Originally Posted by EmptyBucket:
Well,

I've been trying this for around a week now

Results

-No lucids
-No false awakenings(at least I think?)
-Dream recall is great(very happy about this)

My style
So sometimes when attempting techniques to induce LDs I'm either very excited to attempt it, but other times when doing techniques I'm kind of just in a "whatever" mindset(ie, it would be cool to have a lucid tonight but if not.. meh), It would be helpful if someone could tell me which mindset is most resourceful for lucid dreaming as I know mindsets are HUGE in success.

But latey I've been waking up, doing the cycles somewhat carelessly and sometimes extremely carelessly, just kind of messing around with that. Every morning I wake up and I remember my dreams and it's starting to get rare that I remember nothing(which is awesome).

Although, I've been having some moments where I feel like when I was in the dream I could've done something, like I was 1/4 conscious. Very hard to explain it just feels like the day following the dream I felt like I was close enough to attain lucidity.

Some thoughts

I enjoy doing this method but I'm hungering to attempt other methods such as WILD, but at the same time I feel like I should stick to this method as it's yielding better results than I've had with WILD, DILD(had 2 short lucid, idk bout this one). But I feel like this can also be a good stepping stone for beginners to increase recall and I would recommend this method to people with bad recall.

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Your second approach is perfect. That's the way to do SSILD! However, I'm suspecting you might have overlooked some False Awakenings. Tell yourself to reality check every time you wake up after doing SSILD no matter how sure you are.  

Originally Posted by LittleStar:
So, I have to assume that either this the doesn't work for me, or wasnt doing it right. I tried it for 4-5 days, I know it's not the lengthiest spell, but my recall in those days went down to near nothing, really just a vague image or two each night rather than any kind of full dream. I switched back to MILD with my usual mantras and mediation before sleep and immediately had much better recall.

I am inclined to think that I just fail at SSILD, as so many people can't be wrong about the tech, but I think for me I needed the mantra to focus on dreaming before sleeping, rather than focusing in external factors. As some above posts suggest, it could be that I need to press through until I become a little more used to a different kind focusing, or perhaps need to return to this once I'm a little more proficient and experienced with lucidity in general. (as a side note, I dont seem to ever get that initial jolt of lucidity with a new and interesting tech that many people seem to get, perhaps I'm too analytical for that, or pessimistic(realistic), but that I would say is a big problem for me and new methods... Just not sure how to overcome it, and set my mind up for decent expectation of lucidity.)

A quick point about the ADA, isn't want the thread to be hijacked by any means, but I would be interested in a thread about this, as I'm in the mind that ADA is the perfect tech, it makes sense to me that it should work, and I think I would attribute a lot of my lucid dreams to general awareness rather than a technique... In fact probably all (2 or 3) that weren't induced by fear. I would be very interested to hear other opinions and arguments, especially if there was experience fro the likes of Sageous weighing on the counter.

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In the lucid dreaming world I often see people say things like "this makes a lot of sense to me so it's probably a good technique." I beg to differ. In fact, I often like to see it from exactly the opposite angle -- because it seems to make a lot of sense it's probably NOT a good technique. Please keep in mind we know very little about how the brain works and what consciousness/awareness truly are. In this case, the rules we see as "correct" or "make sense" may not apply at all! Techniques that are invented this way often leads to nothing.  

Originally Posted by fogelbise:
Sageous just posted his thread on whether ADA is beneficial to LDs here:
http://www.dreamviews.com/attaining-...-lucidity.html
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That went well...  

Originally Posted by tofur:
Ron Burgundy - That Escalated Quickly - YouTube
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LOL. This YouTube link is hilarious! That made my day!  

Originally Posted by qaz741:
Success!
Been trying this for close to a week now and I just had my 2nd ever lucid, my 1st lucid being over a year ago.

There were a couple of differences between last nights SSILD "routine" than my previous failed attempts which I think helped.

Firstly, I was doing my ADA much more comprehensively yesterday compared to the previous days.
Secondly, the WBTB yesterday was naturally rather than due to an alarm clock. This is how it went: I went to sleep at about 10:30pm and set the alarm for 3:00am which would have meant I would wake up 4.5hrs after. But I ended up waking up at 11:57pm, feeling hot for some reason. Since my sleep was disturbed, I thought Ill just cancel the alarm, have a proper sleep and try again tomorrow. So i cancelled the alarmed. But then I naturally woke back up 4:17am needing to take a mad piss. So I went straight to the toilet and straight back but I decided I might as well do the cycles now. I did the cycles, went to sleep, and had a long and vivid lucid dream.

