How hard is it to practice MILD for three years?

Stephen LaBerge practiced this technique at Stanford University to kind of prove that it was possible to develop one's lucid dreaming skills, and since he obviously wanted fairly consistent data he probably practiced it more or less non-stop those three years.
I am wondering, wouldn't it be quite stressful to maintain this kind of concentration for so long?
He did plot data for every single month from start to finish, so he must have been quite active with it all the time.
Does anyone have any experience in this, or any ideas how to make it easy to keep it up like he did?

I'm not a MILDer myself, but I'll take a guess and say eventually it just becomes habitual, part of your daily routine, making it a lot easier. It only takes 21 days for a new habit to form, after all. Personal opinion that (regardless of the success rate, I just mean doing the technique itself) MILD is one of the more easier techniques as well.

It's definitely worth a try if you're thinking about it. If it's interfering with your daily life or stressing you out too much, it might be a good idea to stop or 'slow down' a little bit. If not, all is well. ;)

It was one of the first techniques I tried, so it's been just over three years for me.

It really become habitual, something you just do while falling asleep. I find that, even if I'm not focusing on LDing during that particular part of my life, I'm still thinking about it as I fall asleep. At the moment, I'm using full mantras since I'm actively trying to achieve to lucidity, but a few months ago, when other aspects of life came up, I would just think "lucid dream, lucid dream" over and over. Did it work? Not really; at least, not as well as a full mantra.

It's not really stressful since it only becomes stressful if you're dying to have a lucid dream. By the time it can become stressful, it's very likely you've become lucid before (~several months, at least). But for the most part, if you don't lucid dream that night you just shrug it off. Oh well, maybe next time. It also requires such a minimal amount of effort that any stress it causes is very minute. Because LaBerge was studying lucid dreams, and had a larger goal to achieve, it was likely a bit more stressful for him, but he was just collecting data. If it didn't work, that's the life of a scientist and you change something and try again. For the everyman who feels like trying lucid dreaming, no, it should not be stressful at all.

Thank you for your answer. :content:

I was wondering a little about this whole Target Practice thing, though;
shouldn't it become very stressful to look for random targets every day?
Or is this only intended as mnemonic practice until your prospective memory is good enough?

The question I feel like you're trying to ask is:

"How hard is to practice for MILD?"

First of all, FryingMan should be able to give you some nice tips: he practiced (still does?) a lot, reaching more than 9 targets a day, continuously.
Second, you have to understand MILD even becomes an habit: at first you need a monumental effort (like most things), because the action is conscious (you need to keep reminding yourself to do). After some time, it's a breeze: your brain get's so used to the task that you start looking for your targets subconsciously: just like driving!
Personally it was hard in the first month, but after that it was just as automatic as checking the sign before crossing the street (of course it depends on number of targets/targets themselves). Don't forget that your PM might not necessarily suck: many people do fine without any training, but of course if you want to take MILD to the next level, improving your PM would be the obvious step :)

Oh, and notice that Prospective Memory is influenced by way more than what LaBerge shows: just to give you an example, people who make regular use of schedule tasks, alarms, and other means to control/monitor their time have better prospective memory.

Thanks, everyone. :content:
Yes, that's pretty much how I have understood MILD to work, like that you are supposed to practice on targets until it becomes an unconscious habit, which in turn will make you automatically go "WHAT, that's a dreamsign, that means I am dreaming!" the next time you see a dreamsign in a dream. :cheeky::)

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Originally Posted by Laurelindo

Thanks, everyone. :content:
Yes, that's pretty much how I have understood MILD to work, like that you are supposed to practice on targets until it becomes an unconscious habit, which in turn will make you automatically go "WHAT, that's a dreamsign, that means I am dreaming!" the next time you see a dreamsign in a dream. :cheeky::)

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Not necessarily :) Like Burke mentioned, you can use MILD after you wake up for a WBTB, and visualize that last dream in order to induce a "delayed recall" of your intention of becoming lucid. This without any kind of habit (because the dream will change obviously). PM also helps you in those dreams with low-lucidity where you can still remember you have to carry out the TOTM for example, and even to some extent in DEILD and WILD. There's a lot more about it that what LaBerge showed in it's book ;)

Thanks, everyone. :content:

I have one final question - how effective are targets if you are aware of them shortly before you do them?
For example, just today I had "next time I turn on a light" as a target, but the thing is that I wanted to turn on the light in the kitchen, so I had decided shortly beforehand that I was going to turn it on, so I was "prepared" to do that target and that reality check.
Is this still effective, or are you supposed to be taken by surprise and run into the targets without any warning?

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Originally Posted by Laurelindo

I have one final question - how effective are targets if you are aware of them shortly before you do them?
For example, just today I had "next time I turn on a light" as a target, but the thing is that I wanted to turn on the light in the kitchen, so I had decided shortly beforehand that I was going to turn it on, so I was "prepared" to do that target and that reality check.
Is this still effective, or are you supposed to be taken by surprise and run into the targets without any warning?

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No problem. In fact, that's prospective memory in action. You still need to be sincere in your reality check, but the prospective memory response grows stronger with time and practice to the point that it becomes a routine habit.

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Originally Posted by sisyphus

No problem. In fact, that's prospective memory in action. You still need to be sincere in your reality check, but the prospective memory response grows stronger with time and practice to the point that it becomes a routine habit.

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Thanks. :)
Yeah, I sometimes forget the actual RC part, and feel content with just noticing the targets, but I guess this kind of defeats some of the purpose, which is to associate them as dreamsigns. :cheeky:
But I just need to get used to this, because this time I have decided to really stick to it.

Just choose your own targets to get them spread out through the day. And don't think that "soon" targets that you already want to do will be "easy" -- sometimes I forget these! So assign yourself some easy, soon ones. Then as soon as you hit them or realize you missed them, set some more. As Zoth noted, on some days when I was really into PM work I would constantly set new targets (so that I always had a group of about 4-5 active targets), and in this way set myself up to 12 targets or so in a day. Just as an interesting note, on a couple of those high PM target days, I had lucid dreams that night :).

Thanks again. :D
Yes, it sounds like a good idea to keep updating your daily targets.
I always thought that one problem with LaBerge's personal recommended list was that some of those targets were sometimes very rare, or happened too soon (Sunday is the best example of this, you can easily hit almost all of those targets a few minutes after you wake up in the morning) - I also don't like having "Next time I feel pain" as a target.
But then again, he does mention that one should come up with own targets as well.

Absolutely -- his list is just suggestions. Success at LD practice means taking what you learn and adapting it to your own situation, as in the Bruce Lee quote: make it your own!

Yes, I started practicing my own targets just this morning, and it's going fine. :)

I just realized, by the way - shouldn't this practice also work as a form of Lucid Living?
If you pick random targets then you probably choose targets for all your senses, which means you pay attention to as many details as possible while searching for them.

Yup that's a great idea. I find I get lazy and tend to choose similar targets. An app would help here, I was going to write one (there's one for android but I have iOS) but I got busy with a new job so don't have the time. But using all the senses is probably a very good idea!