Thread: My System, For Anyone Interested in Advising Newbie

I left an introduction post citing my reasons for wanting to become involved in lucid dreaming, but that doesn't matter for my purposes here. I just thought maybe there are some experienced individuals looking to offer some perspective.

I've just been at this for about a week. I keep a daily DJ, which has a detailed entry for at least six or seven dreams. In conjunction with the DJ technique, I've also started keeping a dream map, and using the "tag book" method I learned on this site for just noting important points of dreams from which you can recall the rest. Also regarding recall, I've stopped smoking weed and I drink lots of water before bed and every time I get up to try to encourage awakening through the night and remembering more dreams. So far my recall has been slowly improving, no huge concerns here but any advice is always appreciated.

As far as my reality checks and all day awareness go, this is what I've been doing. I try to foster an awareness of my environment all day, but of course I'm just starting so it more or less coincides with my reality checks. What I do is I try to notice details about the environment I hadn't noticed before, I check my clothes, I review all of my senses, I think about how I got where I am sometimes, and I generally try to experience the moment very vividly. Usually then I try to determine if I'm dreaming. I imagine inconsistencies in my environment, and tell myself, the next time I'm dreaming I will realize I'm dreaming. It's at this point usually that I look at my watch three times or check text.

The method of induction I've been trying is MILD. I know that it works almost exclusively in the early morning, and I try to use it upon my awakenings. I do pretty much just as Laberge described in his book, Lucid Dreaming right down to using his mantra.

So that's pretty much all of the info on what I've done so far and continue to do. I thought I would post it as completely as possible so anybody feeling generous can help. As far as specific questions go, I just have a couple. One, I have thought about checking my hands as part of my RC/Awareness routine, because Robert Waggoner seems to strongly support the hand technique. Is this wise? How best can I incorporate it into my day? Should I just do it before sleep, instead, as he says he did? Secondly, My sleep pattern keeps getting bumped back because of my attempts at MILD. Does anyone have any advice for getting your sleep back on schedule and still fitting in an induction attempt or two?

Thanks for your time.

Edit: One more thing-- I am interested in learning more about Dream Exit inductions, but am having trouble finding a good rundown, sorry if it's in plain sight.