Thread: What to think about when falling asleep

If your goal is to have a DILD, then repeating a mantra is the way to go. For example "next time I'm dreaming, I realize I'm dreaming". If mantras keep you awake, then just say it a few times, then go to sleep normally. Or wait untill almost asleep to repeat it then.

I had just finished a post that amplified what Gab said, saying that it's best right before sleep to focus on your dream by repeating a mantra, setting your intention, or simply imagining what you'll be doing in your dream. But then I got to thinking, and deleted it.

If you are doing a good job with waking-life work (i.e. RC's, developing self-awareness and memory, building expectation, and just giving dreams a lot of attention), then yes, you might be able to have done enough mental prep to bring on a DILD no matter how you go to sleep.

So, though it's always good to go to sleep with LD'ing on your mind, if that mind is fully prepared for lucid dreaming, last-minute work might not be necessary. On thinking even more, this also holds true for WILD's.

It's all about the fundamentals, after all, and not specific techniques!

Thank you for replying. Is there a link or thread on mantra? I don't really know what that is. Is it the same thing as shamatha??

Look up some videos on youtube about the MILD lucid dream technique. These videos should have info on mantras and what to do when falling asleep.

i try to remember that unless i'm dreaming in my room, the next logical step is to fall asleep and pass through the dreamstate before i wake up for another day. after getting that fact understood, the likeliness that i will figure out i'm dreaming feels much greater, and allows me to visualize things like my head dissolving into the pillow where my dream has to wait until i'm asleep.

As everyone else said, setting intention and mindset while falling asleep can work really nice for lucid dreaming, using mantras or just thinking, additionally you can try incubating parts of dreamworld or dream scene same way. Also, if you can do visualization, it can help too as long as it doesn't keeps you awake.
http://www.dreamviews.com/induction-...id-dreams.html This tutorial explains mantras pretty well as well as setting intention, check it out!

To verify what Gab and some other said, I managed a Lucid Dream last night--my first in around 8 months, give or take (I quit my first lucid experiments and started again last week). I did the MILD as I went to bed, saying inside my head "the next time I'm dreaming I will realize I'm dreaming" and "When I wake up I will remember my dreams." Worked for me

~SilverWolf~

Isn't it really hard to get to sleep by just repeating the mantra?? Maybe it's just me having difficulties getting to sleep unless I'm daydreaming, but I would be up all night if I kept repeating that to myself!!

It can be hard, yeah. It takes me a lot longer to fall asleep repeating the mantra. But I *have* read both here and other places that if you can't get to sleep while repeating your mantra, you can just repeat it for say, 20 minutes or so, and then just go to sleep, trying to keep your mind focused on lucid dreaming. I know when I do try to repeat the mantra as I fall asleep, I often end up in the hypnogagia state before I finally drift off--just this afternoon when I took my nap I had hallucinations before finally dropping off, much like when I attempt WILD--only I didn't get as far.

~SilverWolf~