First DEILD! Thanks DV!

I had my first ever planned lucid dream last night! I’ve had a bit of experience with DILDs but have never been able to get WILDs or DEILDS to work after about a month of pretty persistent practice. Most of my failures have been due to losing consciousness before falling asleep, or having difficulty getting to sleep and giving up after a while.

So I set an alarm to go off for 20 seconds before turning off automatically about 5 hours after going to sleep, I managed to stay completely still for the entire duration of the alarm. The 20 seconds of ringing was long enough to wake me up enough to remember what I had to do and within 5 seconds of the alarm turning off I felt the “lead blanket” feeling come over my body. As mild vibrations kicked in I imagined I was standing in the blackness behind my eyelids and holding the handle of door that wasn’t visible in the dark. I visualised swooshing the door open and after a couple of swings I was surprised at how incredibly real it sounded, I could feel the wind moving from when I jerked the door open, hear the hinges creak and echo every time I forcefully shoved the door open and closed, even my hair moving from the wind it displaced with each movement. I guess I started visualising things and my subconscious filled in the blanks after a while. I moved on to how the cold metal handle would feel and the smell of the timber it was made from, then on how it should look. Soon I was standing in front of a fancy burgundy painted door with a big brass doorknob in the centre. I stood there slamming the door open and closed a few more times and eventually upon opening it a dream “spilled” out from behind it and I was standing in my grandparents’ house! I think where I was going wrong in the past was putting too much emphasis on the "visual" aspect of visualisation and concentrating on the physical sensations of my body.

This has been a goal of mine for a long time so thanks for the help and motivation everyone! I’m going to try technique again tonight to see if I'm onto something that works consistently for me, hopefully this helps out someone having the same difficulties as me!

Congratulations for your achievement!
The most important thing for me, is that once you learn how it works, it's not that difficult the following times whenever they happen..

Congrats on first DEILD! :thumbup:
And good luck! :)

*Moved to Lucid Experiences*

Tried it again lastnight and managed to have another DEILD but I think it could have just been a fluke lol, I blacked out after my alarm shut off but was lucid as soon as soon as the dream began. Met my first bizzare DC too, I walked into a hotel room trying to summon a friend but inside there was an x-box box sitting on a stool at a computer with a girl's head and two arms poking out of holes cut in the top. I burst out laughing as soon as I saw her typing at the computer as if it was totally normal. Let's see if I got for 3/3 tonight!

Not a fluke. That's what Box77 was saying: once you've done it, it gets easier.

And you hit the nail on the head by saying that you had been focusing too much on the physical sensations of your body. You have to slowly forget your physical body and transition into your dreaming form. And that's exactly what you managed to do. Congratulations!

... and many mooooooore! :)