Thread: Hello!

So, as you may suggest, I want to get into Lucid Dreaming, and have been using WILD and WBTB combined for 2 days (Not giving up, I am not even thinking about giving up) and I just wanted to ask you, what is the best possible technique that worked for you. I will probably continue using WILD and WBTB but I'm just curios what you guys did to start LD, and to ask how frequently do you do them? Maybe I am the only one who would do it all day Oh yeah, I do RC and keep a DJ so I am doing everything possible for this to work. Oh and I do meditate

Also, I am happy about finding this, because I read some stories and I am happy that people have these experiences, and hope that I will have some of my own too. Buuuuut, I am not looking forward to sleep paralysis. Everybody who has had them tell me it's really scary, so sometimes that makes me want to not do LD, but then I think about the benefits of it and say "Oh why not" and continue.

Basically that's it, and I look forward to helping and reading stories on here. Have a great day/night!

Hello Ragdoll14......

I am seven months or so into my LD training and I have found that SSILD works best for me in my regular night time practice. It's easy to do and it brought me results as soon as I began using it. Here is a good write up of that:

https://www.reddit.com/r/LucidDreami...l_tutorial_20/

I always go back to SSILD for results even as I constantly try other techniques. At this point in my training I seem to be developing a personalized approach that has been shaped by my sleep schedule and my REM cycles. I practice pretty much every night with varying degrees of success. Like any other discipline, lucid dreaming is something that takes diligent practice. Immerse yourself in it for a while...read everything you can find...watch videos...think about it all day. Success will come your way inevitably.

Work hard on All Day Awareness (ADA) practice and make sure that you enjoy the process.

Hello!

You shouldn't be afraid of the SP nothing to be afraid of nothing bad will happen. Enjoy and have fun with all the weird stuff that can happen when you are trying to hold onto awareness instead. Sometimes dreams can be scary when you're not lucid, because you don't know it's a dream. But there is no reason to fear them when you do know it. I've faced a lot of would be horrifying situations while lucid and it's easy and fun, not dangerous. If it was dangerous, I'd be injured or dead many times over by now. I've become a bit of a dream masochist, because I find it fun playing with the indestructibility of my dreaming self. And get a sort of satisfaction, in showing it to any kind of would be danger/attackers in my dreams.

I even once let Freddy Krueger try to blow my head off with some crazy dreamer killing shot gun he had. He claimed he had the power to kill me even though I knew I was dreaming. I didn't fall for it, I Just put the barrel in my mouth and told him to go ahead and try it. The dream was actually terrifying until I became lucid, that particular lucid was anxiety induced. I was in a horrific nightmare land ruled by the Freddy entity. My fear reached a point where I couldn't take it, then lucidity washed over me and all fear immediately vanished because I knew then what was going on, and it was time to play, not fear.

Hey lenscaper! Thanks for sharing your technique, and if the ones I am using now won't work I'll be sure to try that one out as well!

Caradon, thank you for your answer, and I hope I won't be scared of SP. I read some things about it, and I heard that all I gotta do is just relax, and it's not even scary.

I wish you all the luck with your LDs guys!

Hey Ragdoll14, welcome to Dreamviews! It is good to stay motivated, and being part of a forum like this one can aid in sustaining motivation. As far as induction techniques go, I started with MILD in December and it has paid off decently well for me. I am now thinking of trying out FILD. I have read that it is a good idea to stick with each induction method in the beginning for at least several weeks so you develop a sense for that induction method. Maybe do some reading about all the different ones to get a feel for which one will work the best specifically with you. SP is usually rare anyway, even while inducing LDs, but I agree with Caradon. It doesn't have to be scary, and if you know what's going on, you can enter a dream through it or at least enjoy the hallucinations.

Like lenscaper suggests, immersing yourself in this subject will help in developing your LD abilities. I'd also like to suggest reading a book on it. Stephen Laberge's Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming is a great one held in high regard.

Best of luck to you!

