Background

SSILD is a modern lucid dreaming technique. It is easy to learn, highly effective, and produces consistent results over period. I developed this technique in 2011 in order to teach lucid dreaming to fellow dreamers on a Chinese forum. The first written version of the technique was published under the title "太玄功", which literally translates to "A Very Mysterious Technique". This is rather fitting because at the time no one had the faintest idea why it worked. Despite this lack of theory, the feedback on the technique was overwhelmingly positive. Within just a few months we gathered many hundreds of success stories!

Building on this initial success, we continued to refine the technique, and it essentially became a collaborated effort among hundreds of people. The tutorial went through a few revisions, and with each version we saw improvements in ease of use and effectiveness. A year later I wrote the first English version of the tutorial and published it on a few lucid dream online forums. This time I chose the name "Senses Initiated Lucid Dream", partly to conform to the unofficial but widely accepted naming convention of LD techniques, and partly due to increased knowledge and understanding gained during the past year.

While people on these forums appear more slow to embrace a brand new technique, the result was nonetheless quite promising. Between DreamViews and LD4All, there are more than a hundred success stories recorded in 9 months, within only two threads.

Today, SSILD has become one of the most popular LD induction techniques on the Chinese forum, which has grown to host more than 80,000 members. The numbers of success stories are too numerous to count. Another exciting aspect is SSILD's long-term sustainability. Whereas many techniques appear to become less effective over period as the users' initial enthusiasm wane, SSILD delivers consistent performance, turning novices to experts, and experts to masters. For example, more than a dozen members on my tiny personal forum are able to induce LDs on a daily basis. One of them even logged nearly 500 LDs/OBEs in full detail within less than a year, a remarkable achievement by all means.

Design Philosophy

SSILD is designed from the ground up to be simple, "idiot-proof" even. It does not utilize advanced techniques such as relaxation and visualization, and stays away from delicate, non-measurable mental exercises. It despises the notion that lucid dreaming is more "art" than "technique". It does not require you to be gifted or creative, in fact, there is little room for improvisation. Just follow the simple steps outlined here and you should be all set. SSILD is made so concise that if you mix in other stuff you may actually end up creating negative impact on its performance.

The "Cycle"

The core component of SSILD is called a "Cycle". Each cycle consists three steps:

Focus on Sight: Close your eyes and pay attention to the darkness behind your closed eyelids. Don't strain your eye muscles though. Your eyeballs should be resting, totally relaxed. If you don't see anything that's only normal. Do not attempt to spot visuals by moving your eyes around.

Focus on Hearing: Further relax your eyes and shift your attention to your ears. If the room is quiet enough you might be able to hear some noise inside your head or the sound of your heartbeat. However, if you can't hear anything it is okay to listen to external sounds too.

Focus on Somesthetic Senses (Touch): Direct your attention to your body. Feel it and see if you spot any unusual sensations such as tingling, heaviness, lightness, spinning sensations, and so on. If nothing like these can be felt, you can also try to feel the weight of the blanket, your heartbeat, temperature of the air, etc.

The repeated stimulation on the senses enables SSILD to condition our mind and body into a subtle state that is optimized for lucid dream to occur naturally. We should keep this in mind so we don't make the common mistake of "trying too hard" during the cycles. Beginners usually want to see things, hear things, and feel things. When nothing unusual happens they become discouraged or even desperate. Avoid this mistake at all cost! One should not expect to experience anything phenomenal during the Cycle. In fact, it is better to expect NOTHING at all will happen.

The Steps

1. Go to bed early, preferably before 11pm. Set your alarm to wake up after 4 or 5 hours.

2. Get out of bed and stay awake for 5-10 minutes. I suggest you visit the bathroom, rinse your mouth, and walk around or stretch a little bit. Try not to become too awake though.

3. Return to bed and lie down in a comfortable position, preferably different from the one you usually use. This is to prevent you from falling into sleep prematurely. However, if you are the type of person who requires extra effort to fall asleep, you may want to use the usual position instead.

4. Perform the "Cycle" quickly, repeat 4-6 times. This serves as a warm-up exercise so each step should be very short, a few seconds should be sufficient.

5. Perform the "Cycle" slowly, repeat 3-4 times. This step is the most important one. You should take extra time during each step. Thanks to step 4, at this point you should have become sufficiently relaxed and you will find focusing on the senses become much easier. For example, your eyes will feel more relaxed, and you may get visuals such as lights, colors, or movements. You might also notice that the external sounds seem to be fading into the background. Do not get excited though. You should observe quietly and after a while move on to other senses. As far as timing goes we are flexible, but in general each step should take no fewer than 30 seconds.

During the slow cycles, you may become distracted by a lot of random thoughts. This is a good indication that you are close to falling asleep. Do not try to suppress these thoughts -- they are your friends. Imagine they are gentle waves and let them carry you and wash you away from the shore of reality. You will occasionally become alert and realize you have lost track of your exercise. No worry, just start from the beginning of a cycle and you should be fine.

6. Return to the most comfortable position and allow yourself fall into sleep as quickly as possible. Do not think too much and do not worry if it will work. The quicker you can fall asleep the more likely it will work. Have faith!

What happens next

One key characteristic of SSILD is that it is neither a WILD nor DILD technique. It is a hybrid. As such, it is important to become familiar with all the possible scenarios so you will maximize your chances.

1. Hypnagogia: when we enter a dream consciously, we often encounter various unusual hypnagogic sensations. These include the sensation of falling, floating, seeing lights and images, hearing sharp noises, and many more. In fact, sometimes you may encounter sensations so strange that they are beyond words. When we encounter these sensations, chances are we are already in a dream, or getting really close. SSILD is known to cause hypnagogia during the Cycles (although this effect should NOT be sought after). It's also not uncommon for you to wake up suddenly while being bombarded by intense hypnagogic sensations. When this happens you should not become excited. Be a passive observer and wait for the sensations to amplify. You could also nudge them a little bit mentally, but do not overdo it. As soon as the sensations become clearly identifiable you should be able to perform a successful reality check and get up. Typically the dream will start from your bedroom because subconsciously that's where you expect you will be. You can also stay in bed longer and use visualization to create a dream scene manually. In any event, it is important for you to stay calm when encountering hypnagogia. Do not speak to yourselves or analyze it mentally as doing so can cause the sensations to fade and eventually wake you up.

2. False Awakening: SSILD is known to cause a lot of FAs. Not any FA, but some super-realistic ones! A typical scenario goes like this -- you finished doing SSILD and fell asleep. Then suddenly you wake up. No lucid dreams, perhaps not even a normal dream! Feeling disappointed you get out of the bed... then you wake up again! It was all but a dream! SSILD's ability to frequently create this type of FAs have been well-documented by now. Therefore, you should definitely develop the habit of performing a reality check upon each awakening after doing SSILD, no matter how convinced you are about your not being in a dream. Another possible scenario is that you slip into sleep during a SSILD cycle, and an FA immediately takes over. When this happens you may suddenly feel awake and it seems you are about to suffer insomnia. Some users complained that SSILD was causing them to lose sleep, only later found out they had been doing SSILD cycles in their dreams! Once you learn to catch these FAs your chance of success will be greatly improved.

3. DILD: When you fall asleep from SSILD, you enter your dreams with heightened awareness. As a result, lucid dreams occur. This is called Dream Initiated Lucid Dream (DILD). With heightened awareness, you may be able to spot oddities in dreams and in turn become lucid. It is also very common for spontaneous lucid dreams to occur -- you suddenly become lucid for no apparent reason.

4. Real Awakening: You wake up again after doing SSILD. You do a reality check and this time it is real. Do not despair. You still have chances. Try to stay still, and immediately relax your head, allowing the back of it to sink into the pillow. Then you need to perform a few extra medium-paced SSILD cycles. At this stage it is quite possible for you to encounter  hypnagogia sensations. If not, just finish the cycles and go to sleep. You will have a much higher chance to succeed this time.

FAQ

Q: Can I do SSILD when I go to sleep?

A: Yes you can, but it won't work. When you go to bed you typically start with a lot of NREM sleeps which are not ideal for lucid dream to occur. The level of acetylcholine (an important neurotransmitter which is a major driving force for lucid dreams) is also at lower level. Trying to lucid dream with any technique at this stage is a waste of time, even though this is the favorite mistake virtually every beginners make.

