Sleep troubles while inducing LD

Quest for Lucidity
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So… Since I signed in on this forum, I am now trying to reintroduce myself to LD and practicing again after a break of 3 weeks or so. I made a post about my general experience about all this here : My general experience with trying to do Lucid dreams

To put it short, I’m not at all a frequent lucid dreamer, but I don’t give up on the idea I will become one. So after posting this (and getting some responses), it motivated me again to practice reality checks and induction techniques.

Reality checks aren’t a big deal at all. I’ve already did it a lot before, so it’s not really complicated to make them about 15 a day. I usually try to see my hand and see if they are weird or not, try to put my index through it, or pinches my nose and see if I still breathe. Sometimes, I do many of this at the same time. So I don’t think I have a problem with this.

However, my real problem (and the reason I am writing this post) is that I trouble practicing induction technique. The main ones I use are MILD and WILD (I maybe had to use FILD one time or another, but I don’t use it that much). This is a trouble that I have since the start, and I think it ruins my sleep time.

I will take the exemple of my experience last night. It was 11.30 PM I was lying down in bed with the intention of doing a MILD technique. With the advice of @Marvin, I tried relaxing meditation with a video I found on YouTube. It worked so far, I was feeling relaxed and I turned off my phone since the video was over and I have no reason to keep it turned on, it will produce light after all. So I slowly and carefully (to avoid exiting my relaxing state) turned off my phone and put it under my pillow (in which there was also a notebook and a pen) and then came back on a sleeping position. On the back and with both of my hands laid on my chest. And so, I said in my head repeatedly “I will be lucid tonight”. Simple mantra I repeated over and over, but as things progresses, I feel myself go to sleep, but as soon as I feel myself leave, I get like an increase in heart beat, I get excited, and then everything is ruined. I go back to the state before I started meditation, but I’m even more conscious. I’m more awake than ever in the day. And then… I got Insomnia. I just laid down in my bed, thinking about some concept I’m working on, last time I checked the clock before falling asleep, it was about 2 AM…

I rarely have sleep problem, it arrives sometimes to get insomnia, but this times, it was generally because of this kind of happening. I go to sleep between 11 PM and 1 AM and awake between 9 AM and 10 AM.

And the thing is it also happens with WILD! I arrives to lay still, I can see the hypnagogic forms forming in the darkness behind my eyelids. But at one time, my heart goes in overdrive and am unable to sleep like if it never happened.

Why does this keep happening to me? is this because I’m getting to excited the moment before I sleep? Do I see my sleep state coming? If yes, then what can I make to stay the most relaxed? Or maybe it’s something else… Idk.

I need your advices because it could help me, not only for my LD practice, but for my sleep in general. Thanks in advance for your answers.

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MILDer here! I find that sometimes repeating a MILD mantra over and over does keep me from falling asleep. And also, by repeating it over and over I stop feeling it and start reciting it. MILD works best (for me) when I have the real emotion behind my mantras, so repeating it over and over and over again can start to loose effectiveness for me unless I am really putting that emotional intent behind it every time.

What I do that helps me fall asleep and still execute a MILD before bed or during the middle of the night: I spend a few minutes, between two and five maybe, really setting my intention and really feeling the emotion behind my mantra (if I’m using one), then, after that time, I won’t worry about what’s next and just go to bed/let myself fall asleep without focusing on the method.

I don’t think MILD necessarily requires execution right before sleep like WILD methods do, so it’s also something you can practice throughout the day/ at a dedicated time that’s not right before sleep. You can set your intentions and use mantras during the day, too!

Also, to note, I just straight up can’t fall asleep when I try to WILD, most the time. It is usually only a technique I execute on accident because I occasionally notice that I can’t feel my body/I’m falling asleep when I’m already very very tired. It’s just not the right method for me and I don’t try to force it anymore.

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Your answer opened to me the fact that I was doing MILD wrong, even if it never worked when I tried like you said (execute before bed). Maybe I should do it longer, like you said, I think I never reached 5 minutes.

Practicing during the day seems also interesting. During the rare LD I got, I never needed a reality check to know I was in a dream (even tho it could have helped me to keep it stable :joy:. The simple thought of dreaming can bring me lucidity. So, practicing MILD during day seems like a good reality check to me since I will know I’m awake.

About WILD… I like the principe of the technique, and I also like practicing it, but I never get to do it entierely, and it gives me insomnia, so… :joy:

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At it’s core, MILD is just setting your intention to remember to realize you’re dreaming. You can do this anytime. It’s based on prospective memory, remembering to do something in the future (such as question reality or do a mindful RC).
MILD has worked well for me when I am able to connect my mantra to something I expect to experience/see in my dreams (such as my dream signs). For example “When I encounter water, I question my reality.” (Of course this only works if I follow through and question my reality in WL when I encounter water, too).
I also use MILD mantras to help me remember my lucid intentions: “When I realize I am dreaming, I will X” where X is whatever my goal is.

