Scared to WILD

I don’t really understand what exactly you’re afraid of. Can you explain it a bit better, like what do you sense and what happened in RL and what are your fears exactly?

^ What Bird said, plus what it it that you want to do that requires a WILD and not any other kind of -LD?

Since you’re already a lucid dreamer, maybe you can meet a DC that represents your fear and have a nice chat with it.

i think xxmoriahxx is afraid to WILD because she doesn’t know if what she will get into will be a dream or an OBE. i haven’t had a successful WILD, so i can’t say much about it, but it’s unclear if OBEs are real of just real lifelike LDs. that must be what she’s afraid of - that instead of a LD she’ll get into a crazy world that can actually harm her, cause it’s not a dream.
i just wanted to sort of translate to you guys who didn’t catch this :wink: i hope i got it right, xxmoriahxx.

Hmm… I should explain better. Things happen to me that don’t happen to other people, if you catch my drift. Seeing things, hearing things… and no I’m not crazy, I can assure you of that. The best way to explain it is I have a ‘sixth sense’. I never asked for it, and I would be lying if I said the things I see and hear don’t scare me.

People who WILD sometimes report seeing and hearing wierd things as they enter the dream state. I’m afraid to lose perception of what is real and what isn’t. I won’t know if what I’m experiancing is real or just part of the WILD. I’m afraid that if I think something if part of the WILD, it might actually be real and try to harm me. I know it sounds really confusing, but you’ll just have to believe me. You could only fully understand if you experiance things like I do.

Not WILDing isn’t an option for me, so don’t suggest that. I want to work past my fear, but I don’t really know how.

I hope that explained it a little better. :smile:

thank you for explaining a bit more, I don’t think you are weird or anything but I myself don’t have a sixth sense so I don’t really know how to help you.

The only thing I can come up with is control. If you can control something it’s part of your imagination and thus a LD. But taking control may be hard sometimes because you have to be conscious of your own fears and the thoughts that come from that fear. For instance, if you see an angry dog and you’re afraid it’s going to bite you, it will bite you, but if you stay calm and be aware of your own fear and thoughts you can bend your fear into something else, like imagining the dog turning into a flower and it will. So whenever you don’t know if something is real or part of your LD you can try to take control. If it doesn’t work it’s for real. But you have to keep in mind that your fear may not be greater than the attempt to control the situation because you won’t succeed then and it might as well be a LD instead of something real.

I hope I helped you a little. But really I have no sixth sense and don’t know what’s out there that makes you scared but I wish you the best of luck. :smile:

What do you do in waking life that makes you feel safe? Praying for protection, or drawing a circle in the air around your bed with a stick of incense / on the ground with a piece of chalk, or setting something at your door that represents a bouncer?

i do have a similar ‘sixth sense’ as you call it, but probably not as often as you. i’ve seen strange things, most of them were indeed good and nice somehow, but i’ve seen a few really scary things too. particularly one that i will always remember. but somehow it doesn’t scare me to do WILD (even though i suck at it and it has never worked yet xD lol)… somehow i’m not even afraid of the ‘old hag’ - i just… don’t think about it. i think that ‘it is not probable’. and if it happens - i’ll deal with it. think of it this way… bad example maybe, but… we all gotta die, right? and we all will. what happens when we die? we don’t know. but we have to. we’ll go somewhere we don’t know. what else can we do than just… go and see it for ourselves…? now i know WILD isn’t as forced as death :colgate: hehe. but still, same thing sort of? you know you might see something out of the ordinary, but… as a sixth sense holder, you must know - what you SOMETIMES see, is here ALWAYS. it’s just that you don’t see it more often (maybe luckily). but it’s there. so why aren’t you afraid to just be here…? what is it going to change if you see it? it could harm you without you even seeing it, probably. so what, do we have to stop living now? same with the WILD. you’re going to have to face this stuff (probably) when you die, so why not face it now (if you accidentally see something like that while WILDing)?

to the ones who don’t really have this ‘sense’, my passage must’ve sounded really weird :tongue: sorry about that.

also, i know some of the things you see are strange and scary. but do you believe that’s the only thing that’s there? that is not only a problem of your WILD or dreams, that’s a problem of you LIFE. if you believe you’ll only see bad things, you will. i’ve seen some of this, but it was good more times than bad! so why don’t you see the good instead? focus on the good. if you WILD, make yourself feel like if you see something, it will be something good! who knows, it might even be a spirit guide or something :wink: concentrate on the GOOD side, cause you know it, it’s not only the bad there! it’s what you let yourself see.

also, you should read Stanislav Grof’s “When the impossible happens”. it might make you feel less alone or ‘crazy’ and you might get a new look on these things :smile:

good luck, and keep a positive view on this, you’ll do just fine :smile: hope i helped.

