Tips on techniques

Hi dreamers,

Yesterday was my first attempt at MILD/WILD the first thing I did was tell myself that when I began to dream I would realise that I was dreaming. Though that might be auto suggestion ? After that I decided that for fun I would try abit of WILD. The technique I tried was going down steps from 100, but I found this very difficult to keep concentrated on going down steps, the details of them and counted floors all at the same time. I guess I just got kinda bored.

You see, I’m the kind of person that can’t sleep if i’m thinking about anything at all. What I was wondering is does your body have to be very tired, i.e having done alot of physical excercise though that day ?
I say this because when I am thinking I just keep on thinking and thinking and thinking, my body stays just as awake as my mind.
I tried shifting my attention and after awhile it began to do it on it’s own, I started to have flashes of images and thoughts. For example I remember seeing an Orca, then a second later something about rally driving. Though I wasn’t intending to think about these things.

I also tried looking for coloured spots, but I couldn’t see any spots at first, after awhile though different patches of colour started to appear and I could change their colour on command. Then after that waves of white/blue started to appear in rings, starting from the edge of my eyes and heading for the center. The trouble was that while I was trying to look at this stuff, my eyes hurt and they kept opening a little.

Is there any WILD technique that someone can think of that I could use successfully ? Though I realise that I should probably get to grips with the other stuff before I try WILD.

Now onto MILD, I’m confused about the difference between MILD and autosuggestion, they both look like the same thing to me. Apart from one is a command and the other is a suggestion. In my previous Lucid dreams I have always been sparked by some very weird thing that I know just doesn’t happen in real life. One example is that a road I used to travel everyday to school now had a train running though the middle, I think that is what sparked me into realisation. Is there any specific MILD technique that I would be able to use without saying or thinking it constantly before I go to sleep ? Because then I just don’t get any sleep. :content:

From today, I’ve decided to do regular reality checks. The most prominent is the watch check, I always wear my watch, even when I’m sleeping so logically I would still have it on in a dream.

How many reality checks should I do in the day before it becomes habit enough for me to do it in a dream ?

Also, what should I be thinking when I’m doing these checks ?
How I imagine it is that everytime you genuinely have to believe that you are going to see or be able to do something impossible in everyday life. This, I can do but when I’m awake my logical brain tells me the answer before I do it, I don’t think this will change unless LDing changes it so I have to check.

Sorry if this is a rather jumbled post with vaque questions here and there.

P.S I have started a dream Diary and I already have some really vivid recollections, my favourite so far is a particular dream about a brunnette. You really do have a detailed sense of touch in a dream :wink:

Hi Xenteko !
I’ll try to answer to you.

Yes, it is. Most of DILDers repeat such a sentence, for instance they mix it with counting : “1 This night, I will realise I’m dreaming. 2 this night, etc.”

If you can’t sleep when thinking about something, the counting method in WILD will be a problem ! :smile:
Then I read that you tried the alternative WILD method which consist in focusing on phosphenes (coloured dots and patches of coulour you saw) and HI (flashes of images you saw too). Good idea ! Thus, you don’t think. But I don’t understand why your eyes began to hurt. :confused: What were you doing with them ?

If you definitely have problem with your eyes, you can focus on acouphenes (sounds in your ears) or something you hold in your hand.

I don’t know.

Some people have immediatly good results with WILD, some don’t. For instance, I can’t WILD. :sad: (*)
So I can’t help you with that stuff… :shy:
It’s a good thing you try to DILD/MILD too. Perhaps it will be easier for you. But what you related about your WILD experiment makes me think that you have good gifts with this technique too.

Stephen Laberge says it becomes very efficient when you perform at least 5 RC’s per day.
I disagree with LDers who give the advice to make thousands of RCs a day. The most important when you perform a RC is to deeply ask yourself if you’re dreaming or not, and imagine strongly before you perform it that your RC will work. As you have to fully realize that you could be dreaming, when you perform too much RCs, it tends to be mechanical and I don’t think it’s a good thing.

Phew ! I believe I answered to all your questions. :wink:
Have good lucid dreams !

i I have to take lessons with Bendrummin58, who learned to WILD in a few days ! :wink: [/i]

Hehe, thanks for clearing up those questions. :smile:

I had alot of trouble getting to sleep last night, I just couldn’t shut my brain up thinking about stuff!

Plus, I just couldn’t seem to consentrate on WILD, other things just kept popping up into my head and ruining it. . . :sad:

I did a mixture of Lucidity_masters mantra and the persons technique where any prominent thing in your mind you say that next time it happens you will recognise that you are dreaming.

But, I just couldn’t sleep at all. Maybe because I wasn’t tired enough or maybe because I can’t sleep when I’m thinking. So I went downstairs and read a book for awhile, when I came back upstairs I still couldn’t sleep. But I think I managed to shut my head up and dose off.

I woke up later with a few dreams in my head, but decided that I wanted to go back to sleep, which took ages for some reason!

Anyway, when I woke up next I remember a dream very clearly. Most of the dream was a ND but near the end I became Lucid instantly, it was something the demon said that sparked me (more on that later)

Anyway, I think it was because of those MILD excercises and something specific I told myself I would remember.

I’ll post the dream in dream diary section, but it is very, very long. And I just wrote the bits I can remember! It would probably be boring to read, as it’s so long but i’ll post it anyway.

The “thousands” approach has worked well enough for me in the past. For me, the RCs (almost) never gave the wrong result, and when it really becomes a habit you do them quite a lot, including in your dreams.

Icreated WILD technique that I think is very useful for those people who just cant seem to WILD for 1 of 2 reasons- either they cant fall asleep, or they cant focus enough to stay conscious. Here’s the tech: First, before falling asleep at night, do a session of self-hypnosis (auto-suggestion) in which you tell yourself “whenever I wake up tonight, I will remain motionless in the same position, immediately become conscious of myself, and then I will quickly fall into a lucid dream.”
Then, whenever you wake up in the middle of the night hopefully you will do just that.

The first beauty of this technique is that takes no more than a week (at least for me) to develop a habit of staying motionless after waking up. When practicing this you may notice that its a natural tendency to roll over after waking. The second beauty of this tech is how quickly it works. Immediately, as in one second, after waking I get a strange feeling in my body (another thing that takes getting used to) as I head toward sleep paralysis. In this stage I just try to keep calm and remind myself to stay consious as I enter the dream. There are no vibrations, although as I just said, sp takes some getting used to.

One last thing I’d like to say about this tech is how, eventually, it becomes very hard to afterward tell the difference between waking and dreams (during the sleep cycle, not in normal everyday life). Last night I had 3 lucid dreams and I have no idea which ones or how many were WILDs or DILDs. Anyway, I hope you try this- I’m not a natural lucid dreamer and this tech really helped.

Sounds cool, but that whole sentence is abit of a mouthful for me to remember :smile:

Thanks for the advice.

One thing I’d really like to know, but I doubt anyone can properly explain to me is exactly how concentrated on the HI you have to be without being to concentrated. :razz:

I just tend to start seeing a few patterns then I think about something else or concentrate to hard and I go back to square one.
I’d really like to be able to use WILD, as from the sounds of it is the true way to LD at will.

I’ve heard some people describe it as watching a movie or something like that, Try not to become involved with it, physically or emotionally.
wait untill the images start to become scenery and then slowly enter the dream, untill you are sure that you are completly asleep and dreaming.

I have similar experiences with WILD.

It seems like counting up or down and saying the mantra just keeps me awake.

Instead I just think of nothing, and in the back of my mind I just say, I “I will realise I am dreaming” every so often. Just be aware that you are falling asleep, and soon you will feel those vibrations.