DILD count has gone straight down the tubes. [25/mth to 1/mth]

I didn't want to piggyback Mzzkc's thread, but I figured I should post this now instead of letting it drag on anymore. :cheeky:

And I'm sorry for the wall of text; there's a few things to cover.

Okay, so in the months following when I joined DV two years ago, I had a DILD count of around 25 a month or so. I practiced the same technique, etc, and drank some apple juice whenever I felt like I needed a vividness boost before bed.

Then I hit a big slump about a year and a half in; my lucid count fell to about 2 a month and I could only remember about half as many dreams as I used to. This went on for 7-8 months and a few months back, I had a lucid (nothing special, just a semi-lucid) and figured this dryspell was behind me. I got a big confidence boost and whatnot, so I definitely had the placebo effect going.

But, no lucids and poor recall for the next week. Then, a semi-lucid, and then nothing at all, just poor recall (one dream a night compared to 3-4 when I started out). This is still the case now, with the exception of a few time-well-spent lucids of average quality last month. I downed half a carton of apple juice last night and got one weird dream, but nothing really vivid or anything. All this time, I've mentally labeled the low number of lucids as "just a slight hiccup in my LDing endeavors", so I'm guessing the mindset shouldn't be an issue. I've been drinking apple juice every night now.

I don't know why, but my method of getting DILDs isn't working at all anymore.

To make things even more perplexing, I get my DILDs through awareness - and how does awareness get worse over time if you're continuously practicing it? I don't think it does get worse (unless you get used to a certain level of it; is that possible though?). :P

I haven't been stressing out about using awareness as a technique, and before I got that big dryspell, nothing substantially negative happened in my life that could affect my LDing. I've still been keeping a positive outlook and "knowing", fully, that my next lucid is right around the corner, but admittedly I'm becoming a bit disconcerted.

Am I just going through a rough patch?

I know there's nothing wrong with how I've been going about getting my lucids, because I haven't changed anything with the technique, so maybe it's something else. I've been trying WILD for the past week or so, and haven't even been able to get into SP. I've had a few WILDs in the past but they're not my strong suit, so I'd really like to stay with DILD, just because I want to get back to my previous lucid count, the count when I started LDing. And 99% of these lucids came from DILD.

Edit: I've also been using MILD.

HELP! :panic:

Anyways, thanks for reading guys. Hoping you can shed some light on this, I'd greatly appreciate it. :'3

It's official... You have to resign from dream guide.

Just kidding :D

I know we tell people who are new to lucid dreaming to stop switching from technique to technique and stay with just one for a while. But maybe in your case you should start a new adventure and look at a different technique. I would say to stay with DILD but maybe look at the MILD side of things.

I'm in the process to making a MILD tutorial. So when I'm done maybe you could read it.

Yeah, I've been using MILD with confidence and physically writing my intentions down. Totally forgot to put that in the post, haha! |P

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Originally Posted by Puffin

Yeah, I've been using MILD with confidence and physically writing my intentions down. Totally forgot to put that in the post, haha! |P

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Well there is more too MILD than that. Hopefully my tutorial can help.

Do you document any other instances of your attempts like thoughts, physical sensations before you sleep etc. like aside from apple juice for example this: (feeling: content/ thoughts concentrated on: lucid dreaming, this song, this person/ Light of room: completely dark. Temperature:cold, etc.) that could help pinpoint your ideal environment before lucid dreaming. Also if you do hit major dryspells it's best just to not dwell on it all, well unless your going for like a punishment method (like shocking yourself slightly or pinching yourself for not lucid dreaming) of DILDing or MILDing. I'm assuming you have a good sleep schedule set up? If not get on that it helps a lot! I say try different forms of incubation in which you give yourself some cue to realize you're dreaming. Also! Try different lucid aids cause if you drink too much apple juice you can become allergic to it! A Co-worker of my dad actually drank way too much apple juice because it was his favorite drink; he eventually became allergic to it! That's all I got for now, aside from that look into others DJ's and maybe draw a little inspiration from them.

I wish you the best of luck!

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Originally Posted by dakotahnok

Well there is more too MILD than that. Hopefully my tutorial can help.