Q: I'm used to go to bed late or have to get up early, can I still use SSILD?

A: I suggest you do SSILD only when you have sufficient time. Even though it does not take up a lot of time to perform, you WILL be losing some sleeps. As such, for people who never get enough sleep, your best bet is to do SSILD at leisure.

Q: Can I combine other breathing, meditation, relaxation techniques during or prior to doing SSILD?

A: No. As mentioned earlier, SSILD is all about "conditioning". You condition your mind and body to the most optimal state for lucid dream to occur. This state, however, is very delicate. Mixing in other techniques will likely interfere with this state and cause negative impact on SSLID's performance. You're free to create your own routines once you master the technique, but for beginners I expect you to adhere to the instructions in this manual.

Q: I get this itch... how am I supposed to stay still?

A: You are not supposed to stay still! If you have an itch just scratch it. If you want to roll you roll. With SSILD you need to stay as comfortable as possible! Just do an extra cycle to compensate and you will be fine. This is in fact a major advantage over virtually all other methods.

Q: My eyes strain/hurt when focusing on visions...

A: Remember, you should NOT expect to see anything, so relax already! Do not strain your eye muscles. Your eyeballs should be resting, if not staying still. Performing a few quick cycles will also help you relax.

Q: I can't feel anything when doing the cycles...

A: We cannot stress this more -- it is OKAY to not feel anything, and it is WRONG if you actively pursue it and expect things to happen during the cycles. With the cycles you are setting a timer for the bomb to go off. You don't expect a bomb to go off WHILE you are setting the timer do you? Sure, it does go off occasionally...

Q: I got insomnia after doing SSILD...

A: Actually, performing SSILD correctly is likely to cure your insomnia. There is a remarkable resemblance between SSILD and Betty Erickson's self-hypnosis routine! Now back to the question. We need to first identify if we are taking about "real insomnia" or "false insomnia". Remember, SSILD likes to create these super realistic false awakenings. It is very possible for you to enter an FA while still performing the SSILD cycles. In this case you will be trying to fall asleep while you are already sleeping! Next time you find yourself unable to fall asleep during a cycle, you should definitely perform a reality check, no matter how convinced you are! For people who indeed suffers loss of sleep due to SSILD, I suggest you tweak your routines in two areas: 1. Reduce the amount of sleep before waking up for SSILD. 2. Reduce the time you spend on staying awake prior to the exercise.  

Autumn wrote:
Thank you for this tutorial. I am excited to begin using this technique! I am a beginner and have only had 3 LDs so far within the 2 months that I have been practicing. Even with the LDs being fleeting I am really enjoying the experience of learning more about dreaming and the human mind. Thank you again!

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Good luck! Just remember, don't do it without first getting sufficient sleep!  

noobdreamer wrote:
seems like an interesting technique

i didn't see it the first time around, so I guess I'll give it a shot (especially since i still have to find something that works well enough for me, since almost all my previous LD have been rather spontaneous, or caused by a mixture of various techniques  )

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It has been slightly more than a year and half since this technique was first developed and deployed to a large audience. So far I've collected many thousands of success stories from people all over the world. I'm confident this is a technique that will work for you. If it doesn't work the first time, just keep at it and you will be awarded soon enough. Good luck!  

Alec427 wrote:
I tried this the day before yesterday.

I did it once before, but not properly, so I only got a semi vivid LD.

This time I tried doing it step by step, and stayed calm and didn't expect anything, nothing happened after two or three dreams until I entered the same dream again! (Is that normal?)

I was in a weird school, noticed it was similar to another dream and checked. LD from then on!
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Entering the same dream may not be SSILD's doing, but the technique does increase your awareness and reasoning capabilities within a dream so you can catch the anomalies.  

Quicksilver21 wrote:
So will this technique work even if I haven't had an LD before? Also what is the average amount of time it takes to have success in with this technique?

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Yes it will. This technique was created from ground up to be friendly to beginners. As for the average amount of time it takes, everyone is different. Personally I need between 5-10 minutes for it to work. Sometimes it can even take less time depend on the condition.  

