Thread: FryingMan's DILD course workbook

3-4 days of no exercise, sitting at home, and eating cakes & candies and staying up super late resulted in a very rare no recall night for me last night. Just got back from a swim and am staying off all processed yucky stuff now, dedicated to setting new, sane slesep schedule, so back to dreamland tonight, woohoo!

Bleh another no recall night. That's a first I don't care ever to repeat (2 no recalls in a row). Woke somewhere between 5-6 hours (the evil 5-6 hour waking, my nemesis), just couldn't make it back in. Very close several times, something's pulling me back up.

Tried for a nap later on, felt very tired, lots of HI lights as soon as my head hit the pillow, like fireworks going off in my head, I took that to mean I was very sleepy, I was plummeting towards sleep, but again halted and couldn't make it over the edge.

I very nearly WILDed, though not intentionally, got the noise and ragged breathing, but pulled back from the edge.

I think my excitement at my first DEILD has me overly sensitive again to dreamlets and the approaching transition, when I realize I see the images I get too alert. Man, being able to creep over that fence into the dream consistently would be awesome....soon, soon....

Bleh.

I think my excitement at my first DEILD has me overly sensitive again to dreamlets and the approaching transition, when I realize I see the images I get too alert. Man, being able to creep over that fence into the dream consistently would be awesome....soon, soon....

This "sensitivity" could also work in your favor but you do of course have to make it over that edge to sleep. Do you remember any sensations right before or during your DEILD scene that you stepped into?

Originally Posted by fogelbise

This "sensitivity" could also work in your favor but you do of course have to make it over that edge to sleep. Do you remember any sensations right before or during your DEILD scene that you stepped into?

No, it was 1) drift off, ...discontinuity... 2) oh hey look at that (with awareness) and step into dream. I was not "looking out for it" which is why I believe it succeeded, as my mental transition watchdog was inactive long enough for the dream to form.

Yes I actually believe it eventually will work in my favor, with training to remain calm and passive. Hukif actually had a proposed technique called T(transition)ILD or something like that which was based on awareness of the process of falling asleep. Maybe I'll become a TILD master .

Well yay, defeated the wakefulness and no-recall monster last night. Set strong intention to remember dreams and wake up after every dream at bedtime and before returning to sleep. I read something a few days ago about Sageous not recommending this as it may work too well and wake you up too much, and so I backed off on it, but I have not been waking up as much as I used to in the beginning of my practice and i don't like that, so I restarted it again last night. It's amazing how fast the brain resorts to old behavior if you stop your intention setting! I get back to sleep just fine at all times before and after the 5-6 hour period if I don't do SSILD-like techs.

Got to sleep at bed-time in reasonable (but still not as fast as desired) time, previous nights took longer. And again the 5-6 hour waking alertness, got up for a quick kitchen trip for a glass of milk, held & petted the cat for a while (relaxing), then returned to bed but tossed & turned for a while. Almost gave up and got up for the day but resolved that I must not. My quote for motivation is from the video posted at the start of the last competition: "You've got to want it like you want to breathe". I've been using this a lot recently for maintaining ADA/RC. So despite my alertness, really worked at my sleep relaxation technique (paradoxically: I had to work at it with discipline, but not "try hard to sleep", it's not an easy balance) and I slowly drifted off, and slept! And dreamed several more times. I had to hold myself for long periods of time at "deeper" relaxation levels despite a lot of external disturbance, holding no tension, and with a quiet calm mind. Every noise, every bed-partner movement (and there were alot for a while), I told myself, "these sounds and these sensations make me more and more relaxed." Woohoo another "sleep kung fu" victory. Couldn't wait to jump on DV and share the success.

Set strong intention to remember and to wake after dreams, and woke at 2.5, 4, 5.5, 10, 12 (about 2 or more hours of awake time after 5.5).

Interestingly, I'm finding that my late morning (like 10+ hours after bedtime) dreams do not necessarily exhibit increasingly larger amounts of awareness. I had my highest levels of awareness (no lucids though) last night at the 5th hour waking: (in the dream I noticed my location and objects within the dream, my ADA/RC targets, didn't get lucid though). At the time when I got up (12h), I still thought it was the earlier waking (10h), but then I had dream recall that I didn't remember from the earlier waking, and realized I must have slept again, and sure enough, I checked the clock and it was 2 hours later. The recall was pretty weak in fact from the final waking.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

No, it was 1) drift off, ...discontinuity... 2) oh hey look at that (with awareness) and step into dream. I was not "looking out for it" which is why I believe it succeeded, as my mental transition watchdog was inactive long enough for the dream to form.

I wonder if there is a way to use this consistently.

Yes I actually believe it eventually will work in my favor, with training to remain calm and passive. Hukif actually had a proposed technique called T(transition)ILD or something like that which was based on awareness of the process of falling asleep. Maybe I'll become a TILD master .

I am no master(yet!), but this sounds like one of the things I have been working on and having some success with for WILDs. I thought I had come to the idea on my own, but it very well could have been a seed Hukif planted or a specific thing he told me that didn't register at the time. Hmmm...maybe it is kind of like how some weird but sensible ideas pop into our minds in those in stages between wake and sleep - whether in or out.

Well yay, defeated the wakefulness and no-recall monster last night. Set strong intention to remember dreams and wake up after every dream at bedtime and before returning to sleep. I read something a few days ago about Sageous not recommending this as it may work too well and wake you up too much, and so I backed off on it, but I have not been waking up as much as I used to in the beginning of my practice and i don't like that, so I restarted it again last night.

Please let me know if your remember where you saw it so I can read more from Sageous on this. woblybil also mentioned wishing he didn't automatically wake up after every dream.

It's amazing how fast the brain resorts to old behavior if you stop your intention setting!

So true!

I get back to sleep just fine at all times before and after the 5-6 hour period if I don't do SSILD-like techs.

They may not be for you...How many times has SSILD or SSILD-like techs helped you LD?

Every noise, every bed-partner movement (and there were alot for a while), I told myself, "these sounds and these sensations make me more and more relaxed." Woohoo another "sleep kung fu" victory. Couldn't wait to jump on DV and share the success.

Nice!

Interestingly, I'm finding that my late morning (like 10+ hours after bedtime) dreams do not necessarily exhibit increasingly larger amounts of awareness.

Me too. Sometimes I have good awareness later in the morning but usually not beyond 8 hours of sleep.

Originally Posted by fogelbise

They may not be for you...How many times has SSILD or SSILD-like techs helped you LD?

Well, if you look at my DJ, actually some LDs followed nighttime-practice. It's hard to know, though, is it the practice, or simply the intention and expectation, the desire for the LD, that results in lucidity?

I do hope eventually to do away with all wakings ala Hukif: every dream a DILD from the beginning, or DEILD. That's the goal, at least....

Super late night, due to "none of your business" stuff. Some strange-ish day residue dreams. Woke up at 7h, snack, felt tired while on computer, tried to nap, didn't make it back to sleep, but it's too late anyway.

Some near-WILDs during nap attempt while dozing? Periods of images that may have been dreams beginning, but that vanish if I give them too much attention. Black man and kid sitting down, I don't know them... My old colleague and racquetball buddy, I recognize him immediately, he's standing and smiling/laughing....a mural of pictures of my family on the wall in my room that doesn't actually exist... These images felt very similar to the successful DEILD of Jan 1st....what's the difference I wonder, how did I make it into that dream but not these? Paying them less attention while they solidify? Answer this and I'll be WILDing away....

Originally Posted by FryingMan

These images felt very similar to the successful DEILD of Jan 1st....what's the difference I wonder, how did I make it into that dream but not these? Paying them less attention while they solidify? Answer this and I'll be WILDing away....

My guess would be the excitement of the possibility that you were about to enter the dream. My best chance of success is when I have almost no awareness left, allowing me to drift off towards sleep coupled with my mantra to notice the vibrations which ramps the awareness back up at the last minute/at the transition. Others like gab are able to interact with the advanced HI's "I am there" style. At the moment, I can use sensations better than images. Such as "this feels like" or "this sounds like" and that nudges me into a dream related to the sensation.

^^ Yes I think this makes sense. I was "almost out" I think on the DEILD, a tad closer to sleep, and just was in the perfect place with just enough awareness to "perk up" in time to enter the dream with some awareness, but after it had a chance to solidify.

Finally, some decent recall and a coherent longer dream with multiple scenes. Just woke from a long afternoon nap, was super tired after only 4 hours of sleep at night, it was the "asleep before your head hits the pillow" level of tired. I have very good memory (basically waking from the dream) of multiple scenes scenarios, visual and plot details.

