Thread: FryingMan's DILD course workbook

My RCs:
+ Pinched nose breathing
+ Count fingers and see expected rings in the right places
+ Push finger through palm
+ Close each eye and see if I can see my nose
+ Memory (how'd I get here? What did I do before? Remembering back to waking up from bed if I can)
+ Read text, look away, check again, twice.

I generally do all of these during my state test, trying to remain serious and focused and not just falling into "of course I'm not dreaming".

My bed time ritual:
Clear thoughts (not too much in there these days but Lucid dreaming anticipation anyway!)
Write in journal:

I will remember my dreams
I will awake after dreams to record them
I will have interesting and meaningful dreams
In my dreams I will remember to recognize that I'm dreaming

I do a state check every time anything surprising or unexpected or weird happens.

I still need to establish 8-10 events that happen during the day which are reasonably spaced apart so I don't get bored or lazy doing the state checks, and switch them around every day.

One thing I'm not sure of is how long to stay up in WBTB. In the first week of LD training I had a lot of trouble sleeping if I woke up and got too alert, maybe from excitement? Last night I did WBTB about 5 hours after bed time for about 30 minutes reading LD web sites and about 30 minutes of MILD mantra/visualization and decided I would just go to sleep since I was pretty tired and my MILD was getting sloppy/unclear, I was following the visions that popped up instead of staying on the MILD. I'm not sure yet if I can do WBTB without staying up for hours. I'm wondering how important it is to be up for a while in WBTB, if I *feel* alert and awake, is that good enough? I generally wake up pretty fast. This is something to experiment further with I think once I start getting LD to see what works the best. Frankly I'd rather just stay asleep and get LDs .

Was very tired last night. I had what is shaping up to be my typical 4 wakings (counting the last one when I got up for the day), but I was so tired last night that I didn't even try to recall the first waking when I didn't have dreams immediately in mind, I just went back to sleep. Detail last night was definitely down from the night before. I drank 3 glasses of apple juice before bed last night but it didn't seem to do anything, maybe my sleepiness was too overwhelming (or maybe AJ doesn't help vividness at all). I tried to do MILD in between the 2nd and 3rd and 3rd and 4th awakenings but could barely get through a single coherent iteration of 1. recall 2. focus intent 3. visualize becoming lucid. I'd either forget that I was doing it and start over, or follow some other scene that popped up. Figuring out to get enough rest with WBTB is going to be a top priority. I see the value though of WBTB since I was so tired I couldn't MILD properly at all without getting out of bed. (With prior WBTB attempts I couldn't get back to sleep for along time, thus losing sleep. Maybe now that some of the initial excitement is abating a bit I will be able to get back to sleep faster).

Only 4 dreams recalled from 1 waking last night. Nothing lucid. One nightmare, close to one I'd had before. A saw/sensed a formless darkness outside a glass door on a deck. Normally I shrink from this formless darkness being in terror and am generally helpless. But this time I felt resolve and determination to defeat it, I opened the door and lunged at the darkness with a fist punch. Unfortunately, formless darknesses don't have bodies so my arm went right through it and it entered inside me and caused pain . But I hope that's a sign that I'm starting to take some more control of my destiny in dreams with the LD training.

Welcome to Dreamviews and to DILD class!

My apologies for such a delayed reply.

Well, I may be closer to your age than to the age of your teenagers, lol. We do have older members, but you are right, most of them are in their 20 and younger.

Good thing you are dream journaling. It is possibly the most important tool lucid dreamers have at their disposal. It helps in getting better dream recall, being more aware of our dreams, and it also tell our mind, that we like dreaming and remembering them.

As you found out, intent plays a huge role. It can help you wake up at certain time, remember your dream, even recognize you are dreaming. We set our intent with help of mantras.

WILD - it's ok to experiment with it. But there is lot more to it, than just laying down and waiting for a lucid. But I agree, the HH are awesome and I enjoy and value every attempt for that reason. DILD is recommended to start with, because it will teach you all the mental prep you will need for WILD and any other technique. Again, it's ok to read up on other techniques, in case, situation presents itself, so you will know what to do.

I've been working on waking awareness, reflection/intention technique (seriously checking the state of reality, doing RCs, visualizing reality as if a dream, visualizing becoming lucid), and prospective memory exercises (my results for prospective memory exercises are so far just so-so: either I can't get the target sign out of my head so it's always in the front of my mind which feels like I'm not quite doing the exercise correctly [or is this ok? a highly activated goal center?], or I forget the targets sometimes. Sometimes I do hit the target, but this is an obvious area for improvement, sometimes I realized I missed it a few minutes past when it occured) .

