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.  

Awesome! The short steps before the slow ones might really help me, as I usually get distracted even before a full cycle  I'll try to remember to try it out again tonight.  

yoy wrote:
I had the same problem as mattias,

These quick cycles should help me, i usally didn't go further than hearing .

The only success i have recorded with this technique was 3 LD's in a row (really vivid ones). I did a long WBTB before (around 40 minutes)

Do you really need to get up or is staying in bed ok?
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You don't have to get up although that may not be the best way to do it. If you choose to not get up, chances are your first attempt will not yield much result. However, that's not a bad thing because your mind/body will be in a much more "optimized" condition anyway. You will almost always wake up again after this. Just remember to stay still and do another round of SSILD cycles. This time you will likely run into some intense HIs. Another trick which I use a lot is this -- do some cycles (without getting up) and fall asleep; upon waking up again, immediately relax the head and allow it to sink into the pillow while focusing on the ears. With practice, doing so can give you instant WILD. The conditioning power of SSILD is so great that this trick works even when sometimes we forgot to stay still and moved.  

mattias wrote:
Awesome! The short steps before the slow ones might really help me, as I usually get distracted even before a full cycle  I'll try to remember to try it out again tonight.

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Yes the short steps is a major improvement over the old versions. Try it and you will not be disappointed.  

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  )

          Current LD goal(s): improve dream recall | get back to having LDs regularly | world domination  

Cool I will have to try this, it sounds really easy. I've actually done this before, I just pretty much watch myself fall asleep.  

Golvellius wrote:
I don't get how I can go to sleep so excited to do this and LD then wake up in the middle of the night all "ugh too much effort back to sleep."

I need to wake up more.
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I get it... You need more sleep. That's it. LOL  

Actually, I always do this before going to sleep. It is necessary for me to do. If I don't do it, I'll keep being distracted by noises, thoughts etc. It might also just be me (I have ADD(that rhymes))

I didn't really call it SSILD since I did not know it existed. For me, it was just like some sort of relaxing method. When I wake up in the middle of the night, I tend to do WILD instead of doing SSILD again. Most likely because I can get to sleep very easely once I woke up.  

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!  

It was a vague at-best LD, so maybe it was a fluke. Nevertheless I'm going to use this technique more.  

Forty-Two wrote:
Wow I love this tech, I have done the new one twice, the first time I had a really vivid fa and the second night I had another fa bit realized it was a dream, it was a really low level LD but I still can't believe it, LD on the second try, ihope my success with this tech continues and I get more vivid LD's

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You should be proud. Not many people learn to catch these FAs on the second try. Keep at it and you will be rewarded. I'm very confident about that now. On my personal forum there are a dozen people who already managed to record hundreds of LDs each within just a few months using SSILD.  

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.  

Thats awesome, my experience was the same way, I fell asleep before I was done with the cycle so I bet if i Finished it my ld would have been more vivid

          Current LD goal(s): Have a vivid LD  

I tried this technique at 7:25 am. It did the short cycles and the slow ones. The thing is, I kept getting distracted from the cycles because I was thinking about other things. I fell asleep, and just had a normal dream.

          Current LD goal(s): Get back into Lucid Dreaming!  

cosmic.iron wrote:
csw wrote:
My experience with this: I took a nap from 8:30 to 9:30 and went to bed at 10:30 (It was an exhausting day!) doing the SSILD technique. I woke up 3 hours later with an extremely vivid, yet non-lucid ND. I did the SSILD technique again and I woke up 3 hours later with the same thing. This happened over and over 4 times until I finally woke up from it all at 8:30 AM. The weirdest thing about it is that each SSILD ND started the same way. After some very intense hypnogogic images, I would walk into my kitchen and above my fridge would be a cabinet of DVDs. I would look at one for a while and then I would be transferred into a vivid dream. My question is: why, throughout all of this, did I not get a DILD?

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Everyone is different. Some people tend to encounter OBE or FA more often. I actually suspect some of the awakenings you mentored were FAs. SSILD is very good at producing super realistic FAs.

