Thread: Experienced Lucid Dreamers: How do You Become Lucid?

I thought I'd create a thread for experienced lucid dreamers to post about how they become lucid. So less experienced Lucid dreamers such as myself could try for ourselves.

For instance, do you use predominately MILD or WILD? What Awareness techniques do you use throughout the day, what are your mantras...etc etc

Thanks in advance.

I focus largely on awareness training. Most of my lucids are DILD because I only focus on attaining lucidity seriously every few days. I am good at WILD, but it is a lot of effort, so often I only do it twice a week. I like DILD for the reason that I can get random lucids.

For the awareness training I use, you can see some of the exercise by clicking on the link in my sig.

90% of my lucid dreams are WILDs, but because I rely on sleep interruption to have those WILDs, I tend to only practice on the weekends. That being said, I will occasionally have them during the week if I happen to wake up in he middle of the night for some reason (thirsty, bathroom, change body position, etc). But once I get that first LD, be it WILD or DILD, I can usually turn it into several more by DEILD-chaining. As such, it's not unusual for me to go a week or two without an LD only to then have 5-10+ LDs the following weekend.

I've tried many things to become lucid but it almost always revolves around my mindset while falling asleep. I've never really gotten serious with day work. Regardless of what I do, a third to half of the time I become lucid via catching false awakenings.

This is my favorite technique right now. Basically, a variation of VILD. (http://www.dreamviews.com/attaining-...nterested.html) Although, last night I found I'm still not very good at visualizing so I tried falling asleep focusing only on my breathing instead which worked, resulting in a DILD. I'm thinking this could work consistently for me but I have to try it more.

Before I begin, anything I say is opinion-based.

I think that specializing in a certain area is the way to go if you want to have constant LDs. If you are going to focus on WILD, learn how to WILD to the best of your abilities and practice it exclusively. There are other small fundamentals that go along with WILD, though, so make sure you practice those as well.

If you are going to focus on DILD, make sure that you are doing your RCs and self-awareness tasks as much as possible to become lucid.

Same goes for all the other methods and techniques. Being a jack of all trades is harder to do when you are starting out, and can eventually lead to you being burnt out quickly.

Above all, being optimistic and mindful will get you further than anything else.

(Of course, being a natural can help too, but my guess is that you aren't...)

Originally Posted by SinisterDezz

Before I begin, anything I say is opinion-based.

I think that specializing in a certain area is the way to go if you want to have constant LDs. If you are going to focus on WILD, learn how to WILD to the best of your abilities and practice it exclusively. There are other small fundamentals that go along with WILD, though, so make sure you practice those as well.

If you are going to focus on DILD, make sure that you are doing your RCs and self-awareness tasks as much as possible to become lucid.

Same goes for all the other methods and techniques. Being a jack of all trades is harder to do when you are starting out, and can eventually lead to you being burnt out quickly.

Above all, being optimistic and mindful will get you further than anything else.

(Of course, being a natural can help too, but my guess is that you aren't...)

Heh, it's inevitable that when it comes to dreaming, ideas about "best practices" are going to lay all over the spectrum... in the end we all end up practicing a very personal concoction of approaches and techniques, based on what we've found has worked best for us. My experience has been the opposite of what SinisterDezz describes, but this isn't to say that either of us are right or wrong, only to reinforce the idea of "different strokes for different folks."

I've found that when I practice a single technique exclusively, it'll work for a bit but sooner or later I enter one of the dreaded "dry spells." Practicing harder during a dry spell only seems to make LDs more elusive, not to mention making me really frustrated when tons of effort yields no result. What has worked out best for me in the long run is to keep mixing things up: if I look back over my dream journal over the last few months, I see an alphabet soup: EILD, DEILD, DILD, WILD, even an entry marked "AILD"...I don't remember now what the heck that was! Moreover, my bathroom shelf looks like an apothecary's workshop after all the supplements I've tried.

I'm constantly trying new techniques and sometimes the sheer novelty seems to make them work at first even though they might not prove be very reliable in the long run (SSILD and FILD come to mind). But between the successes and the failures I'm constantly learning new things along the way and I think that, overall, the versatile approach has worked well for me.

Originally Posted by Verre

Heh, it's inevitable that when it comes to dreaming, ideas about "best practices" are going to lay all over the spectrum... in the end we all end up practicing a very personal concoction of approaches and techniques, based on what we've found has worked best for us. My experience has been the opposite of what SinisterDezz describes, but this isn't to say that either of us are right or wrong, only to reinforce the idea of "different strokes for different folks."

I've found that when I practice a single technique exclusively, it'll work for a bit but sooner or later I enter one of the dreaded "dry spells." Practicing harder during a dry spell only seems to make LDs more elusive, not to mention making me really frustrated when tons of effort yields no result. What has worked out best for me in the long run is to keep mixing things up: if I look back over my dream journal over the last few months, I see an alphabet soup: EILD, DEILD, DILD, WILD, even an entry marked "AILD"...I don't remember now what the heck that was! Moreover, my bathroom shelf looks like an apothecary's workshop after all the supplements I've tried.

