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The idea of drinking apple juice before bed is not my idea.
I read it in another topic and decided to take it further, to do a proper test on it's effects.

It's said that drinking apple juice before bed, as the last thing you consume (other than toothpaste and mouthwash, but you don't swallow those) improves dream vividness and clarity, leading to cooler/better dreams and increasing the chances of noticing dream signs, and thus, becoming lucid.

I have in the past few night drunk apple juice before bed, with good results. Normally I only dream in 1st person this clearly 1 in 7 dreams. Last two night have been exclusively 1st person clear dreams. This must be attributed to the apple juice.

I was wondering if anyone else would like to join and assist me to test this? I need someone else to drink it as well, to make sure it's not just me, and maybe some other people to try drinking other stuff before bed, to make sure it is the apples in the juice.

Any takers?

Hello everybody,

I was reading this post and find this link in it. After reading all the document (it is a really easy reading, 19 pages and a huge font size) I thought that trying the suggested method could not hurt me.

It basically consists on repeating an Affirmation for 15-20 minutes a day, after 5 minutes of relaxation (somewhat similar to Nidra Yoga). This Affirmation should be written following some key points:

1-It should be written in present tense (e.g. I am rich)
2-It should contain absolute or infinite terms (e.g. I have all the lucid dreams I want)
3-Don't worry about it's logical sense: the Subconscious will believe anything. Thus, put your goals as high as possible (always within what the author calls the "Laws of the Universe").

In respect to the saying of the Affirmation:

1-It should be repeated a lot (every skill is learned through repetition)
2-It can be thought, it is not necessary to say it loud.
3-You should feel the emotion of already having/achieving what you want while saying the Affirmation for quicker results.
4-It should be said when waking up (not sure about this, maybe saying it at night could be more interesting as it would put our mind in the "right" direction).
5-Try to say it with conviction and confidence that your Subcosncious will do the job.

So, my next goal is to write an Affirmation that directs my Subconscious to lucid dreaming regularly. I am posting an initial guess, and what I am expecting is some constructive suggestions from anybody to finally come up with a working Affirmation.

After deciding for a final version of the Affirmation, I'll experiment with it (and it would be nice if more people wanted to try it) and post any results. So here it goes:

"I always know if I am dreaming or not. My dreams are lucid. They are extremely vivid and stable. I remember all my dreams when I wake up."

So here I am asking for:
- Attaining lucidity
- Vividness
- Stability
- Recall

Any suggestions?

Maybe a simple "I lucid dream" would be more effective? In the mentioned e-book the author writes pretty long Affirmations, probably for constraining the Subconscious interpretations and ensuring a minimum deviation from the goal in mind.

Maybe asking also for dream control?

Thank you.

I came up with a method that allows me to have lucid dreams. It isn't a 100% accurate method, but it works fairly well. It's kinda like the suggestion method, but the opposite.

Okay, this little experiment might help you understand it better.

Close you eyes and try not to think about a pink elephant for 20 seconds.

I bet all you could think of was the pink elephant. The key of this method is not to think of something else, but to focus on not thinking about lucid dreaming. Then it seems all you can think about is that thing. I find if I try not to think about lucid dreaming while I'm falling asleep at night, I randomly become lucid in many dreams. Try it out and post your thoughts.

Now, this technique is best preformed with WBTB and works in the same way as a FILD. What you do when you wake up from sleeping is close your eyes and lie down. Then count '1 I am lucid dreaming' '2 I am lucid dreaming' '3...' '4....' '5.....' and so on. Once you reach 51, preform a reality check, and you will be dreaming.

Let me know your thoughts and experiences

Thanks

So I tried this last night. I told myself, "I lucid dream. Lucid dreaming is easy. EVERYONE can do it. You're holding yourself back by your doubts and false beliefs. Let them go. I lucid dream."
Sadly, I didn't get a lucid. But I know that it will happen. Cool part was though, I haven't remembered any of my dreams in literally months, because of school and all that. But the first night I try this technique? I remembered my dream in the morning. I can already tell it's progressing me along. (: I'll lucid dream tonight.
It really is a belief/subconscious thing. Our standard conscious belief is that lucid dreaming is difficult, and that it takes a lot of practice if you're not a natural. But in reality, everyone can do it. And by truly believing you can do it, and like Silverbullet said earlier 'Not just believing. It's fucking KNOWING.' <that right there says it all. KNOW that you'll lucid dream. And it'll happen. Sure, it may not work the very first night you try it, but it progresses you towards your goal (lucid dreaming) and ends up giving you the desired result. (:

This is exactly how it works for me! I think many people using this technique are "trying" a bit too much. But what is the difference between trying and knowing? For me trying is when you continue to tell yourself that you are going to have a lucid dream that night in bed. But if you knew that you would have a lucid dream that night, why would you continue to repeat that in your head?

