Thread: All Day Awareness, A DILD Tutorial by KingYoshi

KingYoshi's DILD Tutorial

So, I already have a WILD tutorial, but now it seems I am getting a lot of questions about my DILD method, all day awareness, and proper RC technique. I've decided to just go ahead and break down my entire approach to DILD. So, sit back, fire one up, and learn to DILD...the Yoshi way!

General Keys to Success
With any induction method/technique there are three keys to long-term success.

1. Effort - Aside from the handful of natural lucid dreamers out there, the rest of us have to put forth the effort and work toward lucidity. Without that drive, you aren't going to have the kind of results you are looking for.

2. Confidence - This one is as simple as the first. You need to be confident in your abilities. I don't care if you just joined yesterday and literally have no clue what you are doing. EVERYONE can lucid dream regularly.

3. Experience - You don't even have to do anything special for this one. Every single thing you do while practicing lucid dreaming, works toward experience. Just keep practicing and gain experience from every success as well as every failure.


All Day Awareness
So, what exactly is a DILD? DILD stands for Dream Induced Lucid Dream. It is a lucid dreaming induction technique where the dreamer becomes aware that he/she is dreaming, from within the dream itself. DILD success is all about awareness.

I practice a technique known as All Day Awareness (ADA). I first heard/learned of the basic concept for ADA from another Dream Views member here on the site...Naiya. For those of you who don't know Naiya, she has practiced lucid dreaming for many years and has a Lucid Count is well over 1,000. In a nutshell, All Day Awareness (ADA), is noticing and paying attention to the subtle things in life that most people ignore or take for granted.

Lets take for instance, you are walking your dog down the street. Be aware of everything around you. Hear your footsteps against the pavement, feel the cushion in the sole of your shoes contract with each step. Feel the muscles working in your legs as you stroll along, see your eyelids blinking, hear the sound of your breathing, feel your lungs expanding and your chest moving as you breath in and out. Smell the air as you travel through the neighborhood. Does it change? Does every breeze smell the exact same? Feel your tongue as it casually rests on the bottom of your mouth. Every structure around you has a shadow...do you notice them? Hear the pitter patter of the dogs feet, do you hear him panting? Most people hold the leash and walk down the sidewalk completely lost in their thoughts. Most don't even notice the control they are using to power their own legs.

You are sitting at the computer doing math homework. Feel the keys below your fingertips, notice how effortlessly your fingers fly from one key to the next without even having to think about the upcoming letter/keystroke. While you were reading the previous two sentences, did you take for granted the blinking process. What all sounds have you heard while you have been reading this tutorial? What does the air smell like? You shouldn't have to smell right now to answer the question. Have you noticed the shadows of everything around you? How about your lungs? Have you noticed them expanding and your chest moving. Have you noticed the air traveling up through your windpipe, across your tongue and passed your lips?

These are just a few of the millions of small details that the average person takes for granted or doesn't even bother to notice. It is almost like everyone is sleep walking while they are awake. If you don't have good awareness in waking life, how do you expect to have good awareness in your dreams? In about 90% of my Dream Induced Lucid Dreams, I have known I was dreaming or suspected I was dreaming before ever performing a RC (reality check). The RC is used mostly to confirm that I am dreaming. That lowly 10% is from obtaining lucidity due to a particular dream sign or performing a random RC while thinking I was actually awake. (these percentages are estimates and I likely was too generous with the 10%).

At first, you will have to force yourself to be completely aware of your surroundings. The idea, is to try and become aware of absolutely EVERYTHING around you. After practicing ADA for a while, you will start to become aware of theses subtleties without forcing yourself. As you practice more and more, you will notice the subtleties being noticed quite naturally with little effort. Eventually, you will get to where you are no longer practicing All Day Awareness, you are actually living it. It will become natural for you. Once you have reached this level of awareness, the dream itself becomes your dream sign. Every thing you notice within the dream will become you RC. Every dream you have will be a lucid and you have reached the pinnacle of lucid dreaming.

Not only does awareness help strive toward lucidity, but it also helps with recall. As you continue to practice ADA, it will start to carry over in your dreams. Even if you aren't getting lucid yet, you will start paying more attention to the dream environment. Making mental notes of what you see, hear, feel, taste, and smell. This will help make dreams much easier to recall upon waking up from sleep. It will also help you recall more details from your dream. Soon you will be having detailed journal entries that read almost like a story as opposed to a scattered series of events that jump around from place to place.