WolfSpirit wrote:
Even though this seems to take some extra time, I'm used to not running on much sleep. However, must I wake up after a few hours? Because for the most part I can not go to bed until about 1am on weekdays. And on weekends, if I try, it's still impossible to attempt to sleep before midnight. And I takes me ages to fall asleep anyway, if I were to wake up a few hours after going to sleep, then stay up for so long, I simply would not be able to go back to sleep.

So yea, is it possible to succeed with no experience at all and not being able to do that mid-wake up?

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For optimal result you really do need to get up after a few hours of sleep. If that is not an option, you can try the chaining method. Basically you remember to do a few rounds of SSILD cycles upon every awakening! You will very likely run into intense hypnagogic sensations after a few tries so be prepared for them and don't get too excited.  

Autumn wrote:
Last night I had the most crazy experience ever. I woke up at 4:30 am to feed baby and was not going to go back to bed because my alarm was going to go off at 5:30 but at 4:52 I decided I would go back down for 30 mins because that is certainly enough time to have a lucid.

Well............I had 6 FA's in a row! In each one a I became lucid and it lasted a couple mins then I would wake up again. The first FA was the only one that I did not become lucid in and then all the others I would become lucid and then go flying.

In one of them I decided to look at my hands for an RC after I pinched my nose. My hands were COMPLETELY normal. I counted all the digits and I had 5 on each and then I tried to push my hand through the other and it wouldn't go! In hindsight I was missing my rings but I still was lucid and amazed at how my hands were so normal.

Then it gets really weird, On my last FA turned Lucid I was getting tired of having FA's and I was reminding myself that I couldn't get trapped in my dream worlds and that my RL alarm was going to go off any minute. So I realized I could just wake myself up. I started telling myself "Wake up Autumn, it is time to get up." Over and over but it wasn't working...I tried blinking and shutting my eyes, I tried thrashing around and telling myself to wake up. None of that worked so I went over to my DC husband and asked him to say "Autumn, it is time to wake up" He looked at me confused and said it anyways but it didn't work so I asked him to hit me. My DC hubby was appalled and said no! I told him that it was okay...that I was dreaming and it wouldn't hurt me but he kept refusing and saying "But what if it isn't a dream??!!" So Finally I just started SCREAMING " WAKE UP NOW AUTUMN!!!!!!!!" Then I started to feel my limbs tingle and POP my eyes open. I immediately pinched my nose and was not able to breath, I peeked at the clock and it was 5:29 AM.

So unreal...but what is even more unreal is the conversation I had with my husband just now. I told him about my experience and once I got to the part of me asking him to hit me to wake me up his mouth dropped and he said "I remember you asking me to hit you..." I said "you mean I was talking in my sleep?" and he said "No I was dreaming that you were asking me to hit you to wake you up but I wouldn't do it because I was afraid it wasn't a dream and that if I hit you then you would divorce me so I was too afraid you would leave me if I did it!!!!!

Now, on a side note not only does my husband think LDing is kind of strange but he never remembers his dream. He swears he doesn't even dream because he never remembers them. I was shocked. I don't know if that is a shared dream or if maybe I was really talking in my sleep and he was hearing it then dreaming about it.

It was intense.
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The border between reality and dream can be finer than you think  Anyway, very cool and unique experience and thanks for sharing. With your permission I will use this as writing material for a book I'm writing. Thank you!  

Golvellius wrote:
I've never woken up in the middle of SP before I tried this technique.

Last night it happened again, I dreamed that I was trying to get out of a building with no exit by crawling under the wall. I couldn't get my torso under the wall so I exhaled as much as I could to... compact myself. But I got stuck, and I couldn't inhale.

Then I woke up in SP after panicking for a bit, then taking a deep breath and breaking out of it. I could've DEILD'd if I wasn't so panicked.

The ride never ends.
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SP, for a lucid dreamer, is a good friend  Next time don't break out of it. Try spin yourself into a dream.  

lucky1990 wrote:
Hey Cosmic.iron, Here's four quick questions for you

1. Do I have to repeat the cycles until I fall asleep, or is it enough that I do 3-4 cycles in slow motion?

2. While doing the cycle, Do I have to exclusively focus on the component alone, when I am doing the component. Ex: While looking at the void behind eyelids, do I hv to exclusively focus on it, keeping other components in abeyance? Sometimes I get distracted and focus on sounds as well, while looking at my closed eyelids.

