While brainstorm-meditating today, I came up with 2 decent ideas for DILDing. One is based on increasing awareness, and the other one in preparing the mind to expect a dream. Not much to introduct, I'll go to the techniques themselves.
Continuous state testing
"What am I doing?"
This is a variation of DILDing by Reality Checking. It consists of, whenever you remember it, ask yourself what you are doing, and work out the response. This is a way to have a conscious insight when we're doing something semi-uncosciously, such as reading.
When we read, for instance, we mostly forget everything else, and focus only on the subject we're reading about. The same happens when we watch a movie, when we drive soon after getting our license, and many other situations. In those, you simply forget where, when or what you are, only to focus on what you need to.
With this technique, the aim is to, whenever we remember it, ask ourselves: "What am I doing?" and answering it correctly. For instance, now your answer would be "I'm reading a topic a Dreamviews forum".
By applying this to situations when we are less conscious, we stimulate our own awareness of our surroundings, and increase consciousness. Of course, this will have a positive outcome on Lucid Dreaming.
In order to apply this technique mainly to lucid dreaming, we must analyse our answer to the question proposed. If we find anything suspiscious about it, we do a Reality Check.
One may ask me "why not simply do a Reality Check then?" The answer is simple: this technique aims to train the dreamer to work out if he/she is dreaming or not, without the need for a Reality Check. Basically, the Reality Check is just to make sure. Once used to recognising dreams and reality, oneshouldn't need to Really Check after answering the question anymore.
Two examples follow; one ocurring in reality, and one in a dream:
What am I doing?
Watching Oprah Winfrey on TV, as I always do on mondays.
Today really is monday, so there's nothing wrong about this.
What am I doing?
Playing Mario on my videogame, as I do when I'm bored.
But I've never seen this stage before, something's wrong about it.
Finally, this is not a failproof technique: it is subject to variations of mindset and rationalization. But I'm pretty sure it works.
Mind preparation technique
"From now on, everything I see or hear will be a dream.."
This technique may sound simple, but if it's simple you're not doing it correctly.
What follows is an illustrative example, which I'll use as an allusion to lucid dreaming.
Quote:
I decide to watch a horror film on TV. It's actually a big deal to me; that kind of film usually gets me really uncomfortable. But for some reason I'm watching it.
In the film, Mr. Evil Guy hunts blond ladies. Oh noes, I'm a blond lady. He is gonna eat me alive. I get so scared that I shelter my eyes with my hands.
After the film ends, I'm still scared, and afraid to do anything alone. Only slowly I leave fear behind. "It's only a film, after all. A film someone made up, it's not real".
The film had to actually end, for the watcher to realise it was all a film, not something real. That is exactly the same with non-lucid dreams. We only realise what we saw was a dream after we wake up.
In normal DILDs, our aim is to realise we are dreaming. We are supposed to notice that "It's only a film, after all." Something unreal happening in our minds. It usually involves finding key factors that trigger this thought (Dream signs).
In the example I gave, it is just like telling yourself that "it is only a film" whenever you see a horror scene. In this case, horror scenes are your dream signs, and telling yourself that it's only a film is becoming lucid.
What my technique proposes is to prepare the mind to expect a dream, before you sleep. It is just like, before watchign the horror film, telling yourself that everything you see will be only a film, something unreal.
By telling this to yourself everynight, your mind gets used to when to expect a dream. We usually dream unconsciously because dreams happen and we don't question their coherence. But, by telling yourself ""From now on, everything I see or hear will be a dream" will easily prepare your mind to recognise dream signs.
It is just like being suspiscious about your friend Bob being gay. When he finally tells everyone he's gay, you say "I knew it", but of course you weren't completely sure of it before.
This technique aims to get your mind "suspiscious" when you get to sleep, thus preparing it to realise you are dreaming.
Finally, when you wake up, you do a Reality Check and confirm tha tyou are awake. Then you tell yourself "Okay, I'm awake, from now on everything I see is real".
You will know you actually got this technique into your mind when, the first thing you do when you wake up is to Reality Check.
I'm not gonna write specific steps to this techinque: it's well explained and you should be able to create your own steps.
And yes, I'm aware that it is somehow similar to MILD: the purpose is the same (prepare the mind to expect a dream), but the means are different.
MILD works with intention, and this technique works with awareness.
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Feedback, reports and critisism are always welcome.
Wolf hugs,