*Getting Started
Thanks everyone for the valuable feedback. I forgot just how overwhelming ADA can be when you first start practicing. I then realized, I had left out a key point in the tutorial. There are so many things to notice that it can get in the way of your daily activities, possibly causing stress. Stress is not good at all for lucid dreaming. I recommend that all beginners start small and work your way up.

Pick out certain times throughout the day, when you aren't busy, and work on ADA. Take 5 or 10 minutes to notice everything you can. Do this several times during your day. Some days you may be able to practice a lot, and others you may not get as much practice in. Go ahead and perform some RCs during these ADA sessions as well. Once you get more used to the process and it starts getting easier, you can become more frequent with your sessions. It is very hard to keep up the awareness all day long when you aren't used to it. Even now, I am not able to keep it going at all times. I'll get lost in thought, or something else I am doing and realize I was "day walking" again . Performing ADA in sessions will still help loads with your awareness and you can work your way up at your own discretion. Be sure not to overwork yourself. If you start feeling mentally exhausted, take a day off from training. Everyone needs their rest.

When I first started practicing ADA, I did it in sessions like I described above. I worked my way up until it started becoming natural. Even now, I still take sessions to make sure I really notice absolutely everything. Something else I should add...don't forget about the clothes you are wearing. Feel and notice them at all times.

Dream Signs and Reality Checking
Now, picking out dream signs and performing RCs still play a key role in the DILD process. Humor me for a moment.

A live flamingo hat is definitely a dream sign. Even though it has showed up multiple times in your dreams, it isn't even going to be in the majority of your dreams...let alone all of your dreams. If you rely solely on a dream sign for lucidity, you are only going to be able to take advantage of the dreams it shows up in. If you happen to miss it, you never know when it will return. However, if you have pointed the hat out as a dream sign, you have identified a recurring element in your dream. This familiarization with the dream world has added an extra boost to your awareness. Not to mention, when it does show up again, you will have a chance at recognizing it. The better your awareness, the more likely you will be able to recognize dream signs within the dream.

I mentioned earlier that RCs are used more for confirming that you are lucid, as opposed to actually creating lucidity for you. The key function of a RC (reality check) is actually increasing awareness. Whenever you perform a RC during waking life, don't just go through the motions. Prior to performing your RC, take a moment to become aware of your surroundings. Even if you know that you are awake, pretend that everything around you is actually a dream. Finally, perform your RC and see if you are actually dreaming. A quality RC is a RC in which you question your reality.

From above, "pretend everything around you is actually a dream." Whether you truly believe this questioning of reality or not, is irrelevant. The fact that you ARE questioning it, is good enough. The idea is, if you are able to question your reality during waking life, you will do the same in your dreams. Like I said earlier, 90% of the time awareness makes you lucid, not the RC itself. Practicing quality RCs like these, will boost that awareness level greatly.


Dream Journal & Recall Enhancement
Last, but certainly not least, is dream journaling. It is key that you write down every dream that you possibly can. Once you wake from sleep, try not to move much. Just lay there and recall/recap your dream in your mind. Once you have went through the dream, immediately write it down. Keep a notebook and pencil/pen at your bedside. Keeping a dream journal will also help build up your dream recall. If you wake from sleep and only remember bits and pieces, write down those bits and pieces. If you wake up and don't remember anything at all, write down, "Couldn't remember any dreams." Its important that you do this. It will help train your mind to literally WANT to write down something. This will help toward recall as well.

If you want to immediately enhance your recall, you can set alarms throughout the night. The idea is that you wake up either between REM cycles or toward the end of an REM cycle and write down your dream then. Since you are waking up right after they happen, they won't be forgotten as the night progresses (even if they are...you wrote them down ). The REM cycle generally takes a few hours to get started. Once it does get started, REM will cycle through every 90 minutes or so (on average). I started out by setting my initial alarm for after 4 hours of sleep. The next alarm is for two hours later (after 6 hours of sleep). Then i set alarms in 1 hour increments until I wake up for good.


Technique Results
Ever since I first learned of All Day Awareness, I have been practicing it. Twice I took relatively long breaks from DreamViews and simply didn't train for lucid dreaming, but the rest of the time I have been practicing ADA. I have 107 DILDs recorded on the site, but counting the DILDs I had during my time away from DreamViews I am at 150+ DILDs. Like I mentioned before, only a handful of them were because of a random RC. The rest were simply due to my awareness. I am hovering around the 22 lucid dreams per month mark, but I am certain that if I had stayed in ADA practice my entire time, I would be averaging a lucid dream per night by now. I truly believe that with enough practice, ADA is a legit technique for accomplishing lucidity in every dream.

