Thread: DEILD/ WILD help

Hi, Tiktaalik!

Sorry about taking my time to reply—just been a little busy lately. Congrats on those visions even if they came after only an hour's sleep! LoL! But no worries, I'm sure you'll catch one soon.

When you've managed a fully-fledged WILD or DEILD in the morning after a good night's sleep, I shall describe the hardest method, which is performed—against the best advice—before bedtime and with no prior sleep. But this direct method requires a different approach and the induction of a 'free-floating state of mind'. I'll explain more at the next stage. Although a lot harder to achieve, some newbies still stumble upon it when they try and manage to have an OOBE.

It's useful if you feel like inducing anytime during the day if you know you'll be up all night for some reason—like a late-night celebration, for example.

Hypnagogia:

Yes. If I don't seem to be able to make the visions more realistic as they collapse, I just stare past them, which seems to work. If not, I start to rub my hands in front of my eyes. There's a window of time which gradually closes between a perceived awakening and full wakefulness.

Mirror technique with DEILD

You can try this, next time, as it will reinforce self-awareness the moment you find yourself in a lucid dream: Upon awakening, imagine being in front of a mirror, looking at your reflection. Even if you don't see it, imagine you are stand in front of one and vision will come at any moment. Only do this for about 5 seconds upon awakening. If nothing happens, just get up. Remember, no sense of urgency or tension should be present in this. Just get up no matter what. Then do a reality check.

WILD and palpitations:

I used to get heart palpitations before (years ago at the start of my practice) and usually at the onset of sleep paralysis hallucinations. Sometimes it happens that your amygdala, which is associated with fight-or-flight, excitement, and also plays a pivotal role in memory (tending to stimulate the parts of the brain involved in this), is triggered. This could be due to some fear of what might manifest or a little stress of having to remember stuff. It could also be due to, as you said, 'having a lot on your mind'.

I don't think you would have fallen asleep, as the pituitary gland—which is also part of an excited limbic system in your brain—activates the secretion of adrenaline with fight-or-flight. This causes the blood pressure to go up and hence your heart racing. By the way, your life is not in danger as it is all part of a natural response—just like neurons at the pons sending inhibitory signals to the spine, eventually causing sleep paralysis so as to prevent you from acting out your dreams.

Hi, thanks for your reply and sorry for my late message. I haven’t been too well so sleeping and staying focused on dreaming hasn’t been the easiest this past week.

I did have some success on Saturday though. I’m focusing more on WILD currently and have continued with my usual WBTB and keeping awareness on my breath and the images that appear behind my eyes as I fall back asleep. Mostly I’ve just fallen asleep doing this but on Saturday I had a short dream and in it I was in my room and looking through some clothes when suddenly I just realised this was a dream. Upon realising this I woke up immediately. Now I appreciate short lucids and immediate wake ups happen but they’re not common for me and this felt different. I couldn’t remember any prior dream nor did the dream feel fully formed. I wondered if I had entered one of those short visions or pre-dreams that come during the WILD process and then woke up immediately when I noticed?

Anyway I repeated the process again that night and the same happened again. I wasn’t consciously aware of entering the dream but I became lucid instantly within a dream in which I was laid in bed with my wife who randomly jumped on top of me. As before I woke up immediately again and was in the same position in bed as I was in the dream. I think these may have been very short snippets of dreams and I became lucid very quickly within them. I didn’t notice the transition but they felt WILD in nature. At least from what I’ve read about other’s experiences. I wondered what your thoughts are?