Thread: Michael Raduga's The Phase?

I've heard of it and read a portion of the book, but I've ever tried and don't really believe the statistic anyways. I mean considering how much people fail lucid dreaming when WILDing I really can't imagine almost everyone being succesfull in OBE on their first three nights.
I hope you get some good results

I'm also skeptical of such a great results. On the other hand, if you are super excited and you perhaps already have some experience with WILDs, you could get a good result in short time. But I would attribute this to the super excitement - your state of mind is extremely important. For subsequent OBEs, I think you need to work for them harder and a little longer, when the excitement wears off. But don't let this discourage you. Who knows, maybe it will come really easy to you.

Check out Beyond dreaming, cos dis the place for OBEs


***Moved to Beyond dreaming***

Yeah, it is difficult not being skeptical about that. And I am not that interested in OBE myself, it's just that his descriptions of it sounds exactly like a lucid dreaming. Besides that, he also makes other big claims like

"Having much more dreams is a bonus of this practice. It leads to another bonus - becoming conscious in dreams. That's why you do not need to think about methods for becoming conscious in dreams while practicing indirect techniques." (OBE4U.com Forum • View topic - Distracting dreams )

and "Usually lucid dreams become a bonus for practice indirect or direct techniques. You even may no think about it but will have succes. Even if you haven't succes with indirect or direct techniques. If you do everything properly 30% of the phase entrances must be by becoming conciousness in dream" ( OBE4U.com Forum • View topic - Lucid Dreams Only )

Anyway, I will give it a try because if he is right, I shall know in a just a few days. If he is wrong, I will also know in just a few days. Little to lose, much to win. And I know most people who say this never keep their word, but I will try to remember to tell how it all went.

I really doubt his statistics.

That said I think his techniques are great for learning. I had my first WILD the night I started reading his book. I was using the phantom wiggling and visualization methods.

There is no information in his book that can't be found on this forum, but he explains it all in a very clear and interesting way. I recommend it as a great guide for DEILD.

I don't think this thread should be shoved into Beyond Dreaming. He is teaching DEILD techniques only he doesn't use typical lucid dreaming terms. He makes up neutral terms in order to avoid alienating those looking for OBE's and doesn't use straight OBE terms to avoid alienating those looking for lucid dreams. The term OBE is on the cover only because it's the most well known and sought after of the experiences. There is nothing paranormal in his book.

Originally Posted by dms111

I don't think this thread should be shoved into Beyond Dreaming.

Oh, it's not "shoved" here. OP was asking about this method with relation to OBEs. In general lucid section, he would hear answers like OBEs don't exist and his method is just WILD method.

That's why I put it here, so OP gets answers from people who believe in OBEs. As you can see I post here quite a lot and I also practice OBEs.

It's true, than one of his methods is just like WILD method, and he is using universal term "phase" so not to alienate anybody. I believe, that somewhere during WILDing, there is a point, in which it's decided if you end up in LD or OBE. I think it has something to do with vibrations. I do get them quite regularly when WILDing/OBEing.

But the phantom method, I was not able to do untill well over a year after starting to WILD. Now it happens to me sometimes even without me doing anything to start it. It's very interesting feeling. Good luck y'all.

So this book is free? In that case Raduga is the Mother Teresa of lucid dreaming.

I had one WILD and one OBE in first week. On a good night I can get 5 to 7 DEILD's with his dream re-entry technique that I have not seen elsewhere. This man is an honest expert. You can trust what he says.

Why do I even open these posts, I can't even finish my current reading goals

The books looks interesting, gave a quick look in some lines and the information makes sense so far. Will give it a read and comment, but right from the bat, there's many factors that can speed up your lucidity. I actually had a talk about this with Sageous, and you can split these into 2 categories:

- Emotional mechanisms: they refer to your "ability" to enhance pratice and habits in a short(er) amount of time due the emotional effects. Wanting to lucid dream, thinking about lucid dreaming, craving to lucid dream. My first lucid was achieved within less than 24hours due emotional mechanisms. The deal is you don't want to go "overdrive" like the book mentions, because that can create anxiety and ruin the process, not only by lowering sleep quality, but also due counter-productive effects;
- Mechanical mechanisms: this is simple to picture: just think about learning. Wanting to learn something is not effective, but doing it the right way is, even if you don't want to "learn". For example, if you do reality checks every day, linking them to specific cues and such, you can bet that you eventually will have lucid dreams at some point, wether you heard about lucid dreams or not. This is because even without the emotional mechanism you form such a habbit that is connected with memory mechanisms and in medium/long-term, these actions not only take place into your matrix of dream content, but they also become part of your mental schemas.

