[mod]This is Part II of Let’s Achieve LD Together! Part I
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I found that improving dream recall was very difficult at first. The past few months it has gone from virtually zero to 3-4 vivid dreams most nights. I can try to share what made the biggest difference for me.
First, I had to increase the amount of sleep that I got every night. I was simply staying up too late and the bleating of the alarm clock was like a wrecking ball to my sense of calm. If you have to wake up early for your schedule, try going to bed really early. Simply try announcing one night that you are tired and you’re going to sleep early.
I also started studying the meager scraps of my dream journal every night. This was my way of saying, “This stuff is important to me. I am connected to it and I would like to remember more of it.” I believe that this matters.
Before bed, I write a couple of sentences in the dream journal declaring that I want to remember my dreams, what time I want to wake up to SSILD, and what I will try when I become lucid. When I fall asleep I try to think about how cool the experience of dreaming will be overnight.
Another very important tip – I’ve had many mornings where I woke up with no memory of any dreams whatsoever. When this happens, I recommend staying perfectly still and hunting hard for a scrap, anything to hang on to. Look hard for even a single image. Once you grab a piece of one, try to take your mind over as much as you can remember of this and any other dreams. Think of what happened before and after. When you are sure you have gone over the whole thing, then get up and put it into your dream journal as quickly as you can. This “preparation” has sometimes taken me nearly a minute but I’ve saved as many as three dreams at a time this way.
As for specific techniques to try, I highly recommend SSILD. It does require you to wake up in the early morning, perform the tech, then get back to bed. (I strongly prefer to do this via natural intention or the need to pee rather than an alarm clock.) This tech has given me many of my LDs (as well as countless false awakenings and extra-vivid dreams.) Much less technical than something like a WILD but super effective.
One of my friends was acting really out of character in my dream which made me check if I were dreaming, which I did by pinching my nose and trying to breath.
It was quite out of control though I was extremely excited and just ran around my town, I only really did two impossible things first I pulled glasses out of nowhere to increase my sight since the dream was very blurry at first and I tried to fly but I could only jump really high.
I did go to sleep late and wake up…well, not really early by many people’s standards but I’d need about 10 hours of sleep everyday just to start thinking about getting out of this bed thing.
I will try SSILD, but I can’t understand how it should work. It baffles me. Relax and fall asleep. Does anyone have any idea about the principles behind it?
So even he doesn’t know how or why it works. As long as it works. It would be so sweetly ironic if that actually worked for me, the one unexplained and loose technique, after all these years.
Oh. Thats true… Maybe I should have readt it trough with though… I have tried SILD for couple of nights now. But I have done it “wrong” in purpose. That is I have been doing it just before I go to sleep, although he says it wont work… Reason for trying to do it “wrong” is cuz I want to fall a sleep more quickly… I am so bad at falling a sleep and thought maybe this relaxing method would work… And ofc because even though he says it wont work, who knows? If he cant tell why it works, or wont work, little testing cant hurt?
And last night I am sure that I had a brief FA. I woke up and thought about my dream I had and then wanted to go back to sleep cuz I can write my DJ when I wake up again. Then when I wake up, I dont remember anything but the wakeing up in the middle of night…
SSILD sounds interesting and I’ll give it a try in couple of days. I read your experience, The Nameless One. I was happy to read your progress and it makes me want even more to try SSILD. It would be ironic indeed if you get LD with this method! Have you experimented more with it? Keep us updated, I’m curious to know how it’s going for you. Have you started doing RC every time you wake up? If you’ve developed that habit, then your first LD will come soon! Don’t get too excited when you get lucid
I tried SSILD! I didn’t have any FA, nor did I get lucid tonight. Though my dream recall increased massively. I usually remember two dreams, but today I remember SEVEN dreams. I don’t think I’ve ever remembered that many dreams from one night
I will try SSILD again tonight for sure. Thank you, Lucid Wolf, for posting this technique here, I didn’t know about it before that.
Has anybody had any results with it?
Seven dreams! That’s really spectacular dream recall… just incredible. Hope you had an extra pen handy for the ol’ dream journal.
I’m very glad that my mention of SSILD was useful to you. It has been foundational to my LD experience so far and I’m grateful to cosmic.iron for taking the time to share this tech. If you’re interested in reading other people’s experiences, the SSILD thread on this site (and a few others around the net) contain a great number of other success stories. And from what I understand, the Chinese forum where cosmic.iron developed this tech had many dozens (or more?) of users.
It is! I’ve never had that many dreams in one night in my life. Oh, and it took a long time to write them all down to my DJ. Not complaining about that. The more dreams the better! More chance to get lucid, with that night I stepped 7 steps closer to my next LD
How long have you been into LD, Lucid Wolf? What did you do in your most enjoyable LD? Also interesting for me to read what people plan or want to do in their next LD! I wish you to have you next LD very soon! Maybe tonight
Absolutely. And that non-lucid dream content can be amazing as well! Normally most of those thoughts and ideas would just be lost to you. That’s seven dreams in just one night that would have been gone forever. The opportunity to access all of that wackiness, creativity, and free association is wonderful.
