AIRCLouD - Audio-Induced-Reality-Check Lucid Dream
(Cheezy name for the method, I know...I stink at coming up with those things. If you can think of a better one feel free)
I'm sure this must have been done before...but if it has, I sure can't find anything about it.
If you keep up with my DJ, you'll already know about this, but since not everybody does, I thought I'd make a thread to introduce it and keep everyone up to date on my progress, as well as give others a chance to try the method for themselves and share their experiences with others.
I've called the method AIRCLouD ('ou' for pronunciation purposes only) and it stands for Audio-Induced-Reality-Check Lucid Dream. It's a bit different since the immediate goal is to cause you to reality check and thereby achieve lucidity, rather than just make you go lucid out-of-the-blue, as do most other audio-based induction techniques that I have seen.
The setup (that I've been using): Cool Timer set to 'wake' mode (so it functions like an alarm clock rather than a countdown) and also set to play a certain MP3 as the alarm. Headphones are then run from the PC with Cool Timer over to my bed, with a single headphone on each side to preserve the stereo effect as much as possible, but without requiring me to actually wear the headphones all night. Then I just go to sleep. That's it.
The goal: The idea is that the MP3 (which contains audio of someone saying 'do a reality check' and 'you are dreaming' and such things) will work its way into your dreams and remind you to do a reality check, thus making you lucid.
The pros: Preparation only takes about 3 minutes, to get the computer and headphones all set up. You don't have to spend a lot of time during the day to prepare yourself, and you don't have to lose any sleep to make good use of that preparation. Can be used every night regardless of your sleep schedule. Designed for those with jobs or school getting them up early and to bed late at night.
The cons: Tough to fine-tune...if the MP3 goes off too early into the night, your dreams will be unclear and it will be hard to go lucid or make good use of your lucidity. If it goes off too late, or is too loud, you'll probably just get woken up. Timing and volume are the two most important (and hardest) things to get right, so be ready for a lot of experimentation until you've nailed down what works for you.
Note that I'm still in the experimentation stage of this myself; it's been nearly a week of testing and I've only got a very few things properly figured out, but I also know that this method CAN work, if you take the time to tweak everything just right.
The right MP3 for this job is also still up in the air. I've been using Really's Ultimate Lucid MP3 but although I've had some degree of success with it, I think something else would probably work better.
How you can participate: Obviously everyone on DV is invited to give AIRCLouD a shot for themselves, but in addition, it would be great if you'd report your progress here as often as possible to test the effectiveness of the method and find out how to best tweak things. Also, if you create your own MP3's for AIRCLouD, please share them! :D
