Lucid Dreaming Technique:
CDILD - The How-To Guide.
CDILD is derived from a form of meditation (also thought up by me, as far as I know), but when used this way, can induce lucid dreams in one of two ways.
Step one: Preparation.
As with any LDing technique, proper preparation is in order. Make sure to be properly nourished (stomach grumbling can impede progress), but not to be stuffed full (a few hours after dinner should do). Make sure to go to the bathroom beforehand and to have showered or at least washed your face and hands thoroughly. Now we’re ready, on to step two.
Step Two: Position.
Since you’re planning to fall asleep, obviously you’re going to be lying down in a comfortable position. There are three positions that work best ordered from best to worst (in my opinion) below.
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Back - Lay on your back with your hands folded comfortably over the crotch, place on the thighs, or out by your sides (fully extended arms, either tucked close or spread away will do), as long as your deep stomach breathing doesn’t move them. Your head should be facing straight up and just slightly elevated, and your legs can be extended straight out, side by side, or crossed over one another.
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Side - If you’re going to position yourself on your side, then it should be on your left side (left brain = logical brain, and lucidity requires quite a bit of logical thinking). Anyway, I don’t have too many preplanned positions, so all I’m going to say is try to keep your body symmetrical.
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Stomach - On your stomach, again, have the left side of your face down. Aside from that, keep your arms extended (either tucked close or spread away will do), Or overlap them under your head.
Step Three: Relaxation: Slowing the Breathe
To start off you want to do like you would at the beginning of a meditation, by slowing your breath over about five inhale/exhale combinations, deepening the breath over five more, and increasing the pause between the inhales and the exhales over five more. Make the pause as long or short as you like, but remember two things: 1. The longer the better, but 2. You are human so don’t make it, like, ten seconds. YOU NEED TO BREATH STILL. Har har. Anyway, yeah, a pause of three second seems to be a good time. (Don’t worry. Over the course of the rest of the steps, you’ll lose track of your breathing, and that’s OK).
Step Four: Relaxation: ‘Detensifying’ Yourself.
Once you’ve relaxed your breathing, you’ll want to relax your body, which is really very quick and easy. Over the next ten or so breaths (don’t actually count. Ten breaths is just an estimate of how long it would probably take someone new to relaxing this way to complete this step) go through every major part of your body starting with the feet and do the following. You’ll want to inhale, pause, then, with the following exhale and pause, relax both your feet completely, and try to feel them getting heavier and sinking into the bed, completely loose and relaxed. Inhale, pause, then, with the exhale and pause feel your feet getting even more relaxed and sinking into the bed even deeper. Do this as many more times as you need until your feet couldn’t possibly be any more relaxed (two or three times should do) then move onto your claves, and thighs, and hands, and forearms, and upper arms, then shoulders, then lower torso, then upper torso, then neck, and then face and head (focusing particularly on spots that arm tense or have been aching).
Eventually you’ll reach the point I’m at or even further, and be able to completely relax your entire body and slow and deepen the breath and elongate the pause between the breaths, all in one or two breaths.
Step Five: How to ACTUALLY perform CDILD
Actually performing CDILD is the easy part, and, depending on how imaginative you are, it’s a very fun part. This is where the actual Conscious Daydreaming happens. Once you’re in a completely relaxed state, you simply start thinking up your own little story. Don’t think out the setting and things, just try to visualize the story. Visualize every little action, trying to make it like your own little movie. If you’d like an example, just PM me and I’ll type up my DD, otherwise, I honestly don’t want to, .
Step Six: Falling ‘/Awake/’
From here on, the method work just like WILDing in that your furious thinking about your daydream should keep your mind awake through the process of you body falling asleep. (Takes practice. Much practice.)
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Step Six: Falling Asleep
Chances are, until your thoughts on your daydream become more focused, you’ll just fall asleep, however, there is one more chance to become lucid it you do happen to fall asleep, and that’s by recognizing some parts of your dream - dream signs. After thinking so deeply on your DD, there is no doubt that there won’t at least be some hint of the DD in your actual dream. That said your entire dream may be your entire daydream, and hopefully you can recognize, since you consciously thought the DD up, and not your subconscious, that this is part of your DD, and that you can control it. This method may only induce Partially Lucid dreams, in that you may not know you’re actually dreaming, or where your body is, but complete conscious control isn’t a bad consolation prize if you don’t fall asleep conscious.
P.S. Very similar to VILD, but with a more complex story line, and no RCs. Actually, you might want to throw a few creative RC things into the story, just for the hell of it.
VILD/WILD variation, I’d say.