A Successful WILD

[BillyBob]

Hi guys and gals. A brief history about me: I used to be a hardcore LDr (specializing in WILD; having hundreds of them), then I gave it up due to various reasons +/- 3 years ago. Although I rarely LD anymore, occasionally I'll do an experiment to hone my knowledge on the subject. Recently I did an experiment that was extremely successful; having not had an LD in over 2 years I decided to test some ideas I'd been mulling over for 'the perfect WILD.' At the time I was sleeping on the floor of a friends apartment with no sheets - I had been doing it for over a month though, so it shouldn't have effected the result. In the spirit of not misleading you and also to save myself a lot of hassle, I've decided to just post my personal journal entry verbatim (written so I could repeat the experience months-years later). I don't know what will make sense and what will be nonsensical to you all, but that's ok I think. Think of it as an unadulterated glimpse into the mind of an extremely seasoned WILDer. Oh yeah; why should you care about this? I think this is special because it perfectly emulated the process I used 4 years ago to get "5 second WILDs" every night. This experiment was done with 0 training after over 2 years of not WILDing. If I did this nightly I could easily get back to my old record because I can see what I was doing now. Hopefully you can use this to improve your own lucid dreaming results. Hope it helps __________________________________ Situation: I had decided to have a lucid dream this night, but hadn't fully decided how I'd go about it. I woke up at around 5 am, 10 hrs after having gone to sleep. I had been waking and falling back to sleep repeatedly because I had to go to the bathroom, and also because I was very cold. I had just had a low level lucid dream a little while before I got up and used the bathroom+got water. It was nothing special, just a few seconds of me controlling the dream. When I got up I was semi horny and decided I'd try for a lucid dream, passively I was thinking I'd slept too long to actually get one, but I thought maybe it'd help too. Without much thinking I went with my gut instincts and put two towels over my cold body, put in earplugs, and laid on my back. Remembering back when I was able to get into a dream in seconds, I had an insight and decided to just count my breaths passively and say "I'm dreaming, 1.." etc while simultaneously inducing the mental lull of 'passing out into a dark sleep' (note, not 'passing out into a dream, but instead exactly what I'd do to try and fall asleep at night). I started relaxing my body to begin with. Also here in the beginning I experimented passively with zazen-like overloading of the mind with internal experiences (not my heartbeat or visuals, but internal impressions). At the beginning I passively noticed that I was getting no visuals whatever and couldn't induce them at all, so I started focusing on the back of my brain. I started to get impressions of seeing things, but nothing solid happened. After a short period of doing this I started to 'see' 'images' of text and 'images' of ideas. I continued passively focusing on the back of my head till I got some images, then let them take over on their own. They weren't overpowering or mindblowing but they were there. From here on anytime I found myself 'thinking' about anything or getting 'excited' about 'the dream I'm going to go into.' I induced the feeling of slipping into oblivion exactly as I would at night ("just trying to go unconscious") while also very lightly continuing with my "I'm Dreaming, #." Anytime I noticed I had slipped away for a little while (stopped counting) I extremely passively started back at the last number I remembered. At one point I was saying "I'm dreaming, 50, I'm dreaming, 60, I'm dreaming, 52" and knew very passively that I wasn't counting linearly, but instead of waking myself up more I slightly tried to count better while simultaneously trying to pass out harder. After awhile the back of my head started hurting and I felt the exact sensation I do at night when my body tells me to turn over and go to sleep. So I turned over exactly as I would at night (reflexively). At this point I started feeling excited. Instead of fighting it I just shot it down and continued to focus on the sleep feeling. The oblivion thing was an actual brain sensation I get when I'm going to sleep at night. I noticed that if I focused "above myself" I could feel it - a mindless mental numbness that lead to pure egoless unconsciousness. I suppose I was pushing to shut my 'me-ness' down. A theory is that I could be actively shutting some part of my prefrontal cortex off. "Shutting part of my brain down" in a very organic slow way. Very soon after laying on my side I was passed out. This was when I was still losing track of what number I was on. I kept drifting in and out of saying the numbers, but the feeling of pushing myself into that fuzzy sleep feeling was fairly constant. I remember snatches of sensations and very low level visual dreams. Normally this would have caused me to get excited, but instead I redoubled my efforts to go to sleep - like if you remember a pressing thought at night but really need to get to sleep. eventually the occasional low level visual dreams continued to build into more formed ones. I remember one minidream where I was in "mom's old classroom" at church moving "my" small bookcase from my room and trying to find a place to put it. I was totally unconscious and just dreaming, but at some point I must have had the lingering sensation that I had stopped counting, because I had a burst of consciousness. It wasn't complete consciousness, but I was partially