So what changed in my SSILD "routine" last night was that I woke up later than usual(4.17am compared to my usual 3:00am), and I also did the cycles differently. I kept reading CosmicIron saying on here that you need to do the cycles in a relaxed and not highly attentive matter but I just wasnt getting it and kept doing the cycles robotically. But last night, I decided that I would prioritize going back to sleep first and the cycles second. Meaning I was putting my main focus on going back to sleep and the cycles in the back of my head which kept me much more relaxed than usual. Of course by doing that, my mind kept drifting off but I would catch myself and continue the cycles. I ended up finishing about 3-4 decently long, albeit broken up due to my mind drifting off, cycles.

So there it is.:
The main reason I posted this though is to thank CosmicIron for all your input in this thread and for introducing us to this technique. Im going to need to keep at this technique for a little longer to really have faith in it, but so far so good.

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Congratulations! What you described -- prioritizing on falling asleep instead of the cycles, is the perfect way to do SSILD. Now that you got the hang of it you will see more successes down the road for sure!  

Hmmm I think I used this technique before unknowingly. I just recognized the dream by strange feeling that everything I feel, hear, see ha a slightly different nature than normally.  

This looks promising! I'll definitely try this one tonight.  

I have been using it successfully for about 6 months. I usually only try on the weekends. I have heard some people say that is more the act of using wake back to bed than the technique but I always wake back to bed to go to the bathroom every night and that by itself is definitely not enough for me. Whether it is the fact that doing the cycles activates your mind rather than the specifics of the cycles, I don't know. I think the one where you focus on the back of your eyelids helped me get lucid when I noticed that I could see through my closed eyes. I am open to hearing arguments on that. Either way, I plan to continue using the cycles as my method of activating my mind before going back to sleep for now.  

Originally Posted by rynkrt3:
Was this method ever confirmed to be more than a placebo?  After scrolling through all of the pages of replies and trying this myself, it seems that it is more of a placebo than a reliable technique to use nightly.

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A placebo is something that has no real medical value but works due to perhaps psychological reasons. By this definition, you can probably say that all lucid dreaming techniques are placebos. You probably meant whether or not SsILD can be used reliably in long term. I'd say, based on my own experience and observations, it is more effective in long term than many other well-known methods. It is not difficult to find report on this forum which show people having success with this technique over a long period. On my own forum, there are more than a dozen people, myself included, who use the technique every day and succeed every time. All of these are well documented. If that's placebo, then placebo so be it. LOL  

Originally Posted by CosmicIron:
A placebo is something that has no real medical value but works due to perhaps psychological reasons. By this definition, you can probably say that all lucid dreaming techniques are placebos. You probably meant whether or not SsILD can be used reliably in long term. I'd say, based on my own experience and observations, it is more effective in long term than many other well-known methods. It is not difficult to find report on this forum which show people having success with this technique over a long period. On my own forum, there are more than a dozen people, myself included, who use the technique every day and succeed every time. All of these are well documented. If that's placebo, then placebo so be it. LOL

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Yes, that is what I meant.  I do not doubt you or your technique, I just find it odd that no one on this site has really found long term success with it.  I just wander about people having success with it, but when that initial excitement phase wears off they start not having success.  This happened to me.  I found mild success a few times with this technique (a few shorts lucids and a few FA's.) but now no matter what I do I can't find success.  

Rynkrt3, I don't know if you missed my earlier post, but I've been using it for 6 months successfully. I usually only try on the weekends because I want to go straight back to sleep after my nightly getting up for the bathroom on work nights. I was off today and tried and succeeded last night but did fail Friday and Saturday night...I think I went to bed too late those nights. I know the OP doesn't suggest it, but maybe if it is no longer working for you try tweaking it assuming you went back over the steps and we're following them and it stopped being effective for you. have you tried a shorter or a longer WBTB before trying the cycles? For me, to keep from waking up too much I tweaked it to where I basically did the three cycles together after doing the first/shorter ones separately (thanks to the tip from PennyRoyal!).    

Originally Posted by Bobblehat:
Not quite sure what you mean by that, Foggy. Can you explain?
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you know how there is a quick set of cycles and then a longer set of cycles? The longer set of cycles I actually do the eye, hearing and feeling one in the same breath over and over again for a few minutes or more. I do focus on the three cycles separately but they more flow together than being done 4-6 cycles of the eyes one before going to the sound/hearing one.  

Link is broken  

Interesting technique. Funny enough I had a lucid this morning. I tested this out this morning but didn't really do the right amount of cycles. Think I just did like 1 cycle and went back to sleep. Marked it down as a DILD but SSILD could have possibly made me more aware in my dreams, cause I was semi-aware in another way, and this rarely happens.

May have to experiment with this technique.  

Originally Posted by tofur:
Can you guys remember exactly how many cycles you did, like is your memory clear in the morning?  

I'm thinking if my memory of doing it is so bad then maybe I'm actually half asleep the whole time, lol.

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I think the OP has been very busy lately so I will try to help with these questions.

