Thread: Variation of SSILD - Very effective

Most of you will not believe that such a simple method can work, but sometimes simple things work best. And to make it clear this is not CILD (count induced lucid dream), in which you fall asleep while you count and move into dream.

The purpose of my method is to ground yourself by keeping consciousness while counting 1..100 and then falling asleep normally. In most cases, it will reproduce a false awakening, but other times will give you more awareness in normal dream for DILD. As I said, it would be more effective for people who fall asleep hard and most methods do not work for them. Combining it with reality checks during the day will be twice as effective. And most importantly, this method also works when you go to bed for the first time, although most people say there is no REM-sleep at this time.

Perhaps in the future, I will think of a suitable name for him.

Interesting!
Are you saying that you have had success with this technique even just after falling asleep, and that it doesn't require a WBTB or waiting to the latter part of the night to work?

Originally Posted by Goldenspark

Interesting!
Are you saying that you have had success with this technique even just after falling asleep, and that it doesn't require a WBTB or waiting to the latter part of the night to work?

Yep, you heard me right

In 60% of the time when I try, I'm getting a FA and starting to think "wait did't I just fall asleep and why there is a donkey in my room"

Well, it's funny because I've often had very vivid dreamlets just after falling asleep, and so what you say isn't crazy to me. However, whenever I've tried to WILD at the beginning of the night, it's never worked.

Originally Posted by Goldenspark

Well, it's funny because I've often had very vivid dreamlets just after falling asleep, and so what you say isn't crazy to me. However, whenever I've tried to WILD at the beginning of the night, it's never worked.

I researched a little around this and maybe this is my fault. I have insomnia(2 hours most of the time), so maybe I have some rem at beginning of my sleep. But this method is not effective for WILD, for WILD you can try CILD instead.

This is a good method. I have seen it in a forum in China.

Hi Gordon freeman, just seeking clarification,

so your saying I just count to 100, or 50 if I fall asleep fast and concentrate on feeling grounded? I.e the feeling of my body in the bed and then once I’ve reached 50 or 100 just go to sleep like normal or maintain awareness of the sensation of being in bed as I drift off to sleep and you claim this can be done at the beginning of the night too?

What does SSILD stand for? I am unfamiliar with this one.

Senses Initiated Lucid Dream (SSILD)... The OP have been banned from the forum so, I doubt that he will be answering what he meant by that.

While people on these forums appear slower to embrace a brand new technique, the result was nonetheless quite promising. Between DreamViews and LD4All, there are more than a hundred success stories recorded in 9 months.

SSILD is designed from the ground up to be simple, "idiot-proof" even. It does not utilize advanced techniques such as relaxation and visualization and stays away from delicate, non-measurable mental exercises. It despises the notion that lucid dreaming is more "art" than "technique". It does not require you to be gifted or creative, in fact, there is little room for improvisation. Just follow the simple steps outlined here and you should be all set. SSILD is made so concise that if you mix in other stuff you may actually end up creating a negative impact on its performance.



The "Cycle"

The core component of SSILD is called a "Cycle". Each cycle consists of three steps:

Focus on Sight: Close your eyes and pay attention to the darkness behind your closed eyelids. Don't strain your eye muscles though. Your eyeballs should be resting, totally relaxed. If you don't see anything that's only normal. Do not attempt to spot visuals by moving your eyes around.

Focus on Hearing: Further relax your eyes and shift your attention to your ears. If the room is quiet enough you might be able to hear some noise inside your head or the sound of your heartbeat. However, if you can't hear anything it is okay to listen to external sounds too.

Focus on Somesthetic Senses (Touch): Direct your attention to your body. Feel it and see if you spot any unusual sensations such as tingling, heaviness, lightness, spinning sensations, and so on. If nothing like these can be felt, you can also try to feel the weight of the blanket, your heartbeat, temperature of the air, etc.

The repeated stimulation on the senses enables SSILD to condition our mind and body into a subtle state that is optimized for the lucid dreams to occur naturally. We should keep this in mind so we don't make the common mistake of "trying too hard" during the cycles. Beginners usually want to see things, hear things, and feel things. When nothing unusual happens they become discouraged or even desperate. Avoid this mistake at all costs! One should not expect to experience anything phenomenal during the Cycle. In fact, it is better to expect NOTHING at all will happen.

The Steps

1). Go to bed early, preferably before 11 pm. Set your alarm to wake up after 4 or 5 hours.

