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I've gotten better at WILD, although it took... what... 4 years?

I've found I have much more control over the dream and don't run into the "stuck in the dark" issue that plagues my lucid dreams when I gain awareness during a dream.

I've been horrible about keeping a dream journal, and today I only remember my 2 WILD lucid dreams and not much else. Very lazy of me.

My favorite method for WILD is to explore a specific environment. I have two main fallbacks, two different "home bases". I know a lot of people really want to create a home base. It has been very difficult for me - I had no luck even managing to arrive in my home base for 2 solid years. I think part of it was that my "home" really wasn't a good one and didn't reflect my true personality or needs, and I had to spend a lot of time rearranging and rebuilding it in my head. I have two different ones right now, depending on what I want to accomplish. One is a whimsical home in what looks like the rainforest of the Pacific Northwest, perched on a cliff over the ocean. The other one is a fortress in a rugged landscape that looks a lot like the Grand Canyon, although much more mountainous.


LD #1: Woke up. Had to use the bathroom. Went back to bed.
Began my visualization of home #1... I was on the sandy beach below the cliff. I walked up and down the beach in my mind, focusing on all of the sensations that would go with it - the sound of the waves, the sound of the wind, the feel of the sand beneath my feet and even the slight whisper it made when I walked. How my footprints looked. The sky and horizon over the ocean, and the smell of salt on the breeze. Eventually, the sound of gulls over the water.

I looked back toward my house. There are steep stairs that lead up from the beach to the top of the cliff - they're made from the stones themselves. I walk across the beach to the steps and start climbing upward toward the house. The stones feel solid beneath my feet.

By the time I reach the top of the cliff, the dream has solidified into a lucid dream, although it still feels very fragile. I spend some time on the terrace at the top of the cliff looking out across the beach and ocean, and marvel at how beautiful it is.

I have a feeling that there are some friends nearby heading toward my house, so I move through the bedroom (which has a door leading to the terrace) and then the kitchen area. Things are fuzzy and I've made the mistake of not stabilizing very well because I'm anxious to greet my friends.

I open the front door. The rainforest outside is cool and misty. Wooden steps create a trail upward through the foliage. I can hear their voices in the distance, it sounds like two of them are arguing with each other.

Two of my friends appear at the top of the steps and start heading downward... I can still hear the others arguing with each other, although they're still out of sight somewhere further up the trail.

All of this is very distracting. The dream is too thin at this point, and it fades. I wake up.

LD #2:
I wake up naturally. It's early morning... light outside, but earlier than I'd like to get out of bed. I don't really remember the dreams I just had.

I lie back and begin another visualization; this time, I'm exploring the fortress. The fortress is a very new idea, interesting and a bit more grim. I wander around through some nondescript rooms... I haven't really developed the place much... and eventually become lucid in an area with ugly lemon yellow walls that really don't look very fortressy. I'm sort of irritated since I'd rather be somewhere more fitting for what I'd like, and more interesting. The hall I'm going down twists and turns but doesn't lead anywhere, and I'm becoming more irritated.

I run across a woman wearing a very old-fashioned maid outfit (not like a sexy French maid, think a traditional English maid) but she's very... zombielike. I think I said something to her, and she replied in a monotone. Her eyes were white and milky-looking. I don't like her and don't want to deal with zombies, so I destroy her (with a thought, she basically becomes a blood spatter across the walls and floor).

I run across one of the dream characters who'd normally inhabit this fort (he's a general) but everything is foggy so I don't recall any specifics about him... I need to work on him a little more... and complain about the zombie. He tells me that he and another dream character zombified all of the inhabitants and servants in the fortress when they took it over, so they wouldn't have to deal with any opposition by them but the fortress was kept running and in pretty decent repair. He doesn't care much about convenience and upkeep for himself - he doesn't need that stuff - but the way he sees it, it's more convenient for me. It's sort of evil and disturbing, but it IS something I'd expect that character to do, and he does have a good point.

This wasn't something I came up with myself... I was a little surprised by it, actually. I still don't really like the zombies, but I don't want to argue with that particular dream character very much - he's very stubborn - so I let the zombie thing slide.

As I head toward the main door that leads outside of the fortress, the dream falls apart and I wake up.