aware. It was pitch black but I 'knew' I was standing in a hallway at my childhood church. I thought about how I really needed to find someone to fix the lights when I shifted to a vision of me seeing a sign about an electrician. I started walking through the entryway room and called out his name when he appeared and it because bright. At this point I felt more or less totally "me," but unbeknownst to me irrationalities continued throughout the rest of the dream. I was impressed by how lifelike the dream was. I felt my dream body's internal sensations as I moved without any sense of my real body at all which at this point was in an odd position on it's side that undoubtedly had pressure points. I saw/had the impression of the electrician standing down the hall, but I said mentally "Perhaps my brain can't simulate both a human being and all these subtle sensations at the same time?" When I thought of talking to the man I had the sensation of losing my body (going into my head and everything turning to imagination). Overall though the dream was very 'hard' and 'solid' especially compared to the last three years of dreams. I walked to the window and looked out of the long blinds (which, looking back, were accurate to what I remember). Outside was a bunch of bushes and things I can't remember. I have the impression it was green and happy with perhaps a large building of mountain in the background. I reached for the door and as I unlocked it to go out it felt exactly like it feels when I unlock my room's door and go out. I was impressed by the reality of this but even then knew it was the exact feeling of my room's door. I grabbed the handle, put my thumb on the lock, and pushed it around (it caught slightly and I had to apply extra force). As I walked out I didn't notice a lack of any sensations, but I can only remember feeling my body's sensations and seeing things, as well as thinking normally. I looked up as I walked out and the building was very large. I thought about how my time's at college must have influenced this imagining because it gave the exact impression I had when I looked up at the college's big concrete buildings above me once. Indeed, it was like an exact replay of the abstract feelings I had of awe and beauty, but in a different scene and with totally different mental thoughts. I jogged down a walkway by a hedge and reached out and brushed it with my hand as I passed - not thoughtfully, but habitually because it looked interesting, just like I'd do normally. I felt the sensation of the leaves pushing past my hand and the wetness and coolness of them precisely how it would have felt in reality. I thought about how realistic this was and was also reminded of past similar experiences in real life. As I turned the corner around the hedges I saw a road and tennis courts. At the time it looked perfectly reasonable, but I can't remember the surround scene except as a blurry idea, but the tennis courts were highly detailed and looked exactly like the ones I used to play on at school and at tennis practice at that park, as well as at that tennis tournament. As I moved towards them I was watching to see who was playing on them. There were 'classmates from high school' that were all male I saw, so I started 'looking harder' for a female so that one might appear. I then noticed through the fence one of my classmates from school - an unattractive chick - walk out on the court laughing and conversing with the other classmates. I then said 'fuck it' because I really wanted to do something sexual and started moving towards her when I noticed My old crush was also playing on the court (and had just walked back onto it to play). I then jumped over the fence that had suddenly turned into a short one (instead of the 15ft green one that was there) and jogged towards her. I thought about how the DCs and her might try to stop me if I just sprinted towards her like a maniac, so I pretended to be playing (jumped smiling towards the volleyball they were playing with) while moving towards her. As I got close she started moving away towards a ball that had gone out of bounds and I was right behind her. She was suddenly not wearing pants and I walked staring at her butt about 5-8 ft behind her. I noticed my old friend starting to move towards her so I yelled "NO! BACK! GO BACK!" just like I would to a dog and he started moving away. She turned and started walking back and I reached out and started to touch her breasts which were now exposed. I sensed that all the other team members were moving towards us and I woke up. I don't remember the feeling of touching her. My vision narrowed and everything went impressionistic when I started moving around the court looking for a girl. Being worked up makes you stupid in general... A theory is that if you don't get worked up your dreams will be much more concrete simply because in life its the same way. Your brain can only process so much info at once. Theory: dreams follow your everyday experience of life similarly. If you're thinking hard you won't feel any sensations, if you're looking and listening to things you won't be thinking hard or smelling anything. Theory: normally my lucids are weak because I become aware too early in the dreaming phase. Also, whatever it was that I was 'shutting off' while awake may connect my dream mind to the waking world. Thus in this dream I felt totally entrenched in my dream body. __________________________________ I thought about taking out the dream, but decided against it. Hope you got something out of this

[ShadowOfSelf]

Thanks for the insightfull post, intruiging how you managed this after 10 hrs of sleep. Id like to hear some more about this 'zazen' practise?