All this^^ practice sounds good, but don't try to do too much. Brief awareness question with examining your surroundings, RCs and mantras are great to start with and they are plenty to get you LD. The prospective memory training is optional advanced practice, that I myself don't do. Maybe you can save it for later and kinda add to your practice little by little.

Well, this time, after take-off I saw them approaching, and I *knew* I could get through them...

This is a perfect example of intent. ^^ When we KNOW, something will happen, instead of a wish, that something would happen. That's great that you are using it and it's working for you.

I had a realization once I started my LD training: I've been for many years just sailing through WL on auto-pilot, zombie-like, tuning out the world when I'm bored or annoyed. So I may have a ways to go to tune things back in to get to lucidity, but I'm psyched with my first successes of recall, so I know I'll get there! The flying dream "felt" like lucidity should, I think, so I hope I'm close!

^^ This is what self-awareness and daytime awareness should take care of. Once you start paying more attention to your waking life, and actually "noticing" where you are and what you doing, it will reflect in your non-lucids by making them more realistic and vivid. And, most important part, it will get you lucid, because suddenly in your non-lucid, you will go "wow, where am I?"

Your goals are most certainly obtainable. Keep excited and keep your intent set. Happy dreams

Originally Posted by FryingMan

My RCs:
+ Pinched nose breathing
+ Count fingers and see expected rings in the right places
+ Push finger through palm
+ Close each eye and see if I can see my nose
+ Memory (how'd I get here? What did I do before? Remembering back to waking up from bed if I can)
+ Read text, look away, check again, twice.

I generally do all of these during my state test, trying to remain serious and focused and not just falling into "of course I'm not dreaming".

My bed time ritual:
Clear thoughts (not too much in there these days but Lucid dreaming anticipation anyway!)
Write in journal:

I will remember my dreams
I will awake after dreams to record them
I will have interesting and meaningful dreams
In my dreams I will remember to recognize that I'm dreaming

I do a state check every time anything surprising or unexpected or weird happens.

I still need to establish 8-10 events that happen during the day which are reasonably spaced apart so I don't get bored or lazy doing the state checks, and switch them around every day.

All those RCs are great! One thing I would recommend, is use only 2-3 at the time. Save the rest of them, when your mind gets bored with your current ones and you will need to find some new ones to get your mind interested in RCs again. You know, in case they become a routine.

Also, your mantras are great. One thing - it's better to use mantra in present tense. Our mind knows only "now" and "not now". And you want your mantra to work NOW. meaning, very next opportunity, like tonight.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

Was very tired last night. I had what is shaping up to be my typical 4 wakings (counting the last one when I got up for the day), but I was so tired last night that I didn't even try to recall the first waking when I didn't have dreams immediately in mind, I just went back to sleep. Detail last night was definitely down from the night before. I drank 3 glasses of apple juice before bed last night but it didn't seem to do anything, maybe my sleepiness was too overwhelming (or maybe AJ doesn't help vividness at all). I tried to do MILD in between the 2nd and 3rd and 3rd and 4th awakenings but could barely get through a single coherent iteration of 1. recall 2. focus intent 3. visualize becoming lucid. I'd either forget that I was doing it and start over, or follow some other scene that popped up. Figuring out to get enough rest with WBTB is going to be a top priority. I see the value though of WBTB since I was so tired I couldn't MILD properly at all without getting out of bed. (With prior WBTB attempts I couldn't get back to sleep for along time, thus losing sleep. Maybe now that some of the initial excitement is abating a bit I will be able to get back to sleep faster).

WBTB should be just long enough, until you can thing straight, but still sleepy enough to fall asleep fast. WBTB is critical for a WILD. But for a DILD, it's not necessary (it may help though). A very short WBTB, just long enough to use the restroom or get a dring of water will do the trick. And then just very quick RC, then repeating mantra untill falling asleep. My favorite mantra is "next time I'm dreaming, I look at my hands and realize I'm dreaming". I use it after my looking at hands and counting fingers RC. It's a tad long, but I make it rhyme and I feel like it fits me. Everybody should use mantra, that sounds and feels just right for that person.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

Only 4 dreams recalled from 1 waking last night. Nothing lucid. One nightmare, close to one I'd had before. A saw/sensed a formless darkness outside a glass door on a deck. Normally I shrink from this formless darkness being in terror and am generally helpless. But this time I felt resolve and determination to defeat it, I opened the door and lunged at the darkness with a fist punch. Unfortunately, formless darknesses don't have bodies so my arm went right through it and it entered inside me and caused pain . But I hope that's a sign that I'm starting to take some more control of my destiny in dreams with the LD training.

