The first time I intentionally went lucid through WILD, I was afraid of the experience and forced myself to wake up. Ever since then (a month ago) I’ve attempted to recreate the experience and failed. Until last night.
Before going to bed I read up on lucid dreaming. I went to bed and began to use the MILD technique by repeating, “I will have a dream. I will wake up after my dream and remember it.” Then I decided to try a different approach and I began to repeat, “I am going to have a dream. I’m dreaming. I’m realizing that I’m dreaming.” Nothing happened and I woke up at 5:30 am without any memory of a dream. I got up and watched tv for half an hour and went back to sleep, again repeating the three sentances. My dream was very bizarre. At the end of it I was in a hospital with my girlfriend’s father. He looked old and sick. I remember looking over at him and thinking, wouldn’t it be convenient that if he got sick, it would happened now and not later since I’m in a hospital. And sure enough, he started convulsing. I yelled for help but all the bystanders just stared at him writhing on the floor. His screaming and convulsing grew in volume. He grabbed at my legs and stared up at me, yelling, “I don’t know what’s happening to me!” It was kind of frightening but at that point I realized I was dreaming. I’m not sure what tipped me off, but I took two steps away from him and suddenly I was standing on a random suburban street in a neighborhood similar to my old home town, looking through a camcorder. I began to fall into the camera and pass through, coming out the other end onto the street I was looking at. I no longer had the camera. When I passed through it, I heard a sound similar to the sound in the movie the Matrix when the main character wakes up inside the plastic tube. This seems very odd. After hearing that sound, I heard and felt the familiar buzzing in my ears, which only lasted a couple of seconds. I became excited and looked around at the dream world rapidly, trying to take it all in at once. I made the mistake of looking down at myself and seeing no body. This completely interupted the dream and I woke up.
I have a few theories about the experience. It seemed like the dream character screamed at me as if to get my attention on the fact that I was dreaming. His convulsing state grew until it was so rediculous that I decided I had to be dreaming. Perhaps my mind created this scene as a result of my inductions in order to make me realize that I was dreaming. Another interesting thing about this night was that I made lucid dreaming a more serious goal. Up until that point I had tried the induction process like an automatic ritual. This time I did not let my mind wonder from the inductions and I focused on becoming lucid. I really wanted to have a lucid dream. Also, repeating “I’m going to have a dream. I’m dreaming. I’m becoming aware that I’m dreaming” had a kind of hypnotic effect on me, more so than any other words I had used in previous inductions. As I repeated these words I felt myself drifting into sleep and visualizing myself going into a dream.