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I look forward to reading it! ^_^

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Originally Posted by Nufeather1

Do you document any other instances of your attempts like thoughts, physical sensations before you sleep etc. like aside from apple juice for example this: (feeling: content/ thoughts concentrated on: lucid dreaming, this song, this person/ Light of room: completely dark. Temperature:cold, etc.) that could help pinpoint your ideal environment before lucid dreaming. Also if you do hit major dryspells it's best just to not dwell on it all, well unless your going for like a punishment method (like shocking yourself slightly or pinching yourself for not lucid dreaming) of DILDing or MILDing. I'm assuming you have a good sleep schedule set up? If not get on that it helps a lot! I say try different forms of incubation in which you give yourself some cue to realize you're dreaming. Also! Try different lucid aids cause if you drink too much apple juice you can become allergic to it! A Co-worker of my dad actually drank way too much apple juice because it was his favorite drink; he eventually became allergic to it! That's all I got for now, aside from that look into others DJ's and maybe draw a little inspiration from them.

I wish you the best of luck!

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I daydream alot so I get lots of inspiration for my lucids, and I've been incubating this one scene for almost two weeks now. Actually, I have a bunch of dream goals and scenarios to experience piling up, but I can't cross them off the list quick enough due to this dryspell. :P As part of my reality checking I look to see what things feel like, the temperature of the room, and whether my surroundings look blurry, among other things. My sleep schedule has been relatively off-kilter but I've started going to bed at around 11:00 each night and waking up at 7:00 like I do during the school year. I only started doing this recently, maybe over the past three days (and completely forgetting that it could help), so now I'm sure it will help!

Thanks.

Whenever I have a DILD dry spell I try to WILD for a few nights. And even when my WILD's fail, for some reason the chance of me having a DILD skyrockets. I think it just helps me have a boost of awareness in the middle of the night. Good luck!

Hmm.. Maybe you need a re-vamp in the system. Is it possible that you've grown too accustomed to your usual plan?
(Feel free to take my advice with a grain of salt.. I've yet to have a fully satisfyingly awesome lucid dream yet, but it'll happen soon- I've finally developed the right mindset :] )

You've been practicing a long time, awesome! However.. Is it possible that your DILD methods have become too routine? Even though you say you obtain your DILDs through awareness, is the method in which you practice so normal in daily life that it hardly carries over into your dreams? That your mind just 'accepts' the awareness and continues on? I say, try to do something that shocks the system and makes your methods a little more monumental, and a little bit more.. Noticeable. Instead of chugging your apple juice for vividness, eat peanut butter, a banana, some chocolate, or a combination of the three with the same intentions- Knowing that this change will help 'restore' whatever 'deficiency' you have that's been causing your dryspell.
I'm assuming that you practice ADA, but do you still question your surroundings? Try switching up your methods of asking yourself if you are awake- Like asking yourself why you don't believe this is a dream, etc.

Change up your questions, your methods, make it less routine etc, and see if it stirs something up. If worst comes to work and it doesn't help, go back to your old methods.

i usually put effort into lucid dreaming and sometimes i put too much in. whenever i have a lucid it's really easy like i didnt mean to and it just happened. lucid dreaming should be easy, just try to give your mind a little nudge in the direction for lucids and dont worry so much about methods and boosters for a little while and see if it works. another thing that works for me is if i am able to wake up without moving, i do a FILD to enter a dream and chain it with DEILD. it works good but it is situational.

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Originally Posted by cytotoxicT

Whenever I have a DILD dry spell I try to WILD for a few nights. And even when my WILD's fail, for some reason the chance of me having a DILD skyrockets. I think it just helps me have a boost of awareness in the middle of the night. Good luck!

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Yeah, I tend to have DILDs when I fail a WILD, but recently that hasn't been happening. I'll definitely try a WILD again tonight though; I never thought about WILDs in the sense that they increase awareness. Thanks!