3. My fan is quite noisy, as a result I am unable to focus on subtle internal sounds and always get distracted to focus externally at the sound of my fan. Is it OK?

4. What about thoughts that I have when I am doing the cycles. Do I have to ignore them or suppress them?

Thank you.
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Hi lucky, pls see my answers below:

1. There is no need to repeat the cycles till falling asleep. Doing so can potentially making it difficult to fall asleep actually.

2. It is okay to simultaneously feel other sensations, but you probably don't want to do that consciously. The trick to a successful SSILD session is really in finding the perfect balance between sufficient stimulation to the various senses and being able to fall asleep quickly afterwards. The stimulation is achieved through "focusing"; therefore you need to make sure there are sporadic moments of staying focused during each slow cycle.

3. Focusing on external noises is perfect okay.

4. Do not suppress the random thoughts. You need them to carry you away so you can relax more quickly and it also makes it easier to fall asleep after the exercise. Just make sure you pull your thoughts back to focus on the sensations once in a while.  

lucky1990 wrote:
Thank you cosmic.iron,

Well, here's a few more questions:

1. Can i sleep by 12 and get up at 4 AM, study for 2 hrs and around 6-6.30 lie in my bed while doing this technique and falling asleep naturally. ( What i imply is that, will this method work if gap between WBTB method is large)

2. Can i do this technique at afternoon naps?

3. do i have to repeat any mantra while doing this technique?

Thank you.
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1. Assuming you are able to fall asleep after that, you may actually have a much greater chance to succeed this way.

2. It depends. Sometimes we simply don't have enough time during naps. Some people do report success during naps so it is worth trying.

3. No mantra is needed, other than reminding yourself to repeat SSILD cycles and/or do RCs upon each awakening after SSILD.  

fogelbise wrote:
Cosmic Iron, thank you for continuing to research/refine your method!

Lucky1990, check the tutorial in the meantime, should help with some of your questions.

My Experience in brief. LD last night from SSILD!(assumed)  In the past, I had at least one lucid dream maybe around 12years old after my father told me about it as a way to deal with nightmares(defeating the "monster") but over the years I got away from the practice of recalling my dreams, much less having lucid dreams. In the last 10days or so I started researching, started dream journal, reality checks, looked at different methods to induce LD and decided to try SSILD. Had LD last night on 3rd night time attempt (3 night time attempts, 2 afternoon nap attempts=no luck at nap). LD success was great, though a little short and was discovered instantly when something happened and I said "this is a dream, now I can do what I want"(and did until it ended) - did not do RC in dream.

Some challenges to work through further. Before starting LD methods, I was already waking up to use the bathroom about 4-5 hours after going to bed so don't need the alarm I think. Previously it seemed I could go back to sleep within 1 minute. SSILD seems to wake me up more so I tweaked it last night so I only stayed out of bed maybe 2 minutes and went straight to SSILD cycles, still didn't sleep right away (verified through RCs) like normal but did have a big event today-so that probably didn't help me in dozing off quickly after cycles and is the type of event that can cause some insomnia where I normally have none. Also some noises including wife noise/movement probably isn't ideal - I put in ear plugs last night when it worked! I only did a few short *additional cycles after putting in earplugs.

Any tips?
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It is really rewarding when I read about people's success stories with this technique. They make the effort worthwhile!

If you always have trouble falling asleep after the exercise, you should consider the following:

1. Get up a little early and go back to bed quickly.

2. Sleep in the usual, most comfortable position.

3. Do more short cycles and fewer long cycles.

4. Don't get up at all. Just remember to do a few cycles upon each subsequent awakening. I call this "chaining" and usually you will hit some HIs or FAs after the first couple of tries.

I hope this helps  

ParanoiDave wrote:
@cosmic.iron

I've been using the updated technique for nearly a week now, and only managed to get in one "real attempt."

