Nerefa

Had an ear infection on the same side I like to sleep on.

I used the throbbing pain as a gauge for WILD. After laying in bed relaxed for a few minutes, I paused my thoughts, abiding in present moment awareness. In a couple seconds, I felt the sensation of falling asleep. With it, the pain in my ear vanished.

So I dislodged myself from my body and flew over to my spouse, reaching through her and calling her name just to see what happened. She was asleep. I turned into my dragon while I was bothering her (in preparation for adventures to come).

My spouse and I have been doing little experiments like this off and on for months to test potential dream sharing.

Later, when I woke up, she told me that she had a dream in which I hovered over her in a video call saying something (in her dream). Apparently I interrupted something she was doing in her dream.

Anyway, in my dream, after bothering her, I flew out the room. My house had some warped spots. Rooms turned in wrong directions mainly.

I eventually flew out the window. It was night and our yard was bigger, full of dead trees, and one living tree (which we don’t have in waking reality). Our fence was gone, but the property was more isolated—away from any other homes.

I had to go to the bathroom in that moment, so I spring back to my body and woke up, went to the bathroom, and went back in with another identical WILD.

I flew back out again (dragon form) to the nearest neighborhood with lights on and snuck into a house. In the house, a creature was hiding and didn’t want me to see it. Apparently it used to live in the house, but it had been living outside since a recent incident that turned it into a mutant.

There were a couple of other mutants living with it, but this house only belonged to one of the mutants (the one with large fangs who’s body was chopped up into pieces, and crudely stitched together). Sometimes his body fell apart and he had to stitch it back up.

The mutants were visiting the house (the one I snuck into), wishing to live there again. It was a cute little modern house. Nothing too fancy, but just a bit upscale. Small home with tall ceilings.

The creature hesitated to stay here because it didn’t want to be seen by its community as a mutant. It used to be a higher status member of society. Beautiful, well off, and respected in the community.

I don’t know what happened, but the creature deeply bemoaned its fall from grace and seemed quite preoccupied by this, so it didn’t notice me lurking around at first.

I hid in the cupboards.

I ended up being spotted eventually though. When it saw me, I flew into one of the other mutants and combined with it. There were no words spoken, but a sudden consensual possession.

This being had crab-like mutations. While I possessed it, I worked on trying to shape shift it back into its original form (more human) since I’m good at shapeshifting myself. Didn’t really work, but I tried.

In the meantime, I befriended the other mutants and explored the house, tinkering around with all their cool stuff.

After I woke up in the morning, my spouse told me that she had a dream about beings that didn’t want to be seen. She caught a glimpse of mutated parts of them.

Disclaimer: This is a guide for my own personal technique that may not be as viabl. It's how I learned to lucid dream originally (at around 10 years old). I've had hundreds if not thousands of lucid dreams from it over the course of 20+ years. It remains my favorite and most reliable technique personally, but I can't promise it will work for others. Take it with a grain of salt.

For those wanting a universally practiced technique, I recommend vanilla WILD or MILD.

Anyway...

Dream Brain Mimicking is a way that I personally like to initiate lucid dreams from the waking state (similar to WILD). It works by mimicking the same areas of your brain that are active during dreams, allowing you to seamlessly transition from waking to conscious sleep without the usual WILD anchors.
Note: Technically, the dream story you come up is your anchor, but you don't have to think about it that way.

This guide will explain the mindset for what I like to call "dream brain", what kinds of thoughts you can engage in to encourage dream brain, the mindset you want to cultivate for dreaming, and how you may feel in altered states.

If you're already familiar with the feeling of dreaming, I highly recommend you embrace your own personal experiences as a frame of reference in addition to the tips outlined here, as this is what Dream Brain Mimicking is all about! The more you emulate your own dreaming mindset, the better.

Optional Reading
My WILD guide can be found here if you want a more thorough understanding of vanilla WILD: https://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/ner...d-guide-94340/).
MILD can also (optionally) be incorporated into Dream Brain Mimicking for more powerful effects. Here's a good MILD guide: https://skyfalldreams.net/guides/skyfalls-mild-guide/

Moving right along!


