Thread: Practicing self-awareness and SSILD for 10 weeks

As you know, self-awareness is one of the most important part of frequent lucid dreaming. Of course it's an ability that can be learn after lots of practice. There are many ways to improve it. Here, we would practice self-awareness in this way:

1- Every 30 minutes, stop and deeply ask your self:
- where am i?
- am i dreaming?
- how do i know that i am awake or dreaming? as in my dreams, i always think i am awake and every thing make sense to me, so maybe this is another dream too?
- how can i come out of this confusing situation?

2- when you feel crazy of doubt and you really don't know where the hell you are, then do an RC.
In fact, RC is an angle to help you come out of the confusion of being awake or dreaming.

Do not RC if you are not in serious doubt yet... you should not do RC like a zombie.. so, every time before you RC, you should expect to be surprised of being inside a dream!

3- between these 30 minutes, try to maintain a little of your awareness too.

The depth of your doubt in waking state is nearly equal to your doubts in your sleep. so if you are even 1% sure that you are awake, then you are not done yet. I mean, you MUST be 100% confused of being awake or dreaming while you RC.

As you may not like dream journaling, so you can do SSILD before bed to boost awareness in your dreams and also to be able to remember your dreams with high vividness and clarity..

As it takes time to increase our self-awareness, then we may not want to post our results here everyday. we should report our progress only every week! If we have questions, we can ask them here too!

good luck mates!

(Special thanks to those who has helped to create this thread)

What do you by confused about being awake? The issue for me is that I instantly can tell that I am awake before RC. No number of thinking I might not be....actually makes me believe.

Well....if you are sure you are awake before doing RC, then in your dreams, you are sure you are awake too so maybe you never doubt about its nature and won't be interested to do RC...that happens in many non lucid dreams....we are TOO sure that we are awake.....if you increase your dream recall, you will see how convincing is the dream...it feels sooooo real....
so what's the difference between dream and reality? nearly nothing....only RC can show you that you are awake or not....
I know when you are reading this post you feel you are awake now....but maybe not....how many times in your dreams you where sitting behind a computer and thought you are awake???maybe it is a dream too....

i know it's very hard to reach that mental state where you feel you might not be dreaming...because you are sure you are awake even if you are dreaming...
Ahahahahaha...i know it is crazy...oh my GOD....!!! it is hard for me too but i am trying.....

week one=

during the first week, i reality checked 2 times in my dreams....but i wasn't enough aware to get lucid....

the self-awareness practices are getting easier and i am going to believe that everything around me is maybe a dream scene...

Hey yaya, have you ever tried using your breath as an anchor to stay in the present moment? I was reading some tips online on how to stay mindful and not lost in thoughts/worries/actions and what not and stumbled upon that idea, among others.
And congrats on doing the RCs while dreaming, sounds like good progress.

Thank you dear mimihigurashi !
oh my god!!!! it is toooo hard to maintain my awareness on breathing while doing daily tasks....but i think this is what i should be in future....even if not to be focused on breathing but at least not to be lost in daily activities or thoughts....for my next step, i should be able to extend the duration of suspecting about being awake or sleep....

Np, yeah I know it's hard, I'm struggling with it too, but the more you insist upon it, the better you get, and the better you get the more easy it becomes, fortunately.

The hard part is remembering! I do reality checks twice, to make sure I do it in my dreams. I've had times were I've reality checked and just gone on with my dream, waking up feeling dumb. But now I've learned to be more skeptical and go back and RC again just to be sure, and it worked for me. This happened to me last night where I did a RC like 10 times before I fully accepted it was a dream. Good luck and you will get the hang of it soon, I find myself having one lucid a week now and I've been at it for about 2 and a half months, maybe. (although I have been off and on trying for a few years now)

How is it going, yaya? Are you still trying to practice SSILD? What do your nightly practices consist of? I'm excited to hear an update!

Oh thank you all for your useful tips and attention, mimihigurashi, ageofthunder and ThreeCat!

Threecat...
I still do SSILD as this is my only tool for remembering my dreams and increasing the vividness of my dreams as i don't DJ. I can remember 80 percent of my dreams with full clarity with SSILD...

and for my self-awareness practices..... I can suspect easier that everything around me might be a dream (like dream yoga)...even sometimes i suspect that i am a girl....maybe i am another being in real life....Lol.....and i do RC 4 times in an hour....it is ok for me and i feel comfortable doing such a high number of RC...also i try to maintain the awareness of being awake or dreaming as mimihigurashi suggested....sometimes i lost in daily activities....maybe because i am still a beginner...

but...i don't do any night practices...
so...what should i do as my night time practice? should i also do it in WBTS?

