Success at entering lucid dreaming depends on two factors: quantity and quality of attempts. Accordingly, the greater the quantity of high-quality attempts, the greater the odds of having a lucid dream experience. However, practically all practitioners encounter certain psychological difficulties that deprive them of 30 to 75% of all attempts. That is, lucid dreamingrs often experience only half of what they could due to certain patterns of thought.
This mainly occurs during two common situations in which practitioners simply lose all desire to even try: a) excessively alert awakening b) awakening to physical movement. Even if a lucid dreamr suddenly decides to give it a try in such situations, his attempts are understandably performed waveringly and poorly, which is equivalent to not trying at all. However, in the absolute majority of such cases, no attempt is even made.
The hilarity of the situation consists in the probable falseness of the sensations of both excessively alert awakening and awakening to physical movement. For example, the thought, "I woke up way too alertly, nothing’s going to work now" is usually immediately followed by falling back asleep. However, a substantial portion of movements upon awakening are false, even though it may seem that they are made with the physical body. But even if there is an actual alert awakening and actual physical movement, the likelihood of entering lucid dreaming does not actually decrease as much as one might think. That’s why it is not only possible try to enter lucid dreaming in such situations – it is a must. Those who follow this simple principle alone may enjoy twice as many lucid dreaming experiences as those who do not.
However, mindfulness of this principle alone is often insufficient to compensate for psychological certainty that nothing will work during a specific attempt. In order to solve this problem, one may use one a most effective psychological trick based on self-deception. If it seems to the practitioner that there is no sense in making an attempt as nothing will work anyway, he ought think exactly as follows: "Alright, entering lucid dreaming will hardly work out, but now I’m going to simply practice for future attempts and do everything as if these were ideal conditions". Afterwards, a high-quality “practice session” will occur, during which it might be easy to have a real lucid dreaming experience. So, if it seems that nothing at all will happen upon an awakening, then simply give it a go and practice cycling indirect techniques, without worrying about the outcome.
It should also be noted that a lucid dreamr will often lose out on an attempt through the belief that he has to catch the right moment of being half-awake. Many think that catching that moment is a mandatory prerequisite for the indirect method. It generally is, but that moment of transition usually doesn’t begin at the second one awakens – rather, it arises right when performing cycles of techniques! That is, the moment of being half-awake is not so much something to catch upon awakenings, but more something to induce using the techniques themselves – which is actually exactly what they’re there for. That’s precisely why there’s no sense in giving up a chance for an attempt.
Every practitioner simply needs to be well aware that one may fall into lucid dreaming upon any awakening, no matter what it may seem and no matter what thoughts may cross one’s mind. That’s why you need to not over-analyze or over-think it, but simply to mechanically try, try, and try again.