You are in control. Waggoner in his book "Gateway to inner self" suggest that these dark and scary entities in our dreams are part of ourselves. Those part, that we don't like about us and thus we deny their existence and reject them, maybe even hate them. WE make enemies out of them.

So he suggests to extend thought of love and understnding and watch then change into something non-threatening, that even may merge back into the dreamer. So we once again are whole, together with our bad traits, only this time we accept them as part of us.


With all this practice you have been doing, I belive you are overdue for a LD. I think all you need is a tiny push. If you wish, you can check out this thread. http://www.dreamviews.com/general-lu...other-dcs.html
It's long. I have read it in one afternoon, on the same day I have learned about lucid dreaming and it got me so excited, that I had my first LD that night. The whole time I was reading it, my body was filled with extreme excitement and my mind kept repeating - "wow, this is incredible, I can't believe that this unbelievable secret is withing my grasp and I may just do it tonight." I did a few looking at hands RC and mantra "next time I'm dreaming, I look at my hands and realize I'm dreaming". That's exactly how it was. I was flying over a lake superman style (first time ever, untill now, I was only able to fly after jumping up in the air while flapping my arms wildly), when I stopped, my hands flew up into my vision and I got lucid.

Good luck and Happy dreams

One more thing - it's critical, that when RCing and asking yourself "is this a dream"?, you absolutely believe, that yes, it is. You fully expect to be able to breathe, your thumb to go through your palm, and so on...

And even if you establish that you are not dreaming, don't acknowledge it. Don't "finish the thought", that you are not dreaming. Right after you finish your RC, say your mantra. Don't even for one second entertain the thought, that you are awake.

Thanks so much for your feedback!

Originally Posted by gab

WBTB should be just long enough, until you can thing straight, but still sleepy enough to fall asleep fast.

That's good to know, thanks! I'm finding that if I stand up out of bed after waking for more than a couple of minutes I'm going to spend the next hour(s) staring at my eyelids, awake. I apparently become alert very quickly in the middle of the night. Which is good I suppose, getting BTB quickly maximizes time for dreaming .
I also have noted that I fall asleep quickly when going to bed, but it takes me a lot longer in the middle of the night, so I try just to journal about the dreams and get right back to bed with some MILD repetitions.

So he suggests to extend thought of love and understnding and watch then change into something non-threatening, that even may merge back into the dreamer. So we once again are whole, together with our bad traits, only this time we accept them as part of us.

Very interesting! I'll try this if the darkness shows up when lucid.

With all this practice you have been doing, I belive you are overdue for a LD. I think all you need is a tiny push. If you wish, you can check out this thread. http://www.dreamviews.com/general-lu...other-dcs.html

I certainly hope so! I think my dreams are becoming more aware of dreaming, catching up to my WL. Two nights ago, with about 20% confidence (meaning I'm not sure it really happened in the dream or it was a WL embellishment that occurred to me when recording), I justified being in a hurry and not meeting with someone because "I was in a dream and had a lot of things I wanted to get done" (not lucid though).
And last night, in one dream I saw a scene of a woman creating her own images of a fantasy garden, I could see the images like a sheet of paper before me as she was creating them from her imagination, with about 70% confidence I believe in the dream I knew that she was lucid dreaming to create these images.

I had my longest recalled dream yet two nights ago, it felt like about 15 minutes of continuity (although it's hard to judge) it was a very good recall night, it took me several hours to transcribe all the voice recording I made from all the awakenings into my journal. Details quite vivid at times. I think my general vividness level is slowly increasing.

Weekend dreaming is awesome, I go to a quiet cabin outside of the city and I dream like crazy there, with great recall. Now I have to get my success in the city up to the same level with all the noise and distractions because that's where I spend the majority of my time.

I've switched all my mantras/intentions to present tense, thanks!

I tried a spontaneous WILD again last night, I guess I'm too impatient . I felt myself really falling asleep at one point, so I started up a mantra, and .... just ended up staying awake for a while and going to sleep regularly after a while .

I need to focus on techniques to get to sleep in the middle of the night quickly after setting my intention with MILD. Sometimes the 61-point relaxation exercise does it for me, other times it does not. I don't like the tense/release relaxation technique, it just seems to wake me up more. I guess I'll add "I fall asleep quickly when I want to" to my daytime intention setting

I've added a new mantra to my WL intention setting practice, one that I really like, it makes me excited and motivates me:

"I am a lucid dreamer."

