Thread: Elaol's DILD Workbook

Originally Posted by FryingMan

It's good to practice all techniques, WILD/DEILD included! There's no guarantee with a WILD that you will make it into the dream lucid, or that you won't lose lucidity immediately even if you enter the dream lucid with a WILD. The best part of DILDs is that you need not spend a lot of time awake during the night. Some nights we just can't afford WBTB time, but would still like to have lucid dreams, that's what DILDs are great for!

For beginners, DILDs can indeed come at the end of the REM cycle when we're waking up for the day, and so those LDs can be short. With practice and repetition, DILDs can move earlier and earlier into the night and the sleep cycle, even right at the start of the dream. And with more practice, you can learn to extend your LDs to the very end of your REM phase. And then, if you've studied DEILD at all, you can pop right back into a dream and just keep on going!

There is no fundamental quality difference between DILDs and WILDs. Yes, with WILDs, you are potentially maximizing your total lucid time, but you are also generally sacrificing time you would otherwise be asleep in order to perform the WILD dive. Depending on one's WILD proclivities and sleep requirements and tendencies towards insomnia, that could be a matter of minutes or a matter of hours, or you could even lose all the rest of the dreaming for the night if you don't get back to sleep. There are lots of trade-offs to consider!

Yeah, I was thinking about that. Because of my seizure and strict sleep schedule I am on, I could afford WILD attempts about 2 times a week, when I wake up naturally. More, if it is successful WILD or if I fall asleep xD DILDs are still my preferred technique, my health comes first. They both have their advantages and disadvantages I guess.

I am a bit frustrated because I have had 31 LD by now and none of them were high-level lucids where I could actually do something I like. I don't mean doing Task of the year or Dream Hero League tasks, but I would like at least to fly fully conscious or to have sex with DC. Some beginner stuff. I get really discouraged when I have these low-level lucids. I have all the knowledge how to change low-level into high-level lucid, but I never did it so far in my LDs.

Sorry for the rant, but when you're into this for so long, it gets pilled up

It's good I think to plan both "fun" LD activities and "good for you" LD activities. Some "good for you" activities involve basic dream control/dream yoga techniques like sticking your hand through a wall (and then knocking on it as if it were solid, and then sticking your hand/arm through again, etc. fun!) As for lengthening LDs, I think really working on staying calm is very important. If you get really excited by flying, and pretty much everybody gets excited by sex, there is a tendency to wake up when excited. So for those early LDs, if you just look around, explore, interact with some DCs (in a platonic way ), maybe easing your way into a romantic encounter instead of just TKing off the clothes and jumping right in, that may help. If you instead of jumping into exciting things first tell yourself that you're going to do a little "control" or "engage" exercise, then try flying after that, you can extend the dream and bring about higher levels of lucidity.

And once again, frustration is counter-productive. Believe me, I understand frustration, but I came to the realization that it was hurting and not helping, so I just let go of it. I really believe in the positive effects of enjoying all your dreaming experiences, and that as a result, more vivid, lucid dreams will eventually result.

So perhaps set less aggressive goals to start with. Simple things like finding a door and opening it, exploring a room, or just setting an in-dream goal like "see what's around that corner" and doing it. Being able to do thing like that while maintaining lucidity is the foundation for the more adventurous dreams which will come later.

Meet your early, easier goals and feel the accomplishment and confidence that comes from doing so. Then gradually ratchet up the difficulty level.

Having fun in the dream and really enjoying it, having a slew of little mini-goals to satisfy, not worrying about the dream ending, I find that these approaches have resulted in the longest, clearest, most stable LDs of all. It's a balance (there's the B word again!): you want to engage in the dream environment, yet hold yourself a little bit separate from it, to prevent getting lost in the plot and losing lucidity.

Do you have a lot of very vivid & present non-lucid dreams? Dreams where you feel like "I'm really here!" (but just don't realize it's a dream)? If not, it could be that you're not paying enough attention to your waking experiences. Or it could be that you're early in your sleep cycles and you mind is too sluggish for a high level lucid. The best remedy is time and experience: stay positive, love all your dreams, and really enjoy the practice itself. The dreams will come in time.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

Do you have a lot of very vivid & present non-lucid dreams? Dreams where you feel like "I'm really here!" (but just don't realize it's a dream)? If not, it could be that you're not paying enough attention to your waking experiences. Or it could be that you're early in your sleep cycles and you mind is too sluggish for a high level lucid. The best remedy is time and experience: stay positive, love all your dreams, and really enjoy the practice itself. The dreams will come in time.

