主题:Senses Initiated Lucid Dream (Ssild) Ld4All<mod>Continued in Part II </mod>
A little disclaimer: There are many similarities between SSILD and the other lucid dream induction methods such as WILD, MILD, etc.02 In fact, if you wish, you could label SSILD as a derivative of those methods, or you could simply write it off as an old method with a new name since the differences may be rather subtle. 02Also I'm not sure if this name has been taken, so if it was then please let me know so I can change it to something else.
Background02
While teaching lucid dreaming to novices I realize that many popular methods share a fundamental problem. 02That is, they all require too much finesse. 02For example, the typical WILD techniques require proper relaxation which by itself is a difficult subject. 02Another example is affirmation -- how do you do affirmation effectively? 02We all know that simply chanting mantras will not do the trick. 02Same goes for visualization, breathing, and the list just goes on and on. 02
We need a method that is as effective as it is idiot-proof, hence the creation of the SSILD technique. A large group of people, mainly novices, participated in testing the new method, and within months we received many hundreds of reports of success. 02And unlike some techniques that only work for the first couple of times, SSILD users report consistent result from regular usage. 02Many even learned to induce LDs and OBEs on daily basis.
Theory
We do not know why exactly SSILD works. 02One user pointed out that the method shares some resemblance with the self-hypnosis method introduced by02Betty Erickson, wife of the late Dr. Milton H. Erickson. 02Another theory is that by repeated stimulation of the various senses in a trance-like state, we incubate our mind and body into the right condition suited for entering a DILD, WILD, or OBE.
Regardless the theory, it is utterly crucial02to keep in mind that SEILD is not strictly a WILD technique. 02While many users report successful LD/OBE induction from the waking state, this method is equally effective at inducing DILDs. 02In fact, I ly suggest users treat it solely as a DILD technique in order to use it in the most effective manner. 02
Step-by-step02
1. The best time to practice is after 4 or 5 hours of sleep. 02You could also combine the practice with WBTB for maximum effect but it is not required. 02DO NOT do this at the start of your sleep -- it will NOT work! 02The only exception is afternoon naps since you enter directly into REM.02
2. Repeat the following procedures 4 or 5 times. 02DO NOT attempt too many repetitions even if you don't feel anything. 02Remember you are not doing a WILD. 02You are simply setting things up for OBEs and LDs to occur at later point. 02If you repeat too many times you may risk losing sleep thus destroys the purpose.02
2a) With your eyes closed, stare at the darkness behind your eyelids for 15-20 seconds. 02Try to pick up any colors, lights, or images, but do not strain your eye muscle. 02If you see nothing but darkness, that's fine. 02Again, we are not striving to induce dreams from the waked state, so do NOT force it. 02It is perfectly fine to not feel anything. 0202
2b) Listen to the noises in your ears for 15-20 seconds. 02Chances are you will hear some light humming and buzzing sound. 02See if you can hear it more clearly. 02If you don't hear anything that's okay.02
2c) Notice any strange body sensations such as heaviness, tingling, and movements. 02Pay attention particularly to the head, hands, fingers, abdomen, feet, and toes. 02Again, it is perfectly fine if you don't feel anything strange. 02
The above steps should be performed in a relaxed manner, slowly, lazily, and without any rational thoughts. 02The 15-20 seconds duration is for your reference only, so do NOT count in your head! 02Chances are, after a couple of repetitions you will begin to feel sleepy, to the point your mind may drift away and forget to continue the exercise. 02Congratulations, this is exactly the effect we are after! 02When this happens just pull your mind back a bit and resume from where you drifted away. 02If you lost count of the repetitions then simply do a new set. 02It won't hurt.02
3. Find the most comfortable position and try to fall asleep as quickly as possible! 02The quicker you fall asleep the more likely you will succeed later in your dreams!02
What's going to happen02
Several things may happen through this exercise:02
1. After you fall asleep, you may suddenly wake up with a strange sensation. 02You will feel wide awake, and your body weightless. 02At this point just do a reality check and roll out from your bed to begin an OBE.02
2. You wake up with vibrations and other strange sensations. Hung onto these sensations will lead you into an OBE.02
3. You suddenly become lucid in your dreams with no apparent reasons, or you may begin to suspect you are dreaming.
4. You have a False Awakening. 02Unlike the first experience, you may feel awake but still drowsy. 02FAs will occur frequently with SSILD, therefore you should get used to it and become good at identifying them.02
5. A WILD or direct OBE. 02Phase entrance may occur during the repetition, with your mind still awake. 02When this happens, many of the sensations become amplified. 02You should stop doing any further exercises, and begin focusing on the sensations until you successfully enter the phase.
