Removing the fear of WILD.. but how??

Quest for Lucidity
1

Hey guys
I was reading about WILD when i found this part here

7: Sleep Paralysis

If you get caught in a sleep paralysis before/during/after performing WILD, all you have to do is stay calm and concentrate on your breathing. You would not be able to move any part of your body, except eyes (in most cases, a number of muscles can be moved). If you try to move you body, and break the sleep paralysis, you would unintentionally activate the part of your brain responsible for hallucinations. It could be anything, from gorgeous ponies eating your bed sheet, to your brain trolling you hard by making a 3D thriller right there in your bedroom. If you simply concentrate on your breathing, instead of thinking hard about all the horror movies you’ve seen in past, most likely you won’t hallucinate.

The key is to stay calm, and let your brain know, who is the boss!

I am really a fearful person and by the smallest spider i am scared to death :eh:
This made my way to lucidy pretty hard since im really scared, i mean, your controlling your dream, your totally influencing it, but you don’t have the rights to do this… your interupting your natural progress, you are in a dream, totally alone, no one is next to you!
(please note i said this when i wasn’t informed about how epic and undangerous this lucid dreaming is)

anyway, that’s what I thought.

I am deadly scared of hallucinations and if it this occurs i think im totally sick and must go to a place where psychos are and so… (please dont laugh, i know its ridiculous :smile: )

But still, hallucinations are scary… Even for a man like Chuck Norris… well he doesn’t dream about nightmares, nightmares dream about him… but still:

I really want to WILD because i think it will be very successful, unfortunately my fear rips my desire to WILD to pieces, and throws every piece into a fire.
but i really want to WILD!! i really do!
i tried to WILD before i go to sleep, but i often didn’t succeed/was too scared…

I have now following questions:

Because of my fear, can i sleep next to my little brother? i love sleeping next to an Human-Being since this is the way I’m not scared of anything… But when i got hallucinations he’ll turn to an alien but still…

How should i do my first WILD? alone, with a brother next to me, 1h after sleeping, on what should i focus?

And finally, how can i remove my stupid fear, and when it happens that im in the stage of hallucinations, how can i shoot down all scary monster to laugh myself out of this horror? :happy:

I really want to succeed but the fear… I hate it. so much… :grrr: :grrr: :grrr:

Greetings,
CrazyOsi3

PS:
the things im scared of are… actually only… you know… standart monsters and so on., :happy: But they’re still scary if you hallucinate them :grrr: :grrr: :grrr:

:wiske: :wiske: :wiske: [/list]

2

:lol:

I guess it’s the time to let the dear newbie choose between the red and blue again:

[color=blue]Nice Answer:[/color]

[spoiler]can i sleep next to my little brother?
If he allows you to… I don’t see any trouble there, you just don’t need to think about him as something bad. Also, aliens can be friendly!

1h after sleeping?
Using WBTB often yields the best results, place your cursor over the acronym for hint.

On what should i focus?
Focus on your awareness and maintain it, once you notice you are immersed into imagination, you can imagine yourself getting up into the dream.

How can i shoot down all scary monster to laugh myself out of this horror?
Keep experimenting until you manage to deal with your fears.

[/spoiler]

[color=red]Realistic Answer:[/color]

[spoiler]Once Albert Einstein said: “A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it.”

You may either solve that problem or just avoid using WILD. WILD may not be as successful as you may be expecting. Depending on the “dreamer” it could be much harder than any other technique.

Solving the problem is not a bed (I meant bad, but I like puns) idea actually… However that could be bad news for you: The secret of controlling an LD involves being fearless. Some common quote I say often: “A dream can be as frightening as you think it may be.”
Coping with this fear would improve your dream control.

Perhaps you could use some meditation to get used to the feeling of WILDing and controlling your fears as well. It’s up to you to try because there’s no technique that solves everything.

Also, I would like to point that “being immersed into imagination” technically also means “negative hallucination”. Dreams are hallucinations per see. SP may become scary because it’s dark and you cannot move, but that also means it’s similar to dreaming.
[/spoiler]

Good luck.

3

Hi CrazyOsi! :wave:

It sounds like what you’re really worried about is having hallucinations in waking life during SP, particularly disturbing ones. These “hallucinations” are really more like dreams or near-dreams and can be dealt with accordingly. Also, I think it’s easier to escape SP into full wakefulness than that article describes. :content:

The “hallucinations” you may experience during SP aren’t like the kinds of hallucinations you might experience if you were psychotic. If you see unusual imagery during SP, you are almost asleep; what you’re seeing is basically dream imagery. You have two options here: fully enter the dream so you can take actions or completely wake up.