Thanks for the response FM, I can try it that way. I will make a list of small goals, I hope accomplishing them will make me more motivated

For example, last night I recalled 10 dreams. I woke up every hour or so. I think since there were so many of them, they were pretty short, few sentences . The night before I recalled 4 dreams, but they were more like the movie, so 4 long dreams. My dreams are mostly visual, and auditory, there aren't other sensations. I rarely feel taste or touch. Some of them are very vivid, some are less vivid. I am also, in the last couple of weeks, recalling a lot of non-REM dreams. I am really happy with my recall

It's great that you have such good recall! That should be a great source of enjoyment and confidence! The vividness I'm referring to is more vividness of awareness: did you really feel like "you" -- your personality with your memories, were there in the dreams? This vividness of awareness comes from day practice of attention/awareness/mindfulness, that's one reason why mindfulness is such a great practice for lucid dreaming.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

It's great that you have such good recall! That should be a great source of enjoyment and confidence! The vividness I'm referring to is more vividness of awareness: did you really feel like "you" -- your personality with your memories, were there in the dreams? This vividness of awareness comes from day practice of attention/awareness/mindfulness, that's one reason why mindfulness is such a great practice for lucid dreaming.

I see, well, it is me, my body, my voice, but I don't have real life memories. If I am occupied by something during the day, it sometimes transfer to dreams. But usually I don't have any information from daily life. Seems I have to work on my mindfulness. But shouldn't GRC boost vividness of awareness? And do you think it is good that I switched focus of Vipassana to the gravity?

Certainly access to memory is impaired in the dream state -- I wasn't referring to full waking memories, but that "sense" that you know who you are.

I don't know if GRC boosts vividness of awareness, I think though that it falls much more under state awareness/vigilance. I think that vividness of experience comes from bringing your full, high-level awareness/attention to your waking experiences. If you feel strongly that GRC is right for you, you should follow it. We all need to find our own path and discover what works best for us. As long as you're covering the fundamentals, any consistent practice should work. I personally prefer mindfulness of experience and reaction, since it has benefits to both waking and dreaming life. I bring in state vigilance frequently but I don't hold it 24x7.

Since I already wrote a lot today, I'll keep this short.

First, thank you FM for your post. Now I feel there is so many types of awareness, it can really get overwhelming sometimes. Since mindfulness is so beneficial, I will double my Vipassana time. I will do it twice a day (hopefully). If I manage to implement somehow walking mindfulness of breath besides noticing my feet and hands, I'll do that as well, but I think it can't be done atm.

About today's practice. Since I sat most of the day, I was trying to notice the sensation of touching the surface I was sitting on. It went quite well, I wish I walked more though

Let's see what the night is bringing

I don't think that there are so many different types of awareness. I think that there are many different shades or descriptions of what is fundamentally the same thing, but every person finds their own way to frame and describe them and label them. I personally find mindfulness practice and theory congruent to my own views and experiences of lucidity. As teachers, we encourage our students to find their own path and to seek and experiment and experience on their own and to reach their own conclusions. Trying to follow each individual interpretation as a different kind of awareness can indeed be overwhelming.

That's why my statement of my "unified theory" is so general. Pay attention ("be here, now"), reflect ("where/what is here & now, are they dream-like?"), recall (keep your connection to memory open and stretch it and exercise it). But even that is my own labeling of the nameless aspects of consciousness and experience. If you're overwhelmed, then you're probably over thinking it.

There are benefits to starting off with following one author's particular lucid dreaming program, ala LaBerge's MILD, or dream yoga ala Holecek: it gives you a holistic program with structure and specific things to do while you're beginning, to avoid the overwhelming aspect. I don't want to dissuade you from GRC or anything you're excited about, but it seems to me that an all day singular RC approach is somewhat advanced in that it assumes that you've already got the basics (self-awareness with reflection and memory) covered.

Yaaaay, my favorite kind of post. It's success story time

First, thanks FM for the response. I have tendency to overthink I think going back to basics can be beneficial, but I'll try to do that while also doing my GRC practice.