Hope you got the idea I was trying to show, because it only gets harder when you apply it. Hopefully this is present on the so called "winning formula" of the author of the book, and if so, the book is way more insightful that many of us could hope in the first place.

That's why I put it here, so OP gets answers from people who believe in OBEs.

Gab, what is an OP? :p

This man is an honest expert. You can trust what he says.

So I see you've tried his technic and aprove of it, right? Well, let me ask you this, how do you feel abou that idea of his that after 2 or 3 days working on The Phase you should take the rest of the week off and not worry about trying anything OBE and LD related for a few days? Do you believe it's advisable, while trying out his technic for a week or two, to stop all other LD activities like MILD and RCs?

For example, if you do reality checks every day, linking them to specific cues and such, you can bet that you eventually will have lucid dreams at some point, wether you heard about lucid dreams or not.

Well, I will take the chance you've presented me and change a little the subject, as I have some growing doubts about RCs... :p So far, I still haven't been able of spotting my dream signs, certainly due to not having such an amazing Recall yet. Do you think i shold try to link my RCs to any other random cue, like "running water" or should I perform an RC just out of the blue, like every 30 minutes or so? Another possibility I have been considering is to go through the day looking for any kind of anormalities and, once and only when they are spotted, to RC. I believe this could boost my daily awareness. However, I doubt I could do much more than 5 or so RCs a day. Any thoughts? And sorry for changing the subject... :p

Thanks for the feedback, people

Originally Posted by lucsande

Well, I will take the chance you've presented me and change a little the subject, as I have some growing doubts about RCs... :p So far, I still haven't been able of spotting my dream signs, certainly due to not having such an amazing Recall yet. Do you think i shold try to link my RCs to any other random cue, like "running water" or should I perform an RC just out of the blue, like every 30 minutes or so? Another possibility I have been considering is to go through the day looking for any kind of anormalities and, once and only when they are spotted, to RC. I believe this could boost my daily awareness. However, I doubt I could do much more than 5 or so RCs a day. Any thoughts? And sorry for changing the subject... :p

Dream signs can vary, and for some people it's not that easy to spot them. If your recall isn't the best, there are some "universal" dream signs. I say universal because they are still cues that might indicate that you're dreaming, and they show up with high frequency. I personally don't put them in the same bag as the "personal" dream signs, I put them above because they're way reliable and consistent, due reasons I'll explain shortly.
First of all, you want to link your awareness primarily not to dream content, but to the dream cues. What are them? I put them in a short acronym which translated to english is DIPE:

Deslocation
Irregularities
People
Emotions

Deslocation refers to one characteristic of the dream: the dream transitions. As you can see by reading dream journals, even people with great recall show dream reports of sudden dream transitions to a different plot or scenario. Now I won't bother you with the theories behind the "why does this happen?", but this is especially useful due lucidity coming more easily if you stop assuming you need to be lucid in your dreams, and act like you could be dreaming at any time of the day/night. So, Deslocation refers to the act of linking reality checks with physical and mental deslocations. I think you pretty much got the idea of what I mean by physical: they refer to leaving/arriving to new scenarios, like whenever you leave/arrive home and arrive/leave any other place. By mental deslocations, I refer simply to those "space-out moments" where you're distracted by some random thing. It's not easy to achieve continuous awareness, because we weren't made to be "aware" at all times, but you can take that to your advantage and do a reality check when you realize you aren't in "awareness" mode. Since DILDs come out of moments like this, is a pretty good dream cue. If you ever seen the movie "Waking Life", just recall the speech of the "boat" driver: "The idea is to remain in a state of constant departure while always arriving. It saves on introductions and goodbyes. The ride does not require explanation - just occupants."

