Crazy MILD+VILD variant

[Whiskee]

Hey guys. This is going to be long! I've found a very interesting MILD/VILD mix which I'd like to share with you. Let me just say that before this I sucked hard at WILDs, FILDs, and any "active" techniques despite all the patience, determination and confidence I sure had during the last three months... I had this idea when I moved to ADA but realized it was a bit overwhelming for me since I'm currently studying for some very important exams and I'm just too focused to "taste" the environment around me. As usual, this might just be something that happened to work for me. But I had 5 fairly long and extremely vivid LDs in a row (over 5 nights, I don't WBTB or use timers anymore) and I think that's some interesting success rate to say the least after months of failures... this is definitely worth sharing. So... what does your usual, generic Googled LD tutorial tells you to repeatedly ask yourself during the day? To my experience the "am I dreaming?" question is not really reliable nor effective because you are usually too busy in your dreams to remember it and nobody genuinely doubts that during the day... you KNOW you are awake and it all comes down to a mild MILD (ow, terrible pun there). Where's the loophole? Let me turn it the other way round. I ask myself at random intervals (say 5, 6 times per hour): "Am I dreaming?" I then start examining the environment around me, as if I was trying to find THAT little weird insignificant detail which must have caught my attention... if I don't find any in a few seconds (nothing actually triggered that thought, I made it up) I pretend to realize I'm just wasting time and refuse to perform any reality check at all before I return to whatever I was doing. "Scrap that. Why am I even questioning myself? I can't possibly be in a dream, because ALL of them somehow start with [my dream guide] telling me I'm dreaming and she usually stays with me the whole time just to make sure I don't make stupid mistakes and lose lucidity... I know every second I'm dreaming." Now, the tricky part. When I go to sleep I don't just mindlessly visualize the same scene over and over like a mantra (I honestly envy Pedro and those who can do that, it didn't work for me) but I try and think of the very first moments of the last 6-7 dreams I recently noted in my dream journal, one after another, and what would have instead happened if a friend of mine, who I now consider my dream guide/assistant (she happens to be an unusually recurring dream character, and she was the first and only one who ever told me I was dreaming years ago) walked on me out of nowhere, pinched my nose (yep, I used to, but now SHE does that for me ) and told me to breathe deeply. I don't know why, but it works surprisingly well for me. I can't remember any single unconscious dream during the last 5 days without my friend magically appearing and making me go lucid. The AMAZING part is that she actually follows me around (or I just feel her presence, hard to explain, think of an antivirus "background process" ) and reminds me to spin when the dream fades out, to avoid following the dream plot when I get too excited and stuff like that. Yesterday I found myself under a rain of fire and she told me not to believe that crap because I already dreamt about it months ago. She even slapped me once (no pain, but damn if it was hilarious!) when I saw my mother sleeping and I thought of my real body... I don't guarantee this will work for you, but it's something you might want to try