And noooooooow, the moment you've all been waiting for, I had another LD

Spoiler for DC/DS induced LD:

I was going back home. It's pitch black outside, all the street lights are off. There is weak light source in the hair salon right at the corner. I see silhouettes of some people. It seems like I recognize one of them, but I am wrong. It is not a person, it is a dog. I turn right near, I'm heading to the entrance of my staircase. I see a shady guy standing there. He tries to attack me, and I warn him I am much stronger than before. He wants to rob someone in the building and orders me to show him where the apartment of the man is. I agree, but when he turns his back on me, I attack him. We fight for a few minutes, and then I decide to rewind the dream and try to escape him (still not lucid ATM). We go up the staircase and I kick him in the balls and start running to my apartment on the fifth floor. When I arrive on the top floor, I see him waiting for me. In this moment I realize that I am dreaming and become lucid. He tells me to wake up. I say no, and stay in the dream. I remember the advice I heard both from Sageous and FryingMan that memory can increase lucidity. So I start by saying my name, where I study, what I study. All accurate information. I am having hard time remembering how old I am, first I think it is 18, but then I remember I am 23. The dream starts to stabilize. But as I continue on improving my memory, I realize I am talking IRL. I wake up 2 minutes before my alarm

I want to emphasize a few things in this dream:
1. I have more self-esteem, I always ran from the thieves, which are one of the most common dream signs for me
2. I rewinded the dream, although I was not lucid. Maybe at that time I had minimum lucidity, like in the dream from two nights ago?
3. I actually remembered that tip about memory
4. The dream started to stabilize
5. Again, I became lucid at the end of the REM. I can't wait for that to move to the beginning of the dream, like FM said, so I can have longer lucids

I also tried DEILDing after the dream. I swear I didn't move, I haven't changed my pattern of breathing, nothing, but I couldn't go back in the dream. What do you guys recommend for DEILDing? I will look into some guides here, but personal tips and tricks are usually more useful

Yay! Congrats! Great dream and reflection/realization to get lucid. Making that connection with waking memory I find very very useful for boosting lucidity.

DEILDing I find is mostly about conditions and in-advance preparedness than technique. It is practically a non-technique: remain quiet and still, with a calm, dreamy mindset, and lightly consider the dream you just woke from, and allow yourself to drift off again. That's it. If the conditions are right, you'll find yourself back in a dream in seconds. You can't really control the conditions, which involve being in the right stage of your sleep cycles and your mind/body being still ready for more sleep, and having a very quiet/still bedroom. The preparedness involved is in recognizing (and if exiting a lucid dream, recognizing the transition out of the dream state) the waking (or more accurately the potential waking, you can never really tell if a "waking" is actual or a FA, IMO, without moving and doing an RC, which can spoil any DEILD attempt, it's very akin to Shrodinger's cat). So you did your part well: you may just have been too excited at the LD to fall back asleep. After a good LD, that's is very common for me, especially when I was still within the first several dozen LDs of my practice.

I think the DILDs moving to earlier and earlier in the sleep cycle comes with the mind becoming more and more familiar with operating in the lucid state. That, and gaining familiarity with lucidity over time allows you to remain calm and balanced. So, just keep on going, get more lucids, and err on the side of perhaps less exciting LD tasks so that you get familiar with holding the lucid state for as long as you can and build up as many lucid minutes as possible (building up lucid minutes being important is one conjecture of mine). Also, (another conjecture of mine), the higher your base level of awareness, the less "awake" your mind must be in order to lucid dream, allowing LDs earlier in the night and sleep cycle.

Thanks FM for reply, I read some tutorials of DEILDs and I'll try to implement all the information I have gained today the next time I have lucid dream. Your help guys means so much, idk if I would do GRC for this long if it wasn't for your support. I can't wait to have GILD again

Sooooooooooooo

Since most of my was spent sitting, I tried to focus on the feeling of sitting and I was successful 30% of the time, which I think is pretty good Now I am going for a walk with my friend which is great chance to practice GRC while talking to someone. I will report tomorrow how it went.

When I come back, I'll meditate for the second time today. Yep, I increased the number of meditations. I hope that will increase the awareness, so I will become lucid easier than usual.

