This is due to request, I've gotten a few PMs requesting that I post a step-by-step method on how to do a WILD. So, I will try to go in detail the best I could about how I achieve them ;) This might be a long read, and you might see that how I do, is slightly different then how a lot of others around here do it. Sorry if it confused the hell out of you, I'm doing my best to explain my personal methods here.
[u]When to attempt a WILD[/]u
1. I'm sure by now you all know this. You should all sleep atleast 4-5 hours before attempting to do a WILD. The best times to try it are when your room is dark... pretty much as long as no sunlight is shining into your room, those are optimal conditions for a WILD. The darkness just makes me more sleepy and drousy. I've pulled off a few WILDs at like 10AM before with the sunlight blazing into my room, but these are really not worth the effort it takes to achieve.
2. So your alarm, or cell phone, or whatever goes off to wake you up. Now here are a few different things you could try that I have personally tried and have had success with.
=========== (Personal Techniques)
MILD-WILD(I'm not sure what to call it) - If you wake up, and you
remember what you just dreamt about, just lay there. Get comfortable, and start thinking about what you just dreamt about. It's pretty amazing how quickly your mind will take over (or retake over) what is going inside of your head. This sort of sounds like MILD, it is similar. Your mind is still in state where it wants to resume the dream, and if you help along, well, I think you can guess what happens next. What differs from the ordinary WILD is You may completely skip over Sleep Paralysis and enter the dream. I've had dreams begin with me attempting WILDs... I think that pretty much says I completely skipped over the transitonal phase while what felt like being concious the entire time.[/i]
Using Your "Hidden Observer" - So you wake from a deep sleep. You might have been dreaming, you might not. Either way, the only thing that should matter right now is that you want to be in a state of going back to sleep. If you for some reason are restless when waking up, and cannot get back to sleep, stay awake for an hour, or until you feel like "it's time for a nap" (I have succeeded in WILD after being awake for 3 hours. I cannot gaurantee you will succeed after being awake this long - experiment and find what's best for you, for me, going back to sleep almost immediatly is the best). A lot of people may get excited just thinking about attempting the WILD, and this will just make it harder on themselves to get back to sleep. I know it's hard to do for beginners, but you could always try attempting the WILD with low expectations to keep your excitement down - sort of think yo yourself... "well I am probably going to fail anyway, so what's there to get all excited about?" Anyway, so get comfortable, any position works. Lay down, and think about something that will keep your mind busy while your body falls asleep. I don't believe in the breathing method, because in my opinion, it puts to much focus on the physical body, and that it was you are trying to separate yourself from - but if the breathing method works, by all means keep doing it. I personally think of some kind of fantasy (try to avoid sexual fantasies, they may over-excite you), or a nice memory. Now what is coming up may sound hard, and yes it is at first, it takes time to get used to: Have you ever daydreamed or zoned out before in class? Yes, I bet you have, I do so frequently when the subject is boring. What I bet none of you ever really think about is... how even though you were kind of off in your own little world, you still at the same time had some focus, be it very little, on the real world around you. For example, you may have been thinking about last night's baseball game, but afterward, if you think about it - you remember seeing the teacher writing something on the board (you don't know exactly what he wrote, but you know there was writing there), or you remember seeing him/her walking back and worth - these very faint details are picked up by what is called "your hidden observer". This not split personality, it's no mental disorder, it's a psychological term, it's simply a split focus, which is very normal to have. We humans are constantly multi-tasking every second, we just never notice it because most of your focus goes toward one thing, while the remaining small focus (hidden observer) is constantly watching the world around you. You can use this hidden observer to help you along with a WILD. How? - Well go back to thinking about your fantasy or memory while trying to WILD. You will notice that your mind will drift off. Isn't that what you want to avoid? Well for most people... yes, however, if you train your hidden observer to catch signs of progression to sleep paralysis, you can use it to bring yourself back to waking conciousness when the time is right. So, below is my most frequently used method, step-by-step.
1. Lay down, get myself comfortable and warm.
2. Think about a fantasy or memory to allow my mind to drift. Memories are great because they are already there and require less thought then creating some kind of fantasy. You must disassociate the best you can from the physical world around you, and this includes your physical body. By that I mean, if you constantly have on the back of your mind the thoughts of trying to catch the signs of progression during WILD, you are not doing this correctly. When you are daydreaming in class, are you sitting there thinking about the teacher is talking about? Didn't think so! :P Well same concept applies here.The easiest way to do this, is just think of a memory or fantasy, or go to sleep as you normally would.
3. Now, while drifting off, it is ok to check on your status once in a while. Much like when daydreaming in class, you come back to reality once in a while for a few seconds to see how much you missed or what everyone else is doing before zoning out if zoning out again. That's ok when attempting WILD, I do this myself. However, it's not something that should be abused or you'll never get anywhere. 2-3 times is the most I will need when attempting a WILD usually. For beginners, that number will be higher. I cannot say how high, experimenting yourself is the only way to find out. While most of my focus is "out there ", there is still that very small split amount of my focus still observing myself, and the world around me - waiting for something noticeable to happen so I can be called back to waking conciousness. These noticeable things can vary some person to person, and may include a sense of heaviness, tingling, the brain changing my original thoughts by itself - this is a huge one, and the onset of sleep-paralysis, another huge one. The brain changing my thoughts? Next time you go to sleep, think about something, and you'll notice that after a while, it becomes harder and harder to maintain the fantasy or memory. If you try, it may even change into something else completely. This is your brain beginning to take over, and this is the stage of heavy HI. I'm talking flashing colors, or patterns, I'm talking actually beginning to see brief scenes played out in front of you, hearing sounds, maybe voices, and etc. Rarely does what I start to originally fantasize or think about stick the entire way through - actually... it never has. What does all this mean? Well, think about it - your brain is starting to form images, sounds, and scenes in your head on it's own. This means you are getting very,very close to your dream state, which means, you are very close to all the all known amazing and sometimes terrifying - Sleep Paralysis.
