Iapetos WILD Way of Lucid Dreaming

Intro

I am not a master or anything extra ordinary, I am just a guy who wants to help and share my experiences to let other people have their own.

(And I apologize about my grammar already, because English is not my native language. But I'll do my best to make it endurable...)

This guide will focus on all the steps and obstacles that have made me the lucid dreamer I am today. It's not exactly a guide of a method, it's more of a way to learn from my experience and if you want you can walk in the same footsteps or just learn something new.

Background:

A little about me. My first interest in dreams started when I convinced myself as a kid, that I could decide what I wanted to dream. I put my right hand under my pillow and thought "I want to dream about Hogwarts..." and later that night I was dreaming of Hogwarts. And of Hermione that I didn't knew was going to be hot in a few years :shadewink: But then I forgot completely about this "ability".

I first discovered lucid dreaming after I had watched "The Matrix" at a friend's house. I started to get really philosophic and question my reality, what do I know what is real, what is consciousness? I got half insane to my friends and really annoying :roll: But my insanity made me more aware of my dreams.

One day I was fishing with my dad in a little rowing boat. Then I think "Wait a minute where am I and what am I doing? I have never been fishing before.."
I freaked out and thought I really was insane, but then I woke up and realized what had happened.

I went to google and found Lucidipedia and Tim Post on youtube and learned the basics of Dream recall and MILD, DILD WBTB and WILD.
Later on I find dreamviews ;)But if you are a beginner I recommend to watch his videos they are both educative and entertaining. =)

Basics:

I started out by buying Stephen LaBerge's book "Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming" and some other book called "Lucid Dreaming in 30 Days".
I then did the regular stuff, like reality checking during the day and writing down my dreams in the morning. But I had my ups and downs. My dream recall was not as good as I had hoped for and my craving for lucid dreams gave me a lot of dry spells...

I tried to remember how many reality checks I had been doing that day and I reviewed my day in my mind and then went to bed. And that night was amazing!
I recorded 7 dream scenarios and got a short lucid in one of them. I couldn't believe it was true, but I tested out the technique of day journaling and the next day I wrote a thread on it here on Dreamviews:

http://www.dreamviews.com/f15/if-you...ams-try-93005/

It seems like it helped more people :shadewink:

And admins (Yes... two accounts please feel free to delete all the other except this one, but just make sure that, that thread still exist so it can continue to help people recall their dreams.)

Dream Recall Theory:

I have always wondered why it worked and have tried to find a scientific explanation, was it because it practiced short term memory as my old theory suggested. A week ago I got my answer:

When I listened to a remote viewing CD course I discovered a new technique called Image streaming. It's a form of meditation where you close your eyes and describe anything that you can see with as many senses as possible.
When the author explained the theory behind it, it reminded me of my old method of recalling dreams. Image streaming is recalling impressions from your brain, my recall method was recalling memories from the day.

The reason to why this works is because when you do this you are exercising your synesthetic muscle and the multi-sensory description build up the neuro connections between the senses and widens the neurological contact.
This exercise gives stronger and clearer looking mental images which in turn improves your memory which makes it easier to recall your dreams.

So I definitely recommend trying it :) I sound like an advertisement, but hey it's free so just try it one night. I use Image streaming for now, because it's also told to increase intelligence. But for dream recall the MasterMind method is enough.

DILD and MILD:

It's basically the same technique, the only difference is that DILD is the result of a reality check during the day and MILD is when you use autosuggestion while going to bed. But as you can see it is the same principle, doing something during the day to make you realize when you are dreaming during the night.

These two techniques are very straight forward, so I am not even going to explain them.

These two methods is what have helped me attain most lucid dreams during all my four years of practice. But I want to learn to completely control the process.

Although I combine all the methods so I don't have to choose, which takes us to..

WILD

This method have fascinated me for years. I mean just think about going to bed every night and knowing that you will lucid dream that night.
When you have mastered it that is...

I have practiced WILD for a long time and crossed many obstacles that have made me the persistent WILDer I am today. I will now describe my theory of WILDing but remember that there is a downside...

WARNING: If you fail while doing this technique, there is a 70 % risk that you will end up having a mild insomnia :insomnia:

I know that your usually told to don't WILD while going to bed, but my goal of WILDing is actually not to succeed. Of course I want to succeed, but I don't expect to succeed. I use my WILD procedure as a way to prepare myself for dreaming, and I have found that my recall is better and my dreams end up more vivid, which helps me get one or two DILDs/MILDs.

I have noticed that a lot of people want to feel vibrations or petrifying sensations, because they interpret that as they are close to dreaming.
Then they wait and nothing happens and then they go to this forum usually naming it "Reached sleep paralysis but couldn't enter the dream".
I know because I used to be that guy...

Until... I felt these exact sensations just 10 minutes after going to bed, and there is no chance that I could have been close to dreaming or REM.
So I figured that these are only your relaxed body sensations.
And that those sensations are not something that you can relay on.

I don't even feel them when I successfully DEILD. Then I usually just feel that my daydreaming and thoughts feels more vivid than usual and in a blink I am there.

What I do while WILDing is just thinking and trying to entertain myself with daydreams, at some point I reach a meditative state where I think "I have been thinking for so long that I don't even want to think anymore". And from here it's actually hard to think at all. Here you just need to cross the third obstacle.

The first obstacle that many of you might have some problem with, is laying still and in my opinion there is no real solution except practice. When you get to the point where you feel small vibrations or swallowing reflexes/ saliva problem then you know that you have crossed that obstacle.

The second obstacle is maintaining awareness and not fall asleep unconsciously.
I started by laying on my back, but then I started to fall asleep in that position as well. So I thought "What if I fall asleep in as sitting position?".
I put some pillows behind my back and some support for my neck and tried a WILD and since then I never fall asleep that easily again.
And if I do end up falling asleep, it's usually very light and I wake up in my bed again closer to REM than ever.

The third obstacle is the focus of your physical body, you might feel itches, uncomfortable sensations and I even heard of a guy that sneezes. :shock:
You need to completely stop focusing on your physical body and try to daydream that you already are in a dream and are stabilizing to make you more focused of the non-physical than physical. Anything can happen in this state.
And I still have some problems with it, I usually reach it after 40 minutes and I give up. And I fall asleep, although as I wrote before, I don't expect to succeed.

If you wonder why I didn't talked about the WBTB, it is because by becoming more aware of your dreams, you will also start noticing your micro awakenings (brief awakenings everyone has every night) and because of that you don't need an alarm clock your just completely natural ;)

But if you are a complete beginner I recommend that you look into it.

I hope that someone finds this helpful :)

Good luck and happy lucid dreams. :sleepmeditate2:

(If you have any more questions, just ask ;) )