I tried doing my first SSILD but I failed…
I think I wasn’t concentrated enough…
Question : If I go to bed at 11 p.m (23:00) and I wake up at 3.30 a.m (3:30) to do the SSILD method, at which time will I have my lucid dreams ?
Because I have a very bad dream recall and I can only remember my dreams if I wake up in the middle of them or if I put an alarm at 5.00 a.m.
So I was wandering when should I put the alarm ?
And another thing : after I have done the 6 quick cycles and the 4 slow cycles I have to sleep as quickly as possible… I am a quick sleeper and I am very hard to wake up, I felt pressure on myself trying to sleep quickly after SSILD yesterday night…
Maybe it was that pressure that caused me not to have a Lucid dream ?
Last night I had the most crazy experience ever. I woke up at 4:30 am to feed baby and was not going to go back to bed because my alarm was going to go off at 5:30 but at 4:52 I decided I would go back down for 30 mins because that is certainly enough time to have a lucid.
Well…I had 6 FA’s in a row! In each one a I became lucid and it lasted a couple mins then I would wake up again. The first FA was the only one that I did not become lucid in and then all the others I would become lucid and then go flying.
In one of them I decided to look at my hands for an RC after I pinched my nose. My hands were COMPLETELY normal. I counted all the digits and I had 5 on each and then I tried to push my hand through the other and it wouldn’t go! In hindsight I was missing my rings but I still was lucid and amazed at how my hands were so normal.
Then it gets really weird, On my last FA turned Lucid I was getting tired of having FA’s and I was reminding myself that I couldn’t get trapped in my dream worlds and that my RL alarm was going to go off any minute. So I realized I could just wake myself up. I started telling myself “Wake up Autumn, it is time to get up.” Over and over but it wasn’t working…I tried blinking and shutting my eyes, I tried thrashing around and telling myself to wake up. None of that worked so I went over to my DC husband and asked him to say “Autumn, it is time to wake up” He looked at me confused and said it anyways but it didn’t work so I asked him to hit me. My DC hubby was appalled and said no! I told him that it was okay…that I was dreaming and it wouldn’t hurt me but he kept refusing and saying “But what if it isn’t a dream!!!” So Finally I just started SCREAMING " WAKE UP NOW AUTUMN!!!" Then I started to feel my limbs tingle and POP my eyes open. I immediately pinched my nose and was not able to breath, I peeked at the clock and it was 5:29 AM.
So unreal…but what is even more unreal is the conversation I had with my husband just now. I told him about my experience and once I got to the part of me asking him to hit me to wake me up his mouth dropped and he said “I remember you asking me to hit you…” I said “you mean I was talking in my sleep?” and he said "No I was dreaming that you were asking me to hit you to wake you up but I wouldn’t do it because I was afraid it wasn’t a dream and that if I hit you then you would divorce me so I was too afraid you would leave me if I did it!!!
Now, on a side note not only does my husband think LDing is kind of strange but he never remembers his dream. He swears he doesn’t even dream because he never remembers them. I was shocked. I don’t know if that is a shared dream or if maybe I was really talking in my sleep and he was hearing it then dreaming about it.
The border between reality and dream can be finer than you think Anyway, very cool and unique experience and thanks for sharing. With your permission I will use this as writing material for a book I’m writing. Thank you!
You absolutely have my permission to use my experience! I would like to add what I did preceding this event. When I went back to bed I started my SSILD technique and 2 times I got awoken slightly by HI and could feel my body extremely heavy and numb but I just HAD to move. On the second time this happened i wiggled my fingers and then started SSILD again. I got 2 reps into the first cycle and was out like a light and not soon after had my first FA of the six.
I used this a few days ago (been trying to get back into LDing) after WBTB… I had one or two really intense HI moments, and felt lots of vibrations in my ears (they actually felt hot after). Didn’t quite WILD, but I could tell I was very close! Of course I was intending to just get a DILD, but a WILD would be a nice bonus
I haven’t noticed as much HI though the last few times. Could it be not waking in the right part of the sleep cycle?
After 8 months of trying on and off to lucid dream (on purpose, of course; I had 3 spontaneously before this), I finally had my first DILD last night thanks to this method. I woke up at 6:30 AM, stayed up for about 5 minutes more in bed, and I got only about 2 cycles in until I was asleep. In the dream, I was walking with my old friend Mike and we saw that the card and comic shop had turned into a mini-arcade. I walked in and there were people hanging around the door, and the games inside were all mostly retro. It was very small.
As we were waling out, I was looking back at the new corner store and Mike said “Hey, it’s kinda weird that they would just put that there so fast. Are you sure you’re not dreaming?”. That moment I asked myself: “Wait a second, I am dreaming…”. Then the dream ended after about 5 more seconds, or so I thought! I had one FA as well, and finally woke up at 7:20. Curiously enough, my parents usually wake up at 6:30, but last night they woke up about 30 seconds after I did O_o. Still, I’m pretty happy that I finally had an intentional lucid dream, even if for a few seconds. Thank you cosmic.iron.
I’ve never woken up in the middle of SP before I tried this technique.
Last night it happened again, I dreamed that I was trying to get out of a building with no exit by crawling under the wall. I couldn’t get my torso under the wall so I exhaled as much as I could to… compact myself. But I got stuck, and I couldn’t inhale.
Then I woke up in SP after panicking for a bit, then taking a deep breath and breaking out of it. I could’ve DEILD’d if I wasn’t so panicked.
I would, but it’s hard to tell that I’m in SP and not still in a dream. Not that I can tell that I’m in a dream when this is happening, but you get the idea. So I end up breaking out of it without realizing. It’s also quite hard to think rationally when as far as you can tell, you can’t breathe.
Can I do the first 3 cycles while sitting up in bed (eyes closed and all that) then lie down for the other 1 or 2 before I sleep? Is that fine? I’m still falling asleep far too quickly.
Hey Cosmic.iron, Here’s four quick questions for you
Do I have to repeat the cycles until I fall asleep, or is it enough that I do 3-4 cycles in slow motion?
While doing the cycle, Do I have to exclusively focus on the component alone, when I am doing the component. Ex: While looking at the void behind eyelids, do I hv to exclusively focus on it, keeping other components in abeyance? Sometimes I get distracted and focus on sounds as well, while looking at my closed eyelids.
My fan is quite noisy, as a result I am unable to focus on subtle internal sounds and always get distracted to focus externally at the sound of my fan. Is it OK?
What about thoughts that I have when I am doing the cycles. Do I have to ignore them or suppress them?
There is no need to repeat the cycles till falling asleep. Doing so can potentially making it difficult to fall asleep actually.
It is okay to simultaneously feel other sensations, but you probably don’t want to do that consciously. The trick to a successful SSILD session is really in finding the perfect balance between sufficient stimulation to the various senses and being able to fall asleep quickly afterwards. The stimulation is achieved through “focusing”; therefore you need to make sure there are sporadic moments of staying focused during each slow cycle.
Focusing on external noises is perfect okay.
Do not suppress the random thoughts. You need them to carry you away so you can relax more quickly and it also makes it easier to fall asleep after the exercise. Just make sure you pull your thoughts back to focus on the sensations once in a while.
Anyway, very cool and unique experience and thanks for sharing. With your permission I will use this as writing material for a book I’m writing. Thank you!