Irregularities refer to the simple sensorial or cognitive "errors". Dreams are all about the feeling, not so much about the details, and this is easily seen by the nature of the dream: is always a plot, and (almost) never a moment of passivity. Once you get lucid though, you become way more away of the incongruities in the dream: you notice how objects can float by themselves, how some parts of your fingers are gone, how you are surrounded by tv celebrities, etc etc. The trick is suspending your "analysis", which often leads in self-justification, especially in dreams ("that clock is showing letters instead of numbers! Oh wait, it's probably just broken...") and just perform a reality check. This may take a while to perfect, because we're so used to either dismiss an apparent incongruity or to quickly justify it. Before you find out why somethig feels wrong, do a reality check. Yes, even when you can't find your second shoe

People refers to another quite basic concept: dream characters. They populate everyone's dreams, and can be quite remarkable in the sense that they help "form" the plot. And it's important to include yourself in the lot, as awareness of the self is very useful: how many dreams do people have where they can't recall their body? Loads. How many dreams people have with people they know? Loads. People they don't know? Loads.

And once again, it's not about dream content, but about constant questioning. Where's your mother right now? Why are you alone? Doesn't that man look like your old friend? Good questions that boost your awareness and work independently of your reocurring dream characters. If you have them though, use them by any means.

Emotions, the last point. Many dreams have explicit emotional messages, especially regarding the plot. For example, you can experience anxiety (quite a frequent one) due not finding someone, due having a bad "plot", as you can be very happy because you won the lottery, are having sexy times with an atractive woman/man, etc etc. The point is: you are (almost) never at a passive state. Even now, while reading this you can attribute your emotional state to something in the lines of: calm, bored, interested (you better choose the word interested, this is a lot of text! ). Even though we may not be talking about strong emotions, once again, it's not about the content, it's about the cue. Whenever I find myself faced with a situation that I know it triggers an emotional response, even if I don't feel it right away, I do a reality check.

As you can guess, DIPE translates in LOADS of reality checks, which not only strengthens the habits of each point, but shortly decreases the time between each questioning of reality. And unlike people might think, the more reality checks the less effort you are spending in doing them. I once accounted 2 days with an average of 1 reality checks every 15minutes during 16hours periods (the remaining 8 dedicated to sleep), and I certainly wouldn't be able to keep up if I wasn't so used to doing them, because there's many cues available. Also, none of these reality checks are "out of the blue" reality checks, because unless you're constantly reminding yourself to do a reality check, you're gonna take quite a while to get used to doing it. And if you are constantly reminding yourself to do one, then chances are you are going to get bored/annoyed/tired pretty fast, the so-called "overdrive", which as you remember, has negative consequences in your intent of lucid dreaming.

Sorry about deviating from the main topic, lucsande started

Sorry about deviating from the main topic, lucsande started

Hehe, and I don't regret it at all. What a comprehensive answer, and with such an interesting way of going about with RCs! Amazing, thanks a lot!

I have just two final questions now:

"The idea is to remain in a state of constant departure while always arriving. It saves on introductions and goodbyes. The ride does not require explanation - just occupants."

I believe I don't quite understand what it means, not exactly, and it's been a long time since I watched that movie. Could you try explaining it a little further?

And about Delocations. Suppose you are at home, at your bedroom. You then go to the kitchen and have some lunch. Would you tipically RC when you got to the kitchen, or would rather try being aware of the trip you make from your bedroom to your kitchen, trying to pay close attention to whether it is just as usual?

Once again, thanks for such an answer, it is amazing. DIPE seems a great way of thinking about RCs. I believe you should create a thread about this thing, if such doesn't already exist. Sure it could improve a lot the way people do their RCs.

Well I will tell my experience. I am skeptical regarding statistics. I will try to narrate what happened last night after reading the first 22 pages of the pamphlet . It will take some time because in English it's hard for me to write without making mistakes. .
Probably was placebo effect.

