主题:Sustainable, Long Term Dild TechniqueHello all. As of now, I've been LDing for a year - doing the typical beginner cycle of quitting and beginning over and over. As of late I've been trying to be more consistent in my efforts. This year I've had about 45 LDs of varying degrees of lucidity. This month I've had 7. Most were low lucidity, though.
My dilemma: obviously this is a lifelong discipline. My current strategy involves a lot of day work and night work. Affirmations, visualizations, mindfulness and the like during the day and during my wbtb sessions (I typically wake 3 times per night naturally).
While I feel this will help and be successful as long as I keep it up, it doesn't seem sustainable. I tend to think about LDing a lot during the day to help induce DILDs. But I can't imagine thinking about LDing all day for the rest of my life. I'm constantly visualizing, being mindful of myself and my state during the day and affirming during the day. I'm trying to get consistent results then back off a little at a time until a balance is struck, but it's hard to know if my techniques are actually working. I mean, I'm getting more LDs than before, so I guess it is working. Though my recent LDs - my last 10 or so - have been lack luster and disappointing. I didn't feel like myself in them. To grade them, they were Cs and Ds.
I'm rambling now. I'm wondering if you veteran LDers have found a good balance between consistent DILD LDs and minimal daytime work. I'm not looking for an "easy way", I just want a sustainable, balanced technique.
Edit: Also I keep a dream journal and recall 4 dreams per night on average. I sleep between 7.5 and 8 hours per night.
If you want a minimal effort technique, you can try hypnosis. Instant Self-Hypnosis by Forbes Blair is a great choice. It clears up all the misconceptions about hypnosis in very straight-forward manner, and offers a script for lucid dreaming. You only have to read it once a day (takes roughly 15 minutes a session) until you start seeing results.
Or you can watch a hypnosis video before bed. Preferably one that's 30 minutes at the most.
I made a post for about 2-3 months ago about subliminal messages, which is suggestions to your subconsiouc.
Well, I was told here, that it won't really do anything. Is it false or true?
It can, but compared to hypnosis, it can take longer before you see any results. You should treat subliminal messages as supplements, not primary induction methods.
You are correct. None of these are sustainable and their effort to result ratio is way too high. In fact most of these DILD techniques are based on false assumptions and have no real value. It's a pity that people won't admit it and keep misleading the beginners with this.
If you want something more sustainable I think you should practice the more on demand methods. Not the typical WILD techniques though. They are also misguided and won't give you good results. IMO, a combination of SSILD and DEILD will give you the most consistent result and once mastered, will take minimal effort to execute. In addition to being a very effective technique on its own, SSILD is very effective in conditioning your mind/body for a "phase" to happen. I'm using Michael Radguda's term here because I'd like to recommend his variation of DEILD which he calls the Indirect Techniques. These techniques will allow you to catch the many awakenings during your sleep and turn them into lucid dreams. When you combine them with SSILD, which causes not only more awakenings, but also more stable trances during these awakenings, you will have a much higher chance to become lucid. This combination, if mastered, can literally give you 100% success rate with minimal effort.
But if DILD can't be reliable, how do you explain Laberge's mastery of it? He could become lucid on demand.
I'm not saying DILD is unreliable, just the typical techniques used to induce them. Laberge's technique is MILD, which utilizes WBTB and is performed while sleeping, not during the day. You said it yourself very well -- it's "on-demand." Whereas stuff like ADA tries to sell you the idea that it can help you gain a high level self-consciousness and awareness within your dreams and thus make LDs happen automatically. That, is total BS.
You seem to be in a pretty good place in terms of results and expectations of ongoing effort. You will find different opinions on the subject of daytime awareness work. A vocal minority thinks it's all BS, others believe it is critical. I'm in the latter camp: to be lucid on a regular basis at night, we need to be lucid on a regular basis during the day. It's common sense, backed up by the hundreds/thousands of years of LD practice by the Tibetan dream and sleep yoga practitioners, the original on-purpose lucid dreamers who gave us the notions of daytime visualization of dreams, setting intent at bedtime and every time when falling asleep (MILD, basically), dream recall, WBTB, WILD, awareness work, and much more. Our dreaming self is our waking self, with the added baggage of the physiological impairments of access to memory and a "foggy" awareness common to the dream state. Develop a much higher awareness in waking life, and you will carry this higher base level of awareness into the dream state as well. If you live your waking life on autopilot, reacting mindlessly to the day's experiences without reflection, you will live your dreams in the same way.
To be sure, lucidity requires a perfect storm of conditions and preparation, all coming together, which takes planning and intent to carry out. It always seems to require effort, both in noticing wakings during the night, and in awareness work during the day. Everyone needs to find their own path to balance all these things.
The great thing about mindfulness is that it is not just for lucid dreaming. It benefits your waking life just as much as your dreaming life. So you don't have that baggage of "doing all this just for dreaming." It doesn't take "thinking about LDing all day", but having the subject on your mind *does* help, clearly, as this is a form of incubation. If you're never thinking about LDing during the day, odds are you won't be thinking about it in dreams, either.
I believe a holistic approach is the est: people who try to live one way (autopilot, non-reflective, low-awareness, non-mindful) during the day, and hope to have a bright, , stable, lucid awareness at night during dreams are the ones who are fooling themselves.
To be sure, WBTB, SSILD, DEILD, and all the _ILDs have their place and add extra chances for lucidity. But *being* a lucid person, 24x7, exercising self-awareness, reflection, and memory as much as you can, will additionally increase the chances, considerably. It will also lead to much more satisfying, vivid life experiences, both waking and dreaming. Yes, it is a life long effort, but it's well worth it. Only you can decide if it's worth it to you.
Note that DILD also involves day work: LaBerge recommends doing both prospective memory exercises, and holding reflection/intention moments during the day, which are times of raised self-awareness and reflection. This is why my "practice catch phrase" is "Pay attention, reflect, recall" these are the foundations of LD practice.
Ah, I understand you now. In regards to my OP and current technique, it involves both day work and night work like wbtb and micro awakenings. I think I'm just going to continue doing what I'm doing.
Well, time isn't really a problem. I've read that those messages takes 1-3 months, before you see great results. Well, I'm going to try it anyway.
Have you ever had some experience with hypnosis? I'm interested in trying this. And if you have, were the lucid dreams just the bare minimum, or were they fully lucid and vivid? Did you feel present in them or did you also resort to other techniques to achieve that (ADA, mindfulness, etc)?
It's still a work in progress, but I did manage to attain lucidity once during a nightmare. I could hear the words from my hypnosis script verbatim, allowing me to regain some control and essentially destroy the nightmare figure (with a katana I summoned out of thin air, surprisingly lol).
I originally used the book Instant Self Hypnosis, the first edition. But you can watch youtube videos prior to sleep, preferably 30 minutes at the most.