You never know...you could have been half asleep or all the way asleep. If I am too sleepy my memory of how the cycles went is a little hazy the next morning. So, the OP says that you don't want to count. Even though you don't remember how many, can you remember if you actually did at least some of both the short and the long sets of all 3 of the cycle types(sight/hearing/touch)?

Originally Posted by CherryBomb:
Just wondering if this technique is good for recall? I only remember one vivid dream a night and I'm not sure if that's enough for lding yet, and do I have to get into habit of doing rcs again? At the moment I'm tired of doing rcs lol

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Maybe the OP can better answer. My opinion is that it will only help you recall in as much as it can help you to have LDs and it is hard to forget most LDs. And this technique has helped me to have most of my LDs! I think it is beneficial to also use a separate recall technique(s). If you are tired of doing reality checks, maybe try doing them differently or take a break...how do you RC?  

Congrats on the success Denholm! The OP did say that some people get a lot of FAs from this technique...if we can catch them, we can have more LDs! I have also had success with SSILD even if I don't finish the cycles.  

Originally Posted by CanisLucidus:
This leads me to a bit of an "advanced SSILD" question.

I've had a good number of lucid dreams via SSILD (56, according to my Dream Journal tags), so I am definitely a person that had success with this technique over a long period.  This tech works.

In spite of all that success, I can't help but be curious what you and the other SSILD practitioners with a 100% success rate do to get perfect results.  One great thing about the technique is that it's so straightforward that it's fairly easy to instruct someone how to do it.

But beyond those basic steps... in your estimation, is there anything that you and the other 100%ers do differently from those of us who "only" get good but not perfect results?

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My question is (which should be asked about any technique), is what is the users frequency of LDing *without* it, using MILD or WILD?   What is their LD background?   How many LDs have they had before SSILD?   What are the statistics of wannabe LDers using SSILD to get their first LD?   For these, how long did they "study" LD, dream journal, etc?    Once LD practitioners get experienced enough (in any method), just about any method seems to work.

What I'd really like to see is data about which techniques take LDers from X% to Y% for various values of X and Y, especially including getting the first LD.    From what I've seen, CI says that first timers can take months, which doesn't really indicate any difference from DILD: it's the time spent doing RCs, thinking about LDs, etc. that probably really does it.   But what do I know, I haven't had any LDs yet.   But I'm getting close I hope!  

Originally Posted by CanisLucidus:
This leads me to a bit of an "advanced SSILD" question.

I've had a good number of lucid dreams via SSILD (56, according to my Dream Journal tags), so I am definitely a person that had success with this technique over a long period.  This tech works.

In spite of all that success, I can't help but be curious what you and the other SSILD practitioners with a 100% success rate do to get perfect results.  One great thing about the technique is that it's so straightforward that it's fairly easy to instruct someone how to do it.

But beyond those basic steps... in your estimation, is there anything that you and the other 100%ers do differently from those of us who "only" get good but not perfect results?

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Sorry for the late reply... To get 100% success rate, we need to learn to actively shift into the dream during a special trance state often induced by SSILD. During this state, we walk a very fine line between waking and sleeping. It all depends on where you place your focus -- if you think you are awake, then you will be moving your physical body immediately and the transition from the trance to full waking state is totally seamless. On the other hand, if you move your focus away from the physical body then you will immediately be in the dream state, again in a completely seamless fashion. A easier way to do this is to relax your head, allow it to sink into you pillow, then try to move your hand with only the slightest mental effort. Use it to pinch your nose to perform a nose plug RC in one smooth movement. If the RC succeeds, then simply maintain the same level of focus and roll out of the bed. This special trance state can be had spontaneously, but most often occurs after performing the SSILD cycles. It is not the same as FA because if you are not careful you will indeed move your physical body and there is no "waking" process associated with it. Utilizing this technique you can achieve almost guaranteed success. After performing SSILD cycles you will have many subsequent awakenings. Some of those are FAs, and many are this type of trance states. Normally people would consider them failed attempts of SSILD, but by using the above technique you can turn them into perfect launching platforms. Sometimes you can succeed even after you have moved your physical body upon waking up. That's how powerful it is. It's definitely not DEILD.  I hope this helps! Happy dreaming!  

