I know a lot of people have been seeing some great success with the SSILD technique lately and I've just posted an interview I done with him in the last week - http://lucidability.com/ssild-technique/

You should definitely check it out, he gives out amazing advice that can help a lot of people. The link on my site has a link to his forum (which is in Mandarin).

Hey mate, let's start with your favorite thing about lucid dreaming?

To me personally lucid dreaming is a viable path toward true spiritual enlightenment. I also like how it enables average people to learn more about themselves, solve daily issues, achieve better mental health, and ultimately discover a vast, fascinating, and whole new aspect of self-existence.

Can you tell us about any struggles you've had since you got started?

I had my first LD when I was 7, and I always had them intermittently until I was formally introduced to the concept at 18. I had my first enlightening experience with higher state of consciousness when I was 20. In order to reproduce that experience I started pursuing lucid dreaming actively, and that's when I ran into a lot problems and struggles. The frequency, stability, and lucidity of my LDs were simply not sufficient for me to reproduce that experience again.

I spent considerable amount of time to train myself with just about all major techniques, but found most of them lacking. At times it was downright frustrating. It wasn't until 10 years and thousands of LDs later I managed to reproduce that same experience, and through that experience I learned a great deal about human consciousness and that also created a breakthrough for me. After that I was able to induce and manage LDs with much greater efficiency.

Looking back I think the hardest struggle was the amount of effort it took to induce LDs frequently, and reliably. Take WILD techniques for example. It always took so much time every night that after a while you really become exhausted. The effort to reward ratio is simply too high. For really motivated newcomers this may not be a big issue, but for someone who was attempting lucid dreaming on a daily basis for more than 20 years it was frustrating to say the least.

What is the most important thing you've learned from your time in the dream world?

Do NOT carry any assumptions, bias, preconceptions, prepossessions, and so on into your dreams! I always tell my students that they should have the mindset of a newborn baby 鈥 innocent, curious, devoid of any preconceived notions. The inner world is so vast and mysterious that any human being, no matter how knowledgeable and wise, is reduced to illiterate to say the best.

People from background of science and religions tend to have very  opinions on things, and IMO it can be more a curse than blessing. Such  opinions, when met with the fluid and highly volatile dream world, can create severe consequences and blind one from seeing the true nature of it. Even if we don't approach lucid dreaming as some sort of spiritual pursuit, there might still be dangers when people end up perceiving what is illusory as real.

Do you take anything from your lucid dreams and apply it to real life?

Being able to interact directly with one's inner-self is a privilege. I think that alone gives me more purpose, directions, and happiness which is every bit as real as other things in my life. While I do see other real-life applications of LD, I myself am not a big fan of them.

There are people whose only motivations behind practicing lucid dreaming are for earthly gains and benefits. It's like giving someone a telescope and he uses that to stalk the girl next door. Having said that, I've successfully used LDs to aid my studies, learning skills, getting artistic inspirations, and even curing illness.

What's the best lucid dream you've ever had?

Aside from reaching higher state of consciousness, one of my favorite lucid dreams was had during a traumatic period of my life when my relationship with my wife was going through a very hard time. It was a consciously entered dream and I rose from the bed. The room was dark and apparently was the old house where I grew up as a child. I looked through the window and there across the street was a small church. It appeared to be Christmas season and snow was falling down from the night sky.

People walked slowly on the quiet streets, and they were all very happy. The little town looked beautiful and almost glowing. I looked back into the room and there in the corner is a small Christmas tree with a miniature merry-go-round. Under the tree there were hundreds of frames of varying sizes, and I discovered they all had my wife's pictures in them! It's a huge collection of memories from our near 15 years of marriage! In that moment I burst into tears and I knew what she really meant to me!

I walked out of the house and onto the street. I then shouted to the sky asking which path I should take. The first path, which I was contemplating really hard during the day, gave me a chilling wind from the sky, then a large empty candy bag, which has holes all over it, rolled across a dark and empty street. As I asked for the second path, suddenly an intense beam of light came from above and instantly turned night to day.

I was soaked in this almost blinding light, and feeling of happiness filled my entire being. I woke up from this and knew firmly where my heart belonged and which path I should take.

What is your favorite technique and why do you like it so much?

My favorite technique these days is SSILD (Senses Initiated Lucid Dream) which I developed two years ago. I like it for the following reasons: 1) it is highly effective and reliable. 2) It does not demand a lot of time and effort. 3) It is simple. Anyone can learn to do it quickly and it does not require delicate mental exercises.

Do you have an ultimate lucid dream you'd like to have?

No I don't. To me they are all fascinating in their own rights. I try to approach them with as little prejudice and preference as possible.

What is the strangest land you've even wandered through in a lucid dream?

A village entirely made of black inks. It's essentially what it feels like living inside a Zen brush painting (in 2-dimensions!). I myself was also part of it and it was actually raining (black inks too)! No, it's not dirty, and in fact quite breathtakingly beautiful!

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.

Do you have any words of encouragement for all of us?

Lucid Dreaming is NOT difficult and you don't need to be gifted in order to master it. You need to have the right mindset, right tool, and a little bit perseverance. On my forum one of my first students spent more than a year without getting much result. After I started coaching him he gradually made progress slowly, but after I tweaked his routine, from which SSILD was born, he picked up speed dramatically.

By end of that year he recorded nearly 500 lucid dreams! He was hardly super bright, but always diligent and systematic. All he lacked was the right tool. I've kept the entire journal he wrote and it is a detailed, fascinating record of how a lucid dream rookie turned into a master in just a few months!

Today on our forum there are more than a dozen people who have learned how to induce lucid dreams on daily basis, nearly at will, all in much less time than my first student. To put it simply, if they can do it, then you can too! Don't let other people discourage you and don't let the ineffective methods/theories mislead you! Lucid dreaming skill can be obtained in systematic fashion by anyone. After all, such ability is inherent within all of us!