Choose a Setting
As you lay in bed, choose a setting that you would like to start with. It can be related to your daily life, your dreams, or be something entirely new.

If you want the most potent option, choose a setting that includes dream signs that will continuously trigger and reinforce your lucidity and/or a setting of a dream you had previously. For example, a mythical fantasy world with dragons and cities in the sky will remind you that you must be dreaming. If you already dreamed of this mythical place before, even better! Any dream settings you regularly get lucid in are the best if your only goal is lucidity.

The setting you choose can always be changed later as the dream progresses, so it's not set in stone. The important thing is that it will eventually turn into a dream, so ideally pick something you want to dream about. The more motivated you are, the better. What's something you've always wanted to do?

You can also connect settings together. If you have a previous dream setting that you're always lucid in, you can create a path from that location to another setting for a dream you want (maybe it's connected by an alleyway or a portal) and go from there.

I'm going to continue this guide with an underwater city setting for demonstration. For this, you could start in the ocean already, or start above the water and dive in.


Starting Your Dream
Imagine yourself beginning the dream. If you picked the underwater city setting for example, imagine yourself flying above the ocean under a bright blue cloudless sky. See the mountains in the distance and circle downward as you dive. Feel the current and hear the water's surface breaking as you plunge right in!

Fully immerse yourself in the sensations of swimming downward towards an underwater city as a rush of bubbles trails up behind you. The closer you get, the more details you can see of the city below as it comes into view. You are immersed in this real time experience.

Take Your Time
There's no rush to this process. Feel free to take your time and be immersed with any or all of your senses. You can imagine breathing underwater in any way you want, whether you have gills or if it feels just like breathing air.

Does the seawater taste salty? Look at all of the color and details, bubbles, light, and darkness. Do you see any fish swimming by? Try looking around from different angles and perspectives. Look up and see the sunlight coming through the surface above. Then, as you look back down, get a view of the underwater cityscape and how the streets were once laid out by some lunatic who can't design a city, now in a serene murky ruin. Set the tone! Fill your world with personality and backstory, as if it has a real history. And what are you looking to accomplish? Why are you here again?

Note: If you have aphantasia, feel free to skip the visuals and work with other senses. The important thing is your immersion with your dream, not the specific details of it.

How to Be Immersed
Don't worry about using all of your senses or doing specific step-by-step tasks. There is absolutely no checklist to follow. The goal of this practice is to be fully immersed and invested in your unbridled inclinations. Be freely driven by your most primal and natural emotions. Follow your gut instinct, do what flows naturally (as opposed to complex decision-making and logical thinking). This is how we usually engage in dreams. It's a light, passive way of thinking. Like a flowing stream of though

Show, don't tell; do, don't think!
Although it may sound contradictory to lucid dreaming, part of immersion means not having constant meta awareness of what you're doing. In other words, put yourself in the mindset of actually being there in the moment, rather than being highly aware that you're laying in bed thinking about it. Engage the experience of the dream, not just thinking about the dream. Engage thoughts like "I am lucid now, this is a dream." and "I'm exploring! What's over there?!" instead of things like "Oh. Did I do that right for the technique?" or "Uh oh, did I use my sense of taste yet?"

Engage with your environment as it comes, rather than going through a checklist of tasks. Again, "I need to focus on this or that" isn't the right mindset. You want to engage in the environment in your mind as if it's real and right there in front of you. Allow yourself to forget your current physical position in bed—you're not laying in bed doing a lucid dreaming technique. Rather, you are experiencing this dream in real time. The thoughts in your mind are more than just thoughts. They are your direct reality.

It's okay if you don't do this perfectly. If you have to scratch an itch, move around, or your thoughts veer off track, that's fine. Don't worry about it! I do this constantly and it doesn't interfere when I don't draw attention to it.

Plan Ahead
If there are very specific things you want to do, I recommend making plans for your goals ahead of time rather than trying to sort it all out in the moment—particularly for more complicated ideas that you're not sure of. For example, if you want to make up a plot about a sea dragon living in the heart of the city and what it's doing there, make some notes about it before you start. You could still have this sea dragon show up without planning, and improvise what it's doing, but if there's anything you want special control over, do that ahead of time.

