WILD Awareness Training

This is a simple technique for those who wish to improve their awareness on the borderline of sleep. Those of you who have read Stephen LaBerge's exploring the world of lucid dreaming may recognise the following quote:

Stevenson was not explicit about whether his brownies were characters of lucid dreams. It appears from his reports that they were mental images that appeared during lucid hypnagogic reverie. The technique the writer used was to lie in bed with his forearm perpendicular to the mattress. He found that he could drift easily into his familiar fantasy workshop, and if he fell into a deeper sleep, his forearm would fall to the mattress and awaken him.

So basically you lie down to go to sleep, as you get closer to sleep raise your forearm so its balanced at the elbow. It shouldn't feel in any way uncomfortable, and you should be able to continue your descent into sleep as normal. If you're not sure what i mean take a look at one of Da Vinci's most famous works below:



http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4088244/Pics/perparm.PNG

The idea is simple, relax and attempt to fall asleep as normal while maintaining a thread of awareness. Observe the onset of sleep, watch as hypnotic imagery begins to form in your vision, and see how you get sucked into it and slowly lose consciousness. If at any point you actually fall asleep your arm will fall and wake you. The objective is to retain a degree of awareness and observe your body falling asleep, aswell as to practice playing on the borderlands of sleep without succumbing to it. The nice thing about this technique is that you can try as many times as you wish, usually WILD is a one shot thing (you either get it or you fall asleep).

I thought id share an extract from a recent experience to finish off:
As i fell deeper I heard what sounded like someone breathing beside me, calmly and rhythmically it continued even though i was alone in the room. I guessed it maybe the beginning of sleep paralysis or hypnogogia, but listening peacefully i realised it was my breathing, and that i had no control over it nor connection with it. Id fallen asleep, or atleast my body had, but here i was still consciously thinking with waking awareness. It was an amazingly freeing feeling. I decided to find out if my body was paralysed by moving (even though i wasn't in REM) and the experience was ended =(.

Have fun all and good luck with your lucid endevours =)

Sounds interesting. I took a nap this afternoon, and while trying to WILD, a sound woke me up at the borderline between conscious and asleep, the thing is that I don't even noticed that I was already almost asleep; I remained still, tried to stay conscious and enter a dream, but fell asleep.

I have a question: when your arm fall, do you continue with the WILD without moving or raise your arm again, moving ?

This is very interesting. I'm going to try this tonight!

This isn't a WILD technique as such, its main purpose is to help train you to remain aware during a WILD attempt. The arm acts as a safety net ensuring you dont fall completely unconscious and therefore allowing you to observe the 'falling asleep' process at your leisure.

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the thing is that I don't even noticed that I was already almost asleep

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Yeah, thats common for most people i think, usually you attempt to WILD and then wake up an hour later wondering what went wrong :doh:. Sleep has a tendency to sneak up on you like that. Thats what this technique is attempting to help with.

This would be a great tool for trying to maintain consciousness into a dream, while not falling all the way into sleep.

Wow really needed something like this, keep falling asleep on my WILD's. Will try this tonight, thanks!

i tried this last night but i just wouldnt fall to sleep

As I start to drift off into an unconscious state and fall asleep, my arm start to sway for a while and then drop.

I lost focus. I do though think that this will definitely help.

EDIT: Has anyone had any real success with this? Has it helped keep you alert enough to attain lucidity?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DynoTAP

Has anyone had any real success with this? Has it helped keep you alert enough to attain lucidity?

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I have tried similar things. I find the uncomfortability to be hard on the falling asleep process.

I guess people are just different -- I didn't find this uncomfortable at all. I forgot that my arm was even in the air until it started to drop. What should I have done after that? I fell asleep shortly after. Should I have started WILDing?

OH! sorry I didn't read the lines beneath the picture the first time 'round. Pff..

Wow! that makes me want to try this again with much more focus and determination.

This should be called a AILD .. lol... but im gonna try this.

I've done this while attempting to meditate sitting up while extremely tired. I'd notice my thoughts wander off, and dream scenes will start to appear briefly and I'll be in them, non-lucid briefly until my head would tilt forward and I would snap back to aware and awake. I certainly think this is something that could help me, I've been trying to tread the line and WILD without success so far, I'm sure I'll nail it soon :P

Hi! Is there any way to do this when sleeping on your stomach? You see I get uncomfortable easily while laying on my back so if you can help me that would be wonderful! Thanks!

-Rose