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Now that I think about it, I might have had a few false awakenings, because during one of the 3-hour intervals after I had to go though some crazy hypnogogic images (Giant White Chinese symbols flashing in my face at about 40 times a second to be exact    ), I felt like I was coming out of it and I really did feel awake. However, I never opened my eyes, because assuming I was actually awake (which in hindsight I probably wasn't), I just drifted off back to sleep. Now I know I'll to remember to do a RC next time, thanks!  

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?

          Current LD goal(s): To achieve a stable, lengthy and nice LD (and remember it.)  

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.  

It sounds interesting. But if I need to get up and then go back to sleep I won't be able to try this method for a long time lol. Like I said, I sleep in general about 5 hours a night. If I get only even 2 hours of sleep I am fully awake if I'm up for more then a minute lol Yea I'm tired but I can't get back to sleep. It's happened before in recent history - I went to bed at 2am, woke up at 4am and couldn't get back to sleep until 7am then had to be up at 9am.

Though I'll try the chaining method perhaps if I get a chance to. I'm nervous about the HI cause of my mind hating me and all but if it works I'll learn to tame it. I did try a few cycles at some point yesterday so I think I'd easily be able to get that method down. Its just the rest of the method will be tough to accomplish lol

          Current LD goal(s): To achieve a stable, lengthy and nice LD (and remember it.)  

Hello !

I have read your SSILD Method, cosmic.iron, and I am going to try it tonight for the first time. Can I have a lucid dream the very first time ? And as I have never had any lucid dreams, is it possible to have my first with the SSILD method ?

Thank you !
          Current LD goal(s): Having my first LD.  

I tried doing my first SSILD but I failed...  

I think I wasn't concentrated enough...

Question : If I go to bed at 11 p.m (23:00) and I wake up at 3.30 a.m (3:30) to do the SSILD method, at which time will I have my lucid dreams ?

Because I have a very bad dream recall and I can only remember my dreams if I wake up in the middle of them or if I put an alarm at 5.00 a.m.

So I was wandering when should I put the alarm ?

And another thing : after I have done the 6 quick cycles and the 4 slow cycles I have to sleep as quickly as possible... I am a quick sleeper and I am very hard to wake up, I felt pressure on myself trying to sleep quickly after SSILD yesterday night...

Maybe it was that pressure that caused me not to have a Lucid dream ?  
          Current LD goal(s): Having my first LD.  

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.
          Current LD goal(s): speaking with SC, Find dream guide  

You absolutely have my permission to use my experience! I would like to add what I did preceding this event. When I went back to bed I started my SSILD technique and 2 times I got awoken slightly by HI and could feel my body extremely heavy and numb but I just HAD to move. On the second time this happened i wiggled my fingers and then started SSILD again. I got 2 reps into the first cycle and was out like a light and not soon after had my first FA of the six.

          Current LD goal(s): speaking with SC, Find dream guide  

Autumn wrote:
You absolutely have my permission to use my experience! I would like to add what I did preceding this event. When I went back to bed I started my SSILD technique and 2 times I got awoken slightly by HI and could feel my body extremely heavy and numb but I just HAD to move. On the second time this happened i wiggled my fingers and then started SSILD again. I got 2 reps into the first cycle and was out like a light and not soon after had my first FA of the six.

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Thank you Autumn. That is a fantastic experience!  

After 8 months of trying on and off to lucid dream (on purpose, of course; I had 3 spontaneously before this), I finally had my first DILD last night thanks to this method. I woke up at 6:30 AM, stayed up for about 5 minutes more in bed, and I got only about 2 cycles in until I was asleep. In the dream, I was walking with my old friend Mike and we saw that the card and comic shop had turned into a mini-arcade. I walked in and there were people hanging around the door, and the games inside were all mostly retro. It was very small.

As we were waling out, I was looking back at the new corner store and Mike said "Hey, it's kinda weird that they would just put that there so fast. Are you sure you're not dreaming?". That moment I asked myself: "Wait a second, I am dreaming...". Then the dream ended after about 5 more seconds, or so I thought! I had one FA as well, and finally woke up at 7:20. Curiously enough, my parents usually wake up at 6:30, but last night they woke up about 30 seconds after I did O_o. Still, I'm pretty happy that I finally had an intentional lucid dream, even if for a few seconds. Thank you cosmic.iron.  

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.