6. If all else fail you can try the following technique as a last resort. Upon waking up again, which you eventually will after step 3, try relax your head and allow it to sink into the pillow. If done correctly you will generate vibrations and enter an OBE from a fully waked state. This works because SSILD has prepared your body and mind to enter a phase easily. In fact if you increase the number of repetitions you may be able to do this even before you fall asleep from step 3!02
About me02
I recently migrated to this forum from DreamView. 02I have been a member of DV for many years, and my personal research and practice on the subject of LD dates back in early 90s. 02Throughout the years I've recorded thousands of LDs and OBEs.02
Two years ago I joined a lucid dreaming forum in China, and since then have become one of their prominent writers and trainers. 02The forum quickly grew to over 60,000 active members. 02This provided me with an excellent test bed for new ideas. 02Together we developed and refined the SSILD method more than 8 months ago. 02Today it is being actively practiced and improved upon by thousands of people.
Common causes for loss of sleep
Being unable to fall asleep easily after the cycles is a common problem encountered by inexperienced users of the SSILD technique, there are several possible causes:
1. False Awakening. No I'm not kidding. What you are experiencing could well be an FA and this is very common after doing SSILD. You basically just lay there trying to fall asleep while you are already asleep. One way to work around this is to do additional repetitions when you find you are unable to sleep. Assuming you are in an FA, or sometimes a light trance, then the cycling technique will usually result in very apparent HIs, ringing sounds, vibrations, or other effects. When the effects occur you can simple do an RA, and then roll out of the bed to begin an OBE.
2. You are focusing too much on producing the effects/sensations while doing the reps. Remember, WILD and OBE are by products of SSILD. They should not be sought after. When you do the cycles, do NOT expect anything will happen. You should focus on losing focus. That's the right way to do SSILD.
3. Rational thoughts entering the mind while doing the cycles. It's fine to let your mind drift to other things, but you should NEVER analyize what you are doing! Oh, do NOT count either. You don't want precision!
4. Deliberately trying to relax. Remember, SSILD is very much a self hypnosis tool, so you should rely on that to put you into sleep. Don't mix in any relaxation techniques befor or after! And certainly do not attempt to stay relaxed during the repetitions. You just get comfortable, and leave the relaxation part to the technique.
5. Interruption. This is the single biggest killer. If you are repeatedly interrupted, whether by sudden noises, discomforts, or others, you should seize doing the exercise and go to sleep right away. You can always do it again later, so do not force it.
Last edited by cosmic.iron on Thu 19 Apr, 2012; edited 4 times in total
Interesting, I might give this a try. It reminds me of a few WILD's I've had where I imagined myself touching something with my hands and then suddenly I can actually feel it, and from there it's simple. When I did this it worked great. My problem was reaching the state of relaxation and calmness (or whatever) for it to become a vivid sensation... Maybe when I focus on my touch I get distracted and fall asleep quickly, and perhaps switching from one sense to another will help keep me focused... At the same time, when I MILD I repeat my mantra a few times and then just go to sleep as quickly as possible, which I understand you do with this technique as well, instead of repeating it until you fall asleep. So this might work for me.
Just to see if I got it right, I focus on what I see for a few seconds, then on what I hear, then on what I feel, over and over a few times. Then I just try to fall asleep.
If I get vivid images/sounds/touch, I should just focus on them and do a WILD (like I did a few times, as mentioned above)? And what If I get some sensations, but not that vividly, I just move on to the next step?
I think I've seen a SILD around, but I don't remember what it was for (Sound-ILD?), or even if it got used a lot. Doesn't make much of a difference to me...
and we've had lots of DreamViews users joining LD4all lately (for unfortunate reasons ), so welcome! and thanks for sharing this, I'm sure many more people will give it a try.
mattias wrote:
Just to see if I got it right, I focus on what I see for a few seconds, then on what I hear, then on what I feel, over and over a few times. Then I just try to fall asleep.
If I get vivid images/sounds/touch, I should just focus on them and do a WILD (like I did a few times, as mentioned above
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You summed it up really well. That's exactly the way to do it. You cycle through the sensations. Each cycle deepens your "state" and you may observe increased calmness and sensations. If one sensation becomes pronounced you should focus on increasing it, like what we typically do in WILD. Otherwise, just finish the cycles and go to sleep -- in this case, the cycles pretty much serves the purpose as mantras, except more effective (we all know that communicating to our subconscious via "spoken language" isn't particularly very effective). In addition, the repeated cycling also tends to create "inertia" which carries into your dreams -- similar to how FILD works.
Sometimes we experience sensations but not vivid enough. You can try focusing on it for a few seconds to see if you can increase it. If it stays the same then you should move on to the next steps. Don't do it for more than a few seconds.
What you said about relaxation is very true. Through my observation it is a major hurdle for many people, experienced LDers included. In fact, most of the time relaxation techniques tend to put the user into the wrong mind/body state. With SILD we don't need relaxation. Just give your body 4 to 5 hours of sleep and you should be well prepped. Let's face it -- there is no better and easier way to relax than simply to fall asleep, isn't it?
I hope you find this technique useful. Don't hesitate to ask any questions.
