Thread: FryingMan's DILD course workbook

Originally Posted by fogelbise

Do you feel that you have less trouble with sleep when you are going for your DILDs?

Generally, yes, although I found that SSILD (and to some extend MILD) tended to REALLY wake me up, so I don't do it regularly. My first two DILDs were both with a MILD/SSILD combo (and a day intensely thinking about LDing, immersed in DV, working on my journal, doing prospective memory exercises (> 10 targets in the day). My next two DILDs were I think MILD only, and my last DILD was definitely no SSILD. My first sleep issues manifested when I started MILDing seriously during the night, and SSILD as I noted. Now I generally can get back to sleep when just MILDing, but not this week as everything is out of whack as I noted. I felt like I had to take advantage of a distraction free bedroom this last week, thus the back to back to back WILD attempts. And I think I made some amount of progress so I think it was worth it.

Just need to really work on proper relaxation, and get the excitement out of the system during WILD attempts, and as always establish regular sleep scheduls, which I have not yet been successful at doing. When I started LD training I was on vacation and so was able to peg a very regular schedule and that I think helped the progress.

It is definitely a process, so keep at it without burning yourself out. Do you mind if I ask what is getting in the way of a regular sleep schedule? For me what gets in the way is the desire to stay up late, since the time I need to get up is fairly consistent during the work week.

Originally Posted by fogelbise

It is definitely a process, so keep at it without burning yourself out. Do you mind if I ask what is getting in the way of a regular sleep schedule? For me what gets in the way is the desire to stay up late, since the time I need to get up is fairly consistent during the work week.

1) Non-cooperation from spouse. I want to get to bed by either 23:00 or 00:00 and she's always later than that. So I almost always end up going to bed sooner and she wakes me up when she comes to bed, or I just lie there anticipating her coming to bed.

2) staying up too late. I'll do this when I go on a binge of movie-watching for example. But generally the lessor reason, and not the reason this week (I was guilty of this last week though).

I just need to apply strategy, and say really work on getting us to bed at 23:00 so we end up making it there together by 00:00.

My 5th-6th hour wakefulness is still with me. Last night I slept great from about 00:00-01:00 to 06:00 I think I had a waking in between but just went back to sleep. Was still sleepy at 06:00, had some recall, did only quick keyword journal, getting back to bed as fast as I could, it was just a few minutes, but I just couldn't get back to sleep, and 07:30 rolled around and I was "volunteered" to get up and do the kids morning routine. Turned out it the temperature was 20-21C in the room, the heaters were both on, I've found that I can't sleep well above about 17C. After the morning routine, I debated going back to sleep in son's bed or heading to the gym right away, decided I was stubborn and didn't want to go without some more dreaming time, so went back to bed in sons's bed at around 08:30. Looooooooooooooooooooong time getting to sleep. Hovered on the edge a long time, sometimes quite a bit of HI, but somehow "holding on" too hard and snapping back to wakefulness. This time I tested it: did non-moving RC several times, confirming I was still awake each time. My new strategies for sleep don't seem as effective right now as they were before. I went back to good ol' 61-point relaxation, and that helped some. I think doing the WILDs 3-4 nights in a row a week ago got me in the habit of closely observing the process of falling asleep, which (other than still being the wrong thing to do even in a WILD attempt) is pretty much guaranteed to not allow sleep. Eventually did sleep, not sure when, and woke up at 12:30 with some recall.

I refuse to let my body get happy with only 5-6 hours of sleep. I was sleeping and dreaming away for long periods of time at the end of the summer (end of August and into September). I may start melatonin soon, maybe even a tiny dab at the 5-6 hour mark, if this continues. But I prefer to do this without taking anything if I can.

I'm doing well with getting regular exercise, not every single day but most days. I may need to up the duration a bit to make sure my body wants more than 6 hours a night. I'm feeling great from the exercise,and together with my flu of 3 weeks ago I've lost some weight and am keeping it off. I also don't eat closer than 3 hours to bed (other than a glass of milk and a banana perhaps) which also helps with the weight loss.

