Thread: LD personal o2: WILD happens, when we learn how to fall asleep consciously

Before i started my wild attemts. I could fall asleep withouth problems. After i started. I was nearly successfull. Maybe becouse i didnt add to much thought into it. After some unsuccessfull attempts, i found out, that i cannot fall asleep well.

And now. I read one topic and idea came to me:

We shouldnt learn how to remain awake, we should learn how to fall asleep.

We should learn how to consciously shut ourselves down. I know, that this is written everywhere in this forums. But lot of people {including me} think, that we should remain awake.

What do you think?

We shouldnt learn how to remain awake, we should learn how to fall asleep.

i agree

Where's the manual for that

Nice, that's actually a really good idea.....how the hell didn't anyone say before

Anywayz....now you have to figure out how!

If you get any news on this please PM me

Thanks

Yoshu

Alright, in order to figure out how to fall asleep, we need to know what falling asleep is. Know thine enemy, that is.

So from my experience falling asleep is lying down, closing eyes, and waiting, next thing i know is im either in a dream or awake in the next morning.

But what the hell happens in the part we don't remember, the part we're just about to fall asleep.

grah

This is a perfect phrase for those that find themselves restless during WILD attempts--myself included.

For those that end up falling asleep too soon, just invert your suggestion, and it will apply to them, too!

how the hell didn't anyone say before

i did figure it out

Originally Posted by Noin

Alright, in order to figure out how to fall asleep, we need to know what falling asleep is. Know thine enemy, that is.

So from my experience falling asleep is lying down, closing eyes, and waiting, next thing i know is im either in a dream or awake in the next morning.

But what the hell happens in the part we don't remember, the part we're just about to fall asleep.

grah

Our memory shuts down! Had to say it. Anyway, Que the psych major.

Originally Posted by Noin

Alright, in order to figure out how to fall asleep, we need to know what falling asleep is. Know thine enemy, that is.

So from my experience falling asleep is lying down, closing eyes, and waiting, next thing i know is im either in a dream or awake in the next morning.

But what the hell happens in the part we don't remember, the part we're just about to fall asleep.

grah

Well actually, I know what that part is like. For me I day dream just before I fall asleep. I just learned this today when I did a FILD for the first time.

For me, both are involved, staying awake and falling asleep. Really for me, the main challenge is staying awake in the right way as the rest of me falls asleep. Different senses seem to go to "sleep" or disconnect at different times. It is important to let them disconnect from my consciousness while still keeping a thread of consciousness going. I often do the following but in life lots of different things happen when it comes to lucid dreaming:

First) Body asleep- this is often felt like at first my body feeling heavy and then later not feeling at all.
Second) Loss of hearing.
Third) Disconnecting of my eyes. THIS IS KEY for me, and one of the hardest things to do when transitioning into dream consciousness as I often just go to sleep and lose consciousness when this happens. I think it is because I am such a visual person and it is my primary sense. Thus my habit is "eyes awake=normal wakefullness", and so "eyes asleep = still awake" is very odd indeed, but I am getting more use to it and working on making a new habit.

When I am going into trance I will often see HI, but when this is happening it is like I almost have two vision screens. The first is basically the blackness that is my eyelids and the other is the screen the HI is projected on. I consider the HI to be projected on my dream screen, which is subtly different from how I normally see things while awake.

When my "eyes fall asleep" or disconnect from seeing my eyelids (not HI) and I have managed to keep a thread of consciousness continuous, then I am asleep and able to begin a lucid dream. Usually the more singularly concentrated this consciousness the better.

I know Clarity in her WILD technique says "shift/falling" sensation or "be pulled into" a dream and this seems like a great description to me and I have experienced both of these often. For me, I have a shift sensation often when after my eyes have disconnected. Often times, this shift feels really good and I have found that I quite like the transition from waking consciousness to lucid consciousness.

Uhm, I gather this is my take on lucid dreaming. It is very important to let the senses disconnect from consciousness (basically letting the body fall "asleep" including the eyes) while a person has kept their consciousness awake. It is then that the consciousness can enter into the experience of lucid dreaming. :-)

So, what are the best ways to stay awake? For me, I try to hold the thought that I am becoming lucid if I want to shift into a lucid dream. Or I can imagine looking at, feeling, or doing something and get sucked into a scene that is built around what I am imagining.