Cheers,
Gary
Tried this technique early morning. I only repeated the vision/sound/feel cycle for a couple of times because I was tired and wanted to go sleep. Well... when I fell asleep I had a DILD for so long!
Current LD goal(s): To succeed in WILD.
Jur1121 wrote:
Tried this technique early morning. I only repeated the vision/sound/feel cycle for a couple of times because I was tired and wanted to go sleep. Well... when I fell asleep I had a DILD for so long!
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So it worked!
I remembered to try it this morning, but there was too much noise outside and I was too tired from yesterday, so I had a hard time focusing on dreaming and didn't get really far with the technique. I had pretty good recall though, and a couple lucid moments (my main problem for the last 2 or 3 years has been to not wake up prematurely from my LD's... ). Anyway, I'll see if I give it another try tonight.
mattias wrote:
I remembered to try it this morning, but there was too much noise outside and I was too tired from yesterday, so I had a hard time focusing on dreaming and didn't get really far with the technique. I had pretty good recall though, and a couple lucid moments (my main problem for the last 2 or 3 years has been to not wake up prematurely from my LD's... ). Anyway, I'll see if I give it another try tonight.
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A noisy environment is always a killer! Judging from the few lucid moments you had, you must have executed the technique correctly! The problem is that you were too tired and the interruption wasn't helping either. SILD has much better success rate if you are rested well! Let's hope you have better luck next time
I gave this a try this morning. It was interesting. I have a semi-cold so was really hard to stay still and not swallow deeply. I went through it around 7 or 8 times, dozed off sometime in there, woke up not realizing i dozed off and did 1 more round and tried to move, hitting what felt like a wall. Which i broke through quickly before i realized what it was. Takes me forever to wake up, so I tend not be very coherent when first waking up. So pretty much blew a perfect chance for a deild. First time feeling what SP was like, or breaking through it. Going to give this another try tomorrow it was quite simple to do. Thanks
Sounds promising, I may try it. Can you do whatever you want in order to fall asleep, like, you don't have to repeat a mantra or anything?
Current LD goal(s): visit an abandoned place
sungodd wrote:
I gave this a try this morning. It was interesting. I have a semi-cold so was really hard to stay still and not swallow deeply. I went through it around 7 or 8 times, dozed off sometime in there, woke up not realizing i dozed off and did 1 more round and tried to move, hitting what felt like a wall. Which i broke through quickly before i realized what it was. Takes me forever to wake up, so I tend not be very coherent when first waking up. So pretty much blew a perfect chance for a deild. First time feeling what SP was like, or breaking through it. Going to give this another try tomorrow it was quite simple to do. Thanks
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Your physical condition made it harder to achieve success, but sounds like you are on the right track anyway When doing SILD, remember it is not necessary to stay completely motionless. You should feel as comfortable as possible, as long as you don't fall asleep before finishing the cycles. Stopping "intentionally" in middle of it is actually okay though.
It is perfectly fine to move somewhat during the exercise, swallowing included. In fact, at step 3c, where one scans for body sensations, one may do it so aggressively to the point she actually moves the physical body. While this is not encouraged as you may lose sleep, it is indeed fine and works equally well.
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Leijona wrote:
Sounds promising, I may try it. Can you do whatever you want in order to fall asleep, like, you don't have to repeat a mantra or anything?
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Yes you should do whatever to fall asleep quickly. For me that means completely throw away everything and just DO it, but people may differ. No need to chant mantras and telling yourself you will be LDing later. That job has been done by the cycles. Just go to sleep, as quickly as possible. The quicker you can fall asleep, the easier it is for this to work. If you do plenty of repetitions and fall asleep quickly enough, chances are you will experience the strange sensation which you wake up suddenly into a trance with a very clear and alert mind. It feels like miracle.
I tried this as well. Like mattias I was pretty tired last night and had a harder time concentrating. I did notice vastly increased DR and vividness and a slightly more aware thought process. Definitely seems worth pursuing .
Current LD goal(s): Defeat Xander in our lucid duel!
Rhewin wrote:
I tried this as well. Like mattias I was pretty tired last night and had a harder time concentrating. I did notice vastly increased DR and vividness and a slightly more aware thought process. Definitely seems worth pursuing .
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Thank you for trying, Rhewin. Like I said in my other reply to you, I'm hoping together we can refine this promising method!
My suggestion to you is do NOT try this without enough rest, or you may experience anxiety during the exercise. Also do not "concentrate". In fact, you should do the opposite! Just do it in a lazy, relaxed manner for optimal result.
well i tried this two times and it worked both times but after 5-6 sec of LD ing i wake up in my bed full of vibrations and strange sound in my head that stays until i get up and that wasn't FA i RC ed upon waking up
Current LD goal(s): a WILD
This technique seems very interesting The only difficult part for me could be falling asleep quickly. Whenever I intentionally try to fall asleep I'm all tense(in mind, not body) and it takes ages. But I guess it can be mastered with practice and experience.
