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Originally Posted by
fogelbise
RC's are a tried and true method but pretending to be lucid is believed to help induce DILD's. I think that pretending helps to induce and I know that it helps with remembering what you want to do and how you want to act when you do become lucid.
Okay, so I'll continue with this. It always ends with an RC or two so that's good.
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Several factors come into play here. Too late and some people have trouble getting back to sleep. Too early and you may not be rested and not be able to get your awareness "in the zone." I like waking up "naturally" by drinking water before bed which reduces the chances of a groggy wake up and interrupting a sleep cycle like alarms can do. When I wake up 4.5 to 6 hours after bedtime (almost every night) then I will make that my WBTB. Beyond 6 hours, micro-WBTB works better for me. Experiment and keep record of when you go to bed and when you get up for WBTB.
I tried somewhere between 5-6 hours last night. I ended up just lying there for an hour for my WILD attempt. I was too tired to do the P-MILD exercises, but I did them earlier on the day for a nap. Anyway, my jet lag and sleep deprivation will calm down this week, then my WBTB will make more sense and work, I hope. I forgot about drinking a lot of water, but I'll try that tonight. I've tried it before and it works, but only in the later cycles, like around 6 hours. I've had trouble with 6 hours before, but recently (two attempts), it's been okay. When I have a normal sleeping pattern I'm gonna experiment with trial and failure to find the sweet spot! :)
When I attempted WILD, it went better than ever. I came up with my own "mantra" when I started. I am a very musical person, I play a few instruments and I've played since 1st grade. That other hobby I was talking about was music-production. I often have music "on" in my brain. When I'm not thinking about anything special, I usually just hear music. I thought I could use this to my advantage. I imagined playing a small riff, not visualize, just hear and imagine. It worked out beautifully. I was able to drift off but I always came back, that's what's supposed to happen, right? anyway I don't think I was close to REM, but I think I experienced a little hypnagogia and delta sleep. I'll try again later with a natural awakening. :)
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Yes and the other things that you mentioned elsewhere including WBTB, RC's, MILD, mantras, prospective memory and more. Don't let the list overwhelm you though. These are just tools in your bag of tricks. The more that you are able to use effectively, the more I feel that you are increasing your odds of becoming lucid and doing so more frequently. Later on you may settle on a smaller set of favored practices that do the trick for you often enough.
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Sit quietly and pick and object study it briefly and close you eyes and reproduce the image as best as you can. Open them again and see what you missed, especially any strong colors? Shiny features? Shadows? Interestin Close them again and repeat until you are happy or want to rest. If happy move on to another object. Can you draw the basic lines of the object in your mind? Basic shapes are easier and may be best to start with (squares, circles, square ottoman, rectangular TV).
Okay, I will try this. This can help with MILD and dream incubation also, right? Visualizing a dream scene when I'm better?
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I think it was awareness which is aided by the DILD practices discussed earlier. If you have no awareness you will miss the weirdest signs. If you have a little awareness then you have a chance to catch some weirdness when you have other tools working for you like mantras and prospective memory to watch out for a recurring dream sign. Either way you need some awareness and day practices and WBTB are huge here.
Okay, is pretending to be dreaming (which to me is looking around and looking at things as if my brain produced them, noticing more things) enough for awareness? I am also contemplating going back to dream yoga, but I want to start easy. I think I should make a list of things I want to do:
1. PM exercises (I RC when I hit a target, 4-5 active at all times, thanks to FryingMan :))
2. Pretending to be dreaming, finish with 1-2 RC's
3. Dream Yoga (Start off easy)
4. WBTB + P-MILD (Natural WBTB, writing the sentences, reciting them, then thinking them)
5. WILD (Music mantra, need to practice visualization for dream forming)
6. Dream Journaling
Phew! What do you think? Next stop, Lucid-Town? :) I hope I'll have success with this, but I will probably cut some things out depending on what works on what doesn't. Oh, almost forgot! I remember a short, vivid non-lucid dream! It was quite creepy, involving spawning flying bugs everywhere, like millions :barf:, but it ended with indoor fake snowing! :)