I hope I'll have lucid again today. Happy dreaming everyone

Congratulations Elaol!!...and great interaction here FryingMan!! Great work both of you, it is paying off!!

Originally Posted by Elaol

I also tried DEILDing after the dream. I swear I didn't move, I haven't changed my pattern of breathing, nothing, but I couldn't go back in the dream. What do you guys recommend for DEILDing? I will look into some guides here, but personal tips and tricks are usually more useful

A mindset that I think helps tremendously is something I have been calling pre-DEILD. I talk about it in this post #8 but the OP is also good to read if you haven't seen it yet: http://www.dreamviews.com/general-lu...ml#post2177196

Originally Posted by fogelbise

Congratulations Elaol!!...and great interaction here FryingMan!! Great work both of you, it is paying off!!

A mindset that I think helps tremendously is something I have been calling pre-DEILD. I talk about it in this post #8 but the OP is also good to read if you haven't seen it yet: http://www.dreamviews.com/general-lu...ml#post2177196

Hey fogelbise, haven't heard from you in a while Thanks for response. I will certainly try to implement this advice.

I had the best dream recall last night. 4 dreams, but each half page long. They were so vivid, first time I felt warmth and touch during non-lucid sex dreams. That made me thinking, last night I was pretty good at company GRC. I was walking with my friend and I stayed focused on GRC 50% of the time. I think that is pretty good. I also meditated two times, so I definitely worked on awareness.

That made me thinking of FryingMan's unified theory. Perhaps I should really pay attention to the fundamentals. So, here is the plan:
1. Work towards two half-hours sessions of mindfulness of breath
2. At least once every hour reflect on the current state
3. About recall, idk, maybe I should every night try to relive that day

What do you guys think? Is this OK?

Originally Posted by Elaol

I had the best dream recall last night. 4 dreams, but each half page long. They were so vivid, first time I felt warmth and touch during non-lucid sex dreams. That made me thinking, last night I was pretty good at company GRC. I was walking with my friend and I stayed focused on GRC 50% of the time. I think that is pretty good. I also meditated two times, so I definitely worked on awareness.

That made me thinking of FryingMan's unified theory. Perhaps I should really pay attention to the fundamentals. So, here is the plan:
1. Work towards two half-hours sessions of mindfulness of breath
2. At least once every hour reflect on the current state
3. About recall, idk, maybe I should every night try to relive that day

What do you guys think? Is this OK?

Excellent, great news on the recall! That says your dreaming ("dream awareness" ala Sensei) is in a good place, keep it up!

My "unified" theory has two parts: describing (my framing of) the fundamentals, and doing it both day and night. Don't try to be "different" at night to get lucid, instead, try to be lucid 24x7 so that the night is not really much different than the day in terms of your mindset.

I think seated mindfulness sessions are very good, they contribute towards all the wonderful benefits including growth of the pre-frontal cortex (as I understand it). Then try to maintain that attention during your "normal" experiences. That's the attention I'm talking about: attention and reflection and recall of your life's experiences, every day. The more continuously you can do them, the better. But ease into it so that it's not overwhelming.

For recall, think about, at least some times during the day, maintaining a connection with your memory. Like, when you're going somewhere, keep in mind both where you have just been and where you're going. Try to "see" or "feel" the places you have moved through in the last (15 minutes, for example). Also what you said or did or experienced. Then a "day review" at bedtime is also very valuable to open up that access to memory going into the dreaming portions of your night. Something I do from time to time is pick out particular memories from the day that I resolve I will include in my evening review, then in that review see if I can remember them all. Using a mnemonic approach like the "peg system" is extremely helpful in doing this.

Ultimately, I think the goal is to maintain a continuous blend of all 3. It's not that "ok, this is the attention hour, then this is the reflection hour, then this is the recall time," but try to keep all of them active. I certainly don't do this all the time every day, it usually ends up in sections as I remember to do them. But I think that's the ultimate goal. Being able to keep a portion of your access to memory alive while in the dream state is very challenging but will yield lots of lucid fruit as you remember your goal of being lucid in the dream state.

