 Originally Posted by Screen
My only experience is I was completely convinced I would have a lucid dream, and sure enough, I did. Shortly after it began, I became aware, but didn't have control. I don't remember what made me believe that, (whatever it was, I remember it not working afterwards) but it shows there's power behind the mind-over-matter concept.
Mantras don't work for everyone. The brain can be stubborn when you want to implant new ideas into it. It's not automatically suggestible. It'd be like watching a commercial several times, hoping the message of buying this product would eventually seep in. There's more to know about it than I can summarize, but in short, some people are more easily suggestible than others. Hypnosis is a nice method to help with MILD or lucid dreams overall with a few applications. But I'd say if MILD hasn't worked after all this time, then to definitely pursue other methods.
MILD isn't about how suggestible you are, it's about remembering to do something in the future (prospective memory / mindfulness).
For example: "I need to go to the store to buy some eggs today" or "need to remember to get fuel on the way home" or "christmas is tomorrow!" or "gotta remember to notice that I'm dreaming".
The more excited you are about it or the more important it is the more you think about it until it finally happens.
When you think "I have to buy eggs today" most people would automatically picture the kind of eggs they want to buy, or where they want to buy them, or even picture themselves buying them. This is a mnemonic, because the brain remembers things mostly through visual and spacial memory, spacial memory being the strongest. Because the brain works on association, you have now associated the visual or spacial memory with the new memory, next time you see the supermarket that you were thinking of or you notice eggs, it will bring up the memory of "I wanted to buy eggs today", because the two are linked.
The problem with dreams is you can't really "visualise" having a dream, at least not as a visual object or location, because what you dream about changes all the time, you can't pin it down to a single visualisation or place and therein lies the reason why MILD doesn't really work most of the time. That and lack of awareness within dreams, if you don't notice that you noticed the supermarket (you drove past it and weren't paying attention) then you won't remember about the eggs either, at least not from the mnemonic you created.
Same with MILD, if you use it properly, for example "next time I'm talking to someone I'm in a dream" (easy to picture yourself talking to someone) or "next time such and such happens, it's a dream", even if you repeat that mnemonic all day long, it still leaves you with the actual noticing of yourself talking to someone inside the dream before it will work and normally you're too busy with whatever you're doing in the dream to think about anything else, like for example the conversation you're having rather than the fact that you're having a conversation.
There is way too much misinformation about MILD which is why so many people struggle with it. Also the mnemonic part of MILD is actually really easy, the brain works on association so everyone is good at it, it's the awareness part that's difficult, actually noticing your mnemonic inside the dream while you're busy running away from a 20 legged spider or wondering which coloured elephant you want to take home. This is the reason when you do WBTB you stay up for a bit, to get some of that awareness, but if it takes you too long to get to the next dream you'll lose the awareness again before you get there.
If you try really hard to maintain your awareness you'll end up staying awake from all the excitement / frustration etc... until the mind goes "screw this, too much effort" and you lose awareness once again. It's a vicious cycle. 
Your MILD mission, should you choose to accept it; is to figure out how to avoid the above problems. 
I would say work on awareness until you get to the point where you can notice the things happening around you / the situation you are in inside most of your dreams, at this point your MILD mnemonics should start to work since you're no longer single-mindedly focused on just the one thing (so you're talking to someone and you follow the conversation while noting the fact that you are have a conversation with someone) or keeping in mind your surroundings as you run away from that horrible spider creature just in case you run past the shopping centre and remember you need to buy eggs.
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