I feel like I’m always linking people to this thread, which gives a lovely discussion on MILD mantras.

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Personnaly, since I didn’t have a clear LD ever, I only use MILD do set my intention to LD and not for my lucid intention. So I only use mantras like “I will lucid dream tonight”. I never really use a mantra by mentioning specific situation like you because I feel like each of my dreams are very few to nothing in common. They are all very differents and I can’t identify any common theme or elements.

But hey, it’s been 3 days since your first answer and I didn’t has sleep problems at all since then. I think your advices really helped me doing something more right. I did the Mild technique as you said, and gone to bet by listening to this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbRoUSW6f2o
I didn’t has sleep trouble at all since then. And plus, I had mostly vivid dreams the past nights. So I guess your advices really helped me, thank you for that :wink:

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I can relate to this issue, so I developed the following routine for MILD: I go to bed and find a relaxing position lying on my back. Then I give myself some time to relax deeper by trying to clear my head. I give this maybe 1-5 minutes, depending on how many thoughts are still racing inside my head. If I’m still very into whatever I was doing before going to bed, I may need even more time.

Once I feel it’s quiet enough inside my head and I can focus on a anything new intentionally, I begin actual MILD induction. I will think about my mantra. I used to recite it quite verbally but like Splash already said, only the meaning behind the words matters, not the words themselves. So these days I’m rather imagining what being lucid means and manifests like rather than going by a specific mantra.

If I have a good starting point, like a previous dream or a specific scene that would be beneficial for my plans while lucid, I add some dream incubation before the mantra. I set a very specific dream scene I find myself in and explore it with all my senses. So it’s kind of important that it offers a lot of interesting stimuli. Usually I pick some outdoor scene with a lot of nature. That is always going to be very colourful, full of sounds and smells and there are always interesting places you can go to to extend the scene. I never actually disembarked into a lucid dream in any of those prepared scenes but I feel that it still helped to achieve lucidity in some instances because I think it gives the mantra more substance, making it less abstract? Also once I had a ND that was as close to the scene as it could get :lol:

For the actual MILD part of the induction, I do it as long as I can meaningfully focus on the mantra repetition. If I find my thoughts trailing off too quickly over and over again or I don’t have enough “feeling“ anymore with my recitation. This is usually about 10 minutes but can be as short as 5 minutes or as long as half an hour. At that point I slowly stop, roll over in my more natural sleeping position and do whatever makes me fall asleep fastest. So do nothing at all, basically :tongue:

For the MILD part I also sometimes assume my final sleeping position already. But it doesn’t actually help fall asleep during the recitation, so overall I think it’s probably better for me to lie on my back because this is a somewhat special position for me and this adds a little bit of weight to MILD. I think a lot of people trying to LD have a similar philosophy.

I almost never fall asleep during MILD itself. That tends to work a lot better during WBTB :lol:

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I’m glad to hear that you’re sleeping better! Since I can only really speak to my experience I never know if my suggestions are actually useful for others, so I’m glad to hear that something I said might have been helpful.

When reading through the thread again, I noticed this statement. Although I relate in being confident in my lucidity (when I question if I’m dreaming in a dream, it’s often enough to give me lucidity, although I have talked myself out of lucidity before :lol: ) I would be cautious about being confident about WL-that you know you’re awake.
I think being a DILDer (MILD is a type of DILD) it has been helpful for me to adopt the idea that I could always be dreaming. I think that philosophy has helped me develop a more discerning mindset? Like shifting my default mind from “This isn’t a dream” (a WL attitude) to “This could be a dream” (a reality questioning attitude). Our mindsets carry over into our dreams. If you’re always so sure you’re awake in WL, that could be holding you back from more lucids because you’re assuming you’re experiencing WL in your dreams (otherwise, you would be lucid).
I’m not sure what I’m exactly trying to articulate, but maybe something like developing a lucid mindset?

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Thanks for exposing your process. I think I will try it to see if it is more efficient for me.

Got it :+1:

I confirm, you’ve been helpful! Thanks again! :smile:

That’s a good change of pace, maybe I should do that.

Thanks for your response, I’m going back to school Monday and I’m starting to get sleep problems again… I don’t know if it’s because of my LD practice or if it’s something else like the fact to see my friends in real life again (we’ve already seen yesterday, it was incredible) or the pressure of new type of class activities and difficulties… Idk, I will try to make them go away. While I’m doing it, I will also try what you said in your responses, so thanks again!