Do what you can. Be confident that if you're working on the fundamentals, maintaining strong intent/desire/excitement about dreaming, the LDs will come when they do. Feel free to emphasize portions you feel you need to work on more. For me, I know I'm strong in attention and recall, but weak in reflection and [night-time]intention, goal-setting and night work/WBTB. LDing needs them all coming together. We each need to be our own analyst and honest evaluator since only we can see into our dreaming experiences.

Wow, thanks FM for that response. Now I really understand what to do

I'm so tired, I've been working on this research for 10 hours today. That is why my GRC practice suffered. I couldn't concentrate on both things. I took a 15 minute walk today to clear my head, and that is when I practiced GRC. I will also do another round of mindfulness, so I hope that will increase my chance of lucidity tonight.

That's it, I'm going to take a shower

Originally Posted by Elaol

That made me thinking of FryingMan's unified theory. Perhaps I should really pay attention to the fundamentals. So, here is the plan:
1. Work towards two half-hours sessions of mindfulness of breath
2. At least once every hour reflect on the current state
3. About recall, idk, maybe I should every night try to relive that day

What do you guys think? Is this OK?

FM already gave an excellent response, so I just had a few things I wanted to add in order to respond to your question.

1. I feel mindfulness of breath is not only great for LD practice, but also for quickly recognizing stress coming on before it takes hold, anticipating when you may be getting ready to make an overly emotional decision, for raising the ability to focus, and for opening up your field of awareness to name a few benefits.

2. an excellent practice…even better if you can blend the fundamentals as FM mentioned, but that can be a longer term goal to move towards.

3. I think that is helpful for recall but you are doing something right already. Try to identify what it is that you have been doing that led to your nice recall last night also.

Thanks fogelbise for your response. Both yours and FMs feedback are really appreciated

Today was another stressful day. I have those a lot lately. I'm not feeling very well, so my practice is suffering as well. I am really anxious these days, so much I can't fall asleep. But I try to keep LD practice going. Today, I was on some education and I tried to be aware and to keep track of the gravity. It went pretty well.

I have a lot of thinking to do considering fundamentals. But I will postpone that for a couple of days.

See you tomorrow

Hello everyone!

I'm in a good mood today (better than yesterday anyway). So, I have some things to report. First, I had awesome dream recall, yaay me! Second, in multiple dreams I have found something odd, but didn't become lucid. I think I'm on a good way to becoming lucid more frequently.

Third, I have considered fundamentals and GRC. I think I will try another month with GRC, because it is easy to do it at them moment. I am in not good state of mind, so I cannot do fundamentals right now. I think it would be the best if I do so important task when I am in better state of mind.

Today's practice was OK. I was noticing gravity pretty well.

That is it for today.

See ya tomorrow

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!

First of, sorry for my attitude last couple of days, it was really dark. I will try to talk less about it on this thread.

Second, I had another LD. This time I did something actually Two of the short time goals you guys told me to do. Here is the dream, if you'd like to read it

Spoiler for AWESOOOOME:

I am in street market, and I see gipsy woman. She approaches me and I know she will steal my wallet (again thieves in my dreams). I try to defend myself and I realize I am dreaming. I rub my hands against the stone, but I wake up. I return back to sleep (I didn't know this was FA) and I see some gipsy kid (I swear I have nothing against them). Again I know he will steal my wallet. I put my hand on the back pocket, but my wallet is missing. I know that happened in last dream, so I realize I am still dreaming. I see a door and remember my goal to go from one room to another. I do that. I see interesting girl dressed in '60s clothes. I start to dance with her. It is very nice (almost loosing lucidity here). The dream starts to fade, so I spin around. I end up in a cheap motel, in an empty room. I remember my goal to talk to DC and ask him to tell me something. I go in another room thinking to myself that someone will be there. I see a guy. I don't remember how he looks. He tells me something about greek tragedy (I'm reading Divine Comedy atm), but I don't hear him very well. I ask him to tell me something. He tells me: "You shouldn't be afraid of rain and snow, but you might be afraid of the hail". I say OK. I see a closed door. I approach the door and say to myself that I will be in Dubrovnik. I open the door and see luxurious apartment, not like the one in Dubrovnik, but close. My relatives are there, I tell them to leave and they disappear, but come back seconds after. MY third goal was to find a white bunny. I try to do that saying to myself that a white bunny will be behind me. I turn around but nothing is there. I decide I want to fly, but I wake up.