I casually tried to achieve a lucid dream for quite some time before managing my first in late April. It was brief but very exhilarating and I was instantly hooked. I didn’t have another LD until late June (two months later via MILD), although the dream journal was going strong by then. I started up with SSILD in the early part of this month (July) and managed my next five lucid dreams through July. It has been awesome.
The best experience so far has been going lucid during a nightmare where my wife and I were ambushed on a wharf late at night. We were running and [color=blue]I became lucid as we were cornered and about to be killed. I soared forward, caught my wife under the arms, and flew out with her over the ocean. From nightmare to long, vivid lucid flying dream in seconds.[/color] I always enjoy a good LD, but I don’t know if I’ll be topping that one any time soon! (This one was timely, too, because I’d had a LD goal of trying to carry a dream character in flight.)
That’s why I like nightmares. In my case if I feel scared in a dream then the chance to get lucid is so much higher. I think 35% from my LD are from nightmares.
I visualise getting lucid every day and the first thing I’ll do is increase my concentration. I have had almost no control at all in my last LDs. So I’ll just focus on my thumbs for the first 20-30 sec and say that I’ll meet an important DC or my SG. I’ll remind myself that this is my dream and I’m in control as long as I truly believe that. I’ll go and open a door to meet SG or DC and have a personal conversation with him/her. If we finish talking before I wake up, I’ll just go and have fun. I want to go and fly very far from the Earth. It’s such a typical thing to do, but I can’t help it that I like to fly.
In my last LD my DC didn’t even want to talk to me so I hope they’re more friendly in my next LD.
I read forum post as much as I could, tonight. Now it is around 5.30 in the morning in Turkey and I will go to sleep. Today I am going to try MILD technique. Since yesterday I had slept only for 4 hours so today may be a good time to try it.
I just wanted to make o note in here because just writing about it here keeps me motivated and maybe I am doing this almost as a reality check. Well, this will be my second trial on ld in two days. I hope I will get closer this morning. I am kind of nerveous to get caught in an SP but whatever, I want my ld!
That’s cool. I am glad to hear that this works consistently for you. This is something that I want to emulate. The first time I became lucid in a nightmare, I just woke myself up. (Didn’t count this as an LD.) Of course, with lucid dreaming, there is actually no need to panic like this. Without the motivation of wanting to help a distressed DC (wife), I didn’t make good use of these nightmare opportunities.
Hey man, I’m right there with you. There’s a reason that this is something pretty much every lucid dreamer wants to do! Flight really is that amazing.
Nope, I’m on my own! My wife sleeps extremely soundly and almost never remembers any of her dreams. The whole idea seems completely alien to her.
Im so f***** exited… Got my firs LD couple of days ago. It was only a brief moment when I realized that I can breathe trough my nose while keeping it shut. I just foucused on my breathing and the colors and the feelings that I had. But I was too exited and woke up shortly… But Im so exited to try to control my emotions and really LD like a boss
Hey, this seems like a cool thread. I’ve been trying for a while now (about 5 months) to get into this Lucid Dreaming stuff. For a while I was just trying to improve my Dream Recall since I rarely ever remembered my dreams. I only ever remembered 1 or 2 dreams a night, and still do, but I have to put in 100% each time to fully remember stuff which discouraged me from keeping at it since it seemed to come so much more easily to others.
I then tried to mix MILD techniques along with the Dream Recall improvement stuff. I tried it for a week or two, no success. I attempted WILD as well with no success for a few weeks.
Lately, I’ve been trying a new technique that someone told me about that said was “easy”. I sit in the Lotus position and relax and almost meditate on becoming lucid and then going to sleep very relaxed. I haven’t tried it very much, yet, but so far I’m not having any success with that either. I won’t give up, but I’m rather discourage at this point.
my DR have also been kinda bad. But writing DJ has helped me alot. There is times when you cant remember dreams at all and sometimes so much you have trouble to write it all down.
Many things affect your ability to remember dreams. such as diet, stress and getting up early. Of course there is many things more to that.
But one thing you could try is self hypnosis. It is not the easiest way in my opinion (since I havent been so succesful to get fully hypnotized) but it has been helping my DR.
Here is a link where you can read more about self hypnosis.
Don’t feel bad about this! Some nights I can recall a huge number of dreams, while once a week or so I remember no dreams whatsoever! Dream recall still to this day takes focused effort for me. If I don’t focus, I’ll get almost nothing.
Upon the moment of waking, try to lie perfectly still and reach for any fragment of dream that you can find. Once you’ve got something, try to work backward and forward from there as far as you can without physically moving your body. This may take no more than 30 seconds or so, but it’s worth making sure you’ve got a good grasp of the dream before you start disrupting yourself by moving around and looking for your journal.
For many people, there also tends to be a habit of waking up thinking about the day’s concerns and what is ahead of you. Try to make your first thought upon waking to a) remember what you were just dreaming and b) reality check! That other stuff can wait.
A great technique to try is the SSILD technique, described in this thread. I hesitate to call it “easy” because it does require waking up in the early morning but the instructions are straightforward. This technique has had a lot of success. (Speaking personally, it’s where I get most of my lucid dreams from.) Its author is also very experienced and offers a lot of helpful advice.
Edit: Just noticed this! Big congratulations!! That is awesome. My first was very brief too. Now you’ll be even more ready for your next lucid dream. Great work.
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