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Well this makes me feel a bit better about my "failed" WILDs. The longest I've spent awake during a WILD attempt is around an hour or so; I finally got up, and gave up frustrated. It took you two whole hours of laying there awake, TRYING to WILD? That's a long time! I think I might have to give pure tenacity a try myself. I gave my WILD attempts a break for the last couple days, focusing on MILD instead--got a Lucid Dream the other night with a MILD/WBTB combination. |
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Thread: One way to do it - Tenacity!
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08-12-2013 10:51 AM #1
One way to do it - Tenacity!
I've been trying to LD for over a year, and have become frustrated many times. At least I have 5 short LDs to show for it, but all of just a few seconds.
I've tried all the techniques, staring with WILD (I know, more difficult), then trying DILD, DEILD, MILD, FILD, every xxLD in the book!
My more recent WILD attempts have been after a WBTB, but I found I ended up just ging to sleep all the time.
Last night I thought I would try something a bit different and really keep on the WILD attempt.
I have the Zeo headband and also use the ZILD Android app, and that combination can wake me reliably after a delay of 5 hours, at the start of a REM episode.
So last night it woke me at about 3:15, at the end of a very vivid dream about flying (not lucid though), and I got up briefly, then tried to WBTB WILD.
I tried the technique of SSILD (sight, sound, feel rotations) for a while, then started counting slowly down on each breath.
The difference this time was that I was really determined not to go to sleep. I know, you have to go to sleep to dream, but since I was always falling asleep and not having an LD, I thought I would give tenacity a try.
I continued to count down from 99, and got to 0, so I started again, and again, and again. I then tried counting up.
During this time, I could feel several occasions where was getting close, seeing various imagery, feeling some vibrations and hearing strange sounds, but all the while it felt like I was very awake.
Two hours went by, all the while I was doing this.
At 5:15 ZEO showed that I went into light sleep, and at 5:30 that I was in REM, and this was the first LD I had. I won't bore you with the dream detail, but it started as a vivid dream, and I just suddenly knew I was dreaming. I was falling backwards as I realised, which is probably what woke me up. So this was only a short LD, but after a couple of hours of WILD attempt!
With that success I tried to stay very still and re-enter the dream. I had 15 minutes awake, then 15 minutes of light sleep before going into REM again.
This time I had another vivid dream, but quickly realised I was dreaming. I had perhaps a minute of lucidity, when I decided to interact. My brother was in the dream, and his hair was so lifelike, like I could see every strand of his hair, to I thought I would reach out and touch it, but just as I was about to touch it, he disappeared, and then the dream scene fragmented. I tried desperately to rub my hands together, but I remember being worried that if I moved I would wake. I need to think more about dream stabilisation!
What I think might have happened is that although I am trying to WBTB at the beginning of REM in a sleep cycle, I probably had to wait for the next REM event, so at least 90 minutes later to get another go.
Even so, tenacity seems to have worked!
This may not be a very sustainable method, but it gives me something to work on, and it was 2 successful WILD attempts in one night.
I didn't remember to RC at all, which is a bit annoying, but I suppose if you just know you are dreaming it doesn't matter?
I guess it might help with stabilisation...
I would welcome any comments or suggestions.
I've attached the Zeo plot here for those who are interested;
zeo_night_detail.jpgmartakartus likes this.
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08-13-2013 12:20 AM #2
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08-13-2013 02:11 PM #3
If you look at te Zeo trace in the attachment, you will see that it wasn't quite 2 whole hours straight of being awake. I had the first non-lucid dream from about 2:45-3:15 (the green bars), then woke up. Then from about 4:20 to 5:30 I was mostly awake, but had 3 short episodes of light sleep (the grey bars), before the first WILD at just after 5:30. The one green bar means about 5 minutes of REM. Then I woke for 15 minutes, before light sleep again, followed by the second WILD at about 6:15.
So that was actually 2 hours 15 minutes elapsed, with about 40 minutes of light sleep thrown in, before the first WILD.
It was wierd that I knew it was a long time waiting, but it passed by very quickly. And even though I was awake, I was in a sort of dreamy half-awake state most of that time, trying to detach and relax, but still counting slowly to stay slightly alert. It was quite a surreal experience.
I tried again last night, but although I had 3 quite vivid dreams, I just went straight back to sleep again.
Good luck with your attempt!
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08-15-2013 12:10 AM #4
I've never heard of this ZEO headband, but it seems pretty informative. I bet knowing exactly when you fell asleep is extremely helpful for dream recall
My attempt didn't work, btw...but to be fair, I didn't spend as long trying--it was an hour and a half. Oddly enough, whenever I take a nap, I never seem to remember any of my nap dreams, even though I'm quite sure I had been dreaming. My nap recall is even worse than my bedtime recall O_O
~SilverWolf~
Dream Related Goals:
have at least 1 lucid dream this month [X] | remember 1 dream every night 1 week in a row [X ] | Successful MILD this month [X] | Successful WILD this month [ ]
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08-17-2013 10:46 AM #5
The ZEO headband is a brilliant bit of kit, but they have now gone out of business! It's basically a single channel EEG machine, but the clever bit is the firmware in the headband that works out which stage of sleep you are in (Wake, light, REM or deep). They claimed it to be 75% accurate compared to a sleep lab full EEG machine.
It doesn't really help with dream recall at all. What could be brilliant is the extra app that I have called ZILD, which works with the ZEO live data. ZILD allows you to create special alarms(sound, vibrate or light flashes) at times relative to your REM episodes. I say COULD be brilliant, because they guy who developped ZILD doesn't have the time to really finish it off, and in any case Zeo have gone bust.
I find I can get it to reliably wake me at the start of a REM episode, or 5 minutes in, or 10 minutes. What I have struggled with is that it tends to wake me, or not at all, it doesn't just make me lucid. That's so frustrating!
I think I need to experiment with the sound alarm. I haven't done that much yet. I've generally relied on the vibrate or flashes.
Anyone else out there have this combination? (Zeo + ZILD)
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08-18-2013 08:38 AM #6
Oh man, that's sad that they've gone out of business, because I'd have seriously considered getting one; at least to help more easily figure out exactly when I am sleeping and when I'm not! I bet there are other similar products out there though. Maybe.
~SilverWolf~
Dream Related Goals:
have at least 1 lucid dream this month [X] | remember 1 dream every night 1 week in a row [X ] | Successful MILD this month [X] | Successful WILD this month [ ]
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09-10-2013 05:43 AM #7Member
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Guy who developed it here. Yup, guilty as charged. Since Zeo went bust just about the same time ZILD was being released, it became REALLY hard to set aside time for project development when the hardware needed to run the app is no longer available to the public...
Originally Posted by Goldenspark
...That being said, there are a few EEG headbands either in development or being kick-started right now. Once those become available to the public and if ZILD can be modified to support them, further work on the project WILL be made.
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09-10-2013 06:10 PM #8Banned
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Lucid Dreaming's very much a personal thing, I'm glad you found a way to do it for yourself, and that you weren't demotivated by how long it took! Well done
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09-10-2013 09:51 PM #9Hi Ampage, I do hope it can be resurrected in another form. Your app shows real promise. Originally Posted by Ampage
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