-
Hello everyone! :yumdumdoodledum: You may have seen me around here a while ago, so I took a bit of a break for a month and then went overseas! Anyway, I'm back now and it's holidays, so I thought it would be the perfect time to play around with lucid dreaming. So, for the past week I have started my dream journal up again and have consistently written down at least two detailed dreams a night. This has been my routine:
9pm bed
2am wake
2.30am try to WILD
So, I am getting better at wilds. When I first tried I would pretty much just fall asleep after about 20 min or give up. I pretty much made a promise to myself that I wouldn't give up no matter how long it took to WILD. I can get to SP in about 30-40min (guestimating) but after SP nothing happens. I get a fair bit of HI before sp but once I am in sp it is just like I am in a dark box. I'll try to visualize a scene but I can't really 'see' it, I just imagine it. Last night I tried again to WILD and got to SP. Instead of giving up after being in SP for a while, I stayed in it for what seemed like forever. I got bored and shook myself out of sp. When I checked the clock it was 4.30am, 2 HOURS!!!! I felt like that was probably excessive :shock:
Oh and as for DILD, I have been reality checking consistently but haven't had a DILD yet .
:content: Much appreciated,
Ellie
-
That happens to me when I WILD without WBTB. Hmm... hasn't happened to me when I WILD in the middle of the night...I don't think I can help, sorry. All I can say is keep trying! On another note, where did you go overseas? I went during the summer to France, Italy and Spain. :content:
-
Hehe, I went overseas to Japan! It was heaps of fun, and really beautiful since it was spring and the Sakura (cherry blossoms) were out!
:)
-
I really don't know how to help you, ive yet to reach SP myself. Anyhow, i recently went to mexico, it was loads of fun.
-
Hey, Mexico would be fun! SP for me was hard at first, but I found that I really just had to lie there and relax. If I moved (except to swallow) I couldn't get into SP. And trust me, once you get past the scared thing going into SP is fun! (for me anyway)
Oh and we joined the same day :P Have you had any lucids yet?
-
I have this problem also. If I try to visualise, I fall back to sleep, if I count, I can't get anywhere, uless I spend 30 mins trying.
-
Ah! Yup long jetty, that's the same as me. When I visualise, I get too involved and fall asleep. I have tried counting before, and I've gotten to over 1100 then got annoyed, shook myself out of SP then rolled over and fallen asleep. :P
-
First of all, I'm no expert on WILD, as I've never yet managed to pull it off completely myself, but I still use it, because it works for me. This method gives me one to two lucid dreams every single night:
1) Wake up in the middle of the night.
I have yet to pull this off when I first go to sleep. I can get to SP, but nothing beyond that. I don't need to stay awake for 30 minutes or anything, I just need to wake up, then go back to sleep immediately while doing what follows.
2) Enter SP.
I'm still not sure that what I actually get is SP. When I hear people talking about it it just sounds so violent and for me what it is is just that my entire body feels heavy. It's a bit harder to move, but I have to focus to feel it, if I just move something, that part will just wake up and stay awake while I move it. I certainly don't feel "locked" like other people report and it's not scary at all, I just feel like my body is sleeping and every part of my body feels sore. It's hard to explain, but it really just feels like everything is about twice as heavy as normal. Imagine yourself lying in bed wearing your heaviest skiing outfit and you'll know what SP is like for me. Nothing scary about it at all and I imagine myself being one of those people who would freak out if I suddenly couldn't move. Also, I can get to this in just a few minutes after going to sleep and I have the impression it should take longer to get there, so I'm not sure it's really SP.
3) Let my mind wander.
Traditional WILDing says not to let your mind wander, but this is what works for me. This is easy in the middle of the night, hard when I first go to sleep, and that's the big difference, as far as I can tell. I have tried counting stuff, but that doesn't work for me, it just keeps me awake forever and never lets me get to the dreaming. I imagine I am somewhere. I usually just imagine I'm walking around in a building, it can be a store or where I work or anywhere really. You can switch to imagining you're somewhere else if you want to, but for me personally it seems to pull me out of my "dream" when I do that, so I try not to. Also, during this part I wake up and go back to just SP many times, my "dreams" completely disappearing, especially when they become more real and vivid. Like I will see a door, open it and then go through it thinking: "Wow, it feels more real now, I'm closer to dreaming." and this thought wakes me up again. This annoys me, but each time it happens it's easier to get back to the dreaming, so I try to not let it bother me too much.
4) Control the situation. Know I won't fall asleep until I let myself and stay lucid in my dreams.
I don't just drift through the building, that leads to non-lucidity in no time for me. I pick stuff up, examine my surroundings, talk to people, open doors and all the time I focus on staying lucid, controlling my actions. This is the part I can't do without WBTB, I'm not one of those people who can just close my eyes right now if I wanted to and imagine I am somewhere. It just doesn't feel real enough to be worth the time.
5) Eventually I get to a point where I only have two choices: Wake myself up or drift off to sleep completely. This is when I drift off to sleep, all I can do now is try to stay lucid for as long as possible.
I could start using the various WILD techniques here, trying to stay awake, but I've yet to find something that lets me get to the next level while staying lucid.
6) Lose lucidity or consciousness.
I'm not sure what happens here, whether I lose consciousness or just lucidity. If I do lose consciousness, then this could be when I encounter the "real SP" if what I'm experiencing earlier on isn't really SP. It would obviously be better if I didn't lose consciousness or lucidity, but if I force myself to stay lucid and conscious, I just get stuck.
7) I will be somewhere, last night I was in a hospital, even though that wasn't the building I focused on when I fell asleep. I am walking around and at some point I will realize: "Hey, I'm really dreaming now, it's no longer just a distant thought while trying to fall asleep. This is a real, vivid dream and I can do anything I want to now." I don't need reality checks or anything, I know I'm dreaming, and I continue lucid.
Like I mentioned in another thread, sometimes some time will pass between falling asleep and realizing I'm now dreaming, but the lucidity is very consistent, it's at least one lucid dream every single night using this method for me.
So in conclusion it's about letting my mind wander while falling asleep, yet staying lucid as long as I can, then drift off to sleep when I'm at the point of no return. Soon after I will be in a dream and sooner or later I will think: "Hey, I've fallen asleep now, I can do what I want."
Perhaps it will help you, perhaps it won't, but I decided to post it since it's working pretty well for me.
-
Hey Nutzilla! Thank you so much for the well written and thoughtful post. I will have a go at it tonight, and let you know how it goes tomorrow. I'll have ago about the mind wandering thing, I think it's hard to find the balance between letting your mind wander yet not getting too sidetracked. And one-two lucid dreams a night is absolutely awesome! You should congratulate yourself :P
Any other tips etc. would be greatly appreciated since I think there are many others like me have a similar problem with WILDing.
