The BIG MILD topic - part III

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This topic has been selected to be the big MILD topic.
Please post all your questions and comments about MILD in this thread.

Here are the previous parts of the topic:
Part I <- this is in the archive
Part II
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Well after trying a long time with no success in WILD, I am going to give MILD a try.

I have a few questions though. I’m getting the steps for this from the homepage, so,

  1. It says it’s best for when you wake up from a dream. Seeing as that doesn’t happen to me much, is it alright if I just set my alarm for about 6 hours?

  2. I plan on waking up and recalling any dreams and writing them down in detail. Then I am going to find a book and read it for a little bit. If I dont have a book about lucid dreaming, will any book do?

That’s it! I hope this works and wish me luck! Thanks in advance if you can answer those questions!

  1. Yes, it’s what is generally done.
  2. I think any book can do. It’s said to read something about LD’ing because it focuses better your intent on it.

Good luck! :smile:

If you use visualisation you’re 50% more likely to remember to recognise you’re dreaming according to this article.

The group in the experiment who used visualisation remembered to do what they were supposed to 76% of the time, compared to the group just using autosuggestion who only remembered 46% of the time.

Does anyone actively try to improve their prospective memory? If you do, what do you do other than what LaBerge suggests in EWLD? Although I guess there isn’t much you can do besides practising remembering to do something.

Well, I wrote this out today to help me improve my prospective memory and hopefully MILD. It might be useful for someone…some of its taken from EWLD:

Use this website:

https://www.random.org/cgi-bin/randnum?num=4&min=1&max=100&col=4

To select four random targets for the day.

Your goal is to notice the next occurrence of each event, at which time you will perform an RC. You are aiming to notice the target once – the next time it happens.

If you realise during the day that you missed your first chance to notice one of your targets, then you have failed to hit that target, even though you may notice its occurrence later in the day.

  1. The next time I see a pet or animal
  2. The next time I look at my face in a mirror
  3. The next time I turn on a light
  4. The next time I see a flower
  5. The next time I write anything down
  6. The next time I feel pain
  7. The next time I hear someone say my name
  8. The next time I drink something
  9. The next time I see a traffic light
  10. The next time I hear music
  11. The next time I throw something in the garbage
  12. The next time I hear laughter
  13. The next time I turn on a television or radio
  14. The next time I see a vegetable
  15. The next time I see a red car
  16. The next time I handle money
  17. The next time I read something other than this list
  18. The next time I check the time
  19. The next time I notice myself daydreaming
  20. The next time I hear the telephone ringing
  21. The next time I open a door
  22. The next time I see a bird
  23. The next time I use the toilet after noon
  24. The next time I see the stars
  25. The next time I put a key in a lock
  26. The next time I see an advertisement
  27. The next time I eat anything after breakfast
  28. The next time I see a bicycle
  29. The next time I read something in French
  30. The next time I see a police car
  31. The next time I juggle
  32. The next time I get on a skateboard
  33. The next time I see a wheelchair
  34. The next time I see a plug socket
  35. The next time I play poker
  36. The next time I swear
  37. The next time I see a shed
  38. The next time I watch a film
  39. The next time I use the car handbrake
  40. The next time I see a snake
  41. The next time I see a school/college/university
  42. The next time I walk up or down stairs
  43. The next time I see a gun
  44. The next time I see fire from any source
  45. The next time I play a computer game
  46. The next time I see a disabled person
  47. The next time I walk on grass
  48. The next time I brush my teeth
  49. The next time I fart
  50. The next time I wash up
  51. The next time I use my mobile
  52. The next time I go for a run
  53. The next time I have a shower
  54. The next time I go into a shop
  55. The next time I use the internet
  56. The next time I put on some shoes
  57. The next time I see an ambulance
  58. The next time I cross the road
  59. The next time I see a football
  60. The next time I hear a siren
  61. The next time I see my neighbour
  62. The next time I open the fridge
  63. The next time I open the freezer
  64. The next time I see a traffic warden
  65. The next time I see a pram
  66. The next time I see a tennis racquet
  67. The next time I laugh
  68. The next time I smile
  69. The next time I read a newspaper
  70. The next time I download something
  71. The next time I see a spider
  72. The next time I open a cd drive
  73. The next time I type something after lunch
  74. The next time I use a calculator
  75. The next time I look at a calendar
  76. The next time I open a window
  77. The next time I send a text message
  78. The next time I receive a text message
  79. The next time I close a window
  80. The next time I close a door
  81. The next time I drop something
  82. The next time I pick something up
  83. The next time I hear someone say Iraq
  84. The next time I turn off a computer
  85. The next time I turn on a computer
  86. The next time I yawn
  87. The next time I sneeze
  88. The next time I cough
  89. The next time I see a film trailer
  90. The next time I hear Homer Simpson say doh!
  91. The next time I throw something in the bin
  92. The next time I use the washing machine
  93. The next time I get dressed
  94. The next time I get undressed
  95. The next time I see a manhole
  96. The next time I see a cigarette
  97. The next time I watch the news
  98. The next time I change the volume on the tv
  99. The next time I change the channel on the tv
  100. The next time I check my email

Is developing propective memory that important? I have tried to do prospective memory pratice and am really bad at it, all misses. I’ve never really been successful with MILD, havnt tried it too much though. Is it really that effective of a technique and is developing prospective memory that important?

