learned it works just as well without continuing all those cycles, and you can fall asleep way faster if you don't do them. Although, I don't think it really hurts to, so if you feel like doing extra cycles, feel free to do so but you'll probably be staying awake longer. I guess that would fine, actually, since that way you can test it for yourself and find what works for you, i.e. the optimal number of cycles to do, by cutting it down gradually.

How many seconds do you spend on each sense during your SSILD cycles? And do you fall asleep while doing the cycles or do you do them and then think about something else to fall asleep?

And congrats on such a long LD!

Nice! Seems like SSILD is working well for you

That's a wild mix of experimental methods of mine that I've been testing out. I just abbreviate it BAT because that was what the original 'title' was. It was originally meant to stand for "Background Awareness Technique", but I've been changing it so much that it doesn't even mean that anymore. If I get them to work with any consistency, then I'll actually post them, but for now I'm just testing new ideas out haphazardly.

What is the BAT method? I don't recall seeing that abbreviation before.

That is some impressive recall that you have going there, so I'm sure the question about lucid control will come in time.
(I seem to have that same problem incidentally.)