Have I reached lucidity? (WILD technique)
Hello everyone, my first post here but I've been browsing this site once in a while. Please bare the long thread but I have a few questions. To those who will read through all of it and answer me, thanks in advance!
I have a question regarding the WILD technique and lucid dreaming. It's probably linked to what exactly is a lucid dream and how you describe and identify them.
But before I ask my question, I'll give you some context.
I've read quite a bit on these forums on lucid dreaming and dream recall and have been giving it half hearted tries here and there once in a while (due to skepticism yet intrigued by the idea). Now it seems the technique which I have had the most 'success' is the WILD technique.
On several occasions I have reached the point of tingling sensation, sleep paralysis and different imagery in the 'mind eye'. The experience was odd and new at first but it drew my interest even more to the idea of lucid dreams.
I've had what I consider a break through last nigh using the WILD technique and I will give you a rather detailed description of what I remember (which is rather accurate, except the content of the dream but more on that later)
1-I started by laying in a comfortable position in bed and putting my body in a relaxed state. In the meanwhile, I have been following the different WILD inducing mind techniques (self repetition, breathing, some mind wandering but refocusing on the 'I will have a lucid dream' self repetition and so on)
2-I feel my body falling asleep. I also feel two of the described sensations you should feel. I feel this tingling sensation or vibration moving through my body. I fight the urge to move and it seems I have mastered the will to do so rather easily now. At the same time, I start 'feeling' or 'seeing' shades of color or black moving across my eyes which are closed and relaxed. At one point I feel like they are rolling over upwards (which is really odd) but after a while this dissipates and the feeling of moving colors returns.
3-I am then hit with a second wave of 'vibrations' and now feel my body completely paralyzed (which I identify as the sleep paralysis described in several documents) I can give my mind the order to move yet nothing happens (unless I put enough will to it but that's not the point!) My thoughts start to wander more and more (but I keep control over them as I can return to specific thoughts when I wish).
4-After a while I get over the fascination of not being to move at all due to this sleep paralysis (my lower jaw/mouth seem less as I am breathing through my mouth due to a cold and need to move once in a while but this apparently doesn't bother my sleep). I then concentrate more on my thoughts and their content. Now this is where I get confused a bit.
5-I am still aware of my body at this point which is still frozen. I sometimes feel my hands are bend at another angle than they are really are (the feeling you know they are palm down on your stomach yet your mind feels and tells you otherwise is quite odd) but most importantly vivid imagery starts flowing through my mind's eye. The thing is, I seem to have retained control over them. Here are a few things I did and remember quite clearly:
-remembering a place and person who I would like to meet and actually 'trying out' different ways to do so. I gave this 'meet-the-person' act several times in different locations and times of my apparent choosing. Conversation with the DC (dream character is what they are called here on these boards) seemed natural and I had not to think about coming up with the answers. It seemed natural. I've also had the ability to rewind to a previous point in time during the experiment and try different things.
=> This seems familiar to descriptions by individuals who have had lucid dreams where they explained who could 'try things out' in the dream before doing them in the real world.
-the ability to switch places at will using a technique consisting of looking down and spinning and looking up after to find yourself in another place and time. Now the best example of this would be the following.
I was previously exploring the first example when I decided to try the spining teleport ability which I must have remembered from the website ( I did not consciously thing about it before WILDing but it's more like a AHA! I remember that now! you may feel like during a peculiarly long exam).
So in other words I managed to 'teleport' myself to a beautiful sandy beach I had visited this summer in Corsica. The think is it wasn't part of a memory, something I had directly seen. It's more like I had 'loaded' the area, just like in a video game. I was able to roam through it freely and even managed to find myself at the angle from which a postcard picture of the area was taken (in this case, in the sky...which leads to flying)
-The ability to remember memories more vividly than during waking hours. Normally, I am rather terrible at remembering events yet during this state I was able to remember events so vividly I was surprised
-At some point I recall talking to myself, self congratulating on reaching this control over your thoughts (or dreams?) but this memory is rather fuzzy
-I woke up after about an hour (Nature called I guess...)
All of this took place over an hour. I have no idea how long it took to move from the beginning to the sleep paralysis state nor how long the dream lasted. The events lived through the dream spanned of course more than an hour. Well the events took place in real time but much like a TV show a thread explained, they are parts cut away. It seems like I had a lot of control over what happened yet this feels odd. AFter waking up after the first hour and returned to sleep after the bathroom break, it seems I was able to return quickly to the sleep paralysis state and live through another dream, quite similar (I can't tell if I resumed from the previous point). This lasted an hour before I got sparked awake (excitement? loss of concontration? Mind fatigue?)
Now my questions are...
-Have I reached lucidity during the dream as I feel like I have?
-I used the WILD technique before going to sleep and not after 5-6 hours of sleep yet it seemed to work even though many say few are able to, am I lucky or willed enough to do so?
-A rather silly question...do you actually get rest as you would by sleeping during a lucid dream.
-These WILD dreams lasted almost one hour each, is this linked to the cycles of sleep?
-Can you make such dreams last longuer?
-Can you transition from this awareness in your 'dream' and thoughts to a normal unaware sleep. The kind of sleep one would have without trying to reach lucid dream. To actually get some sleep sleep I had to change positions (on my side) and refuse to think about lucid dreaming.
-Way of topic: how do you go about talking about lucid dreaming to friends, especially those who have never heard about such things? Or you just don't say anything...
If you have read through all of this then thank you very much!
I will experiment some more using this technique and discover more of this wonderful inner world and I am looking forward to your answers.
-Edeehem