I think it’s important for MILD as MILD works because you are remembering to do something in the future, recognise that you’re dreaming in this case. Which is why it’s called Mnemonic Induction of Lucid Dreams:

Main Entry: 1mne·mon·ic
Pronunciation: ni-'män-ik
Function: adjective
1 : assisting or intended to assist memory; also : of or relating to mnemonics
2 : of or relating to memory —mne·mon·i·cal·ly /-i-k(&-)lE/ adverb

Main Entry: 2mnemonic
Function: noun
: a mnemonic device or code

The act of telling yourself to remember to recognise that you’re dreaming and visualising it happening is the mnemonic device intended to assist the memory.

So yeah, I think prospective memory is quite important because if we can’t remember to do something later in the day, we probably won’t remember to do it in a dream!

I suck at prospective memory too :tongue:

MILD is very effective for some people, and not for others, like anything really.

I have another question about prospective memory taining. I often get hits, but i think im cheating. Lets say one of the tasks of the day was to do a RC when I see a street light. I will know a street light is comming up when I get in my car, see the stop light and do it. I think its cheating, even though i cant help it, because nothing is being triggered, I just know its comming up and do it when it comes, nothing being triggered.

Good point, I know what you mean. I think in your case the trigger was when you saw your car, which made you think of the street light. So it’s still probably good practice.

It’s more like cheating when you constantly remind yourself of the targets I think because you don’t have that kind of continuity of awareness from sleep onset to dream and dream to dream. So if you ‘forget’ about the target and something else reminds you of it, it seems ok to me.

I think I will try MILD tonight. I can’t believe that after all this time, I have never seriously tried MILD before… :neutral:

Serbitar’s post on prospective memory got me thinking. I think it will work really well. I mean, I KNOW it will work really well :wink: .

MILD is still my favourite and most effective technique :smile:

One key for me is to use a VIVID dream. Previously I would use the most recent dream I had. But I’ve had better success using dreams that are visually very vivid.

So sometimes when I WBTB I may ignore that night’s dreams and use a more vivid dream from earlier in the week.

Merged into the BIG MILD topic

I have been attempting to induce LDs with MILD for about a week now without success. I realize that it is not unusual, however I feel like i am not doing everything right.

When I do MILD, I do it with WBTB. When actually doing it, I repeatmy mantra, when I finish with it I try to visualize me realzing im in a dream… My main question is how do you visualize the most effective way. I seem to understand everything else but dont feel im getting much out of my visualization. should I just run through my last dream or try to feel the exact same way as I did in my dream.?

If you remember a previous dream, you should picture yourself in that dream, but what I do is to try to change the dream , realising that I’m dreaming…
It’s useful, believe me

Replay it, but note different things that could have made you lucid. Then imagine that one of those things made you lucid, and then imagine what you would do when you become lucid.

You’re right. Techniques which rely on autosuggestion need generally more than one week in order to work.

Just remember the different episodes from your last dream, then when you reach a passage when you could have realized it was a dream, you picture yourself in that dream, as Nachician said, and you imagine that you suddenly realize you’re dreaming and that you do the thing you planned to do.

Just think about it in your head, maybe if you lie to someone and you’re not sure if they bought it or not, you replay it in your mind, like that. Or if you talk to a girl/boy you really like, afterwards you might wonder if you said the rights things and impressed them or not.

When you walked out of your front door this morning, imagine as clearly as you can walking towards the door. You reach for the door handle, what does it look like? How does it feel? How does it sound when you turn the handle? How does it feel when you open the door? What can you see when you walk outside? What can you hear? Can you feel the sun shining or the cold biting?

You should do both at the same time. Run through your last dream by experiencing it again; see, hear, smell, taste, feel what happened in the dream again.

Edit: Ah, I see I’ve just repeated what others have said :shy:

Thx for tips everyone, I had a bit of success last night.

I found that if I set my WBTB 5 hrs after sleeping as opposed to 4 I get a very vivid dream and awsome dream recall of the previous dream. Previously, when I woke up after 4 hrs, I had no dream recall and couldn’t really do MILD because I didnt have a fresh dream in my head. This allows me to visualize really well because I just go back to sleep with the dream fresh in my head.

I’ve been thinking about this one too. It is kind of cheating when you constantly remind yourself like you say, so you just have to let it go :smile:
And recently I’ve found myself almost “searching” for these dreamsigns so I can perform the RC, and that’s probably not how it was meant :tongue:
I mean you should just do what you usually do and when the event happens it will trigger your memory and you will do the RC… but it’s hard :neutral:

I had my first LD and it was exactly how you described it. My dream began lucid and I was amazed. I also did some RCs later. I’m not sure what induced it. I told myself that I would have a lucid dream that night, and I prayed for one, but I did not spend time focusing or trying to induce it, I just went straight to bed. I believe mine was instinct.

Note: This was not my first dream of the night. It was the second or third.

Question merged into the BIG MILD topic

During the part where you visualize becoming lucid, should you imagine becoming lucid from a DS or just out of the blue? Should you do a RC or does it matter?

Chesire Cat, I prefer to visualize myself becoming lucid in a dream scene, that is I try to incubate the dream where I saw myself becoming lucid and that combined with my intent produces lucid dreams.

The Science of Lucidity, it is possible to have lucid dreams at will with MILD, as it is with WILD, personally I find it easiest to start the night with MILD and then when I awake from a first lucid dream I use WILD if I want to have more.