Same goes for dreams. Incubate anything you really to go a particular way ahead of time so you don't get caught up in complicated plot structures in the moment—because most of the time when you're dreaming, you're not going to be making tons of complicated plot decisions. Dreams tend to form naturally and are influenced by our intentions, associations, free-flowing thoughts, and natural expectations—rather than heavy logical thinking and scheming.

So I recommend you do your fancy logic brain stuff beforehand for best results. It's not that you can't do this in dreams, it's just that we tend to do it less, and doing it less makes this technique easier to fall asleep to. We are, after all, trying to fall asleep. Easy free-forming thoughts you can fall asleep to is the goal.

Engage Your Passion
Dreams that motivate you on a personal level can be highly effective. If possible, pick something that you can easily get lost in while staying immersed, and invest your time in without it feeling like a chore. Feel free to follow your instincts and desires. Do the things you're most motivated to do.

Things that are currently pressing you in waking life are great candidates for dream material, too. For example, if you have a fictional crush you're interested in, you can make them a character in your dream. Tie what you know about the character into the story. For example, if the character is an author, the dream version of this character could have written about this underwater city and joined you to learn more about it for their research. Or you can shake things up a bit—maybe this character has a book that allows their writings to become reality, which can be a dream control tool for the both of you.

Perspective
Don't feel like you need to maintain a first person perspective for the sake of immersion. Overthinking this is immersion-breaking and not worth doing. Third person perspectiive is fine to have! Dreams often switch between perspectives randomly anyway, often without us even noticing because we're so immersed in the contents of the dream (which is what you want to emulate).

Follow Your Natural Schemas
If you're familiar with schema for dream control, you know that personal associations are involved in dream formation. If you see a cat, it will be more likely to meow than to bark like a dog, because you associate cats with meowing (unless there's some specific reason it would bark instead). This dream doesn't have to follow the rules of reality, but it should generally follow the personal way you associate concepts, because your dreams also form in this way. There's a lot of schemas that many people universally share (like cats meowing and dogs barking). Other schemas may be cultural, and then there's personal schemas. For example, if I see a white cat, I might automatically expect it to be a male with one eye, because I had a male white cat with one eye growing up. For someone else, a white cat may be more likely to have other attributes since having a one-eyed male cat is a highly specific experience for me and not others.

You don't have to overthink this though. Schematic associations that you have already will come automatically without you even having to think about them. It's the way dreams are formed instantaneously without the need to think about it, and waking thoughts will do the same when we let them flow naturally. It's a good idea to let your mind do what it does naturally, even if it doesn't always make sense, rather than trying to narrate, drive, and control every little detail.

Your Dreams "Want" to Process Your Experiences
An important underlying fundamental behind all of this is that your mind "wants" to process something when you go to sleep. You have dreams about your past experiences, especially the more recent experiences you've had. If you went to a family gathering the night before, you're more likely to have dreams about it. We even have dreams about media we've recently consumed. The things that are most immersive and "important" to are often the things you dream about. It's your brain's way of processing and storing memories. Dream Brain Mimicking takes advantage of this natural processing by "feeding" your mind an experience you want to process in your dreams. The "mimicked" dream you create in your mind becomes the thing your brain thinks you need to be dreaming about. This is why an immersive approach with personally impactful themes that tie into other memories works really well.

Dream Control
With the above said, you can absolutely control the dream and I recommend doing so if you don't like something or if you want to adjust how the story unfolds. You can totally backtrack and start over when it's necessary to fix unpleasant things. Despite everything this guide has explained so far, you absolutely can make decisions and change things as needed. It's just not a majority of what you should be doing.

I recommend using dream control methods that you would employ in real dreams for making changes (not required, but it generally works better this way).
Here's a guide on dream control basics: https://www.enter-the-mist.org/post/...-part-1-schema
And another guide for schema: https://www.dreamviews.com/dream-con...ur-dreams.html

There are multiple ways you can control dreams:
- Redirect your attention.
- Switch out unwanted schemas for wanted schemas.
- Develop new schemas/expectations.

