First WILD experience...need a little more control.

Quest for Lucidity
1

Hi there folks.
I came across this site today and felt it would be the place to get some answers to some questions I have. First I’ll explain a little about my experience with WILD.

Up until about about an hour ago, I had never heard of WILD or it’s connections to LD and SP. I have ‘suffered’ from SP for about 5 years now, and while at first it was unpleasant, I began to learn how to control it, and with a breathing technique I developed was able to wake myself up after a few moments and thus rid myself of the unpleasantness. It pretty much freaked me out to have SP and up until about a month ago waking myself immediately was all I wanted to do.

Then it started getting interesting! Recently I looked into SP a little on sites like Wikipedia, and it reassured me that it was a perfectly normal phenomena. I guess knowing that it was normal and safe (the first few times it happened, I thought I was dying!), was the key to suddenly wanting to explore it more. I began to wait longer periods before waking myself to explore the sensation a little, and modified my breathing technique so that it calmed me rather than waking me. I started to notice that at a certain point my body began to tingle, a feeling that was at the same time both unpleasant and in a way almost orgasmic! Again, this freaked me a little at first but as I got used to it I decided it would be fun to roll with it and see what happened.

The next step was the out of body stuff, I didn’t know this was going to come so, again, I completely freaked! I kept feeling like I was wrenching myself out of bed, falling all over the room, and generally doing stuff that I thought was going to injure me, violent spasms etc. A moment later I would wake up in exactly the same position as my normal sleeping habit. Once I realised that I was not throwing myself around I again decided to play with it, see how long I could keep it going, and wondering what would happen next. I guess I just have a curious personality, after my initial terror wore off I found it was fun to play with a little. I noticed that the volume of lucid dreams I had was increasing dramatically, I have always had LD’s but only very rarely and occuring just before waking.

So…(apologies for the long post btw, im kind of excited to find this site!) 2 nights ago I was in the OOBE phase, which usually wakes me up after a few minutes. I felt myself flailing around out of my body as usual, but I was very relaxed, and began to consciously think of images and scenarios. I was amazed to find that they were appearing in my minds eye, very clearly and I seemed to be able to physically touch them. My OOBE was still very much involved though, and I had very little control over my body. I woke after a few minutes of this, feeling a little uncomfortable. (My OOBE always occure prior to sleeping at night btw)

Last night I tried to prolong the sensations and gain more control of my dream body, which worked to a great degree…I finally passed the barrier where the tingling usually makes me stop and found myself in a dark void, floating but having full control over my body’s movement. This lasted for what I thought was a few moments, but in reality was around 30 minutes, after waking and looking at the clock. The experience was fantastic and a little frightening, and throughout the night I had several semi-lucid dreams in which I had varying control over my lucidity.

So finally to my questions!

  1. What is the point of these dreams and techniques? Having come across them by myself I’m not sure if they’re hypnotic, therapeutic or just random fun. How have other people ‘used’ these dreams? As an escape or as a way of self psycho-analasys, hypnosis or whatever?

  2. Can you train yourself to have more or less control, over subject, experience, physical motion, place etc? I’d love to have dreams that fulfilled some of the experiences I might never experince in waking life, such as going into space or fictional lands.

  3. If the above ‘training’ is possible, how do other users achieve it, and to what ends? Given the state of LD I have achieved by accident, what can I expect over the coming months?

  4. Can having LD’s have negative side effects? I’m thinking along the lines of mental ilnesses or blocks to the real subconscious, given that the conscious is now playing more of a role in the dream.

Any replies greatly appreciated, as usual I’m very curious and a little nervous about going to sleep tonight!

2

In answer to your questions:

The point of this dreaming technique/s, is to allow you to induce a Lucid Dream
If you do not know what it is, do some googling, and research it in Wikipedia

A Lucid Dream allows you to take control of your dream, and you can do whatever you like in your dream, some people have them frequently, others dont.

Lucid Dreaming is in no way harmful to the body, or the mind, or the brain

WILD is all about the 5 stages of sleep

1.SP - Sleep paralysis
2.HI - Hynagogic Imagery
3.DS - Deep sleep
4.DS - Deep sleep
5.REM - Rapid eye movement

Do some googling

3

I have been googling/wiki-ing since i got in from work, finding out a lot of new information, but a lot of it is very scientific, and I am curious as to how people use these dream abilities, for self help, sprirituality etc… just reading through the threads here and finding out what I’m letting myself in for.

4

The below text might not be correct, but it’s my point of view.

Well. I think most of people LD because it’s fun and out of the ordinary. You can do things you cannot do in real life.

I, for myself, am one of those. But you can also talk to your spirit guides, dream guides and subconcious in your dreams. You could notice feelings that you normally wouldn’t notice/accept.

So it’s a powerful tool if you use it right, but I use LDs just to have fun! :razz:

And about control, your control evolves the more LDs you have, because I think that your subconcious will get used to the term LD, and won’t try to interept it and do fool things which would make you think its real again, even though it’s been a dream all the time.

5

I thought everyones experiences and reasons for LDs would be differnt, hence the reason for this post.
Now I’ve found I can do WILD I’m hoping to use it for fun, and possibly self hypnosis as I am not a very visual person when conscious, but have very rich dream imagery.

6

Too much text to my brain;
BUT i’m happy to know that you converted the unpleaseant into pleaseant.

7

Hi there.

Well, I think there are lots of good things you can get from lucid dreaming.

  • Fun, of course :grin:
  • Practice, at skills or things like speaking in public and confidence in yourself in general.
  • Facing your fears and getting over nightmares, since you know it’s a dream and nothing there is actually real, it’s a lot easier to face your fears. The feeling of “success” will come over to waking life.
  • Inspiration, seeing something or hearing a song that your unconscious mind created and reproducing it in waking life as art and a way to express yourself.
  • Problem solving, like going to sleep thinking of some problem and find a solution in your dream. It’s like, when you’re asleep, you have access to “more” of your brain… not sure it this makes sence :rofl:
  • healing, I’ve read about it, but not sure… lol I guess it’s possible.
  • and just a great way to get to know yourself better.

I think the more LDs you have and the more you practice, the better you’ll get. And that includes control. I mean, you’ve gotten a long way by yourself! that’s very cool! I also want to visit some fictional lands myself :wink:

Over the comming months I’d say, since it seems you are motivated and are good at it (some people can take a long time to get a LD… :sad: ), you’ll just get better and better. I mean, when you were exploring SP you were always like “and what comes next?”. I think with that kind of thought you’ll get far. :tongue:

And LDs don’t have any negative side effects. In my own point of view it will only get your mind healthier. Because you can look deep into yourself and deal with stuff, etc.

Not sure if all this is right or good or usable. Most of it is stuff I’ve read or is just the way I see things… hope there’s something useful there someplace.

… and welcome to the forums. :grin:

8

I suggest that you read Exploring The World of Lucid Dreaming, by Stephen LaBerge. I pretty much stole my friend’s copy, because I’m so in love with the book. it provides many tips, techniques, and ideas for lucid dreaming that I think you would enjoy.