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Can FILD technique (Finger Induced Lucid Dreams) give you guaranteed lucid dreams?
FILD is known to be a successful lucid dream induction technique, however, bare in mind that it will work only if you stick to it, and follow the tips below.
The ” lucid dream in 5 minutes ” idea is completely unrealistic, for about 99% of the people.
If you want to try once, and to instantly lucid dream – just know the changes that it won’t work are high.
But that doesn’t have to discourage you. You just need to accept this idea and try your best to follow this guide for a few weeks.
Here is a quick overview of this article:
- Finger Induced Lucid Dreaming (FILD Technique): Step-by-step guide
- Important notes
- Pros and Cons of the FILD technique
- FILD Technique: Final tips
- Conclusion
1. Finger Induced Lucid Dreaming (FILD Technique): Step-by-step guide
STEP 1:
Go to bed as normal and set yourself an alarm to wake you up between 4-6 hours after you fall asleep (you want to wake up straight into a REM period!)
STEP 2:
Without moving too much and getting awake, stop your alarm and then relax your body.
STEP 3:
Try to go back to sleep exactly how you normally would.
The main purpose is to get to the point just before you are about to fall asleep.
Once you feel you are getting there, begin the FILD technique.
STEP 4:
One of your hands should be placed on a flat surface, either your bed or the ground.
The FILD technique is very simple: you should simply IMAGINE that you are playing the piano with your index finger and middle finger.
As your body should be relaxed, you shouldn’t do any other movement, but just SLIGHTLY, move the fingers on your hand, up and down:
*press your index finger down, lift your middle finger up, then, press your middle finger down, and lift your index finger back up. Repeat this tiny movement*
STEP 5:
Move your fingers lightly, and keep doing it less and less noticeable. So in the end, you should do it almost INVISIBLE!
STEP 6:
Relax your body and mind even more.
Try not to think about distractive things, but concentrate on alternating between your fingers.
How does it work?
The super tiny movement stimulates a part of the brain that keeps your mind awake, but your body is about to go asleep.
It is also important that your fingers are relaxed and they are not too much bent.
SO, WHAT WILL HAPPEN NOW NOW?
After a while, you might start seeing some changes in your breathing, or you may see some visions flowing past your closed eyes.
Stick with this for a few moments, until you are sure that you have entered a dream state.
You may not see or feel anything different which is completely fine and normal too.
STEP 7:
After about 30 seconds, you need to perform a reality check.
But beware:
It needs to be a little different than usual.
If you move and try to do a reality check that requires some movements, you may simply wake up and ruin everything that you reached so far.
So it has to be a reality check with almost not moving at all.
You can try one of these:
1) Close off the nasal passage in the back of your throat and breathe through your nose.
When you do that, there is a muscle that stops you from breathing through your nose (hopefully, you know what I mean).
If you are able to breathe – Congrats, you are dreaming and you are lucid!
2) Bite your tongue and see if it hurts – it requires minimal movement, and if you can not really feel any pain, then you are in the dream world!
NOTE: Perform the reality check *just in case* at least 2 times since sometimes reality checks tend to trick us.
For more reality check ideas, read:
2. Important notes:
Do not count your finger movements, or do not talk to yourself in your head since this will make you more awake and it may ruin your experience.
Do not count also the seconds before doing the reality check!
It should be approximately 30 seconds after you start to feel that you are entering the dream state, but doesn’t have to be precisely 30 seconds!
Thinking about the time could possibly ruin everything so far, by making you more awake.
Do not open your eyes – If you do it, just quickly close them.
You SHOULD practice the movements while you are awake.
Do both the light finger movements combined with a reality check 30 seconds’ish later.
This will help develop a connection between both of them in your brain.
It will become a natural habit to follow: first, the finger motion, whereafter the reality check.
It is not required but it is recommended to do the FILD method when you are having a relatively high level of exhaustion, so it will make it easier and more effective
Finger Induced Lucid Dreaming can produce highly convincing false awakenings.
They are very common with this kind of lucid induction, so be sure to a lot of reality checks.
3. Pros of the FILD Technique:
1) You should feel fairly tired so should have no problem falling back asleep quickly.
2) Once you master it, the technique will allows you to induce lucid dreaming very fast – *almost immediately*.
3) If it is done properly it will allow you to fall asleep very fast.
You won’t be distracted by thoughts, or you won’t be TOO awake, as you would be, for example, if you try the WBTB method (Wake-back-to-bed).
Cons of the FILD Technique:
1) You cannot try again if the first time failed since that will make you more awake and it simply won’t work.
You can try in an hour, but perhaps waking up too many times during the night will interrupt your sleep in a way that you won’t rest properly and you will feel tired the next day.
2) Very little research has been done on FILD method, so the exact way that it works is not known.
3) If the reality check doesn’t work, so you end up awake and not dreaming, you shouldn’t get disappointed.
A minor mistake may be the reason you didn’t become lucid, so just try to think everything you did and give it a try the next night.
4. FILD Technique: Final tips
The best and certain way to experience lucid dreaming is to understand the basics of it and to implement them in your daily life.
FILD will work even better and faster than you think if you put some extra effort.
So, with that said, here are some final tips that you can combine with the FILD technique:
Meditation:
Incorporate a simple 10 minutes in your morning/evening routine.
That is going to be very beneficial not only for your lucid dreaming experience but for your overall life.
Click here to find more about the benefits of meditation.
Reality checks:
If you create a habit of doing reality checks daily, you will be very surprised how such a simple task can affect your consciousness and can improve your lucid dreaming.
Check out the science behind reality checks and why they are so important.
Dream journaling:
You should have an average level of dream recall. This is a requirement for all of the lucid dreaming techniques.
The most efficient and easy way to remember your dreams better is by keeping a dream journal.
So, keep a notebook and a pen (or use your phone) to write your dreams each morning! (Be sure to keep your dream journal next to your bed.)
Find out more about dream journaling and its benefits in our previous article!
REM sleep:
The goal of FILD technique is to hit your REM sleep, which is the 5th stage of our sleep, where dreams occur. It happens around 90 minutes after you fall asleep (it at the beginning of the night, it lasts around 10 minutes).
You should use the FILD technique during your REM sleep, which means that you have to wake up during the night.
REM sleep typically gets longer and longer as the night goes by. That’s why you will wake up after A FEW hours of sleeping when your dreams will be longer.
Dream herbs:
It is proven that some herbs can increase the clarity and vividness of your dreams.
Dream herbs can give you a powerful boost, so consider exploring some of them.
If you want to learn more, read here:
5. Concluson
FILD method works by keeping our mind awake, with the the mild finger movements, while our body is falling asleep.
As we all are different, for some, this technique may work almost instantly, for others, may work after a few weeks.
Be sure that you are not doing some of the most common lucid dreaming mistakes that may stop you to experience lucid dreaming.
Additionally, just don’t give up if it doesn’t work from the first few times.
Hopefully, you will have your sweet (lucid) dreams in a few nights, by sticking to the FILD method.
