I took my first attempt at having a lucid dream last night. I wasnt tryingto use the WILD method but i think thats what happened.I laid down in bed and relaxed myself. I them closed my eyes and told myself over and over “I am goign to have a lucid dream and i am going to remember it” After a while i started feeling myself fall asleep. As this happened i felt my eyelids start to twitch and the room felt like it was fading away. I could see like lines infront of my eyes like when you push on your eyes when they’re closed. Then it felt like i was being sucked into a black hole. This freaked me out and i opened my eyes.
Was this just me falling asleep or was a entering a dream.
I also read something about a part of sleep called rapid eye movement (REM) Is that why my eyes were twitching?
if you have any ideas or tips for me please tell me
I believe I came very close to a WILD last night – wasn’t even really trying. I was trying WBTB, as this has been successful for me in the past.
As I was lying there, relaxing my body, and focusing on becoming lucid in my dream, I began to feel the “vibrations” that I’ve heard about. Soon, I realized that I was in full SP. Then I began having HI – a black and white patten of random lines that began in the center of my field of vision and spread outward until it filled my vision. I felt somewhat disconnect from my body, and I decided to try sitting up. I could feel my upper body rising into a sitting position, but I knew that my physical body was still lying down. However I could not complete the action – I felt as if a force was pressing me back down, and I could not move my legs. Then I guess I got too excited by what was happening, and began to fall out of it.
I think I am going to start keeping a mini-journal of what I try each night so that I can go through a list and make sure I don’t make the same mistakes over and over.
Probobo, I agree. Being rather skeptical about all things supernatural and paranormal, SP and accidental WILDs seem to be a very good probable explaination for alien abductions, incubus, succubus, etc. To me at least.
I think that I’ve done a couple of accidental WILDs myself. One night I was laying in bed reminding myself to do reality checks if I end up being at my place of employment (a school). Then I was there, completely realizing it was a dream. I don’t remember doing a reality check or anything else before I was lucid, other than the fact that I was thinking about the school before I fell asleep.
Too bad I can’t seem to do WILD on purpose. I got very close to it on Friday night. I slipped into SP and started hallucinating a disturbing shadowy figure in the corner of my room, and it distracted me from the task at hand. But, I think I was pretty close to success, so, I’m encouraged.
And, last night, I was trying again and started to see a Pastor baptising a young woman. He was telling her not to slip on the steps. I haven’t been to church in years, so I thought it was odd. Then I heard a ‘pop’ and I jolted. I always hear funny noises and voices as I fall asleep.
Woo! My first intentional WILD this morning… followed a few minutes later by my second!
I didn’t get any vibrations or anything. I just woke up briefly, went back to sleep and was playing with my HI, imagining a toy car driving around my kitchen floor (for some reason) but I was controlling it. I kept thinking “Am I in a dream yet? Am I in a dream yet?” And it gradually got more vivid over the space of about a minute and then there I was, standing in my kitchen. Didn’t last long though, I couldn’t stop it fading out and I woke up, but did the same thing and found myself right back in my kitchen. Went outside, saw my girlfriend and flew off over my roof.
Hopefully this is a breakthrough and not a one off!
Last night, I was attempting to WILD, and I think I might’ve gotten close. I remained absolutely still and concentrated on my breathing and all and then my eyes started to twitch like crazy. I think there were a few twitches in other muscles, but is was mainly my eyes(they almost opened a couple of times). I got excited and stopped concentrating on my breath and came out of it, but I’m a bit confused. Was this possibly placebo, or my body rebelling because I was being so still? Because I had always thought the vibrations were more like, well, vibrations. As if your body was just vibrating, not twitching. My heartbeat was also very fast and my breathing was uneven, I’m guessing at least partly because I was getting excited. Someone said something about hearing loss, I think I might have experienced this too, but I’m not sure as the only noise was a cd player(not very loud) coming from my sisters room. I don’t think I’ve ever conciously experienced SP, but my body get really numb, so that I can’t even really tell what my position is anymore. Does all of this(i’m esp. curious about the eye twitching) mean I was close to WILDing? Also, I’ve heard it helps just to let your thoughts wander, but this seems to keep me to aware(i’ll start thinking about something from earlier that day for example), and I can’t fall asleep. I’m really excited about getting closer to WILDing, but I just can’t seem to achieve it, I have to much trouble falling asleep.
What you were experiencing was deep relaxation and possibly a light trance.
IMO you do dot want to let your thoughts wander. I believe that will keep you awake. Instead you want to let go of all of your other thoughts while keeping your attention on one small thing(like breathing).
You might want to try the falling technique I mentioned a page or two back. It works grate for me.
Anyway you are definitely showing signs of progress so stay with it. You will get there.
BTW- If you experience the vibrations or SP (not everyone does) you will not have to ask. You will know.
Thanx man. Can the thing you concentrate on be a visualization? Like a candle(maybe even doing it all of the time for consistency, imagining it as a “lucid light” or something)? Concentrating on my breathing did seem to help a bit, but counting(as i’ve heard helps) didn’t. I think I was concentrating to much on the numbers. I will check out your tech. and reply. Do those who don’t experience sp or vibrations, still have success with WILDing? I didn’t get the chance to try it again last night because I was trying to just get in a relaxed position for a few minutes before I attempted to fall asleep, and then sleep itself did sneak up on me while I was unprepared. But I’ll try it again tonight.
I’ve done something on my own that is maybe similar to the falling method. I imagine myself sinking into lower consciousness with each breath. It seems to help, but only to a point. Is the falling method essentially any different? Is the key the falling feeling?
Yes that is a good idea too. In fact “letting go of your consciousness” is exactly what you want to do(Most of it anyway). You only want to hold on to a tinny bit of your consciousness to crossover. Other people have also tried walking down stairs it is all the same. The goal here is to help you deepen your relaxation and bring yourself down into a trance then, to a dream. It is kind of hard to explain, you just sort of have to feel your way through it. You keep letting go of your thoughts until you are just slightly aware of your point of focus. From there things will just happen. You just go with the flow.
Yes the imagery can be anything a candle is good and I like the lucid light idea but, any simple object will do.
I never liked counting either. Like you I found it caused me to stay too awake. I have only had sporadic success with counting. More times than not, counting always caused me to fail.
Oh yes. According to most reports I have herd they just pop right into a dream fully lucid. In my own experience though, I only had that happen to me a few times. When I do WILD I almost always feel or experience something strange something. For example, last night I had violent seizures (don’t worry they were painless) that lasted for a few seconds then they stopped and I felt a pulling sensation on my body through my head then I blacked out for about a second and I was standing in my dream room fully lucid.
I know that all might sound scary but, it actually feels very cool and all of it is harmless. Now the seizures of course were not real. If someone was watching me at that point they would just see me sleeping peacefully in my bed. At that point I am already in my dream body.
Anyway, sorry I did not get a chance to answer your questions earlier.(long story)I hope this helps you and does not confuse you more.
How do you stay conscious long enough to slip into the dream while you’re concentrating on my breathing, it seems I start to let go of my thoughts but I end up letting go of too much or something and will go to sleep.
thnx milod, no im not confused. i’ve heard enuf about this stuff that it doesn’t really scare me, but i dunno maybe it will when it happens. neways, i tried WILDing last night and it was horrible. i just don’t think i can do it. i can get pretty relaxed and all, but i just can’t go beyond that. i even tried the falling tech and just letting go of things but i just couldn’t do it. you’ll prob say im trying to hard, but i dunno i just can’t do it. im shure this isn’t the only reason, but who knows it might be, but im having problems with my eyes. on their own or when i’m trying to visualize sumthing(which i can’t seem to do effectively, i just can’t “see” it, guess i don’t have enuf imagination) they squinch up, which keeps me unrelaxed and i have to force my face to relax and not to be tense, but even when i do get my face to relax completely, i have the terrible feeling(and it even happens a bit so im not really imagining it) that my eyes are going to slide open slightly(and a bit with my jaw, but not as bad), so they’re to relaxed. i don’t noe wut to do, im desperate, i really want to WILD. partn of the prob might be that i don’t fall asleep really easily. u’ve already helped me out a lot milod(with this and in the past), so if u don’t want to reply to this i understand, but sum1 plz help me, this is so frustrating.
Before you do any WILD technique it is important that you relax your body. I posted a good progressive relaxation technique in the meditationthread. You can record that routine to tape so you don’t have to think too much about what you are doing. However, if you do find that you become tense again simply tighten then relax that muscle. Keep doing that until it feels relaxed. Also you can imagine a ray of sunlight shining down on the muscle. Feel the sunlight soothing and relaxing the muscle.
As for visualization:
if you can not visualize an object simply focus your attention in the center of your fore head between your eyebrows. Try to imagine a white dot there but if you can not see it don’t worry about it. Keep your attention there anyway.
Here’s my frustration. Up until today, I didn’t even now what WILD was. However, I read a book by Castaneda in which the character is told to become conscious of his dreaming by recording the exact moment he falls asleep and staying conscious. Basically WILD - right?
So, I tried it out, was annoyed when it didn’t work, excited when it did. Now, thank you Carlos - I can’t sleep. I’m not exactly good at it, but oh, I’m definately WILDing.
All the time. I haven’t gotten a good night’s sleep for about 2 weeks now. Not even when I’m falling asleep at night, and impossible when I get woken up 4 hours later by my boyfriend’s alarm. So I’m getting about 15 minutes per hour.
To boot I’m bad at staying in my dream, and due to my method (I just sorta…get up and I’m in my house) I ain’t exactly jumping over buildings and talking to dead relatives. And although I appreciate the realism (and everything to my dismay will actually look exactly the same. Things are so real in fact, that when something’s different it’ll be scary different. There will always be that one minor detail. Like a 7 foot tall girl in a blue dress randomly standing on top of my bed, or my cat’s laying on the floor with a broken neck. Things, you know? Things that make one go “AGGH” and wake up.
Sometimes I just really want to be unconscious…So, any tips on either making my experience a little better or falling asleep without feeling those damn vibrations coming on?
Ok. Um, I tried to use WILD method. I woke at 8:00, waited an hour, and after that went to bad again. At first there was some feeling in my hands and legs, can’t really desribe it. but they didnt become paralized. then i had something that really looked like movement, that is, first i was feeling like i’m falling, then spinning around my body, and then like moving my head closer and further. No halucinations, sounds or anything. Then i felt a pain, it was weak and i actually knew i was just imagining it, so it didnt bother me. After i began to feel reallly hard to braeth, it lasted long time. Adfer that there was a pain in heels. It was getting more and more painful, i lied on my heels, so it was something like they were under pressure. In the end i wasnt able to endure it, so i changed my position. It was nearly 1.5 hours after beginning. Next 2 hours there was almost nothing. For last hour there was a feeling like the one i had when i went to dentist - freezing, it was similar, but too weak, and only outer part of my body was frozen, not the inner. So i counld move, i felt all my body. and it’s after 3.5 hours. So um, it looks like i did something wrong. need help.
For some reason, now I fall asleep too easily, used to be a lot like Dream Reacher. I think I have just been really tired lately. Maybe that is that better, no?
It’s generally easier to be unconscious that conscious ! Don’t practise at all for a month, and you’ll see the results. Perhaps you can also change your sleeping position.
About making your experience better, it would have been a good start if you haven’t read Castaneda. Great books indeed ! But all the Castaneda’s readers I know have had their best nightmares due to them.
I think that we have to doubt about some of their assertions. Do you remember the shared dream Castaneda had with La Gorda? They faced a tiger : Castaneda was afraid because he believed his dream to be “real”, since La Gorda told him “It’s just a dream”. Probably, Castaneda and La Gorda didn’t receive the same teachings about “dreaming”, though they were both teached by Don Juan… or Castaneda misunderstood something !
What you believe about dreams is what builds the “physical laws” of your dreams. So, if you believe you’re perceiving the waking reality through them, of course, you’ll be unable to modify your dreams. And of course, if you believe the 7 foot tall girl in a blue dress to be an “inorganic being”, it will be frightening.
I’ve met a lot of such “allies” in the time (in DILD’s). Now I changed my mind about what they are : just DC’s. A lot of WILDers meet such characters, they’re common during “sleep paralysis” too. You just have to realize you’re in a dream, that nothing can harm you and say to them “Hi ! How do you do ?” or asks them why they are here, etc.
Castaneda said : “Fear is the first natural enemy a man must overcome on his path to knowledge”. I feel it finds its obvious explanation when we try to dream lucidly.
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This discussion continues here → Part XIII
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Perhaps you can also change your sleeping position.
or Castaneda misunderstood something ! 
