Thread: WILD day work?

You might already be familiar with it, but if not, I suggest that you look at the first session of my DVA WILD class, which includes a thing I called a Reverse Reality Check. It might help, and it is by no means just another RC. Come to think of it, if you haven't seen it it yet, you might consider taking the class, because most of it is about day work; about getting your mind in the right place to WILD.

Here's the relevant text from that session:

Originally Posted by Sageous

How do you develop self-awareness? There are many ways, and we’ll likely talk about others during upcoming conversations, but the exercise I’ll offer today is simple introduction to the practice, sort of a Reverse Reality Check (RRC):

Here’s what to do: At random intervals during the day – at least once an hour but no more than three times in that hour – stop what you’re doing and wonder. Just hold still for a second and remember where you were five minutes ago, imagine where you’ll be in five minutes, and know that everything you’re doing right now has an effect on everything and everyone around you, and everything and everyone around you has an effect on you – even if you don’t realize it.

The important part here is to think deeply about your place in all the stuff that’s whirling around you at any given time, and to really think about what all that whirling is doing to you, and what you might be doing to the whirling. During waking life, you might find yourself very often assuming that there’s not much whirling about at all or that there’s not much of an exchange of effect going on. There always is, whether you can feel it or not. Think about the fact that there is an exchange of atoms between your feet and the floor you’re treading: in a sense you’re changing reality itself, if ever so slightly, just by standing there! It is therefore extremely important to take a moment and remember that you exist, and your existence matters – even if you don’t think it does. [Edit: Your focus during this questioning period should be on your interaction with your local reality -- things/people your presence has influenced, are influencing, and will influence, or things/people that have/will do the same to you. You should avoid getting too metaphysical or galactic, as that atoms example above might imply. For example, perhaps you were just sitting on the couch in your living room 5 minutes ago, doing nothing... sounds like nothing to wonder about, unless you think about the dent you left in the couch, how it will still be warm for the next person in the room, how your comfortable situation on the couch caused you to ignore an important phone call from your boyfriend; the list can go on and on, if you look).]

You don’t have to recite all those questions every time; that would be annoying, and the process of reciting all that might diminish the effect. Basically you should put it all into a single quick thought that means something to you, and allows wonder to linger after you’ve resumed moving through your waking day. It will be difficult at first, but with practice you won’t be using words at all when you pause, as the questions will have become second nature. Be very careful that the questions never lose their wonder, though. If they become rote -- just a bunch of words you say whenever your iPhone app goes off -- then you will have lost the point of doing the exercise because you will not be acknowledging your self.

Sivison's dream yoga exercises also help you stay mentally on track during the WILD attempt, especially these ones. http://www.dreamviews.com/dream-yoga...-thoughts.html

Originally Posted by Sageous

You might already be familiar with it, but if not, I suggest that you look at the first session of my DVA WILD class, which includes a thing I called a Reverse Reality Check. It might help, and it is by no means just another RC. Come to think of it, if you haven't seen it it yet, you might consider taking the class, because most of it is about day work; about getting your mind in the right place to WILD.

Here's the relevant text from that session:

So really just practicing self awarness helps in WILD, but why does that help?

Originally Posted by dolphin

Sivison's dream yoga exercises also help you stay mentally on track during the WILD attempt, especially these ones. http://www.dreamviews.com/dream-yoga...-thoughts.html

Thanks. Such helpful information.

Originally Posted by AlexTheDreamer

So really just practicing self awareness helps in WILD, but why does that help?

Because self-awareness essentially equals lucidity.

So if you are able to summon your self-awareness and maintain it throughout your WILD dive, you will have a much easier time navigating the path to sleep and your dream, and, of course, you will be fully lucid once the dream begins.

Practicing self-awareness helps with DILD, too, BTW.

Originally Posted by AlexTheDreamer

So really just practicing self awarness helps in WILD, but why does that help?

Self-awareness allows you to have conscious knowledge of whatever situation you're in. It is essential in lucid dreaming but even more so in WILD because you additionally have to consciously know when you're entering a dream from the waking state.