When I woke up the next morning, I had the feeling that I had a lucid dream!

This is definitely the only technique I will use from now on.

My only problem is that I still tend to wake up, make a poor attempt to do a cycle, and fall asleep. Any tips on how to combat this?

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After you wake up do you leave the bed? Sounds like you are no sufficiently awake when you begin performing the cycles, which will lead to less than optimal result. Make sure you have sufficient sleep (4 hours and plus), then leave the bed or sit up for a few minutes. When performing the cycles try to really focus on the first couple of them then let go.  

lucky1990 wrote:
@ cosmic iron,

First of all, I wish to congratulate u for the efforts u are taking to help everyone.

Did the SSILD tech yest and had some good results, though did nt become lucid. Did it for few mins, in a rather, erratic manner and slept. No sooner, my body was knocked by a powerful blow like some hammer knocking me up. I woke up alarmed. Though this tech looks promising.

I am a student and cant dedicate much time for ld's. As far as ur experiences are concerned as well as numerous testimonials that u have recieved, how much time, do u think, that i should dedicate for the technique as well as sleep (to induce ld's) ? That is, after doing the technique (around 15 mins), for how much time i should sleep to induce ld's?

Thank you.
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Your welcome.  While everyone is different, I think you need to give yourself at least two hours. Try waking up after 4 hours of sleep, get out of bed for a couple of minutes, return and do a few cycles (4 quick + 3 slow should be pretty good), then go to sleep. This shouldn't take you more than 15 minutes. Afterward you will probably have many awakenings (many of which may be FAs), just remember to perform a few SSILD cycles upon each one then fall back to sleep again. This kind of chaining works very well for people who don't get a lot of sleep because it does not require you to stay out of bed for extended period. Good luck!  

lucky1990 wrote:
Hey Cosmic.iron,

I hv been having wonderful results in a week of using this technique. I have two questions for u.

1) I usually dont sleep quickly as i finish doing the technique. Can i momentarily open the eyes after doing the technique before falling asleep naturally?

2) Could u pls elaborate more on third component, the somesthic senses?

Yes you can open your eyes after the cycles. Just don't keep them open for too long.  What would you like to know about the 3rd component? It's really very simple -- just direct your focus/attention to your body, that's all. It can be certain part of your body or the whole, doesn't really matter. You can in fact think in terms of focusing on different axis -- Visual --z-axis; Hearing -- x-axis; Body -- y-axis. Let your attention glide through these axis and you will be fine.

Thank you.
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Yes you can open your eyes after the cycles. Just don't keep them open for too long.  What would you like to know about the 3rd component? It's really very simple -- just direct your focus/attention to your body, that's all. It can be certain part of your body or the whole, doesn't really matter. You can in fact think in terms of focusing on different axis -- Visual --z-axis; Hearing -- x-axis; Body -- y-axis. Let your attention glide through these axis and you will be fine.  

Frying-man wrote:
After the cycles, I was highly alert and awake still.  Several times I tried changing positions, doing a few more cycles, and so forth, but I just remained incredibly alert and awake.  

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First, thank you for trying SSILD!  What you encountered was a fairly common problem for people who are just starting to experiment with SSILD. It is hard to say exactly what the causes are -- cloud be too much excitement, too much concentration, and etc. This problem gradually goes away as you become familiar with SSILD and in fact often becomes the other way around -- you fall asleep too quickly! Thus my number one advice is -- don't give up, do it for a week and it won't bother you anymore.

There are also a couple of other things to do:

1. Do NOT focus on spotting/causing sensations. For example, many people try very hard to actually see things during the first step, and all that does is causing strain. You should not care whether you see things or not, it's the action that actually matters.

2. Reduce the number of cycles.

3. Lie in your favorite sleeping position so you do not have to turn around after performing the cycles.

I hope this helps. Happy dreaming!  

HM37 wrote:
I have decided to try lucid dreaming again. I tried it ages ago and didn't manage to have the success I wanted.

I decided to try this last night, but it took me ages to get to sleep after doing the cycles, I think this messed up any hope of getting a lucid dream. Any tips?

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You need to give me more details in order to help you diagnose. BTW, were you attempting SSILD right after you went to bed?