Is it possible that one just can't DILD?

I have been trying lucid dreaming for 2 years. I kept a dream journal, did awareness exercises, meditated before bed, did reality checks, did WBTB 2 times per day with a consistent sleep schedule(7.5 ~ 8 hrs) - everything.

Whenever I asked the reason of my lack of success, people simply thought of it as a problem of not enough effort, or gave mundane advices like:
"keep a dream journal." (I do)
"have you tried WBTB?" (I do it 4~5 days per week)
"meditate before bed." (This is already a part of my daily routine.)
"you're not confident enough."
"be aware during the day." (I've been following Fryingman's advice for a long time - be aware of your surroundings.)
"try ADA." (did it for a few months. Nothing improved during that period)
"are you trying too hard?" (I don't think one can "try too hard" for years)
"do you smoke weed?" (I don't do any drugs or take pills)
(-> I do/did every basic technique mentioned above.)

I didn't improve at all, when comparing my current state to the time when I first started lucid dreaming. At least I remembered dreams every morning when I first started(maybe beginner's luck). I remember dreams once in a while now. My induction methods didn't change at all, I think I'm actually trying harder now.

After 2 years of little success, I came down to a conclusion that DILD is impossible for me. I didn't want to believe it because people said that everybody can DILD with enough effort.

I'm not going to give up though - I started practicing WILD and I'll see if that fits me.

But, what if lucid dreaming is entirely impossible? I'm getting worried. I wish I could lucid dream with "enough effort".

Perhaps taking smaller steps towards the goal of a lucid dream would make it seem more manageable.

Something like this:
Stage 1-Experience a dream during which you think.
Stage 2-Experience a dream during which you think something is unusual.
Stage 3-Experience a dream during which you think something is unusual and question whether you are dreaming.
Stage 4-Experience a dream during which you think something is unusual, question whether you are dreaming and realize you are dreaming.

Do you think it is possible for you to experience a dream during which you think something is unusual?

Is it possible that there other stresses in your life forcing you into a mindset where you can't ld?

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...But, what if lucid dreaming is entirely impossible? I'm getting worried. I wish I could lucid dream with "enough effort".

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It's more likely, I think, that LD'ing is entirely possible, for anyone, than it is entirely impossible... even if that first LD is proving to be maddeningly elusive. If you are able to be self-aware during waking-life, then you are able to be self-aware during dreams. Period.

That said, DILD does indeed require a certain mindset to which not everyone can adapt well. It could just be that your mental "hard-wiring" is having a little trouble with allowing things like setting intention or working prospective memory to do their thing... a switch to WILD techniques might be just the thing for you, because with WILD you get to bring your lucid mindset to the dream with you; no need to summon it during a NLD.

Good luck with WILD!

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Originally Posted by dolphin

Perhaps taking smaller steps towards the goal of a lucid dream would make it seem more manageable.

Something like this:
Stage 1-Experience a dream during which you think.
Stage 2-Experience a dream during which you think something is unusual.
Stage 3-Experience a dream during which you think something is unusual and question whether you are dreaming.
Stage 4-Experience a dream during which you think something is unusual, question whether you are dreaming and realize you are dreaming.

Do you think it is possible for you to experience a dream during which you think something is unusual?

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My expectations became lower and lower through time because of repeated failure.

Now, I consider remembering at least something as success, but it's sad that I can't go further than that. Remembering a dream with me inside the plot or having a dream where I think something is unusual happens very rarely.

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Originally Posted by Sageous

It's more likely, I think, that LD'ing is entirely possible, for anyone, than it is entirely impossible... even if that first LD is proving to be maddeningly elusive. If you are able to be self-aware during waking-life, then you are able to be self-aware during dreams. Period.

That said, DILD does indeed require a certain mindset to which not everyone can adapt well. It could just be that your mental "hard-wiring" is having a little trouble with allowing things like setting intention or working prospective memory to do their thing... a switch to WILD techniques might be just the thing for you, because with WILD you get to bring your lucid mindset to the dream with you; no need to summon it during a NLD.