I didn't get this simple fact before I started to look into my own dreams a bit more. First I started to look at what I did differently when I had my lucid dreams, of course I looked in all the wrong places. Was it the food I ate? The things I did? The time I went to sleep?

Well, I tried to completely replicate all of those little things and guess what I got? Absolutely nothing. I was left dumbstruck, if I did everything in the exact same way as I did when I had my lucid dream, why wouldn't I get one then?

Then it struck me, no small thing would make me lucid, because the only thing holding me back was myself. What held me back was my own state of mind. Every single lucid I've had throughout the years have been successful due to my state of mind.

So what was my state of mind like when I had my lucid dreams? Perhaps I thought much about lucid dreaming before bed? Maybe I played some game to make me more alert? Nope, the only thing I did was being careless about lucid dreaming, I didn't focus my strength at becoming lucid. I focused my strength at falling asleep.

So, what did I do when I failed my lucid dreams then? I pressured myself. I continued to think about lucid dreaming at night, trying to induce it by thinking hard about dreaming and by doing that i increased the already high pressure even more. It didn't matter if I fully believed that I was going to lucid dream, by pressuring myself at night I managed to destroy my chances of having lucid dreams.

I wish I would've seen my facial expression when I came to that conclusion. I think it was something in between of looking extremely happy but at the same time extremely dumb. This simple thing had flown past me millions of times and I didn't give it a thought at all. For years I sat and repeated my mantras, tried to fall asleep while aware and thought about lucid dreaming. But the only thing I needed to do was to look into myself and figure lucid dreaming out for myself.

The "method" i use in a nutshell:
1 (optional). I meditate about an hour before bed to make my thoughts more manageable. This makes it easier for me to induce the dreamscapes I want to visit (horray for cool dreamscapes!)
2. I go to bed and sleep. (If you have a hard time feeling careless about lucid dreaming try to think of it as something less important. You could pretend that you have a big test at school tomorrow and you really need to be 100% awake in the morning, so you don't have time to think about lucid dreaming.)
3. I lucid dream

If you choose to meditate you could use that to reinforce the fact that you're going to have lucid dreams tonight (or every night ).

So if anyone feels like they're trying a bit too hard, stop trying. Watch some movies, play some games, read some books or simply chill out. You are going to get your lucid dreams anyway!

(TLDR; I agree with Ctharlhie, don't focus so much on lucid dreaming at night, confidence is key, over-thinking is not.)

I've been going over a lot of threads and noticing a trend. People are constantly worried about their methods. They're worried about following instructions to the polished details, when it's that very persistent attitude that I believe is failing them.

Everyone is different, no doubt about that. We all learn differently. And similarly, we all have our own - questionably unique - techniques when it comes to attaining lucidity. Some use WILDs while others might prefer a MILD (I love these acronyms!). But beginners, like myself, have studied other users' methods with hopes of achieving a lucid dream on the first try - most often ending up with a disappointing and demotivating failure.

There is no "perfect" method! The real trick is figuring out what method works the best for you! Of course, beginners need to learn from somewhere - I'm not saying don't learn, I'm saying don't look at it with such a focused eye. Try a few different methods, vary it up a bit, and see what sticks!

For those who are just starting out, here is what I believe is important - remember, I'm not claiming this to be The Method, I just think it makes logical sense:
What is required to have a lucid dream? Well, we need to be asleep. We need to fall asleep before we can be asleep. And we need to be asleep before we can realize we're asleep. If we're focusing so hard with falling asleep, it's never going to happen. If I said, "Don't think about peanut butter!", then you'll start thinking about peanut butter. Likewise, if you're thinking about trying to fall asleep, then you probably won't be falling asleep anytime soon, as you'll be too caught up in thought.

