Hi astralboy,

My sig is just a bit of frivolity.

I don't really buy into the "believe and it will happen" school because I don't believe in blind belief. It's not a tenable position. I have a kind of heirarchy of beliefs that - in my opinion - reflects reality:

I believe I will sleep tonight.
I believe I will dream.
I believe I will recall some dream events.
I believe my awareness in dreams will fluctuate, sometimes that awareness will rise to a level where I realise I'm dreaming.

That heirarchy is positive, but realistic.  

I keep forgetting to do this. I'll have to give it another try tonight.  

I am going to be trying this technique again tonight.  The first time I tried this technique months ago it worked, so hopefully it will pull through again!  

Originally Posted by Sydney:
I didn't get lucid but I just wanted to share what I did if you have any feedback CosmicIron. ^_^

I woke up for WBTB naturally after about 5 hours.
I then went to the restroom and got back in bed.
I lay still on my back and did about 4 cycles.
Then I rolled over onto my right side (it was hazy at this part.. I can't remember if I did more cycles while I was on my side or not).

I then fell asleep after a while.

Even though I think I do okay, I still don't get lucid.
Do you think I could have "woken up" into an FA?
Because I remember waking up once or twice before my alarm went off to wake up in the morning.
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Sydney, I'm sorry it's still not working for you  How long does it take for you to finish each cycle?  Were you doing each step quickly?  Maybe 15-20 seconds are not enough.  I suggest you try to extend the length of each step.  For example, while looking behind the eyelids, try to thoroughly examine the darkness and do not move on to the next step until you pick up something out of the dark no matter how trivial.  Same goes for listening -- do not move on to next until you can hear something inside your head...  Basically just forget about the 10-20 seconds requirement.  Do this for the first 4 cycles then ease up and allow yourself to drift into the trance with a couple of more relaxed cycles and then go to sleep.  

Originally Posted by CosmicIron:
Sydney, I'm sorry it's still not working for you  How long does it take for you to finish each cycle?  Were you doing each step quickly?  Maybe 15-20 seconds are not enough.  I suggest you try to extend the length of each step.  For example, while looking behind the eyelids, try to thoroughly examine the darkness and do not move on to the next step until you pick up something out of the dark no matter how trivial.  Same goes for listening -- do not move on to next until you can hear something inside your head...  Basically just forget about the 10-20 seconds requirement.  Do this for the first 4 cycles then ease up and allow yourself to drift into the trance with a couple of more relaxed cycles and then go to sleep.

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I think I will try that too.  

Originally Posted by Sydney:
Hmm, that didn't work either.
Maybe I just need to try it some more  Will again tonight.

P.S.: When focusing on my body, what should I be "expecting" to feel?

Also I think I know what may be the problem. I never know when I'm in the trance. It doesn't feel like I'm in it when I stop doing the cycles and fall asleep.

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Any out-of-normal sensations: heaviness, movement, numbness, itch, tingling, and etc. You can also actively imagine movement of certain body parts, for example, wiggling of fingers and toes, slow spinning of stomach, head sinking into pillow, and so on.  The reason I didn't include these in the technique is this sort of active techniques can sometimes cause people to lose sleep.  However, in your case it seems you can fall asleep pretty quickly so maybe you can give it a shot.  

This is exactly what i needed, a technique that gives me a mix of both lucids and obes! I'm so gonna try this one  

Tried it today and failed :-) I was extremely tired when I went to take a nap. I did the repetitions but they kept me awake and I got interrupted a couple of times by outside noises and light rls. There was one moment where I felt my arm went a little numb just like in sp. But that went away and I fell asleep soon after it. Nothing happened.

Will try again tomorrow! Seems like it'll actually work!  

2nd LD in three days with this tactic. Only reason I didn't have a third was because I slept all through the night and didn't wake up to try monday. I was doing the cycles and felt my body just feeling weird. I got up and did a reality check and sure enough I was dreaming. That was pretty freaky.  

I think I was on my fourth when I adjusted to my normal sleeping position. That's around when I believe I fell asleep. I guess I just started dreaming that I was still doing it.  

Decided to get back to LD-ing. I'll start out with this method, seems simple enough  

"Try to pick up any colors, lights, or images" I thought it said "Try NOT to".
I did it this morning but it was hard for me not to pick up any images so I was fighting it a  little. Until I forgot it I started sort of dreaming about my repetitions but was still awake and that really felt like it was helping. I already had 8 hours of sleep so it wasn't working. I felt the same effect as I did the other day. Will try it again next time, maybe this afternoon!  