I hope it's not too vague for the subconscious to get the point that I want to LD *now*:

It fills me with a sense of wonder and anticipation.

Frankly, "The next time I'm dreaming, I remember to recognize that I"m dreaming" is a bit dry to me, maybe because I've been using it exclusively from the start. Technically, though, is this second one (the LaBerge MILD mantra) objectively better?

Is it more important that the mantra have a deep personal meaning, as opposed to being a "correct" programming of the subconscious, given the goal of getting a lucid dream *now*?

Originally Posted by FryingMan

I've added a new mantra to my WL intention setting practice, one that I really like, it makes me excited and motivates me:

"I am a lucid dreamer."

I hope it's not too vague for the subconscious to get the point that I want to LD *now*:

It fills me with a sense of wonder and anticipation.

Frankly, "The next time I'm dreaming, I remember to recognize that I"m dreaming" is a bit dry to me, maybe because I've been using it exclusively from the start. Technically, though, is this second one (the LaBerge MILD mantra) objectively better?

Is it more important that the mantra have a deep personal meaning, as opposed to being a "correct" programming of the subconscious, given the goal of getting a lucid dream *now*?

Actually the more I think about it I think "I am a lucid dreamer" is probably too vague for a MILD mantra (?) I'll keep the LaBerge one for now (switching it to present tense instead of future). I'll keep this one for WL intention setting sessions.

A bit of a frustrating night last night. Wife was awake when I woke up every time so I didn't want to voice journal much to avoid bothering her. I did a pretty good job of remembering what I did recall though in my waking memory when I compared it against what I did manage to voice journal when transcribing to the written journal in the morning. I'm finding my ability to recall sequences of events both in dreams and in WL is improving after ~3 weeks of consistent DJ-ing.

I was VERY awake after my 05:30 wakening, I did MILD on the dream I just woke up from, but just could not fall back asleep. I tried from 05:30 - 07:30, I was surprised that it was that long, I felt awake the entire time so I'm pretty sure I didn't nod off unawares. I got close several times but I was too aware of the process of falling asleep. I even tried once or twice to "enter" the visions I had that became pretty convincing 3d visualizations that I could "walk around in", but I'm pretty sure I wasn't asleep so no pseudo-WILD happened. I just wanted to go to sleep to let MILD do its thing! But I just couldn't. I have to be very careful not to stay awake too long journaling during waking periods as especially in the city I find it very hard to get back to sleep quickly, darn! On the one hand, my WBTB is quick, so I don't have to sit up for 30 minutes, just waking up and journaling gets me basically fully awake. On the other hand, it sucks to lose 2 hours of sleep and take a hit in recall that occurs when underslept.

I haven't been getting any physical exercise recently so that may be an issue of my tendency to have trouble falling asleep quickly. I've add "I fall asleep right when I want to" to my WL intention setting mantras .

This is now three nights in a row where the concept of dreaming has come up in my dreams:

N-3: I was in a hurry and didn't have time to meet with someone "because I'm dreaming and I have too much to do" (about 20% confidence that I actually thought that in the dream)

N-2: A neighbor woman was lucid dreaming (!!!) and I could see the visions she was creating in her imagination as if they were appearing on a screen in front of me (and I thought this to myself: "she's creating her dream world using her imagination"). I mean, how thick do you have to be to miss that dreamsign? AUUGH! 100% confidence that's what happened.

Last night: I was in a club (activity club, not night club), the shared activity I think (40% confidence) was dreaming.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

Only 4 dreams recalled from 1 waking last night. Nothing lucid.

Awesome Fryingman I can often remember three dreams but that's from multiple awakenings during the night (I'm 69 YO) I've been trying for just over three months and I had my first (very small) lucid dream last Saturday. I'm old and I did it and I think you'll be lucid very very soon. I'm now working at getting dream #2 but I suspect that you may take off like a rocket.

If you work as well as try for LD I think it's no wonder you are tired sometimes. I'm retired and I sometimes find it difficult to stay the course at night..so work at it but don't let it affect your health or any relationships. You've got the rest of your life to enjoy it + what you're learning about yourself, the brain and dreams generally can be enough to "entertain" you while you move steadily towards being lucid. It's great isn't it?

Re the "formless darkness...my son's wife had a major op recently and just before she went in hospital he dreamt that a monster was climbing across his wife and he somehow seems to have overcome SP as he tried to tackle it. I'm sure you'd know if there was something really worrying you and that's another amazing side to LD...it helps you face problems head-on I'm told

Originally Posted by LukeSid

Awesome Fryingman I can often remember three dreams but that's from multiple awakenings during the night (I'm 69 YO) I've been trying for just over three months and I had my first (very small) lucid dream last Saturday. I'm old and I did it and I think you'll be lucid very very soon. I'm now working at getting dream #2 but I suspect that you may take off like a rocket.

