Im a former lucid dreamer who has recently gotten back into lucid dreaming last week. I’ve been trying to induce lucid dreams again using the MILD technique. On my 1st night I had a short lucid dream that lasted about 20 seconds. I’ve been writing down my dreams and all the lucid dreams I’ve had in my dream journal on my ipod. Now these other past 2-3 days I havent been getting any lucid dreams. I’ve been sleeping on my side to try to MILD(and Im naturally a sleeper on my back) and so it’s very uncomfortable for me to sleep on my side so my mind is too tired to have lucid dreams cause of struggling on a non comfortable position. One of the reasons Im scared to sleep on my back for lucid dreams is that Im scared of sleep paralysis. I’ve heard terrible stories about sleep paralysis. I’ve also experienced sleep paralysis myself while I was younger and I dont want to talk about how haunting the experiences were. I’ve heard that WILD is related to sleep paralysis and you have to be conscious in SP in order to have a WILD which is one of the reasons why I’ve been avoiding WILDs. I plan on sleeping on my back to have a MILD tonight but Im afraid that the MILD might turn into a WILD if I sleep on my back because I’ll be reciting my mantra and visualizing my dream as im falling asleep which may turn it into a WILD? Also is sleeping on my back good for MILD? And what should I do if I end up getting a WILD or SP?
Welcome to LD4all 
Number one, do not fear SP (I’ll get to your MILD questions in just a bit). It’s a natural event and you go through it every single night. Most of the scarier events, like the experience you mentioned from your childhood, come from not understanding what it is. If you find yourself in SP, don’t panic. Any sounds or sights your might encounter are dreams forming and you do have complete control over them. Most of what happens is people open their eyes and expect to see something, some reason why they can’t move, and that in turn causes them to see and hear frightening things. On the other hand, I’d suggest not even opening your eyes. If you’re in SP, try to continue to go to sleep like normal. You can jump into a dream almost instantly if you begin to visualize things and repeat a MILD mantra.
You don’t have to go into SP for WILD, btw. It happens sometimes, but it’s only happened to me 2 or 3 times out of about 50 WILDs. If you attempt your techniques 4-6 hours after first going to bed, it’ll reduce the chance of SP and make it easier to use WILD/MILD because you will fall asleep faster.
Now, it is very possible MILD might turn into WILD because there’s actually little to no difference between them. MILD is setting a mantra and remembering that intention in a dream later. If you fall asleep during your mantra and into a dream that you are lucid in, congrats, that’s a WILD (straight from waking to LD). In short, MILD you remember your dreaming later; WILD you go straight into a dream while still aware.
The reason I make this distinction is because you really shouldn’t worry too much about the exact technique you use. Every tech will require some variation depending on the user, and often most people will use hybrid techniques. On top of that, if you’re laying there worrying about doing a MILD perfectly but not doing WILD, you’re not concentrating on LD’s, and without awareness it doesn’t matter what technique you will use, it simply won’t happen. Just sit back, do your mantra, visualize if you like, and relax.
Oh, and my own little tip for MILD: while it helps to repeat the mantra until you fall asleep, that rarely happens. Just repeat it until you feel you’ve gotten the intention. I usually go about 5 minutes max if I haven’t fallen asleep. The trick is to really think about what you’re saying, don’t just mindlessly repeat it.
What position you sleep in is highly debated. I will say your back will make SP much more likely, but SP is a natural gateway to dreaming so you can capitalize on that. For myself, I don’t like sleeping on my back. I have had LD’s in almost every position, and other than the odd SP, my back has made no difference. Just get comfortable and try not to move too much.
I know that’s a lot to take in in one thread, but I think it’s worth it. If you have more questions or need me to go more in depth, let me know
Alright,thanks very much for the insightful info! I will try my best to MILD tonight,I’ll also even try to visualize the dream as Im repeating my MILD mantra. I’ll report what happened tommrow morning. Cheers.
Ugh,it didnt work for me AGAIN. I guess MILD just isn’t my thing. But Im not losing hope,tonight I will try the WBTB technique.
Be careful not to get too impatient. It can take a while to tweak a technique until it works for you. I’d give it at least a week per tech before giving up entirely, though I think adding WBTB to MILD is a good idea.
Im getting frustrated. All I’ve been getting recently is just ordinary dreams.I usually have 2-5 dreams per night and I can recall all of them but I never become lucid in any of them…some of them are pretty obvious that Im dreaming because most of the dreams that I’ve been having are of me in school.(my school year is over…)
From my own experience I can tell you to be careful with frustration! Too much frustration can quickly eat up your motivation and then you’ll give up on LD’ing (even if temporarily). I strongly (and humbly 
) advise you to give more attention and interest to your normal dreams as they can be VERY incredible and fun as well, and getting more involved with them can really help your LD’ing, be it through better DR or learning you DS’s. What I love to do is take a look at the previous night and elect the best thing that happened and focus on that one positive thing. Maybe you didn’t ge tlucid but had one vivid ND, or almost got lucid… consider that as a good step towards real progress!
You’re right…I actually got really frustrated last night and actually gave up on lucid dreaming for the night and only had 2 regular dreams. However I feel more motivated now and will try to get a lucid dream tonight…