Instead, go to sleep as you naturally would! Cross your arms, cross your legs, curl up into a ball -whatever!- and just relax. Find a way to keep your goal in the back of your head (not forgetting it, just not thinking about it) and let your thoughts drift as they naturally would each night.

Be sure to have plenty of sleep! Go to bed at a reasonable time to ensure you get enough sleep with time left in the day to use on trying your techniques. If you try to have a lucid dream at 9pm, just going to bed, then more than likely you'll fall into a deep sleep because your mind hasn't had a chance to unwind.

Oh! And just because a particular method doesn't work one night, doesn't mean it won't ever work! People have dry spells with lucid dreaming, so it might not have been a good night to try anyway.

Once again, this is all my own opinion. I hope this helps and that you give a few different methods a try and that you find your perfect technique!

I'd really like to hear what you all think

You'll see problems though when you start to apply it to things on the fringes of your beliefs, like if you can scarcely believe that it will, or can, happen.

There are other problems like hidden beliefs that work against you without you even realizing it.

Then there are conflicting beliefs that eat into each other's power to produce (ex. "the early bird gets the worm." vs. "He who hesitates is lost.").

Knowing yourself and your beliefs is key to getting it to work right and regularly.

Much like in dreams, belief is a tool and the better you use it the more you will get from it.

KingYoshi's DILD Tutorial

So, I already have a WILD tutorial, but now it seems I am getting a lot of questions about my DILD method, all day awareness, and proper RC technique. I've decided to just go ahead and break down my entire approach to DILD. So, sit back, fire one up, and learn to DILD...the Yoshi way!


General Keys to Success
With any induction method/technique there are three keys to long-term success.

1. Effort - Aside from the handful of natural lucid dreamers out there, the rest of us have to put forth the effort and work toward lucidity. Without that drive, you aren't going to have the kind of results you are looking for.

2. Confidence - This one is as simple as the first. You need to be confident in your abilities. I don't care if you just joined yesterday and literally have no clue what you are doing. EVERYONE can lucid dream regularly.

3. Experience - You don't even have to do anything special for this one. Every single thing you do while practicing lucid dreaming, works toward experience. Just keep practicing and gain experience from every success as well as every failure.


All Day Awareness
So, what exactly is a DILD? DILD stands for Dream Induced Lucid Dream. It is a lucid induction technique where the dreamer becomes aware that he/she is dreaming, from within the dream itself. DILD success is all about awareness.

I practice a technique known as All Day Awareness (ADA). I first heard/learned of the basic concept for ADA from another DV member here on the site...Naiya. For those of you who don't know Naiya, she has practiced lucid dreaming for many years and has a LD Count well over 1,000. In a nutshell, All Day Awareness (ADA), is noticing and paying attention to the subtle things in life that most people ignore or take for granted.

Lets take for instance, you are walking your dog down the street. Be aware of everything around you. Hear your footsteps against the pavement, feel the cushion in the sole of your shoes contract with each step. Feel the muscles working in your legs as you stroll along, see your eyelids blinking, hear the sound of your breathing, feel your lungs expanding and your chest moving as you breath in and out. Smell the air as you travel through the neighborhood. Does it change? Does every breeze smell the exact same? Feel your tongue as it casually rests on the bottom of your mouth. Every structure around you has a shadow...do you notice them? Hear the pitter patter of the dogs feet, do you hear him panting? Most people hold the leash and walk down the sidewalk completely lost in their thoughts. Most don't even notice the control they are using to power their own legs.

You are sitting at the computer doing math homework. Feel the keys below your fingertips, notice how effortlessly your fingers fly from one key to the next without even having to think about the upcoming letter/keystroke. While you were reading the previous two sentences, did you take for granted the blinking process. What all sounds have you heard while you have been reading this tutorial? What does the air smell like? You shouldn't have to smell right now to answer the question. Have you noticed the shadows of everything around you? How about your lungs? Have you noticed them expanding and your chest moving. Have you noticed the air traveling up through your windpipe, across your tongue and passed your lips?