I really want to keep working on WILDing but it seems to wreak havoc on my sleep, at least the way I do it. I'm not happy with my DILD frequency so perhaps for now I should focus on it exclusively. I want to get regularly up to and maintain *at least* 1 LD per week as a short-term goal. Medium term I want 4/week, and long term 8+ per week, or 1-2/night regularly.

November goal is looking in jeopardy, I'm still only at 1 LD out of the goal of 8. I'll try to use the goal motivation for succeeding at the sleep schedule regulation.

Still doing my daily LD rituals: I now have a phone app set for a notification every 20-ish minutes: I do RCs (mental and physical and memory), an RRC, and recite "I'm dreaming".

I've stopped doing prospective memory exercises, and I should start those up again since there was a correlation with doing better with those and getting more DILDs.

I'm also skipping transcribing my voice journals and get to get only once every few days. Doing that every day regularly will probably also help.

Hmm...how to get the spouse on board? That would seem to help a lot if you can manage that! Sometimes I do convince my wife to turn off the tv and go to sleep letting her know she is keeping me awake and affecting my sleep when it is truly keeping me awake. I normally sleep quite deeply and quickly when I first go to bed, so my wife could probably jump on the bed most nights and I would keep sleeping...later on in the morning is a different story though. I can not speak on melatonin, but I also don't like to take anything if I can avoid it (basically, unless I am sick)...so I have avoided supplements so far...I do drink apple juice occasionally and have tried mustard but not sure if either made any difference.

I really want to keep working on WILDing but it seems to wreak havoc on my sleep, at least the way I do it. I'm not happy with my DILD frequency so perhaps for now I should focus on it exclusively. I want to get regularly up to and maintain *at least* 1 LD per week as a short-term goal. Medium term I want 4/week, and long term 8+ per week, or 1-2/night regularly.

Focusing on DILD is what I would also suggest (but you always know your situation best) and you can definitely work up to your long term goal eventually of 8+ per week. Dutchraptor is at that level and it looks like he came to DV with experience already (or perhaps joined after first lurking) but check out his very first thread here:

Hey guys,
For about three weeks ive been keeping a journal, auto suggestion, reality checks etc. As expected my dream recall improved dramatically, I tried nearly all techniques according to people experiences her on dv. Now that i started having ld's i realise that only two techniques work for me... DILDing and DEILDing. The signifigance of this is that here on dv nearly everyone posts that wilds are easier and so on, yet i fail to see how??. Other than being more aware in a wild, a deild;
•is easier to achieve
•takes a few mere seconds
•causes less loss of sleep
•is not boring

now i understand some people have trouble keeping their eyes closed, but for me it happens naturally I cant be the only one to think this??

So DEILDing is also a good way to get some experience WILDing but I can't imagine going the all out approach of waking up after every dream since one person I read wishes that they didn't wake up after every dream...so I just DEILD when the opportunity presents itself...usually after being ejected from a lucid or waking up to HH's occasionally.

Disastrous sleep night (awake for most of 00:00 - 11:00 it felt like) but I don't care because I got LD #7

Not a bad dream night atually: 4 wakings, good recall from each one, long continuous scene in one.

Some more firsts!
+ first FA
+ first LD in childhood house (big big big for me I dream about this home and its neighborhood almost every night)
+ first nose pinch RC -- did it twice, could breath both times, nose felt a bit "flimsy" and not at all connected to breathing pipes.
+ first successful summon of DC
+ first LD sex (may have been non-lucid at this point, felt a bit flimsy)
+ first DC command control

I'll journal later on today but yay!

November LD goals met: 2/8. I still have time, woohoo let's make this goal!

Here's the DJ entry: First FA, bad sleep, but good recall and fun/funny dreams

edit: my extreme wakefulness may in fact have led directly to this LD: like a loooooong WBTB, I was so used to being awake in my WL room that the transition to waking up in a different place was immediately jarring, and of course the remnant increase awareness of being awake.

