Hello, Dream Views forum.

I've been trying to learn how to lucid dream for about 3 months now.

I've made a lot of progress, but also hit a lot of roadblocks. So far, I've become lucid while within a dream several times using MILD. I was unable to maintain control, unfortunately. I really made progress when I started noticing common themes and locations in my dream journal and practicing reality checks in these situations in waking life.

I've been trying to master WILD because MILD appears to be very unpredictable.

Whenever I do WILD, however, I manage to have OBEs where I end up floating above my body, but no lucid dreams.

It seems that the key is to focus on phosphenes on the back of one's eyes and then watch them become hypnagogic images and then get sucked into a dream. Unfortunately, I don't seem to be able to see hypnagogic imagery, and even my phosphenes, which used to be so bright and colorful have faded. Now, even after staring at some lights for a bit, I find that the back of my eyelids go dark, except for some whiteish static.

So, I'm kind of stuck here, and was hoping to ask the forum about how they go about triggering hypnagogic images. Also wanted to bring up the topic of Intent. Yesterday, I spent the whole day repeating my mantra "I realize I am dreaming tonight" which worked for me before and I was enthused to lucid dream. When I woke up today, I couldn't even recall my dream. It appears that Intent is a subtle art and very tricky to get right. It's not just a matter of repeating affirmations - there is a hidden X factor that one needs to master to be able to achieve consistent results. Any thoughts on this?

Thank you for reading what I wrote, hope to engage with the forum and carry on the work together.