Combine WILD & DEILD practise, or keep seperate?

Hi all,

Recently I've been trying to combine my practise for both DEILD and standard WILDS, and was wondering if anyone could see any downsides to my methods which my stunt my progress.

In terms of DEILDing, I am trying to convince myself to keep still whenever I wake in the night, but so far I've had little luck with that as I always stretch before I realise I'm awake. The couple of times I succeeded in staying still, I kept still for a good few minutes with no SP/LD. I have DEILDed a few times, but usually its due to chaining my LDs.

For my WILDs, I have been getting up 4-6 hours after falling asleep, sometimes staying up for a while, other times just going to the loo then back to bed. What I've been doing in terms of combining the techniques is trying to WILD when I get back into bed, but setting an alarm for about 45 minutes later in case I fall into unconscious sleep, in which case I can attempt to DEILD when the alarm wakes me up (it turns off after a few seconds by itself).

So does anyone see any downside to my technique, and if so, where would you suggest I make the changes?

Cheers in advance for any help,

Lucas

For DEILDs, it's just a matter of training yourself to stay still as soon as you can after waking up. For the first little while you might end up annoyed because you only remember this after moving quite a bit, but eventually the timeframe between waking and catching yourself to stay still will decrease, until you don't move at all upon waking up. DEILDs, in my opinion are easier after LDs because you know exactly when you're going to wake up (albeit your expectations that you'll wake up don't just send you into a false awakening).

Regarding alarms, what you've described sounds like a good idea, but alarms can often be too jarring in terms of waking you up, even if it does shut off after "only a few moments". If you've had success using an alarm for DEILD before, by all means keep using it - I'm sure it'll garner more lucids.

Cheers. With DEILDs I agree they're easier after LDs, though getting the LD in the first place is what I'm trying to master at the moment! But yes I've had success with dream chaning using DEILD methods and will continue to do so. My problem with DEILDs when waking up naturally is that even on the couple of occasions when I have remained completely still, nothing has happened after a good few minutes of keeping fully still. I PM'd someone about this (I think it was Ninja) and they said it was probably because I was waking up naturally after my REM cycle and therefore it was difficult to transition because my next hadn't yet started. This is when I started using alarms, with which I've had some success, but I'd much prefer the ability to acheive DEILDs on waking up naturally, as I do so every night anyway.

Thanks again for your input, I'll keep at the DEILD attempts without alarms for a while to see whether things improve.

No problem. Sometimes it helps if you don't focus all your energy into staying still and wondering when you'll enter a dream. From my own DEILDs, I've noticed that simply relaxing and not trying to listen to what's around me, and not trying to see what sleeping position I woke up in helps. In other words, I don't think about my physical body almost at all; instead, it's more mental thoughts than anything. Visualizing a dream scene and imagining auditory, tactile, and other sensations has also helped greatly, more to speed up the dream re-entry.