Ohhhh...I need help from DILDers!
how you don't get disappointed when every time you RC, you are awake?
I know i am a newbie and it takes time to be able to RC in dreams too, but...i am near to cry...every time i RC, i am awake...so how you over come this sad feeling?

yaya; take care that you don't get LD burnout, RCing every 30 minutes is a lot of mental strain! In her DILD guide, Puffin came up with SAT (Sporadic Awareness Technique) which is like a more focussed, less taxing ADA which involves becoming hyper aware and RCing for 2 minutes at a time. Puffin got regular DILDs doing only 5 of these sessions a day, that's only 10 minutes daily!

There is such a thing as trying too hard, you know

As for waking up after RCing, it passes with time.

In addition to what Ctharlhie said, here's here's a thought that could help, Yaya:

You might want to think about what the letters "RC" stand for.

It's called a "Reality Check," and not a "Dream Check," and for good reason. When you do a reality check/critical state test, you should be assuming that you are in waking-life reality, and are wondering (or have become suspicious) if the place you are in is really a dream. If, say, your finger does not go straight through your palm, then the result of your RC is positive, and not negative, because you have confirmed that you are indeed in reality. So, if you use the RC correctly, it won't bother you at all that it confirmed reality, because that is what it is supposed to do. And yes, when you do one in a dream (when not yet lucid) you will be doing so from the same position of assuming that everything around you is waking-life reality, only the RC will come up negative and you will know that you are dreaming.

The RC is really a very simple device that I think has been complicated by all the stuff well-intentioned people have added to it over the years. One of those things is doing it while assuming that you are dreaming, which has led to all sorts of unhelpful steps -- like imagining that you are in a dream (a fine thing to do, BTW, but not during a RC). LaBerge himself used to emphatically say that the question should always be "Is this a dream?" and never "Is this reality?" because, dreaming or awake, you already "know" you are in reality -- so the question is a bit silly and perhaps even depressing. [aside: this may run counter to the question LaBerge said to use in EWOLD, much earlier in his career, which was "Am I dreaming or awake?" Though the rest of his text in EWOLD pretty much reflects what I said above, this ambiguously worded question may have helped us all down this road of misdirected RC's.]

tl;dr: Always assume that you are in reality when doing a RC. It's okay (indeed an excellent idea) to wonder if you are dreaming, but never assume from the get-go of your RC that you are dreaming. This way you will not be disappointed by a positive RC (not dreaming), yet still be thrilled by a negative result.

Originally Posted by Sageous

It's called a "Reality Check," and not a "Dream Check," and for good reason. When you do a reality check/critical state test, you should be assuming that you are in waking-life reality, and are wondering (or have become suspicious) if the place you are in is really a dream. If, say, your finger does not go straight through your palm, then the result of your RC is positive, and not negative, because you have confirmed that you are indeed in reality. So, if you use the RC correctly, it won't bother you at all that it confirmed reality, because that is what it is supposed to do. And yes, when you do one in a dream (when not yet lucid) you will be doing so from the same position of assuming that everything around you is waking-life reality, only the RC will come up negative and you will know that you are dreaming.

This seems to make sense to me, but let's see if I have it right...

One assumes one is awake, but something perhaps seems out of the ordinary. So the assumption is awake with an inkling of doubt or suspicion, so a RC is performed to confirm one is awake while at the same time being aware of the possibility, however slight, of being in a dream. Thumb doesn't pass through palm, can't breathe through pinched nose, etc. = Positive RC = Awake. Thumb passes through hand, can breathe while pinching nose = Negative/Failed RC = Dreaming.

So... Since in all my dreams the thought never, ever crosses my mind I'm not awake, this practice starts to implant that space for doubt and practice to test state (RC) into my subconscious during waking life, which in turn might eventually manifest while I'm dreaming and result in a RC.

Is my understanding correct?

Thanks for clearing that up, Sageous, I actually heard many times that you're supposed to pretend you're already dreaming while performing an RC, guess not, what you're saying makes sense.

oh....Thank you all ! there is a big relief in my heart now! Ha ha...

I always thought we should pretend we are dreaming as part of the self-awareness exercise as people do in dream yoga (as you know, in dream yoga, people should think everything around them is a dream) and then RC is to clarify we are dreaming or not. this approach made to cry today because i can't be a Buddhist monk to do such a heavy mental process.

so as you said, i can think i am awake all the time....even i can swear i am awake, but i can still do RC to show my real state....that's really really easier to do.

now about the timing....how many times i should RC in order to be a professional DILDer? as you have mentioned puffin did RC only 5 times a day....is it really enough? because now i do 20 RC in a day but i still think it's not enough....it's my second week of practice but not much success in DILD in my dreams....maybe that's too soon to expect any change.