I will PM you.

Well, the votes are in, and jet-lag SUCKS for dreaming. I haven't had decent dream recall in a week or more. Just a fragment here and there.

Until this morning, (after an admin from work called me for a minor piece of information, forgetting that I was on a business trip in a time zone 12 hours behind, at 3:30am, GRRRRR!, 3 hours later back to bed), and dreamed that both my laptop AND ipad had been stolen, and I was running through the streets desperately trying to find a police person (and they were somehow always beyond reach no matter how much I ran), hysterically sobbing and crying and threatening to punch people out if they touched me.

That was the ONE TIME in the last 5 months that I've been relieved to wake up from a dream!

The room I'm staying in doesn't seem to have continuous fan available, so once the target temperature is reached, the fan shuts off and the room gets really stuffy, and I wake up. More wakings means a bit more recall, but I usually jump out of bed to try to adjust the thermostat and this means sub-optimal recall. My sense of dreaming at least is on the rise again. I was really tired at 10pm (was falling asleep watching TV), got to bed by 10:30pm, and started waking around 00:00 from dreams, perhaps REM rebound since I only got about 3-4 hours of sleep the previous night. I woke probably 5-6 times until about the 7-8 hour mark where I couldn't get back to sleep.

I know I had a long dream with lots of activity, only a few fragments clearly recalled though.

A weird partially DO space war game where my controls didn't work right transformed into a planet-side setting, and I recalled an earlier flying dream where I was in my childhood neighborhood teaching someone to fly using the technique I've practiced in waking life (that if you get stalled there is a tiny point source of infinite energy in your head that you can use to thrust yourself in whatever direction you want at whatever speed). I encountered a tangle of power lines but burst through them confidently.

I'm going to need to reinvent my dreaming practice. My new job is very challenging and will require high levels of concentration and mental exertion. I'll have to figure out how to keep ADA/RC going. I'll probably turn back on my 20-minute RC phone alarm and turn the walk to the water cooler into an RC-fest.

It's good to see that you are getting back to dream recall and making a plan to fit LD practices into your new surroundings. Sageous suggested somewhere to use once an hour (but random) in case that makes it easier to fit in with your new job and all.

Yay, a dreamful night again, at last. About 3 major wakings with lots of little wakings in the later morning, kind of dozing, but each time with a snippet of recall. At one waking I was recalling and slipping back into sleep (as happens sometimes), and I dreamed / imagined hitting the record button on my voice recorder, and I realized this was not reality and woke myself up to actually record . Probably was imagination rather than a dream, but still, kind of amusing . Good, solid imagery and some sense of self experienced in the recall in several cases. That's usually a good sign that some lucids may be around the corner. Also increased RC practice throughout the day. I'll get my new rhythm settled here. We'll see about the next competition, though, since I'll be freshly jet-lagged for it again .

Oh and my order of Galantamind arrived, so now the temptation begins....why not...? I've got Galantamind, Alpha-GPC, and melatonin now. I'll wait until my dreaming schedule solidifies a bit and perhaps next Friday night give the G a first try.

edit: Hmm thinking again about the fake-recording, I may have missed a DEILD there. I've got to learn to leverage those middle-of-the-night drifting off moments into LDs!

edit: Hmm thinking again about the fake-recording, I may have missed a DEILD there. I've got to learn to leverage those middle-of-the-night drifting off moments into LDs!

One good way to incorporate DEILD attempts into actual or assumed awakenings would be a multi-step approach that could result in some lost recall but has a safety net to minimize lost recall. Basically upon waking up: 1. keep still and quickly recall the scene you exited from; 2. quickly attempt to DEILD and if nothing happens within a minute; 3. perform a motionless reality check (you may be dreaming, if so you may be lucid in the void); 4. If awake, record your dreams (you should at least recall the scene you exited from which may help you to recall the rest...if not, this is the downside to this approach, but I think the upside is worth it).

Originally Posted by fogelbise

One good way to incorporate DEILD attempts into actual or assumed awakenings would be a multi-step approach that could result in some lost recall but has a safety net to minimize lost recall. Basically upon waking up: 1. keep still and quickly recall the scene you exited from; 2. quickly attempt to DEILD and if nothing happens within a minute; 3. perform a motionless reality check (you may be dreaming, if so you may be lucid in the void); 4. If awake, record your dreams (you should at least recall the scene you exited from which may help you to recall the rest...if not, this is the downside to this approach, but I think the upside is worth it).

