The Tales of Brother Goose
Trying out MILD? This is how you become skilled at it.
by
, 03-09-2015 at 10:58 PM (738 Views)
MILD: Behind the technique
MILD refers as most people know to as Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams, and it’s been said to be a very effective technique. According to a recent study, chances are that people with better prospective memory would become better at MILD. The point I’m trying to make it is that MILD is just a name given to the exercise of remembering you want to become lucid. The work behind it, is prospective memory, or the kind of memory that allows you to remember things in the future.
In Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming, Stephen LaBerge posted several exercises to improve prospective memory, but in my opinion, a bigger list taking some aspects into account that make the appearance of each object more likely would be more effective. Also, in a very recent study about the effectiveness of several lucid dreaming techniques, it was demonstrated that MILD is not by itself so that effective as many of us would think. But the same study itself questions what would happen if "those with good prospective
memory skills might benefit from MILD (source: Induction of lucid dreams: A systematic review of evidence 2012).
So, here’s a list of nearly 100 items designed to improve your prospective memory in a course of 1 month. This will increase your prospective memory and thus increasing the chances of a MILD. The task is basic: you pick 3 actions, and try to spot them as much as possible during the day. In the next day, you pick again 3 actions and try to spot them.
Tutorial: how to set up your list: Step 1
This is the list you will be working with. If you want, you can add more tasks yourself, or if possible, reply in this post, so that we could increase the number of tasks. This would help because even though there’s nothing wrong on getting the same task twice, it would allow for a bigger diversity.
Spoiler for List of Tasks:
These tasks are meant to last you for a month, but there's absolutely no harm to do one task several times. Like I said above you can add more items yourself. The goal is that you'll be improving your prospective memory, which then will lead to easier MILDs.
Tutorial: how to set up your list: Step 2
Now, we want a easy and fast way to randomize those items, so you can use this excellent website called http://www.random.org/lists/. Just copy the list in the spoilers, and then click on the button "Randomize", like you see in the picture below:
After that, you just pick the first 3 items on a list (or 2 if you want to take it a bit lighter) and perform a reality check every time that queue pops up in front of you.
My problem at the moment is to organize a way to test people's prospective memory, but if you do these exercises, you will increase your chances of having a MILD. Not because of the tasks themselves, but because you will be able to pick a trigger (like a dream sign) and thanks to your improved prospective memory, become lucid just by spotting it. So if you think you are prepared, start to choose a small number of small tasks to perform everyday that may lead you to lucidity, since it's the trigger more than the intention that seems to work.
Many people perceive MILD as something like "I will remember I'm dreaming", but this leaves no trigger to activate your lucidity, leaves nothing to the brain to retrieve that intention. To do MILD properly, you need grab some mnemonic to aid you. And that good thing is that if you choose a recurrent dream sign, you can apply something like "Whenever I see X person/animal/place/situation/feeling, I will do a reality check". The thing is, if you pratice your prospective memory before-hand, then you will a increased chance of succeeding at spotting the queue.
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