SSILD (2.0) Tutorial

I tried this last night but it didn’t work, after rereading this post again I think I know what I did wrong, I’ll try it again tonight and post my results. Wish me luck guys! :smile:

Hi folks,
I’m still refining my SILD technique so I have a few questions. When I was first doing this technique,on the slow cycles, I would focus attention on my senses for a few secs and then just let my mind wander. When I realized it was wandering, i still wouldn’t focus on the senses but just let it wander again until i thought i had spent enough time on one step. Since it wandered for a while(15-20 secs), 1 step might take over 2 mins. I did this because I thought it might be easier to drift off if i didnt focus too much on senses.
Now, I’ve noticed even if I pay full attention to the senses, I still drift off but only for a few secs(not 15-20) before my mind snaps back to attention on the senses. Is this the better way to do SSILD? By the way, when I tested it out this way I was fully awake in the afternoon so chances are I’ll drift off more when I do my WBTB…All I’m asking is how much do we focus on senses in SSILD…

I don’t think it’s a better way. How I understand it, the idea is to train your mind not to wander and instead focus on the senses. Then you’ll more likely focus in your dreams and hopefully be more aware of your state overall. In SSILD you focus on senses and after a complete routine you fall asleep quickly. In WILD however, it’s maybe good to focus on those wandering thoughts.

You may have misunderstood my post. I wasn’t saying I wanted to focus on the thoughts. In both methods I mentioned, I just let the thoughts run until I realized I had lost focus. Then, in the first way, I cleared my mind to let in wander again while in the second way I refocused on the senses. Also, in the second way I only lost focus for a few seconds before snapping back while the first way i might lose focus for around 20 secs. But my only test of the second way was done while fully awake this afternoon and my mind might wander more after I am sleepy from WBTB. So, rather than wasting your time I’ll try this tonight, see what happens for a couple days and get back to you. Thanks for responding…

May have had an FA last night but not sure since i dont recall “waking up” in my dream…but that could be an issue of dream recall…dreamt i was in bed in my room and my mom came in to turn off the A/C

Actually, the only reason i think it was an FA was that it only lasted a few seconds while my normal dreams last a few mins at least

Wait, now I’m really sure cos I just checked with my Mom and she says she DID come into my room to ask if I wanted the A/C turned off. This could be a case of dream/reality confusion while sleeping.

Merged the 3 posts together. Please remember that you are able to edit your post to add more information/comments :moogle:

Hi all,

I’m not sure if this thread is still going, or indeed if Cosmic Iron still monitors it. But i’ve been trying this tech for about a week now and all its given me is a headache. Im quite new to LD, but when I use this tech I do not seem t have any more awareness and i wake up with a headache. :sad:

I generally perform the steps as instructed

  1. focus on eyes
  2. focus on hearing
  3. focus on touch

I feel myself losing focus and snapping back exactly as other people describe. I have a normal dream, record it in my DJ as normal. I don;t feel any increased awareness.

Am I doing anything wrong?

Well, I´ve been using SSILD for 4 days and see no results :sad:

Altought I had SP 1 or 2 times.

Shouldnt I expect results faster?

Also, the problem with SSILD (in fact I have problems with LD) is that I fall asleep when doing the cycles! What am I doing wrong?

First of all thanks for the technique i needed something simple as i get distracted very easily and SSILD worked for me the first time i tried (i have to test it in the long run to be sure…)
I went to sleep before 11pm,set the alarm to wake me up after 5 hours,i dind’t get up beacuse i’m lazy,did the cycles then i fell asleep and experienced the most realistic PA, i was in my bedroom after getting out of bed i spontaneously did a reality check(nothing seemed out of place) i tried to float and there i was flying across the room,i tried not to get too excited and started to stabilize the dream by touching the objects around feeling their texture.

after i got lucid a dream character looked really angry like insane ‘i just got out of the asylum’, kind of angry pulled a gun at me and told me “you were not supposed to find out” … :woo:
So in the end i made a part of my subconscious really angry but it worked,i think staying calm and not expecting anything are two big factors with this technique.

I think I may have had a FA from SSILD, but I was too stupid to notice it. Any tips?

“What happened to SSILDD?” could have been left as a new topic, BUT merging it to the tutorial will result in notification emails being sent to anyone following the topic and thus getting a reply from the original poster. :moogle:

After one month of WBTB combined with MILD, more than a hundred recorded dreams and no lucidity I decided to try SSILD. On the second night I had a solid LD, so I looked around for more posts about this technique. It looks as if the whole thing sort of vanished after january 2014. Cosmiciron seems lost in (Chinese?) space somewhere, and very few comments and experiences were published after january 2014. Yet, he wrote: “Another exciting aspect is SSILD’s long-term sustainability. Whereas many techniques appear to become less effective over period as the users’ initial enthusiasm wane, SSILD delivers consistent performance, turning novices to experts, and experts to masters.”…quite some claim!
Does anybody know what happened? :confused:
Yundrung

Diverse mixture of these techniques you are willing to share them on this forum.Thank you beforehand.