This is really clever, thanks!. I think the successful LDers all use this multi-phase approach to maximize LDing opportunities. I clearly need to do something like this. Also BrandonBoss mentioned always trying to fall asleep with awareness, just erring on the side of sleeping to make sure you sleep and can DILD if the WILD doesn't work out. His micro-WBTB, where you always try to bring yourself right to the edge of being able to fall asleep or not fall asleep (again staying on the side of falling asleep so you do in fact sleep) is a major factor in his success. I think this highly tuned WBTB approach makes the most sense, the "stay awake X minutes" never made sense to me -- it's all about getting the awareness up as much as you can but still be able to sleep.

p.s. 2 to go! 100 for you in your first year anniversary, you'll do it!

Thank you for the 100/DV anniversary idea! You have a great mindset with the goal setting and the idea of the "first this, first that." That technique of BBs really makes sense. I see that he finished his thread. I will make some time tomorrow to read through it...haven't had a chance to yet.

You're welcome! Yeah, "firsts" are fun!

Finally, a decent dreaming night and a short lucid. Lucid was in darkness, boo , but lucid is lucid and hopefully signals a return to regular lucidity. Day practice and nighttime intention running pretty high recently. Incubation resulted in close to what I asked for, but as usual mixed up slightly. After the lucid, some bizarre late morning non-lucids that should have resulted in lucidity, dangit. But at least my memory of them is pretty good.

Keep it up...I wouldn't be surprised if you have a good streak right around the corner!

Well, dangit, night #2 of the galantamine experiment (this time adding alpha-gpc and about 0.3mg melatonin) just resulted in more sleeplessness, an unremarkable short NLD about standing in a racquetball court (I even noticed there was something wrong with the court, it was not the right shape, not deep enough, missed it, doh!), and a bit of a morning headache. Expensive experiment. I'll hang on to the stuff but I'm not motivated to try it again soon. Popping pills is not my thing.

How could I have missed it!?

+ First (LD 2 nights ago) LD away from home!

Originally Posted by FryingMan

How could I have missed it!?

+ First (LD 2 nights ago) LD away from home!

That's the spirit. And since you got that one without the supplement, you know you can do it without...18 times mind you! It sounds like you suspect that the supplements had something to do with your headache?

It sounds like you suspect that the supplements had something to do with your headache?

Yes, definitely. I get headaches very rarely. Interesting that I forgot that GPC has a 3-hour delay to max blood saturation, so the headachey feeling came about right then -- 8am-ish, and I took it at 5am-ish. Yeah I know I can get lucid without the pills. I was just hoping for some sort of hour-long-more-vivid-than-vivid-stability-no-matter-what kind of super dream, as advertised in the Yuschak book, and being able to pull those off once in a while. Could be the timing, could be the dosage. I'll get there the natural way, no doubt. I may experiment here and there but I'm definitely leery of creating long-term desensitization. Yuschak recommends no more than once every 4 days for galantamine, unless you're using pircetam, but using drugs to get "up" and then using more drugs to get "down" right away seems rather crazy.

Note that Yuschak mentioned that before supplements he got lucid "maybe two dozen times over several years of trying," at only low- to medium-levels of lucidity. Clearly not DV competition "upper division" material . (Apologies to Yuschak if he's reading ... but it does take dedication and perseverance!).

So yeah, I'm happy with where I am and how things are going. Just need to kick it up back to high gear again.

I was tired last night (having lost 3 hours the previous night) and just basically went back to sleep right away at every waking not even trying to recall, but with a (weak perhaps) intention to DEILD each time.

Definitely want to establish a good "combo" attack: at each waking, try DEILD, if don't make it back in, recall *briefly*, record what's interesting maybe, then mantra for MILD/WILD, perhaps reduced SSILD (eliminating the visual phase which tends to make me focus my physical eyes, creating tension), erring on the falling asleep side, and if progress towards sleep is not felt soon, jettison the WILD and go purely for sleep and DILD. Definitely want those BrandonBoss micro-WBTBs, where falling back asleep *quickly* is always possible.

Also will perhaps play with the alarm-DEILD if I can get up the willpower to download/buy and configure one of those apps. Still may write my own.