These are just a few of the millions of small details that the average person takes for granted or doesn't even bother to notice. It is almost like everyone is sleep walking while they are awake. If you don't have good awareness in waking life, how do you expect to have good awareness in your dreams? In about 90% of my DILDs, I have known I was dreaming or suspected I was dreaming before ever performing a RC. The RC is used mostly to confirm that I am dreaming. That lowly 10% is from obtaining lucidity due to a particular dream sign or performing a random RC while thinking I was actually awake. (these percentages are estimates and I likely was too generous with the 10%).

At first, you will have to force yourself to be completely aware of your surroundings. The idea, is to try and become aware of absolutely EVERYTHING around you. After practicing ADA for a while, you will start to become aware of theses subtleties without forcing yourself. As you practice more and more, you will notice the subtleties being noticed quite naturally with little effort. Eventually, you will get to where you are no longer practicing All Day Awareness, you are actually living it. It will become natural for you. Once you have reached this level of awareness, the dream itself becomes your dream sign. Every thing you notice within the dream will become you RC. Every dream you have will be a lucid and you have reached the pinnacle of lucid dreaming.

Not only does awareness help strive toward lucidity, but it also helps with recall. As you continue to practice ADA, it will start to carry over in your dreams. Even if you aren't getting lucid yet, you will start paying more attention to the dream environment. Making mental notes of what you see, hear, feel, taste, and smell. This will help make dreams much easier to recall upon waking up from sleep. It will also help you recall more details from your dream. Soon you will be having detailed journal entries that read almost like a story as opposed to a scattered series of events that jump around from place to place.

*Getting Started
Thanks everyone for the valuable feedback. I forgot just how overwhelming ADA can be when you first start practicing. I then realized, I had left out a key point in the tutorial. There are so many things to notice that it can get in the way of your daily activities, possibly causing stress. Stress is not good at all for lucid dreaming. I recommend that all beginners start small and work your way up.

Pick out certain times throughout the day, when you aren't busy, and work on ADA. Take 5 or 10 minutes to notice everything you can. Do this several times during your day. Some days you may be able to practice a lot, and others you may not get as much practice in. Go ahead and perform some RCs during these ADA sessions as well. Once you get more used to the process and it starts getting easier, you can become more frequent with your sessions. It is very hard to keep up the awareness all day long when you aren't used to it. Even now, I am not able to keep it going at all times. I'll get lost in thought, or something else I am doing and realize I was "day walking" again . Performing ADA in sessions will still help loads with your awareness and you can work your way up at your own discretion. Be sure not to overwork yourself. If you start feeling mentally exhausted, take a day off from training. Everyone needs their rest.

When I first started practicing ADA, I did it in sessions like I described above. I worked my way up until it started becoming natural. Even now, I still take sessions to make sure I really notice absolutely everything. Something else I should add...don't forget about the clothes you are wearing. Feel and notice them at all times.

Dream Signs and Reality Checking
Now, picking out dream signs and performing RCs still play a key role in the DILD process. Humor me for a moment.

A live flamingo hat is definitely a dream sign. Even though it has showed up multiple times in your dreams, it isn't even going to be in the majority of your dreams...let alone all of your dreams. If you rely solely on a dream sign for lucidity, you are only going to be able to take advantage of the dreams it shows up in. If you happen to miss it, you never know when it will return. However, if you have pointed the hat out as a dream sign, you have identified a recurring element in your dream. This familiarization with the dream world has added an extra boost to your awareness. Not to mention, when it does show up again, you will have a chance at recognizing it. The better your awareness, the more likely you will be able to recognize dream signs within the dream.

I mentioned earlier that RCs are used more for confirming that you are lucid, as opposed to actually creating lucidity for you. The key function of a RC (reality check) is actually increasing awareness. Whenever you perform a RC during waking life, don't just go through the motions. Prior to performing your RC, take a moment to become aware of your surroundings. Even if you know that you are awake, pretend that everything around you is actually a dream. Finally, perform your RC and see if you are actually dreaming. A quality RC is a RC in which you question your reality.

From above, "pretend everything around you is actually a dream." Whether you truly believe this questioning of reality or not, is irrelevant. The fact that you ARE questioning it, is good enough. The idea is, if you are able to question your reality during waking life, you will do the same in your dreams. Like I said earlier, 90% of the time awareness makes you lucid, not the RC itself. Practicing quality RCs like these, will boost that awareness level greatly.