Thank you LukeSid for the encouragement! And congrats on your first LD! Yeah all these young little "whippersnappers" writing "I tried to LD and it got it the first time!" can be depressing for us geezers (uh, I mean, "mature folk"). My personal nonscientific theory is that after decades of walking through life zombie-like on autopilot, it can take us a little longer to instill the waking awareness necessary to reliably LD. I am very encouraged with my recall results so far and my response to setting intent (no need to set alarm clocks). Yes balancing the desire to sleep more "just one more dream period! Just one more!" with family & work life can be challenging!

I'm sure if you keep working on it the recall will improve. Some advice I recall is that physical activity during the day is very helpful for LD and recall (just not within about 3 hours of bed time or you may be too alert). I need to follow this advice also. Also, really try to recall those dreams that slip away. (It's amazing to me how fast can happen, two nights ago I had a fairly clear mental sequence of a dream I just had and was going to journal. I opened my eyes and partially sat up in bed and POOF I felt it ALL VANISH in an instant. Argh!). Staying still after waking is really important. I've noted that I have a habit of rolling over as soon as I wake up. I've started setting the intent to remain still when I wake up, and it's starting to work, just last night I started to move upon waking without thinking and I just stopped myself suddenly and realized "aha, have to recall before moving!"

I've been doing the LaBerge prospective memory exercise about 1.5 weeks and I'm just now starting to see small improvements, it takes a while. Once that gets reasonably developed I think it helps with intention setting and MILDing, I encourage you to try that if you're not already.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

Yes balancing the desire to sleep more "just one more dream period! Just one more!" with family & work life can be challenging!

How's the wife re this? If she's going along fairly well you're lucky. Mine just doesn't understand but, as long as I don't start waffling on about, it she's fine.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

I opened my eyes and partially sat up in bed and POOF I felt it ALL VANISH in an instant. Argh!

I've had that...it felt really weird...as if a very thin rubber band just snapped. I suppose we're part of the lucky few who have actually experienced how the movement of a memory feels...like a thin rubber band snapping...I've also made the mistake of laying there too long, to get the smallest detail...and drifting off back to sleep. I've tried TAGs...giving a dream a few tags to make it more memorable without having to get up but I can't guarantee to remember it

Originally Posted by FryingMan

I'm sure if you keep working on it the recall will improve.

It has improved really. I've got blood pressure and that has affected my memory (a former dj who knows all the major songs up to the mid 90's but can't remember the name of most of them) I read a reassuring article that said this type of loss is not related to Alzheimers. I eat blueberries, broccoli and I take beetroot extract (all memory improvement items) But, of course, there's no absolute proof that they help. It's a bugger but I sense that it's only a drawback and not fatal. I'm an "all over the place" type of learner but my LD seems to show that incomplete mastery of one technique (while recommended long term) doesn't necessarily prevent LD happening...probably the sum total of all the things we're learning adds up...but, of course, I will be seeking to improve on them all

I'm pretty conditioned now on laying still with eyes shut and my next move is to look at DEILD Then I can either get up and record a dream or if I can try to get back into it (particularly if it was lucid!) Best of both Worlds then. I've made up a list of things to notice throughout the day and I'll pick three at random. As Tesco say "Every little bit helps"

Originally Posted by LukeSid

I've had that...it felt really weird...as if a very thin rubber band just snapped.

Yes that's a very good description. It was odd, normally they slowly fade and I start struggling to remember what is left but this was all at once in an instant, very strange!

I suppose we're part of the lucky few who have actually experienced how the movement of a memory feels...like a thin rubber band snapping...I've also made the mistake of laying there too long, to get the smallest detail...and drifting off back to sleep. I've tried TAGs...giving a dream a few tags to make it more memorable without having to get up but I can't guarantee to remember it

Yes I do quick mental keyword summaries to start with to make sure I remember each "starting scene", then do mental replays with more detail, then voice record the keywords, then voice record the details.

I'm pretty conditioned now on laying still with eyes shut and my next move is to look at DEILD Then I can either get up and record a dream or if I can try to get back into it (particularly if it was lucid!) Best of both Worlds then. I've made up a list of things to notice throughout the day and I'll pick three at random. As Tesco say "Every little bit helps"

That's good about being still. I think the best approach is a flexible one -- know all the techniques and be familiar with them, and use them when they're appropriate. Keep careful records of your efforts and keep looking back and finding what works and what doesn't (this approach I attribute to BrandonBoss, thanks man!)