Last night (01/26/13) after having a non lucid dream - Who pay for the broken dishes? I decided to put into practice what is called indirect techniques:
Rotation, Observing images, and hearing the internal sound of my body. At 2.55 in the morning I woke up, went to the bathroom and took a glass of water. I went back to bed and began practicing such indirect techniques.
I use the techniques alternately.Did not take long before I got the first results. The first was the rotation. .Actually I was trying to rotate on the bed to the right side when during one of the attempts I fell out of bed, or so I thought ..
I really thought I had fallen, but soon noticed that someone was dragging me back to the closet of my bedroom. I immediately realized that I was dreaming so I waited until that entity that was pinning me down vanish as happened in a few seconds.
After that I got up and walked to the living room and then to the outside of the house. This dream was nothing interesting because I could barely see and I almost had to be guided by touch. He also had difficulty breathing because my nasal passages were blocked by allergy and was lying on my right side which makes breathing difficult. So I determined end the dream and woke up. In the next reply I will narrate the rest.

Immediately after waking from that short lucid dream, I started to use the new Raduga's Techniques again. This time I try to use the Phantom wiggling and the results was better. I tried to imagine that I was raising my right foot when I noticed someone in another bed that was across from mine was doing the same. That person was touching my foot with his. I realized I was having a lucid dream. I get out of bed and I was in a dorm as there were in Cuba for college students in the 60's. This time the dream was clear and I do not remember much of what happened because I had many dreams and I get confused with one another. My interest was not to remember the dream but whether the techniques worked. This dream was completely lucid but I did not write it down in my dream journal. I just scored on my record lucid dreams that I can remember what happened.

I don't doubt his statistics at all. However, notice that the statistics given are based on people who are new to the technique. I've seen no statistic to suggest that these techniques work consistently for people who apply them in the long term. Maybe somebody would like to put something in research to test the efficacy of these techniques long term?

The third and last attempt I remember to use the techniques of Raduga was a variant of Observing images. Last night I had many dreams, very short ones, one after another. Precisely amid sounds and images I observe a person's shoulder, and then I reached out to touch that shoulder. I have read that this is a method of entering a dream and this time it worked. I re-entered a lucid dream for the third time during the night. Since that time the memory of the dream is gone. I think those lucid dreams were not very long, just a few minutes each but for me the results were interesting. Placebo effect was likely. Forgive me if I made mistakes writing in English. I would like to participate more but I am not much loquacious in English.

Up !! Big Up !!
I wonder why this thread and technique is so underrated

Yesterday SearcherTMR told me that he just discovered this technique, tried it and that it worked fine at the first try.
guess what?
It made me feel like trying it as I have been achieving very fiew LDs for the two last years (like one LD every 1 to 4 months despite I have 30 years of LD experience), and was trying to work on WILD tecnnics last two weeks, so I tried it this night and had one of my longuest and more stable LD I ever had (with the help of Galantamine + choline I used for the first time too)

I guess it deserved a "up" to give other people the idea of triyng this clever methode and report there results right here.

I read through The Phase. The initial section is all about how practically anybody can do it in 3 days and gives a few techniques. The rest of the several hundred pages are all about the details of the things that stop people from being successful and how to solve them, in other words, the "meat" of the practice. Seemed a bit contradictory.

But anyway the basics seem a sound approach to DEILD: 1) do a WBTB after 5 hours of sleep, 2) learn to notice your wakings right away without moving: 3) some mental techniques which you're supposed to rotate through quickly to "separate". Pretty close in a number of ways to LD standard practice.

^^ Yes. Try to DEILD. If you can't DEILD you won't be able to do Raduga's phase techniques. Main point of DEILD can be explained on an A4 piece of paper.

I can't DEILD (if I could I woulnt try something that sounds more complicated) but I was successfull with Raduga's technique the first time I tried it.
yes it is basically based on DEILD, but the little stuffs added and putted together makes a big difference for me!
Too soon to say if I was just very lucky, as SearcherTMR was the day just before me, or if it is a solid techniques for those who can barely DEILD but I'm very exited.

^^ Wouldn't that mean that you can DEILD, given that you succeeded in a form of it?

DEILD is not a technique, but a name that describes the transition from dream to wake to dream again without losing waking-life self-awareness. There are certainly different methods and techniques for achieving DEILD's, Raduga's being one of them. I even have one myself, as a session of my WILD Class here at DVA.