I especially liked your tower and mushroom figures dream - interesting.

You got some excellent first FryingMan! Keep up the great work!

Really, really cool FryingMan!! The mushroom bloodhounds are really memorable and the combination with their leader, the beautiful, misunderstood - some say evil - queen(this is the picture your dream was painting in my head) sounded like a great character for some fantasy story...loved it. Seriously. Is this a story or character that you have heard/seen or based on anything?

All the firsts! Very nice! With all that recall, it is hard to imagine that you didn't sleep more than you thought you did. And so impressive all of the dream control that you had in your cool lucid!

I came up with a new plan to try to get more lucids during the weekdays...I will test it out first (unless you want the info earlier I did bury it at the end of my 11/17 dj entry).

Very nice dj entry and progress all around!!

thanks! No not based on anything that I know of, just a product of my usual random wild & wacky dreams. I have many in my DJ from the past months that I have not posted on to DV, so while it was definitely up there amongst the funniest/weirdest, it's not unique.

And no she was not evil at least I had no sense of it in the dream. The mushroom bloodhounds ended up more comical than scary, although I was certainly in flight mode running for my house.

The thing is that while it can take a while to transcribe into words, the duration of the dream(s) was not all that long, maybe a minute or two at most, so that left a lot of time for lying awake. Yes I obviously did sleep but it really seems I was awake for at least 4-5 hours, it felt like an eternity.

Last night I pretty much passed out right away and slept straight for 6 hours. A bit of recall in the morning but definitely a "light" dream night. There was lots of detail I forgot, I sense. Did some MILD reps at the 6-hour mark and tried to fall asleep but the family woke up around me and even though it wasn't my day to get up and I got the bed to myself I couldn't fall back asleep. But close, very close, in fact lots and lots of imagery. I just need to let go that last little bit and not get stimulated by the approaching imagery.

I just now tried for a late morning nap since I was still feeling a bit tired and almost made it in to sleep right away. I felt a little "falling" but caught myself. I also felt some mild rocking hallucinations. I did sleep for just a short bit later on but no dreams.

It's not all that hard for me to get into that "relaxed" state pretty quickly, that first phase, but falling totally asleep is the current challenge.

p.s. recently (today's late morning nap attempt?) I saw something through my eyelids and sleep mask briefly. It wasn't HI, I was "seeing" using my "eyes". Very brief, but interesting. Also a number of rocking sensations. Also some HI congealed pretty convincingly into something like a laser printer that started to become clear, then faded back to a vague blob.

Oh, I was just letting my mind go off further with her character thinking that, though a beautiful woman, with all of those mushroom bloodhounds, she would often be misunderstood as evil by some...

their leader, the beautiful, misunderstood - some say evil - queen(this is the picture your dream was painting in my head)

On nights where you need to make sure you get sufficient sleep I would recommend just doing the things that you know (reasonably well) that you can do and get back to sleep fairly easily (if you try anything at all). I am experimenting with a very short wbtb about 1.5 to 2 hours before I need to get up (during an 8 hour sleep schedule) with the benefit that I get a solid 6 to 6.5 hours of sleep initially and still have a chance to DILD and get more sleep which is the way it worked last night. That view through your eyelids and sleep mask seems promising! In your signature, I would put "Lucid FAs" (or "L-FAs" perhaps) to fully claim that success!

I am not sure what happened and why the thread got closed. I'm wondering if I checked a box accidentally when I posted my last post. anyway this should fix it!

Last sleep cycle breakthrough, thanks to my new best friend Mr. (Ms.?) Melatonin

Wow, I tried a 3mg tab of melatonin about 40 minutes before bed last night and the difference was impressive. I woke about 4 times with dream recall just fine (no REM suppression?) Going to sleep was not very fast about normal maybe I took it too close to bed. But to-bed is not the issue, it's the back-to-bed recently that's been the problem especially after 5-6 hours.