L&L

Originally Posted by Something Else

For me, both are involved, staying awake and falling asleep. Really for me, the main challenge is staying awake in the right way as the rest of me falls asleep. Different senses seem to go to "sleep" or disconnect at different times. It is important to let them disconnect from my consciousness while still keeping a thread of consciousness going. I often do the following but in life lots of different things happen when it comes to lucid dreaming:

First) Body asleep- this is often felt like at first my body feeling heavy and then later not feeling at all.
Second) Loss of hearing.
Third) Disconnecting of my eyes. THIS IS KEY for me, and one of the hardest things to do when transitioning into dream consciousness as I often just go to sleep and lose consciousness when this happens. I think it is because I am such a visual person and it is my primary sense. Thus my habit is "eyes awake=normal wakefullness", and so "eyes asleep = still awake" is very odd indeed, but I am getting more use to it and working on making a new habit.

When I am going into trance I will often see HI, but when this is happening it is like I almost have two vision screens. The first is basically the blackness that is my eyelids and the other is the screen the HI is projected on. I consider the HI to be projected on my dream screen, which is subtly different from how I normally see things while awake.

When my "eyes fall asleep" or disconnect from seeing my eyelids (not HI) and I have managed to keep a thread of consciousness continuous, then I am asleep and able to begin a lucid dream. Usually the more singularly concentrated this consciousness the better.

I know Clarity in her WILD technique says "shift/falling" sensation or "be pulled into" a dream and this seems like a great description to me and I have experienced both of these often. For me, I have a shift sensation often when after my eyes have disconnected. Often times, this shift feels really good and I have found that I quite like the transition from waking consciousness to lucid consciousness.

Uhm, I gather this is my take on lucid dreaming. It is very important to let the senses disconnect from consciousness (basically letting the body fall "asleep" including the eyes) while a person has kept their consciousness awake. It is then that the consciousness can enter into the experience of lucid dreaming. :-)

So, what are the best ways to stay awake? For me, I try to hold the thought that I am becoming lucid if I want to shift into a lucid dream. Or I can imagine looking at, feeling, or doing something and get sucked into a scene that is built around what I am imagining.

L&L

This is trully a response to many of my questions. Your definition of sleep is pretty much what i searched for many days. Maybe this new view will help me to achieve my first WILD.

According to what you say. We just disconnect from senses. And it is pretty difficult to do so, becouse, we use them every day and they shape our sense of reality.

I am not a good visualiser. But now i am learning image streaming, and it is getting slightly better. I found my ultimate technique to get better at visualising, but this point of view proved me, that it is important to shut the outer senses down and to concentrate on our inner senses.

Now as i am thinking a little about it. It seems, that my strongest sense is kinaesthetic sense. And thats why it seems so hard for me to reach SP. As nearly all techniques mention reaching SP as their first step. It is hard for me to advance furhter without turning my body down.

I am trying not to somehow lift attention from my body to my new image stream. From my latest results, it seems to get working in some extent. As i am not paying attention the body shuts down from itself much easier.

Well. lets wait what happens on my next attempts. I think, i am getting close to fall asleep consciously.

I know I am repeating myself. But i really would like your opinion on this:
1. REM phase happens in time interval. What happens when we take a WILD attempt at the start of REM phase, what in the middle of REM and what after the REM period? Whats the difference in what we might experience?
2. What to do, when WILD attempts makes us more awake, then sleepy? {whats wrong with the attempt}


Thanx for creative and informative insights.

Originally Posted by adraw

This is trully a response to many of my questions. Your definition of sleep is pretty much what i searched for many days. Maybe this new view will help me to achieve my first WILD.

According to what you say. We just disconnect from senses. And it is pretty difficult to do so, becouse, we use them every day and they shape our sense of reality.

I am not a good visualiser. But now i am learning image streaming, and it is getting slightly better. I found my ultimate technique to get better at visualising, but this point of view proved me, that it is important to shut the outer senses down and to concentrate on our inner senses.

Now as i am thinking a little about it. It seems, that my strongest sense is kinaesthetic sense. And thats why it seems so hard for me to reach SP. As nearly all techniques mention reaching SP as their first step. It is hard for me to advance furhter without turning my body down.