[BillyBob]

Zazen is a type of meditation. Basically you sit in a chair with eyes open and stare at whatever static scene is in front of you. You keep your eyes on one spot and try to "SEE" first that one spot and eventually your entire field of vision. By "see" I mean that you try to experience every photon that enters your eye (ie. don't think about what you're seeing). There are three steps to seeing something: 1. Vision data enters the iris and is funneled to the brain which experiences unfiltered shapes, colors, and visual interference. 2. The brain interprets and labels that data unconsciously ('chair, wall, window, tree, etc) 3. You think about what it is you're seeing consciously (meaning, purpose, overall connections, etc) The point of zazen is to stay in steps one one and two (and eventually just one). Your brain is limited in what it can do at any one time (only a certain % of it can be active at once due to oxygen limitations). The raw levels of experiential vision data eventually crowd out all other brain processes. After awhile you're left with nothing but raw experience (a state of no mind/thinking/ego). This is the only meditation that I do now. It seems to be the only one that doesn't make me feel slow/stupid/apathetic after doing it. ______ That's what I mean when I say zazen. Here's the official version: Zazen - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[ShadowOfSelf]

I see, I sort of understand what you're getting at, thanks for the link I will look a bit deeper into it.

[Robot_Butler]

Welcome back! Do you think your sleep has been permanently altered by your time lucid dreaming? How have your dreams been for the last two years? When I take breaks from lucid dreaming, I still exert control over my dreams. I think it has become a habit. I just assume I can do whatever I want, and behave accordingly.

[Ctharlhie]

Billybob is back people! Seriously I've learned so much from reading your guides, it's great to see you contributing to the forum again This is a great insight into how an experienced LDer WILDs, I'm particularly interested by the bit where you focused on the back of your brain to help fall asleep, have you seen any of Nina's stuff on how she focuses on an area of her brain to transition into a dream from sleep paralysis?

[faceonmars]

Any technique that utilizes visualization is on the right track!

[BillyBob]

Welcome back! Do you think your sleep has been permanently altered by your time lucid dreaming? How have your dreams been for the last two years? When I take breaks from lucid dreaming, I still exert control over my dreams. I think it has become a habit. I just assume I can do whatever I want, and behave accordingly. I had about a 1-2 year period where I'd still have DILDs, but for the last year I haven't had a single one I didn't induce myself. So yeah I guess there was a carryover effect, but it diminished over time. Billybob is back people! Seriously I've learned so much from reading your guides, it's great to see you contributing to the forum again This is a great insight into how an experienced LDer WILDs, I'm particularly interested by the bit where you focused on the back of your brain to help fall asleep, have you seen any of Nina's stuff on how she focuses on an area of her brain to transition into a dream from sleep paralysis? That's interesting about Nina - I have never heard of that before. The only reason I (briefly, 30 sec-1 min) focused on the back of my brain was because in the past I've noticed that doing that can increase my Hypnogogic Imagery, which may or may not make me dream faster. Since I was having no imagery whatsoever I did that to try and jumpstart the system. Any technique that utilizes visualization is on the right track! Technique, lol. Its strange to come back after so long and see things from an outsider's perspective.

[Dark_Merlin]

Wow! Welcome back to DV ! I remember reading your tutorials when I first joined and even when I came back this year, they're incredibly helpful! Interesting that you can still so easily WILD after no practice for so long, I think that really says something about the way these things 'stick' with you. Personally WILD has never been an easy technique for me, but always something I'm willing to learn. I really hope you stick around again, it'd be excellent to have you back

[fOrceez]

This is actually how most of my WILDs start off, without intending to actually WILD.