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Originally Posted by Elektra

Hmm.. Maybe you need a re-vamp in the system. Is it possible that you've grown too accustomed to your usual plan?
(Feel free to take my advice with a grain of salt.. I've yet to have a fully satisfyingly awesome lucid dream yet, but it'll happen soon- I've finally developed the right mindset :] )

You've been practicing a long time, awesome! However.. Is it possible that your DILD methods have become too routine? Even though you say you obtain your DILDs through awareness, is the method in which you practice so normal in daily life that it hardly carries over into your dreams? That your mind just 'accepts' the awareness and continues on? I say, try to do something that shocks the system and makes your methods a little more monumental, and a little bit more.. Noticeable. Instead of chugging your apple juice for vividness, eat peanut butter, a banana, some chocolate, or a combination of the three with the same intentions- Knowing that this change will help 'restore' whatever 'deficiency' you have that's been causing your dryspell.
I'm assuming that you practice ADA, but do you still question your surroundings? Try switching up your methods of asking yourself if you are awake- Like asking yourself why you don't believe this is a dream, etc.

Change up your questions, your methods, make it less routine etc, and see if it stirs something up. If worst comes to work and it doesn't help, go back to your old methods.

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Thanks for the help, Elektra! There is the possibility that I've simply become too accustomed to the technique, as I've been the same practicing awareness and skepticism stuff for the past 2 years. Yikes, now that I think about it... :P

ADA is one of many techniques that uses awareness but uniquely involves doing it "all day", whereas in my case I'm not aware all the time. I do tend to dissect my surroundings and reason out why I'm not dreaming; for instance, now I know that I'm awake because what I'm typing here makes sense, and the keyboard is behaving normally. I'm also a bit tired which normally doesn't occur in my dreams. So a lack of reasoning things out mustn't be a problem.

I'll be trying some new things tonight. There's bananas in the kitchen... =D

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Originally Posted by siuol

i usually put effort into lucid dreaming and sometimes i put too much in. whenever i have a lucid it's really easy like i didnt mean to and it just happened. lucid dreaming should be easy, just try to give your mind a little nudge in the direction for lucids and dont worry so much about methods and boosters for a little while and see if it works. another thing that works for me is if i am able to wake up without moving, i do a FILD to enter a dream and chain it with DEILD. it works good but it is situational.

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I'm actually quite unsure as to whether or not I'm putting too much effort into LDing at the moment. That in itself might be a sign that I am, though, and am just too used to it to notice. I might give FILD a go.

Hi Puffin,

You had wonderful results starting from nothing... That is a sound proof that you already know how to help yourself and get to 25 /mth.
I have more confidence and trust in yourself, the knowledge is already there and i would recommend sitting in a quiet environment for up to 20 min a day for a week without thinking focused on your breathing and waiting for the answer. What did you changed in yourself to attain 25/mth ?

I also agree with Elektra and would add a shift of the used senses in your ADA practice... if you used to do more eyes, ears try to shift to more touch, smell ... even if you prefer keeping to eyes you could start doing things you would not normally do like for example when walking don't look at people but pay more attention to surroundings ... that is helping a lot in dreaming even by itself. You will still practice ADA - aware of what you are doing but you could start doing things you don't do normally using same range of senses.
Do you think a lot these days ? Calm your mind. Thinking is prohibited:) I find i have better results when mind is calm and my intent reach targets much easier in dreams. Thinking creates a wall of fog ...
Get to the basics... what was the first thing that helped you to induce LDs ? Do it over and over again :) Focus on that ...

Wish you get back to "normal" ASAP.

Wake

Calm is good. I just realized last night that I'm always thinking about something, and have seldom used meditation in the sense of clearing my mind and just reflecting. Actually, this morning I had a pretty vivid lucid dream! I decided to not only touch objects, but focus on smell and taste. So I licked the floor, and brick(?!) walls of a bathroom. :cheeky:

Didn't taste like much, which I'm guessing is for the better, but then I stopped to listen and heard muffled wind chimes that seemed to be coming from all around me. It was slightly eerie, but observing things more than I usually do (in-dream, at least) helped me keep my lucidity longer. I'm positive it will help if I simply stop to listen in waking life too, especially given your suggestion to do so. Thank you very much. :)

(Anyways, on a slightly different topic, why is everyone automatically thinking I use ADA? I've been using awareness before it came out, and I even wrote a tutorial on it. ADA should not be attributed to everything 'awareness'.)

