LucidRaider

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Introduction

A warning: this is going to be long. most importantly this is not supposed to be any attack or negative criticism of the hard work that goes into the invention and writing of lucid dreaming techniques and guides

This forum is full of threads started by beginners stating that whatever technique they are using just isn’t working for them. To answer the question of exactly why lucid dreaming is difficult we have to consider that to become lucid you are rebelling against a lifetime of conditioning, and a vast amount of mental information, that has programmed you to be unaware and non-lucid in your dreams. While on a conscious level you may be enthused, excited, and fired up for lucid dreaming on your first night, as far as your unconscious is concerned lucidity is a completely foreign concept. You simply haven’t built the bridges and forged the neural connections in your unconscious that say that you are a lucid dreamer.

While this process can be bypassed to some degree through phenomena of auto and hypnotic suggestion (which are designed to feed information directly into the unconscious mind), for the majority of techniques, and the majority of people, becoming a ‘natural’ lucid dreamer is a matter of time and hard work. Time and work is necessary to replace the neural circuitry of a non-lucid dreamer, some succeed, most fail.


Any technique can yield lucidity on a regular basis, all that matters is mindset

Through experimentation with a wide range of DILD techniques, as well as looking at the effects of beliefs, confidence and intention on lucid dreaming, I have come to the conclusion that:

either

Any technique has the potential to yield lucid dreaming on a nightly basis over time, all that is important is the dreamer’s mindset and, above all, self-belief

or

Technique is entirely irrelevant and unnecessary when compared to the importance of the dreamer’s intent and lucid dreaming mindset

To explain why I believe this I’m going to explore the idea of ‘method’. For any lucid dreaming technique to be truly a method it has to be a) valid and b) reliable. No lucid dreaming technique is either of these things. Validity is the degree to which an output is caused by an input, in this case the output is lucidity and the input is any technique (say, ADA). I you practice ADA and you have a lucid dream, was it caused by that technique? You may think so, but the next day you practice ADA and hey wait a second, no lucid dream, what’s going on? You’ve replicated the same input (ADA) and yet the output (lucidity) is different, in other words the technique is not reliable. In a lab if you react oxygen and hydrogen you will always get hydrogen oxide, water. But as we all know from bitter experience, lucid dreaming is nowhere near as clear cut.


Intention

There must be some other cause, some other variable, outside of the technique that caused lucidity the first time and was absent the second time. Intent. The word intent comes from the Latin root ‘intendere’ which means to ‘stretch toward’ or ‘aim at’. As dreamers we intend, we stretch our will toward the goal of lucidity, a technique is a vehicle for this intent.

Silverbullet has written an excellent (if vague) guide to directing intent towards the goal of lucid dreaming: http://www.dreamviews.com/f12/silver...eaming-117015/, but because he kinda didn’t explain intent too well there was a hostile reaction from some towards what was seen as an attempt to attack the hard work of lucid dreamers out there who had worked to write the various tutorials on the site and so it has slipped into relative obscurity. The message behind it was important, lucid dreaming isn’t about any technique, it’s about you, as an individual.

In the ‘Art of Dreaming’ by Carlos Casteneda Don Juan explains that intent is how ‘sorcerers’ ‘do without doing’. That’s one way of putting it, but I believe intent is the active process by which we form the unconscious mindset, the neural connections, (that I mentioned earlier) of being a lucid dreamer.

Techniques are vehicles for intent, our conscious mind needs to attach our attempts at lucid dreaming to some concrete process in order for our unconscious mind to get on with the important work of intending.

That is why I am not saying to abandon technique or that technique is bad, some people can intend without a technique but the vast majority of us need some vector through which to channel our intent.

What’s important though is that you realise that any technique at all can be this vehicle, all the you need is to realise that it is you doing the lucid dreaming, not the technique. The reason we get stuck in ruts, dry spells, there are a number of reasons that we may not lucid dream on any given night (alcohol, fatigue, stress), but what causes you to become lucid? It’s certainly not 10 RCs each day, it’s how those RCs direct your intention.


Making lucid dreaming about YOU again

Review your early goals, we all make the most ambitious and exciting goals when we first learn of the possibilities of lucid dreaming, recapture that excitement.
Repeat to yourself a simple affirmation, make it present tense and positive, ‘I am a natural lucid dreamer’, really feel the meaning behind the words, so that get that excited feeling in your stomach.
Meditate, meditation is a great tool to connect with your inner mental strength and renewing self-confidence. It can also give you access to states at which your unconscious mind is open to suggestion.


See Also:
This should be required viewing: Advanced lucid dreaming: part 6 - YouTube although it’s nominally about meditation, the real message behind is to put faith in yourself, not techniques
http://www.dreamviews.com/f11/how-ta...eaming-120910/

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Naiya's MILD Technique

Introduction

Most of my lucids are MILDs. Even though it is probably one of the less popular methods, in my opinion it is one of the most reliable and versatile things you can do. The great thing about MILD is that you don't need to remember to RC or build up daytime awareness, and it doesn't require you to lose any sleep. All you need is a few minutes before bedtime. MILD is also complimented by WBTB and reality checking, but it can do very well as a stand alone method.

A lot of people who are new to LDing ask what the easiest induction method is. It's hard to answer that question because different methods work for different people. Having said that, I have always thought that MILD is the perfect method for beginners. It is much more forgiving than, say, WILD, because as long as you keep trying, there really is no wrong way to do it and you will eventually succeed.