Woke at: 3, 6, 6:45, and 9 hours with recall not my most detailed, but about average. Recall fluctuates a bit night to night normally anyway. Certainly better than the previous two nights with just one dream recalled. Could have slept more probably but had to get going.

Most important was getting back to sleep after the 6:45, I was fairly awake still in bed and doing some dream incubation visualization/day-dreaming and decided that the entire point of the melatonin was right now getting back to sleep for that last late morning sleep cycle , so at about 7:30 hours I used my new "relaxation" tech and it worked! I got back to sleep. Once I finally resolved to go back to sleep and let go of the fun daydreaming it didn't take all that long.

I had a dream then that by all rights should have been lucid: I saw my deceased dog, played with him and knew he was deceased and cried because I knew I wouldn't see him again (because it was a dream? perhaps), probably the deep emotional feelings were too overwhelming. Saw my family as it was 14 years ago with kids running around at that super cute age 3-4 doing funny things and saying funny things, all sorts of things in the environment wrong (why is the glass-top dining room table [which turned out to be part of a weird 2-piece piano] ruined? Why is there a hole blasted in the fence in the garden? Oh yeah because of the strong wind [which occurred in real life a few days ago] Yes it's completely normal that my deceased dog purrs like a cat when petted, I "remembered" that he could do this).

Anyway that's just what I was looking for: getting that last late morning sleep cycle back. Interesting that the 3 hour waking was normal: pretty detailed recall in fact. Doesn't seem like I had much REM supression from the melatonin. Maybe that means the 3mg is a perfect dosage for me dream-wise?

Do anybody know the chemistry of taking additional melatonin? Does it basically increase the "bank" of melatonin floating around that then gets "burned off" normally throughout the night, so that you have a surplus all through the night?

I don't plan to take it regularly (yet) but it seems it may be effective in breaking through "can't get that last sleep cycle" dry spells.

That is great that your fixes are working! CanisLucidus seems to know a good deal about supplements and physiology, so you might ask him that question, or maybe he will see my or your post here.

Saw my family as it was 14 years ago with kids running around at that super cute age 3-4 doing funny things and saying funny things

I love these kinds of dreams! I got teary eyed in a lucid with my son looking like he did when he was about 1 year old and then just recently seeing my wife as a 2 year old in an ND...just heartwarming stuff to me.

DJ for melatonin night: melatonin experiment, went pretty well - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

Last night was unfortunately back to more of the usual sleep issues. Couldn't go back to sleep after 5 hours waking, rolled around in bed a long time until wife left to do errands, stubbornly stayed in bed until I fell asleep again finally and dreamed, hours later. Took a drink of herbal sleep stuff, it has Mother's Wort and rose hips. It seemed to help get back to sleep, I dreamed but somehow my recall of it was weak, maybe the tea was too sedating, I just came away with a few fragments.

I did I think though get 95% of the way into observing the transition at one point! I was falling asleep, not trying to WILD, and all of a sudden I noticed a quick kind of jumbled progression of images that seemed to solidify, but I became excited/aware and woke up.

I read in a thread here on DV that one technique to solidify the transition is to try to grab the imagery with your dream hands. I may try that a few times.

Had some PMs with Hukif. He recommended because of my back to sleep issues to avoid WILD, WBTB, and just do DILD with ADA, ADA/RC (like he does, he also can't get back to sleep if he's up for more than a few minutes), and DEILD.

I think WILD attempts somehow really messed up my going back to sleep ability -- even though I'm not trying to, I end up getting jolted when the transition approaches or occurs or lots of HI happens. Even though I like trying to WILD and I think I'm getting closer each time, for now I will focus only on DILD/MILD and DEILD.

I may try minimizing journaling as well to just keywords. The thing is I really like all the detail I can remember right after waking up. I'll try it both ways (full journal and keyword journal) and see how it goes, maybe giving the keyword journal a few weeks.