Hamza wrote:
well i tried this two times and it worked both times but after 5-6 sec of LD ing i wake up in my bed full of vibrations and strange sound in my head that stays until i get up and that wasn't FA i RC ed upon waking up
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LOL, sounds like you got the effects all overlapped When LDing, please try not to focus your attention to yourself; instead, focus on your surroundings. Otherwise you may end up being thrown back to bed with FA... of course, your case is kinda different...
Uneksija wrote:
This technique seems very interesting The only difficult part for me could be falling asleep quickly. Whenever I intentionally try to fall asleep I'm all tense(in mind, not body) and it takes ages. But I guess it can be mastered with practice and experience.
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Don't worry about that. The cycling of the senses, if done correctly, can pretty much push you to the edge of falling asleep. And if you have trouble letting go and fall asleep quickly, it is perfectly okay to do it slowly. Just remember, in this case you may drift into a FA without even noticing it. In some instances, you are still awake but your mind/body has already been fully prepped for an OBE. At this point all you need is a bit intention to trigger it. This of course, does require practice.
Hy cosmic.iron! I'm very glad that you joined this forum, I hope you'll share as much knowledge as possible! I just want to learn!
As I was reading your post it reminded me on FILD tech and I wanted to ask you but I saw in later posts that you mention some similarities so I guess that my guess was a good guess!
Ok, I like this tech a lot in theoretical way[I yet have to try it] because I do wake up for WBTB every night and my primary tech is WILD, but I combine it with few other techs and I agree with you on the relaxation topic...
So this tech won't vary a lot from my previous tech that I use and I gave myself at least a week to see if new tech works at all but from what I've read it should start to work much faster. So I will keep my progress for next 7 days in this topic in next post.
Thank you for sharing this and welcome!
Current LD goal(s): #Find/Meet Dream Guide#
Sounds pretty interesting! Great technique. Only problem is that I can't force myself to wake up after 5-6 hours, because if I do so, I will never fall asleep again. I have deep insomnia.
But if I wake up by accident, I might as well do it I'll post in this thread when I get to use this technique!
Current LD goal(s): To have at least three lucid dreams per week. UPDATE: Kinda owned this goal! =D
dB_FTS wrote:
Hy cosmic.iron! I'm very glad that you joined this forum, I hope you'll share as much knowledge as possible! I just want to learn!-------
Thank you so much! I am quite pleased with my experience on this forum so far. People seem very nice
The FILD tech does share a lot of similarities with SILD. You can actually replace step 3c with FILD... just don't do it for too long.
One of my favorite features of SILD is the many levels of backup plans:
1. You enter a trance while doing the exercise. This is WILD.
2. If no.1 fails, you fall asleep then wake up at some point later and enter trance. This is kind of an automatic DEILD.
3. If no. 2 fails, you become lucid in your dreams. This is DILD.
4. If all else fails you are still very likely to encounter a FA. It requires more skill to utilize it but that's better than nothing
As you gain more experience with SILD, you will come to trust its results. Then it will become very simple. With minimal work and without losing sleeps, you will be able to enjoy LD/OBE almost any time you want. In the few months since SILD's release, quite a few participants learned to induce LDs on a daily basis, and have since recorded hundreds of LDs. Quite impressive indeed! I hope this will work for you as well. Good luck!
SuperAlex wrote:
Sounds pretty interesting! Great technique. Only problem is that I can't force myself to wake up after 5-6 hours, because if I do so, I will never fall asleep again. I have deep insomnia.
But if I wake up by accident, I might as well do it I'll post in this thread when I get to use this technique!
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Sorry for your insomnia... that's painful indeed Depend on your sleep cycle, you can try SILD before you go to sleep. Some of the guys on my forum actually managed to achieve some good results. If you do wake up by accident, I suggest you to do it in a less intensive way -- reduce the number of repetitions, only passively scan for body sensations, etc.
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cosmic.iron wrote:
SuperAlex wrote:
Sounds pretty interesting! Great technique. Only problem is that I can't force myself to wake up after 5-6 hours, because if I do so, I will never fall asleep again. I have deep insomnia.
But if I wake up by accident, I might as well do it I'll post in this thread when I get to use this technique!
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Sorry for your insomnia... that's painful indeed Depend on your sleep cycle, you can try SILD before you go to sleep. Some of the guys on my forum actually managed to achieve some good results. If you do wake up by accident, I suggest you to do it in a less intensive way -- reduce the number of repetitions, only passively scan for body sensations, etc.
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Alright
Current LD goal(s): To have at least three lucid dreams per week. UPDATE: Kinda owned this goal! =D
Tried it again last night, and this time I did the whole thing. Problem is I think my sleep these past two days has been deeper than normal (which may even not be a problem as my main problem with LD's is waking up to quickly ).
