Audio-induced DILD

EDIT: After another read through the Interrupted Sleep Audio Method thread in this same subforum, I realise many will find it to be too similar; therefore I'd like to point out that the key difference is that I do not aim to wake up during the process. Also, you do not need to sleep with a phone in your hand or wear a vibrating wristband. Where his method is a form of DEILD, this is DILD.

Hello all,

First of all, this is in no way a complete method yet, even though I plan on expanding and improving it. For now it's just some ideas I wanted to jot down before losing them; I do believe they could be quite valuable, especially with your input. Also, I do not think my ideas are completely original, and very similar techniques might have been introduced on these forums before, but I think my ideas provide a simple method that can be used by anyone with little effort.
Lastly I would like to add that this will probably turn out to be a mostly supportive technique to other DILD methods; I have yet to put it to practice myself and have no idea about its consistency and reliability.

The technique: Audio-induced DILD or AIDILD

Reports have shown that in (lucid or non-lucid) dreams, dreamers can sometimes hear sounds or voices from the real world, as opposed to the other senses (apart maybe from touch). As a consequence, it is common for these external sounds to be incorporated into our dreams, especially but not exclusively near the end of REM periods. I think we can make much more use of this phenomenon in our lucid dreaming efforts.

Anyone who has the opportunity to play music while he or she is asleep can participate. Now, you don't have to hook up your mp3-player/cellphone to your speaker system necessarily; if you live with other people who do not want to be awoken in the middle of the night, there are other options.
I myself, for example, will put my earphones in my pillow case close to my ears. Of course, if you can sleep with headphones on that's even better.

Now there is only one act of preparation needed for this method. Record your own voice, saying (in your preferred language) "I am dreaming" (or anything else you think will work). Either say this 20 times or whatever or find a way to make it loop. Make sure the final audio file is at least 4 or 5 minutes long.
Now set this audio file as an alarm to play after 6 hours of sleep. Either make it snooze automatically or manually set an alarm for every 5 minutes after your 6 hours of sleep.
Say you fall asleep at 11pm. This is what your alarm settings would look like:

Alarm - 5:00 AM - Voice recording 01
Alarm - 5:05 AM - Voice recording 01
Alarm - 5:10 AM - Voice recording 01
Alarm - 5:15 AM - Voice recording 01
Etc...

Make it continue as long as you like to. Set the volume to something comfortable beforehand; make sure it doesn't wake you up (at least not that abruptly), but you have to be able to clearly understand it.

Now just go asleep at your predetermined time (approximately of course) and do whatever you normally do. Be aware that this method does not combine with WBTB before the designated REM period; if you want to do a WBTB after 6 hours of sleep, set these alarms after 4.5 hours of sleep or make them play when you're asleep after your WBTB.

The goal of this method is that you start hearing your own voice telling you "I am dreaming" from within your dream. Depending on your awareness in the dream, this can trigger lucidity. Chances are that you wake up from the alarm, especially the first couple nights; if so, stay still and attempt a DEILD. If you lose consciousness while attempting the DEILD, you have another chance at DILD.


If there are any questions, necessary additions, criticisms or anything feel free to reply. As mentioned, this is far from complete or optimal and I'm open to all suggestions!

Thanks for reading and good luck,

InnerVision

I've tried this several times before, and I've only had success two times in the same first night, WILDs, and that was when I could not fall asleep because the audio was too loud and keeping me mentally awake, lol. Although I played the audio at the start of the night, I wanted to listen to it the whole night, because I thought why not. I also tried it after short WBTBs, I woke up after 6 hours of sleep, put my earphones in, played the same looping 10 minute audio saying "you are dreaming" and "reality check", and nothing, no DILD or DEILD. It's either a hitting the right volume issue, or it just doesn't work for whatever reason. At least that's how it was in my case, it differs for people..
I could and should try with a slightly louder volume, but then again I'm not too fond of relying on technology in order to lucid dream..

I do believe you are right in saying that this can differ hugely between individuals. Especially the extent to which the audio manages to make a way into your dream is very personal I think. Anyway, thank you for the reply. Judging from the fact that you can actually fall asleep while audio is playing and even with earphones in, I suspect you are a much heavier sleeper than I am. The problem for me so far has been that I am either so aware that I cannot sleep at all, or I am unconscious within seconds and I figured this could possibly help overcome that issue.

Actually part of the reason why I started using this method only after a WBTB is because the earphones get really uncomfortable/painful after sleeping with them in for 6 hours. Yeah that's a common problem that's difficult to get around, either too awake or too sleepy, main reason why normal WILD is nearly impossible for me.
p.s. I decided to try this audio technique after I used a train ambiance mp3 for relaxation and annoying noise blocking, and that night I had a dream that I was in a train and hearing the train sounds. So yes, sounds from outside can definitely sneak inside your dreams.

Last week was a little stressful so I did not have the time and motivation to give this the first try, until yesterday. I set up an alarm in a 5 minute interval from 5:00 am to 5:30 am. I went to bed at 9:30 pm the night before, so I would be asleep around 10:30pm. This would mean that, at 5am, I had 6 and a half hours of sleep behind me, assuring me that I would be in REM (according to my usual patterns). It did not make me lucid and the alarm actually woke me up around 5:15, halfway through the alarm sequence, so initially I was a little disappointed. Although, when I started recalling the dream I was just in, I realised that suddenly all DC's had started talking about dreaming. In the last part of the dream I can remember, right before I woke up, two DC's were discussing what dreams they had had last night. One of them remembered quite a lot and I remember thinking to myself 'wow, she might be into lucid dreaming'.

So, I can conclude that even though this did not make me lucid on the first try, some of the information from the alarm actually got into my dreams (you should know that I do not recall ever dreaming about dreams and LD'ing before). I think that, with some experimentation with the volume and timing, this could become more succesfull in the future and I'm definitely motivated to continue trying.

I am planning on logging my progress and findings with this technique here, which might cause some double posting. If there is anything wrong with that or whatever, please inform me and I'll edit everything into one post or something.

I must say one thing: since I've been trying this technique I've been waking up 4 times a night naturally and always after a REM-cycle. This could have to do with the fact that I go to bed an hour earlier than normal, or maybe I sleep less heavy because of the anticipation of the alarm. Either way it has improved my recall immensely (from 1 dream and a fragment per night to 6-8 detailed dreams per night) and provides me with multiple DEILD opportunities every night.

So, tonight I tried again with the same volume levels and timing. Then, at what must've been around 4:30, I had a false awakening. In this false awakening I grabbed my phone, saw the time was 4:55 am, and turned of the alarms (with the idea that I wouldn't be able to fall asleep if the alarm was going to start 20 minutes later).

Half an hour later I actually woke up, reality checked (WHY DIDN"T I DO THIS IN THE FA!?) and remembered the FA. I checked my phone and it was actually 4:55 now. The alarms were obviously still active, proving the FA, and I turned them off for the same reason as I did during the FA.