Thread: Is it better to let mind wander to go to sleep?

Do you think it's better to just relax and let the mind wander and do it's own thing when going to bed? Or is it best to take control and force self to think about Lucid Dreaming- going through dreamsigns etc, thereby hopefully making LD'ing the last thing on the mind when you go to sleep? I'm not sure whether that put too much stress on the mind, maybe it's better just to be relaxed?

I beleive its helpful, and good practice for DILD/MILD.

I have become lucid many times when I have not "forced" myself to do affirmations, etc before bed. However - I still recommend that you do. I think I can get lucid without doing this as I am quite practiced and have put plenty of past effort into these practices. Therefore I dont need to do them every night - and get a "bonus" lucids when Im not really trying.

I am very good at WILDing but lately i have been trying to see if I could master MILD. I got this bought of inspiration about a week ago to just have a MILD, this raw determination. When I was going to sleep I just kept telling myself "i will notice when something strange happens". I just said it over and over again but i got so determined that I was basically screaming as loud as I could in my head. All of my focus and strength was poring into it. i was getting really worked up inside.
That night I had a lucid dream AND I have had 5 more since then using the same method. It sounds counterproductive because when trying to go to sleep you'd think u need to relax, not tense up and get so worked up inside, but it works because after about 10min of just shear willpower and getting so worked up you just wear yourself out. But keep going, rip into your mind with your thought screams and tear into dreams. What i have found is that this causes a cross over...meaning I don't become lucid from noticing something strange, I become lucid because I find myself saying that exact thing in a dream. It's like your dream self, completely unaware of it, tells himself to look around and notice if something is strange. Then comes the lucidity.
(in case it wasn't clear you shouldn't actually be shouting or screaming physically, just mentally)

Originally Posted by Starmonger

Do you think it's better to just relax and let the mind wander and do it's own thing when going to bed? Or is it best to take control and force self to think about Lucid Dreaming- going through dreamsigns etc, thereby hopefully making LD'ing the last thing on the mind when you go to sleep? I'm not sure whether that put too much stress on the mind, maybe it's better just to be relaxed?

You relax and let your mind wander when you first go to bed because attempting to LD first thing at night is not such a great idea to begin with. Your mind has been active all day, its been filled with junk (random thoughts, feelings, stresses, distractions, etc) and it takes some time for those things to clear out.

Let yourself fall asleep normally for the first part of the night, not only to clear that junk out, but to also relax your body so that your body can shut back down rapidly.

I simply cannot fall asleep without letting my mind wander.

Originally Posted by CarmineEternity

I simply cannot fall asleep without letting my mind wander.

me either. I usually repeat affirmations, let my mind wander, affirm, wander, etc. until i get so sleepy i forget to reaffirm myself so I just wander nonchalantly into sleep. I'm the kind of person that if I'm really focused on ANYTHING I can't fall asleep. Plus I just never really get tired, so sometimes i'll end up staying up for 2 days in a row because I never got tired enough to go to sleep.

Lately, I seem to have the best luck with WBTB... so, I go to sleep normally for 4 hours. Wake up for about 5 minutes, focus on my induction technique, and... it's worked at least once a week for the past couple of weeks, anyways...

But hey, that's increased since I started coming to the forums!

thanks for the good answers. I was experimenting with a couple of methods- One which i have invented is that you keep your mind only on LD'ing, and whenever you realise that your mind has strayed, you bring it back to LD'ing and say "Am I dreaming Now?" in your head. A bit like when meditating. I only tried it for one night, but the problem was it seemed to make me too 'aware' and present to go to sleep. Perhaps it's more suited to WILD'ing where that's the kind of state you want anyway, as it seems that to fall asleep you have to loose awareness and let your mind wander. The other method was which bewareofit mentioned, where you do affirmations, then let your mind wander etc, which i have played around with and that seems more suited to going to sleep. But then what ethen says also seems to make sense. I think i'm the kind of person that needs to 'sort out the junk' as ethen put it, otherwise my sleep is disturbed by thoughts. Nyrawake, that's an intresting method aswell, I'll have to try that sometime. You could call it the 'Brute Force' method