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Originally Posted by puffin

(Anyways, on a slightly different topic, why is everyone automatically thinking I use ADA? I've been using awareness before it came out, and I even wrote a tutorial on it. ADA should not be attributed to everything 'awareness'.)

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I know. I really wish that king yoshi wouldn't have used that term. We had ada before that but we just called it a DILD. but then king yoshi posted that tutorial and used tha term ada. (It was still a good tutorial)

But now EVERYONE Is using ada. And some people doesn't even really know what it means. Ada should not be used by beginners. And every time you see an introduction in the newbie forum there are people telling them to use ada. (Even when they have haven't had any luck.)

/rant

Sorry for ranting.on your thread puffin.

(Ps if you read this king yoshi don't think im saying anything bad against you. I just feel like it was a wrong place to make a new term :lol:)

It's a great guide and way to become lucid! But through fault of, well, no one really, now it seems to be the 'official' awareness tutorial to look at. But hey, can't change that. :sheepishgrin:

Anyways.

The term "mindfulness" is worth knowing.

Regarding your awareness/mindfulness Puffin (and related to what Elektra said) why not try creating several categories of awareness? For example, maybe spend one week just looking at the way the texture of objects changes your perception of the colours, or spend a week looking at the way sunlight reflects off surfaces. Unlimited possibilities. I'm sure.

I'm starting a 'high-powered' DILD and MILD, as many RC's in a day as I can manage, every time I walk through a door I start awareness if I'm not already, I'm going to start meditating, increase my visualisation skills, incubate and start V-WILDing.

These lucid dreams just don't happen by themselves it seems.

Maybe you should trawl through the induction sub-forum and try some of the wackier ones, Puffin :P

My lucidity rate:

April - 1
May - 6
June - 3
July -1

What's going on here? I had attributed my decline in lucids to exam stress, but I took all those in May, and that's when I had the most lucid dreams. In fact I can't even call this a dry spell since I wasn't exactly having regularly lucidity before. Damn frustrating.

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Originally Posted by Bobblehat

The term "mindfulness" is worth knowing.

Regarding your awareness/mindfulness Puffin (and related to what Elektra said) why not try creating several categories of awareness? For example, maybe spend one week just looking at the way the texture of objects changes your perception of the colours, or spend a week looking at the way sunlight reflects off surfaces. Unlimited possibilities. I'm sure.

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Sounds like a good idea! I tend to focus alot on touch and sight, so I've been adding some more taste/smell/auditory awareness in, but maybe using just one for a few days could help.

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Originally Posted by Ctharlhie

I'm starting a 'high-powered' DILD and MILD, as many RC's in a day as I can manage, every time I walk through a door I start awareness if I'm not already, I'm going to start meditating, increase my visualisation skills, incubate and start V-WILDing.

These lucid dreams just don't happen by themselves it seems.

Maybe you should trawl through the induction sub-forum and try some of the wackier ones, Puffin :P

My lucidity rate:

April - 1
May - 6
June - 3
July -1

What's going on here? I had attributed my decline in lucids to exam stress, but I took all those in May, and that's when I had the most lucid dreams. In fact I can't even call this a dry spell since I wasn't exactly having regularly lucidity before. Damn frustrating.

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Yeah, I was figuring my dryspell would end once I got out of school. Apparently not! :P

I'm definitely going to be paying more attention to MILD, although I've been incubating one dream for the past (almost) 3 weeks now so I'm positive I can't do anything more for visualization or incubation.

This may sound odd, but maybe you should read your own tutorial and start afresh? Maybe you'll see a new angle.

I read it over and didn't really see anything new in it, but I did have a semi-lucid after failing a WILD attempt. :)

Binaural beats seem to be helping.

I'm going to experiment with DEILDing using an alarm, I'm putting my phone on vibrate and setting it to go off on each major REM period. I'm going to put the phone in my sock, then I'll stay still and keep my eyes closed when it goes off. If anything, the wakefullness will cause DILDs even if the DEILDs don't go through.

Do you do your technique with WBTB:s ?

