Hey all,
I’ve been lurking here for a while now and have never really joined in the discussions as my LD frequency is ultra low. Last night I had my first LD in over a year and would like some input as to what could have triggered it, and hopefully bring them to fruition faster.
Yesterday I was completely off so I’ll start with my “normal” day and maybe that will shed some light as to what I should focus on.
I wake up at 6am and ride the bus to work listen to books on tape. At noon Monday through Thursday I practice Yoga for an hour. I leave work at 5PM and ride the bus home, on the bus ride home I listen to guided meditations with binaural beats and often drift in and out of hynogogic imagery, I have had several near WILDS in this state but always awaken, I’m usually in the zone for about 35-45 mins. When home I start to wind down around 8:30PM watch some tv or play some video games until 10 or 10:30 and then I do some reading about Luid dreaming until I fall asleep around 11PM. During the day I have a reality check app on my phone that is set to go off 10 times randomly during the day. I sleep pretty soundly and wake rarely to go to the bathroom. I have tried WBTB and it didn’t really work for me at all. Have tried MILD and no dice either. My dream recall is really good, I average 3 dreams a night of clear recollection, once a week approximately I will have a good 7 dream recall, and every 2-3 months I will have a 10 plus dream recall night. I take a decent dream journal I go through stages where I ignore it, but for the most part I write them down and with detail.
Last nights variables, where to start 
Saturday I went to a friends fantasy football party and got totally ripped! I smoked some pot which I haven’t done in a long long time( side note when I used to smoke more frequently it made my dream recall plummet, the last time I did, I did not remember a single dream for over two months.) Yesterday I was completely hungover, laying on the couch immobile. Also last week I only practiced Yoga one day and only rode the bus 2 days Monday and Thursday so only had my afternoon meditation those two days (yes it was a grouchy week!)
Last night after my hangover day I could not for the life of me fall asleep. I laid in bed until at least 1:20AM. Before bed I was reading about LD’s specifically about the Shakti machines. Before my LD I was in a normal dream, the transition point was when I was talking to a woman I used to work with on one floor of a tower, and when I walked one floor down she was there and started to talk to me again. I said to her “Hey I was just talking to you upstairs?” Then I said to myself “Oh I must be dreaming!” And the lucid dream began. I got to play around for awhile(felt like 15 mins) before I started trying to push the scene around lost it and woke up at about 2AM. The max time I was asleep is 40 minutes, probably more like 30.
I think what probably triggered it was with my disrupted sleep cycle my mind shot quickly into a rem phase. Any other theories would be greatly appreciated. Also suggestions on how to use this LD to bring on more would be awesome. I plan on doing a focused visualization of last nights dream before bed. And really focus on the point where I realized I was in the dream.