What would you recommend as the best technique(s) for a begginner? MILD, WILD, WBTB, etc., or some combination? I’ve tried MILD (once, last night, when I found out about it) but I haven’t tried anything else. I’m going to try MILD again tonight (hopefully it’ll work), but what do you all reccomend?
depends on what you’re trying to do. if you wanna go straight from waking life to a dream do WILD. if you’re just trying to have a lucid dream while you sleep, do MILD and WBTB if you want. find what works for you 
The hardest thing is to find that out yorself i know. Try them all and then find out what is best try all of them for at least one week than move on 
good luck
Richard
Thanks for the advice! I’ll think I’ll do MILD this week as I probably would have anyway…then maybe some WILD or something. I’m gonna have a hard time doing WBTB though…my parents won’t be too happy about my alarm clock going off at 3 in the morning. 
Does anyone know of a cheap alarm clock that I could get with adjustable volume or headphones or something like that?
why dont you just put an alarm next to or under your pillow that way it should wake you but wont wake them or set your radio in your room to a low setting, this is what i do and it brings me out sllowly and ready for teh recall of a dream and not too louad for a sudden wak up which makes me forget 
but than i can also do a wb2b metod after, it is easier to do a wild after ad ream not at teh start of the night which i thank people on this forum for showing me.
Richard
That sticking it under your pillow thing is an excellent idea. THANK YOU.
Yeah, that IS a good idea…thanks! I’ll try the radio thing as well (perhaps combine the two) as I am the same way…I tend to forget my dreams if brought out too fast. I hate alarm clocks with a vengeance… 
a cool little idea that works really really well for recall with music is this.
B 4 u go to sleep, play a cd that you will wake up to and think about a few dreams think about remembering them and think about teh next time you awake hearing this you will remember a dream. Make sure the music is soft and easy and wake up to this. This works like a charms for me.
please tell me if you can and if it works for you
Richard
The technique which works best for you depends on the way your mind works, there is no way of knowing which will be “easier” until you try them. I have a good memory but have trouble falling asleep quickly so MILD works best for me. You may be different, no, you WILL be different. The hard part of learning lucid dreaming is finding your best technique…
Well im still learning how to LD but i found the best way to do it is do all three, When you first going to sleep do the MILD, tell yourself you going to remember when your dreaming, then when you wake up sometime during the night try doing a WILD, tell yourself the same thing. After you do the WILD if you didnt have a lucid dream, you should atleast be able to remember one of your dreams, so get out of bed if youve got the time and write your dream(s) down. Put alot of time into them too because the longer your awake the better your chance of returning to bed and having a LD. Try it, i dont think you can fail doing all that. I also have my digi watch set to go off every 15 mins of the day and i do reality checks.
Thanks for all the great ideas so far! You people are really helping me out… I’m definitely going to try that music-dream recall thing, I have some great music for it, and I think it’ll help.
I really want to try WBTB, but i’m afraid that I wont be able to get back to sleep. I have an odd sleeping history…every once in a while, some random sleeping problem will pop up and annoy the **** out of me. I normally have a hard time falling back asleep after waking up, especially if its light outside, and since I like to go to bed at some ludicrous time every night, it probably would be. Maybe I should start going to bed earlier…thats no fun though 
It would pay for itself instantly (stupid commercials, making me talk like this) if I had a LD, however.
Hi Shift, I have also had sleep problems (they come and go)… And I know that fear of not being able to sleep again too well. IMHO the best solution to this is:
- Go to bed more early - yep, not fun but it’s worth the effort. Try to repeat this every evening (doesn’t mean you should stop going out in the weekend or something )
- Don’t worry if it may turn out you don’t get enough sleep this night - if you really worry too much about this, chances are high you won’t get enough sleep indeed! Be completely relaxed about it, being relaxed is what we need to sleep soundly…
- Regularity: if you try WBTB every night at he same hour and go back to bed the same hour your biorythm will adjust to the new sleep pattern. I have found this to be true when I tried the method for a few months - after a while I just wake up naturally when it’s time to do WBTB and fall asleep much easier than in the beginning. Your parents will not be disturbed by alarm clocks in the middle of the night because you don’t need them anymore
Maybe I’ll try it myself, have a quiet period at work so a sleep shortage “accident” would not be disastrous… But I have to get up sooo early… going early to bed will be the biggest challenge 
I use to have alot of trouble falling back asleep, especially when i tried the WBTB meathod. The littlest sounds will drive me nuts and i cant stand the light. I cant believe i do all this but when going back to sleep during the day i put on those eye miffs(covers your eyes) and i also have recently been putting ear plugs in. I didnt know if the ear plugs would work but i think its a great idea because when your wearing them you can really hear your heart pumping alot better and its relaxing.
That sounds like a good plan. I’ve been wanting to get something like that for ages (earplugs and the like) but I just haven’t gotten around to it. Thats one of the main reasons I can’t get back to sleep after waking up; the noise drives me crazy, I notice everything. And if it’s light out, that combined with noise tends to render the whole thing impossible. Argghh! So yeah, I’ll invest in a pair of earplugs, and whatever those eye things are.
I have earplugs and use them every night. It really helps. But my experience is that if you become used to it, it becomes virtually impossible to fall asleep soundly without them… However that’s a price I’m willing to pay because I really can’t stand noise when trying to fall asleep. Not all earplugs are great sound blockers, so compare. I have silicon earplugs and those block sound very well, still allowing the sound of my alarm clock to get through