Last night was another trouble-getting-back-to-sleep night after some MILD repetitions after awaking about 5-6 hours after bedtime. Forgot lots of detail, waited until morning to journal middle-of-the-night awakenings. Ate too much too close to bedtime and had dreams of thinking about throwing up . I journaled a few sentences from different awakenings so I did have a bit of recall. I know there's a lot I forgot, though.

Again as I was trying to fall asleep after the MILD repetitions I observed myself beginning slowly to fall asleep, so just stayed aware with it and hoped I'd get a spontaneous WILD. As has happened before, I notice bright lights, I see images and short scenes which disappear quickly. I try not to focus on them but they just disappear, and afterwards my wakefulness increases and I'm just lying there awake again. Then I try just to ignore everything and fall asleep but the signs of approaching sleep seem to stimulate me. A few times I tried imagining "diving down through my bed" as if diving down under water, and the first time it helped get "deeper" and closer to sleep but after that didn't seem to help.

I guess I should try the 61-point relaxation with more attention. Having something else to pay attention to other than the HI helps sometimes.

Any suggestions about "getting to sleep when you want to" welcome.

Yet AGAIN another 2-3 hour insomnia spell last night after waking up and voice journaling for about 5 minutes from a fairly well recalled dream, then doing MILD on scenes from that dream. If any other non-MILD thoughts entered my head, I'd do a quick mental statement of "The next time I'm dreaming, I remember to recognize that I'm dreaming." I'm starting to think this is keeping me up? The MILD instructions from LaBerge say to do another cycle any time any other thoughts enter in, to make sure the MILD thought is the last one you have before falling asleep. I'm not doing all that many MILD repetitions at first, maybe 5 or 6 at most, I'm really trying to let everything go and just get right back to sleep. Same pattern as before: I slowly relax and feel myself getting close to sleep, I see suddenly a scene (HI?), then I snap back to alertness, and this repeats for a while. Then I just start "daydreaming" -- I daydreamed of flying around bridges and the ocean. After a while ended up turning on the light and reading for an hour, that helped me get tired enough to fall asleep again. After falling asleep eventually and waking after a dream I was so tired at that point that I didn't journal I just wanted to get back to sleep (and maybe back to the dream I'd just wakened from, but that didn't happen). Awoke again later and journaled dreams from both wakings, detail not that great (probably because I'm tired). Last night as opposed to the prior two nights I was sleeping in a totally quiet and dark place with no distractions at all, but still no luck getting quickly back to sleep after MILD. Argh!

Yesterday I completed the LaBerge seven day Will Development exercise from "A Course In Lucid Dreaming." Saying hello to 5 random new people a day for 3 days was challenging for me but I did it .

I'm now generally hitting 2-3 out of the 4 prospective memory targets for the day. Visualizing each of the the target events happening rather than just memorizing the list of targets for the day has proven very effective and essential in getting the instant "ping! I remember to do a state check" when the target event happens. I've found that being too specific about the visualizations can cause a miss; one of the events is "when you hear your name spoken," and I almost never hear my name at home, only at work, so I just visualized hearing it at work. But that day my wife was talking about me to a friend on the phone and said my name but I only a bit later realized I had missed it!

Talking about dreaming, lucid dreaming, teaching others how to,... in a regular dream is a great sign indeed. Your waking life practice is getting noticed by your mind big time.

Yes, the city life distractions can be a real nuisance. But that recall of yours is awesome. Sometimes I just show my appreciation to my mind by saying "Thank you for my dreams and all dreaming experiences. I love those about [insert anything here]. Can I please have more of them?" Our mind listens, only we don't really tell it what we want, because we don't think of our mind as our ally, a partner, that can help and guide us.

WILD is a very delicate ballancing game. To fall asleep at the very moment, when a dream is ready for us. So until then, you have to either get yourself fall asleep faster, if you feel dream is near. Or slow down the falling asleep, if you feel that dream is still far away. That's not easy to do. You may know all the theory, but only practice, with all the success stories and even fails, will make you better at it. And btw, every fail is a success too, in my book. WILD really is a learning process and only way to learn it is through practice. Every failed attempt gets us one step closer, and it equals to succesful attempt, because it gives us same valuable info, about what to do and what not to do.

I have never tried the 61 point technique. Well, maybe once or twice. I just found it too long and boring. Until I found this guided yoga nidra track. That puts me to sleep in minutes, and it doesn't involve muscle flexing, just thinking about all those parts of your body. It's great for relaxation and to help you fall asleep, but not for WILDing, since it puts me to sleep very fast. I can PM you info about it, if interested.