I am trying not to somehow lift attention from my body to my new image stream. From my latest results, it seems to get working in some extent. As i am not paying attention the body shuts down from itself much easier.

Well. lets wait what happens on my next attempts. I think, i am getting close to fall asleep consciously.

I know I am repeating myself. But i really would like your opinion on this:
1. REM phase happens in time interval. What happens when we take a WILD attempt at the start of REM phase, what in the middle of REM and what after the REM period? Whats the difference in what we might experience?
2. What to do, when WILD attempts makes us more awake, then sleepy? {whats wrong with the attempt}


Thanx for creative and informative insights.

Well, I maybe can help you some, but not completely. I know that getting the body into a disconnected state (most people call this "sp" I gather) is a key step for me. For many years, it held me back, or more specifically a certain part of my body would hold me back, sometimes my leg or sometimes my neck, not the other part(s) :-) Anyway, I more often than not will become lucid after being very physically relaxed. I have found that if I am not very physically relax, then it won't work. Therefore, I often do some serious stretching and/or yoga before attempting to become lucid. It is part of a routine I do and is pretty much a must for me (although I have been lucid many times without doing stretching, if I am trying to WILD it is almost always something I have to do.) So, I suggest doing some serious stretching to help your body relax. This might help you enter SP better. Another way that I learnt how to get my body disconnected was to pretend that I felt like I was falling. If you try these two things, you might have more success.

As for your questions, I am not sure if I have good answers for you. I can speak from personal experience, but I am not an expert on REM. Personally, I am a big fan of wake up and back to bed or WBTB. I usually just try to wake up 2 hours before I normally would. That way when I go back to bed, I can plan on resting for two hours to catch up. I find for whatever reason this often gives me 2 or 3 chances at becoming lucid. At this point in my sleep cycle I have rested enough that I can often get lucid, but still in a drowsy enough state that it is easy enough to get back to sleep.

As for the WILD attempt making you more drowsy, my guess then is that you would just fall asleep. I am not sure what to say, maybe drink some caffine, sleep more before attempting the WILD, or find a unique way to make sure you will be mentally alert enough to not doze off.

I would like to also say that for me, I have my senses that I live my normal life through, and these can be thought of as "worldly senses" in a way. When trying to WILD, I often am completely disconnecting from my worldly senses and making my conciousness associate and esperience inwardly senses. I use my imagination to create these. My inwardly senses might be considered my imagination, and while they are like my worldly senses in many aspects, there are differences at times.

L&L

I have had a thought come to me of a way to explain “disconnecting” to make it easier to understand. First of all, let me mention again that something that is common for me to do when becoming lucid is to:

1) disconnect my senses related to feeling my body (kinesthetic)
2) disconnect my hearing (auditory)
3) disconnect my sight (visionary)

I would like to explain this more. Very often people mention sleep paralysis or SP. This is usually described as something like, “Sleep paralysis consists of a period of inability to perform voluntary movements either at sleep onset (called hypnagogic or predominately form) or upon awakening (called hypnopompic or postdromal form).”

Such a form of paralysis seems to be just that, a paralysis, or an inability at all to move a certain part of the body. The experience I have is very similar to this in some ways but not quite the same. For instance, when disconnected from my body, I cannot move it just like a person in sleep paralysis, in fact that is the point and my goal. I do not want to move it; I do not even want to feel it, or even know it exists. In reality I do know I exist and I simply will my consciousness back to awareness of my body again and then I feel it and can move it. If a person wants to think of disconnecting the way I do with my body as an “intentional kinesthetic sleep paralysis,” then what I do with my hearing would be “intentional auditory sleep paralysis,” and what I do with my sight as “intentional visionary sleep paralysis.” (I guess the difference here would be that regular sleep paralysis is brought on against a person’s will and might even be scary, where as what I do is actually desired and worked towards so it is very intentional. Another way of describing what I do is letting my body fall asleep, letting my ears fall asleep, and letting my eyes fall asleep.)

The stages for me of intentional kinesthic sleep paralysis are to first, feel my body get heavy, and then not to feel it at all. This is hard to not feel something at all. To think about it, would be to feel it. So, not only do I not feel it, but also it becomes disconnected from my sense of awareness.