Entering the dream from this state is easy and may even happen naturally. Treat what’s happening as an LD—take an interest in what’s happening around you, try to change something, etc. You’re likely to discover that you’re fully in a dream (and now able to move and such) within seconds, and you can handle anything unpleasant that’s happening in whatever manner you prefer during an LD.

If you want to wake up, trying to move your physical body is actually a good idea in my experience. Whenever I’ve ended up in SP and wanted to be fully awake, I’ve always tried as hard as I could to move one of my hands. Usually I’m able to move my arm within a few seconds, and the rest of my body almost immediately after. I’ve never had any trouble with unwelcome hallucinations or anything doing this.

SP is usually a welcome state for WILD practicioners because you’re so close to dreaming when you’re in it. If you’re really interested in WILD and want to succeed, ending up in SP would really be a fortunate thing for you. Keep your eyes closed, focus on your hypnagogia, and you’ll probably find yourself in an LD quite rapidly. Nothing to worry about :wink:

4

Hey Zon
Thanks for your reply, i just wanted to say: Your extremely right! I am a hell of scared in seeing hallucinations and that i just realized when i read your reply!! Somehow i feel now “filled” for trying my first WILD, Thank you so much! so as you say i should just concentrate on my hypnagogia… You know a weird thing happend to me…

I suddenly woke up at night and realized my legs were like stunned and i thought they’re in SP, so i was like “why not try” my brother slept next to me so i wasn’t afraid of scary hallucinations… i closed my eyes and after 15 minutes or so I wanted to move my leg, untill today i dont know why i did it, maybe i wanted to try if im still alive :wink:
i did it and then i felt extreme fear, i was like “oh no, i toggled the part of my brain, now i will see scary stuff” i opened my eyes and yes, i saw my sister making a really really scary face… I then said “ok, dont look at her, she doesnt exist, close your eyes and only mentain on your breath” i did it and after 1 minute i opened my eye again and saw, that my face was facing at the wall, but when i saw my sister, i was like facing the wall which was 5 metres away from me…

Does that mean… i was in a dream when I saw my scary sister? because i remember i didnt move the whole story i told untill now and all the time i was facing at the Wall right next to my nose… But, as said, when i saw my sister, i was facing the other wall…
It could be that i was in a dream… but could it really be?

5

You’re very welcome, glad you’re feeling more confident! :content:

I would say probably! That’s how it often is for me when doing WILD—not so sinister, but often I am not quite sure at first if I’m dreaming or still awake, because I’ll try to move and open my eyes and I’ll see my room around me. Usually subtle differences alert me—like that I’m in a different position than I was a moment ago (like you and the wall), or that some of the objects have been moved around, or something like that. You can always try something outlandish if you want to be sure—I often lift off the ground reflexively when I think I’m dreaming.

I’m sorry you had a frightening experience like that though! :bored: On the bright side, It sounds like you did successfully enter a dream, so if you want to keep trying WILD you likely have the right idea. It’s generally easier to do if you wake up after you’ve been sleeping for a while, as you did (you might already know that of course). Other than that, yeah—relax, pay attention to your hypnagogia (but don’t focus too hard—you want like “calm but interested”), and if you think you’ve entered a dream but you’re not quite sure, do a quick RC or try something that would be impossible in WL. Of course, if there’s a wild scary DC in the room all of a sudden that’s probably a good sign. :content:

6

I would like to thank Zon for completing my answer, I wrote about how dreams are basically hallucinations but I guess I was being over-complicated.

It is very possible that it was just a hallucination/dream. However, only you can confirm that…

[spoiler]I am not a big fan of self-promotion, but I guess this calls for my WILD scale. It could help you here Trance Levels With Awareness: A WILD technique. As far as my experience goes, I have not found any scale that is more accurate than that one. (It was based on hypnosis scales and adapted for WILD by myself.)
By checking the second table there you can see that there is a limb discomfort phase which you may wish to move. Then there’s another phase “Catalepsy Ends” in which you may move your limbs involuntarily.

I am just saying that the urge to move is actually very normal there.[/spoiler]

Zon claims that it’s easy to wake up by forcing to move. I have seen some people complain about trying to move during SP and since they realize they are paralyzed, they get more scared.

I really recommend to use the breath trick instead, which is much easier. Breathing is not affected by SP and you can take advantage of it voluntarily.
Just hold your breath for a few seconds (from 8 to 20) then take deep breaths. It has never failed me and usually breaks SP as soon as I take the first deep breath. Because of its reliability I have not needed any other technique yet.

7

Yes, definitely—what works for me may not work for others. That technique might be better. My SP is probably on the light side—I don’t think I’ve ever been paralyzed for longer than 5-10 secs. and I haven’t felt the fear that a lot of people report.

