When you image things, or at least when I do, I don’t use my eyes at all. Yes, it is a mental state you are in. Your eyes are doing nothing.
Soon after you get into that mental state, you will notice that your mental images will seem to look like real. (no blackness) Just clear images of what you are imagining.
When you are trying to WILD the best thing from what I have heard and felt, is to ‘flow passively’ with the HI, the swirling colours you see. This means you don’t focus on the HI, your aim is to just relax and do whatever you have decided to do to stay aware.
As tyrael says, they will become extremely vivid at some point, either they will get more vivid gradually, or like for me, suddenly full scenes flash into your mind. The next step is to enter those pictures, and there are various ways people have suggested to do that. The one that I found most interesting, was to focus on part of the scene (In the example a fish-tank) and try to be in the scene, watching the tank. The best way is probably experimenting and finding what works best for you.
The last time I tried WILD, my whole body started trembling, and I went into SP. So far so good, except the tremblings got stronger, and more spaced. Suddenly, my wholeleg flew into the air, just like that! I had to give up
Is it because I wasn’t relaxed enough? If so, how to relax? How to avoid this problem?
Do you have to do WILD with WBTB, or can you just try it like that, when you go to bed, without getting up? When not using WBTB, what are the disadvantages?
@ Chocolat 65
WILD can be quite an interesting experience in terms of what you might feel in the transition. With you leg kicking out, did you feel a sudden rush when it happened? Like you would feel if the ground suddenly gave way underneath you. If so this could have been a hypnic jerk, which is a natural thing that happens sometimes. It is a good indicator that you were in a relaxed state.
You don’t have to use WBTB with WILD, but it is much much harder to have any success if you try WILD alone with no WBTB.
@ tufele89
Eyes twitching I’ve heard of before, the best solution is probably to try and not focus on them by focusing your attention somewhere else. With the headache that could be if you got angry or stressed that you weren’t getting somewhere. Maybe if WILD causes such a bad reaction on a regular basis, you might want to investigate some other techniques first.
I’ve been trying to use WILD for the past couple days, but I always find my mind wandering and I end up falling asleep. I got pretty close (I think) last night though.
I can tell myself as I’m falling asleep to wake up after a dream and this works surprisingly well for me. I always wake up 1-3 times a night (if i try to) and I can remember those dreams pretty clearly. It usually makes me wake up 20-30 minutes before I would normally get up, which has reduced my dependancy on an alarm clock. Anyway, I first woke up at about 1:30 a.m., but I decided to wait a little longer to try WILD since REM sleep lasts longer as the night progresses. I next got up at 4:30 a.m. I thought that was a little late to try, since I would be getting up in 1 1/2 hours, but I tried it anyway. I was able to keep my mind focused long enough past SP and into HI to actually be able to visualize a dream very clearly. The only problem was that I couldn’t actually enter the dream. Towards the end, I could sort of feel like a pulling sensation in my head (possibly a sign of entering a dream?) but my cat started to meow for food and it broke my concentration
Anyone know if that pulling sensation was a sign of entering a dream? If not, what does it feel like entering a dream?
It’s hard enough for many who try WILD to say it’s impossible, or not worth doing. And yeah, you would have to maintain awareness through NREM to the first REM cycle, which is also the shortest one of the night.
The pulling sensation is one of the signs of entering a dream. By the sounds of your post, you are quite responsive to auto-suggestion. That being what you are using to wake yourself up. You could try to use this to get lucid too. It may work quite well for you, to suggest to yourself next time you see a dream-sign, or next time you have a dream, you will become lucid. Using whatever method you use to suggest the time you want to wake up to yourself.
Thanks! Atleast now I know its possible for me to use the WILD method.
Auto-suggestion does work for me to get lucid, but I have been trying different methods, such as this one. Last night I tried it again and I was able to get lucid twice, but they only lasted for a short time.
I randomly lost conciousness and like 10 seconds into the dream I asked myself, “Wait, how did I just get here?” and everything went black and I was back in my bed. I fell asleep again soon after that. The same thing happend, so I just decided to give up for the night. It was pretty weird though because I randomly became lucid in the dream I had after I gave up.
Hey everyone, I hope someone can give me a bit of advice for WILD. I have been practicing for a little while but I always seem to be unable to pass the stage of numbness at the onset of the REM cycle,I just stay at the point for a very long time, then usually fall asleep or I just stay like that till I give up. Any advice would be great!
Counting isn’t the only way of keeping yourself aware, if it isn’t working for you, you could try visualisation (for example, imagining yourself going down stairs), along with a number of others. FILD (Moving your figures to stay aware) there are more in various topics on the forum. It may also be you are forgetting to relax and are focussing too much on what you are doing. Don’t forget first and foremost you want to relax, staying aware is the other thing you want to do.