I am sure you know all about WBTBs :) But it is easy to forget.
But if you try your DILD technique with a WBTB I am sure you can break your dryspell, because a good technique with vivid dreams is likely to succeed =)

Right now I am pracctising WILD before sleep because I like to push the limits ^^
But even if that attempt fail I can still get lucid because my normal dreams are vivid and therefore it's easer to become aware. But to stop dryspells the best way is probably to take a break for a few days or to just face the fact that lucid dreaming is easy when you think it's easy.

I saw a the "Wake up" documentary on youtube and one man said that he had to pracctise 3-5 years before he got the lucid dreams he wanted. Now he had pracctised for 30 years! So you are in pretty good shape =)

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Originally Posted by Ctharlhie

I'm going to experiment with DEILDing using an alarm, I'm putting my phone on vibrate and setting it to go off on each major REM period. I'm going to put the phone in my sock, then I'll stay still and keep my eyes closed when it goes off. If anything, the wakefullness will cause DILDs even if the DEILDs don't go through.

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I've tried setting my phone to vibrate, and putting it under my pillow to go off 5 hours after I go to bed. Unfortunately, a few nights ago I changed the time, now the phone won't stop vibrating after a few seconds - it just keeps going and going until you manually shut it off. And I've set it so that it does one long vibration, but it's still not fixed for some reason. Not fun. :P

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Originally Posted by MasterMind

Do you do your technique with WBTB:s ?

I am sure you know all about WBTBs :) But it is easy to forget.
But if you try your DILD technique with a WBTB I am sure you can break your dryspell, because a good technique with vivid dreams is likely to succeed =)

Right now I am pracctising WILD before sleep because I like to push the limits ^^
But even if that attempt fail I can still get lucid because my normal dreams are vivid and therefore it's easer to become aware. But to stop dryspells the best way is probably to take a break for a few days or to just face the fact that lucid dreaming is easy when you think it's easy.

I saw a the "Wake up" documentary on youtube and one man said that he had to pracctise 3-5 years before he got the lucid dreams he wanted. Now he had pracctised for 30 years! So you are in pretty good shape =)

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I've been using WBTB for the past few weeks, and in the past few days I've attempted a WILD before bed. It just kept me up though, so I've switched my attempt times to naps. :P Thanks for the suggestions!

I've been using WBTB for the past few weeks, and in the past few days I've attempted a WILD before bed. It just kept me up though, so I've switched my attempt times to naps. :P Thanks for the suggestions![/QUOTE]

Wow, then you have done almost everything :o
Have to tried to take a break ? =)

Is there a lot of stress in your life right now? Do you perhaps have something that's bothering you? Is there something in the back of your mind that's causing you to be upset? I'm just curious because it wasn't until I managed to let go of those kinds of issues that I managed to have my 2 lucids...

I suggest you look at all of the stress causers in your life and see what you can do to either eliminate them, or come to terms with them...

I hope this helps? I'm pretty new to this, but just trying to offer some advice because I hate to see people have problems.

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Originally Posted by MasterMind

I've been using WBTB for the past few weeks, and in the past few days I've attempted a WILD before bed. It just kept me up though, so I've switched my attempt times to naps. :P Thanks for the suggestions!

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Wow, then you have done almost everything :o
Have to tried to take a break ? =)[/QUOTE]

I don't think taking a break would help that much, actually. They never have in the past. :P But if things get worse, I'll definitely consider taking one.

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Originally Posted by DaTechnoKing

Is there a lot of stress in your life right now? Do you perhaps have something that's bothering you? Is there something in the back of your mind that's causing you to be upset? I'm just curious because it wasn't until I managed to let go of those kinds of issues that I managed to have my 2 lucids...

I suggest you look at all of the stress causers in your life and see what you can do to either eliminate them, or come to terms with them...

I hope this helps? I'm pretty new to this, but just trying to offer some advice because I hate to see people have problems.

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Yeah, actually there is something that's causing quite a bit of stress. I don't have it on my mind all the time though, so I'm not sure how it could affect my LDing. Unfortunately there's not much I can do about the problem right now; it's kind of all up in the air, so. Hmm...