I'm constantly trying new techniques and sometimes the sheer novelty seems to make them work at first even though they might not prove be very reliable in the long run (SSILD and FILD come to mind). But between the successes and the failures I'm constantly learning new things along the way and I think that, overall, the versatile approach has worked well for me.

Hah, yes. I agree with you. Everyone is very different and even more so when it comes to lucid dreaming. I am not sure that opinion based was the correct word, but rather maybe that it is based off of my own personal experience. I find that I am overwhelmed by lucid dreaming if I try all sorts of methods. Thanks for the response though.

I do 90% DILD work, 10% WILD work. I used to work 50/50, but I found out that I get more lucid if I just feel for WILD and if the odds don't support it, then I go for DILD. I do all sorts of work and different things, if you would like to know more, you can ask. But if I would leave with one thing, then I would recommend mainly "Micro WBTBs".

Micro WBTB is waking up 4+ times throughout the night for at most 10 minutes, but at least a few seconds. Usually writing out a few tags and resetting intentions. Each time I check with feeling on WILD and my goals. I wake naturally, but there are other ways.

No one seems to do MILD? I am not a fan of WILD at all.

I mostly try and do DILD, I ask my self If I'm dreaming and look around and see if anything looks unusual, and also do noseplug/clock RC. Is this effective?

Also the more you think about lding, the more likely you are to have one?

Originally Posted by Barry

No one seems to do MILD? I am not a fan of WILD at all.

I mostly try and do DILD, I ask my self If I'm dreaming and look around and see if anything looks unusual, and also do noseplug/clock RC. Is this effective?

Also the more you think about lding, the more likely you are to have one?

I don't really know of a type of dild that is achieved without mild.

Originally Posted by Sensei

I don't really know of a type of dild that is achieved without mild.

This is true, I believe. For instance:

Originally Posted by Barry

I mostly try and do DILD, I ask my self If I'm dreaming and look around and see if anything looks unusual, and also do noseplug/clock RC. Is this effective?

... add some intention-setting at bedtime to this, and you are essentially practicing MILD, Barry. The roots of MILD tend to appear in most DILD techniques, regardless of what people call their particular technique. Also, what you are doing is certainly good, but might not be enough; you might check out Zoth's MILD tutorial to see what you're leaving out.

Also the more you think about lding, the more likely you are to have one?

Not necessarily, but it does help, in terms of building expectation.

This week I've been using my own personal audio recordings, it's my own voice saying things like, ''you are dreaming, look at your hand''.
They don't play constant the whole night, but I guessed were my REM cycles would be, the last hours of my sleep, the audio triggers play every few minutes.
This week I had 4 lucids out 6 nights, normally I have about 1 lucid a week, so a great improvement.

I am pretty lucky in that I can pretty consistently have DILDs without much daytime effort, but I can really increase their frequency with some MILD practice and spending extended periods of time pretending that I'm in a dream while I'm awake. I also occasionally WILD and chain dreams with DEILD, but that's been a bit more difficult for me lately.

I go through phases where some things work and some things don't, I like to flow with it rather than fight it and find what works for me at the time. If something doesn't work, that's fine, I'll just try something else and not let myself get too stressed about it.

When I was younger, I used to find that "micro WBTBs" worked really well for me. I would set my alarm to go off every 30-60 minutes, after I had slept for 5 hours, until I would get up for the day. I would have heaps of LDs and great recall when I would do that.

Yea, micro-WBTBs work well for me too (I know them by the label of "rhythmic napping" though)

Becoming lucid within a dream without intending to?

It's interesting that what works is different for everyone. It's also a bit discouraging in a way because, unlike other disciplines, you can't just fallow what an expert does and expect the same results. You still have to try everything and figure out what works for you.

Originally Posted by insideout

It's interesting that what works is different for everyone. It's also a bit discouraging in a way because, unlike other disciplines, you can't just fallow what an expert does and expect the same results. You still have to try everything and figure out what works for you.

That is exactly how all sports work. You have to find your own path.

Originally Posted by Sensei

That is exactly how all sports work. You have to find your own path.

I suppose that's actually how lots of things work. I was just having a pessimist moment. Gotta find my own path!

I'm going to ask my self If I'm dreaming, followed by reality checks. Before I go to sleep, I will attempt MILD. Then I will set my alarm for 5am, 7am and 9am, and I will MILD at each of these time intervals.

Thanks Sageous, I will take a look.

With micro Wbtb, do you write anything of the Dreams? Times when I do I find increases my lucidity chances, tho it's more effort. Times when I don't write, I find I wake with loads of dream fragments, which can feel a bit u satisfying. Also sometimes if I don't give myself the 5-6 hour straight thro sleep before Wbtb, I can feel a bit like I haven't properly "forgotten" myself in the waters of unconsciousness, I don't know if it's effected the quality of my deep sleep but it can feel somewhat less nourishing sleep..