For example, you may associate being underwater with saltwater. If you don't like the taste of salt, you can change this in different ways:
- Stop paying attention to the taste. Unlike waking reality, dreams depend on your attention. If you thoroughly ignore and forget about something, it ceases to exist completely.
- Change it to a different taste that follows a another schema. For example, maybe it has an algea flavor. Kinda nasty though, redirection may have a more desirable outcome in this case lol.
- Create a new schema such as imagining that this is a magical ocean that tastes like cotton candy. This can have transcending effects on your entire story and you may need to change other things about your surroundings to reinforce it. This is more of a drastic change that I don't recommend most of the time, but absolutely recommend it to fix particularly unpleasant trains of thought.

Simply shifting your attention off of the undesired experience is often the best route. Take the path of least resistance for the little things. Save the schema-changes and new schemas for more important things or for when shifting attention doesn't work.

Strengthening Associations Through Repetition
The more consistent you are and use repetition for the things you want, the more it will become a part of your real dreams on a consistent basis. For example, if you give yourself gills in this dream every day for a week of practice, you will be much more likely to always have gills in your dreams when swimming and you may even unconsciously develop an association between the feeling of having gills and being lucid in dreams. Through repetition, gills can become your default in swimming dreams and even a trigger for lucidity.

You may also have more swimming dreams in general, lucid or nonlucid, because of the repetition.

Dreams are often formed through associations and repetitions. Be mindful of the reality you're creating for yourself. I recommend not botheringt with nightmarish or unpleasant things. Turn your attention off of things you don't want, and change them with schema if they're particularly ingrained (sometimes deeply ingrained connections require more repetition of new associations to fix).

Staying on Track
It's normal for the mind to wander, especially while falling asleep. Dream Brain Mimicking can help you stay on track because of its dreamlike mindset, but if you find yourself losing track, keep practicing! You can also hop on your new train of thought and create a whole new dream from it, alternatively.

It helps greatly to use a dream story that you can easily and comfortably follow as you fall asleep. Some things may be easier to stay on track with than others. The more enjoyable and low effort, the better. The goal is to fall asleep consciously using passive awareness (aka WILD technique), so unlike regular story creation, skip the complex decision-making, boring parts, complicated plot structures, and overfocus. For example, sometimes I just skip character dialogue altogether and assume they conveyed something without deciding every word spoken. Detailed dialogue is boring to me. I just assume they conveyed the intended meaning without worrying about the details.

There are no specific details that you must follow. You can skip anything that doesn't interest you. Dreams are oftewn nonsensinsical like this, but they make sense to you, the dreamer, in some way. That's all that matters. This is a dream process rather than a final draft scripting process. The only audience is you. Allow your mind to flow freely on its own, like a dream, even if it's not always logical, and have fun!

Easy Thinking
Most of my success with Dream Brain Mimicking comes from things that are easy to think about. Low effort is ideal. Feel free to be lazy and make half-baked stories. You're going to sleep doing this so it need not be work! When you get the ball rolling on a story narrative, you will start to (eventually) fall asleep consciously because you're immersed, not because you're trying hard to perform a task. The story flows and wanders sometimes nonsensically like a dream, but it'a a dream you're passively following.

Doing this all cultivates a dreaming mindset before you fall asleep. You start the dream when you're awake, you encourage dream-like thought patterns, and work with your mind (instead of against it) to enter a real dream that you can stay engaged in. This will not only give you lucid dreams, but train you to have longer dreams with stable story narratives and can also be used for MILD and incubation of specific dream elements.

The Final Transition
You may or may not notice when the dream becomes real. Sometimes I experience hypnagogia with this technique (odd sensations like buzzing or tingling), but usually not. If you do experience anything like that, keep engaging in your dream. The transition can often appear as if the scene becomes more vivid (gradually), you may encounter a doorway or portal of some kind, or you may not notice any transition at all. Experiences can vary, but eventually you'll wind up fully asleep in the dream.

Final Note
Just a heads up that you can also get DILDs from this technique, not just WILDs. Sometimes if you fall asleep unconsciously, you end up back in your intended story lucid dreaming anyway later in the night.

Happy dreaming!

I've been playing around with moving and talking during hypnagogic and other dream-like states (in addition to dreams).