Anyway, I did it on my back, as I can almost never fall asleep on my back and thought on my side I'd just fall right asleep. After I was done I rolled over and took some time to fall asleep. At a couple moments I wandered a bit and couldn't remember which step I was on . I started feeling vibrations very faintly but had a terrible itch which made them go away. I'll try on my side tonight and see what happens.
I actually got a few low lucid moments, but getting lucid isn't that hard for me, so it's hard to say how much SILD helped there. I'll try it for a few more days and see how it goes. I want to see if this tech can get me lucid more consistently and also see how it affects my LD's in terms of vividness and stability. I did realize better DR in terms of quantity of dreams. I guess I just don't remember that many details because I didn't write them down right away.
mattias wrote:
I started feeling vibrations very faintly but had a terrible itch which made them go away.
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It's okay to scratch you know Seriously, the whole point is to get as comfortable as possible so you can quickly fall asleep. Therefore if you feel itchy then you should definitely deal with it quickly. Don't worry about the viberation, it will come back quickly, and if it doesn't, you will get it later after you fall asleep.
The itch is also very likely an illusion. This may happen if you stay completely still. Your body uses this as a probe to see if you are truly asleep. There is a technique on DV that takes advantage of this, but it is extremely hard. The probing becomes so intense that most people just give up. You can stop doing SILD and focus on staying still, and if you are lucky you might move past the probing stage and experience the wonders of falling asleep from a waked state. However, this in general is not compatible with SILD because you will naturally become very tense while doing it.
I tried this this morning with moderate success. The record of it is here.
Where did the idea for this come from? It reminds me of this self-hypnosis technique.
Well another night gone by, this morning I was not in the right mindset at all. Something was upsetting me from the night before and I couldn't concentrate very well. Still, another increase in DR and vividness is pointing me toward trying for a while longer XD
Current LD goal(s): Defeat Xander in our lucid duel!
Rhewin wrote:
Well another night gone by, this morning I was not in the right mindset at all. Something was upsetting me from the night before and I couldn't concentrate very well. Still, another increase in DR and vividness is pointing me toward trying for a while longer XD
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Thank you Rhewin, for your continuos support! next time pls let me know more details on how you were doing it so I might be able to help you diagnose. When you say you couldn't concentrate well, can you please clarify? Do you mean concentrating on the repetitions?
Cheers
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elnaureth wrote:
I tried this this morning with moderate success. The record of it is here.
Where did the idea for this come from? It reminds me of this self-hypnosis technique.
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Very interesting! I just bookmarked the link so I can read it more carefully later. It is indeed VERY similar! The idea of SILD originated from some WILD technique I always used in the past. While working with people on the forum we streamlined and refine it together. The primary goal was to retain the success rate while taking away those "intricate" parts so it's easy for people to learn. We did a lot of experiments and the technique went through several revisions in the past few months.
cosmic.iron wrote:
Rhewin wrote:
Well another night gone by, this morning I was not in the right mindset at all. Something was upsetting me from the night before and I couldn't concentrate very well. Still, another increase in DR and vividness is pointing me toward trying for a while longer XD
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Thank you Rhewin, for your continuos support! next time pls let me know more details on how you were doing it so I might be able to help you diagnose. When you say you couldn't concentrate well, can you please clarify? Do you mean concentrating on the repetitions?
Cheers-------
I'll pay more attention tonight to give better feedback. By concentration issues I mean I tried to go through all the steps but my mind was drifting back to an issue I was having. It was an almost sleepless night for me, you see, so trying to focus on one or two things at a time wasn't the easiest thing. Everything seems in order for tonight, however.
Current LD goal(s): Defeat Xander in our lucid duel!
Great tech, cosmic.iron! I've been thinking for a while now about what to do with inner sounds / inner images. Thanks for sharing.
well i tried this when i woke up in the night last night and woke up this morning with great dream recall, and i noticed that my attention to detail had highly increased when reading my dream journal writing. no lucidity in this dream.
however i tried again today when having a morning nap after taking my kids to school. when i woke up great dream recall again and a few short lucid moments in two seperate dreams. awesome i will be sure to try again tonight. thankyou!!
Current LD goal(s): get onto the USS Enterprise
elnaureth wrote:
I tried this this morning with moderate success. The record of it is here.
Where did the idea for this come from? It reminds me of this self-hypnosis technique.
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I read the link carefully. The resemblance between the two methods are astonishing! Thank you for pointing this out. This for sure will shed more light and give us more insight on why this works and how to further improve it!
So here I will post my progress from last night and next 6 days!
1st night:
I went to bed around 11pm and set an alarm at 3:20am. By some of my calculations my next REM stage should be around 3:30 but this time I didn't get up for WBTB, I just thought that I will perform tech and go to sleep.