So yes, you apparently can do a DEILD! Out of curiosity though: did you succeed in your second attempt with Raduga's technique yet?

My second attempt will be this night.
The fact that I also tried Galantamine + choline for the first time of my life last night may have helped, so I will try without pills this time.

What I mean about DEILD, is that DEILD is a very simple Idea (juste don't move at all when you notice you wake up from a dream and just wait for the dream to happen again), but I nearly never had a LD this way.
Raduga's technique is not only about Dream exits but every micro awakenings, and what you have to do is far from doing nothing and just wait, it is a very active form of waiting that something happens.
this makes the big difference I needed to stay aware within the 20 secondes window that allows you to enter a REM WILD.
The fact of practicing a WBTB but without trying any technique when you go back to bed is something new for me, and I appreciate that as there is less stress, less pression than with what I was doing these two last weeks (trying to WILD juste after the WBTB). By the way your tutorial is really great Sageous.

for me, how I felt it, It is more like trying a WILD than trying a DEILD, but the moment from which you attempt the WILD (just after a micro awakening) is much more likely to give good results than before sleep. Indeed, it is the perfect moment.
I know it really sounds like a simple DEILD, but the feeling is different (indeed I did DEILD few times with succes, it was kinda random thing, and it wasn't close to what I experienced this night)
all of these post WBTB micro awakenings (from dream but not only) are occasions to attempt this methode (which seems to force the REM to come) and so the probability to have a LD is very likely to be hight !


Don't know if I am clear

I'm not sure we're on the same page here, Kaan, and that's fine. Here are a couple more thoughts, though:

Originally Posted by Kaan

My second attempt will be this night.
The fact that I also tried Galantamine + choline for the first time of my life last night may have helped, so I will try without pills this time.

That would be a good idea, I think; Let us know if it works!

What I mean about DEILD, is that DEILD is a very simple Idea (just don't move at all when you notice you wake up from a dream and just wait for the dream to happen again), but I nearly never had a LD this way.

Yes, a DEILD transition is functionally simple, but not quite that simple to actually do; just lying there and waiting isn't going to get you much. You do need to do a little bit of work holding on to your last dream, maintaining your self-awareness, and moving toward the next dream (or perhaps a new one). Since you are not hard-wired to have lucidity just "happen again," you need to provide some input into a DEILD for your attempt to succeed.

Raduga's technique is not only about Dream exits but every micro awakenings, and what you have to do is far from doing nothing and just wait, it is a very active form of waiting that something happens.
this makes the big difference I needed to stay aware within the 20 seconds window that allows you to enter a REM WILD.

This still sounds like a DEILD to me.

If your attempt lasts more than 20 seconds, then you are likely going to fully wake up and need to move on to a "classic" WILD ("classic" meaning the one we all talk about here), perhaps with WBTB. These micro-awakenings sound very much like the sensation of nearing wakefulness, of exiting the dream (aka: DEILD). It is all the better if you can catch every micro-awakening, too, because then you would be chaining your DEILD's (but I guess that's another subject).

Though there's no sense repeating that "doing nothing" is not very helpful to DEILD, I have to ask where you got that "waiting for the dream to happen" impression about DEILD... hopefully not from my class (if so, that was not intended).

The fact of practicing a WBTB but without trying any technique when you go back to bed is something new for me, and I appreciate that as there is less stress, less pression than with what I was doing these two last weeks (trying to WILD juste after the WBTB). By the way your tutorial is really great Sageous.

Well, though I appreciate your kind words, I'm not sure that is what I was saying. Yes, my WILD class sort of embodies an anti-technique technique, but you still must do things (like mental prep, maintain self-awareness, timing, using a mantra) in order to succeed with your WILD dive. Also, almost by definition, you should be trying to WILD just after a WBTB; I'm not sure I understand that.

for me, how I felt it, It is more like trying a WILD than trying a DEILD, but the moment from which you attempt the WILD (just after a micro awakening) is much more likely to give good results than before sleep. Indeed, it is the perfect moment.
I know it really sounds like a simple DEILD, but the feeling is different (indeed I did DEILD few times with succes, it was kinda random thing, and it wasn't close to what I experienced this night)
all of these post WBTB micro awakenings (from dream but not only) are occasions to attempt this methode (which seems to force the REM to come) and so the probability to have a LD is very likely to be high!