There are 6 layers of self-awareness. It's a bit challenging for me to put it into my own words, but you can find it on Wikipedia and other sources if you research self awareness. Here's what somebody going through the layers might think during a dream.

Layer 0-Confusion-----------zzz
Layer 1-Differentiation------I see something
Layer 2-Situation------------I have an idea what's going on
Layer 3-Identification-------This is a dream!
Layer 4-Permanence--------This is a dream! I'm going to try my dream goal.
Layer 5-Self Consciousness-This is a dream! I'm going to talk to my higher sel...Wait! Is this somebody else's dream?

Obviously, you have to have enough self-awareness to be able to consciously identify what you're experiencing, but you need even more self-awareness to realize that there's a past you that had dream goals in mind and even more to see yourself from somebody's else perspective. So, self-awareness is useful for a wide variety of things.

Single-point meditation. This form of meditation will teach you to focus your mind, your intention, on a single thing. This focus will help you maintain self-awareness as you transition from the waking to the dreaming state. It is the loss of focus, self-awareness, that causes almost all WILD failures (excluding failure due to the inability to focus properly at all). If you fall asleep in the process, you lost focus, lost self-awareness.

I've said on another thread that mindfulness meditation is great for maintaining lucidity once you already have it, because it helps you maintain focus on the bigger picture, your interaction with your surroundings, in this case the dream. But it is single-focus meditation that gets you in the door.

I don't know why exactly, but my go-to technique is SSILD, an off-shoot of WILD. I use it not just after waking but any time during the day as well. It is a combination of a focal awareness technique and a hypnotic induction. But it still requires focus to make it happen. Gratuitous, perhaps, but just had to throw that in.

If you have the dedication necessary to regularly practice meditation, this should help a lot.

Originally Posted by Sageous

Because self-awareness essentially equals lucidity.

So if you are able to summon your self-awareness and maintain it throughout your WILD dive, you will have a much easier time navigating the path to sleep and your dream, and, of course, you will be fully lucid once the dream begins.

Practicing self-awareness helps with DILD, too, BTW.

Ok so being aware of my self will help me not to get lost in random thoughts right? But don't we need to eventually get lost at least a little for ourselves to fall asleep, or am I wrong with that?

@ dolphin Thanks. Even more helpful information.

Originally Posted by madmagus

Single-point meditation. This form of meditation will teach you to focus your mind, your intention, on a single thing. This focus will help you maintain self-awareness as you transition from the waking to the dreaming state. It is the loss of focus, self-awareness, that causes almost all WILD failures (excluding failure due to the inability to focus properly at all). If you fall asleep in the process, you lost focus, lost self-awareness.

I've said on another thread that mindfulness meditation is great for maintaining lucidity once you already have it, because it helps you maintain focus on the bigger picture, your interaction with your surroundings, in this case the dream. But it is single-focus meditation that gets you in the door.

I don't know why exactly, but my go-to technique is SSILD, an off-shoot of WILD. I use it not just after waking but any time during the day as well. It is a combination of a focal awareness technique and a hypnotic induction. But it still requires focus to make it happen. Gratuitous, perhaps, but just had to throw that in.

If you have the dedication necessary to regularly practice meditation, this should help a lot.

couldnt I also try this throughout the day even if I don't meditate. Like if I were doing something like running or swimming, I could just repeat the mantra like " I am aware" or is this not the equivalent to meditating.

"I am aware".
This mantra could possibly help with self-awareness, but no, it is not at all the same, and it would teach you nothing that would benefit WILDing in terms of maintaining your conscious awareness while waiting for your body to fall asleep.

Single-point mediation teaches mental focus. It teaches you how to cut out mental distraction. It teaches you how to keep your intent (maintaining conscious awareness) intact, because the problem people have when WILDing is that they lose that focus when randomly occurring thoughts slip into their mind as they get closer and closer to sleep. The mantra is about making yourself aware of the moment, potentially making yourself more aware of 'self' in the moment, but it does not teach focus, the bugaboo of WILD.

Hope this clarifies

Yea I do see how meditation works better for WILDs.

Originally Posted by AlexTheDreamer

Yea I do see how meditation works better for WILDs.

Your enthusiasm dost brimeth over, lol.