Well, I was very tired and I think that my first mistake was setting alarm, it waked me too much but I wasn't sure if I could wake up using autosuggestion because I was very tired so alarm was needed. Once when I was up I felt that I was to awake but I did the tech anyways. After a few repetitions I was getting awake even more. Which takes me to my second mistake which was that I was laying on my back. The story is pretty the same as mattias described his night. Then after some time I rolled over but I was just to awake and I started switching positions and everything went bad! From that point I don't remember almost any dream but my DR is bad anyways...
Now I know my first few mistakes and I will try to avoid them this night. If you have any more advices please feel free to share them!
2nd night:
Nothing, just a few fragments of one dream and that's it. I'm putting this tech and quest on hold because my DR is a mess and there is no foundation to trying this without decent DR. When things change I will post here again... But I think I will try this tech whenever I get up for WBTB and if I get some results I will post...
3rd night:
Success. I've done SILD after 8 hours of sleep, only one repetition and after 10 hours I did SILD again with 3 or 4 repetitions and I had a lucid dream! After that one I did chaining and had another one!
Current LD goal(s): #Find/Meet Dream Guide#
Last edited by dB_FTS on Wed 07 Mar, 2012; edited 2 times in total
Rhewin wrote:
I'll pay more attention tonight to give better feedback. By concentration issues I mean I tried to go through all the steps but my mind was drifting back to an issue I was having. It was an almost sleepless night for me, you see, so trying to focus on one or two things at a time wasn't the easiest thing. Everything seems in order for tonight, however.
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I see. As long as the thoughts don't become too rational and analytical it's generally fine. Just resume from where you drifted away or start all over again. Anyway, good luck tonight
dB_FTS wrote:
So here I will post my progress from last night and next 6 days!
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I'm sorry it didn't work for you this time, but you summed it up well. One thing to bear in mind is that while doing the repetitions do not do it too systematically... don't focus! Allow your mind to drift away is always better than concentrating. Also in step 3a don't stress your eye muscles since that may be the single biggest reason that's causing difficulty to fall asleep.
nightEagle wrote:
Great tech, cosmic.iron! I've been thinking for a while now about what to do with inner sounds / inner images. Thanks for sharing.
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Glad to help hope it will work for you!
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Ok, tnx man. I'll try to be as much relaxed as possible and this time I'll try it on my side where I'm most comfortable as you already suggested!
Current LD goal(s): #Find/Meet Dream Guide#
gamblino100 wrote:
well i tried this when i woke up in the night last night and woke up this morning with great dream recall, and i noticed that my attention to detail had highly increased when reading my dream journal writing. no lucidity in this dream.
however i tried again today when having a morning nap after taking my kids to school. when i woke up great dream recall again and a few short lucid moments in two seperate dreams. awesome i will be sure to try again tonight. thankyou!!
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Combining SILD with WBTB or morning nap is a great way to increase success rate!
cosmic.iron wrote:2c) From head to toe scan your body for any strange sensations such as heaviness, tinglings, movements, etc.
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Just a question...is it necesarry to do it from head to toe?
Because the first time I decided to try it I could only recall that I had to scan for body sensations and I did it from toe to head instead...
The next day I noticed it actually said from head to toe so I did that instead...
But I would personally say that from toe to head seemed to have much more effect...or at least a different effect...
And when I switched (back) to "from toe to head" I also immediatly noticed a change...
Because everytime I reached my head I noticed I dozed off more and more (with quite big leaps)...
It somehow felt more natural to do so...as if I was following "the information flow" as it was travelling through my body and thereby gathering sensory data...untill it finally reached the end station (the brain) and thereby finishing the cycle in a natural way...
Going from head to toe seemed less effective to me...I did feel becomming more sleepy but not the same way as doing it the other way around...
It felt like I was more pushing it which would (could) increase the risk of becomming more awake instead...
Quickly falling asleep after it was certainly MUCH easier with going from toe to head anyway...
Don't know if it has any significance...
If it was just a coincidence or a personal preference or if there could possibly be a (subtle) difference between the two...
So I decided to post these findings anyway...you'll never know right?
Tyharo23 wrote:
cosmic.iron wrote:2c) From head to toe scan your body for any strange sensations such as heaviness, tinglings, movements, etc.
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Just a question...is it necesarry to do it from head to toe?-------
Interesting question! When I wrote "head to toe" I wasn't really being literal... but you did raise a very valid question and your findings might have some significance! I'll go back to my forum and ask them to do some experiment on this.
I'll keep experimenting with it too...
That part alone could anyway help me to get to sleep very quickly if I need/want to...
Hello there. I'm very new to lucid dreaming and I've never had one before. Im not familiar with all of the methods, but I stumbled across this one and it looked perfect for me. I have a few questions that I'll ask in a short answer type format so itll be easier for you to respond to my multiple questions.
I have an early morning class, and for that reason I've only gotten 4 hours of sleep almost exactly. I always take a nap after my class. When I lay down to take a nap, I seem to get in this mode where I can't move my body but my mind is still active. I forgot what this is called, but I feel very closer to lucidity at this point than any other point. My question here is, would it be alright to do this method when I lay down for a nap, or does it have to be right after waking up in the middle of the night or something?