Originally Posted by CosmicIron:
Sorry for the late reply... To get 100% success rate, we need to learn to actively shift into the dream during a special trance state often induced by SSILD. During this state, we walk a very fine line between waking and sleeping. It all depends on where you place your focus -- if you think you are awake, then you will be moving your physical body immediately and the transition from the trance to full waking state is totally seamless. On the other hand, if you move your focus away from the physical body then you will immediately be in the dream state, again in a completely seamless fashion. A easier way to do this is to relax your head, allow it to sink into you pillow, then try to move your hand with only the slightest mental effort. Use it to pinch your nose to perform a nose plug RC in one smooth movement. If the RC succeeds, then simply maintain the same level of focus and roll out of the bed. This special trance state can be had spontaneously, but most often occurs after performing the SSILD cycles. It is not the same as FA because if you are not careful you will indeed move your physical body and there is no "waking" process associated with it. Utilizing this technique you can achieve almost guaranteed success. After performing SSILD cycles you will have many subsequent awakenings. Some of those are FAs, and many are this type of trance states. Normally people would consider them failed attempts of SSILD, but by using the above technique you can turn them into perfect launching platforms. Sometimes you can succeed even after you have moved your physical body upon waking up. That's how powerful it is. It's definitely not DEILD.  I hope this helps! Happy dreaming!

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Great explanation, CosmicIron, thank you!

I have used a technique very much like this when intentionally WILDing, but I've never used it in the in-between phases of SSILD.  When I've managed it, it's always resulted in an OBE-style lucid dream.  I'm excited to learn that by combining it with SSILD I may get even more chances to use it.

From what I recall, the main trick was to never engage the muscles in any way but rather to treat the nose pinch and/or roll-out as something we will to happen, like an act of dream control rather than physically doing something.

Very exciting stuff, and I appreciate you taking the time to explain it so well.  It also once again has me pondering what the mechanism behind SSILD might be.  This seems to argue that a big part of it might be reducing the latency between the waking state and dreaming (and likely REM.)

Or perhaps it's the other way around, and that the act of SSILD increases your awareness, allowing you to keep a great deal more of your conscious mind active after the transition into the dreaming state.  This would explain why it raises the odds of both DILDs and WILDs.  And if it keeps you aware of your surroundings for a longer period of time as you drift to sleep, that could also explain the increased incidence of false awakenings.  

Originally Posted by EmptyBucket:
^^ When you guys mention moving your hand for an RC, do you mean to visualize yourself doing an rc, or actually physically doing an rc(which I guess is counter-productive)

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I'll let Cosmic Iron speak for himself on the second part of the question, but as for the technique itself, yes, it's a lot like visualization.  If you've ever used dream control to make something happen without actually "moving", then IMO you have the right idea.

It's like you cause the RC via visualization, yet it's still very much like experiencing it rather than simply imagining it.

It's a bit strange, so I hope that the explanation helps.  Again, I've only used this for WILD so far, and I'm assuming that it's pretty much the same in the SSILD trance.  

Originally Posted by rynkrt3:
Are there ways to tell if we are in this phase that cosmic speaks of, or is it more of a you just have to guess?  After preforming SSILD cycles for a while I do feel closer to sleep but I dont feel as if im in a certain transition phase.

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Basically you will be in this phase during any of the subsequent awakenings after performing SSILD. If you spend a long time *cooking* the cycles then chances are you will succeed during the very first awakening. Otherwise you can perform the cycles one more time and be in the phase upon waking up again.  

Originally Posted by EmptyBucket:
^^ When you guys mention moving your hand for an RC, do you mean to visualize yourself doing an rc, or actually physically doing an rc(which I guess is counter-productive)

And do these after the SSILD cycles, or in between?
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Either way is fine, although visualization is the safer approach as it allows you to take advantage of even the lightest trance state. You can do this right after the SSILD cycles and that may give you a authentic WILD experience. For easier and more reliable result you will want to do it upon subsequent awakenings resulted from the SSILD exercise.  

cosmic,

do you clearly remember the period in which you get up and do the cycles in the morning once your awake for the day?  I ask because my memory seems hazy even though I get up and go to the bathroom and then do cycles.  I'm never sure exactly how many of them I did, or if I even made it past the first phase of them.  I feel like I did, but I also am feeling like I'm not so sure about that.  

Should I stay up longer or is this common?  

I attempted SSILD three more times since the time I described above when it produced a lucid dream. No more LDs, but on the latest attempt I started getting the kind of bizarre physical sensations that I used to get when I attempted WILD. Specifically, I was laying on my side and it felt like I was rotating onto my stomach while at the same time ALSO rotating onto my back. It felt like I had two extra bodies that were spitting away from my actual body. I relaxed into it and tried to let it develop into something else, but nothing happened. Will hopefully try again tonight!

Also, CosmicIron I noticed that the page where you have the official tutorial went down for a little while there. Glad to see it's back up!  

Alright so far iv tried this 4 times and have had a lucid twice. ON both successful attempts, when i tried SSILD, i did it laying on my back, (i always sleep on my side). So when im trying to go through the cycle my body just wants to go to sleep, and thus on the last cycle i start getting a excitement feeling in my chest (Because i knows im going to roll over and sleep). So i would suggest doing this in a position which you don't normally sleep in. Ill post my results after 10 more attempts.