I've added a new mantra to my WL intention setting practice, one that I really like, it makes me excited and motivates me:

"I am a lucid dreamer."

I hope it's not too vague for the subconscious to get the point that I want to LD *now*:

It fills me with a sense of wonder and anticipation.

Frankly, "The next time I'm dreaming, I remember to recognize that I"m dreaming" is a bit dry to me, maybe because I've been using it exclusively from the start. Technically, though, is this second one (the LaBerge MILD mantra) objectively better?

Is it more important that the mantra have a deep personal meaning, as opposed to being a "correct" programming of the subconscious, given the goal of getting a lucid dream *now*?

"I'm a lucid dreamer" should be ok. When you say it, imagine yourself just getting lucid and doing an RC. So your mind has better idea what you talking about. Also, "I lucid dream", "I'm aware in my dreams" could work.

My favorite one is "Next time I'm dreaming, I realize I'm dreaming" and "Next time I'm dreaming, I look at my hands and realize I'm dreaming". This is a classic mantra from Castanedas book. I didn't read the book, just someone mentioned it. The author was talking to an old indian. He told him that he can get lucid in his dreams. All he nedds to do is to wish to look at his hands in his non-lucid dream. Castaneda was skeptical, but he did the looking at hands RC with mantra. And he got lucid.

In theory, you should be able to say anything, as long as you tell your brain what you mean by that. Then it will assocciate those words with the meaning. But if you can think of a mantra, that has a personal meaning, talks about LDing, maybe even rhymes, and it gets you this special feeling, like "this is the one". I think that is the way to go.

Often I change my mantra, if I start reciting it and it doesn't sound right, or "I'm not feeling it". I keep changing it, until I have a good feeling about it and it gets me excited.

One night, as I went to bed, I had this ache. So I figured I try a mantra I have seen in Waggoners book "Gateway to the inner self". It goes "From my hands shoots an energy beam, to heal my [insert what] with power supreme. It rhymes, and I made it sync with my breating. I didn't intent to do anything, I was just saying it. Next thing I know, my body (dream body) started to rotate clock wise, little bit more with every breath, until my feet were in the wall, and my head over the carpet. Then I felt like I'm on ball bearings, moving back and forth with every inhale-exhale. It was incredible. I thing rhytmic breathing did that, coupled with mantra. Some kind of a trance. So yes, I do believe in power of mantras, rhyming, and breathing.

About dream journaling-
I keep my DJ in the bathroom, and I write some keywords down on my trips there. They help me recall the whole dream in the morning.

When you find yourself in a dream/dreamlet/HH and you are deep enough to see yourself walking around in it, thry to stand up. You may be already dreaming. Or make some kind of a "formal" attempt to transfer yourself there. You are already there, but this "transfer" will help you realize it. You will most likely find your own way, but this is how I do it. I find a spot inside a dreamscene and I think slowly, and deliberately "I... am... there". At that moment I feel physical movement of my consciousness/dream body to the spot I picked inside the dream. The whole feel changes from and outside observer to me being inside of a 3D environment. And at that point I realize, I'm in a LD.

Check link in my sig for different ways of entering a WILD depending of what you see or feel.

To help you catch a dream sign in a dream, try and draw your own dreamscape, like the woman in your dream did. When you drawing it during day, think of the mantra to notice it in your dream.

It's normal to become more aware and to "snap out of it", when you see some cool HH. That's just excitement from you knowing what's coming. The more you do it, more you will learn not to get excited about it. It will wear off a bit (never fully though, which is a great thing, in my eyes).

Looks like you are doing great progress. Good luck and happy dreams

Originally Posted by gab

Talking about dreaming, lucid dreaming, teaching others how to,... in a regular dream is a great sign indeed. Your waking life practice is getting noticed by your mind big time.

Yay, I'm glad that's a good sign. I had lucid dreaming reference #4 two nights ago, this one 100% confidence as well: my mother said of some guy in my dream, "he's a lucid dreamer."

Yes, the city life distractions can be a real nuisance. But that recall of yours is awesome.

Thanks for the kind words, "awesome" may be an overstatement . I've had ups and downs but I've always recalled something since I started "LD training" .

