the BIG MILD topic [part II]

Quest for Lucidity
7

Last night, whilst feeling frustrated that I couldn’t get control of my dreams enough, I decided to try the MILD method properely for the first time. In the past, I have tried it half-heartedly, but last night I decided to put some real effort into it.

First of all, I looked at Pasquale’s MILD instructions on this site. I modified it slightly to my own preference. For a start, I didn’t like doing the 3rd eye thing, as I didn’t like the sensation it gave me. Most of the rest of it I did though…

  1. Woke up at 5am

  2. Stood up, made sure I woke up completely, then went back to bed.

  3. Said to myself, “I am going to dream now, I am in a dream, I am aware of my dream”.

  4. Imagined myself in a place I would like to be.

  5. Imagined myself realising I was dreaming.

  6. Imagined myself flying.

I then proceeded to repeat steps 3 to 6 over and over again. Each time I got to step 4, I imagined that it was somewhere completely different, but each time it was somewhere I would really like to be. A beautiful hilltop, a sunny beach, some woods…

My thoughts then wondered, and I was involuntarily visualising myself walking down a footpath near a stream near where I live. I then had a very brief and blurry LD of this, and tried to spin to make it clearer, and tried my best to get control but I couldn’t.

I then woke up, and eventually drifted off back to sleep to have various non-lucid dreams.

I think that’s encouraging though, don’t you? The fact that, on my first proper attempt at MILD I managed to have a very brief moment of lucidity?

I think I’m going to stick with this now, in conjunction with WBTB. I think I can stick with this, because I find that I enjoy imagining myself in different places, so I don’t get bored of this technique. It’s quite exciting really, because each time I repeat the process I am thinking, “oooh, where can I imagine myself next?”

I like the idea that it works by excercising the visual imagination whilst keeping the concept of lucid dreaming in your conciousness.

:happy:

Ed.

8

I’ve had almost all of my lucid dreams using the MILD technique, and it’s the easiest technique for me to practice. I just tell myself to remember to wake up after each dream and then practice the rest of the steps. I’ve only been able to have a lucid dream using the WILD technique once.

Of course I’ve only had about 10 - 15 lucid dreams my entire life so…

ypm.

9

Last night, I tried MILD again after waking up in the early hours of the morning. Again, I was imagining myself in various nice places each time I visualised myself dreaming.

I didn’t have a LD. However, I did remember a dream about walking around hilly countryside near the sea. Two of the places I had imagined whilst trying MILD were a beach and some hilly countryside.

So it shows that what I’m imagining is going through to my dream, it’s just I didn’t go lucid.

10

The last few nights, I tried MILD with no success. What I think I did wrong, is that I didn’t stay up for long enough when I woke up in the early hours of the morning. I just got up, went down to the toilet, and went straight back to bed.

What I noticed, was that I found it very difficult to gain control of my thoughts. I really couldn’t do it. I stumbled at every point. Even after just saying one sentence to myself, my mind would stray off into completely different thoughts, and when I tried to imagine myself somewhere, I couldn’t do it at all. It’s like my mind had a mind of its own, so to speak.

If I compare this to a previous attempt when I tried it after having been up for a while, I had FAR more control over my thoughts back then.

I think maybe the best thing is to do the whole thing, you know, stay up for 30 minutes whilst reading the website, and only THEN go back to bed and attempt MILD. Otherwise I’m too sleepy and my brain just wants to do its own thing.

Ed.

11

Haven’t had the will/time to try lately…But I think I’m going to go MILD for all I’m worth this weekend. :slight_smile:
I’ll go with Ed Case’s idea, if I can haul myself out of bed.

12

Things are looking good for me…

I woke up at 5am, stayed up for 30 minutes, reading parts of this website, then went back to bed, and did the following routine…

1 - Said to myself, “I am going to dream now, I am in a dream, I am aware of my dream”.

2 - Imagined myself in a nice place (different each time)

3 - Imagined myself realising I was dreaming

4 - Imagined myself doing something fun like flying (different each time)

5 - Repeated steps 1 to 4 until I felt like I was almost asleep, and then just relaxed and went to sleep.

I then had several mini lucid moments a short while afterwards. I can’t remember too many details of them, other than that they were great fun.

In the first one, I kind of became concious of myself lying in bed, feeling a kind of feeling I have felt before when conciously on the verge of a dream. Ironically, I decided to try WILD at this point, so I focussed on my third eye (even though I don’t like doing that, ironically), and then vibrations came, and then somehow I knew it was the right time to leave my body, so I tried to leave my body, and it was a big effort, but I forced myself out, and rolled out of my body with great effort. Then I was in my room, but it was all very dark and fuzzy. I tried spinning and looking at my hands, but nothing really worked, and then it faded. It was fun though.

Then I had a few other lucid moments, which were more of a MILD style, where I was dreaming and became aware because I remembered my intention. They were very brief though, with not much control, but were great fun. One was where I made a sexy woman appear, and I started to become aroused, but then I lost control of the dream at that point. It was fun though.