What I've found so far is that the mechanism that controls your waking body does not automatically wake you up. These seem to be two separate mechanisms.

More coming soon.

WILD stands for "Wake Initiated Lucid Dreaming" and is a well known technique for going to sleep consciously. Using WILD, you can directly enter a lucid dream from the waking state. This can be a transformative experience, like stepping into another dimension—though the experience varies by the person and moment!


Summary of Steps for WILD
You can try WILD with this quick summary, but I recommend reading the whole guide for more thorough understanding of each step.

Step 0. Do WBTB or skip this step if you're not doing WBTB—WBTB is not required for WILD..
- If you are doing WBTB with an alarm, set your alarm for 4-6 hours into sleep.
- If you are doing WBTB without an alarm (natural WBTB), set your intention to wake up or drink water before bed.
Once you're awake, go back to sleep doing WILD with the following steps.
Step 1. Get comfy and go to sleep like you normally would. Pretend this is a normal night to wind yourself down.
Step 2. Anchor your consciousness.. Put gentle awareness on an "anchor" as you go to sleep. It can be something in your environment like the noise of a fan or an imagined sense like a thought. This sill keep you conscious as you start falling asleep.
Step 3. Actively enter a dream. Imagine the dream you want to have or let the dream form on its own. Any sensations you feel can be used as a portal into the dream (tingling can be energy carrying you, static imagery can be a doorway, etc). Enter the dream.

Now let's get into the meat of each part of this process!


Step 0. WBTB (skip this if you're not doing WBTB)
To do WILD with WBTB with an alarm, set an alarm 4-6 into sleep sleep. For example, if you go to bed at 10, set your alarm for 3AM. When the alarm wakes you up, go back to sleep doing WILD.

Note: 4-6 hours is a recommendation, but not a requirement. You can successfully perform WILD any hour of the night.

Natural WBTB can also be fruitful. When you naturally wake up in the middle of the night, you can take advantage of the opportunity to do WILD.
You can also trigger natural WBTBs in different ways. Here's some options for natural WBTB:
- Set intention to wake up. For example, pretend it's Christmas and you want to wake up extra early to open presents.
- Drink water before bed so that you will wake up to go to the bathroom.
- Increase present-moment awareness such as through meditation. We naturally wake up multiple times a night, but lack of awareness can cause you to feel like you slept through it all. Heightened awareness allows you to take advantage of your natural WBTBs.

If you forget to do WILD/are too tired, wake yourself up for a bit after you get up. Some people find success from staying awake for a few minutes, or even an hour, while others prefer to go immediately back to sleep with WILD. Test this out and see what timeframe works best for you, adjusting the length of time as needed until you find the right fit.

Note: WILD can also be done at the beginning of the night and during daytime naps. Any time you go to sleep is an opportunity for WILD.


Step 1. Get Comfy and Go to Sleep
Make yourself comfortable in whatever position you normally fall asleep in. Prepare to go to sleep like you would any other night and wind down. Whatever sleeping position is most comfortable for you is fine for WILD. The goal here is to go to sleep like you normally would.


Step 2. Anchor Your Consciousness
Now here's where the magic happens! As you're going to sleep, be aware of something: a thought, a sound, a visual, anything to "anchor" your mind so that you don't drift off into unconscious sleep. An anchor can be anything such as a visual, tactile sensation, sound, etc. (see more about anchors at the end of this guide).

The goal of an anchor is to maintain a low level of consciousness with little to no effort. Do not focus heavily or you will just stay awake.

The WILD Balance
Awareness on an anchor should be gentle, light, and low energy—rather than intense focus. Remember, your goal is falling asleep. The best anchor is something you can zone out to pretty effortlessly while not losing consciousness.
- If you find yourself staying awake for too long, you may be over-focusing on your anchor. Reduce your focus level to resolve this.
- If you fall asleep unconsciously too easily, this is resolved by increasing awareness level.
The correct balance for WILD is about 95-99% going to sleep, and 1-5% awareness. It's not necessarily a 50-50 split like the word "balance" implies, instead being more heavily skewed towards the sleep end. You are physically going to sleep, but your mind is staying awake. To do this, you have to use “as little brain power as possible” so your conscious thoughts can squeak by uninterrupted by physical sleep. Think of it as a tiny mouse hole you have to fit through as a wall of sleep approaches. The more you can lower your energy while remaining conscious, the better.