A word about consistency: one of the biggest pitfalls I see is when a person tries one method for a week or two, then decides it's not working, and switches to another method. They jump from one method to the next and believe that nothing is working for them. It's very important to understand that lucid dreaming is a skill. While some people might start out with a talent for it, the rest of us have to build up from being beginners. So switching methods would be akin to trying to learn piano one week and then trumpet the next. You never give yourself the chance to master any of them. The mind needs time to internalize what you are trying to learn before it can give you good results. With lucid dreaming, even though you may not have lucid for the first few weeks, just affirm to yourself that you ARE making progress.

Practice and consistency are extremely important with MILD. To get the best results, you should be doing it every single night. If you wake up in the morning with no lucids, don't think of it as a failure. If you did the MILD before bed, then consider it a success because you got your practice done. Your lucids will come when your mind has begun internalizing your practice.

Preparation

Before you begin, it's best to make your environment conducive to MILDing. For starters, you will need to set aside at least 5 minutes just before bedtime for the MILD. If you want the best results, I recommend a little more time, maybe 10-20 minutes total.

It's important to make your attempt when you feel relaxed and your mind is free of daily worries and nagging thoughts. Spend a minute or so (or more if you are a meditator) letting go of any thoughts and worries. Make it an ironclad rule to not worry about your daily life when it's bedtime. If you need to, jot down your worries and thoughts (i.e. "I need to get gas tomorrow") in your dream journal so you can read any reminders or worries in the morning. You might try imagining that you are throwing your troubles and your thoughts away in a well or a box near your bed. If you are still being plagued by worries and thoughts, affirm to yourself that the best thing you can do for yourself and everyone around you at this moment is to get a good night's sleep and be relaxed and happy in the morning.

The next part depends on how easily you fall asleep. If it takes you a long time to fall asleep (10+ minutes), then you may lie down and get comfortable as usual, and do the MILD as you fall asleep. Don't worry about trying to keep it up to the very last moment you fall asleep, because that will keep you awake. But try to make sure you keep your mind on it for at least 5 minutes before letting your mind wander or dropping off.

If you are the type who falls asleep within a few minutes of hitting the pillow, you may not want to lie down for the MILD. Instead, turn off the lights, sit comfortably on your bed, and after at least 5 minutes, go ahead and lie down to sleep, keeping the MILD going as you fall asleep.


On WBTBs: If you wake up naturally during the night, it would increase your chances of getting lucid if you repeat the MILD when you go back to sleep. If you have the need or want to, you can set an alarm or two at night to increase your chances. It's not necessary, but it can help a great deal. Don't worry about being consistent in the number of MILD attempts per night--it only matters that you do at least once per night total.


It's very important to keep a dream journal for MILDing, especially if you are coupling it with reality checking. When you keep a dream journal, your recall gets better, and with that, it will be easier to MILD.

The Method

Once you have settled down your mind and you're comfortable, turn your attention to lucid dreaming. Recall your most recent dream, in as much detail as you possibly can. Imagine yourself exploring the dream as if you had been lucid in it. Believe that you are back in the dream again, only lucid. Believe that, in only a few minutes, you will soon be dreaming again, and imagine yourself knowing it's a dream, doing whatever you want. You can come up with any scenario you wish for this. It may be helpful to imagine yourself completing whatever tasks or goals you have. If you can't recall a recent dream, you can use any other dream you had, as long as it was vivid enough to remember it with a good amount of detail. This can be really helpful if you want to go back to a certain dreamscape.

Another variation of this is to use a movie, video game or book. You can make up a completely imaginary environment, perhaps something from your daydreams. Imagine yourself lucid in the environment, doing whatever you want to do. It helps if you see yourself doing fun or interesting things, because it keeps you motivated.

You don't have to imagine the same thing in every MILD attempt. If you did, things might get boring and your mind will not be in an active state. So don't be afraid to change it up, use a different dream memory, or imagine new things.

If you have time during the day and you want to give your MILD a boost, you can practice it in the middle of the day. Simply daydream yourself into a lucid daydream. It will help build up your visualization and creative skills, which are useful for not only MILDs, but dream control.

Using Autosuggestion

Using autosuggestion or mantras, either alone or with the visualization, will help you MILD. Remember that the mind ignores negation when you are coming up with mantras to use.

For example, if you use this mantra:

"I will not fail to lucid dream tonight"

Your mind will perceive it as:

"I will fail to lucid dream tonight."


One of my mantras used to be "I will have a lucid dream tonight." I was confused when I starting having only one lucid per night, when I normally have a few. Then I changed it to "I will have many lucid dreams tonight," and I began having more lucid per night again.

Some of my favorite mantras:

"I'm dreaming" --> the best for coupling with visualization, really drives it home.
"This is a dream"
"I will wake up in a dream" --> to promote FA's. Remember to couple with RCs every time you wake!
"I'll be dreaming soon."
"I will have lucid dreams tonight."

Conclusion

This method is pretty simple, but it can be powerful once it's mastered. Anyone can master it if they put in the time to practice it. You can do MILD while you're exploring other methods, so that if the other methods don't work well for you, there's always that guarantee of getting lucid eventually from your MILDs. Typically I recommend doing MILD for at least 2 months to give it sufficient time to work, but for some it may take more time. Sooner or later it will work--it's just that for whatever reason it takes longer for some people.

Good luck and happy lucids!