Kromoh's VILD

[Kromoh]

Hello guys. Time to post yet a new thread at the beloved DV community. This time, I want to talk about VILDing.. What image do you have of VILDs? When you hear VILD, you'll probbaly think of something extremely hardcore and hard to grasp for the average mind, and a completely effortful technique, right? Well, that's wrong. VILD is perhaps the most effortless technique I've had contact with (oh the laziness ^^). Kromoh's VILD Imagining a whole dreamy scene from scratch and have it turned into a real, full-blown dream might sound ridiculously hard. That is because, with your highly active mind from the daily activities, your brain leaves few space for subconscious imagination. This does not happen, though, when you've just woken up. This technique is to be done after you've just woken up naturally - not in the middle of the night, but in the morning when you wake up and still have some time to sleep more. Your freshly awakened brain will still be quite imaginative and subject to dreamy thoughts, making imagining things much easier. Yes, imagining things will be easier... but still not easy enough. So let's move on to a thing I call subconscious stream of thoughts. You know when you sail for a full day, and, when you set off to sleep, you can still feel your bed shaking to the waves? Or, when you play football for prolongued times, and you can feel your body move as if you were playing as you go to sleep? Or even, when you play some new game, and images of it keep recurring to your mind when you close your eyes? Those are subconscious thoughts. They are there because no thought is abruptedly vanquished from your brain: something you thought as you woke up may stil be midly active in some isolated area of your brain, so isolated that you don't perceive it. But it's still there, because thoughts are chain reactions. Now, if you combine that with the dreamy mind you get after having just waken up, you'll have the perfect conditions for a VILD. Now let's take the boat example: you've sailed for the whole day, and as you close your eyes, it seems you are still moving to the water currents... It seems so real... real enough that it is so easy to imagine yourself in that boat... And it is. As soon as you think of that boat, your subconscious mind will delve more into that shaking sensation, that moving feeling... You'll soon feel your feet to the ground, you may feel the wind on your face or the sun on your head... although it's so weak a thought. You shouldn't put any conscious effort into this. Just let your subconscious mind do the work for you, and proggressively make that setting more cohesive... more tangible. You can now hear voices of people and the touch of things... At this time you may visualise yourself opening a door, touching a wall, and the similar. Just keep letting your mind make that image more real. At this time you should be barely conscious of what is being done... all you know is that you're at a boat and you can feel things. When you least expect, you can feel your whole body moving, in a completely different setting from that of your bedroom. This gives you a doubtful view.. and you Reality Check.. and find yourself in one of the most vivid dreams you've ever had. That, my friends, is a VILD. In fact, it's so easy that it barely requires conscious effort... just a bit of common sense to realise you're in a dream. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Now for direct steps of the technique: Wake up naturally (which will probably happen in the morning after you've overslept a bit), and don't do anything special. You know when you wake up early in a sunday and remember you can sleep until late? That's more or less about it. Just to make sure, try a RC before going for the technique. Now, get something that seems to be going on passively in your mind: yourself in a rollercoaster, driving, skating.. anything that your mind tells you. There should be no conscious effort to this: your sunconscious mind must do all the work. You need to thinking of somethign initially, and let your mind develop that setting into a dream. You should be just lighting up a match, and waiting for the forest to burn for itself. That's why you'll need an image of something that is continuous/repetitive enough for your mind to perform on its own. Also, if the image from your previous dream is still warm in your head, it serves damn mighty well. As the dreamy images become more cohesive, you'll become each time less conscious... don't fight this. Instead, make sure you'll have the chance to remember you're in a dream (which can be done by simply telling yourself to RC during the process). The scene will become more cohesive, and at some point, your body image will be fully disclosed from your sleeping body: you're not on your bed anymore, but in a dreamy scene. You are able to move without your real body moving. This is when you know it's safe to take control. The very first thing to do is either a Reality Check or a vividness-enhancing technique (such as concentrating on your hand to see every detail of it). This is very important to increase lucidity, to make the dream steady and more vivid. You're in a Lucid Dream. UBER IMPORTANT NOTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BE EXTREMELY WARY OF FALSE AWAKENINGS!!! THESE TEND TO OCCUR FREQUENTLY!! ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU THINK YOU'VE JUST FAILED VILDING!!! Guess that's it. Any doubt, shoot.

[kingofclutch]

I will try this tomorrow morning and tell you my results. It sounds easy enough.

[maniakalBycikle]

hmmm sounds VERY easy. I'll try it too. I've been avoiding WILDs because of the difficulty.

[arby]

A very good way to go around VILDing Kromoh. I give this tech an A+ star for it's ability to work. I disagree, however with some of the reasons that you give for why it works (or course, it doesn't really change the tech at all, it's all to the same end) I'm putting it in a spoiler tag so that people who don't really care can just skip over and continue with the thread. Understanding it may bring VILDs more easily or it make make them nigh impossible =P Spoiler for stuff: The biggest factor in a VILD is the idea of conceptual thought. Conceptual thought is basically just thought that uses concepts as they appear in your head. That is, the mental schemata, connections drawn from memories, visual attributes, sounds often associated with it... etc. So, the first thing I disagree with is that those images are the ever evasive "subconscious thoughts". I agree more with Freud's model of consciousness(consciousness, preconscious and unconsciousness) using this, these are simply memories that are just lying below the surface or, using the model of conceptual thought, you can say that they are concepts that we can easily access in full. You see, it is very difficult to consciously bring concepts to your conscious mind simply because you have nothing to grasp when searching for that concept. You can observe this by looking at the "subconscious thoughts" that you have right now. Other then a general feeling, how do you recognize that they are even there? That is the conceptual side of things, my friend =) Now, for the VILD, your goal is an environment made of pure conceptual thought. Understandably, this can be slightly difficult considering how fleeting it is. Of course, through the "subconscious thoughts" (concepts in our preconscious layer) we can sow the seeds that are necessary to propagate more concepts and thus have the world form around you (all concepts are inter-related though the mental connections that you have made (best described as your "mental schemata") and thus, if you are thinking "boat" then soon you will also have the concept of an ocean because that's what the boat must be in. I think your tech is much better then my own bloated one. =P Mine tried to instigate conceptual thought by having you imagine up as many attributes of an object as possible then hope that it would form into a recognizable concept along the way. It didn't work too well for most people =P So, the way that you master the VILD is by learning to access conceptual thought on a whim. It is not picture-based thinking, it is not word based thinking, those come second. If you think of some thing using pictures, first you picture it to be that way, then it is. If you use concepts, it is that way then you get the picture. =O Sorry if I'm thread hijacking at all... it's all relevant and I always love getting stuff like this off my chest =P One very interesting thing that I noticed is that you used a boat as an example. I find this very interesting as that is the example that ALWAYS comes to my mind when trying to explain something like this. Even more notable, it is the same example that laberge uses in EWLD when he touches upon this subject. VERY intriguing. I'd also like to add that recent dreams (especially the ones you woke up from) are VERY good reservoirs to pull from if you are to do this at DEILD time. Very good thread. I expect many people to be successful

[blrhoover]

Heh, this sounds really cool. I'll try it first thing tomorrow, literally.

[kingofclutch]

Well, I tried to do it but my mom kept on coming in my room and making a ton of noise. I will try again tomorrow maybe.

[Holiace]

Very well written tutorial! Thank you Kromoh! BTW: IF I have not recalled one false awakening for the last year, do you tkink it still could happen?

[Keresztanya]

Very nice technique, you were talking to me and exhalent about this in the chat yesterday. Thanks, I'll try it.

[maniakalBycikle]

well, I tried. I think I got close though. I was imagining imagining myself jumping on my bike, even though I've never really jumped very high in real life. Also, does it matter if I think in first or third person? Will try again tonight.

[Kromoh]

well, I tried. I think I got close though. I was imagining imagining myself jumping on my bike, even though I've never really jumped very high in real life. Also, does it matter if I think in first or third person? Just do what your mind tells you. Don't fight what your mind creates. If at one night you can only see in 1st person, then so be it. But if in another night, 3rd person is what it gets, then so be it. I find that usually I have more 3rd person view if I focus on a game image, and 1st perso nif I focus on some physical activity.

[maniakalBycikle]

ok, thx. Just remembered that my mind kept wandering and I would fall asleep, so tonight I'll stay more focused on the action.

[ShoNuff]

I often re-enter my dream everytime i hit my sleep timer. I just never remember to do a reality check i guess. When i get back to the dream i just forget that i was awake until the next alarm.

[Arthurium]

Kromoh, what do you do for work? You are very articulate!

[Arthurium]

I will try this in the morning tomorrow and report back! Thanks for the guide!

[Kromoh]

Kromoh, what do you do for work? You are very articulate! Last year of high school Intent to study medicine though. Haha best of luck ^^

[RockNRoller123]

Damn Kromoh, I never see much of you outta the senseless banter forum. So I gotta say, I'm impressed! And can you clarify the whole repetitive/continuous part. I don't quite understand.

[arby]

Damn Kromoh, I never see much of you outta the senseless banter forum. So I gotta say, I'm impressed! And can you clarify the whole repetitive/continuous part. I don't quite understand. He means that you need something that will last long enough to create a dream scene from. If your seed thought is something like an explosion, it won't turn out so great. The explosion goes for about a second then you're left with nothing (assuming, of course that you didn't propagate a war scene or something from it). If you had a ship though, you could walk around and explore it and generally step into a stable dream quite easily and quickly.

[RockNRoller123]

Oh, thanks. I think I get it, but could you give one more example.