The Creator Of Ssild Had An Interesting Response In His Int

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SSILD? I also agree. The more we learn about lucid dreaming, the less effort we find we need to exert to achieve it.

So other than SSILD... which I like to think of as simply "mindfulness induced", not sure if that's right though... what are the practical and effective practices a conservative dreamer uses? Dream journaling and mindfulness? I'm down for that.

>These, **in my opinion**, are based on many false assumptions. This is just the dudes opinion. He has no solid evidence so back up this claim. You wanna quote people, quote people like Dr. Stephen LaBerge who actually do research on lucid dreaming and show scientifically which methods work or do not. Also about SSILD, what he describes under "The Cycle" is literally what mindfulness is, it's nothing new. Increasing awareness is VERY important for lucid dreaming. And mindfulness increases awareness. So even when you practice SSILD, you are still increasing your awareness which definitely contributes to better and more often lucid dreaming experiences. Saying building awareness is based on false assumptions is a false statement.

I had a less positive experience with him (the main author of SSILD), so I cringe a little every time I see something from him. But, I really shouldn't, that was over 3 years ago... besides, I personally think SSILD is a good technique for a novice to start with. To shed a little light on what he may consider 'flawed', this is a from post he made on LD4all: >While teaching lucid dreaming to novices I realize that many popular methods share a fundamental problem. That is, they all require too much finesse. For example, the typical WILD techniques require proper relaxation which by itself is a difficult subject. Another example is affirmation -- how do you do affirmation effectively? We all know that simply chanting mantras will not do the trick. Same goes for visualization, breathing, and the list just goes on and on. When he revised his tutorial in 2013, he also posted this: >SSILD is designed from the ground up to be simple, "idiot-proof" even. It does not utilize advanced techniques such as relaxation and visualization, and stays away from delicate, non-measurable mental exercises. It despises the notion that lucid dreaming is more "art" than "technique". I can understand why one might criticize WILD being attempted by novices, but there is a correct way to do affirmations and visualizations and that can be taught. Additionally, he sounds as though he doesn't like that certain things need to be custom tailored to fit different people. In short, I'm inclined to suspect he's just further pushing his technique. "Traditional" methods aren't flawed, he just helped develop a method that he believes is far superior.

[Link to the interview, for those interested.](https://www.reddit.com/r/LucidDreaming/comments/193niv/an_interview_with_the_creator_of_the_ssild/?ref=search_posts)

What I think is, There can be many "wrong" ways to attempt LD, especially if one is a novice. But I don't think there are any "futile" efforts or techniques that are "wrong" by themselves. This guy... he simply found a "precise" method to follow, that apparently works well for beginners. His method still needs: 1) awakening in the middle of the night; 2) relaxing 鈥攂ecause for some, the Cycles effectively attain this鈥�; and 3) Reality Checks. So from a wide perspective, there's nothing really new here, except for the method. And if this method helps people get their first LD, then it's a cool thing. People can later add in whatever other induction, awareness, visualization, etc. techniques of their taste according to each person's needs.

This is why I stopped reality checking and jumped to WILD since RCing is all about luck.

I call BS (edit: not on SSILD per se [though I don't like it or promote it, I think at best it's neutral], but on the comments about awareness and critical reflection). There are any number of people I highly respect in the LD community who don't think much of SSILD (some like it, but in addition to awareness work) and consider most of the "creator's" claims as wildly exaggerated. I personally think SSILD is not much more than simply WBTB + intention, and I've tried it any number of times. I certainly 100% disagree with his claims that building awareness and critical reflection are "false assumptions." In fact, I believe precisely the opposite of what he states is true: "techniques" (including SSILD) are way over-emphasized in the LD world. At best, they are a method of focusing intent and awareness, but if you have very low self-awareness, there's nothing there to focus. Lucid dreaming is all about finding your own way. On my journey, I found that after 6-8 months of practice, a few dozen LDs, and hundreds of recalled non-lucid dreams, that the path of mindfulness/awareness/memory is the only thing that makes sense going forwards, and that "trying to find the best technique" is a futile pursuit. The fact that he claims "SSILD is all you need! Awareness and critical reflection are a waste of time!" should make all sorts of alarms go off. If not, have a great time, and be sure to report back in a year or so how you're doing with *zero* awareness work, and SSILD all the way. Best of luck. (As proof that awareness work is critical, I personally experienced ever-increasing vividness and presence in all my dreams as my daytime awareness progressed. That's all the proof I need.)

I think SSILD is probably a very weak technique with a shady creator. I have met several people claiming to be lucid dream masters who use SSILD for it, but it turned out they have never had a lucid dream and simply lied.

Creator? Seriously?:)

I have a question about the Touch part of the Cycle in SSILDing. When he says feel a part of your body or feel the weight of a blanket etc , does he mean physically move around and feel your body? Or does he mean think about the feeling of your body and analyze everything in your mind?