Dream Journal & Recall Enhancement
Last, but certainly not least, is dream journaling. It is key that you write down every dream that you possibly can. Once you wake from sleep, try not to move much. Just lay there and recall/recap your dream in your mind. Once you have went through the dream, immediately write it down. Keep a notebook and pencil/pen at your bedside. Keeping a dream journal will also help build up your dream recall. If you wake from sleep and only remember bits and pieces, write down those bits and pieces. If you wake up and don't remember anything at all, write down, "Couldn't remember any dreams." Its important that you do this. It will help train your mind to literally WANT to write down something. This will help toward recall as well.

If you want to immediately enhance your recall, you can set alarms throughout the night. The idea is that you wake up either between REM cycles or toward the end of an REM cycle and write down your dream then. Since you are waking up right after they happen, they won't be forgotten as the night progresses (even if they are...you wrote them down ). The REM cycle generally takes a few hours to get started. Once it does get started, REM will cycle through every 90 minutes or so (on average). I started out by setting my initial alarm for after 4 hours of sleep. The next alarm is for two hours later (after 6 hours of sleep). Then i set alarms in 1 hour increments until I wake up for good.


Technique Results
Ever since I first learned of All Day Awareness, I have been practicing it. Twice I took relatively long breaks from DreamViews and simply didn't train for LDing, but the rest of the time I have been practicing ADA. I have 107 DILDs recorded on the site, but counting the DILDs I had during my time away from DreamViews I am at 150+ DILDs. Like I mentioned before, only a handful of them were because of a random RC. The rest were simply due to my awareness. I am hovering around the 22 LD per month mark, but I am certain that if I had stayed in ADA practice my entire time, I would be averaging a LD per night by now. I truly believe that with enough practice, ADA is a legit technique for accomplishing lucidity in every dream.

More Information and Contributions to ADA
Naiya
For her take/explanation on ADA, click the link and scroll down to post #6. http://www.dreamviews.com/f12/naiyas...secrets-61802/

MindGames
Also I have something to contribute to your tutorial. I think that if you were to be constantly aware of your environment in the context of whether or not aspects are dreamlike, it would be more effective in producing nightly lucid dreams. This would train your mind to focus primarily on dream-related aspects in your environment, thus increasing the effectiveness of your awareness. This would allow you to effectively be constantly performing a reality check, in the sense that your mind is constantly questioning if your environment is a dream, rather than just primarily paying attention to your environment. Awareness is key to all DILDs, but how you use it is also important.

If you give ADA a shot, be sure to post any progress, questions, or comments below. Many of us would love to hear how its going. We also may be able to give some advice if needed. Good luck to everyone!

and..........
Raphael

I recently got into meditation, and discovered that you could use it to WILD! I thought I might share it with you guys, because this technique is the easiest one and most effective one I have encountered. The meditation technique I use to WILD is the following:

I close my eyes, and place my attention only on the center of my forehead (between my eyebrows) and on my breath. That's it.

Why does it work? Because that is where the pineal gland, the third eye, the minds eye is located. By imagining sensations at that location, you directly stimulate it. The pineal gland is the gland that secretes melatonin, which is one of the hormones responsible for dreaming. You can increase stimulation the better you can concentrate on it and the better you can induce sensations or vibrations in that area. The better your imagination, the more focussed your mind, and the less you keep talking to yourself inside your head all the time, the better this technique works. The longer you use this technique, the faster you will get into a WILD. It's like a magic button you need to push to get into dreamland.

This is a 5000 year old tantra technique, as the story goes, one of the 112 meditations given by Shiva to his consort Parvati. Still works like a charm, and it's the easiest WILD technique out there IMO. This one directly induces dreaming by stimulating the gland that secretes the dreaming hormones. I also already managed to go into dreaming during meditation without laying down, all I need to do is close my eyes and concentrate for a while. The litteral translation of the tantra technique is the following:


Hope this helps!

Hello DV!