Transitionary State—From Waking to Sleep
As you follow this process, you may or may not experience hypnagogia/dream-like sensations (not to be confused with sleep paralysis).
- You may experience tingling, buzzing, lights, floating sensations, or other things.
- Your external senses may also seem to shut off, causing feelings like deafness or weightlessness as your mind switches from external to internal input.
- The switch from external to internal may also feel gradual.
- If you imagine moving around in your mind, it will eventually feel like “real” movement.
These experiences are totally normal, harmless, and within your control.
There is an endless list of sensations you can have during WILD. Alternatively, you may not experience anything at all, going straight from waking to dreams with no apparent transition.

WILD transitionary state can be a fun playground for practicing dream control! You can initiate it at will, shut off, and influence all of these sensations if you want—or just let them unfold on their own and go with the flow!


Step 3. Enter a Dream
The final part of WILD is where many people get stuck and accidentally fall asleep. This can happen due to an assumption that WILD will be a passive process whereby you lay there and let the dream take you. This can certainly happen, but if you’re getting stuck on this part, it may be worth trying an active approach to dream entry instead.

When you fall asleep unconsciously, it’s a passive process—so let’s do the opposite. Think of WILD as a journey. You should expect active participation, like you’re stepping into a dream in your mind. Imagine yourself leave your body as you make an entrance into the dream in a literal way—instead of waiting for the dream to come to you.

Here's some things that can help you do that:
- Engage with the dream as if you are already done doing WILD. You are now in this new world. Take an interest in things and start interacting with them in your mind. For example, imagine yourself looking up at the sky or reaching out to touch something.
- Make "dream entry" a present tense perspective for yourself, rather than an upcoming event. You're not "trying to enter a dream" anymore. You are presently in it. This mindset makes a massive difference because you are technically already dreaming at this point—and unlike waking reality, dream reality manifests your chosen perspective.
- 100% of your attention should now be turned to the dream. Let go of your waking environment if you are still paying attention to that, as if you have left your body. Totally forget about it as if you have left the room, even.
- Imagine yourself going through a literal gateway.

You can turn any sensation into a gateway to dream. Here's some examples of both visual and non-visual entry:
- If you see a light, imagine it being the sunlight at the end of a tunnel that leads to a bright and sunny beach. Imagine yourself walking, flying, or swimming through the tunnel until the light engulfs you and you find yourself standing on that beach, no longer just imagining, but with the sensation and perspective that you are physically there.
- If you feel tingling sensations, you can imagine yourself being carried intro a dream by these sensations. Maybe they're fairies or electrical impulses leading you through a conduit—whatever it is, you're going into the dream.
- If you feel wind, you can imagine flying or swinging in a hammock into a dream.

The goal with all this is:
- To make the transition more than just a passive observation, but actively leaving behind the transitionary state and literally engaging with a dream as you start to feel as though you are physically in it.
- To shift your attention 100% into dreams.
- To have a present tense perspective.

Present VS Future Tense Perspective
Future tense mindset (i.e. the "I am about to dream") can cause a dangling carrot on a stick effect—you are trying to enter a dream and find yourself constantly in this looped waiting state, never fully reaching the carrot. This is fine for the transitionary state of WILD, but to enter a dream, you want to move past this. To do so, change your mindset from "I want to enter a dream soon" to "I am dreaming already."
Then combine this mindset with engagement with your dream. Instead of "I want to enter a dream", it becomes "I am already in a dream. Now I want to swim in the ocean."
This change of mindset will change your reality as your attention shifts your goal into the present tense, causing you to finalize WILD and be in a fully formed dream.

Revisit step 1: Get Comfy and Go to Sleep!.
Another big aspect of dream entry is the going to sleep part. That's right! We're going backwards in this guide in order to go forward with the process. If you find yourself stuck in transition, now is the time to go to sleep. Continue to maintain passive awareness as you lower your energy level, get comfy, and and sleep.

Do any of these things to get yourself there, see what works best for you, and have fun!

