Hey!
On my ongoing quest for my first successful WILD I have learn’t a lot, I have been experimenting with different methods to keep my mind awake while I go to sleep. What I have found to work -best- for me so far, is to passively listen to the ringing or buzzing in my ears. I feel that when I take on the role as an observer I get somewhat closer than when I count for example. I also see a lot of people giving this advice, “go to sleep and just keep a little bit of awareness”.
How do you people that have great success with WILD’s do it? How do you maintain this tiny bit of awareness without staying awake or completely lose it? I know this must be a hard thing to explain, but since I already got some clue about it, maybe I will understand you when you explain? Sometimes I can feel like im only “focusing” with a small bit of my awareness, but I can never keep it that way and I usually drift off to sleep instead. Someone help me out here!
I’m not searching for the usual “tricks” to stay aware, I just want to get a better understanding for how you can maintain enough awareness in order to successfully WILD. Thanks!
I Myself havn’t reached lucidity yet, but heres what happens when i try to keep a small bit of awareness:
Last night this happened about 5 times in the space of 10 mins…
I Was listening to binaural beats, and trying WILD, I kept drifing into a dream, and the beat was totally tuned out, when I realised it was, it came back again, and I lost the dream… I just can’t seem to get it right yet, I know what you mean, it’s hard to keep awareness and fall asleep!!
This is definitely something I’m struggling with as well. I’ve been trying both FILD and WILD and I either end up laying there for half an hour because I’m too aware or just falling asleep because I’m not aware enough. I need to practice some more, but especially to start it’s pretty difficult to keep only a small amount of awareness.
About a year ago I came pretty close to WILD’ing, though. I did it by just relaxing and then kind of passively experiencing the changes in my body, such as feeling as if I was floating away or sinking down. I would also get really warm and would try to feel the warmth wash through my body. That way I wasn’t thinking very consciously, but was still engaged in a conscious process.
There it is! This is exactly what I’m after, and you just explained it perfectly. It is really hard to succeed with this indeed. Maybe someone will shine some light on it soon and make it look easy. fingers-crossed
What I’ve been thinking lately, and this might be total BS but that’s ok , is that when you sleep and dream, your body and your mind go to sleep. So the trick would be to separate the consciousness from the mind, so when the mind falls asleep your consciousness doesn’t go with it… does that make sense? I read the above post and remembered this lol And this should be done by meditating, because in meditation your awareness does not get caught up in the thinking, so you end up stopping to think, but are still aware… hmm, in the same way that it’s hard to enter SP if you keep to much attention on your body.
If that made any sense, great! if not, ignore it and move on
I’m not that successful in being aware as I fall asleep. I usually dip into unconsciousness and become aware again as I’m entering HI or something. Or in the beginning of the dream itself, and have a DILD. I always recommend that when you’re trying to WILD, that failing by falling asleep is a lot better than failing by staying to awake. So first you have to find out how (which positions, techniques, etc) you fall asleep, and work your way up from there, instead of the way around…
Had something else to add to this wall of text but forgot
EDIT: argh, now my mind is wandering. Anyway, I just thought about this, if you fall asleep full of ideas in your head, inner dialogue, worries, etc, they will turn into or be replaced by HI or any other dream phenomena as you fall asleep and you’ll just go with it and end up asleep. but if you are able to clear your mind as you fall asleep, as soon as HI comes you’ll notice it because it will contrast with the nothingness from before! Maybe that’s why I get awareness again when HI comes sometimes… scratches head
Same dilemma here! Not sure how to differentiate awake and aware. I like your description Mattias, like a meditative state, not thinking but aware. However I feel I am still fully awake even when I am in a silent meditative state and can’t even feel my body anymore. WILD makes me utterly awake, and I can only handle about an hour or so in total silence and nothingness before I get utterly bored and quit.
I feel that you might be on to something Mattias, I guess I will have to experiment with different approaches, and learn what I can be aware of without it disturbing me too much. It’s just really hard to set your mind to “spectator mode” instead of consciously thinking things. I think that this is a state that is VERY unfamilliar to people since we fill our heads with thoughts, worries and ideas all day long. And I have been looking everywhere for a good guide on how to meditate, but all I can find is long courses that you have to pay for and stuff.
There are lots of meditation articles and courses for free on the internet!
But it’s pretty simple. Relax and clear your mind. Don’t fight the thoughts that pop up, try only not to get caught up in them, let them pass by. Whenever you catch yourself wandering, just gently clear your mind again. You can also focus on your breath. It’s that simple. And don’t worry, as you said, we are really unfamiliar with this, so you will feel like you aren’t succeeding at first because your mind will wander 95% of the time but I say that simply trying IS meditation…
Have you tried to combine WILD with WBTB? Upon waking the first time, half your mind is still familiar with what it’s like to dream… something it doesn’t have if you’re just going to sleep from waking. If you interrupt the cycle, not enough to deprive yourself of a refreshing sleep though, your mind may even still be trying to dream and all you have to do is follow that feeling backwards.
Once, it even worked for me to daydream about the nightdream that I just had. The imagined scene took on a life of its own in the WBTB/WILD state of mind, especially since I had my dream-self pay attention to texture.
I always combine my WILD attempts with 5-6 hours of sleep Elly. Sometimes I feel a little bit too tired when I wake up, and sometimes a little bit too awake. But I get what you mean. This morning for example I managed to reach a very relaxed state were I felt my body “stiffen” but in a relaxed way, and I started to have what I think is HI ( not sure though ). Earlier that day I had been playing a lot of computer games and I could -see- the game in my mind exactly as if I would had been playing. As soon as I started to focus on it, it would blur out and disappear, but I could still back off and let it come back again and flow naturally. I FELT like I was too awake all this time, I even thought to myself “Damn, I need to lose some awareness” haha. But this was the first time where I could actually feel myself manipulating the effects of my awareness. So it was a really nice change! Something to note though is that this happened after nearly 8-9 hours of sleep, and I could feel that I was ready to exit bed, if I would had done this after 5-6 hours of sleep, I would probably had fallen asleep.
And thanks for the link Mattias, gonna check it out!
Todey I agree with you, every one should find his own WILD technique, becuase everybody is different, for me is to be aware of where I’m going, the I’m going to dream, let myself even fall asleep and become aware minute before entering the dream.
It is really hard to succeed with this indeed. 
Maybe someone will shine some light on it soon and make it look easy. fingers-crossed
, is that when you sleep and dream, your body and your mind go to sleep. So the trick would be to separate the consciousness from the mind, so when the mind falls asleep your consciousness doesn’t go with it… does that make sense? I read the above post and remembered this lol And this should be done by meditating, because in meditation your awareness does not get caught up in the thinking, so you end up stopping to think, but are still aware… hmm, in the same way that it’s hard to enter SP if you keep to much attention on your body.
but I say that simply trying IS meditation…
Something to note though is that this happened after nearly 8-9 hours of sleep, and I could feel that I was ready to exit bed, if I would had done this after 5-6 hours of sleep, I would probably had fallen asleep.