Keep in mind that DEILD is a form of WILD, so they probably will feel similar (though DEILD does have less noise and general activity than a "classic" WILD), and also I think that all DEILD's, regardless of technique, tend to work best with a micro-awakening:

In a sense, a "classic" WILD is what you do after a, um, macro-awakening, which is why it is best done with WBTB. If you are only awake for an instant or, better yet, haven't quite woken up yet, and you are able to navigate the moment and return to REM and your dream with lucidity intact, you have just done a DEILD.

tl;dr: DEILD is a form of WILD, and the result of Raduga's technique does resemble a DEILD... not that there's anything wrong with that!

I hope this made some sense, and perhaps clarified some things about DEILD; particularly that, using Raduga's technique, you will be experiencing them (hopefully many times). Good luck regardless!

Thanks for the explainations.
It s also very new for me to discuss about LD in a forum in English. It is much harder to find my words.
I must admint that my conception of DEILD as a way of entering in a dream and as a LD technique was restricted.
For me it was: you just get out from a very fresh dream (Lucid or not) that you remember and still "feel" pretty well, and you return to it in a few seconds by the only fact of staying aware and without moving at all until the dream reapears.
I got that understanding mainly from french forums, and from my own little DEILD experience.
Although my first LD was 30 years ago, it DEILD only happend a couple of times.
Pure WILDs happened more often, but mainly from luck. My succesfull volontary attempted WILDs are not many.

So if you add to the definition of DEILD the re-entering in the Dream after a micro-awakening without any dream just before (or without any memorie of a dream), and if you add to the DEILD technique specifics things, more elaborate than just waiting few secconds for the dream come back, then I aggree, Raduga's technique is just a particular DEILD technique.
And as a DEILD is technically a WILD, Raduga's stuff is also a WILD.

the fact is that before few weeks ago (when I started to be very focused on WILD techniques) I was almost never aware of the micro awakening (I mean.. indeed I was but only thinking about changing position which I did very often each night), and when I was aware of it and was thinking about attempting a WILD/DEILD, I was too groggy to do it.

since I started to try Raduga's DEILD technique, (fist times: the day before yesterday, on a REM-less afternoon nap just to try the feelings, and then the following night with a successfull WILD), I have been able to feel on my body (for exemple I feel my body numb) nearly each micro awakening, and it is very new.
I don't know why this happens so quickly, and so often, but it's like I feel "the phase" is near each time I wake up.

So, about this night :

It didn't work, but I have noticed few things to take in acount for the next times I'll try it.
First, I may have missed some good "WILD windows" before the WBTB. near 4:00 A.M I felt the sensation that if I tried the visualisations cycle I would have been able to WILD, but I prevented myself to do that because I wanted to be strict with the protocole.
So maybe it is a mistake not to have atempted a WILD then.
from 4:00 to 5 or 6:00 I was thinking about doing the WBTB but simply couldn't.
Eventualy I had the energy to get out of my bed and did a longer WBTB than the night before.
When returning to bed, falling back asleep was not so easy.
During several micro awakenings I imediately started the OBE attempt, then few visualisation cycles, but it was again kinda chaotic. I was thinking about what visualisation to choose while I was supposed to just do it. It didn't help !
Really have to work on a stable choice of two or tree kinds of visualisations priore to night attempts, as for now I'm loosing myself and not doing the cycles properly.
The other thing that ruined some of my attempts was allergy issues.
Allergy is triggered as soon as I wake up, and when it happens, it prevents me from not moving at all.
Have to figure out how to lower this parasite issue in a better way.

So basically, after the WBTB, when micro awakening happened, I was in the game, not doing it correctly but doing it non the less, I was feeling "the phase", at least I was feeling it was around, but it was not as strong as before the WBTB, so there is maybe something to try while the Pre-WBTB micro-awakenings. Maybe the WBTB is not as necessary as I thought.