More Information and Contributions to ADA
Naiya
For her take/explanation on ADA, click the link and scroll down to post #6. Naiya's DILD & WILD Secrets

MindGames
Also I have something to contribute to your tutorial. I think that if you were to be constantly aware of your environment in the context of whether or not aspects are dreamlike, it would be more effective in producing nightly lucid dreams. This would train your mind to focus primarily on dream-related aspects in your environment, thus increasing the effectiveness of your awareness. This would allow you to effectively be constantly performing a reality check, in the sense that your mind is constantly questioning if your environment is a dream, rather than just primarily paying attention to your environment. Awareness is key to all DILDs, but how you use it is also important.

If you give ADA a shot, be sure to post any progress, questions, or comments below. Many of us would love to hear how its going. We also may be able to give some advice if needed. Good luck to everyone!

Here are some success stories involving ADA taken from this thread.....

Originally Posted by allensig3654

I have been actively doing this for two weeks now. You can see in my dream journal how my dreams are so much more vivid and long compared to what they used to be.

Originally Posted by allensig3654

Had an instant lucid this morning and another where I just knew it was a dream,but did not do a rc. I am realizing more things in the dream. I have been practicing awareness for a while now, but have recently been giving it everything I have.

EDIT: my gf has been doing this with me and she had a ld last night as well

Originally Posted by gameoverlord345

.This is by far the best technique ever discovereD .I dont even have like more than 2 minute awareness per hour and i have Much more vivid dreamS

Originally Posted by gameoverlord345

O_O

thank you, I had an LD the moment my dream was ending for like 3 seconds! And since this is the only technique I practice, THANK YOU!

Originally Posted by Spyguy

Had a LD last night Started 7 days ago, and it's been 1 day + 1 evening since i first reached the 'heightened awareness'. Hope this gives u guys an idea how long the practice takes (not long ).

Originally Posted by joshdamighty

I never knew what ADA was, or how it helps DILDing until now. Man it makes sense to me now why I've achieved lucidity so many times before without reality checks so easily. I've been doing ADA for 2 years without even knowing what it was!
Thank you for the impressive guide and bringing ADA to my attention.

Originally Posted by zombiemushrooms

well, this method has given me my first lucid that i could actually carry out and stabilize, so thanks very much for that.

Originally Posted by Polarity

Lucid after three days of ADA, I actually started to be aware of some oddities in the dream, reality checking as a confirmation.

Originally Posted by AscendedSleeper

I have been using a version of this technique for the past 4 or 5 days now. It seems to be working really well. Before I was on a dry spell of sorts (for me at least), and was having 1 or maybe 2 lucid dreams a week. I have been lucid in at least one dream for the past three days, and last night I remember getting lucid three times. Thanks a lot for the tutorial. This is exactly what I was looking for a while ago, and this tutorial answered my questions about awareness far more thoroughly than other threads.

Originally Posted by Stratos11

I compined that with MILD last night and I broke the dryspell ( 2 months with only 2 poor non-vivid ''not so''lucid dreams).
I was in a semi-nightmare situation where I was in a house where a guy wanted to kill me and at one point I just realised this was a dream , I didn't ever reality checked, and I tried to throw the guy a fire ball.While trying though I woke up.(maybe I tried so hard)I feel great cause this was the first really lucid dream I have after 2 months , so ADA rocks (MILD rocks too)

Originally Posted by Angusaurus

I read the tutorial the other day and have been trying to do it, when I can remember.
I had my first DILD this morning.
I can't remember how I became lucid though.
Thanks Yoshi.

Originally Posted by LucidJuggalo

Clearly this technique is doing wonders for me. I used to be lucky to get a LD a week. I've now had 2 (technically 3, since I had 2 this morning, but the 2nd one wasn't worth writing down as it was so short and I remember so little) in the space of 3 days. Whoop!

Originally Posted by silver2k

I've been working with ADA a while and gotten many lucids with it . But still a long way to go until mastered..

Great Tutorial!

Originally Posted by Katsuno

Wow, this is the exact thing I train since 2 weeks now! I have to say that this technique is just awesome. When I started I had a ld at the third night doing it and had another one right on the next night just because I was aware in the dream.

Originally Posted by jmanjohn

I posted several days ago that i would try this and wow. I've had 2 lucids within a week after coming off a long dry spell. I got to say that this dramatically has increased my lucids this first week. I'll try being aware more and hopefully get my lucids up even more.