Also for the whole "sound" aspect, I have a fan that I sleep with every night because I like the noise. Is this ok to have going on when trying to do the sound part? I'm used to the sound because I've done it my whole life, so in theory I could try to focus on every little sound that the fan produces and still get the same result, right?
Current LD goal(s): To have my first LD
Huntstreet wrote:
Hello there. I'm very new to lucid dreaming and I've never had one before. Im not familiar with all of the methods, but I stumbled across this one and it looked perfect for me. I have a few questions that I'll ask in a short answer type format so itll be easier for you to respond to my multiple questions.-------
Nap is a great time to practice. What you experience is Sleep Paralasis. This usually happens as a leftover of REM during which your body is paralyzed. Since you only had so little time to sleep, your body needs to make up for the amount of REM you skipped. Thus, when you nap you almost immediately enter REM instead of going through the typical NREM-1, NREM-2 stuff. This is why it's so easy for you to experience SP. You can really take advantage of this, with or without using the SILD method. Of course, combining SILD will greatly increase your chance.
As for the sound, it is usually better if the environment is quiet so you can hear the inner noises. I suspect this is important just as you are not supposed to do the exercise with your eyes open. Your situation with the fan of course is unique, so I don't want to rule out the possibility that it might work for you. I guess we will have to find out by experimenting with it.
Thanks for the technique, cosmic!
I've been struggling to induce one lucid dream. MILD has not been working, at all.
I will try this technique and report back here tomorrow. Thanks a lot; this seems like the technique for me!
Current LD goal(s): Question my subconscious
I want to try this tonight, but I must ask. How do I scan my body?
Current LD goal(s): Being lucid.
Lief wrote:
I want to try this tonight, but I must ask. How do I scan my body?
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The simplest way is to just look for any sensations that's out of ordinary. You can scan for it following certain order, such as from toe to head or vice versa, or you can simply do it randomly. I usually pay closer attentions to these areas though -- toes, fingers, abdomen, and head.
If you are not afraid of being too alert thus losing sleep, then you can try moving your hands, feet, or head with your mind without using muscles. Given the right circumstance they may actually start to move in a pretty wild fashion. In this case you know you are going to experience a WILD (no poun intended). However, you don't want to strain yourself in order to achieve this effect. Just in your mind mimic the sensation as best as you can. Even accidentally using your real muscles is perfectly okay. The key is to just DO IT! As long as you don't wake yourself too much.
ParanoiDave wrote:
Thanks for the technique, cosmic!
I've been struggling to induce one lucid dream. MILD has not been working, at all.
I will try this technique and report back here tomorrow. Thanks a lot; this seems like the technique for me!
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Problem with MILD is the affirmations which are difficult to get them right. SILD is simpler. Just remember, don't push yourself. If it works that's great, otherwise you should enjoy a good night of sleep because you will have plenty of opportunities in your life to experience LDs. That's the kind of mentality you should have, and then the method will work wonders for you.
Hey Cosmic .Iron,
Welcome to this forum,
I have quick short three questions.
a) Is it mandatory to sleep immediately after doing two-three rounds or we can sleep afterwards?
b) Should i silence the thoughts in my mind while doing these cycles or can i ignore thoughts and also whether can i ignore thoughts of excitement, which sometimes prevents me from falling asleep quickly, after doing these rounds?
c) Should i look for real sounds/ sensations etc while doing the rounds or should imagine sounds.sensations?
Thank you!!!!
lucky1990 wrote:
Hey Cosmic .Iron,
Welcome to this forum,
I have quick short three questions.
a) Is it mandatory to sleep immediately after doing two-three rounds or we can sleep afterwards?
b) Should i silence the thoughts in my mind while doing these cycles or can i ignore thoughts and also whether can i ignore thoughts of excitement, which sometimes prevents me from falling asleep quickly, after doing these rounds?
c) Should i look for real sounds/ sensations etc while doing the rounds or should imagine sounds.sensations?
Thank you!!!!
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a) It is not mandatory. In fact, personally when I sometimes double the number of repetitions, then afterward my mind/body will be prepped into such condition that I can just create an OBE with a simple intention while being wide awake. Of course, this takes practice so I don't want to recommend this. In general though, the quicker you fall asleep the better.
b) You absolutely don't want to silence your thoughts! Those thoughts help put you closer to the trance. As long as they are not too rational and stressful you will be fine. While emptying your thoughts is an essential skill for meditation and often suggested by many LD techniques, SILD is designed to be just the opposite. Those random thoughts are your friends, not your enemies! Don't waste your mental energy to try to kill them! Let them grow and go with the flow!
c) It matters not. It's the action that matters. Whether or not you hear anything is not important, as long as you tried to hear them.