Thank you sooo much avalinah. That really helped. I’ve never thought of itthat way before.
By the way, it’s wierd that you talk about an ‘old hag’… I’ve had some bad experiences involving creepy old women that other people can’t fully see. But it’s probably just a coincidence. Either way, I’ve become quite uncomfortable around old ladies, lol :razz:
But again, thanks. It might tale a few nights for me to build up the courage to WILD, but it doesn’t seem so hopeless now. :meh:

well i guess you don’t know about the old hag then. i forbid you to look it up then :happy: you don’t need to know about it, and it’s only just a thing in a dream.

lol, scared of old ladies huh :smile: somehow reminded me of Snow white :happy: apples…

i’m really glad i could help :smile: i makes me want to jump with happiness that i finally helped someone too with my views :lmao: i’m generally not as bright with my views, but when i saw how you see this… it was new for me, cause i never thought it could be seen this way. definitely concentrate on the good :smile: it’s waiting for you around the corner! there is an old saying i really really like… “if 15 days of the month have been rainy, the other 15 will definitely be sunny again” :smile: so… if you’ve seen all the nasty old ladies and haven’t seen any bright light yet… there must be a lot of bright light things waiting for you there over the corner :happy: just expect them to be there, and they will :wink: you know they’re there don’t you :hugs:

@avalinah and @bird: dayum :lol: nicely put!

@bird: about the dog part, I believe that’s exacly how it works. It’s a closed loop: your fear makes the dog (or whatever you may experience during WILD) become scarier, which will increase your fear. So fear just amplifies itself! It’s ok to be afraid, just don’t let fear overwhelm you. Being conscious of your fear lets you take a deep breath and try to stay calm.

I just realized that’s exactly how I imagine this so called old hag. I’ve never seen her (or anything else). My worse WILD was when I had SP and felt someone tickling me. :bored:

I also never think about the possibility of it being scary. Maybe because it never has been for me. But then again, I don’t have any sixth sense (that I’m aware of!) so everything I say may just well be ignored :tongue:

@xxmoriahxx: is there anything reocurring in your experiences? like, if you see people that aren’t there (random example), is there a certain person that keeps appearing? And/or are they… “dreamy”? I don’t know… everything hypnagogic has a very dream quality for me, so it’s easy for me to separate it from “real” things…

Also, not sure if this helps, if you see HI that scares you, you can just snap out of it! If you’re in SP it can feel a bit scarier, I guess, but I usually just start taking quick and shirt breaths and SP goes away in seconds. What I mean is, it’s unlikely that a WILD attempt will have a scary “point of no return”, where you get sucked into a dream. You can always try to take baby steps! :smile:

mattias: There aren’t many reoccurring things. They’re mostly just kinda random. The things I see are kind of shadowy but very real. However, I only actually see things rarely. Mostly I hear things, like voices and… other stuff I just don’t like to talk about. And no I’m not crazy. Well, as far as I know. :smile: By the way, are there any other easy ways to get out of SP? It makes me feel a lot safer to know that I can get out if it gets too much. Also, you said it’s unlikely to get to a ‘point of no return’, but does that mean it’s still possible?
Thanks for replying :smile:

Changing your breathing pattern will supposedly get you out of SP.

Yes, that’s the most efficient and easiest, mattias said that as well.

probably, by shirt, he meant short…

You can also command yourself to get rid of the SP, but that’s harder.

Once as you can open your eyelids, it will go away quicker and quicker. No need to fight or panic.

the hearing things one… i actually read one interesting post here on LD4all about how people sometimes hear voices, especially when they’re going to sleep. it can be a natural phenomenon. too bad i don’t have the link now :meh:

I’m just scared to do it :bored: I’m not the most brave person in the world. So, If I hear ONE thing, I just get up. I’ve already heard someone say “Hey Josh” (My name) Springs um… springing :happy: I’ve just not been brave enough to do it. So, Is it really THAT scary? Is the transition from reality to the dreamworld cool? How about into SP?
Thanks in Advance,
Josh

Merged with similar topic :tardis:

I don’t know how it works for other people but I can step out of SP real easily, either at night or in the morning. What I do is just calmly start to move. It’s normal to feel resistance but if you just take it calmly you can “break” out of it real easily.

If you’re having HI, it’s all about where you’re focus lies. Whenever you want the HI to stop you can make it stop by focussing on something else like your physical body. It brings you back to the world around you. You can start to take breaths on demand and that will loosen you a bit. Then swallow or move your head or limbs and free you are.

When you’re at the point of moving your dream body while still lying in bed and you want to go back to your physical body and out of SP, you can also put your focus back on your physical body.
When you experiment with it bit by bit you’ll learn to recognize what’s going on. You’ll start to recognize the feelings and you’ll know when you feel your dream body or physical body. To me those two feel very different from each other. At first when you’re not used to it yet you’d say that those are the same thing but they aren’t.
If you’re feeling your dream body and you want to go back to your physical body and get out of SP, all you have to do is to stay calm and focus on your physical body. It’s like a switch. Once you’re back to your physical body but you’re still in SP you can focus on breathing, that will take some SP away and you can start to move your limbs to awake you completely.

Just try to take it step by step, explore and keep the control on your side.
When you know you are in control of your mind and body you can leave HI and SP whenever you like.

What creates the old hag is fear of the unknown. It may happen when you are in SP and you desperately want to move and get out of there. It happens when you’re confused and focussed on what you don’t know. Makes you see, feel and hear usually scary things which can cause you to panic. Remember that you can change anything because you have control. Be conscious about the situation, your thoughts and emotions. You have to overlook the situation, stay calm, relax yourself and choose what you want, leave or play with what’s in your room or enter a LD maybe?

First of all, I don’t think you’re crazy :tongue: I’ve read of many people that hear things. One guy was able to develop the ability to talk with his subconscious while completely awake. My opinion is that it should be a great skill to improve your connection with your SC. Now, if what you see/hear is scary, then I guess it’s a bit different. And I’d only call it “crazy” if you had this so frequently you couldn’t separate reality from it, and if you heard voices that told you to kill people and stuff :bored:

Anyway, I use the short breaths (yep, it was a typo xD) and it works very well. I’ve heard you can wiggle your fingers and toes and it helps. The one thing you don’t want to do (which is what most first timers do) is try to force your body to move. It only increases the feeling of fear and panic and sometimes even seems to deepen SP.

And sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you with the “point of no return”. I’m just not sure I’m in a position to say it’s impossible. But I was thinking more on the lines of having an FA or something. I truely doubt it’s possible for your own body to trap you in SP and force you to experience scary things.

I’m sure most people have these “terrifying experiences” when WILD’ing because, or they expect them (from reading all about the hag), or because they have no idea what to expect. The feeling you get can be very surreal, but not necessarilly scary… just weird. I tend to find weird funny :lol:

A certain very helpful Ryan Hurd has a topic in ‘Article Space’ about how to get out of sleep paralysis. He says that the single most effective and reliable way to escape SP is scrunching your face up a couple of times!

https://community.ld4all.com/t/9-ways-to-wake-up-from-sleep-paralysis-by-ryan-hurd/33471

Okay so… is it easy to separate HH from RL stuff? Like, how will I know if something is real or not?

Also, this is a question for anyone who actually knows what I’m going through: Is there a way to block out the other ‘things’ from my life? Because I feel like every time I open up my mind, I get swarmed by ‘things’ trying to get at me. Even as a kid, I could never have an imaginary friend, because my communication with it would always get intercepted. I would always be unsure if the voices in my head were my ‘friend’ or… something else. And then I would start to hear voices out loud, and see things… and I’d get into a bad situation that I didn’t know how to get out of.

So basically, is there a way to shut it all out alltogether? Or am I stuck with this for life? Because it’s really bothering me. It’s also the cause for minor OCD, which I know the only way to get rid of would be to get rid of the ‘things’.

Thanks, everyone, for all the replies.

What I want to say here is a little bit different, but making a new topic isn’t really necessary I think :smile:

Anyways, yesterday I tried WILD for the first time, I did the things they say you to do so from the LD4ALL Guide (Counting 1 - I’m dreaming 2 - I’m dreaming 3 I’m Dreaming etc) and keep on hearing your breath etc. I also visualized stairs I was walking on step by step using seconds.

It was hard to do it all at the same time, but when I finally managed it I kept on doing it and that lasted like a minute. But then, suddenly my whole body began feeling so weird, as if my life was being sucked away. So I immediately jumped out of it and figured it’s actually pretty damn scary. I then almost couldn’t sleep anymore because of the feelings I just had. And also imagining that I could’ve been going to hear voices etc.

Can someone convince me to keep on doing WILD?