I just tried the SSILD technique, as I felt sleepy in the morning and had some free time.

I’ve had one LD before with WILD, and have tried to repeat it without success. After following the descriptions for SSILD, I had other dreams than usual. I had more confusing dreams, where I had moments where I wondered if I’d been awake, possible FA. I think I even got a clue about getting lucid, when my daughter was upset and said: “You’re so … awake in your life.”

I will certainly try this technique again, as it was not hard to do.

Could someone interpret, what Cosmic.Iron meant in this interview with Alexander Jamie?
(lucidability.com/ssild-technique/)

Especially in this passage:

If you could go back to the start would you do anything differently?

Yes. I’d not have wasted so much time with many of the traditional methods such as building awareness during the day, non-stop reflections and autosuggestions, and so on. These, in my opinion, are based on many false assumptions. I hope one day more people will realize this. As of now there is simply too much misleading information on the market and they are bad news for beginners.

Does it mean, that critical awareness is not helpfull, when you do SSILD neither you make the technique true nor false. Do RCs after awakening only matter? And the rest of the day you can quiet “sleepwalk” if you manage SSILD optimally?

My question even belongs to the comment of SpiritualSeeker´s daughter in his dream, doesn´t it?

I found the ssild method two days ago and tried it. On the first night I had a vivid false awakening, I looked at the curtains and there was a game cartridge stuck to them. I was like wtf and then I roll out of my body.
This is like an automatic response I have. I stand up and look back at my bed and see myself sleeping, I see myself turn over. I feel the wall and it feels solid, I can’t put my hand through it. My vision starts fading and it feels like one of my eyes is stuck shut. I demand clarity now but it doesn’t help. Things start getting weird in the room,my bed has changed position and my body is in a weird contorted position. I think to myself I need to get out of here. I have a feeling the experience is breaking down. I dive through the bedroom door and land the other side of it. I turn and look to see the door is open. I wake up in bed and write it in my dream diary.

So I have tried this today.

I am back from a hiatus (as far as forums are concerned), either way…

I read all about the cycles, set up an alarm clock to wake me up 4 hours in. As I was falling asleep, the first time around, I just repeated some reinforcing manthra.

I wake up not long afterwards. I check the time, it’s 5:36 am. Damn. Overslept the alarm clock. Like… by a lot… But something isn’t right. I mean, I just went to bed… how is it possible I overslept so much?

I check my phone again. Sure enough, 5:37. Damnit. Oh well, time to get out of bed, despite my gut feeling telling me something is waaaayy off.

Sure it was, I realized it by the time I woke up the second time only to find it’s 11:36pm the previous day. FA’s suck.

Aww. Oversleeping is a classic dreamsign!

Maybe you will be more aware of your gut feeling the next time :cool:

I just tried SSILD for the first time this week.

I went to bed around midnight, woke up at 3:40 because of the heavy rain making a huge noise, I ran outside to get my clothes off the window. After 5 Minutes I went back to bed and thought It was actually the perfect time to try.
I started to do the different cycles and felt asleep once I was done.

==> Long LD for the first try with this technique, I will try again later.

I described SSILD to a coworker today, mostly as a relaxation technique, because she has trouble falling asleep in time. A lucid dream for her would be a bonus. Her reply was “That sounds exhausting!”

Isn’t that the point? I especially find it hard to stay awake and focused through the sight phase. I haven’t used it much myself for lucid dreaming, because it interferes with the visualisation technique I usually use, but it works quite well for falling asleep.

The night before last, I tried to use SSILD. I woke up at 3:30, stayed up 10 minutes, then got back into bed and closed my eyes. I started a cycle, but my mind got distracted fast because my thoughts were everywhere at once. I couldn’t even get through a single cycle without being interrupted. Eventually, my mind slipped and I woke up the next morning with no lucid dreams.

Last night was very different. I stayed up for only 5 minutes, so I was more sleepy when I got into bed. I did the warm-up cycles to get into the flow, and I was relaxed enough to concentrate on my senses. I slipped into a dream. In that dream, my eyes were closed. I heard nothing, saw nothing, and yet I knew immediately became lucid. I got out of bed (since I expected myself to be in my bedroom). But after that, I lost lucidity, unfortunately.

It seems like I’m making progress at least, so thanks!

Great technique.
I tried this last night and had a LD. It was excited.
I’m going to use this technique more.

Thank you!