Giving up on SSILD... but not on lucid dreaming!

After performing SSILD for a few days, I realized it might be doing more harm than good for me. I woke up today in the middle of the night (around 2:00–2:30 AM) and tried to do SSILD. I stayed awake for a few minutes, jotted down the dream I had in my journal, and then went back to bed to do the cycles. However, after finishing the cycles, I tried to fall back asleep—really tried—but to no avail. I ended up staying awake until 6:00 AM, when I decided to just get up and go about my day.

Now, while I've read that SSILD works for most beginners, they do say "most," not "all." After today's experience, I'm afraid I might be part of that exception group. I'm not trying to say it’s a bad technique or anything, since a lot of people seem to get results from it—just a little bummed that I'm not one of those people.

Something similar happened to me in the past. I tried a technique for some time, failed, and ended up giving up on lucid dreaming for a couple of years. However, as I mentioned in a previous post, I'm determined to make it work this time, no matter how long it takes. I'll try something different; maybe my answer lies within WILD, DILD, FILD, or even the good old MILD. Until I find it, I’ll keep searching. No more giving up, not anymore.

If you're a beginner like me, going through failure and frustration, don’t give up! All these challenges really do is make reaching the end result that much more satisfying!

Hey man, you're on the right track. A few suggestions if you don't mind: Quality of sleep >>>>> dreaming >>>>> [your method for producing lucid dreams]. I think of lucid dreaming as a product of time spent dreaming. The more time we spend in a dream the higher the odds of getting lucid. Why? It is likely you'll run up to that dream sign you've been preparing for if that's what you do, or it is more likely you'll end up relying on your prospective memory at some point in the dream (MILD, reality checks), or it gives you enough time to redirect your awareness until you realize you are dreaming (through meditation or anything else you can do that cultivates awareness). Above all, it lets you see more dreams.

Good quality of sleep ensures we are in a proper state of mind at the bare minimum. If we are to show up on game day let's make sure we are at our best day night when possible. While you can lucid dream at any point in the night, so long as you are dreaming, there are too many things working against you either because you are tired or stressed, or the dream is short and you can barely remember it, or it is not clear enough, you can't or don't want to dream journal too early in the night. Why risk the night on a dream at 2:00 AM when you can have so many more dreams—longer dreams, vivid and clear dreams later in the night—when you are well rested, less stressed, and we know the odds are stacked in our favor? REM stages get longer the more we sleep, once the body has had time to rest. Longer REM stages translate to frequent and longer dreams. I tend to work on the precept that if I get lucid early in the night we take those. Otherwise, no sweat, we roll back to sleep and try again later in the night or early morning. A WBTB after 6-7 hours of sleep is a better window to work with anyway. Even with WILD or WILD-like methods you have a way-out should you fail and slip into a non-lucid dream.