I have an amazingly simple 2 step method that I came up with a while ago…partly my own idea, and partly from one of Laberge’s books involving the power of RCs. It worked several times for me in the past, and recently I started trying it again. I gave it a shot towards the end of last week, this past weekend, and last night - it actually worked again last night, producing a low-level lucid dream…so I’ve decided to stick with this one for a while…
Step 1, (during the day): Right now (or when you’re done reading), write a list of 4-5 different stimuli that you’ll have to remember to notice for each day; they will act as a mental trigger for a Reality Check. Anything from a dog barking, to a car horn honking, to the feeling of rough sandpaper, to the smell of freshly ground coffee. These 4-5 stimuli should be different for each day (mon-sun), giving you a total of around 28-35 different stimuli for any given week. Make them random; not necessarily things you know you’ll definitely encounter during the week.
During the day, every time you hear/see/touch/smell/etc… one of the listed stimuli, you should do several reality checks. When you get home at the end of the day, log how many stimuli you remembered to do RCs on, and how many you failed to remember. Jumble them all around for the following weeks, or simply think of new ones (recommended). This step will accustom your mind to remember to do RCs in dreams. After a week of this, when you hear/see/feel/taste/etc… one of the stimuli in a dream, you’ll most likely remember to do a Reality Check. Not only that, it keeps you subconsciously thinking of LDs and RCs almost all day long…which is a powerful tool to becoming lucid at the end of that day.
To put a cherry on top of step one…whenever you look at a clock or a watch during the day, remember to ALWAYS look at it twice or three times in succession. That will definitely remind you to do it in your dreams…
Step 2, (before bed): This part may seem really silly, but I think it’s what finally made it work for me. It’s sort of a mix between MILD and WILD; nonetheless, it landed me in a LD last night. Don’t go to bed until you’re at least a little drowsy…though, if you’re too tired, it won’t work. As you lay in bed in your most comfortable sleep position, of course, work on relaxing your entire body as much as possible, and don’t let ANY thoughts fly into your head as they usually do upon sleep onset. If they do, imagine a huge hand pushing them out of your head, and continue… talk to yourself about lucid dreaming…heck, you should even babble about it incessantly… the more non-stop it is, the better your chances are of WILD’ing and/or MILD’ing yourself into a LD.
Just use concise, simple, auto-suggestive thoughts, like: “Ok, are you ready to have a lucid dream?” … “Just relaxxx, and focus on letting your body fall asleep, while your mind stays alert.” … “You’re definitely gonna go lucid tonight.” … “All this hard work with the RCs will pay off tonight.” … “You’ll fall asleep soon, but your mind will still be awake.” etc, etc… just keep thinking those thoughts to yourself NON-STOP; and don’t get lazy - keep thinking the thoughts to yourself. If you get lazy, you’ll fall asleep for sure. And don’t picture yourself saying the thoughts, rather, just simply think them…focusing too much on the physical will ruin the process… I know this seems like a run of the mill WILD/MILD, but not often enough is it stressed that you should make these auto-suggestions non-stop until you enter your LD! WILD Methods like, “1 I’m dreaming, 2 I’m dreaming, 3…” are too repetetive, and will cause your mind to fall asleep, rather than stay awake like you really want!! This technique keeps your mind awake, by eliminating repetetiveness, and having you actually make many different suggestions to yourself…
After a relatively short amount of time, your mind will start to cross over…you’ll hear the trademark loud buzzing and vibrating sensations, which can sometimes be very irritating - try with your best efforts to just ignore them, and continue making those non-stop suggestions to yourself about lucid dreaming…you may have one, or several “dreamlets” at this point too, which are extremely short vivid dreams (sometimes a few seconds long) that occur before your actual dreams or LDs. Invite them, and pay attention to details… as you drift into and out of the dreamlets, continue making suggestions to yourself about LDs, don’t let your mind wander (yet)… before you know it, you’ll be in a semi-dark void with a dreamscape appearing around you (which is what has happened to me each time I’ve tried it). Don’t get too excited and try to manually rush the dreamscape to fully appear - it will most likely fade if you do. Simply let your mind “paint” the dreamcape around you, as you allow yourself to be pulled in slowly. This is where you can finally stop making those suggestions to yourself, and enjoy the marvel that is taking place…
This method has induced about 5 or so LDs for me, and last night induced a low-level LD, since I could not increase the clarity of it for the life of me!!! (hence, my frustrated post on clarity) .. I really only need to work on increasing clarity now, since I'd say 3 of the 5 LDs weren't very clear, although I was lucid enough in most of them to ask for more clarity! :eh: Once I find a way to do that, I'm confident that I'm on my way to having at least 1 LD a week to start.
If anyone decides to try out this technique, please post your results...but kindly wait a full week for the method to fully kick in before posting any results... :grin: Good luck!!