Again I'm a day behind on journaling. Need to give this priority again so SC knows it's important.

Yikes. Was that trouble despite having repeated the dose that seemed to help the night before?

Originally Posted by FryingMan

I think WILD attempts somehow really messed up my going back to sleep ability -- even though I'm not trying to, I end up getting jolted when the transition approaches or occurs or lots of HI happens. Even though I like trying to WILD and I think I'm getting closer each time, for now I will focus only on DILD/MILD and DEILD.

Sounds like a good plan, especially if it is being seconded by Hukif! He's such a cool, helpful guy with a lot of LD experience!

Woohoo LD #8. Some more firsts:

+ 1st couch morning nap LD
+ 1st DILD aware from the beginning

I'm calling it a DILD even though it was WILD-like in some ways: slow falling asleep, a mantra but but only sporadic: "The next thing I see is a dream". But I'm not "doing WILD" (maybe a 'psych out WILD'?) now, and I don't recall the transition, so DILD it is.

I appeared on the deck of my parents house (primary DS), it's twilight, beautiful view out over the water and the city, I immediately think "I'm dreaming" and get the lucid rush. "All RIGHT. Lucid from the start...awareness feels strong!" (anticipating doing lots of stuff) but then vision faded to black . I tried prying open my dream eyes with my dream hands and even had a notion of eyes opening but still black. Tried imagining flying out over the view but I woke up.

About 10 seconds... I probably was only very lightly asleep. Not very satisfying but hey lucid is good, right?

While falling asleep I also tried grabbing HI a few times with dream hands but nothing was solid.

Also while falling asleep tried incubating a scene by injecting quick flashes of what I wanted, not trying to hold the visualisation, just "seeding" it and letting go. Several times I noticed new things appearing, usually a DC I hadn't placed initially off to the side entering the scene.

November goals: 3 LDs / 8 Gotta really ramp it up, only a week left.

p.s. and no, I didn't take melatonin 2 nights ago (last post) or last night, instead tried a sleep tea last night with Mother's Wort and rose hips. Recall very fragmented and short, and again the 5 hour waking thing and not going back to sleep. I read some more on melatonin and some people suggest caution and say things like retina damage can occur, it can eliminate your natural melatonin production making you dependent, etc., so I think I'll keep it in reserve.

I'm going to start up effort on an ADA/RC: location. My dream location is almost never somewhere real other than my childhood home or the home where my children were small. Also my dream location is always in motion, with funny perspectives. Maybe blend in some emotion sense as well, see how it goes.

#8!! Great stuff FryingMan, keep knocking those DILDs back and the experience will help you in whatever your pursue in the future!

Also while falling asleep tried incubating a scene by injecting quick flashes of what I wanted, not trying to hold the visualisation, just "seeding" it and letting go. Several times I noticed new things appearing, usually a DC I hadn't placed initially off to the side entering the scene.

Interesting, I was trying the something similar with my nap attempts. Was this during the nap?

On the melatonin, I just wanted to emphasize that I know nothing about melatonin, I was just curious if you had tried it again...sounds like if you can go without it that would be best.

I'm going to start up effort on an ADA/RC: location. My dream location is almost never somewhere real other than my childhood home or the home where my children were small. Also my dream location is always in motion, with funny perspectives. Maybe blend in some emotion sense as well, see how it goes.

Do you have a game plan for this or is anyone advising you? My dream sign manta experiments incubated the dream signs into my dreams and I did DILD in a few of them, but it is all at an experimental stage for me. CONGRATS once again!!

Originally Posted by fogelbise

#8!! Great stuff FryingMan, keep knocking those DILDs back and the experience will help you in whatever your pursue in the future!

Thanks!

Interesting, I was trying the something similar with my nap attempts. Was this during the nap?

Yes it was.

Do you have a game plan for this or is anyone advising you? My dream sign manta experiments incubated the dream signs into my dreams and I did DILD in a few of them, but it is all at an experimental stage for me. CONGRATS once again!!