I just got a great idea. Let your subconcious tell you if you are gonna have a Lucid dream.
How to do this? Using a pendelum. This is actually self-hypnosis. First, we need to make some preperations.
Step 1: Take a piece of paper, any size but i recommend a A4(Thats what its called in Sweden) and a pencil.
Step 2: Draw a circle, about 10 centimeters wide(This doesnt really matter, but i uses that size.)
Step 3: Now draw to lines, crossing each other in the circle.
Step 4: Now take a pendelum, a neclase or whatever. They just gotta get a good swing. Place it over the circle and the crossed lines. Now, we wanna ask our subconcious "When will i have a luciddream?". The answers are: When the pendelum goes forth and back, it means "Tonight". If it goes from the left to the right, it means "Tomorrow night". If it goes clock-wise, it means within a week. If it goes anti-clockwise, it means "within a month." Write that down. (Look at the attachment for a example of what it may look like)
Now, take the pendelum back and forth, ans say for yourself "Tonight". Then from the right to left, saying Tomorrow night etc etc. This inprints your minds the answers. You might wanna do this a few times. Now place the pendelum in the middle of the circle. Now ask yourself the question "When will i have a lucid dream the next time?" or something like that. Dont move your arm. Now, your arm will slowly move your arm to control the pendelum, giving you the answer. Remember, this is not magic. Its just you. You can actually say "Whats my name on Dreamviews?" and make up a few answers. In my case, it would point out "Zelzahim." But this also means, if your subconsious doesnt now the answer, it wont tell you. After some training, you wont need the paper. Pretty cool isnt it?
I really believe in this one. Remember not to afflict it with will.

What do you guys think? I tried with several question. It says i were gonna have it tonight, 2 out of 4 in vividness and 1 of 4 in recall. Ill report back tomorrow with the results

Happy hypnosis,
//Zelzahim

Latly iv been noticing a pattern with my LDs and the pattern is after you have your first LD of the night the rest come very easily as you have that awareness and excitement of LD fresh in your mind when you sleep again.

so i thought what if when i wake up after a ordinary dream ill just pretend it was a LD and get excited about it and think about it.

So i tried this last night and it worked i had about 5-6 dreams and about 4 for Lucid.

because when you wake up from a normal dream and have that little dissapointment of not having LD i personaly think that decreases your chances of LD during that night.

anyway if it works for anyone els post it here and share how it went.

Last night I discovered an easy way to attain lucidity and sleep paralysis fast. Now this may sound silly, but lay on the ground on the side of your bed on your back with your arms on your side. After about 10-15 minutes, your body will become so uncomfortable that it almost urges you to get back on your bed, when it is so unpleasent that you can't stand it anymore, get back on your bed. The body will be so relieved that it will grab the chance to fall into a deep sleep in about 5 minutes. After you fall asleep you will start the LDing.

METHOD 2. Lay on your bed on your back with your arms on your side. DO NOT go to sleep, remain conciousness. After a while your mind will question "Is the body ready to go to sleep?" to confirm that the body is still awake, it will urge you to roll over to another position. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT THAT YOU IGNORE THE URGE. The urge becomes excrutiatingly painful, IGNORE THE URGE! After about 5-20 seconds of pain, your mind will confirm that the body is asleep, and enter sleep paralysis. When awake and experiencing sleep paralysis, it can be scary. It will feel like you can not breathe. If you do not want to continue, change your breathing pattern into deep, long breaths. The mind will notice that the body is awake and it will wake up altogether, If you would like to continue in sleep paralysis, just sit there for about 5-10 seconds. The body will enter the Lucid Dreaming state. I hope I helped, and happy LDing.

Greetings. For the past few days i had been googling for different ways and methods for inducing lucid dreams. While i was at it, i came across a few articles about NLP and how it is used to modify behavior. Also i stumbled upon two subliminal videos created by Pete Casale (world of lucid dreaming website) in which NLP patterns (Swish, Anchoring and framing) are used to induce lucid dream. Although i had known NLP for some time now, i never knew that nlp techniques could be used to induce lucid dream. After watching the videos, i thought of making a new (perhaps) technique using the nlp patterns from the video, to be included in the DV tutorials. And i came up with SPILD (Swish Pattern Induced Lucid Dream). For those who know nlp, the swish pattern (nlp technique) is a simple and well known yet very powerful submodality technique for taking minor problem behaviours or states and replacing them with more useful behaviours or states. Basically it is used to change habits and/or install automatic responses. Below i outline the way for inducing lucid dream using the Swish pattern.