Originally Posted by Appe96:
A quick question, so I don't do anything wrong :S When you do theese cycles do you focus on what you see, hear and feel at the same time or do you seperate them?

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do them seperately but if you end up mixing them up upon being in the trance its fine.  

Originally Posted by Arilou:
I think i will try this method, but can i try to do it right when i fall asleep or no? You dont suggest it i know but i get slightly scared waking up in the middle of the night so i dont try wbtb's

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Good point, I am usually to tired to WBTB so CosmicIron, would it hurt to do this as we're falling asleep? I fall asleep using Isochronic tones so relaxing is no problem.  

Okay then what would be the best way to wake up for wbtb but without an alarm clock? Do mantras work?  

Originally Posted by Sydney:
You could try, "I will be aware when I wake up." Since you wake up at different times during the night and you don't realize it.

Hope that helps

Oh and CosmicIron, if I wanted to combine SSILD with WILD in one night, could I wake up at say, after 4 hours and 30 minutes, and then do SSILD? Then wake up later to do WBTB and WILD?

Do you think doing SSILD that early would work?
It's just a thought.
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Based on the feedback I've seen from many users, the answer is yes.  

Four hours is what I do. Gives you more room for error, in case your alarm doesn't snap you out immediately.  

Originally Posted by Sea07:
@CosmicIron
Alright, thanks.
@Sydney
Do you want to wake up without an alarm after four hours sleep? You could try mantras, or drink heaps of water before you sleep (:

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Ok, will do.
It seem like I keep waking up later and later in my sleep naturally, sometimes not even waking up at all! I think the problem is though that I don't drink as much water as I should.  

@Sydney
Righto, yeah a full bladder will do wonders for waking you up.  

Careful with the water. I used to do that and something that happened too often was drinking so much it would interrupt my REM cycle so instead of waking up nicely and with some energy I would wake up completely smashed and after using the bathroom I would pass out immediately.  

It seems like this technique works at first... But then stops working. Sydney is a perfect example. I really feel like you guys should spend time elsewhere on proven  techniques. I'm not trying to tell you what to do, just my two cents.  

Originally Posted by RareCola:
This is why I said it's more of a placebo, it seems that way with everyone, including myself.

I believe this technique would work properly under one circumstance, when WILDing, but then it's not really fair to call it a new technique at that point.

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If you read a few pages back you will see that I said the same thing.  

I've been attempting this for around 2 months or so, with only 2 successes. But, I have faith in this technique since it brought so many others continuing success.

I could just be doing it wrong, or not having enough will to do it. But I still have faith in SSILD.

I will be attempting SSILD earlier on in the night, maybe after four hours or so, and then waking up for a WBTB an hour and a half later, to WILD.

So I still have SSILD, but also am working on my WILD attempts as well.
I will continue attempting for as long as I can until I know that it doesn't work for me.  

Originally Posted by dakotahnok:
It seems like this technique works at first... But then stops working. Sydney is a perfect example. I really feel like you guys should spend time elsewhere on proven  techniques. I'm not trying to tell you what to do, just my two cents.

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It has continued to work for me, and hundreds maybe thousands of other people. Of course,  as with every other techniques, this is not meant to be a recipe for guaranteed success, especially that many people may not even be doing it correctly.  

Originally Posted by CosmicIron:
Thank you for having faith  One thing that occurs to me -- could it be that you were missing on the false awakenings?  With SSILD it is very easy to produce super-realistic false awakenings.  Therefore, I suggest you do an RC every time you wake up after doing SSILD, no matter how certain you think you are awake!  BTW, are you still falling asleep quickly in middle of the exercise?

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Your welcome.
You know, now that I think about it, I may have missed some very realistic false awakenings. I usually do an RC after every time I wake up, but sometimes I do forget!

I've been kinda slacking on attempting SSILD this week - was so tired during the week I never woke up mostly. :/ Well mostly, I wake up for WBTB, do SSILD, fall asleep - and then before I know it, my alarm shocks me awake for the morning.

Do you think my recall could have something to do with it?
I sometimes just forget about SSILD while doing it, making my mind wander and then I fall asleep. In other cases, I can't fall asleep afterwards.