I’m now listeninig to a track of about 30 minutes.
“I am aware that i’m dreaming” gets told over and over and some other things like performing a RC. With background sounds like dogs, oceans and zooming. I really get sleepy and stuff.
In the program Infinity it says before using WILD technique you could listen to one of those tracks. Doesn’t have to be in bed.
I can’t wake up while sleeping so WBTB won’t really work for me unless I set an alarm but my parents and brother won’t like that.
Any tips to get awake around 3 to 4 at night without waking others?
Maybe WILD but focussing on getting awake after 3 to 4 hours?
You could try using autosuggestion to get yourself to wake up if you are responsive to it. It works very well for me. Before I go to bed I just keep telling myself that I am going to wake up after every dream and it almost always works. The only time it doesn’t work for me if I go to bed late and I have to get up early.
Depending on how heavy of a sleeper you are you could use a watch or cell phone alarm. They usually aren’t loud enough to bother anyone else in the house.
I would recommend trying autosuggestion first before an alarm. You wake up more naturally and you can remember dreams much better. It can cause false awakenings though, but they can be used to get lucid easily.
The last succesfull attempt I had only lasted less than 10 seconds. I realized I was at the point where I could “leave” my physical body. Imagined a rope in my hands, all of a sudden I could feel the texture of the rope so I started to pull on it climbing upwards until I was standing up straight. As soon as I started to walk though, it was almost as if I was drunk, I was stumbling. I think what woke me was I was worried I would wake up my wife if I fell down, then bam I was awake. The first three success, I was not walking, first time I cralwed and other two I was sitting up… anyone else experience this “drunk” type walk? And what can I do to make it last longer? It seems I don’t even have the time to spin, or rub my hands because of how instant I break out of the trance.
I’ve been trying to have lucid dreams on and off for sometime now, and the easiest way for me to get close is this little trick my friend told me about that he uses for astral projection.
What you do is pretend that your body is an island. Envision it and try to feel yourself sink into your mattress. Then what you do is imagine that all of your muscles are factories. Tell all of the factories to shut down. Now, you’re energy is the workers and tell all the workers to come together on your sternum.
This whole scene is basically the creation of a dream, just something to occupy your mind while you neglect your body. Once your body starts to fall asleep, pretend that your dream self (or collected factory workers) are trying to break out of your body by leaving the ‘island.’
What usually happens is you hear a loud noise and then you should be free of reality.
I know we only have dreams during the REM period of sleeping and this does not happpen until we had a few hours of sleep so is it physically possible to WILD and LD at night right as you go to sleep for the day?
Yesterday I tried WILD around 11:00 p.m. as I was going to sleep.
I relax then I would start to count 1,2,3…10 then when i get to ten i would count backwards 10,9,8…1 and so on after a while i saw colors and i felt me sinking into my bed then i felt my eyes moving by themselves after that the feeling went away and I was left with nothing…
I have read that it is possible to use WILD directly without waking up in the middle of the night, but it is much more difficult. You would probably have to lay there until your first REM cycle starts, which is about 90 minutes. Also, the REM cycles get longer as the night goes on, so the dream would be much shorter. I’d say your best bet would be to combine WILD with WBTB. It can become a problem though, since you will be losing some sleep. My advice would be to try it on nights that you don’t have to get up early.
I also tried to WILD the other night fo the first time. I did the relaxing technique where you flex your toes than up to your head or whatever. It seemed to work very well. I slowly started to feel really heavy and I didn’t want to move at all. I just kept laying there letting my body fall asleep. Then my heart beat increased rapidly and my breathing became very heavy. I let this slide for awhile. I then started to see some flashes of lights above me and small pictures of landscape started to appear and dissapear, but I think I may have done that myself without knowing. I eventually became worried about my breathing and heart rate so I conciously tried slowing my breathing because I was paranoid and I didn’t think I could fall asleep during those conditions and it couldn’t be good. After I was slowing my breathing I realized I was uncomfortable and it all went downhill from there. I completely lost it all and I couldn’t fall asleep again for an hour.
I’ve mainly just been hoping to have a DILD. Is there anything else I can do?
It’s weird, but the heart rate increasing, and your funny breathing are all in your head. It’s one of the harder parts to get through in the WILD process considering we’re supposed to stay level headed and calm during the whole stage, the moment you concenrtate too hard on breathing or anything else you wake up out of it… it’s mostly something that just comes with time. You’ll learn to deal with it, and that it’s nothing to worry about.
This is actually just an illusion. Your breathing is fine, your mind is testing to see if your body is asleep so your mind can enter the dream. Just hold out a bit longer next time, and you’ll have had a sucessful WILD.