Well the inspiration came from my PMs with Hukif. Basically the idea as he says is that ADA/RC is a "targeted" version of ADA based on your own experience in dreams, what you notice about yourself. ADA is good too but it takes more effort, and doesn't emphasize your personal dream experience. In my case #1 is location: I'm never in contemporary waking life locations in my dreams, and some locations repeat very heavily (parents' house). A close #2 is emotion, usually way stronger in dreams, so I'm keeping half an eye open paying attention to my emotional state during the day (usually pretty calm).

I also specifically recently started frequent visualisation (kind of like daytime MILD reps) of my parent's house, "If I'm in my parent's house, I'm dreaming," "If I'm outside my parent's house, I'm dreaming", "If I'm in the neighborhood of my parent's house, I'm dreaming" and so on with lots of visuals from recent dreams. It's very easy for me to accurately visualize my paren't house since I lived there so long during my formative years (about 17 years). It must be working because my last two LDs were in my parents house! If I can maintain that then I'm golden!

On a different note, I've said it before but I think it's especially fascinating that I find myself now remembering decades old dreams that I haven't thought about in, well, decades! They're all up there, I think, just awaiting the proper association to trigger the memory.

It must be working because my last two LDs were in my parents house! If I can maintain that then I'm golden!

Awesome FryingMan! It surely can't hurt to keep working along that line, refining as you go to meet your goals. And you know you've got some potentially powerful ideas when they come from Hukif. When I do daytime visualization I like to also visualize stabilizing and reminding myself about my goals which sometimes reminds me of the goals as soon as I become lucid.

On a different note, I've said it before but I think it's especially fascinating that I find myself now remembering decades old dreams that I haven't thought about in, well, decades! They're all up there, I think, just awaiting the proper association to trigger the memory.

Isn't that great? The things we remember that probably would not have come back up were it not for this focus. Similarly what we were talking about before, seeing our kids or others when they were younger is just incredible, it feels like time travel to me!

The firsts keep rolling in . Another short LD with vision issues. Also I believe lucid seconds after the start. And vision also faded (to vague lightness, not black this time.) I'm new to this "lucid from the start" thing so I suppose I'll have to learn to let things settle, (look at the ground? Rub hands? Spin around?)

I was in my childhood neighborhood playground (3 LDs in the old neighborhood in one week, each one lucid, that intention stuff WORKS!)

It was also dark-ish (twilight) like the night before, so this time I called out "LET THERE BE LIGHT!" with my arms raised up in the air . Instead of a bright daytime scene I got a half-lit void thing with kind of a static-y nothing to see. I then called for a DC "NN", a Girl Friday of mine , to pull me out of the void by the hands, didn't happen. Dream then faded to awake.

Firsts!

+ first LDs two days in a row
+ first time 3 LDs in one week
+ first LD in close contact with wife (this may be huge, I've always so far avoided contact while trying to LD to avoid distraction...this may resolve a subconscious tension I've been carrying about wishing there were less distractions around. Instead I thought of feelings of love, warmth, and comfort, and I got to sleep and LD'd!).

I also used my new favorite mantra a bit, "the next thing I see is a dream"

November progress: 4 LDs out of goal of 8, I just may make it! Still feeling tired, time for a nap, hopefully I'll get some more!

edit: did ADA/RC (location) yesterday all day. Kept it up a good amount of the time. Noticed when I'd let it slip on multiple occasions and reinstated it. It's actually challenging to keep up when not moving around! When moving and transitioning between different places it's easier to keep active.

edit 2: I'm calling this a WILD -- Wife Induced Lucid Dream

Woohoo! That's so exciting. Congratulations!

Awesome awesome FryingMan!! I recommend to make sure you are keeping notes in your dj of exactly what your are doing day and night...sometimes it is easy to forget some of the little things at some point.

I hope you are having #10 right now but even if you aren't your goal is still possible! Excellent perseverance through the tougher nights!