You might want to check out this link:

https://boris.unibe.ch/39251/1/21_Lu...23_revised.pdf

It reviews the scholarly articles for induction methods and rates them. According to the article, the method with the most success is the Tholey Combined Method. You can find the paper referenced in that paper at https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10....s.1983.57.1.79. It can be purchased for $36. I bought it, and it has helped me to understand why I had early success and then failed to achieve another LD after my first one.

I bought the paper yesterday and started implementing some of the stuff in it last night and had my second LD! I'm targeting 10 - 20 LDs over the next month and then I'm going to write up why I failed after having early success. I've read a LOT on LD and the Tholey paper was very useful to me.

Anyway, my newbie two cents for you.

Originally Posted by Tetmohawk

You might want to check out this link:

https://boris.unibe.ch/39251/1/21_Lu...23_revised.pdf

Great document, Tetmohawk! Thanks for posting.

That Foley's Combined Method (Section 3.4.5) is pretty much what I have been working toward in my hit or miss fashion through experimentation. This really drills down on that and will be very helpful.

Reflection
Intention
Auto-suggestion

The second part (Intention) seems to get really effective after you have started having lucid events. Recreating those vivid events mentally as I fall asleep for the night really sets the table for lucidity.

It's so good to see real data being gathered on what we already know really works, right?

Originally Posted by lenscaper

Great document, Tetmohawk! Thanks for posting.

That Foley's Combined Method (Section 3.4.5) is pretty much what I have been working toward in my hit or miss fashion through experimentation. This really drills down on that and will be very helpful.

Reflection
Intention
Auto-suggestion

The second part (Intention) seems to get really effective after you have started having lucid events. Recreating those vivid events mentally as I fall asleep for the night really sets the table for lucidity.

It's so good to see real data being gathered on what we already know really works, right?

I think that paper is ten years old now, so there might be others that are able to provide more accurate measurements. Although, I would think that experienced LDers (is that a good word?) like yourself probably have a good sense of what really works and what doesn't. The actual Tholey paper was very useful to me yesterday and I'm going to focus my efforts on that method. There's lot more to the paper than just the combined method. Really a good read.

Originally Posted by Tetmohawk

There's lot more to the paper than just the combined method. Really a good read.

Yes...I read the entire paper......excellent read.

Once folks start getting comfortable with the principles behind all of the various LD induction techniques and gaining confidence in them I think they start to develop personalized approaches to induction that combine the more formal techniques into something that fits into their lives best. That is pretty much where I have been heading.

It's good for a beginner like Ragdoll14 to see something like this to know that there is data behind what we are doing.

Originally Posted by Tetmohawk

You might want to check out this link:

https://boris.unibe.ch/39251/1/21_Lu...23_revised.pdf

It reviews the scholarly articles for induction methods and rates them. According to the article, the method with the most success is the Tholey Combined Method. You can find the paper referenced in that paper at https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10....s.1983.57.1.79. It can be purchased for $36. I bought it, and it has helped me to understand why I had early success and then failed to achieve another LD after my first one.

I bought the paper yesterday and started implementing some of the stuff in it last night and had my second LD! I'm targeting 10 - 20 LDs over the next month and then I'm going to write up why I failed after having early success. I've read a LOT on LD and the Tholey paper was very useful to me.

Hey, thanks for the link to these. I'm really enjoying it so far. I'm trying to get Tholey's paper as well.

Welcome to the forum!

Ragdoll,

For me to get good at lucid dreaming, I recommend to go hard on your dream journal if you havent already. A dream journal will help you with any technique. But, for me to get at a level where I could lucid dream every night, I literally had to become obsessed with Lucid dreaming. I did ADA and RCs to the point where it was mentally exhausting me and affecting other aspects of my life. After having good dream recall, I was able to DEILD. After I was able to DEILD, I learned how to WILD. Between DEILDs and WILDs, I would have DILDs here and there. I racked up atleast 60 lucids in two and half months. But, the moment I stopped my dream journal and ADA and RCs, Ive had less than 10 lucids in 7 years. I just started my dream journal again and ready to start up the process again.