Hi stardv,
Yes indeed, you’ve understood what a dreamsign was. It may be a reoccuring object, person, action, event, feeling or situation. It’s better when it’s associated with a prelucid state but you can work with dreamsigns even if they are not related to such a state. There are two ways of working with them: you can perform RC’s in real life when you see a dreamsign. If it’s not a common thing IRL, you can perform a RC when you see it at the TV for instance. Another solution is using autosuggestion/visualization when falling asleep or after a WBTB. If you notice some frequent dreamsign, you can imagine that you see it and you perform a RC, or you can convince yourself by repeating mentally that the next time you notice it in a dream, you’ll perform a RC. I’ll explain this better below.
Yes, it’s good. Now I’ll try and give you some advices. I hope they can help you.
About RC’s: you have to perform at least 5 RC’s a day. 10 is said to be plenty enough. Choose two RC’s you like. When you perform a RC, don’t do it automatically but question reality. Wonder if you’re in a dream or not. Then imagine that the RC you’ll perform will work, for instance that your finger will go through your palm then do it.
I think you have to practise another induction technique in the same time. I asked you if you practised autosuggestion in order to know if you were accustomed with it. You can do autosuggestion or MILD when going to bed or after a WBTB. WBTB will increase your chances to get a LD but you don’t need to do it if you don’t like the idea of waking up in the middle of the night.
These techniques work better when you’re on the verge of falling asleep. You have to do one of them every night.You need to relax deeply and when you think you’re sleepy enough and you start to barely feel your body - I suppose you’re accustomed to this feeling when trying to WILD - you do one of them. By autosuggestion, we mean repeating mentally a sentence about 20 times. The clearer the sentence, the better. A good sentence for instance is: “tonight, I’ll realize I’m dreaming”. You have to be in a calm state of mind and fully convinced it will work soon, perhaps not exactly tonight yet soon.
MILD is based upon the noticing that imagining things is more efficient than repeating sentences. If I remember well, you practice the same autosuggestion too, but a fewer number of times, for instance 3 times. Now you try to put all your conviction in what you think. Then you remember the last dream you had. Every time you notice something which could have made you realize you were dreaming - that is, a dreamsign - for instance uncommon things like guns or just reoccuring dreamsigns, then you change what followed in your dream: you imagine that you realize it’s a dream: “waw! it’s a dream!” and you imagine that you do an action you plan to do, for instance flying or performing a RC.
Then you fall asleep being confident of having a LD soon. If you tend to fall asleep easily, you can also practise these techniques until you fall asleep. If you can’t fall asleep quickly, don’t. It may just give you insomnia. Now anyway, as repeating a sentence a few times is said to be good enough for autosuggestion, it’s not necessary, it’s just in order to fall asleep with this idea in mind.
About dreamsigns and prelucid dreams: when you wake up, you write your dreams down and when you have time, you notice what was your reaction when you were faced with a dreamsign, or if you had some moments when you almost realized that you were dreaming, or false awakenings, or moments during which you were more focused on what you do than in ordinary dreams. Such dreams mean that you’re close to a LD. Please do this during two or three weeks and tell us what are your progress. And feel free to ask more questions, of course! Good luck!