Consistent WILDs through hard-work
When I first started out on this forum, I accidentally happened upon WILDs a couple of times and became quickly convinced that this was THE way to lucid dream. It's always nice accidentally 'waking up' in a dream, but I prefer to leave as little to chance as possible. I was always confounded by various problems in trying to WILD without having woken up in the middle of the night--my true desire was to be able to WILD essentially anytime. I eventually sort of gave up and moved on to other related pursuits, and then accidentally came upon a methodology that results in consistent, volitional WILDs.
The first step to success is understanding what you are ultimately aiming for, in terms of the condition of your body and mind at the moment of WILD. To enter into a lucid dream from waking consciousness, your body must be physiologically asleep, while your consciousness is awake. This is pretty obvious, but the question remains, "how does one reach this point?"
Sit some place relatively quiet, in a comfortable position, and focus all of your attention on the feeling of breath going into your nostrils, and then back out of your nostrils. Think about nothing else. If you are like I was when I first started this exercise, you will be unable to focus for even twenty seconds without some distracting thought, song lyric, memory, reminder, etc popping into your head. This ability, to focus your mind, is the single most important skill for lucid dreaming, WILD, and probably life in general. To succeed with my method, you have to practice this EVERY day for at least five minutes. When you realize that your mind is straying simply stop thinking about whatever distraction your mind is on, and return to your nostrils. This will probably be frustrating, and it will take a while to feel like you are making progress, but even being able to concentrate for a single minute without being distracted is quite a feat. Once you are able to hold your concentration for one to two minutes, you are probably at the point where you can succeed at volitional WILD, although the stronger your concentration power, the easier it will be.
Once you have worked on this skill, it is time to put it into practice. Consuming caffeine, alcohol, or certain prescription drugs within 24 hours of your attempt will make it nearly impossible. THC is very unstable--it WILL decrease the time it takes for your body to fall asleep, but it can be very hard to maintain consciousness or concentration. I recommend at least 24 hours of purity. I haven't noticed much difference with foods, but I also try to avoid refined sugars as much as possible in general.
Lie down in a comfortable position. I've only had luck on my back, although you may want to experiment with different positions. It's important to be comfortable, but if you do this in your bed, you may find yourself falling asleep too easily (due to our sleep-bed-conditioning). The following instructions are based on the concept of trance-meditation, so if you are familiar with that, do what you normally do. Otherwise, relax all of your body sequentially. There used to be a guide for 61 point relaxation on here, I don't know if it still exists, but this process is pretty self-explanatory: try to single out each muscle group and purposefully relax it, trying to remove as much muscle tone as is possible while conscious. When you have done this, focus on your breathing for a while to further your relaxation. Don't worry too much if you have irrelevant thoughts invading your mind, just make sure that you stay in control and don't get carried away with them. This is why you practiced the breath awareness.
From this fully relaxed position, you need to begin tricking your body into falling asleep. This can be done several ways. Roll your eyes back in your head and keep them there, allow muscles to occasionally tick or spasm and try to feel yourself sinking backwards and downwards. Eventually you'll begin to feel a kind of tickling energetic sensation in your extremities. Try to focus on this sensation, and the feeling of it spreading up towards your torso. This is the pre-cursor to sleep paralysis.
As this feeling spreads to your torso it will become more intense. It may feel as if though your heart is beginning to race, and you may feel suddenly very hot or very cold, and it may feel as if though you cannot breathe. All of this completely normal, and totally illusory. These symptoms of oncoming sleep paralysis were what caused me so much difficulty initially. I was dreadfully afraid of asphyxiating and would wake myself out of it every time. Concentrate on the feeling of energy throughout your body, allow your heart to race (even though it's beating at its regular rate, or a bit faster due to your excitement), continue breathing normally even if it seems to feel labored, and notice the very strange, psychedelic closed-eye imagery that comes on. It is common to lose it at this point and wake yourself out of it. It is this stage that most people describe as 'vibrations'. The vibrations can be felt as a kind of buzzing, or even shaking, or nothing at all. It's also common to hear wooshing, intensely loud tones, or even voices. The first few times it may be jarring, but you'll quickly get used to it, and probably even come to enjoy it.
The hardest part is actually getting beyond this point. If you are able to maintain your composure through this stage, you may feel like your body is suddenly detached, weightless and floating slowly upwards. This indicates that your body is asleep and you are very close to success. Relax into this sensation--it is very pleasant. It is similar to the feeling of floating in salt water. It is very important to be relaxed at this stage, because it is quite unstable. From here, one can do one of several things. I am used to the rolling-over motion, so i 'feel' myself rolling to the side and consequently "out of my body". The idea is basically to 'move' yourself into the dream from this floating kind of suspension. This is a different kind of movement than with the physical body, because it does not involve muscles, but rather a kind of 'willing'. I can't, unfortunately, describe this properly, because there don't exist the necessary words--however, if you have had lucid dreams before, it is the exact same kind of 'will' that is required to fly, shoot fireballs, or do any of the impossible things that you do in a lucid dream.
If done properly, you will find yourself in a dreamscape. Be careful opening your eyes, as I typically find that that action causes my physical eyes to open as well, resulting in a blurry kind of double vision. To fix this, I close my eyes and focus on the sensation of rubbing my hands together, exactly as I would to solidify a lucid dream.
I have recently been experimenting with so-called astral projection, using this technique exactly, but I have yet to come upon any conclusive results. Much of this technique is similar to Robert Bruce's 'NEW' system, which I highly recommend to anyone who is able to get past the initial impression that he is another new-age charlatan dunderhead (he's not, actually). He goes into far more detail about how to stimulate yourself while in trance to make it much easier to succeed.
If you have any questions, or want further clarification, I'd be happy to offer what knowledge I have. Hope this helps someone!