I'm sorry if this has been asked before, but does it matter in which position you do the steps? I for one lose my concentration very easily when I lay down, so I'm thinking about trying this in another position, like sitting.
Current LD goal(s): visit an abandoned place
Leijona wrote:
I'm sorry if this has been asked before, but does it matter in which position you do the steps? I for one lose my concentration very easily when I lay down, so I'm thinking about trying this in another position, like sitting.
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I suggest a position that's comfortable, but not your typical one used to fall asleep with. I'm not sure about sitting... but you are welcome to try One more thing, don't "concentrate"! You should allow your mind to drift away. Keep your mind on a leash but not a tight one.
Just a quick update for me last night.
I tried this out and got zero results, which was rather upsetting. I went to bed around 12:30am and set an alarm for 5:00am. I immediately awoke from the alarm when it went off, rather excited to see how this works. When looking through my eyes, almost every time I saw nothing. Around the 3rd or so time however, I saw a man counting what looked like money by a counter. More than likely a cash register counter.
When I listened, every time all I heard was the ringing in my ears, and external noises of animals hitting things and trees outside.
When feeling for sensations across my body, I only felt tingling from time to time in like my toes, and I was a little bit heavy after the 4th cycle. I did it 5 times because I drifted off during one of them.
Now after I tried going to sleep, I had the hardest time getting to sleep actually in a while. It usually only takes me a minute or two. Since I noticed I wasn't going to get to sleep for a while I used a "scene" in my head that always helps me fall asleep quick. It's weird. I imagine myself homeless on a bench waiting for the bus, and a friend comes and offers to help. By the time I get their house I fall asleep. Every time. Well, not this time! I laid there for awhile, and when I woke up this morning, I had no dream recall whatsoever.
While I was trying to fall asleep though I felt like my body was rocking back and forth and it got extremely rapid at one point, especially in my head. With a vibrating numbness too. I was laying on my back.
I didn't open my eyes throughout every cycle and when I tried to go to sleep. Were they only supposed to be closed during the vision cycle?
Edit: Oh, I just remembered to say this. I normally sleep with my AC on at night because when I was a child I always had a fan running. The unit is in my room because we redesigned half of our garage into a bedroom. I turned it off last night though because it drowns out most of the noises outside (animals, trees, etc). Maybe that's why I couldn't fall back asleep..
Current LD goal(s): Being lucid.
Update...
I wasn't able to fully do the technique. I set my alarm for the usual time, which last night was close to 4 1/2 hrs after going to sleep.
When I tried to do the technique, I ran through the steps only twice, and for some reason, I told myself "I think it's working..." and just fell back asleep. I end up doing this with a lot of techniques. I don't know why. Maybe it's because I'm tired.
No recall... At all.
I AM going to try this again tonight. In fact, I'm going to try until I can induce a lucid dream.
I had a quick question though:
I was thinking about using Melatonin tonight before I went to bed. I haven't used a dreaming supplement yet. Do you think taking a supplement along with using this technique would be useful or have no effect?
Current LD goal(s): Question my subconscious
Seems like we both had the same issue, Dave. /:
Current LD goal(s): Being lucid.
Lief wrote:
Just a quick update for me last night.-------
Dear Lief, reading through your report it occurs to me you might have missed many opportunities to experience a perfect WILD and OBE.
The time you actually saw picture is the first sign of getting into a WILD. You see, it's normal for the first few repetitions to not feel anything, but usually each repetition will bring you closer to the correct mind/body state then you will start to get sensations. When you do experience and distinctive sensations like this, you should immediately cease the exercise and focus on the sensation instead. By focusing on it the sensation will increase, assuming you are not getting too excited and break out of the trance. In the case of yours, the image you saw will eventually become bigger and brighter. At which point you should be able to do a nose RC and it usually will work. Or, you can try reaching out to the scene and that usually will allow you to zoom right into it and becomes a dream.
Another place you missed an opportunity is when you felt the rocking sensation and some vibrations. Again, you should have stopped the exercise and focused on increasing the sensation. When the range of the movement becomes bigger and bigger, you are already in a perfect condition to experience an OBE. Just do a quick nose RC and you should be able to roll out of your bed.
Don't despair, as you become more experienced to these sensations you will eventually be able to grab them. You are actually on the right track judging from your experience.
About losing sleep... typically when doing SILD, we do not expect to experience any sensations. That's right, you heard me correctly -- we ARE NOT striving to experience anything while doing the exercise! It's the action that matters, not the result! It is perfectly fine for you to not feel anything. Just finish the cycles, become plenty relaxed, and drift to sleep as quickly as possible. LDs and OBEs will come automatically at later stage. If you do it in this fashion, these exercises will actually help you sleep! On the other hand, if you focus too much on the sensations, you will become too eager and tense, and that will result in difficulty to fall asleep afterwards. In your case, it's even worse because you were literally on the verge of WILD and OBE and you broke out of them