Originally Posted by yaya

I always thought we should pretend we are dreaming as part of the self-awareness exercise as people do in dream yoga (as you know, in dream yoga, people should think everything around them is a dream) and then RC is to clarify we are dreaming or not. this approach made to cry today because i can't be a Buddhist monk to do such a heavy mental process.

Yes, I would separate dream yoga practice from RC's, as they are two very different activities (and I believe ought to remain as such) that, as you discovered, might tend to bump into each other in unproductive ways.

now about the timing....how many times i should RC in order to be a professional DILDer? as you have mentioned puffin did RC only 5 times a day....is it really enough? because now i do 20 RC in a day but i still think it's not enough....it's my second week of practice but not much success in DILD in my dreams....maybe that's too soon to expect any change.

I think that timing amounts to whatever you're comfortable with. One or two RC's an hour is probably plenty, and if you can have good results with 5 per day (or less), then there would be no need to do more. With RC's, quality is far more important than quantity, so there is no need to knock yourself out doing as many as possible, especially if doing so becomes a nuisance rather than a lucid aid.

thank you very much master Sageous!
i see that RC is far more easier than what i thought! and if by quality you mean, to extend every RC to 2 minutes and ask deep questions (as you explained in your first section of WILD tutorial and also was said in puffin method) then i think i get the idea and will change my direction of practice to that manner!

^^ Wait, no; RC's are even simpler than that!

That exercise in my class is called a Reverse RC, and for good reason. The RRC is meant to help you establish and understand your position in your local reality, and it literally confirms your interaction with it (reality,) be it dreaming or waking-life. The RRC has nothing to do with double-checking that you are not dreaming -- indeed, it does almost the opposite, and is very much like dream yoga (or vipassana meditation).

RC's are simple state tests, and even the most sincere ones can be done in a couple of seconds. RC's can certainly be done before or after a RRC, so you do them both at the same time, but try not to combine them because, once again, they are two very different things.

thank you master! I have practiced something like this according to what i found out from your advices:

every 1 hour (i will do it every 2 hours, later) i stopped...and then i looked around....i checked out where i have been during the last 5 minutes....then i looked at the objects in the room to see if they are normal or not (for example, if they are blurry and if they change if i look at them for the second time)....then i checked the gravity of objects and my hand....then i smelled the air to see if it smells strange or not....then i closed my eye lids to see if i can see or not...
during all of those actions, i was skeptical if i am dreaming or not.... then finally i RC to see if i am awake or not (by nose plugging)

all of them took 1-2 minutes.... so...please tell me if i am doing anything wrong....actually i tried to combine self-awareness with RC.

i always thought DILD is simple but when i started it, i see it is very very TENUOUS and it's not as simple as we just read them in tutorials.

is it enough for becoming a regular LDer?

^^ If it's not enough to become a regular LD'er, it'll certainly start you in the right direction! The exercise you described, though maybe a bit busy, seems like it will help get your head in the right place -- which in the end ought to be the real goal in any daytime work, I believe.

And yes, the best things are never easy, including consistent LD'ing (however you get there). I think tutorials tend to make things sound a bit easier then they are, perhaps to encourage students to at least try the authors' methods. I hope you'll forgive us for that; we really should do more to differentiate simple, which WILD and DILD generally are, from easy, which WILD and DILD generally are not.

Wow....i think my path to LD is much more illuminated with your help and couldn't learn it correctly if you masters didn't correct we newbies....
thanks again master Sageous!

----------------------------------------------------
so it is another Friday and time to report my second week of practice:
- although the way of practice DILD has been changed so much during last two days but generally, i think self-awareness and RC is becoming much easier for me and part of my daily activity, even when i am busy i still remember to do it.
- during my dreams, i can pay more attention to event in dream but not yes lucidity. last night, i RC in dream but it failed and showed i was awake...that might happen for every RC to fail to work correctly sometimes....

we really should do more to differentiate simple, which WILD and DILD generally are, from easy, which WILD and DILD generally are not.

Emphatic yes.

summery of Week 3 of practicing self-awareness+RC=

well, i can do the exercise easily every hour and it only take me 1 minute. it is becoming a habit for me.

this week, i reality checked 4 time in my dreams, but all of them showed that i am awake although i was dreaming (weird!!!!). so they failed...but i don't care having LD now and doing LD practices is more important for me.

the vividness of my dreams is increasing specially the details of objects....i pay more attention to the objects in my dreams (I don't know why)...

That sounds like wonderful progress, yaya. I'm sure if you keep up your hard work a breakthrough will happen very soon. Stay strong!