I feel really excited about this, because I feel like I’ve come even further! I feel like this MILD method is really starting to work for me. I had ignored it in the past, because I thought it sounded hard to do, but in actual fact, now that I’ve started to get into the habbit of doing it and know exactly what I’m doing, it’s actually quite easy. I just simply go round in circles doing the steps like I have mentioned, until I become really sleepy. I don’t even worry if the odd other thought pops into my head from time to time, as long as the main train of thought is the MILD method.

I definately think that staying awake for 30 minutes is a big part of it though. Otherwise I’m just too sleepy and I just fall back to sleep too quickly without much control over my thoughts. If I stay up for a while first, then I’m more awake and feel more in control of my thoughts.

I really am quite pleased with how well the MILD thoughts carry over into the dreams. They appear in the form of just plain knowledge that it is a dream.

[i]Also, on a side note, the more I have started to become aware of my dreams, the more I have realised that there is a whole new world out there, with it’s own places and memories and everything. While I am dreaming, I start to remember other places I have dreamt about, which I wouldn’t remember in real life. And during the dreams, when I’m remembering these other places that I’ve dreamt about, it’s like real memories of real visits to real places.

One such place is a place that supposedly exists near me (but doesn’t really), where there are some footpaths through some woods up the side of a hill, which leads to an old railway track on a hill where anyone can have a free rise northbound into the beautiful green sunny countryside. I remembered this last night I think, remembering how I visited it in a previous dream, maybe even visited it in several dreams.

I love this new world I am discovering.[/i]

13

It is very important to put effort in every day if you ever want to be a Lucid Dream Master. I wish i could go back to the days when i could have a LD every night if i put enough effort into it, but then life got in the way.

14

I have a problem I hope MILD can solve…

Each night I have an average of 3-5 pretty complete dream recalls. I cannot rememeber the last time I had no recall… probably the last time I was sick. It seems I have (with a couple recent exceptions) lost my ability to LD, but I am having the best recall of my life. I had always thought that recall and LD’s went hand-in-hand, meaning the better recall, the better the chance of having a LD. This is where MILD comes in. Has anyone with good, consistent dream recall ever had great success with MILD? I’m wondering if introducing mental suggestion with MILD could turn things around? I hope I’m not too far off subject. I’ll post any success in my journal.

By the way, Ed Case,

I really agree with your side note you made on dreams being a whole different world. I think that has been the lure of dreams for me. I can relate to feeling certain sentiments and memories attached to places I visit in my dreams, as I know other people can too. I’ll often wake up in the morning thinking “Wow, am I glad I was able to visit that meadow with the big tree again! I love it there! what a place…”. Then it occurs to me how strange it is that I have this kind of attachment to a place that is supposed to not actualy exist.

15

Fenoderee…

About the special dream places:
Isn’t it also funny how simple places and situations can have so much more meanings in dreams that in real life. Just the simple act of walking through some woods to an old railway station and then get a ride out into the countryside, but it all means a great deal in the dream.

Ed.

16

Everything’s more special if you make it yourself. :cool:

17

I have excellent dream recall and have learned to induce lucid dreams at will with MILD.

18

Sorry, accidental double post!

19

I think that’s because our state of mind ignores fear when dreaming. You know its a dream, and you have control, so you can absorb the moment entirely, which is what LD’ing is all about.

20

Yeah I think that’s been my pronlem all I do when I wake up is I go to the bathroom then back to bed. I cant focus my thought very well either. How long do you guys recommend I stay up?

21

Lucid_Adventurer,

I have heard that it’s best to stay up for at least a half hour. At least for the WBTB technique, that’s what is recommended. If you use MILD in conjunction with WBTB, I bet you would be able to focus better on your mantras. I’m no professional, but that’s what has worked for me the best. I also have trouble focusing in the wee hours of the morn. It’s also supposed to work better if you do something active with your mind, like read. Sorry I cant offer more info. Good luck, good dreaming…

22

This technique is my best way to get lucid dreams, I used to do it before I slept and it worked sometimes but now I wake up 6 hours afterwards and do the technique, it is quite good.

23

Hey Lucidity_Master I know that this is an old post of yours, but I was just wondering how you perform the MILD technique?

It has been the most successful technique for me so far, but I only get about 3 lucid dreams a month, so it’s not all that successful. So I was thinking that since you can do it at will, perhaps you have some techniques that might be helpful.

ypm.

24

The first thing I do is use the 61 piont relaxation to get my mind and body relaxed.

Then I pretty much go to sleep and say "The next time I am dreaming I want to remember to recognizethat I’m dreaming. From my personal experienbce and everything I have read it is the remembering to recognize that really seems to help the technique.

The same time I’m saying the mantra I imagine myself finding a dreamsign and becoming lucid. Then I continue as if I am Lucid and after a while start the visualization over with the SAME dreamsign (usually flying).

It took my about two months of HARD work before my mind got used to it but after that getting Lucid become quite easy.

Hope this helps , persevere and good luck!!! :tongue:

25

Hye Lucidity_Master,

I will be sure to try that since you have had such positive results, thanks for the post.

I will be sure to post my results on this forum.

Just another quick question (and hopefully not too off topic) have you noticed any increased familiarity in recognizing the dream state? Do you still need to perform this technique or is it more nature now.

ypm.

26

That’s a very good question. I’d like to know that too!