This will be a journal of my tryouts at lucid dreaming, from today until I succeed.
I started just a few days ago reading heavily about LD and getting motivated. I use a subliminal message program to help and I started trying to repeat mantras and to do reality checks.
So last night was as far as I got until now. It was really weird, a bit exciting and scary and funny too. I woke up naturally after about 4,5 hours of sleep (I somehow manage this just by wishing it) and thought it would be a good opportunity to try WILD.
So I got comfortable and started to imagine a huge building with 100 stories. I started to go down the stairs from 100, 99, 98 until 1. I was imagining the stairs as vividly as I could, but it was hard to focus. I was disappointed to see that I could get to 1 and not feel anything different. The only thing was that I could see fuzzy colours and moving blackness. That was nothing unusual though. The nasty thing throughout was that I kept needing to swallow and it ruined my focus. Anyway, I started to count again from 1 to 100 and after that I got to a point when my body was numb. I tried to move two fingers and it felt a bit weird.
Then, the most weird thing happened. Just as I was thinking that maybe I might start to get HI, I heard the strangest sound, like some weird music. But it was too sudden and I panicked a little. I opened my eyes and noticed the sound was real: it was my roommate’s cellphone alarm. I quickly closed my eyes and at this point I could feel my heart beating really fast plus some strong vibrations. I was surprised (it was the first time I experienced this) and kept wanting to go on. Sadly, after a few seconds the vibrations stopped, my pulse went back to normal and all the progress was lost for some reason.
I will keep up trying and write about it. In the meantime, any advice is welcome. Thanks.
When you woke up by “wishing” for it, that’s called autosuggestion. It’s a great thing to master. If you can get yourself to do that frequently, it’s a great way to get into DEILD which is much faster and much more reliable than WILD.
If you’re having a hard time concentrating, you might want to relax for just a little bit before trying your attempt. Just don’t relax too much or you’ll just fall asleep
Don’t worry about swallowing. If you have to swallow, do it calmly and naturally without giving it thought. Going “GAH! MUST NOT SWALLOW!!!$11!” will hurt much more than doing it.
Try not to focus on how your body feels. If you moving fingers and thinking about how numb you feel, it’ll put concentration on your body rather than your mind. Don’t worry about your body or SP. Just let it do its own thing.
The vibrations and perceived increased heart rate is called HH. Just try to ignore it, again keeping your concentration rather than worrying about your body. Oh, and don’t worry about your heart racing. It’s just a part of the hallucination.
I know about trying to relax and not pay attention to the swallowing but it’s not easy and I need to work on that. All my dentists have told me that I secrete a lot of saliva.
About the DEILD, I actually have done that many times by accident or just by waking up from a nice dream and wanting it to continue. But I didn’t know about lucid dreaming and thus never had much lucidity and control.
Well, whether or not you secrete a lot of saliva, just do it. If you gotta swallow, swallow. It’s really not going to hurt you that much at all. When I say don’t think about it, I literally mean don’t give any thought to “oh no, I bet that’s going to slow this whole thing down.” For lack of a better thing to say: don’t even think about not thinking about it. Just do it like you would during any other part of your day.
No success so far, even though I started to take this more seriously. I read a lot about it, I sometimes repeat mantras (I do this a lot in bed) and I often do RC.
Problem is that I share a room and my roommate keeps distracting me when I try WILD with noises and he wakes up early. But I understood that it’s not recommended to try WILD so soon so I’ve been focusing more on MILD.
Last night was really annoying. I went to sleep at 12 and woke up before 2. I thought it was in the morning so I tried a bit of WILD without any sign of progress. Only after that I realised that it was only 2. It took quite a while to get back to sleep. I woke up again at 6 something and tried WILD again for what seemed like forever and still no progress. I was too aware and tried to force myself to sleep. After giving up WILD, I just hoped to fall asleep and maybe dream. I tried to relax but I was too awake. I kept tossing and turning for more than an hour. I felt really tired and could not go to sleep. Finally, I got some short bits of sleep and it got better as the sun came up.
During these last few days I kept dreaming but no sign of lucidity. At least I have better DR now. I can recall about a third of my dreams, which I write down in a DJ.
To do WILD successfully, you must be in a totally quiet place, so nothing can distract you. Even the smallest noise will make you jump out of the early sleep.
If you’re not alone in the room, better not do WILD at all, unless he is sleeping quietly.
Then you will probably want to work on achieving a lucid mindset (asking critical reality questions and RC often) and hope for DILD to be your main key to LD’s
I decided that for now I should increase vividness and recall and after that try chaining and WBTB. I also found a course on Youtube called Lucidology 101, which has some interesting tips, especially for relaxing and forcing your body to sleep faster. I am going to try some of those techniques.
It seems to me that making your body fall asleep faster than your mind is really hard. Whenever I feel my body is semi-paralized, I become too awake mentally.
Less than an hour ago I woke up from a dream. I did not move a muscle except for swallowing. So I waited for about 5 minutes. I tried to picture my dream as to continue it, but felt too awake mentally to be able to slip back into sleep. My body was numb - in my dream I actually was taking a piss and when I woke up I still had the sensation of wetness for a second in my pants. But that was fake.
So what was my mistake in this attempt to DEILD? Was I too awake or not patient enough? Have I not focused enough on the dream?
I know that I used to do DEILD occasionally before even knowing what it is, but that was when I was still sleepy or sort-of half asleep. This time, I was just too aware I think.
Don’t try focusing too hard on getting the dream to come. I remember one DEILD that I managed to let the dream form, but I didn’t force it. I had to let it be daydreamish and to let it develop and become more realistic and dream-like on its own. You can’t force anything or focus too much in WILD or DEILD. It’s often being sleepy or half asleep that is the reason that you weren’t too aware when you used to DEILD that probably helped you a lot. Not knowing what it was let you not focus too hard. I know it’s hard to imagine getting into SP and then trying to lose your focus and awareness, but not lose all of it. DEILD does really tend to be quicker than WILD though, which makes it easier. However, if you’re going to try to focus too hard in either DEILD or WILD, it’ll be a lot harder to do.
I postponed my attempts until I’m going to move (in two weeks), but it seems I was lucky enough to get a LD just by chance.
Yesterday night I was having a ND when something happened that made me realize it is not possible, therefore a dream. Then, for about 30 seconds I was lucid. I tried to increase lucidity by saying it, but I couldn’t remember the word. When I did, it didn’t work very well. It was not vivid. Probably because I haven’t written in my DJ for a long time. The dream didn’t turn out as I wanted it and soon it was over. When I woke up I was still happy because I had my first LD since I know what they are.
i woke up from a dream and, fortunately I wasn’t numb or in an awkward position so I knew what I had to do (or not do). Five seconds later the vibrations started and noises of all kinds. It was like pulling and letting go. Whenever I let myself go, I felt like I was pulled up in the air from my chest and vibrating very strongly. It was so intense and fast that I didn’t know how to calm down. I was excited and partly scared. But it was awesome. Unfortunately, I chickened out soon and woke myself up.
I just woke up from a DEILD. It was so surreal, I don’t even know if it was an actual LD or all of it a ND.
I was in a complex dream where me and someone else were chased and stuff and then I woke up. I didn’t move and tried to force myself back in the dream. It was uncomfortable and I almost gave up. But then the vibrations came and I felt like I was pulled up very fast. And then just blackness. Next thing I know, I’m in my bed, certain that I’m in a LD. But the thing is this was my bed from my old apartment (where I lived more than 10 years ago). I slowly got up from bed, careful and focused not to ruin the dream. Rubbed my hands and that seemed to work to make things a bit more vivid and real. Then I went to another room and it was in the middle of the night. I knew my parents were supposed to be sleeping so I tried to be quiet. Still, there was music coming from my room for some reason. That’s what woke my dad up. Anyway, before that, the interesting part was that I tried to summon a naked woman (failed) and then a key in my hand, just to see if it works. I said it, closed eyes, tried to visualize it in my hand and so on but it didn’t work.
All in all, it was quite a short dream but I’m glad I had it. The thing is I didn’t have many ideas on what to do in it, because I had little control on my surroundings.
