Is it possible that I am just incapable of LDing?

[CronoTrigger]

Ugh. For so many years, ever since 2013, I felt the need to even try at all. So many techs I tried. Nothing really happens. It's like I pull my skin, poke my hand, and pinch my nose for no reason. I tried them all but to no prevail. The very first one I tried was Wake Back To Bed. I used to wake up after 2 hours which was the typical time I get REM sleep. After sleeping, I'd throw it in with MILD I could either never go back to sleep or I sleep like normal. I tried MILD alone by itself, nothing really happens either. Here's a little fun fact, two days in a row while I was practicing MILD, I said my mantra 200+ times and I still wasn't falling asleep. But after 30 minutes of not saying it, I was able to fall asleep. I tried guided meditation, the only days when something happens is when someone 40 mintues later would interrupt me about my appointments or if the baby is crying again. In speaking of that, I have some sort of brain damage. I had it when I was probably about 7 months old so my IQ is lower than normal. DILD is pretty much my entire lifestyle at this point. I'm not even gonna try WILD. Well, actually I did once but I just had a random timeskip to 7:00 AM like I never even dreamed in the first place. But yeah. I did so many techs and nothing really even happens. My main tech now is MILD and sometimes WBTB. THey never work and guided meditation would leave me to a random time skip to morning like nothing ever happened in the first place.

[JoannaB]

Could it be that by now you have the expectation that it will not work and that this expectation is preventing you from succeeding? With LDing expectations are a huge part of it. Also you might be trying too hard. Sometime that is unproductive. Or going through the motions mechanically without actually changing your belief that this moment can really be a dream? As for answering your question: is it possible for someone to be incapable of LDing. Frankly I have no idea whether or not it is possible, and how would we know? If you have an LD, then you will know that you are capable of it. But as long as you do not have one, it is still possible that you just have not had one yet, right? What I found though is that even without LDing, some of the practices we do to try to accomplish LDs are useful: the practices focus on raising awareness, questioning weird stuff, improving quality of one's sleep, improving memory. All those are good things no matter what, so LD practice is not a waste of time regardless. Though of course it can get frustrating if one has not had one in a long time despite efforts. Have you tried taking a break from it for a while though, just relaxing and not stressing? Sometimes a break from the efforts can help if the problem was that one was trying too hard. Best

[Patjunfa]

If you have a baby crying I wonder what your quality of sleep is like and the conditions to be able to play a round with creative dream work...the ability to get sleep is first on the list. I know when I had v young kids, this was challenging. Sometimes the inturuptions can be used to your advantage, but if you are sleep deprived it's hard to be in the best frame of mind. Don't know how much this applies to you. It there are times when our life's activitys facilitates some endeavours and not others. If this were the case for you, slot of LD techniques could still be benificial, dram recall, napping, day time awareness etc. Perhaps when things settle there may be a different mindset available to generat the "I'm going to get this" mindset. Don't let this put you off if your determined you may still get it, yet sometimes relaxing and focusing on some decent sleep 1st can be good for us. Not too tight not too loose...Good luck

[Laurelindo]

Lucid dreaming is all about developing a more conscious and questioning attitude to your surroundings, which is a skill that you can develop. You are already conscious in ordinary dreams, since you can experience those dreams, and you just need to take that consciousness to a slightly higher Level so that you start questioning those dreams. In fact, this is something that you can practise in waking life, and you should take this practice seriously. I have actually had several dreams where I have "known" I was awake, and I am always shocked when I find myself waking up a few minutes later. So even when you are awake, you should ask yourself "how do I know that I am awake right now?" and try to prove this to yourself in some way. This is something that you should take seriously - stop for a moment a few times a day and ask yourself that question. If you make this a habit - and you actually try to find an answer - then you will eventually start acting that way in dreams as well. Also, try to think of something that you really wanna do in a lucid dream, so that you become eager to try it out. One classic first lucid adventure is flying, which is a very great experience. Try to become excited about something like that, and keep in mind that your next chance for a lucid dream is never further than a day away.

[Octeciano]

I think not OP. There is a law called "Law of Cause and Effect". Since you're a human being that dreams and it's the same with us, I see no reason that you're incapable of lucid dreaming. I suggest finding out what the pros do and do them over and over again. You're sure to succeed after that. The reason you're not successful with LDing is because you've been doing something wrong. You're trying out MILD, are you sure you're applying it the right way? Do you know why MILD works? I suggest focus on trouble shooting your mistakes instead of mindlessly training. After practicing what the pros do, you're sure to succeed.

[MadzAssassin]

OP, if you can dream normally, then you can lucid dream.

[lucidsushi]

Had same thoughts as you OP, and I've been trying on and off for 3 years. Keyword here being on and off.. Note I still haven't mastered lucid dreaming yet but I had 2 in one month which for me is INSANE progress!.. I suggest you to really put your heart to it, but just stick with one method. Sometimes it's very hard to dedicate yourself to it because the results can be hard to observe and you don't know if you are actually making progress. This two links really helped me choose a solid path of how I think a MILD technique would fit me, hope it helps you too. 1) http://www.dreamviews.com/attaining-...technique.html 2) https://solascendans.com/articles/lucid-dreaming/

[Laurelindo]

One very interesting way to increase your awareness, which the lucid dreaming expert Robert Waggoner has been referring to in several of his videos on YouTube, is to frequently and sincerely ask yourself what you were doing a moment ago. Basically, this means that you should try to summarise what has happened to you earlier that day, preferably as much of the day as possible. If you make this a habit in waking life, and actually try to find a clear answer, then you will start doing this in dreams as well. The reason why this is so effective is because you will probably not be able to remember that much at all about earlier events in one specific dream, since dreams tend to happen in short bursts and not really have much of a consistent "storyline". So if you find yourself having a lot of problems summarising what has happened to you moments ago, then it is probably a dream. Of course, it might happen that one dream happens to be unusually long, but in that case you should also make various "tests" and see if you can do something impossible, like making things appear out of nowhere or changing a piece of written text just by imagining it changing etc. Actually, you can try that right now - see if you can change the text in this thread by looking away and looking back again. If it never changes in any way whatsoever, then you can say that you are most likely awake. Dreams can actually be as vivid as waking life, so you can sometimes actually be dreaming even though things "look" like waking life.

[Tipharot]

I used to wake up after 2 hours which was the typical time I get REM sleep. How do you know this is the time you get REM sleep? If you're missing REM, then that's probably why you're failing. Every person I've encountered who has consistently failed at lucid dreaming even after months of practising, was either simply trying the wrong methods (things like WILD can be tricky if you're for example an insomniac) - or more commonly: Trying to perform methods during nREM (non-REM) and failing as a result of that. Try the 6 hour alarm rather than waking up after 2 hours, and then repeat a mantra that you'll be lucid in your next dream for 1-2 minutes, then go back to sleep. Do that every day for the next couple weeks, and I'm fairly confident you'll be lucid. Also, certain medications and substances will interfere. Weed is a major one - while some people are less affected by it than others, a lot of people find they simply don't remember dreams at all and can't lucid dream if they're smoking weed regularly, so if you happen to indulge in the herb, you might want to take a week off for this.