Good luck with WILD!

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Maybe I have a bad mindset in my subconscious that prevents me from getting lucid. I'll try WILD instead, thank you.

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Originally Posted by Him

Is it possible that there other stresses in your life forcing you into a mindset where you can't ld?

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Maybe. I got a lot of stress lately, but I'm not sure if it affects my dream life.

Stress does affect dream recall, and I think it messes with your lucid dreaming mindset too.

Success will pursue your passions

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Originally Posted by LifeGoneWild

"be aware during the day." (I've been following Fryingman's advice for a long time - be aware of your surroundings.)

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I don't remember saying that specifically, what I advocate is being self-aware in the present moment. Paying attention, yes, but not ADA-style, mindlessly, rather always bring your *self* into the picture. In summary, mindfulness, but with a lucid dreaming twist (reflection). I basically advocate the approach given by the Tibetan dream yoga practitioners. I strongly suggest reading their literature, particularly the renowned "The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep" and Andrew Holecek's new book "Dream Yoga: Illuminating Your Life Through Lucid Dreaming and the Tibetan Yogas of Sleep". This literature may click with you. If it doesn't, keep looking until you find something that does click.
In particular TYoDaS gives a clear self-progress-measurement tool in the introduction to the practice section of the book. I suggest you read these several paragraphs very carefully and repeatedly until they sink in, you can find this section here:
http://selfdefinition.org/tibetan/Te...-And-Sleep.pdf, pages 66 and 67, in particular:

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You can determine for yourself how mature your practice is: as you encounter the
phenomena of experience, examine your feelings and your reactions to the
feelings. Are you controlled by your interactions with the objects of experience
or do you control your reactions to them? Are you thrown into emotional
reactions by your attractions and aversions, or can you remain in steady
presence in diverse situations? If the former, practice will cultivate the presence
needed to free you of karmic conditioning and reactivity. if the latter, you will
increasingly develop stability in awareness and your dreams will change in
extraordinary ways.

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Simply spending time on practices is not enough: you need to have a clear goal, and the above section makes the case very nicely exactly what we need to be shooting for.

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I remember dreams once in a while now. My induction methods didn't change at all, I think I'm actually trying harder now.

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That's an issue: I'd recommend going whole hog on dream recall for a while. With the time you've invested, I would expect you to have multiple dreams per night every night on average given good conditions (proper rest, not high stress, etc.), with at least one of them fairly vivid. You should begin feeling more and more present in your dreams, they should approach feeling like waking experiences. When you reach that point full-on lucidity is just a short step away.

You mention being fairly stressed. I personally find stress is a dream-killer. If you can't keep your mind quiet & still, dreamy, gently pondering your dreams you just woke from, but instead instantly start churning over waking life worries and problems, dream recall will definitely be a challenge.

It sounds like you've set up a fairly strong association that "not lucid = failure." That can also inhibit recall and lucidity itself. Instead, I'd focus on building recall and treasuring all your dreams, all your conscious experiences in fact.

First, welcome to DV :P This is a long post and I think I've been concise but there is just a lot of stuff here.

Yeah I definitely think it is possible that for some people, DILDs or any kind of satisfactory lucid dreaming or dream recall is not going to happen. And if I didn't think that before, after reading your post, I should believe that it's possible. I've spent some time in DV chat and talked to some people who are the opposite of you regarding dreams. 1 Woman said she had extremely vivid lucid dreams where she often cannot even tell whether she is dreaming or not (but she is aware and actually wondering whether she is dreaming or not!), she said she would often call people and talk to people to find out whether she was dreaming. I don't remember how long these dreams are, but anything from an hour to 3-4 hours a night. The dreams have consistent maps/locations and physics works and electronic devices usually work. So if you can have such superior LD-time, I think you can also be super unfortunate and have almost no ability. And there are many people like this, though less extreme, people who have great elaborate plots, people who have very vivid, long, beautiful dreams regularly.