8

Yea and i think the SP isn’t really scary for me i mean i know how it feels to be not able move your body (i was once in coma and when i woke (after 2 weeks) up i couldn’t also move for like 2 minutes, i only saw my mother on my right sleep-sitting on a chair. :cry:

anyways :wiske: :wiske:
Zon,
when i saw my sister doing a scary face i closed my eyes and (like tggtt told) only concentrate on my breath heavily i managed to “wake” up. I then faced the wall, as told, but i had a mysterious feeling; i had the feeling after every dream that feeling that everything changed and im “living” now! but i don’t understand how i actually could see my scary sister, i mean, the moment i i did it was when i woke up accidentaly in the night and realized my legs were still “stunned” maybee from SP or i dont know, anyways i was only trying for WILD like 1 minute, then i just had an extrem desire to move my body and i saw my scary sister, you know how the story goes on. But, I never really tryed so hard getting this WILD and didn’t see any hypagnogia signs, nothing! Does that mean i can get extremely easy in WILD or just my fear that made my sister? im still thinking about this darn interesting thing…
If it may be that i was in a dream when i saw her, It means i can get extremely fast in WILD, which is epic :happy: :happy:
But if this just was made of my fear, then im scared :cry: :wallhit:
:wiske:

Anyways i also somehow got this “power” to realize im in a dream, for example the last few days i had lots of LDs, (actually 2 dreams :slide: :slide: )
There was like a situation like this:

I dont exactly know if this was in the beginning of the dream or later, (70% for the beginning) but it was like this : i was like standing in my room And some stuff happened in my room, i think my sister played on the computer while my brother watched her or so and then i was like “oh my god, im dreaming” I dont know, the first thought i just had was this, nothing else, i just knew im dreaming. afraid i go to my sister and check her face, and everything was good :good: no scary monsters and so on. I somehow was still afraid and went to my sister, saying “your not existing, your not real, your just an entity in my mind” She made a somehow wondering face and said “could be” Haha, somehow funny how my sister doesnt know she exists :lol:

But i only have the feeling that this “power” of just saying “im in a dream” is only because in last time, i really read lots of Lucid stuff, maybee thats why i can do this… Or can i train is somehow??
oh, and in waking life i sometime think “I know im living in real life, but i think the next time im in a dream” then i think of what i would do if this is a dream…
And in my second Lucid dream something same happend, i was jumping on my bed, and said “im in a dream”, Then there was a door next to me, i said “Hey Brain, guess what, im in an plane right now and if i open this door i will fly”, i opened the door and then -i think- my brain said “are you stupid? this door leads to another room, silly!” Then i got sad because my brain is smarter then me :cry:
And my really favourite wish is that i’m like a god and if i point on something the earth goes like boom and explodes and flys into the air, you know like these adrenalin-full-heros which run while gunshots fly near them and they hear the whistling, then they fight some bad guys like epic in slow-mo and jump on an jet and see that everything explodes and they just fly away
I really want that, but somehow i cant go into “my” world…
How can i access this world which only does what i want? so when i say “there will now grow an epic mountain in 9 seconds” it happens, and i can fly and do everything possible, you know, this stuff, because i have the feeling that in the world i wake up i haven’t got so many permissions, and i want to create my own World. and when i was in a lucid dream i always thought “im in a dream, i know, its epic” and done an RC every 20 seconds… Because im scared if i dont do this i forget that im in a LD and it becomes an normal dream again :ohno:
And somehow i have the feeling while im dreaming time goes normal on, but as soonest i wake up i like forget everything and the feeling (the epic feeling) i had while dreaming wasn’t here anymore! :ohno:

And thanks Tggtt and Zon for your posts at this question, really helpful and i think i lost 45% of my fear, thanks to you! :shy: :happy:
This is for you

[center] :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:
:bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: :bounce: [/center]

:wiske:

Greetings,

CrazyOsi3

:wiske:

9

When I used to have spontaneous* SP with bad hypnagogic hallucinations, I would pray to Buddha (something like “In the name of Buddha, you, awful spirit, go away!”) and it worked. If you believe in Jesus, Buddha, whatever, pray to him. If you dont, you can use this powerful sentence: “Sensations are just sensations**, this is not real”. While doing so, breath, focus on your breathing.

*before I even realize the existence of LD, in my teen years

** this is a budhist concept; when used on real life situations (like feeling sad, etc) it helps a lot do reduce suffering (and you must train some meditation, learn some buddhist concepts, etc in order to get more benefits)

10

The first step is working with expectations - dreams, especially lucid ones, run on them. Your SC will do absolutely everything in its power to make sure things play out the way they “should” - it’s one thing to say “Yeah this is a dream so I can fly” and another to actually make yourself believe it. Your experience with the door showed how this plays out.

