Help with techniques/working with a schedule

Hey guys,

So I'm currently in the middle of learning to stabilize my dreams, which I just got some help on in a different thread. Right now, I'd have to say that I really have two actual roadblocks in my way - getting myself to stabilize, and working with my schedule and figuring out a technique.

The thing is, I go to school 5 days a week, 3 of those days having to be in by 7:30 and the other two at 11:30. On the weekends, I absolutely take advantage of my time and work with techniques, usually being WBTB's (though I have tried WILD's to some extent, but have decided that maybe I will revisit it when I have more grounded LD's). The weekends is the only time where I find I can truly mess with lucid dreaming, and while I can practice, say, MILD's on weekdays, I've found myself to be very unsuccessful. If I could get myself into a better routine for dreaming, then I could much easier approach my stabilization issue.

So, basically, what my question is, is what kind of technique do you guys think I should take advantage of? I want to be able to dedicate more sleep time to lucid dreaming, it's just that I've found myself to be extremely unsuccessful with MILD's on the weekdays. I wish I could be practicing WBTB's more on the weekdays, but to do a "normal" WBTB I'd probably need to be getting to bed a lot earlier than I would really bargain for.

Is there a certain technique/schedule than works really well for days where one can't afford to miss much sleep? It sounds to me like the real technique for this would be MILD's. I will without a doubt review MILD's, (and other techniques)and see if perhaps there is something I am still missing out on, but so far I seem to be doing them correctly (although I suppose it can be hard to tell).

I really appreciated the help with my stabilization question, and thank you a ton in advance for any tips/ideas/guidance/advice you may be able to offer!

Hi Jester! I know exactly what you are going through. I go to school five days a week as well, but on every day I have to be there at seven thirty. I also have a job, and only have two days off the whole week. So I know how difficult it can be to focus on lucid dreaming when your schedule is so busy.

Your problem isn't necessarily sleep time, and how long you sleep. I think the reason you are having troubles is because you are so focused on WBTB, it sounds like. Before I get into anything else, WBTB doesn't have a set time. You mentioned a 'normal' WBTB, and I don't know what you think that is. Personally, I've done them from any length of 1-120 minutes, with most of them around five or ten minutes.

DILD. I don't know what technique you are using, but the basic ones I know about are MILD, ADA, and doing RCs throughout the day. Basically your goal is to raise your awareness. And all if these do that in different ways. I would recommend going and reading tutorials on MILD and ADA, since the ones that are there will explain it better then I ever could. And the biggest thing I can tell you is that to really get results you will have to do it EVERYDAY. Even with school, unless you do ADA it only takes a couple moments to do an RC. If you keep at it you should get lucid in no time

You should look into All-Day-Awareness. It takes a long time for it to set it, but once it becomes normal practice, you'll have lucid dreams far more often, and requires no WBTBs if you so desire, thereby eliminating any wasted dream time.

My only other big advice is to learn to manage your time better, and start going to bed earlier. I usually have to be at work at 7:30am, And I try to get up an hour early, so about 6:30. I always aim my bed time about 9 hours before I have to be awake. So, I go to bed about 9/9:30pm. 10 at the very latest. So, I consistently get between 8 and 9 hours of sleep even on weekdays.

Also, if you are good at catching yourself as soon as you are waking up, you can try mastering DEILD-- where you train yourself to be aware of waking up, and instead of moving and getting up, you lie still and wait for the next dream to kick in. This also will eliminate wasted WBTB time.

But remember even 5 minutes of a WBTB can be very useful. If 5 minutes isn't enough to wake up, but you don't want to waste anymore time, try doing some push-ups, or sitting with a light on during that time. Should bump up your awareness a little more. Good luck!

(If you have any questions on the acronyms, you can type them into the search function or go to the tutorial sections...or I'd also be glad to explain some of them if no one else does. =P )

Well, first thing I'll do is check out ADA some more, this is my first time hearing it, I don't know how, but thank you very much for the tip, it sounds interesting. Oh, and sorry Draco, I accidentally kept saying DILD's instead of MILD's (my bad).

One of the things I must admit is that my sleep times are very erratic, so I'll work on that as well. I never really looked at DEILD's either, can't say I know why, but thank you guys a lot, it's nice getting support on this stuff.

It's alright to say DILD. That is the lucid dream you get. Dream Induced Lucid Dream. MILD is basically to method to get a DILD.

Good luck Jester!