The rest of this guide consists of extra details, tips, and frequently asked questions!

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Additional Tips

Choosing an Anchor
An anchor is simply something to help you be aware so you don't fall asleep unconsciously. There are many types of anchors for WILD.

Here are some main categories of anchors:
- External, such as fans, noise machines, or the feeling of a blanket. These consist of real things in your environment and real physical senses and are easy to keep track of in the beginning stage of WILD. However, it's possible to lose track of them as you enter the later stage, so you may want to switch to an internal anchor at that point in the WILD process.
- Internal, such as watching imagery form on the backs of your eyelids, imagined visuals, imagined movement, or any sort of thoughts or imagined senses. Internal anchors are things of the mind. They can stay with you as you transition into a dream, so they're easy to keep track of in the final stage of WILD. You can use them to finalize the process and enter a dream.

Static VS Changing Anchors
Achors can be either static or changing. It's natural for our minds to wander as we fall asleep, and an anchor can do the same.
For example, your anchor could be the visual of an apple sitting on a table. Then it could wander to you eating the apple, then going to the market to buy a pair of pants, looking up to see a bird turning into a sunflower, a sunny beach, etc.
A fluid, changing narrative can be your gateway into dreams, rather than a hinderance. In this case, the narrative is your anchor.

As your mind wanders away from your original anchor, this is a sign that you're about to fall asleep (a good sign that WILD is working) and here are two ways of proceeding with it:
- When you mind wanders, gently bring it back to your anchor (if you prefer a static anchor).
- Allow your mind to wander, but follow it. Stay passively aware as you go with the flow. You can either influence it or let it unfold naturally.

Wandering thoughts are also common in dreams and can be embraced by the WILDer. What makes anchors work is the ability to keep your mind from losing consciousness completely. It doesn't mean you have to stick with the same thing throughout the whole process. It's perfectly fine to let your mind wander, as long as you're keeping track of it.

Visualization Anchors
Visualization anchors with WILD (also known as V-WILD) are one of the most popular. There are multiple ways you can use a visual anchor:
- Use an external visual like a light or something else in the room.
- Create an internal anchor from a visual in your mind.
- Gaze at the backs of your eyelids, you might or might not notice imagery forming.
- Use imagined imagery that forms while you're falling asleep (like hypnagogia).
- Use a changing narrative with visuals (such as imagining a dream that you would like to have).

Visuals tend to become more vivid the more asleep you are. It might stay the same or morph, and you can control it or go with the flow—either way is fine, as long as you maintain awareness while falling asleep.

Imagined Movement & Sensation Anchors
You can use any sense for anchors, such as:
- Imagining yourself walking, flying, or swimming.
- Imagining a calm energy flowing through your body.

These can also arise either from hypnagogia or just simply imagining them. They work similarly to visual anchors in that the sensation can become more vivid the closer you get to being fully asleep.
There are endless anchors you can use for WILD.

What does awareness mean, though?
Awareness is your consciousness and can include your perceptions. For example, you are currently aware of this guide and the shape of the letters written in it. You are probably thinking actively about the contents of the guide, but the shape of the letters is a more passive type of awareness.

You are aware of things all the time, except when you're unconscious, which is why WILD works with awareness.

MILD & WILD
WILD can be combined with MILD (another technique for lucid dreaming) for stacked effects. Here's two ways to combine these methods:
1. Do MILD first, then WILD.
2. Use MILD as your anchor for WILD with the changing anchor approach (influencing a narrative to flow the way you want).
Here's a MILD guide that I recommend: https://skyfalldreams.net/guides/skyfalls-mild-guide/
You can also do MILD during the day (any time) separately from your WILD practice.

Waking VS Dream Body
It's worth knowing that, during WILD (and lucid dreams), we have two bodies: the waking physical body that's laying in bed, and the dream body that may or may not be doing something else. This is a unique experience to WILD/lucid dreaming that's worth acknowledging so that you can learn how to navigate your dreams more proficiently. Like learning to crawl for the first time as an infant, it can take some practice to learn how to control them separately and deliberately.
Note: You can move your waking body without waking up. These are separate mechanisms. If you're beginner, though, I recommend switching entirely to your dream body as you practice WILD and lucid dreaming.