The stages for intentional auditory sleep paralysis is to first hear the sound of silence (that kind of high pitched ringing in my ear or lots of other kinds of hypnotic sounds that might come during relaxation) and later to not hear anything at all. I usually don’t have a problem with this as it just kind of happens. (On a side note, it has been interesting to try to induce a lucid dream by just being aware of they ringing in my ear as I go deeper into trance.)

The stages for intentional visionary sleep paralysis is to first see blackness (usually my eyelids closed). Next to see some HI superimposed in front of the blackness, and later, to see no blackness. When this happens, I have disconnected my eyes, and this is a crucial step in my WILD attempts. I know this might sound confusing but it might be helpful to think of it in terms of a TV. Sometimes a TV is on but it might show a completely black screen (maybe a night scene or something), but other times the TV is off and doesn’t show anything at all. This is the difference between eyes closed (eyes closed = TV showing blackness) and eyes disconnected (eyes disconnected = TV off.) There is a fine difference but a difference nonetheless, and for me it turns out to be a very important one.
If I can go through these phases of “disconnecting”/”paralysis”/”letting my _____ fall asleep” while at the same time staying awake in my mind using some kind of visualization, streaming of consciousness, or one of the other numerous techniques out there to lucid dream (I have done many of them and they seem to be good for different people) then I often will become lucid.

Lastly, there is a lot more to WILDing than this just, I just wanted to explain what I meant by “disconnecting”. There are a lot of great tutorials on this sight that deal with many aspects of different approaches and different ways to think about WILDing.

Originally Posted by Something Else

I have had a thought come to me of a way to explain “disconnecting” to make it easier to understand. First of all, let me mention again that something that is common for me to do when becoming lucid is to:

1) disconnect my senses related to feeling my body (kinesthetic)
2) disconnect my hearing (auditory)
3) disconnect my sight (visionary)

I would like to explain this more. Very often people mention sleep paralysis or SP. This is usually described as something like, “Sleep paralysis consists of a period of inability to perform voluntary movements either at sleep onset (called hypnagogic or predominately form) or upon awakening (called hypnopompic or postdromal form).”

Such a form of paralysis seems to be just that, a paralysis, or an inability at all to move a certain part of the body. The experience I have is very similar to this in some ways but not quite the same. For instance, when disconnected from my body, I cannot move it just like a person in sleep paralysis, in fact that is the point and my goal. I do not want to move it; I do not even want to feel it, or even know it exists. In reality I do know I exist and I simply will my consciousness back to awareness of my body again and then I feel it and can move it. If a person wants to think of disconnecting the way I do with my body as an “intentional kinesthetic sleep paralysis,” then what I do with my hearing would be “intentional auditory sleep paralysis,” and what I do with my sight as “intentional visionary sleep paralysis.” (I guess the difference here would be that regular sleep paralysis is brought on against a person’s will and might even be scary, where as what I do is actually desired and worked towards so it is very intentional. Another way of describing what I do is letting my body fall asleep, letting my ears fall asleep, and letting my eyes fall asleep.)

The stages for me of intentional kinesthic sleep paralysis are to first, feel my body get heavy, and then not to feel it at all. This is hard to not feel something at all. To think about it, would be to feel it. So, not only do I not feel it, but also it becomes disconnected from my sense of awareness.

The stages for intentional auditory sleep paralysis is to first hear the sound of silence (that kind of high pitched ringing in my ear or lots of other kinds of hypnotic sounds that might come during relaxation) and later to not hear anything at all. I usually don’t have a problem with this as it just kind of happens. (On a side note, it has been interesting to try to induce a lucid dream by just being aware of they ringing in my ear as I go deeper into trance.)

The stages for intentional visionary sleep paralysis is to first see blackness (usually my eyelids closed). Next to see some HI superimposed in front of the blackness, and later, to see no blackness. When this happens, I have disconnected my eyes, and this is a crucial step in my WILD attempts. I know this might sound confusing but it might be helpful to think of it in terms of a TV. Sometimes a TV is on but it might show a completely black screen (maybe a night scene or something), but other times the TV is off and doesn’t show anything at all. This is the difference between eyes closed (eyes closed = TV showing blackness) and eyes disconnected (eyes disconnected = TV off.) There is a fine difference but a difference nonetheless, and for me it turns out to be a very important one.
If I can go through these phases of “disconnecting”/”paralysis”/”letting my _____ fall asleep” while at the same time staying awake in my mind using some kind of visualization, streaming of consciousness, or one of the other numerous techniques out there to lucid dream (I have done many of them and they seem to be good for different people) then I often will become lucid.

