Thread: Glimmer of hope?

About 3 hours ago, right before I joined this forum, I had my first partially-lucid dream in what must've been a year. I've been attempting MILDs the past few weeks and kept failing, but last night I pulled an almost all-nighter at a party. I conked out on the couch when my caffeine high wore off. The funny part is, I wasn't even thinking about a lucid dream when I fell asleep. I just had a very odd dream (just an image of some cartoon character with lines around it blinking) and realized I was dreaming. Sadly, each time I tried to change my dream from the weird image it faded and gave me a strong premonition that I was going to wake up. After a while I had to concentrate just to keep in a dream state, my vision eradically switching from the image to the back of my eyelids, I simply gave up and awoke cursing. I quickly fell back asleep, hoping that I would regain the dream, but I failed. However, this does seem like a glimmer of hope to me. Does caffeine induce lucid dreams? Or did my subconscious keep the thought of a lucid dream in the back of my mind?

It could've been anything, it's impossible to know without just trying this again and again and again to see how successful you are under all those conditions. One thing's for sure though- you got lucid!!! So now you know it's possible, it's not impossible and it's definitely something that you can achieve if you keep working at it. Congrats, hope you have some more and I think you most likely will now that you've joined

What are you doing to practice your MILD?

So far, I've been mentally saying things like "I will become aware of being in a dream" over and over again. I think I might've been concentrating too much on this, though, and that's what prevented me from falling asleep.

That's just autosuggestion. Try these, they should help you with MILD.

Prospective Memory
Train Your Memory
Daily Dreamsign

You have to remember that the most important part of MILD is developing that prospective memory to begin with, otherwise, if you don't have a good memory, you're not likely to succeed. Practicing during the day will help you improve that memory, so that when you DO tell yourself to remember to realize you're dreaming, you'll actually have something to work with

The idea of MILD, and autosuggestion to, is not that you really do anything before bed. Yes, the mantras are great and all, and you do need the intention, but that you shouldn't be your focus. You want to be putting in that effort and confidence during the day that helps you out while sleeping. Then, at bed time, all you have to do is fall asleep, and your hard work pays off as your mind is more able to keep aware and notice you're dreaming. At least, that's the theory. I have found it works excellently for me, so I'm a huge fan