4. So, you've periodically checked up upon yourself. This is ideal for beginners, because you begin to pickup on the more common effects of your progression toward your dream. One time you may notice you felt a lot more tired and heavy. Another time you may notice the imagery starting to get pretty heavy in your head. It's ok to come out of your attempt it and analyze this. Why? For practice, and it really does not take long to get back to where you left off when resuming your WILD attempt. Now, I know it sounds like I am contradicting myself with everything I've said before about the letting the mind drift off - how can you keep checking up on yourself letting the mind drift off? That is what the "hidden observer" is for. I know this may sound a bit crazy, but with practice, it starts to come more naturally overtime. The hidden observer is there to call you back. This is difficult at first, I would expect the first few attempts for someone to lose conciousness, or to be focused on what is happening around around them and never being able to enter the dreamstate, but this comes with practice, and for me atleast, this has evolved into a pretty solid method. If anyone would like to help me fix my lazyness so I would attempt this more then once a week, please let me know ;-)
5. Entering sleep paralysis is a crazy feeling. You'll be somewhere off happily in heavy HI, when all of a sudden you sort of feel like you collapse into yourself (transition) or notice that you feel light and fuzzy (already in sleep paralysis). If you feel like you are collapsing into yourself, it is ok to come back to full conciousness and maintain it, as long as you do not get overly excited. You can even focus in on this feeling, and try to intensify it, and that will help you enter sp faster (the full transition really is only about 10 seconds long, you can get in in about 2-3 seconds if you focus in on it). Once you get fully into it, have all the emotion you want, chances are you aren't coming out, atleast not immediatly. That is why people who get freaked out - intense emotions - do not leave sleep paralysis right away, and feel they are "trapped" in this state. You will know when you are completely in sp when the chaotic transition comes to end, and you kind of feel like you are floating around in a black void, hearing and possibly seeing random things, while you are unable to move your body at all. Try to move a limb, and you'll notice you cannot.
6. Did you freak, struggle to get yourself out and wake up? No problem! Try your best not to move when waking up, or move minimally, the great thing is, you will fall back into SP in moments! I've done this four or five times in a row before - when I would occasionally get scared, come out of it for a second or two, and go back in hoping for a less fearful experience when I was newer at attemptig WILDs. After a while you get used to it, and the fear comes much less.
7. Beginning your dream or OBE. You can either sit there and do nothing and wait (not recommend by me, I usually just sit in a black void if I do this), try to think of a scene you want to be at (try to create it in the black void you are in), or try to imagine yourself rolling, and soon you'll see the edge of your bed and land on the floor or float to some spot in your room. If you are afraid of OBEs, or if it against your religion - I do not recommend this, because some of these are freakishly realistic. (though I do believe LDs and OBEs are the same thing - a dream). Though I must say if you do, rarely have I seen another person in my room, and I have never had a freakishly bad experience, or even been hurt. Just have fun.
=========== (Example WILD - 10/24)
1. My cell phone went off at 6:30AM. It was still nice and dark inside of the room.
2. I close my eyes, and start fantasizing about my favorite NHL hockey team winning the Stanley Cup this year.
3. After a few minutes, I notice my body starts to feel heavy - I go back to my fantasy.
4. After a while, it occured to me that I was not thinking about this anymore, and that my thoughts had changed. What I can remember now was that I was having HI of being inside of a park, brief scenes, as well hearing people's voices (very, very close to a dream). I did not catch this right away, the scenes were going on for a brief period of time before I noticed. However, I was not yet in SP. My body however was starting to feel very heavy.
5. I let my brain keep going with this HI, and moments later, I am not sure how much later, I feel a large fuzzy like collapsing feeling! SP is starting. I focus in on this HI and the SP progresses faster, I collapse in more and more, until I am almost inside of the scene, but I do not enter it (it was still not stable enough to support a good lucid). I feel light and fuzzy, and I almost feel like I am a spec of existance inside of an infinte black void contrained "inside of myself".
6. So, to make sure I am in SP, I try to move a limb, and cannot.
7. I wait a little bit, and then decide it's "go-time" and try to propel myself out of my body. I feel myself thrust upward and off to the side slightly spinning, I remember seeing my right leg (which looked like my normal leg except with a clearer look) and my right arm in the field of vision. I was about a foot off my bed and going toward the center of the room, which looked pretty close to waking reality but had a few missing things. All of a sudden, ouch! It feels like a million needles are poking me! Wth! I am standing next to my bed, and decide, maybe if I lay back down inside of myself, the pain will go away. As I'm laying down, my vision goes black, and I cannot succesfully get rid of this odd pain. I struggle a bit to end the experience, and I wake up.
=========== (What not to do)
Do not fuss over weather or not you should change sleeping position. If you feel you must, go ahead. Same with having to swallow spit. Switch your position, or swallow your spit. I can relate to the first of the two, and what I can tell you is, thinking about weather or not you should do this or that is a waste of time. You shift your focus toward this issue, it's kind of hard to progress while sitting there uncomfortable constantly thinking "well maybe I should switch position. I am unformfortable, but I've gotten so far! I will mess everything up!.... this uncomfort... switch position... no... this is so annoying!" Do your thing, and move on :)
Here's a Tip:" After waking up, if you lose conciousness pretty quickly, set your alarm to go off again in 15 minutes. If you lost conciousness before it went off, chances are you already began dreaming, or atleast you were very close (unconciously). But anyway, when this wakes you up, you'll enter your HI/dream stage a lot quicker. You'll also feel like crap waking up to the alarm, but it's worth a shot!