Lastly, there is a lot more to WILDing than this just, I just wanted to explain what I meant by “disconnecting”. There are a lot of great tutorials on this sight that deal with many aspects of different approaches and different ways to think about WILDing.

Really a comprehensive answer to many of the questions. You have the ability to formulate your ideas into sentences pretty well developed. Its cool. SO you just let your body falls asleep.One part after another. And you mentioned some techniques, which aid you in your work. And these techniques are used to somehow make you concentrated somewhere else than you actually are.

Now {as usual}. One more question. When you are going to disconnect from you body, you are focusing your attention elsewhere. But what do you do, when you are trying to disconnect from your visual sense. Where do you put your attention then?

Thanx for valuable opinion.

Originally Posted by adraw

Before i started my wild attemts. I could fall asleep withouth problems. After i started. I was nearly successfull. Maybe becouse i didnt add to much thought into it. After some unsuccessfull attempts, i found out, that i cannot fall asleep well.
And now. I read one topic and idea came to me:

We shouldnt learn how to remain awake, we should learn how to fall asleep.

We should learn how to consciously shut ourselves down. I know, that this is written everywhere in this forums. But lot of people {including me} think, that we should remain awake.

What do you think?

Haha, this is true for me. Although, it may be because I incessantly attempt to WILD and thus, prevent myself from thinking abstractly - which would send me to sleep like a baby.

Originally Posted by Quark

Haha, this is true for me. Although, it may be because I incessantly attempt to WILD and thus, prevent myself from thinking abstractly - which would send me to sleep like a baby.

So for you. The ultimate way, how to get into sleep is to think abstractly? Thats nice. Maybe we should check what people use to fall asleep. Abstract thinking. Nice. Could you please tell, why is that. Have you some personal reasons for that? Is it so boring, or so tiring for you?

As i've said before in a post earlier I guess my way to fall asleep is to just stop thinking (which is very hard), eventually I will end up in a day dream and then fall asleep.

umm... can someone answer this small quesiton?

Once you see a dream scene or hi/dream start forming, stabalize it, make it stronger, and step into it?
everytime i seem to go into this phase i snap out of it in less than a second.
like im falling asleep, then i see my dream bedroom but it immediately goes away before I do anything.

Originally Posted by a_dreamer

umm... can someone answer this small quesiton?

Once you see a dream scene or hi/dream start forming, stabalize it, make it stronger, and step into it?
everytime i seem to go into this phase i snap out of it in less than a second.
like im falling asleep, then i see my dream bedroom but it immediately goes away before I do anything.

That happens to me a lot. I often have short little bursts of lucid dreaming only lasting a second or two, as a matter of fact, I just had a couple in the last hour, but I was just taking a nap/meditation and not really trying to LD. What a difference between these burst of HI and a real LD forming for me is that when I do WBTB I can relax much deeper and longer. I also have momemtum in WBTB that builds over time. It is almost as if my dream energy cycles and builds as I go deeper into relaxation. Like I said, it starts off with simple 2D, then more complex 2D, then 3D. While this HI fades in and out, it gains momemtum. If I get enough momemtum, then I can LD.

On a different take, I have a theory. It is summed up as "You got to give energy to get energy." My theory is that a person has to have a certain level of "dream energy momemtum" built up. This, as I mentioned for me, comes in cycles. In a dream I think a certain level of energy has to be maintained to keep the dream going. (All this is a new theory I have been thinking about as I am still trying to learn how to stabalize dreams and make them last longer myself) But this is how I think about it. If a person has too much energy, or uses too much energy, the dream will break up. Too little energy and the dream won't from correctly or break up. So for me, I am guessing there is a kind of dream range of not to high or not to low that a person must maintain to extend lucid dreams. For instance, let me give some examples.

When a person is flying in a dream, they often are using a lot of energy and the dream ends quickly. I am not sure how many lucid dreams I have had that ended flying. This would be an example of a person using way too much energy and using up all there "Dream Energy Momemtum."

But sometimes people even doing seemingly normal things make a dream fade out. Again, I think a person is using too much of their "Dream Energy Momemtum." Some of the ways to combat this is to rub hands, touch things, go slower, spin, try to pay attention to something, and for me just walking instead of flying. A lot of these things have something in common, a person is actually trying to do something and putting energy into it. I have done all of these things to help stabalize my lucid dreams and it seems to me that when I do, I am making energy. I am forcing things to happen by making my own energy. I am making my brain do extra work. I think this extra work has a side affect of creating extra dream energy momemtum to keep the dream alive.

For an example, I have many times imagined myself walking, and then even felt myself walking in complete blackness. The more I walk though, it seems like the more energy I am creating and that maybe a side affect of is that some of this energy gets diverted off to help create a dream scene.

Confusingly I think that there might be more than one type of energy at play here though in a dream. When I have a short burst of a dream that just fades out, I often think that my energy levels of different types of energy were not balanced and there was not a right recipe for good dream energy momemtum.

Hope this helps.

L&L

Originally Posted by Axel

As i've said before in a post earlier I guess my way to fall asleep is to just stop thinking (which is very hard), eventually I will end up in a day dream and then fall asleep.

When I trying to fall asleep and not LD, I too just stop thinking or don't indulge any thoughts. Usually very quickly I am off day dreaming and soon sleeping. If I indulge a thought and keep on thinking about something, man, I could be up for a while.

Originally Posted by adraw

So for you. The ultimate way, how to get into sleep is to think abstractly? Thats nice. Maybe we should check what people use to fall asleep. Abstract thinking. Nice. Could you please tell, why is that. Have you some personal reasons for that? Is it so boring, or so tiring for you?

I don't know if this is the same, but it seems like we lack basic problem solving/logic ability. Or, in other words common sense. Like 2 nights ago, I was in a hockey game. No benches and coaches, so obviously I was some sort last second replacement or something. I don't play hockey. Everything was accurate. There was a commentator on the loud speakers and I could also hear a crowd. The ref's called a good game. Since there was ref's I just logically came to the conclusion I was playing in the NHL.

We were always on the defensive, then someone cleared the puck. I raced an opponent to the puck and only tried to run into him. He was too fast and beat me and it was called Icing. I didn't even remember the rules to icing and the ref called it accurately. Right after that I started playing on the right side of the rink because I am right-handed. So, seems like I have a subconcious logic that can still generate the dream. It kind of like my minds little graphics engine that we use to picture something in your head while awake. I played a bit more before my memory of this ends and comes back lucid.

Originally Posted by adraw

Before i started my wild attemts. I could fall asleep withouth problems. After i started. I was nearly successfull. Maybe becouse i didnt add to much thought into it. After some unsuccessfull attempts, i found out, that i cannot fall asleep well.

And now. I read one topic and idea came to me:

We shouldnt learn how to remain awake, we should learn how to fall asleep.

We should learn how to consciously shut ourselves down. I know, that this is written everywhere in this forums. But lot of people {including me} think, that we should remain awake.

What do you think?

I agree sometimes people forget that the oject of WILDing is to fall asleep.

Okay, I'm pretty new to intentional WILDs, but I can share what I've found to be true so far.

Falling asleep quickly:
I find that falling asleep quickly (in about 5 minutes) is important in any WILD attempt for me. If it takes longer I may lose concentration. To fall asleep quickly I need to be tired. I can make myself tired, but completely awake by waking myself just as I'm about to fall asleep. For example, I may read a book until I begin to fall asleep. When I get to the point of sleep I start to drop the book which wakes me. I put the book away and proceed with my WILD attempt.

While falling asleep:
I focus on everything internal (much like in meditation) and avoid thinking about my surroundings or my bodily position. I try to make my only conscious thoughts those of observing my own mind so that I notice when "sleeping thoughts" begin to emerge and dominate.

Signs of sleep (non-SP):
I know that I will soon enter a dream when I notice nonsense thoughts. These are usually mostly auditory, like thinking something to yourself, except these are random phrases/songs with no clear coherency and in different voices. After these begin to dominate and get louder I will see fleeting images. If I observe all this I am pretty much guaranteed success.