I don't come to Reddit very often. In fact the last time I came here was probably more than 2 years ago. Anyway, I saw that my name was mentioned so I came to take a look. Kinda surprised by the negative and almost hostile posts directed at me and the technique. Let me take the opportunity to clarify this -- I wrote about the technique with the sole intention to help people. I do not have any commercial interest, and I didn't even promote the technique much -- there is precisely ONE post on DreamView, that's all. SSILD is NOT a propaganda. Moreover, you may doubt SSILD's effectiveness, but you shouldn't dismiss the fact that there are MANY documented successes all over the internet. On Baidu's lucid dreaming forum alone there are thousands if not more of such documented cases. In fact, one of guys alone documented more than 500 LDs, all induced by SSILD, within a year. They are NOT phony. Back to the original question -- what did I mean in my comment "in my opinion, are based on many false assumptions"? Take "awareness" for example. People naturally believe that heightened awareness leads to lucid dreaming. The logic often goes like this -- if one is more aware of the surroundings then it is more likely for her to notice strange things in dreams. Very logical isn't it? Yes, but only if dreams are no different from our realities. I'm sure we all had dreams in which we are more like puppets, with different personality and identity. What we say and do in these dreams are totally different from what we would during the day, almost like we are acting on a script. Under such circumstances our "heightened awareness" will help very little, right? Let's keep in mind -- dreams are very different from realities in their causes, appearances, behaviors, and rules. What works in reality may not work in dreams. This is just like you can't really learn how to swim on lands, isn't it? Unfortunately a lot of the traditional methods are very much like swimming on lands. They naively disregard the differences between dreams and realities, and insists on spending lots of time and effort to hone those "skills". I don't feel like being elaborate here and due to my past experiences whenever I touch this area I inevitably got flamed by people, many of whom with very limited to no actual lucid dreaming experience. I do hope though some day people will see though the many hypes and myths. To truly experience the wonders of human consciousness one needs to be able to induce altered states of consciousness at considerable higher rate offered by traditional methods. In that case, defending them will do us little good. I admit SSILD is far from good enough, but at least I tried.

I don't think he meant reallity checks,I mean his method is great but you still ned to do RCs for it to work.

Senses induced lucid dream,its very good imo and much more simple than other methods. Here is a link:http://cosmiciron.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/senses-initiated-lucid-dream-ssild_16.html

Yeah, that "simple, idiot-proof" claim is pure BS. The remark about relaxation is ridiculous. The first bunch of times I tried SSILD I was wired wide awake with insomnia. In order for SSILD not to cause insomnia for people like me (and there are a lot), you have to work in relaxation to the cycles. That he doesn't address this at all and in fact gets it wrong shows that he doesn't have much experience helping "tens of thousands" of people like he claims.

The funny thing is that What he described under "The "Cycle" is literally what mindfulness is. And mindfulness increases awareness.

Who says (besides the SSILD author) that SSILD is good for beginners? Why is this "apparent?" I see the opposite: SSILD threads a mile long on the main LD sites with newbies complaining that they can't get it to work. I know of precisely *one* intermediate LDer (with a pretty good frequency) who says he uses SSILD regularly. He also always does WBTB before LD attempts, and day awareness work. And for him SSILD is relaxing, so I don't think SSILD for him is much more than a way back to sleep after WBTB. Heck, just thinking about LDing for a newbie is enough to get those first few LDs from excitement alone. So where are the success stories of dreamers with hundreds and thousands of SSILD LDs each? Especially who do *no day awareness work*?

Yup. But there are (for some reason) some SSILD lovers here apparently, downvoting the responses calling SSILD and the "creator" to task.

Worked for me on the first night whille MILD worked rarely,the methods are subjective,all of us need to take the method which is most helpfull for us,MILD didn't help me but I definetly know it isn't fake,remember that whille some people have interest to lie about this method,most of the people who talk about it don't have such interest. Also could you link to me some sources about your claim about the LD masters who lied?

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What he described under "The "Cycle" is literally what mindfulness is.

Thanks, and now I feel like an idiot because I've done that method before lol

I don't practice any *day awareness*, and I used SSILD many times. It works every time for me. Effectively it's just focusing on your awareness for a short time before falling asleep (again). Sadly, awareness itself doesn't seem to come as easy as it sounds. I assumed there must be many more dreamers who succeded with SSILD.

Can't really provide a source, people I met on a forum and we talked for a long time on skype. They were banned from the forum and their messages deleted after some time.

If only,I feel someone like him could really help us.

he goes by cosmiciron, so I guess on reddit it's /u/cosmiciron

Who said awareness comes easily? Building awareness is a journey, not a destination. It's wonderful that SSILD works every time for you. So how many LDs have you wracked up with it over how much time? How many do you average per week?

Fair enough,just from curiousity,how did you find out they were lying?I'm not doubting you btw,its just that lying about lucidity is something that most people don't have alot of reasons to do and even if they do have reasons(like guidence for payment) its still hard to get caught.