Last night I had my third DILD, and made me think about autosuggestion. It was similar to my first two, but I think I am improving. The quote below is from another thread of mine explaining my first two DILDs. If you are reading this about the autosuggestion, you can skip it and look at my third DILD. I have things that are related to autosuggestion in blue.
Quote Originally Posted by Ender_ View Post
...The first DILD, I was in my bathroom. I suddenly became aware that I was dreaming, and tried several RC's that failed. I still knew that I was dreaming, and eventually I leaped forward and floated in the air for a few seconds (I wasn't trying to fly, just check the gravity). Then I attempted the leap again because it just gave an amazing feeling. That is when everything went crazy. I unwillingly closed and opened my dream eyes several times. My brain was trying to do everything that I thought of trying in a lucid dream. The odd part was I didn't actually try to do the things, but just imagined them. For example, my dream eyes closed at one point and imagined myself flying, the exact same way as you would imagine it in real life. I didn't leap forward and try to fly, just thought about it. I kept thinking different things, then stopped and thought about how real felt. The problem is, it didn't feel real, I just thought it to myself! Then my mind started to think about different things real rapidly again. It was as if my dream became my thoughts, without any senses. Everything felt choppy and claustrophobic. My dream ended in the bathroom, right where I started.

The second DILD started in an odd way, but had the same results as the first. I was in a back of a car (in the dream), and decided to WILD (not knowing I was already asleep). It happened almost immediately, and I fell into a second dream lucidly. I was excited, because I had never WILDed before. This may be a reason for what happened, but I am not sure. This dream I was in my bedroom. Basically, the same thing happened as the first. Instead of performing actions, I only thought about doing them. Things were choppy and my senses randomly failed and worked again over and over like in the first DILD. The dream felt, as the title says, broken. This time, I even felt disconnected from the dream and my dream body. I tried dream spinning, but as I said, I just thought about doing it. Right before the dream ended, it finally felt like I did spin my dream body, but I couldn't see since my senses were going haywire. I then had a FA where I woke up in my room, even though I started the "false WILD" in a car...
Now my third DILD was very short, but I think I am getting better with control. It is still terrible, but I believe I am making progress. I feel like my next will turn out really well!

I started out trying to WILD, but I knew that since I didn't WBTB it wouldn't be great. I got as deep as I could get (numbness all over, felt like I was in my head, but no HI or vibrations), and I passively tried autosuggestion while in this relaxed state. I usually use autosuggestion before going to bed to wake up after a certain amount of time, or improve dream recall. I have almost always gotten good results. This is the first time I tried it in the middle of a WILD, and I didn't try as hard as usual. It still worked, but not the way I expected it to.

What I thought was, "I will question everything around me." I chose this hoping that it would make me perform a RC in the dream.I think I went through a dream or two before becoming lucid, and there were tons of chances to RC. I didn't though. Then, in one of my dreams, I came across something that I think occured because of the autosuggestion, and would not have occurred otherwise.

I was in the back of a car that was on a bridge very high in the air, spanning over a body of water. The water stretched in all directions until it met the sky. All of the sudden, I turned my head to the right without thinking about it, and my eyes fell directly on something that was way out of place. A pick-up truck in the distance was driving in mid-air. It was going perfectly straight, not falling from gravity. It wasn't moving very realistically either, it seemed like it was intentionally put there for the purpose of being questioned. I have never come across something like this in a dream before. Normally when something unusual in my dream happens, I am already completely immersed in a place full of other impossibilities. This is the first time that I remember where there were only two things out of place: the location and the truck. This might not exactly be true the way I am describing it, but that is the way I felt in the dream. I plugged my nose, and could still breath, confiriming that I was in a dream.

I was now lucid, but I think the situation I was in would be very hard to practice control. I decided to try to fly through the back window of the car, and go to the location I was at before (can't remember where). When I tried, I lost my sense of sight again (this happened in my first two DILDs). I remembered that I have to try what to do, not think about it. I then tried spinning, and I actually did in my dream, but woke up. I think I am improving though because I didn't get overexcited, and I remembered to perform my actions, not think about them.

After this experience, I think I am understanding a better way for autosuggestion. Attempts where I thought thinks like "become lucid", "perform reality checks", "improve dream recall" etc. usually failed. I succeeded, though, with phrases like "question everything" and "completely remember all of my dreams". This leads me to believe that, at least for beginners, avoid using terms new to beginners such as "lucid", "reality check", etc. Instead, use phrases that describe what these things are (example: I thought, "question everything" instead of "reality check"). As a beginner, I think your mind hasn't made a connection between these words and what you want the results to be. It would be better to use more familiar terms, then once you get the results you want, start using the new terms. I am not sure if this is truly what happens, but it seems like a good guess from my experiences.