Hey all, I joined DV about two years ago. At that time LDing was something I wanted to research and possibly develop as a hobby. Unfortunately I gave up when the results were less than stellar. Well here I am a few years later with renewed interest and time. But the previously stated is not what I am here to talk about it was simply written to try to give you readers perspective.
I have been lurking around for a few weeks brushing up on my research and techniques. I was stupid last go around and decided to immediately start out with WILDS. It was frustrating and offered little beginning results, in retrospect it was a bad way to start learning LDing. This time I am trying something different. I have purchased a $1.00 app that is essentially a white noise maker for sleep aid, and an alarm clock. I have extreme insomnia so falling asleep is difficult, which was probably a problem for me with my WILD sessions, but I digress. I am going to use the timer function in my app to play 'bells' which is a sound setting that plays church bells for an allotted time.
Now for my technique and why I am doing it. This very morning I had set my alarm to go off with the sound of those cursed bells until I turned it off manually (so I wouldn't sleep in) I have never really had an alarm, I have always woken up naturally and had a good circadian cycle despite my insomnia, again I digress (I do that haha). Well much to my surprise, this morning when my alarm whent off it busted me out of my dream. I woke up in my bed, with my alarm going off. I had just been re-reading the stuff about FA's before I had gone to sleep, and I had told myself to do a reality check upon waking up that morning. I plugged my nose, and I realized I could breath through it. BAM! instant success with a LD. I've had about four LD's before this experience so I didn't wake myself up in excitement. Rather i performed a few stabilizing techniques and began touching stuff to make my dream clearer. The dream lasted a few minutes but then my alarm went off again and I woke up in bed again. At first I was bummed, but I did ANOTHER RC and again i was dreaming. This LD lasted for about three or four minutes? It was only enough time to try and stabilize it. The alarm whent off again and I woke up in bed again...... ANOTHER RC! yeah!!! dreaming again, I did the same thing as before and then once again the alarm went off.
This time was different, I did a RC and was lucid but I closed my eyes in the dream and then when I tried to open them I woke up for real in bed (I did another RC and then another after to be sure, no dice). The point is, my brain apparently likes to get lucid off of RC's and I planned on making my entire process based off FA's and the bells.
What I'm gonna do: go to sleep normally at night and set my alarm for about 5 or 6 hours into sleep. Play the bells for 30 seconds and then stagger that 15 - 30 minutes. Try to cram in as many FA's as I possibly can in that time. That way I can practice dream stabilization and possibly even dream control. Once I get these down and feel confident in a Lucid environment I will go for "ZEE MASTAH PLAN".
Zee mastah plan: My brain will have had "hopefully" a large amount of Lucid experience at this point and I will hopefully begin to do RC's in every dream. The point of this technique is to train your brain to RC in dreams. Eliminate the need to do it in real life, there doesn't have to be a bleed over (obviously if you want to still do RC's IWL then im sure it would only benefit you). My reasoning is your brain always knows when it is dreaming so if you RC only in dreams then you will only RC while in a dream which will make your RC more potent... if that makes sense. So basically I'm going to do a "Training" period using FA as my training grounds. I have become lucid off of FA's 90% of my LD so my brain must respond well to them.
Summary: Use "insert technique's name here (cant remember it, the one where you use external audio / signs to induce RC's) to cause myself to FA and do a RC. Once that is done practive techniques for stabilization and control. Once the next cycle of bells comes have another FA and repeat. Do this until your brain automatically does a RC EVERY time it dreams (that is a bit of a lofty goal but it is the best case scenario) if all of this goes as planned, which requires a lot of things to go right, and assumes some things then my LD count should go up drastically.
I just felt excited and wanted to share this with you in hopes it would help some other beginners out there. Happy brain training to all of you ^.^.
p.s. My beard is always epic in dreams (my best dream sign is my beard lmao)