This may sound pretty annoying, but did you try prospective memory training? I read great things about it, though I didn't do it because I'm lazy. And just out of curiosity, how often do you get lucid? Never? How many lucid dreams did you have in total, approximately? And you say you recall dreams only once in a while now, could you maybe try the following? When you wake up, try to meditate (lying or sitting doesn't matter) and don't explicitly try to remember a dream, but just try to be mindful of your breath or your body or whatever, just do some simple awareness practice, and the dream will come to you. This (and wbtb) is my best way of recalling dreams, and writing them down obviously.

You have my sympathy and my admiration for still not giving up. Maybe you don't care and just want to get lucid, but I think you should be proud of your perseverance and I'm not just saying this because I feel bad for you not getting good results. Oh and you can maybe try supplements.

To the optimists in this thread, GET REAL. Some people maybe just can't get lucid? It sucks but maybe affinity for lucid dreaming and dream recall is another one of those things that is not distributed equally, like health, IQ, an attractive face, genes for athleticism, being born in poverty, to shitty parents, in a shitty society or being born in a nice place, just plain being lucky for not getting into a terrible accident or catching a nasty disease. You see clear evidence of his failure despite his great attempts and pretend that it doesn't matter and that he just needs to do a better job, it is dishonest.

^^ If you're looking for a little pessimism, Ginsan, here's a thought:

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Originally Posted by Ginsan

1 Woman said she had extremely vivid lucid dreams where she often cannot even tell whether she is dreaming or not (but she is aware and actually wondering whether she is dreaming or not!), she said she would often call people and talk to people to find out whether she was dreaming. I don't remember how long these dreams are, but anything from an hour to 3-4 hours a night. The dreams have consistent maps/locations and physics works and electronic devices usually work.

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You might be wary of folks who offer up such grand stories of success... especially when they mistakenly equate lucidity with vividness or realness.

Lucidity is about having the presence of your waking-life self-awareness in a dream; about knowing you are dreaming... nothing more, or less. By the same token lucidity has nothing -- nothing -- to do with vividness or accurate renditions of reality, unless you make the changes yourself after you are lucid (and then of course you wouldn't wonder about anything).

To say your LD's are just like reality, to me, actually diminishes your account, because that means that you are still accepting the "reality" as offered by your dreaming mind in a non-lucid context (NLD's are generally "real," when perceived by a non-lucid mind; it's when you wake up later that you realize they weren't real). Again, calling friends to see if you are dreaming implies a lack of lucidity, and not a wealth of it, as do things like consistent maps/locations and physics works and electronic devices usually working (again, they all tend to work in NLD's, or at least appear to at the time; it is because of your lucidity that they fail). And then she throws in that her dreams last for hours, probably without an asterisk saying that she practices DEILD-chaining (though there are certainly exceptions, dreams by their nature really can't last much longer than 2 hours) -- a NLD can easily, as you probably know, feel upon waking like it went on for hours, though; sort of makes you wonder, doesn't it?

From my experience with folks like this (often well-meaning, BTW, but there are a lot of 'em), she is either deeply confused about the nature of lucidity, or else might be inflating her experience just to impress.

I would take reports like this with a grain of salt, Ginsan, and also would avoid using them as examples of how good people can get at LD'ing, because it really presents incorrect information about the state, and the experience.

[I know this has nothing to do with the topic, but I felt obliged to throw in my 2 cents on this.]

Also:

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To the optimists in this thread, GET REAL. Some people maybe just can't get lucid? It sucks but maybe affinity for lucid dreaming and dream recall is another one of those things that is not distributed equally, like health, IQ, an attractive face, genes for athleticism, being born in poverty, to shitty parents, in a shitty society or being born in a nice place, just plain being lucky for not getting into a terrible accident or catching a nasty disease. You see clear evidence of his failure despite his great attempts and pretend that it doesn't matter and that he just needs to do a better job, it is dishonest.

