Popularity rating of methods?

[infinice]

Hi folks-
In my 20's i lucid dreamed regularly. With age that gradually faded. Now i rarely lucid dream, and find the standard methods (WILD, wish upon a star real hard!, etc.) quite useless. Deep sigh. (I've read lucid dreams are related to brain dopamine levels, which drop with age.)
So anyway, my question is: does anybody know what the most effective lucidity induction technique is? Has any site ever run a poll to identify it?

Here's one of my dreams from long long long ago...
Lucid, i walked into an office and asked the receptionist, "Excuse me, but do you have an objective existence of your own, or are you a figment of my imagination?" She answered, "I'm sorry sir, we're not allowed to give out that information.". !

[mahdi.sh]

hi , i think the most effective method is DILD.(sorry for mistakes,im not english, im iranian so in my opinion you should do this things everyday to induce lucid dream in regular basis.(its my method and i like it).1-keep a dream journal 2-do reality checks every day(over 30) 3-meditate for 30 min every night before go to sleep. thats all but if u wanna achieve it earlier, you should wake up after 4-5 hours and take a piece of paper and write 100 times"I will be lucid in my dream". then go back to sleep

[infinice]

hi , i think the most effective method is DILD.(sorry for mistakes,im not english, im iranian so in my opinion you should do this things everyday to induce lucid dream in regular basis.(its my method and i like it).1-keep a dream journal 2-do reality checks every day(over 30) 3-meditate for 30 min every night before go to sleep. thats all but if u wanna achieve it earlier, you should wake up after 4-5 hours and take a piece of paper and write 100 times"I will be lucid in my dream". then go back to sleep

Thanks for suggestions but these methods simply do not work for me.

[mahdi.sh]

hi , i think the most effective method is DILD.(sorry for mistakes,im not english, im iranian so in my opinion you should do this things everyday to induce lucid dream in regular basis.(its my method and i like it).1-keep a dream journal 2-do reality checks every day(over 30) 3-meditate for 30 min every night before go to sleep. thats all but if u wanna achieve it earlier, you should wake up after 4-5 hours and take a piece of paper and write 100 times"I will be lucid in my dream". then go back to sleep

Thanks for suggestions but these methods simply do not work for me.

it should work for everyone just keep doing it maybe you will achieve it after a day or months.
and the motivation is very important to achieve LD again.
or if you wanna to use a technique that is far from WILD,Try to perform SSILD. it worked for me

Honestly im like you now.i didnt have lucid dreams since 2 months but i know that i should keep trying for my goals

[infinice]

Ah, sorry, i must say, you're a rather naive person. People's brains differ and sometimes it just doesn't matter how hard you try (want to be a ballerina when you're male and legless? it's just not going to happen). Your repeated polite urgings to stop being negative are insulting and boring. Enough already.

[mahdi.sh]

Ah, sorry, i must say, you're a rather naive person. People's brains differ and sometimes it just doesn't matter how hard you try (want to be a ballerina when you're male and legless? it's just not going to happen). Your repeated polite urgings to stop being negative are insulting and boring. Enough already.

so you dont want to understand that you must go back to LD.

you always say you cant and you are different. so dont try LD again. you are different and you cant learn anymore. give up

[LucidCat]

One thing that I have repeatedly heard of is that MILD (especially in combination with WBTB) has supposedly one of the highest success rates.
For myself it has turned out to be quite rewarding. I also do the standard things: meditation, dream journal and questioning reality, physical exercise and so on...

But if you find that the most common techniques don't work for you, I assume that you've already tried that.

This isn't directly what you've been asking for - but for the sake of finding out the problem in your approach:
Would you like to tell us which techniques and procedures you've been doing?
There are many experienced lucid dreamers in this forum who could help you figure out a different way.

[infinice]

One thing that I have repeatedly heard of is that MILD (especially in combination with WBTB) has supposedly one of the highest success rates.
For myself it has turned out to be quite rewarding. I also do the standard things: meditation, dream journal and questioning reality, physical exercise and so on...

But if you find that the most common techniques don't work for you, I assume that you've already tried that.

This isn't directly what you've been asking for - but for the sake of finding out the problem in your approach:
Would you like to tell us which techniques and procedures you've been doing?
There are many experienced lucid dreamers in this forum who could help you figure out a different way.

I've read and/or browsed about a half dozen lucid dreaming books and tried every technique in them. (I've found most books simply repeat the two most common- LaBerges, and the enter lucidity directly from waking technique.).
Yes, i've kept a dream journal (only of notable dreams, but those, 'religiously'). Meditation doesn't work for me either. I've also tried the finger method. I've tried vitamin B6. And of course i've (frequently) tried reality-checks.
My suspicions are that lucidity has 3 prerequisites: 1) a sufficient minimum of
dopamine, 2] a sufficient minimum of emotional motivation, and 3] a sufficient minimum of visualization (thinking about redreaming a dream, even with your teeth gritted, can't cause it to happen, without emotion and *visual* visualization).
If you don't have enough of those you won't dream lucidly, period. Calling people 'negative' for reporting matters like these is not exactly productive either. It reminds me of hearing from a man confined to a wheelchair that some idiot criticized him for not trying to walk harder- that he wasn't positive enough!
I happen to be diagnosed with autism, have zero conscious awareness/access to emotion, and zero ability to visualize. I'm strongly cognitively motivated to lucid dream, and am persistent. Being blamed for failure by 'positive' people doesn't exactly make me want to accept their self-evaluations or evaluations of me at face value.
I'd dearly love to lucid dream, and will try anything new, but if your advice amounts to "try harder", "don't be so negative", please don't write!
Thanking you for your help in advance...

