How ideal is WILD for beginners?

It seems like a lot of lucid dreaming beginners focus a lot on WILD techniques, and I have always been a bit skeptical about that.
Personally I consider WILD a relatively difficult way to become lucid - I understand that it is tempting, since it seems like a very straightforward way to become lucid and will probably work extremely well once you have nailed it - but it feels like it involves too much at once for complete beginners.
So how ideal would you say WILD is for people who are just starting out?
I usually think that dream recall and future LD goals are more natural "starting points", and it feels like WILD might make things more complicated and frustrating than necessary for beginners.

^^ I agree. WILD is a delicate balance that for most people takes quite a bit of time to master, and "mastery" at WILD seems to largely mean "it works for me some of the time," not "lucid dreaming on demand." From anecdotal evidence, it seems to me that even very experienced LDers who can DILD a lot (at least several per week let's say) have a fairly low success rate at WILD.

It's a very common beginner misconception that DILDs are "random" and "out of your control", while WILDs are "totally under your conscious control".

The irony is that most of my DILDs still come from failed WILD attempts.

Nothing surprising about that: the effort sets strong intention, and puts your mind firmly on the subject of lucid dreaming, and usually involves being awake (WBTB), and gathering awareness....all recipes for lucid dreaming!

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Originally Posted by FryingMan

Nothing surprising about that: the effort sets strong intention, and puts your mind firmly on the subject of lucid dreaming, and usually involves being awake (WBTB), and gathering awareness....all recipes for lucid dreaming!

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That is why i would recommend it to almost every motivated beginner, provided he could afford some loss of sleep here and there..WILD is a very straightforward, and almost intelligible way, to put in practice the fundamental techniques and mindset

Well you know, that does make a lot of sense! I wouldn't do only WILDs, and I wouldn't get frustrated if they didn't work, but trying them once in a while certainly can be helpful. It does teach a lot about how one experiences the process of falling asleep.

edit: One thing about my earlier WILD experiences is that with very frequent attempts and with a strong desire to catch the dream forming, I ended up sort of "breaking" my ability to fall sleep: I managed somehow to install some sort of "transition" alarm that would jerk me awake as I was falling asleep, even when I was not trying to WILD! Took a week or two for that to finally wear off, and I was exhausted due to lack of sleep during that time. But that experience was still valuable, if for no other reason than it taught me to "back off" of the intense attention to the process of falling asleep and just "let it happen."

Still searching for that perfect balance of timing, awareness, and "letting go" for WILDs....

It really depends on the individual. It is not much about being a beginner or not, but it is a matter of being able to archive a few steps:

1- Have the ability to relax your body entirely, to the point that you cannot feel your body.
2- Clear your mind from any thoughts, including dream related thoughts, but only to keep focused on not falling asleep.
3- Ignoring whatever physical needs you have to move (if a leg itches or if you feel you need to move an arm. This is a way for your mind to test if your body is asleep.
4- Ignore whatever things you hear, listen or feel. This can be a bit tricky depending on each individual, as sometimes it can be a bit scary, but if you realize it is all in your mind, you will be okay.
5- Find yourself in a dream, do a reality check to make sure and happy lucid.

This is wild in a very summarized form, but there is not really more from this and the skill level is not necessary. I would only suggest to train dream recall to make sure you do not forget your lucid.

I agree with VagalTone.

When you're first starting out you want as many ways in as possible, so trying to WILD everytime, or most times you fall to sleep is the way to go.

You don't have to put to much effort in at first as even if/when you fail, having it on the mind as you fall to sleep gives you a much higher chance of DILDs later in the night.

It's not that bad if you have a good tutorials within your hands :cheeky:
http://www.dreamviews.com/wake-initi...ild-guide.html
http://www.dreamviews.com/wake-initi...-key-wild.html
http://www.dreamviews.com/attaining-...ml#post1831882
WILD Progression Outline - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views
http://www.dreamviews.com/wake-initi...mystified.html

Thanks for your answers. :)

Yes, good tutorials can certainly help.
I am just a bit concerned that a lot of beginners seem to concentrate only on WILD, but lucidity is so much more than just that.
Dream recall and clear goals are obviously two very important steps, and since those are probably easier to understand and get started with it is something I encourage all beginners to focus on in the beginning.
But practicing WILD at the same time could never hurt.

I actually think WILD is one of the easier methods; all you have to do is time your wake up and then lie there and wait for a dream to come along. As long as you don't move around and focus on something to keep your brain aware there's no wrong way to go about it, eventually you will get into a dream.

No need for amazing dream recall, no need to practice anything during the day, the most important aspect is simply good timing and that will happen quickly if you move your WBTB time up and down by 20 minutes or so each night until you hit the sweet spot.

The timing is a lot more difficult if you don't have a consistent sleeping pattern, but once again, you will eventually hit it.

Even though WILD fluctuates I think it's the only technique that will get you a lucid dream at least once a week no matter what stage of DILD training you're in. The other stuff relies a lot more on awareness, dream recall etc... which takes some time to level up, WILD you just get through shear will power and good timing.

So I think it's the perfect technique for beginners to get a taste of lucidity, after that DILD will be easier too since you'll know what a lucid dream actually is.

Not to mention it doesn't interfere with anything else LD related you might be working on, no reason not to.

Also WILD often goes through HI which can be quite scary but teaches an important lesson of staying calm no matter what and just how much our brain can trick us with illusions, which I think is an important skill if you want to LD for long periods of time. WILD will teach you very quickly the level of self-control needed to prolong LDs and have good dream control.

Ok. so as a beginner myself I have tried WILD for a while and haven't gotten anywhere. I personally would go with WBTB mixed with MILD for a beginner. Plus I think if you right off the bat started with WILD you might experience some frightening things with it which might discourage you from lucid dreaming all together.