Hey.

It's ages since I've posted about this, but I'm getting back into Lucidity again. I've had a few minor experiences thus far, but nothing remarkable. I'm about to have a lot of time on my hands (only 3 weeks of school left over the next 5 months) and will be able to mess around with my sleep a bit more than usual. I'm hoping to become pretty proficient by the time the hols are up. The following is kind of addressed at experienced WILDers, but anyone can contribute.

I had a WILD experience a few nights ago, and I got much further in then I ever have before. I had had no previous sleep... I just went straight into this.

I didn't count or anything... I just remember keeping entirely still, and consistently reminding myself not to think of any irrelevant thoughts. After an indeterminate time span (20 mins?), I started get some pretty strong stuff. There were some very distinct auditory effects. These included a really odd sensation where suddenly, I would be concious of abruptly losing all sound perception. It would just cut off; but this it's hard to describe this fully, because my room was already silent; yet that was the effect I was getting: a sudden cut off of noise. As soon as I noticed this, however, the 'less-than-silent-silence' would return. Has anyone else experienced this sort of thing in transition..?

I would also get some additional, really loud noises. They are equally hard to describe... I guess the best I can do is sudden blasts of very distorted guitar (sounded a bit like something out of the Beatles' Tomorrow Never Knows...). Much stronger than I've ever gotten before.

As I went further in, I also got some really strong visual effects. These were also incredibly distinct. The first, for example, was just as if the blackness in front of me was suddenly peeled back very slightly in the top left corner to reveal a section of bright blue sky. Nothing at all vague about it; it just suddenly came out of the blue. I also got some fleeting glimpses of some really awe-inspiring scenes... truly, huge landscapes of mountains and forests and whatnot.

In the final stages, I began to feel the images too; this is way further than I've ever gotten before. I was stood in a field at one point, for example, and I could totally feel the long grass running over my fingers.

However, I didn't make it into a dream, unfortunately; though, I feel as if I was pretty close. If I have any clear questions, I'd like to know where I have to go from here. If I should just try and keep focused (instead of drifting off, as I presume I must have done) until I suddenly make it into the dream, or... what? And also, how come I was experiencing such strong HI and everything before any sleep; isn't it necessary to sleep for at least 4 hours if you are to WILD successfully?

But other than that, I'm just looking to see if there's anyone who can relate to this kind of thing, and give any advice about it in general.

Thanks for reading.