[LucidCat]

I've read and/or browsed about a half dozen lucid dreaming books and tried every technique in them. (I've found most books simply repeat the two most common- LaBerges, and the enter lucidity directly from waking technique.).
Yes, i've kept a dream journal (only of notable dreams, but those, 'religiously'). Meditation doesn't work for me either. I've also tried the finger method. I've tried vitamin B6. And of course i've (frequently) tried reality-checks.
My suspicions are that lucidity has 3 prerequisites: 1) a sufficient minimum of
dopamine, 2] a sufficient minimum of emotional motivation, and 3] a sufficient minimum of visualization (thinking about redreaming a dream, even with your teeth gritted, can't cause it to happen, without emotion and *visual* visualization).
If you don't have enough of those you won't dream lucidly, period.
I happen to be diagnosed with autism, have zero conscious awareness/access to emotion, and zero ability to visualize. I'm strongly cognitively motivated to lucid dream, and am persistent.
I'd dearly love to lucid dream, and will try anything new, but if your advice amounts to "try harder", "don't be so negative", please don't write!
Thanking you for your help in advance...

Thank you for being so open - I can see now where you're coming from and why the usual approach won't work with you.
About the prerequisites of lucidity - I have my own personal beliefs on that (which is by no way scientifically proven and simply a conclusion I've drawn from what I personally know about the human brain)
1. I've indeed heard that there's research on dopamine increasing dream activity - so I second that. By how you wrote that I assume you possibly have lower levels of dopamine due to autism. But you do dream and you do recall your dreams. Because of that I believe that becoming lucid might be difficult for you - yet not impossible.
2. Is emotional motivation necessary for lucidity? I'm not sure about that - but I suspect it to be at least quite useful. On the other hand emotions can really get in the way of lucidity - waking up from excitement, losing control over the dream scene, not being able to lucid dream because of frustration. Your lack of emotion could give you an advantage that the rest of us don't have.
3. Visualization abilities - I know at least one forum member who has aphantasia and still manages to lucid dream.

From the moment I started researching lucidity, one specific set of abilities frequently popped up in my mind - abilities that I believe to be one major factor when it comes to learning how to lucid dream: the executive functions and memory.
I don't know how the executive functions are affected by your type of autism. But take a look:
- Are you able to set yourself goals?
- Are you able to operate strategically in order to achieve a goal?
- Are you able to plan your actions?
- Are you able to solve problems?
- Are you able to focus and concentrate on a specific task?
- Can you set yourself priorities?
- Do you have an intact working memory?
- Do you have control over your behavior?
- Are you able to observe your actions?
- Are you able to self-reflect?
- Are you patient?

By what I read from you I highly suspect that you are quite intelligent. If that's the case you should have sufficient executive functions in order to learn lucid dreaming.

With your approach I suggest that you set on your strengths. Your cognitive abilities and your dedication. The pre-made recipes cannot help you - so you have to find your own recipe. By constant analyzing, deducting, re-thinking.

One thing that I want to ask you though - in order to understand better: how does having zero conscious awareness affect you in your daily life?
And what I'm wondering is - even though you're austic you had lucid dreams when you were younger. What has changed?

[infinice]

But you do dream and you do recall your dreams. Because of that I believe that becoming lucid might be difficult for you - yet not impossible.
Yup- i reached same conclusion- it's why i'm here, trying, "dreaming the impossible dream".
2. Is emotional motivation necessary for lucidity? I'm not sure about that - but I suspect it to be at least quite useful.
Without a way to shut off your affect temporarily i suspect you're unable to know how essential it is, but of course, yes, i could be wrong.

On the other hand emotions can really get in the way of lucidity - waking up from excitement, losing control over the dream scene, not being able to lucid dream because of frustration. Your lack of emotion could give you an advantage that the rest of us don't have.
You may be right, but if i can't jump-start lucidity to begin with, any such advantage is null and void.

3. Visualization abilities - I know at least one forum member who has aphantasia and still manages to lucid dream.
Interesting- there's hope yet.

From the moment I started researching lucidity, one specific set of abilities frequently popped up in my mind - abilities that I believe to be one major factor when it comes to learning how to lucid dream: the executive functions and memory.
I don't know how the executive functions are affected by your type of autism. But take a look:
- Are you able to set yourself goals? Set goals sure, accomplish them, NO.
(far too motivation-stunted, stimuli-oversensitive distracted.
- Are you able to operate strategically in order to achieve a goal? No.
- Are you able to plan your actions? (you're repeating yourself)
- Are you able to solve problems? (cognitively, sure)
- Are you able to focus and concentrate on a specific task? I have the attention-span of a drunk cat (translation, only in short bursts).
- Can you set yourself priorities? not sure what you mean by that.
- Do you have an intact working memory? yes
- Do you have control over your behavior? Can i restrain impulsivity? Yes.
- Are you able to observe your actions? of course
- Are you able to self-reflect? I think you already know.
- Are you patient? I have nothing else but patience.

With your approach I suggest that you set on your strengths. Your cognitive abilities and your dedication. The pre-made recipes cannot help you - so you have to find your own recipe. By constant analyzing, deducting, re-thinking.
Sounds swell, but it hasn't worked out real well for me so far.


One thing that I want to ask you though - in order to understand better: how does having zero conscious awareness affect you in your daily life?
I assume you mean awareness of emotion (otherwise i'd be comatose). Overall it just makes me an irritable stimuli-aversive cold fish.

And what I'm wondering is - even though you're austic you had lucid dreams when you were younger. What has changed?[/quote].
I have read that dopamine drops with age, that the right lobe shrinks faster that the left, and that static surrounds spell increased left lobe activity. Finally, while autism may intellectually liberate, character-logically it strait-jackets.

If you have any concrete/practical suggestions i'd love to hear them. Otherwise i'm assuming, like all of us in our varying ways, i'm just stuck.