Hi!
I got to know lucid dreaming before several months and have had a total of round about 3 lucid dreams in the mean time. Until now, I mostly used the MILD technique or similiar approaches.
But now I have been trying out WILD for several nights and I’ve got a few questions to ask:
Often ‘hypnagogic imagery’ is mentioned during talk about WILD. Should I see this in front of my inner eye (like were I imagine stuff and so on), or is it actually about the real eye?
I often take quite a long time falling asleep. Will this be a problem for WILDing and how can I deal with it?
When my body gets numb, is that sleep paralysis or is it just my body getting numb? I had that sensation several times now and I kind of expected some dream images or something alike to accompany it, which - unfortunately - never happened.
Will meditation help me with WILDing? If so, should I do it directly before going to bed?
What relaxation techniques are most effective for you?
How long does it normally take you to enter a dream?
How long (how many nights of practice) did it take you to learn to have WILD attempts success at a reasonably good rate?
That’s all for now and thank you very much for answering these beforehands,
Yours,
lionstarr
Wow, that’s quite a list you got there. I occasionally use WILD, though I prefer RCILD and MILD as they give slightly more stable dreams. Buuuut, here’s the answer to most of your questions.
As far as the HI goes, here is a good guide for WILD. You might also check it for some answers to your other questions.
It will make things very hard as you will have to lay still for a very, very long time. It will be much easier if instead of doing this when you first go to bed, you wake up about 5 hours after initially going to sleep. You will fall asleep much faster this way.
It is the beginnings of SP, but its still not there yet. One little movement will break it, as will thinking about your body being numb.
Sorry, I’m not the one to ask on that, but I’ve been told it does help.
Counting my breaths as I exhale with deep, slow breaths.
I do my WILD’s in the morning after I’ve slept for a while, so it only takes me about 5-10 minutes. If I do it at the beginning of the night, upwards of 45 minutes. Needless to say, I don’t do WILD’s when I go to bed.
About 3-4 years before I was able to do the early morning WILD’s.
I really recommend you check out our Knowledge Base. It has great info on this and other techniques, such as this very helpful WILD FAQ.
But don’t get discouraged! The time can vary a lot depending on the person. Also, progress can come in steps. If you’ve bee trying to WILD for, say, a month and then you get HI for the first time, be happy about it! It’s a big step, so don’t focus too much on still not being able to WILD Just keep practicing until you get comfortable with it.
And meditation does help a lot. You can do it whenever you want, but before bed or during WBTB (or even as you WILD!) will keep your mind clear and focused for the transition. I’ve found that it really helps to WILD with a clear focused mind, since you tend to get less caught in thoughts and can stay passively aware as you enter tha dream.
Yeah, to add to what mattias said, it took me years to get down. That doesn’t mean it will take you as long; in fact, for some people it comes pretty naturally.
I have a question. I was doing a WILD-attempt yesterday and I was counting until ~350 (+I’m dreaming) and suddenly my back muscles were cringing. It was like a lightning struck me. Has someone experienced this before?
Is it like you are falling and hit something. If so then I have them sometimes when I’m falling asleep normally.
Don’t be discoraged if WILD doesn’t work at first thought.Use as many techniques as you can. I do rc’s during the day, MILD when I go to bed. If I wake up in the night I do an rc then try FILD and if that doesn’t work try WILD/V-VILD. That maximises your changes of having an ld. And trust me you will if you don’t have an ld one night then you are one night closer to having one. Don’t give up.
Yes, it can definitely be a bit of a problem because you will be laying still for quite a long time. WILD is also best done later in the night for a couple reasons. The first is that when your first going to sleep the body doesn’t go right into REM sleep but rather into deep theta and delta sleep, which is difficult to impossible to remain awake during. Secondly, later in the night you enter REM sleep much faster. At the beginning of the night you must go through a full sleep cycle (approx 90 minutes) before you hit REM, whereas later on people fall almost directly into REM. If you’re the type that takes a very long time to fall asleep MILD might be a better technique, since that time awake actually gives more time for you to ingrain your intention.
This depends, if you’ve been laying in one place for a very long time in position it could be your body just getting numb. However, if you start feeling loss of sensation in your hands/feet and aren’t doing anything to inhibit bloodflow it is very likely the early stages of SP.
Yes, it can help by relaxing you and making you more focused on what it is you want to accomplish. Having your mind more clear of thoughts makes it easier to fall asleep and ensures that you have less random thoughts bouncing around your head to keep you awake.
I really like the 69 point relaxation technique from EWLD. Aside from that I don’t use much in the way of relaxation techniques since I usually run 8+ miles and practice golf for several hours and am plenty ready for sleep when the time comes. If I wake up in the middle of the night I’m usually relaxed anyway.
I’d say the typical time for me is around 10 minutes, give or take 5. This pretty much depends on how quickly you fall asleep.
I learned WILD after becoming pretty proficient with MILD; I seem to remember it took about 2-3 months of pretty focused “work” to be able to WILD on command. WILD is about learning to relax and go with the flow. You have to keep your mind quiet and passive, but not so much so that you lose consciousness and fall asleep. However, if you’re too active, anticipatory, or impatient you just won’t fall asleep. Also, when you first start getting good SP/dream imagery its really easy to get excited and wake yourself up. At this point the same thing is needed, you need to stay relaxed and emotionally consistent or you’ll wake right back up. When you start to see a fully formed dreamscape don’t try to actively enter, allow yourself to be drawn in at the dreams own pace. Trying to force your way in will most likely just shatter the imagery.
Sounds like a myclonic jerk to me, especially if it was just one big twitch. A myclonic jerk is basically a random spasm of some muscle group, and its quite common to have them as you’re falling asleep. This isn’t really SP, but it is often a harbinger to it.
Just keep practicing until you get comfortable with it.
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