The trick to getting such powers people talk about in LA is to slowly get yourself more comfortable with fantastical powers. While it’s logic-defying to try to fly with no aid, you might have just been watching the Harry Potter movies or something in which case you could spawn a broomstick (preferably off out of your sight, or simply reach out for one. It’ll be there for you if you want it) and start flying around on that. It’s less of a logic jump and a lot easier to believe, while still being impossible in the real world. That’s how I learned to fly. Eventually I found myself using the broom less and less - I just had to hold it for it to take effect without actually riding it. Pretty soon I was able to fly without a broom at all.

Raising a mountain is another really tricky thing to do because it’s such a big, obvious, wrong effect. You’re better off simply finding a corner you can’t see around and saying out loud “When i walk around this corner there will be a mountain”. Since you don’t know what’s around the corner and you’ve already planted the expectation of a mountain in your mind, there will be one there.

This also goes with why you see scary things - you’re expecting to see them. It’s not an easy thing to get over but it is possible. It sounds like you’ve already gotten used to the idea of recognising your sister and using that to your advantage to get lucid so you’re well on your way.

Regarding seeing your sister, yes that’s HH. Once you get past the initial sleep paralysis (which kicks in almost instantly after the urge to move is resisted) it generally comes reasonably quickly and a lot faster than you were probably expecting from the sounds of things. Great job with that! I know when I tried to WILD for quite a while I’d get too excited when I went into SP and it would just kick me back awake.

11

You are totally psyching yourself out by expecting scary stuff to happen. I mean, it does sometimes, but it totally doesn’t have to. The more scared you are, though, the more likely your brain will throw scary stuff up for you.

So how to get out of that conundrum? I’ll build on Elephant’s Buddhist ideas, as I’ve just come back from retreat so I’m all Buddhish, ha ha! When you try to fight your fear (or any other emotion) and try really really hard to not be afraid and tell yourself to not be afraid you can actually get in more conflict with yourself and everything gets messier and worse.

What might work better is to accept the reality of the situation, which is that you’re afraid of (or at least worried about) scary dreams or hallucinations. And then you can say things like: “Even though I’m feeling scared about what might happen if I try to WILD again or I do it wrong, I know I’m safe in bed and nothing bad can happen.” or “Even though the scary face of my sister really spooked me, I know she’s only my sister and she’s not going to hurt me.” And other things that start with ‘even though’.

Even though is pretty wacky magic when it comes to working with emotions. Even though I feel [X], I can try to [Y], or even though I want [X], I remember that [Y]. Keep thinking of Even Thoughs for a while and you’ll generally take the edge of whatever fear, rage, worry, shame, or other shitty feelings you got going on.

Good luck!

12

I know exactly what your going through i’ve had
an verge to an LD something atleast when suddenly after swirling around in the hypnagogia i turned down “in the thought” for me it feels like another place than the back of your eyelids if you know what i mean then suddenly after thinking alot of something i “came back” to my eyelids when suddenly a scary ass pop up face from the exorcist girl came and woow u can imagine how scared i was with her that mouth big i tried to look to my sides

then i was like uknow what when it didnt move i said i aint scared of you and then suddenly it washed away like hyonagogia but damn it scary lol

13

I dont agree with that statement as the times Ive experienced sleep paralysis, Ive ended up moving my toe to break it (which took heaps of effort, couldnt move right away) and never have I gone into hallucinations or HI due this.

In my case I bring myself to a normal waking state when I move and break the paralyses.

One would already be in the brain state prone to hallucinations when you find yourself with sleep paralyses as that often itself is a dream and manifestation of the subconsciousness.

14

got it all worked out for you right here! if anyone is still interested :cool:

https://community.ld4all.com/t/to-all-of-those-who-fear-the-sleep-paralysis-phase/40078

15

meh…

whoever posted that #7 quote is not true for me. i had my first SP a few years back, one of the scariest things i ever experiences. and i am like you, hallucinations scare me, especially if they are life like vivid.but believe it or not i managed to break my SP on like the 3rd time by trying really hard. also, after a while, i could control my SPs. i could break them any time as of today. the more you experience them, the more you have full control. the biggest problem is, once you break it your experience is over. you’ll be more frustrated breaking your SPs than anything. because you’ll never have any experiences.

btw, Sleep Paralysis is NOT related to LDs but OBEs. that is a huge misconception, and many people simply call everything LD in this community. SP happens pre-OBE. but you could have a LD without ever experiencing SP.

how do you get over your fear? you face it. i know it’s easier said than done, but that’s the best way.