I'm having an average of one lucid dream per month.
How do I increase the frequency? Can any experienced lucid dreamers tell me a little bit about when they started and how they progressed to having more?
I'm doing more reality checks. My dream recall is increasing.
I've tried WILD but it doesn't work for me. It just seems to waste my time as I end up sleeping in.
The best advice I have is to fall asleep while chanting a mantra in your head. I often keep it very simple, like "I am dreaming."
There are two ways to look at the process.
Either you want to look at steps or look at wholes.
Focusing on steps is the process of finding exact steps or actions that you need in order to attain lucidity. Start out by recalling dreams and keep a dream journal, perhaps you find that if you go to bed earlier you remember more dreams, or that if you fall asleep with a calm mind you get more peaceful dreams that are easier to be aware of. (Examples of what I have concluded).
By evaluating your attempts like this you will see patterns and eventually have a list of exact steps or actions you need to do in order to attain your desired goal.
The downside with this way is that you are dependent on the actions and are giving the methods more credit than yourself. And without them you feel lost.
By focusing on wholes you look at the big picture and in my experience the key factor when it comes to any lucid dreaming induction, is the awareness.
What is a dream? A dream is your personality (subconscious, memories and emotions) So what does it then mean when we say that we want to be aware of our dreams?
Simple. :content: We want to be aware of our subconscious, memories and emotions. The best practise in my opinion for that is meditation.
When one meditate and gets more and more relaxed, they can either get frustrating emotions because it feels boring, or get random thoughts from the subconcious or thinking about the day and focusing on the memories that makes you lose focus and fall asleep. So meditation is about being aware of the very thing that is aware of these three components. No matter if you reality check or keep a dream journal, awareness is the key factor.
And since this meditative state is the essence of both DILD and WILD techniques it also is a full technique in itself.
But it's a little more extreme way to go full meditation in order to sleep and lucid (which I am currently doing) But I definitely recommend to practise some meditation.
In other words, according to me there is no perfect way to learn how to lucid dream, but a mix of step oriented and whole perspective oriented practise is perhaps more preferable because that is the way of nature a mix of male and female energy, yin and yang.
But what I did was to start ouy by finding my step by step list to attain lucidity, when I had that list I realized I was totally dependent on the steps, I could for example only sleep on my back in order to WILD. The now later on I focus on the female energy of wholes and try to understand the essence of awareness itself, which helps me understand the whole of it instead and since it's a view of the whole I am not limited to only use my knowledge on one thing but on everything, not only every lucid dreaming induction but also the perspective of things in my daily life.
If I was unclear with something or if you need any other help, just ask. ;)
Good luck!
I assume you are already journaling to identify dream signs. When you RC make sure you seriously question reality and consider the possibility you may be dreaming. Since emotions (not logic) are active in dreams, do your RCs when something like your dream signs occurs...or something that triggers an emotional response....a pretty sunset, getting angry, love, something weird you see. Then, you have to learn to trigger the thought you might be dreaming when a dream sign or emotional change occurs....this is mneumonic memory training.