Thread: The Routine

Hi guys.
So tomorrow I start back at school and I have a few questions about how my Lucidity will come along with this routine:

Weekdays: Awake-6:00am, Asleep-9:00
On Friday/Saturday nights I stay up until 11pm or later and sleep in until about 8 or later the next morning.

My problem: I will not set an alarm in the middle of the night so I can catch dreams mid REM on weekdays because I would be exhausted the next day. So the only dreams I will be able to record are ones I catch whilst awaking in the morning, or if I awake naturally during the night.

If I continue doing regular Reality Checks during my waking life (about every 2hrs) will I still have a decent chance of having and hopefully remembering Lucid Dreams during the week?

Thanks a bunch.

Habit is the biggest thing, so your plan to continue reality checks regularly will definitely increase your odds.

One piece advice though, at least in my personal experience, I've felt more refreshed after a successful REM rebound by waking myself up. The prolonged and combined REM periods tend to make me feel more rested. With a 9 hour window for you from sleeping to awakening, its something you shouldn't write off completely. It's still very possible to balance.

Originally Posted by ExoByte

Habit is the biggest thing, so your plan to continue reality checks regularly will definitely increase your odds.

This. Habit is the strongest tool you have at your disposal. Not in the sense that you must do a serie of steps every day in order to achieve lucidity, but you have to make those reality checks a part of your routine. When your brain fits them in, you'll start doing them without thinking, and they will carry for dreams. Notice that reality checks are not simple actions, but also a STOP and question reality. If you do them while your running to the bus, or just for the sake of it, chances are that you won't reach lucidity when doing them. School can be an awesome way to become lucid:

- Before entering and exiting a classroom, perform a reality check. Test yourself to see what happened in the last minutes, what class were you on, and what day of the week is it.
- Chances are that school will be a theme in your dreams due the residual memory (the fact that you spend so much time at school) so pick a mantra that focus your intention of finding out that you'll realize if you dream about school.

Another thing that you should remember, is that DILD doesn't rely so much in WBTB's as other techniques. Sure, it helps performing one per night to re-focus your intention, especially at late stages of the morning. But many people have lucid dreams without having to wake up in the middle of the night. And that goes for dream recall as well. Just today I remembered 3 dreams without having to perform any WBTB. 9 hours of sleep is ideal, because if you wake up in those 9 hours, you can quickly use a audio-recorder to record any dream. If you happen to wake up like half hour earlier, you can either try to perform a WILD, or take your time recollecting your dreams in that night.

As conclusion, just remember: make lucid dream habits into your routine and stick with it. Regardless of technique, you can see around that that's the key for many experienced lucid dreamers here: they practice those routines for ages

Reality checks definitely give you good odds, but it can take time to settle. Also, don't forget that DILD/WILD isn't the only choice around. Within DILD for example, there is still a huge variety of techniques, and the same goes for WILD. I am still going to school myself, and a combination that has worked great for me has been the combination of ADA and DEILD (ADA is a form of DILD which is stronger than reality checks and DEILD is the fastest type of WILD).

Thank you for all your help, I am very glad to hear the helpful advice of DV members. This makes me confident to continue RC's and ADA throughout my daily schedule.