The FILD tech (was HILD) part III

Quest for Lucidity
41

Last night, I fell asleep around 8:30-9:30 PM and set my alarm for 3:30 AM. When the alarm sounded I became aware of my intent to FILD, turned off the alarm clock, rolled on my side, and immediately began moving my index and middle fingers on my left hand. I’ve tried FILD countless times before, but I would fall asleep too easily, so I moved my fingers with more force this time than my previous attempts. My body started falling asleep and feeling strange, but I just kept concentrating on my fingers, and after about 30 seconds I felt as if I involuntarily rolled over, and then I felt as if someone snuck up on me and scared me half to death. After dismissing his Old Hag experience, I checked to see if I was asleep, and I was! In the dream, though, I wasn’t able to achieve as much as I wanted, because I felt very lightheaded throughout the dream, and the more I used my lucid powers, the more lightheaded I became. Tonight, though, I am going to try again, and if I succeed, I will focus on clearing my head and establishing myself into the dream. (The lightheadedness might have something to do with me being moderately sick right now, I was worse earlier in the week but have started getting better)

This is a wonderful technique for all the skeptics, the only problem is that you have to find the balance between falling asleep unconscious and not being able to fall asleep. Just experiment, and hopefully you will figure out the nuances that let you achieve an LD with this technique. :smile:

42

I tried this last night. The only big problem I have with it is that I have to do it while I’m going to sleep (or in the morning) because I can’t wake up in the middle of the night. I still think I’ll probably have some success with this technique though, I’m gonna see what happens if you try to do it with an afternoon nap. :smile:

43

Wow. This sounds really good.
I planned to MILD before sleep, then WBTB+WILD in the night, but I think I’ll just do this!

EDIT: So I set an alarm for 2:00 and went sleep about 22:40. But when the alarm ringed, I didn’t dream, and I wasn’t really tired. So it didn’t work.
Also tried WILD in the morning, didn’t work.
Anyone knows what the best time to set the alarm is ?

44

Just finished reading through all the other parts and posts in the forums. Sounds like this will work really well. The only problem iv been having with WILD is loosing focus on what im trying to do and wandering. Hopefully the finger thing will enable me to focus more clearly on staying conscious.

Will post results tomorow! :content:

45

dang, i guess i set my alarm to early or something because when i woke up i wasn’t nearly tired enough. I was probably a bit excited too :happy:

46

okay so i dont get it cause when i am awake i know i am so do yall mean when i am tired i close my eyes and keep my fingers moving and after sometimes i try to open my eyes and i could be in a dream?

47

I’ve never tried this tech exactly… but i understand that it has massive potential for success.

I once did a WBTB, and when i went back to bed, i couldn’t find a comfortable possition. i rolled over a couple times, and then eventually i rolled over and decided to do an RC. Sure enough, I was dreaming.

This is a good tech, but it’s somewhat scary, because it feels as though you never fell asleep. When i did this, i had to do that nose pinch RC, and i had to try flying just to convince myself that it was a dream!

48

how long did you move your finger for

49

I tried this technique this morning. I fell asleep between 9:00 and 10:00 last night, and woke up aorund 1 AM to start the FILD/HILD technique. I didn’t do the ‘nose-pinch’ RC, but I did try to ‘see’ through my eyelids. (I’m somewhat familiar with the distinction between feelings of opening my eyes in the waking world and opening them in the dreamscape.)

The first time failed. I was still awake… barely. I nodded off immediately afterward and ‘opened my eyes’ to a blinding blue dreamscape sky, became extremely excited at the prospect of my new playground and woke up. I tried twice more to achieve lucidity again, but by my second time it was 6 AM, everyone was awake, and I couldn’t fall back asleep.

Definately will give this technique another try tonight.

50

Last night, I went to sleep at 4AM, I rembered the HILD technique, and I set the alarm to 8AM. I woke up and was very tired, so I thought the conditions were ideal to induce a Lucid dream with this technique.
So I started, doing the movements with my midle and pointer finger, like I was playing a piano very softly. Even thought I was tired, I found that it was somewhat dificult to keep doing the movement, while trying to sleep, because I was getting more alert, by the finger movements. After 5min I did the nose RC, and I was still awake. I did the RC 2 more times but was unsuccessful, so I gave up, and cotinued my sleep.
I woke up again at around 1PM, and the first thing I thought was to try this technique again. Tried and still nothing, tried again, and I fall asslep unintentionally. I found myself in a dream, it was night and raining, I was in a familiar street. I saw people running because of the rain. Then I thought to myself, this can’t be a dream, its too real to be a dream, all the colors and details around me. But I felt the urge to make the nose RC, even after that thought. To my surprise, I could breath with my nose sealed.I was realy chocked, because this dream felt so real. I was lucid just for some seconds, the dream faded away, I didnt woke up, but it all turned black and I lost my lucidity.

