Thread: Any good ways to get your first lucid dream?

I've been practicing it for around 7 months now with no avail!
:O
Would be useful if you guys could drop off some tips or leave a link to something that could help me :3
Thanks for reading.

What exactly have you been doing for 7 months? It'd be good for us to know so that we can help out.

Please share more.

Do you have a reality check?
What induction technique do you sing?
Are you writing you dreams in your pillow journal?
Does your car have wheels or just wings?
Have you done a reality check upon reading my somewhat nonsense questions?

Please share more:
- Your dream journal.
- Writting dreams down, recall.
- Induction techniques that you are using.
- Sleep schedule.
- Reality checks performed.

Etc

You could try the MILD technique (Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams), this is probably one of the simplest ways to become lucid, and it is very intuitive.
In essence, this technique means that you firmly decide throughout the day to get ready to recognize the dreamstate the next time you are dreaming - basically, you "get ready" to recognize the dreamworld.

Of course there are many ways to maximize the chances to succeed with this technique - for example, you can practice your prospective memory throughout the day and try to remember random future goals, like for example if you notice that your dreams tend to have something in common, like that they are often about a certain person you know in waking life or something like that, then make it a habit to always check your surroundings and ask yourself if you could be dreaming whenever you see that person in waking life.
This is known as "dreamsigns" in the lucid dreaming community - something that can tell you that you may be dreaming.
"Hey, I often see that thing in my dreams, so maybe I am dreaming right now...?!".

Also, it is very important that you maximize your dream recall, so that you remember at least one or two dreams every night, but preferably as many as possible - I have noticed that I suddenly get an awesome dream recall when I make an effort to remember my dreams, and sometimes I can remember 6-7 vivid dreams in one single night!
Indeed, one reason why you feel you haven't succeeded yet might be because you have a poor dream recall, so make it a habit to write down your dreams in as much detail as you can in the mornings.
Many people even start getting lucid dreams simply from this action alone, since writing down your dreams makes you focused on them and familiar with them, which makes it easier to recognize them later.

Early doors, when you haven't experienced an LD but are desperate to do so, it can be a good idea to have a whacking great WBTB. You might struggle to get back to sleep, but when you can your chances are increased greatly.

Yeah give WBTB a go, it's great to increase your awareness giving you a way higher chance to recognizing it's a dream. This gave me my first lucid's and it seems almost forgotten with the endless techniques posted or falls in the to hard basket because requires getting up. So back to basics to get your first LD.

Just after 5 or 6 hours wake up preferably get out of bed, stay up for 15, 30mins think about lucid dreaming but don't get overly excited or have bright lights on or you might have to much trouble sleeping. Go to bed with lucid dreaming on your mind, see yourself in a dream doing whatever then see something not right and do your reality checks and knowing its a dream, say in your mind "I am dreaming, this is a dream" have fun with it, having it be the last thing in your mind when you drop off to sleep. Next thing you will realise it's a dream in some way.
Have confidence cause you will have a lucid dream this way, it just requires effort of getting up.

Other than the other great advice my only input is if you really, desperately want an LD, do WILD. The reason is simple: with WILD the more effort the more chance you get an LD, if you literally wake up after 6 hours of sleep and stay still in bed but conscious through shear willpower you'll eventually hit a dream, it's the perfect technique for desperate people. Desperation is bad for everything else though, but combining that with WILD is good for breaking out of a long dry spell.

^^ I would say WBTB + MILD is a much better approach for the "desperate" beginner. WILD just takes so much finesse and balance that only comes from long experience, usually.

The desperation IMO can be more fruitfully directed towards noticing all nightly wakings, and recalling dreams and then perform MILD while falling back asleep.

Anxious + desperate + WILD attempt = long night awake, IMO. WILD takes falling asleep which requires a strong mix of deep relaxation skill + holding on to awareness, quite a balancing act.

My $0.02

The reason is simple: with WILD the more effort the more chance you get an LD, if you literally wake up after 6 hours of sleep and stay still in bed but conscious through shear willpower you'll eventually hit a dream, it's the perfect technique for desperate people.

Seems more likely to me that they will lose most of those precious hours of sleep trying to brute force a WILD. Also, that dream they eventually hit might easily be a NLD, due to lack of practice in LDing overall. That is just my two cents.

I think that WILD takes energy to do successfully, meaning you need to be aware and partially wake, being desperate is very good motivation and can give a good amount of energy, that's just enough to keep you aware as you fall into a dream.

It's doubtful to me that it would be enough to keep somebody up the entire night, you still get tired and sleepy but the desperation will produce enough energy to maintain enough awareness as you fall asleep.

Sure it takes finesse if you want to do it consistently, but if you try every night for a week because you really want to then you'll be successful 1 or 2 out of 7 nights in my experience. MILD on the other hand requires a very particular state of mind which requires cultivation, the way I see it WILD doesn't need anything except the will to succeed and good timing.

Doesn't hurt to try anyway. =]

^^ I once tried to WILD, after 5 hours sleep, 5 nights in a row, all it got me was a lot of 5-hours-of-sleep nights, and actually installed a "looking for the transition" trigger that made it hard to fall asleep at all (not even trying to WILD) after 5 hours of sleep for a couple of weeks afterwards.

Who knows, maybe if I tried again I'd make it.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

^^ I once tried to WILD, after 5 hours sleep, 5 nights in a row, all it got me was a lot of 5-hours-of-sleep nights, and actually installed a "looking for the transition" trigger that made it hard to fall asleep at all (not even trying to WILD) after 5 hours of sleep for a couple of weeks afterwards.

Who knows, maybe if I tried again I'd make it.

To be fair the sort of willpower required to stay awake after 5 hours of sleep for 5 nights in a row is 5 out of 5 on the impressive scale.

You could also try to catch a false awakening. If you don't have them naturally, you could try to incubate one be falling asleep with the mantra "When I wake up, I'll be dreaming." Then you RC after each awakening until you catch one.

I wish it was willpower and I wish I could have fallen asleep easily, it was involuntary insomnia. Like I said, for a while thereafter I would jerk awake right at (what felt like) the transition. Even if I did finally get an hour or two more much later in the morning (I don't really recall at this point), it was a really really exhausting time.

Another technique i found very simple and very useful is SSILD ( can't post a link, becouse i need to be a member for 3 days to do it, google dreamviews SSILD )
I think you sould try it especially at wbtb. Anytime i managed to focus on it even for a short while i somehow enhanced chances for LD. Even if not directly getting me one, then i might got many false awakeings and things like that.