I used to think people didn’t actually want to become lucid. It was almost as if they were just in love with the idea. How else can you explain why someone is still failing or making little progress year after year?

When I hear people talking about how they’ve been trying for years and they’ve only become lucid a handful of times it makes me feel like banging my head through my thin cardboard wall. Within a few years you should be becoming lucid on a regular basis, but instead all I see is people complaining.

Maybe you do want to become a lucid dreamer, but you just don’t have the right mindset. Maybe you should stop referring to yourself as a beginner because from where I’m standing it’s the reason you’re still failing after all this time.

You’re thinking too small

Someone recently said the technique I teach in my book is too advanced for a beginner. I need you to stop thinking this way because it’s the reason why you’re not making progress.

Wake-induced lucid dream techniques are obviously much harder than dream-induced techniques. How hard is it to look at your watch 20 times per day? How hard is it to give yourself lucid affirmations when you’re lying in bed in the hope you become lucid during a dream?

Dream-induced lucid dream techniques are far too easy. WILD techniques are a lot harder because they require you to hold onto your awareness while sending your body to sleep so you pass into a lucid dream. Wow! It sounds a lot harder than staring at your watch.

This is your mistake

It would be fair to say DILD techniques are tricks of the mind. If you do become lucid because of an affirmation or reality check it’s plain old luck. They don’t work all the time. I would bet anyone who still uses those techniques to become lucid only has lots of success because their natural awareness has built up so much over the years.

You are doing these reality checks and affirmations for years because they are beginners techniques. You are staying away from meditation and the different techniques associated with it because they are advanced techniques. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong…

But here is the kicker

Practicing DILD techniques doesn’t mean you will get better at WILD techniques. They are completely different. In 2 years you might deem yourself an intermediate because you can become lucid 1 or 2 times per week. You then move over to the ‘advanced’ techniques and you need to start right from the bottom of the ladder.

Where have your beginners techniques gotten you so far? A few lucid dreams per week and 2 years down the drain hole. Like I said before, stop referring to yourself as a beginner and you won’t make that mistake because you won’t be scared to practice any technique.

You’re a lucid explorer only you’ve not explored as much as others yet

Start doing both right now

Everyone should be working on WILD techniques at the same time as practicing their DILD techniques. Doesn’t matter which one you choose, but practice one of them. I’ve already mentioned how it took me a few months until I finally got good at meditation. Doesn’t mean you won’t have random bouts of success during those few months, but it’s still hard work.

Sorry, buddy, but you just have to put the work in

Start practicing meditation now even if it’s only 15 minutes per day, 3 or 4 times per week. Use the 2-minute technique if you need help. You will eventually start to ‘get it’ after a few months. After a year you’ll be great at it, but after a few years have passed you’ll be able to use it to become lucid almost every night, sometimes more than once.

Or don’t do anything

If that doesn’t sound good you can keep calling yourself a beginner. Keep doing your reality checks and affirmations because you enjoy a few lucid dreams per week.

In a few years you can start doing the more advanced techniques because somehow you will feel more ready for them even though you were just as prepared two years previous.

Most people will give up

If you keep practicing only basic techniques you will give up because the effort won’t be worth the rewards. If you just stop thinking of yourself as a beginner you would be much further along already. Do the hard work now and it will pay off later, but you must start now.

Basic techniques are important and you should practice them. Just remember they have nothing to do with advanced techniques therefore you must practice both of them at the same time.

Measure the success you have a few months from now and I bet the difference in the amount of lucid dreams you have on a weekly basis will be staggering. Repeat after me:

I’m not a beginner and I must start learning to master advanced techniques right now

I’d also like the point out that reality checks and affirmations can be screwed up if you don’t do them correctly, so essentially you’re screwing yourself over twice as much.