SPILD ( Swish Pattern Induced Lucid Dream )

Swish patterns are usually done in a visual representation system (i.e using mental images or pictures) although they can be performed in any representational system. If are a primarily visual person, you can choose to do a visual swish. For this you need two pictures:-

1. The first picture represents the present state and must be associated i.e. the picture must be as it would appear seen through your own eyes - this is VERY important.

In the associated picture see yourself being cozy in bed and dosing off into
dreamland. Here, create the feeling of total physical and mental relaxation and
see yourself having the non lucid dreams.

2. The second picture represents the desired state and must be dissociated i.e.
See yourself in the picture, as if you are another person seeing yourself from a
different angle.

In the dissociated picture see your self in a dream becoming self aware, doing
some reality tests and finally becoming lucid.


As the swish pattern is a fast technique it is useful to take a few moments to make the two pictures as real as possible by tweaking the submodalities of each until they were just right. This way you can access the pictures quickly and easily when you come to do the swish.


Once you have the two pictures ready it is time to swish using the following steps:-

1. Access the first picture - the associated picture of the present state.

2. Imagine that the picture is on a rubber sheet. Suddenly the rubber sheet is
grabbed from behind and the picture is crumpled down to a tiny dot. Then the
rubber sheet is pulled rapidly backwards so that the picture is
drawn off into the distance with it.

3. Imagine the tension in the rubber as it is pulled rapidly backwards, further and
further, until S-W-I-S-H the rubber snaps back into place and is now showing the
second picture - the dissociated, desired state.

4. Clear the screen, empty your mind of the swish pattern you just did and think of anything. Again, this step is of importance.

5. Run the process again from step one to step 4, repeating the process seven times. It's important that you do this process as quickly as you can - you should need only a very few seconds to do each repetition.

Once you've done the swish seven times you should find that if you can think of the old picture it is immediately and automatically replaced by the new picture - the swish has become an automated process inbuilt in your neurology. If the swish doesn't become automatic after the first seven repetitions, do another seven repetitions and test again. Swish patterns usually become fully automated after 3, 7 or 21 repetitions.

The idea is to associate the act of being asleep and dreaming (non-lucid dreams) with being critically aware, so that next time you fall asleep and dream, you will have awareness show up in your dreams.

Reading through a thread on the forum, I came up with a fairly interesting question: if we can be lucid or non-lucid in a dream, why are we usually non-lucid? Why is non-lucid the natural state of dreaming and not lucidity?

We go to sleep and hand over control to a different form of consciousness, our dream selves. These selves are much like our waking selves, except that they readily morph into imagined characters and take on our hypothetical situations like they were real (for the most part). They have fairly short attention spans and even shorter memories. From time to time, they get tired of a certain role or situation enough to become lucid, but generally they get easily fixated on just about anything and forget about the lucid option. In reality, they would be hopelessly comic, if not tragic, figures.

Sometimes beforehand we program our minds to create dream selves that desire lucidity, and will have that as a part of their character. These selves will perhaps periodically check something in their world to determine their status, and then upon realizing their state will become lucid, handing control back over to our conscious selves. Or at some subconscious level we will simply be expecting and used to lucid dream selves, and that is what it produces for us.

And yet, upon gaining control, we too easily lose it again, fading back into those dream characters, lost in our own creation.

So why do we do it this way? Why do we so easily hand ourselves over to fantasy? We could be perpetual gods in our dreams, yet instead we all too regularly decide/desire to be nothing more than simple characters, at the mercy of ourselves. Is there an innate desire to be a character and to lose yourself, only for a bit? We can still act a character out in a lucid state, but it would never be as complete.

Is there an innate need to lose yourself? Would perpetual lucidity drain us?

Or is it that we are just too used to it? Grew up with it, before we understood lucidity, before we even were able to understand the world around us, before we were even self aware, and now it's part of our expectations, part of our understanding of reality: our dreams will always tend towards non-lucidity; it takes lots of work and effort to become lucid regularly.

But could we, if we believed it enough, always tend towards lucidity? Is non-lucidity just a remnant of a feeble infant mind, or do we still gain something from it? Could we just ditch all the xILD methods and say, "I'm just going to always be lucid from now on"? Maybe we would need to first examine why it was we desired to be non-lucid in the first place. It should be possible. I call it the belief induced lucid dream (BILD).

Discuss