Originally Posted by Ayanizz

This method has finally rewarded me with a lucid! Sadly enough just before I had to get up, but a lucid none the less. There was something about the air just not smelling like "normal" air, which kicked it in for me...
On a different note, this was my first DILD, and I must say, they have a really different feel to them than WILDs, and much easier to keep stable too

Originally Posted by dark_grimmjow

Finally success! Although it was short, i had an ld this morning. I got into too big of a rush and forgot the basics, like stabilizing the dream before i rush into trying to do anything. Anyway, i finally put an end to a month long dry spell. My ADA is improving a little bit everyday. It has also helped my dream recall dry spell as well. I imagine that my dream recall and ld rate will improve as my ADA improves. Thanks KingYoshi!

Originally Posted by topten35

Very good thread, i've had two lucid dreams this week using this method, i've been applying what was in this thread and it really worked, mainly on days that i actually have practiced this, thank you very much for this information, i'm sure this has helped people lucid dream.

Originally Posted by woeisme

Thanks so much for this, it works! After doing ADA for like a week now, i can sometimes just tell when i am dreaming. Without any dream signs. The feeling is different, kind of relaxed or something.

Originally Posted by Spyguy

It's been a while since my last post on this thread, but here's the progress:

- More vivid dreams
- Dream recall getting better again
- More vivid waking life ( more detailed, rich, colourful, etc. )
- 2 lucids ( short, but they helped me figure out what i've been doing wrong while stabilizing)

Originally Posted by Chemicaledge

I have you to thank for my first lucid dream Yoshi. Training myself to be more aware combined with your WILD technique lead me straight into it. Thanks a ton

Originally Posted by Osmodin

Guess who's back? I have had 4 lucid dreams since Monday. @ in one night even I am on a role. I am starting to notice the small things like when a computer screen across a classroom flashes once or when i see the overhead board to my right come on outa the corner of my eyes.

Originally Posted by Fedor

Tried method for first time in its entirety yesterday and had success that same morning.....Look forward to getting good at this. THANKS

Originally Posted by BloodyHell

I don't know if it's because of the ADA, but lately, I've gotten many short LD's, most of them consist of nothing else than "I'm Dreaming!" and everything turning black,
but this night, I got it some time longer, and I felt the ground.
So I'm extending my LD's bit by bit and I like it, and because all of this came after I started to do ADA, I like to tell you thank you for this tutorial

Originally Posted by Spyguy

9 lucids in 21 days thanks to this technique, 1 lucid every night in the past 3 nights! Epic awesomeness

Originally Posted by iliketoshred

within the first day of practicing this technique, i had myself a lucid dream.....

Originally Posted by anderj101

I think this may have helped me have my first lucid in about 2 months since I quit smoking cigarettes.

Originally Posted by Flying Spaghetti Monster

had my first LD in a couple of months after only one day of decent ADA practice. Thanks Yoshi! banging tutorial!

Originally Posted by NonConformist

Damn. And here I thought these people were just lucky. I had my 1st lucid dream after 1 day of ADA practice as well! I'm impressed by the sheer immensity of people that it affects. 10/10 for KingYoshi!

Originally Posted by DaTechnoKing

After only a few hours a day of doing this, my dream recall has improved 10 fold. My latest DJ entry can confirm that this really does help with recall. Thanks Yoshi!

Originally Posted by francis148

yes ADA is working for me.....my dreams become more vivid and i went lucid last night i just realised i was dreaming.......thanx yoshi

Originally Posted by Kezune

Well, I was tired today after going on a long walk with my dog so I figured I should take a nap this afternoon. It was a good opportunity for me to try to dream since I've been having trouble recalling my dreams overnight. I've been practicing KingYoshi's All Day Awareness technique every day and I've had a lot of lucid experiences (many of them short ones... but they're all a chance for me to practice my dream control and stabilization anyway) since I started. I'm practically guaranteed to not only remember my dreams when I nap in the afternoon but I'm probably going to have a lucid dream, as well. I love combining DILD and WBTB! It's a shame I can't remember most of my dreams overnight but working with my dreams in the afternoon is still very rewarding.

Thank you KingYoshi and Naiya!

Originally Posted by Singularity125

I had great results last night. I did some ADA, and the comprehensive energy work from the DVASA program before bed. I had three recalled dreams, two of which were lucid. ADA is definitely working its way into my dreams.

Originally Posted by Heimdall

It's been about a year since I practiced lucid dreaming, and I have had only a few LD's in total. But I picked up the practice again and I have been trying for a couple a weeks with no success. I did ADA for 2-3 days so far and just had a LD last night! Thanks for this, I will definitely continue it. I also noticed that it kind of makes me feel better also just being more conscious of everything all the time.

Originally Posted by Metallicuh

Got my first lucid last night. Thanks Yoshi.

and..........
Raphael