Im still a newbie in lucid dreaming, I started reading about LD and trying some tecniques a month ago. So this was one of my best experencies to date in LD. I never tried the nose RC before, so Im preety sure that the urge that I felt in my dream to do the nose RC, even thought I felt I was awake, was because I tried the HILD technique before.

Another thing that I learned from this experience is that, sometimes while I’m awake I think to myself that I dont have to make an RC, because I Know I’m awake, and it all feels real. But in this dream, I felt exactly the same way, it all felt real and detailed like in real life, but I was dreaming. So I need to make RCs even if I have 100% sure that Im awake, I might be surprised.

Although I didnt have a lucid dream, i was preety close to get one, so I will keep trying this tecnique.

51

i thoght of an idea similar but with out the finger tapping. i think that the tapping will help keep me focused. :smile: a slight variation to this for anyone having trouble is instead of finger tapping set your alarm clock with music and let the music play. consentrate on the music instead of (or both) ot hfinger tapping. just throwing ideas around. happy dreaming

52

i think that this method could be tho one for me… i dont want to wake up and hafve to stay up so this is the perfect one! i tryed it last night but someone shut off my ipod (im using it as an alarm) :ohno:

53

First off, thanks to Hargart for sharing this technique, thanks to my bloody valentine for reviving this topic, and of course thanks to Q for this site

(I used to visit this site regularly when I was about 17, then university happened and I kind of fell out of the whole lifestyle… now at 22 i’m finding that i’m slowly getting back into that lifestyle)

anyhow, i love this technique, i came across it yesterday when i decided to browse this site, and it had an effect!

i didn’t exactly do an RC in a dream, but i did manage to almost do WILD – something I have never done, and i give the credit to this technique… from reading all the posts from this topic, it seems that a lot of people achieve WILD-ish states

while in that state, I could hear myself lightly snoring!! (i didnt think i snored even a little bit) and i heard the audiobook that i left playing… i was awake but my body was asleep…it was so cool… i even heard the ocean waves rhythm (i hear it when i’m in SP), and heard some thing that i can only describe as electric crackles, which decreased as i became awake out of that state of mind

no LD, but the technique had a great affect, i’ll definitely try it again tonight :smile:

also, I would like to suggest to others that having something play in the background (music, tv, audiobook played on the computer), from what i gather from reading posts, does seem to wake people up after some hours of sleep – perfect conditions for waking up with that tired feeling required for this technique :smile:

54

Ive heard a 75% success rate on this tech.

Worth a shot. :cool:

Ill post results tomorrow.

55

So I ended up having trouble going to sleep so my REM period was off and when I woke up around like 4:30 I had no recall and when I was doing FILD I wasn’t tired enough to fall asleep. Then when I woke up this morning I didn’t have recall.

Wasn’t a very fun night but I’ll keep on trying every night. :smile:

56

I should try this…

57

everytime i try this i just drift off to sleep. even if i get up for a minute or two i try to sleep with the finger tapping but i just doze off. any suggestions? thanks for your help :happy:

58

Just adding this in, a good way to do this is to put a piece of paper on your alarm clock that says FILD NOW! Then put the alarm clock 5-6 feet away from your bed.When you wake up, you’ll be pissed at your alarm clock, but when you get up to turn it off, you’ll see the note. If the clock is right next to your bed, you probably wont look at it.

59

this technique is awesome.

i tried it last night–FOUR times :razz:–and i failed each and every one, because i kept falling asleep. at least i know what time i need to wake up at…

although, this did help me have a ND, and i remember most of it…something about locking my dad out of the neighbor’s house, him throwing me into a tree house, and my dog having the head of a t-rex. what a mix, right?

i’m going to try again tonight, but i will concentrate more. i wanna have my first LD so that i can swim with stingrays! ^^ [current life dream xP]

60

I tried this technique a couple times, but only got it too work once because I kept thinking “No, I’m not asleep” so then I wouldn’t do a RC. But, i think it is a great technique cause it works well and you don’t have to do anything ahead of time, like trying to do RCs all day :content: