I don’t know what to look for when I do WILD because I don’t know what HI looks like. Is HI your mind wandering and thoughts making stories like in a daydream. Is that HI or is it supposed to be something more blatantly obvious and I just have not experienced it yet. I’m quite confused.
I think HI lookes more like fireworks flashing in your mind’s eye, and they eventually look like images.
I have not sucessfully gotten an LD with WILD, so I could be wrong…
Hypnagogic Imagery is all the colours and shapes you see in your minds eye. They can also be the images you see in your minds eye.
lucidcrossroads.co.uk/WILD.htm
The link is to a WILD guide which shows example of HI in case your not sure.
For me, HI starts with random thoughts. It is as if lines and scenes appear in the mind without having to imagine them consciously. Only when i am very close to sleep, it is visible as images.
I think I have different types of HI. I consider the “mini-dreams” I call them to be HI. At the onset of sleep you’ll see flashes of imagery, this is HI. It’s not like the back of your eyelids are a movie screen and HI is being projected onto it. It’s more like in your minds eye.
I have much more vivid HI during SP. Usually in this case it’s kaleidoscopic, but so vivid I’m amazed every time I see it. It’s still HI, but I consider it different than the above because of it’s intensity and surrealism.
Skidzz what you just summarized is what happens to me too. I wasn’t sure that those were HI or if it was my mind wandering. I think so far the closest I’ve been to WILDing was when I was in HI but I realized I was counting to myself “I know I am dreaming” so I got mixed emotions and sort of woke myself up because I didn’t want to fall asleep. So far no success with WILD.