How to Choose Your Technique

Hey there,

Wow, thats a really helpful topic. I dont know whether someone asked this already, but doesnt the time that you need to fall asleep actually depend on your ability to calm your thoughts?

I’ve made the experience that when I expect certain things to happen (i.e. HI) or keep pondering about certain things I fall asleep very slowly but when I keep visualizing something or watch my breath I can fall asleep in 10 minutes. Is that just an illusion? Because it sounded to me when I read the first post that your either born a “fast time fall asleep” or the other way round?

Thanks already :smile:

Nick

Ive seen this topic before, but never really followed it…

Ive just had a look now and its true… im highly motivated but a slow sleeper, and the techniquw that gives me the best results is MILD. =D
Good one :wink:

I dont think that you are born as a slow or fast sleeper. When I was young I was very energetic most of the time and it was hard for me to get to seep fast, sometime i hardly managed to sleep at all ^^

baut years later, when I was about 16 oder 17 years old, I suddenly managed to fall asleep very quickly, without trying to change anything about my way of sleeping. It was like my inner attitude towards going to sleep has changed… Nowaday i find it hard to keep my mind awake, lets say for a WILD :wink:

Thank You! :smile: :smile:
that is an awesome guide

I’ve been dreaming for about 200 days plus and only had 4 lucid dreams
I’ve been drawing a symbol on my hand to go lucid
am I on the right track?

:wave: welcome to the forum thebotanist
well since you have had 4 LDs, you are on the right track.
Are you doing anything else to induce lucidity? Just waking up in the night and telling yourself you WILL know you are dreaming can make a big difference.

what would count as a long time to fall asleep? 30 minutes or more?

I think you have to use your own judgement … for me quickly falling asleep would be a guaranteed 30 mins or less every night. If it often takes more than half an hour then WILD probably isn’t for you except for when you are very tired at the time.

oh okay. sometimes it does take me a while to fall asleep, but going on my best guess i think 20 minutes would be a max for me, probably averaging 10 minutes.

thanks!

I am highly motivated and take long time to fall asleep.
I usually don’t wake up very early, so I use my alarm clock. How much sleep should I get before waking up? Around 5 hours?

I’ve never had a LD before, and have only attempted twice so far: the first time, yesterday night, I tried WBTB + WILD, but after 40+ minutes without SP I gave up.
In the second attempt, last night, I tried -hagart-'s FILD, but I wasn’t tired enough (even though I think I fell asleep once, lol).

Tonight I will try WBTB + MILD :smile:

Yeah if you are highly motivated and take a long time to fall asleep, WBTB + MILD will be a good one to do

Probably try wake up after either 4.5 hours or 6 hours as sleep cycles last about 1.5 hours. I dont use an alarm clock, I just tell myself before I sleep that I will wake up and it usually works, you can start off using the alarm but if you are doing WBTB every night you probably wont need your alarm after a couple nights

I just hope I will be tired enough. If I go to bed at 12 pm (00:00) and wake up at 6 am, then I’m tired, but if I wake up at 5 am, I’m not.
I don’t think I have ever set my alarm at 4 am, but I’m not sure if I will be tired enough after 4.5 hours of sleep.

Also, will I have to stay awake for an hour before attempting MILD, or can I do it instantly after I have woken up?

I think its supposed to be more effective if you stay awake for an hour or so, I usually try stay up for an hour or a bit longer and it works pretty well, I also take a long time to fall asleep, but this is good for MILD because is means you can go over your intentions for longer till you fall asleep so you may have a better chance of remembering them in your dreams. But everyones different so the best thing to do is to experiment, try different times and see what works best for you.

It didn’t go as expected.

I woke up (unintentionally) at 3:45 am, so I did the RC with the nose, and I could breathe!.. Unfortunately, I was so tired that I had forgotten to pinch my nose first, but I realized that a second later and tried again. I was not dreaming.
I thought to myself “I will know that I’m dreaming” while trying to fall asleep again.
I woke up again at around 9 am, but I was not dreaming now either.

Of all nights I could wake up by myself, it has to be when I plan on doing a WBTB.
Well well, I’ll try again tonight :smile:

This time I woke up around 3 am again…

I think my brain hates me :tongue:

Any tips?

This guide is very helpful! With so many techniques out there, and people being so different in their sleeping behavior, this can surely be of use - and spark some confidence - in many. Over the last few months I have been using MILD, trying to regain lucidity, so to speak (I could do it all the time when I was a child, but hardly ever since then). It’s only recently that I got into a normal sleep cycle and could do some serious trying. Last night it actually did work! I was in an arctic environment, fell into a river and began to float downstream, then suddenly realized the water wasn’t cold at all. Previously (as seems common), things like these have never worked as triggers for me, but this time I didn’t even have to do a RC. Could this be a result of my MILD practice?

Yeah, it probably is. Last night I got a lucid dream using MILD where I didn’t do a RC until after I became lucid to confirm it. The dream started out with my two cats running away. (Not surprising to dream about, they are indoor cats and got out that night. Thankfully they came back. :smile: ) I looked around for a bit then got on my deck with my family and I looked in my basement window and Ronald McDonald was standing in my basement so I started to shout to the DCs, “Hey it’s Ronald McDonald! What’s he doing here?” I noticed that that was a bit odd and random so I realized it was a dream.

Its seems a very good guide. I will try it with my category (fast asleep-moderate motivation) ,ie, both of the last two.
One thing I want to ask about reality check. How long 1 reality check should continue? Say I am doing a reality check like this-" am I dreaming now?" and I jump 2-3 times to check that. Will that do or I have to pursue the check for a few more minutes? I do reality checks over 15 times a day but the checks are of short durations.
Thanks to all of you…

Thanks for this guide, it helps! I think I fall under the slow sleeper/high motivation group. I have an alarm clock, but I don’t want to bother my family by making them get up that early, is there any other way to wake up automatically? Another thing, I’m not sure if I’m doing the tech’s right; Based on my understanding MILD is basically where you tell your body your going to have a lucid dream. Do you keep on doing that right when you get in bed, or do you use MILD when you are on the verge of falling asleep? And WILD is where you stay awake consciously, but you fall asleep physically. Again, do you do this right when you climb in bed, or when you are really tired? Thanks for all the help! :cool: