Chapter 1 : Physical
Hypnagogic state
Sleep consists of different stages. When falling asleep, you go through a transition stage from waking to sleeping. This is called the hypnagogic stage. In that one the HI, HH, and HS occurs. I will now explain in little more detail what to expect from it. Note that you may or may not experience all of those phenomena.
Hypnagogic Imagery, Sounds, and Hallucinations
Imagery
The imagery is the visuals that you see “on” your eyelids. Do not mistake them for your imagination/visualization. It can be a range of things, lines, dots, shadows, they vary in color and shape. If you get too involved with them you will fall asleep pretty fast. The trick is to passively observe them. In the beginning you can even comment on them to yourself, that way your consciousness won’t fall asleep easily.
There is a distinct difference between imagery and imagination.
When people say don’t get too involved in HI, they mean that you should try not to associate shapes and visualize a clear picture when you see HI. Note that you can do this and WILD with visualization but it tends to consume all of your consciousness and you fall asleep too fast. It is much easier to stay aware with HI than it is with visualization. For some people HI is the way to a WILD and for others visualization works better. So, how to tell the difference? HI you see with your real eyes, and visualizations you see with your minds eye. If you try shifting your attention from your real eyes to your mind’s eyes, you will notice the difference. What you see with your real eyes in the beginning is still not real HI; it’s called “phosphenes”, and it’s caused by your brains activity in visual part. Watching phosphenes gets you really fast to real HI and HH. Although there was a lot debating about what is HI or what isn’t, I still haven’t found the real and backed up explanation for it, but this seems true enough.
Sounds
Hypnagogic Sounds settle in when you are very close to sleep. They may be unfamiliar sounds, well known sounds, or voices of relatives. The experience can be astonishingly real. Most people “freak out” at this point and wake themselves up. You must stay calm trough this phase, even if you hear bombs falling, because the sounds are not real.
Hallucinations
Last, but not the least, the hypnagogic hallucinations. Those are very similar to imagery but the difference is that they are often a whole, vivid, scene that includes sounds , sometimes even feelings, and unlike imagery they tend to exist for few seconds even when you open your eyes. They are your best friend when it comes to WILD. Why? Because after some time watching them they become a dream you can “step into”.
Sleep Paralysis
Your body enters sleep paralysis so you don’t do in RL what you do in a dream. SP settles in after the hypnagogia, when you are asleep. If there was no SP, and you had a dream that you were in your room, and you got out of bed and jumped through a window to fly, you would do two things:
- You would fly ( in a dream).
- You would NOT fly, and possibly die, because you had no SP in RL.
The other, more likely, possibility is you would simply wake up because your body is moving. As a result, you would sleep poorly because every dream you have would wake you up.
So, SP is not unnatural or something to fear, think of it as a big help, and it happens every night regardless of you being aware of it or not. When it happens just go with the flow.
Vibrations/Wind
Some, but not all, people who practice WILD experience vibrations going through their body. The vibrations should not be mistaken for that little numbness feeling, as they are quite different and you can’t miss them. They have a very electric quality to them, something like being shocked by electricity, but they should not be painful. Some people experience a cold wind blowing through their body instead of vibrations. People who reported wind, experienced an OBE rather than LD. Vibrations/Wind is a good sign you are getting there. When/if you experience them, wait until they become stronger then try to roll over and you should be in a dream. If you wait too long you could just remain awake in that state. Note when rolling over you could do it in two ways, imagining it, or trying physically to move, use the way that works for you.
Here are some other ways to move towards a dream.
- Imagine yourself sinking head first.
- If you experience strong HH use that to enter dream.
- Imagine going trough a wall if you are lying against one.
- Float to the ceiling.
- Imagine spinning your body (like rolling over) as fast as you can and let momentum of that movement help you roll over into dream.
- Use imagination, whatever gives you strong feeling of moving your body or strong HH can work.
Distractions
The distractions are the worst enemy of any person practicing WILD, but not a strong one though.
The Itch
Possibly the most common distraction for any beginner.
The good news? It’s all in your head, yes the itch is imagined thing, but too common for you to give it some thought. The key to overcoming this problem is
a) Realizing
b) Shifting your attention away from it
a) Realizing
When you experience it, try to move it just a little, up or down. You will succeed.
From there, move it some more, when you moved it a little, you can move it some more, right? Well, if you can move it, it doesn’t really exist, and as soon as you realize it’s not real it will go away, if not, just want it disappear and it will.
b) Shifting your attention
The key to this technique is, well, you guessed it, shifting your attention to something else. Use HI, any feeling, thoughts, anything that is far away from your real body. Your dream body can’t itch, unless you want it to.
Saliva
This, too, is a common problem as swallowing will ruin your attempt at WILD.
It’s recommended to swallow at beginning, and as you progress towards sleep you won’t salivate as much. Like any other distraction, it’s only a problem if you focus on it. Again, you must shift your attention elsewhere. It helps if you gently press the tip of your tongue against the inner portion of your lower teeth. If you wonder how can it help, try lifting your tongue so you touch upper portion of your mouth as deep as you can; it makes you produce more saliva than normal. Well, lowering your tongue does the opposite.
External distractions
This kind of distractions can’t be helped, or can they?
If there is not too much distraction from the outside world you can do something about it. As you practice WILD you will, sooner or later, learn how to fall asleep faster and slower, you will be more aware of the process. So, use that to your advantage, start falling asleep fast, then when you are deep enough so you hear more buzzing in your ears than outside world, just continue as you would if there where no distractions.