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Well said, and I agree. But keep in mind that LifeGoneWild was talking about failure at DILD, and not lucidity in general. It might not yet be time for us optimists to GET REAL, or for you to suggest that failure might be inevitable, until after LifeGoneWild has experimented with WILD as well.

I mean no offense, Ginsan. It's just that optimism is critical to successful LD'ing, and telling someone that failure might be inevitable before they have covered all possible bases is, to me, not constructive.

I'm digging this direction of constructivity
Please continue on with the thread and ignore me. I'm just a branch.

You mention that you practiced ADA for months. During this time, how did you practice ADA. How much time was spent lost in thought?

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Originally Posted by Threeofeight

I'm digging this direction of constructivity
Please continue on with the thread and ignore me. I'm just a branch.

You mention that you practiced ADA for months. During this time, how did you practice ADA. How much time was spent lost in thought?

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I had always been thinking about my five senses. I didn't spend much time unaware or not doing ADA - I kept my awareness at least.

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Originally Posted by FryingMan

I don't remember saying that specifically, what I advocate is being self-aware in the present moment.

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I phrased your words wrong in my original post..
I read most of your famous posts and followed them! After I gave up on ADA, I decided to stick to achieving the mindfulness state you described, but it didn't change anything.

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Originally Posted by Ginsan

This may sound pretty annoying, but did you try prospective memory training? I read great things about it, though I didn't do it because I'm lazy. And just out of curiosity, how often do you get lucid? Never? How many lucid dreams did you have in total, approximately? And you say you recall dreams only once in a while now, could you maybe try the following? When you wake up, try to meditate (lying or sitting doesn't matter) and don't explicitly try to remember a dream, but just try to be mindful of your breath or your body or whatever, just do some simple awareness practice, and the dream will come to you. This (and wbtb) is my best way of recalling dreams, and writing them down obviously.

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I remember reading an article about prospective memory training, but I never tried it. I'll give it a try after experimenting with WILD.
My last lucid dream was months ago. I had a few (around 11, which are foggy half-lucids and lucid moments), but I was never fully lucid.
When I am sure that I had a dream but I can't remember anything in the morning, I meditate. I sometimes get some fragments back.

Sageous I see what you mean and I don't have a meaningful response, one that would help our friend or shed light on this thing we're talking about, but I don't want to not respond, because I feel that that would be disrespectful. But I see what you mean. Have a nice day everyone :)

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Originally Posted by LifeGoneWild

I had always been thinking about my five senses. I didn't spend much time unaware or not doing ADA - I kept my awareness at least.

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Not going to assume that this might help you. But I think ADA is explained wrong. My idea of an all day mindfulness includes a sense of thoughtlessness. Does not mean the mind is shut down but to stop interfering with the mind's natural working. Focusing on senses is conscious effort. What we must achieve is effortless and let the mind interpret information given by the senses in a calm calculating fashion.

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Originally Posted by LifeGoneWild

I phrased your words wrong in my original post..
I read most of your famous posts and followed them! After I gave up on ADA, I decided to stick to achieving the mindfulness state you described, but it didn't change anything.

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You need more time, and perhaps more consistent and right effort. Read the Tibetan dream yoga literature, they also give detailed troubleshooting advice. Focus on really paying attention to all your experiences, reflecting upon them, and recalling them, both waking and dreaming experiences. Do this consistently with strong intent and desire to be present in all your experiences, and both your waking and your dreaming experiences will transform considerably.

With little dream recall this indicates your mind is not in the right place while in bed. You mentioned stress, that's a dream killer -- learn to manage it, I'm sure that will help. If you have a sincere desire to experience your dreams (and all experiences) vividly, I'm sure you'll get there!

I don't recall seeing your DILD workbook in the DVA. Come on over to the DILD class and open up a workbook, and fogelbise and I (co-teachers of the DILD class) will give you detailed feedback on your practice and progress. It's a great way to stay motivated as well! Hope to see you there soon!