Hey everyone. As you can see, I’m a new member here who has yet to experience a lucid dream but is a true believer. If you notice anything in this post that may be against the rules, then go easy on me. I’ve joined this forum a couple of weeks ago (I first discovered lucid dreaming from a video linking to this site) but I’m just now creating my first post, because I have a bit of a problem.
For about 3-4 weeks now I’ve been trying to experience a lucid dream. I have had some interesting and satisfying results, but haven’t actually achieved any level of lucidity. For my first one or two weeks began to get into the habit of RCs and a DJ. To this day I’m still recording my dreams out of habit, but I can never remember to do RCs, partly because whenever I do them at school people question me and don’t believe in LDs. Although I failed at RCs, I’m still using MILD every night (focusing on the thought that I’ll recognize that I’m dreaming)
After giving up on MILD I began to research WILD. Now here is where I made some progress. After about a week of WILD I began to have some results. When completely still, I felt a weird sensation of falling through the bed, spinning, rolling, etc., but after staying completely still for countless minutes I didn’t see any hypnagogic imagery or hear anything out of the ordinary. About 10 minutes after that I opened my eyes and was disappointed to see that I was still in my bedroom. I did some RCs to make sure I didn’t have a false awakening, but in the end I went to sleep with some mild MILD (get it?) The only time I came close to hypnagogic imagery was when I heard a bright flash and began to see patterns behind my eyes, but then my eyes opened, I did some RCs to check for a false awakening, and then MILDed myself to sleep with no results.
NOTE: I’ve tried WILD with a sleeping mask but whenever my eyes slightly open behind it, I feel the need to blink which keeps me awake.
Basically, I’ve been trying for quite a while with few results. Am I doing anything wrong? Does this simply take time, from a week to multiple months? Do you have any tips for me? I want someone’s opinion based on my above descriptions, not a link to another guide. If you can answer any of these questions, that would be amazing. Thanks in advance, and hurray for my first post! Remember, I’m only a beginner.
If you’ve never had a LD it will take some time, patience and perseverance, don’t give up! Keep doing the RC and writing in your DJ, I find the watch RC most effective (and discrete). The idea is that you do it often enough it becomes unconscious habit and you start doing it in your dreams.
WILD is extremely difficult but sounds like you are getting close. It’s much easier if you try doing it after sleeping for a few hours. WBTB in general is very effective.
Have you ever had SP? with WILD you will most likely get SP which can be scary at first especially when your chest becomes paralyzed your heart can start pulsing a mile a second. Try to get into a trance state when doing it and aim to make your hands and feet become numb, this is where paralysis first starts setting in.
As 1Move said, if you’re trying to get lucid (specially WILD) right at the beginning of the night that can be one of the main problems. The problem being that you usually take about 90 minutes to enter your first REM stage (where dreams occur) and the first ones are short anyway. So what you want to do is wake up in the middle of the night (say after 5 or 6 hours) and then try it. You can get up and write down a dream (or just some notes so you don’t forget it), or just go to the bathroom. The idea is to wake up the mind a little so you don’t just fall right back asleep. On the other hand, you don’t want to get too awake so you take a whole hour to get back to sleep. You can use an alarm or try auto-suggestion before sleep (just like MILD, but repeating “I will wake up in X hours”). Plus, if you have little sleep, such as having to wake up early for school, it’s harder, unfortunatelly. So WBTB (Wake-Back-To_Bed) is best used on days you can sleep more.
And don’t worry, it can take some time, just try not to get too frustrated if you don’t get lucid. I try to keep a happy attitude by focusing on any little positive thing. Had a very fun ND? Be happy! Had some HI, or just felt like you got a little closer? Celebrate! The problem with getting lucid for the first time is that you don’t really know how it feels like, so it’s hard to know where you want to go… But these little experiences (HI, SP, ND’s) will kind of give a hint about what it is and what it feels like. It’s all about experience, so experiment! And remember that what is important is what works for YOU. I rarely do RC’s during the day, for example (but it’s always a good bonus ). I do also suggest you keep writing your dreams down (with as much detail as you can remember or have the patience to write down (or type out)). Becoming familiar with the feeling of your dreams and what happens in them can really help, plus ND’s can be REALLY amazing. I’ve had normal dreams that were many times more incredible than many of my LD’s.
heh, long post. I hope at least something in there was useful! And welcome to LD4all! Feel free to ask anything and share your experiences! That’s what this place is for, and there’s nothing wrong with being a beginner.
One of the most successful lucid dreaming techniques is the Wake Back to Bed or WBTB technique. To use this technique, you simply go to bed at your normal time, but instead of getting up when you usually do, set your alarm or have someone wake you up an hour before you normally do.
Thank you all so much for a warm welcome and helpful advice! Since school is ending, I’ll begin to try the WBTB method via alarm and see how that goes. I’ll keep you all updated on what happens. Sweet dreams!
An alarm can be helpful, but it is better if you can learn to wake up without any external aid.
If you use an alarm clock I would highly recommend that you also tell yourself that you will wake up right before it starts ringing, because this will let you wake up more slowly and be able to recall more of the dreams.
It might sound strange that you could just decide when to wake up like that, but if you have ever fallen asleep during a bus ride you might have noticed that you will often wake up just in time to get off.
This is because you are still aware to some degree of your environment even when you sleep, and you can use the same kind of auto-suggestion to decide to wake up at certain times of the night - for example, the next time you are dreaming.
It’s strange how this seems almost paranormal yet it’s so common. Like the time I fell asleep on the train and woke up just before my stop. This is the real auto-suggestion, everything else is manual-suggestion
I agree with what everyone here has said, but just wanted to point out that 3-4 weeks is not a long time, don’t get disheartend!
Also, if anyone at school gets onto you about LDing, you could always just do discrete RCs for now, and talk about it to them once you’ve had a few. That way, if they tell you they don’t ‘believe’ in LDs they won’t really have a leg to stand on because YOU will have the experience!
…I have to do my RCs at work with CCTVs pointing at me, my boss probably thinks I’m mad!
). I do also suggest you keep writing your dreams down (with as much detail as you can remember or have the patience to write down (or type out)). Becoming familiar with the feeling of your dreams and what happens in them can really help, plus ND’s can be REALLY amazing. I’ve had normal dreams that were many times more incredible than many of my LD’s.
Feel free to ask anything and share your experiences! That’s what this place is for, and there’s nothing wrong with being a beginner.