2). Get out of bed and stay awake for 5-10 minutes. I suggest you visit the bathroom, rinse your mouth, and walk around or stretch a little bit. Try not to become too awake though.

3). Return to bed and lie down in a comfortable position, preferably different from the one you usually use. This is to prevent you from falling into sleep prematurely. However, if you are the type of person who requires extra effort to fall asleep, you may want to use the usual position instead.

4). Perform the "Cycle" quickly, repeat 4-6 times. This serves as a warm-up exercise so each step should be very short, a few seconds should be sufficient.

5). Perform the "Cycle" slowly, repeat 3-4 times. This step is the most important one. You should take extra time during each step. Thanks to step 4, at this point you should have become sufficiently relaxed and you will find focusing on the senses become much easier. For example, your eyes will feel more relaxed, and you may get visuals such as lights, colors, or movements. You might also notice that the external sounds seem to be fading into the background. Do not get excited though. You should observe quietly and after a while move on to other senses. As far as timing goes we are flexible, but in general, each step should take no fewer than 30 seconds.

During the slow cycles, you may become distracted by a lot of random thoughts. This is a good indication that you are close to falling asleep. Do not try to suppress these thoughts -- they are your friends. Imagine they are gentle waves and let them carry you and wash you away from the shore of reality. You will occasionally become alert and realize you have lost track of your exercise. No worry, just start from the beginning of a cycle and you should be fine.

6). Return to the most comfortable position and allow yourself to fall into sleep as quickly as possible. Do not think too much and do not worry if it will work. The quicker you can fall asleep the more likely it will work. Have faith!

What happens next One key characteristic of SSILD is that it is neither a WILD nor a DILD technique. It is a hybrid. As such, it is important to become familiar with all the possible scenarios so you will maximize your chances.

1). Hypnagogia: when we enter a dream consciously, we often encounter various unusual hypnagogic sensations. These include the sensation of falling, floating, seeing lights and images, hearing sharp noises, and many more. In fact, sometimes you may encounter sensations so strange that they are beyond words. When we encounter these sensations, chances are we are already in a dream or getting really close. SSILD is known to cause hypnagogia during the Cycles (although this effect should NOT be sought after). It's also not uncommon for you to wake up suddenly while being bombarded by intense hypnagogic sensations. When this happens you should not become excited. Be a passive observer and wait for the sensations to amplify. You could also nudge them a little bit mentally, but do not overdo it. As soon as the sensations become clearly identifiable you should be able to perform a successful reality check and get up. Typically the dream will start from your bedroom because subconsciously that's where you expect you will be. You can also stay in bed longer and use visualization to create a dream scene manually. In any event, it is important for you to stay calm when encountering hypnagogia. Do not speak to yourselves or analyze it mentally as doing so can cause the sensations to fade and eventually wake you up.


2). False Awakening: SSILD is known to cause a lot of FAs. Not any FA, but some super-realistic ones! A typical scenario goes like this -- you finished doing SSILD and fell asleep. Then suddenly you wake up. No lucid dreams, perhaps not even a normal dream! Feeling disappointed you get out of the bed... then you wake up again! It was all but a dream! SSILD's ability to frequently create this type of FAs have been well-documented by now. Therefore, you should definitely develop the habit of performing a reality check upon each awakening after doing SSILD, no matter how convinced you are about your not being in a dream. Another possible scenario is that you slip into sleep during an SSILD cycle, and an FA immediately takes over. When this happens you may suddenly feel awake and it seems you are about to suffer insomnia. Some users complained that SSILD was causing them to lose sleep, only later found out they had been doing SSILD cycles in their dreams! Once you learn to catch these FAs your chance of success will be greatly improved.

3). DILD: When you fall asleep from SSILD, you enter your dreams with heightened awareness. As a result, lucid dreams occur. This is called Dream Initiated Lucid Dream (DILD). With heightened awareness, you may be able to spot oddities in dreams and in turn become lucid. It is also very common for spontaneous lucid dreams to occur -- you suddenly become lucid for no apparent reason.

4). Real Awakening: You wake up again after doing SSILD. You do a reality check and this time it is real. Do not despair. You still have chances. Try to stay still, and immediately relax your head, allowing the back of it to sink into the pillow. Then you need to perform a few extra medium-paced SSILD cycles. At this stage, it is quite possible for you to encounter strong hypnagogia sensations. If not, just finish the cycles and go to sleep. You will have a much higher chance to succeed this time.

Hope this helps?!!
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~Lang

Wow. I have never heard of this. I think I will get this a shot. This is going to be interesting.