[deleted]    

SSILD?

I also agree. The more we learn about lucid dreaming, the less effort we find we need to exert to achieve it.  

I don't think he meant reallity checks,I mean his method is great but you still ned to do RCs for it to work.  

Thanks, and now I feel like an idiot because I've done that method before lol  

[Link to the interview, for those interested.](https://www.reddit.com/r/LucidDreaming/comments/193niv/an_interview_with_the_creator_of_the_ssild/?ref=search_posts)  

If only,I feel someone like him could really help us.  

I had a less positive experience with him (the main author of SSILD), so I cringe a little every time I see something from him.  But, I really shouldn't, that was over 3 years ago... besides, I personally think SSILD is a good technique for a novice to start with.

To shed a little light on what he may consider 'flawed', this is a from post he made on LD4all:
>While teaching lucid dreaming to novices I realize that many popular methods share a fundamental problem.  That is, they all require too much finesse.  For example, the typical WILD techniques require proper relaxation which by itself is a difficult subject.  Another example is affirmation -- how do you do affirmation effectively?  We all know that simply chanting mantras will not do the trick.  Same goes for visualization, breathing, and the list just goes on and on.

When he revised his tutorial in 2013, he also posted this:
>SSILD is designed from the ground up to be simple, "idiot-proof" even. It does not utilize advanced techniques such as relaxation and visualization, and stays away from delicate, non-measurable mental exercises. It despises the notion that lucid dreaming is more "art" than "technique".

I can understand why one might criticize WILD being attempted by novices, but there is a correct way to do affirmations and visualizations and that can be taught.  Additionally, he sounds as though he doesn't like that certain things need to be custom tailored to fit different people.  

In short, I'm inclined to suspect he's just further pushing his technique.  "Traditional" methods aren't flawed, he just helped develop a method that he believes is far superior.  

Yeah, that "simple, idiot-proof" claim is pure BS.    The remark about relaxation is ridiculous.  The first bunch of times I tried SSILD I was wired wide awake with insomnia.   In order for SSILD not to cause insomnia for people like me (and there are a lot), you have to work in relaxation to the cycles.  That he doesn't address this at all and in fact gets it wrong shows that he doesn't have much experience helping "tens of thousands" of people like he claims.  

he goes by cosmiciron, so I guess on reddit it's /u/cosmiciron  

What he described under "The "Cycle" is literally what mindfulness is.  

>These, **in my opinion**, are based on many false assumptions.

This is just the dudes opinion. He has no solid evidence so back up this claim. You wanna quote people, quote people like Dr. Stephen LaBerge who actually do research on lucid dreaming and show scientifically which methods work or do not.

Also about SSILD,  what he describes under "The Cycle" is literally what mindfulness is, it's nothing new.

Increasing awareness is VERY important for lucid dreaming. And mindfulness increases awareness. So even when you practice SSILD, you are still increasing your awareness which definitely contributes to better and more often lucid dreaming experiences.  

Saying building awareness is based on false assumptions is a false statement.  

Creator? Seriously?:)  

Can't really provide a source, people I met on a forum and we talked for a long time on skype. They were banned from the forum and their messages deleted after some time.  

I mean, I don't doubt they ever had lucid dreams, but they were very egotistic and claimed to do all sorts of things in their lucid dreams without any boundaries. They had lied about other things unrelated to lucid dreams and all they cared about was to preach about SSILD and draw attention to themselves. That was the first time I heard about SSILD was through that person so that kind of makes me biased. I did try the technique and found it to help a little bit with dream recall, but never had any lucid dream success compared to techniques like FILD or MILD  

If there is any lucid dream technique that has worked for me the most, it is simply being patient and setting an intention every night to lucid dream. If you think about it enough, you will become lucid more often.  

I have a question about the Touch part of the Cycle in SSILDing. When he says feel a part of your body or feel the weight of a blanket etc , does he mean physically move around and feel your body? Or does he mean think about the feeling of your body and analyze everything in your mind?  

On an average two lucid dreams per week (SSILD or FILD). I learned about SSILD about three months ago and use it on a regular basis since then. In general I started lucid dreaming with FILD which is a wonderful technique, too, but it requires a fine act of balance. SSILD was a later discovery.  

Almost the same amount of attempts as SSILD always worked so far, and FILD almost always. On the other hand I'm so miserable with DILDs. I barely experience them, at the very most when I have nightmares (which is rarely the case... fortunately). What would you say is the key for DILDs?  

Awareness work will be what I'm missing then. Enhanced vividness in regular dreams sounds like a rewarding side effect. How does your awareness work look like? Do you meditate, or do you just try to be mindful all day through?  

I don't come to Reddit very often. In fact the last time I came here was probably more than 2 years ago. Anyway, I saw that my name was mentioned so I came to take a look. Kinda surprised by the negative and almost hostile posts directed at me and the technique. Let me take the opportunity to clarify this -- I wrote about the technique with the sole intention to help people. I do not have any commercial interest, and I didn't even promote the technique much -- there is precisely ONE post on DreamView, that's all. SSILD is NOT a propaganda.

Moreover, you may doubt SSILD's effectiveness, but you shouldn't dismiss the fact that there are MANY documented successes all over the internet. On Baidu's lucid dreaming forum alone there are thousands if not more of such documented cases. In fact, one of guys alone documented more than 500 LDs, all induced by SSILD, within a year. They are NOT phony.

Back to the original question -- what did I mean in my comment "in my opinion, are based on many false assumptions"? Take "awareness" for example. People naturally believe that heightened awareness leads to lucid dreaming. The logic often goes like this -- if one is more aware of the surroundings then it is more likely for her to notice strange things in dreams. Very logical isn't it? Yes, but only if dreams are no different from our realities.

I'm sure we all had dreams in which we are more like puppets, with different personality and identity. What we say and do in these dreams are totally different from what we would during the day, almost like we are acting on a script. Under such circumstances our "heightened awareness" will help very little, right?

Let's keep in mind -- dreams are very different from realities in their causes, appearances, behaviors, and rules. What works in reality may not work in dreams. This is just like you can't really learn how to swim on lands, isn't it? Unfortunately a lot of the traditional methods are very much like swimming on lands. They naively disregard the differences between dreams and realities, and insists on spending lots of time and effort to hone those "skills".

I don't feel like being elaborate here and due to my past experiences whenever I touch this area I inevitably got flamed by people, many of whom with very limited to no actual lucid dreaming experience. I do hope though some day people will see though the many hypes and myths. To truly experience the wonders of human consciousness one needs to be able to induce altered states of consciousness at considerable higher rate offered by traditional methods. In that case, defending them will do us little good. I admit SSILD is far from good enough, but at least I tried.