So, couple things to note:
1. I am very anxious and I still had LD. Yaaay me!
2. I drank sleeping pill again, and I had LD.
3. I think I had this LD because I woke up to record the dream at 6:48, and I had this dream at 7. So, I guess it was unintentional WBTB.

Todays GRC went well. I have nothing crucial to report here.

That's it

Happy dreaming everyone

Nice, nice, nice! Love the doors, the transitions, the DC interactions, the conversation, the spin save! Keep it up with the mini-goals, did you feel how it helped you stay in the dream by giving you always something else new to do from moment to moment without having to think or pause too long?

Awesome job Elaol!! You should be very proud! That night before when you were noticing things, that was a good sign and then you followed through with a good solid lucid dream where you were able to achieve a number of things and notice that you were dreaming 2 different times!

You are doing awesome and I see no problem sticking with what is working for you and waiting to experiment with additional items.

I agree with FM that having those goals ready in your mind definitely helps to extend the dream.

Keep up the good work!

Thanks guys for the response!

@fogelbise That makes sense. Having those micro goals keeps dream longer. I remember I also read that somewhere on the forum, but until you mentioned it I completely forgot about it.

Another success story

Spoiler for Lucid dreamers killer:

I'll skip until the lucid part. So, that man who kills lucid dreamers is after me. I ran from him into my building. On the final floor I realize I am dreaming. The dream is not as lucid as last one, so it is easier to control it, since dreaming mind is mostly on. I go out to confront him. Idk if you have played Skyrim, but there is a shout in the game that blows away the opponent. It is my favorite semi-lucid weapon. I go out and shout FUS-RO-DAH! and he is blown away. I remember my goals. The first one is memory. So I start recalling the facts about me. Now, when I am fully conscious I see some of them were wrong, in some way. For example, I told my smallest toy was a penguin. I would never say that IRL, but now when I think about, I really had small penguin toy. When I have finished with that, I remembered the white rabbit task. I try to do it, but I get white ghost. It looks like those helium balloons you can get at carnivals. Since I am not as lucid as yesterday, I can easily make my hand on fire and attack the ghost. Then I realize he is part of me and I heal him, by making my hand shine blue. I wake, but I am writing my dream on circular paper. I awake for real

Things to note:
1. It seems easier to do things when you are semi-lucid, since dreaming mind is on. But then you lack thought and sensations you have when you have higher lucidity.

Question for my teachers:
1. How do you fight characters in your dreams? I seem to be having moral dilemma. On the one hand, they are part of me. On the other, one of the main reasons I am lucid dreaming is the thrill of the wizards fight.

Two lucids again, nice! Always happy to see your - posts.

1. How do you fight characters in your dreams? I seem to be having moral dilemma. On the one hand, they are part of me. On the other, one of the main reasons I am lucid dreaming is the thrill of the wizards fight.

Usually I just go and fight them without giving it a second thought. You're not really hurting anybody/anything, not even yourself. But if you do have a bad feeling of "Maybe I shouldn't fight this person just because I can, and because it is a part of me", then maybe you can kinda like smile and wink at them just to say " We're doing this for fun, but let's pretend it's serious". It's kinda like role-playing with yourself in the end. About the wizard fighting: Maybe you would like to check out the "Dream Hero League's" current tasks? It has a wizard battle - task active at the moment, and you could try to get some points to the thread on the side

Keep it up!

Originally Posted by Saizaphod

Two lucids again, nice! Always happy to see your - posts.


Usually I just go and fight them without giving it a second thought. You're not really hurting anybody/anything, not even yourself. But if you do have a bad feeling of "Maybe I shouldn't fight this person just because I can, and because it is a part of me", then maybe you can kinda like smile and wink at them just to say " We're doing this for fun, but let's pretend it's serious". It's kinda like role-playing with yourself in the end. About the wizard fighting: Maybe you would like to check out the "Dream Hero League's" current tasks? It has a wizard battle - task active at the moment, and you could try to get some points to the thread on the side

Keep it up!

Hi, thanks for replying

That sounds like a good advice, I'll use it in a future.

I still have trouble making the dream fully lucid, I want to gain some experience in stabilization and control, and then I will start DHL tasks. They inspire me the most

And yaaaay, 100th post on this page