Last night I had another marathon, with more wakings I believe than any other night, including one just 30 minutes following the previous. I guess my subconscious is starting to take seriously my "I wake after each dream and recall my dream in detail" intent! Many dreams were quite bizarre, more than usual. Or I'm just remembering more than usual and they're always bizarre . I've titled two dreams: "Cross-country laundry service" [I'm travelling on a bus across the country to find the laundromat that will accept my 8 boxes of laundry that must be finished in a week, looking at map and note the name of one city is "Fart."), and "Living room floor surgery" [featuring a male patient with a deflated/pancake-shaped head] . Yeah, I know.

Last night started out rocky: zero recall at the first waking 3.5 hours after going to bed. I waited too long to start recording and it all just vanished -- I was very tired. But then I had 4 more wakings (including the final one where I got up) where I recalled something, some a lot, some less. The good news is that I had no trouble falling back asleep when I wanted to, doing a half-decent job of MILDing each time. The "turn off all thoughts" idea helped. Yes, I am interested in your relaxation approach, please do PM me about it.

It's now sometimes taking me up to an hour or more to transcribe my voice recordings into my journal. I may have to cut back on the detail since that's a pretty big time expenditure but I'm hoping that working through the memories and details will be a boost to getting to LDs.

I have also been eating bananas, cheese, milk, and mussels like crazy this weekend, maybe the B6/B12 boost is kicking in .

WILD is a very delicate ballancing game.

I'm really starting to appreciate this. The falling asleep experience up to HI seems more or less straightforward to me, but arriving there "too alert" seems to be the problem, or paying too much attention to HI/HH. Sometimes the HI are very bright images that arrive suddenly, and that's rather startling. I definitely see that WILDing is a practice, practice, practice technique. I do feel that I'm becoming more familiar with the experience and do expect that some day, hopefully soon, I will start succeeding at the transition and then will make WILD a regular tech in my LD bag-o-tricks. I'd like to try to get a MILD LD or two before joining Sageous's WILD class though.

I may also experiment with DEILD, forgoing journaling on one waking to try it out from time to time.

Originally Posted by gab

About dream journaling-
I keep my DJ in the bathroom, and I write some keywords down on my trips there. They help me recall the whole dream in the morning.

When you find yourself in a dream/dreamlet/HH and you are deep enough to see yourself walking around in it, thry to stand up. You may be already dreaming. Or make some kind of a "formal" attempt to transfer yourself there. You are already there, but this "transfer" will help you realize it. You will most likely find your own way, but this is how I do it. I find a spot inside a dreamscene and I think slowly, and deliberately "I... am... there". At that moment I feel physical movement of my consciousness/dream body to the spot I picked inside the dream. The whole feel changes from and outside observer to me being inside of a 3D environment. And at that point I realize, I'm in a LD.

Check link in my sig for different ways of entering a WILD depending of what you see or feel.

To help you catch a dream sign in a dream, try and draw your own dreamscape, like the woman in your dream did. When you drawing it during day, think of the mantra to notice it in your dream.

It's normal to become more aware and to "snap out of it", when you see some cool HH. That's just excitement from you knowing what's coming. The more you do it, more you will learn not to get excited about it. It will wear off a bit (never fully though, which is a great thing, in my eyes).

Looks like you are doing great progress. Good luck and happy dreams

I'm never in the HH/HI long enough to think about doing an "I...am...there", never more than a second or two. That's the delicate balance -- staying detached and calm enough not to jerk back awake, yet not letting go of consciousness and falling into a ND.

I've been a bit lazy about WL RCs over the last few days -- I need to keep this up and keep waking awareness up. Less than 10 state checks per day, more like 5.

Thanks for the encouragement! I do hope I'm getting closer to the first LD, and that it's a nice long one!

Low recall night, only one waking with recall (7 scenes with few sentences of detail each, one [the emotional one] with more detail, the strong emotion carrying through to wakening). First waking: pretty tired, just forgot before I could get to the recorder. Second waking: dream recall, strong emotion. Third waking: had to get up and get going instantly, no time to lie and remember, no recall.

Tried MILD after first waking with dream from previous night. I was too agitated after second waking to MILD or fall asleep.

Eventually (ah the temptation!) decided to try WILD. Got to my usual place: HI/HH, lights, brief scenes, "I....am...there" did not work, dream was not established enough. Too aware of body? Trying too hard? Not close enough to sleep? Very little body sensations. Sometimes I get the "full body buzz", but I haven't recently. Tried not to be overly interested in the HH/HI. I'm wondering if I'm keeping hold of too much consciousness and need to dance closer to the edge of losing it, just holding to a tiny thread?

I have noticed a reoccurring event: when falling closer to sleep, I will involuntarily take a longer, stuttering breath (like three little breaths back-to-back without exhaling between them).