Mindset
Sometimes you can do WILD by emulating the mindset you have in dreams, escpecially if you've lucid dreamed before. You can even walk yourself through a dream that you want to have, and fall asleep doing this as your anchor until you are literally in the dream.

Falling Asleep Signs
If you're unsure whether your WILD practice is working, these are the signs that it is:
- Your mind may start to wander more than usual.
- Your breathing and/or heartrate may slow down.
- You may feel a jerking motion in your hand or other part of your body (hypnic jerk).
- You might make a small sound, like a mumble.
- Your might suddenly feel cold and need to pull up a blanket (body temperature decrease).
- Sounds, visuals, touch, or other sensations in your environment may become dull or vanish completely.
- You may start to hear sounds, see visuals, or feel sensations that aren't really there (hypnagogia).

If you experience any of these signs, it means you're about to fall asleep. This is a great time to do WILD.
Noticing these signs also means you are being aware of the falling asleep process! Even if you didn't enter a dream in the later stage, look at what you're doing correctly to get these signs and do more of that.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What do I do if I have to scratch an itch, move, or swallow during WILD?
A: Do so! Act just like you normally would going to bed. You can move around, scratch itches, and swallow all you like. Laying perfectly still is not required. Any sleeping position is fine. You don't even have to close your eyes.

Q: Are the lucid dreams you get from WILD more/less vivid than lucid dreams from other methods?
A: No, the technique you use doesn't determine vividness. All methods have the same potential for ultimate vividness (feeling just as real as waking reality).

Q: How long does it take to do WILD?
A: WILD can be done in the same amount of time that it takes you to fall asleep. This can vary by the person, but can be done in minutes or even seconds, but it's okay if it takes longer, too.

Q: How long does it take to LEARN how to do WILD?
A: The time it takes to learn and start having successful WILDs varies. It can happen on the first night, or it could take days, weeks, or more to train. Keep in mind that training doesn't mean mindless repetition—if you don't succeed right away, adjust your practice until you figure out the balance. This will be a learning process. Once you figure out what works, repeat that!

Q: I can't remember my dreams...
A: It's possible to forget having done a successful WILD, especially if you have poor dream recall. If you can't remember your dreams regularly, you should work on developing good dream recall such as through dream journaling.

Q: I can't relax and go to sleep! What do I do?
A: Let go of racing thoughts, worries, or focusing on things that can keep you awake. Meditation like slowing your breathing and other relaxation techniques can help.

Q: What do I do if it's not working?
A: If you're falling asleep unconsciously, raise the awareness level. If you're staying awake, lower it. Make other adjustments as needed rather than just repeating the same thing (if it's not working).

Q: How do I stabilize the dream?
A: Stabilization isn't needed. You can stay in the dream simply by going off and doing dream things!

Q: Does WILD cause sleep paralysis/do I need sleep paralysis?
A: WILD doesn't involve sleep paralysis (hypnagogia is often mistaken for sleep paralysis because hypnagogia can be controlled through intention to match whatever experience you expect from it).

Q: Is WILD the most difficult technique?
A: WILD isn't a difficult technique. It's very easy once you learn to do it!

Q: Can I do WBTB multiple times in one night?
A: We naturally WBTB multiple times per night and you can do so for WILD, too (within reason of course).

Q: Does WBTB interfere with sleep?
A: Not as long as you do it within reason and get the same amount of sleeping hours you normally do. We naturally WBTB multiple times per night and can do so intentionally without disruption, but if WBTB is cutting out your sleep hours, you'll need to adjust your schedule to add them back in so you don't lose sleep.

Q: What about REM cycles?
A: REM isn't required for dreaming, so I've left this out of the guide. Targeting REM cycles can be helpful as long as you don't restrict yourself (since whether you have dreams in NREM can boil down to intention, you don't want to cheat yourself out of lucid dreaming opportunities by assuming that it has to be during REM).

Q: How do I control transition experiences/hypnagogia?
You can use dream control for this, but it goes beyond the purpose of this guide.
Here's a guide on dream control: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...it?usp=sharing

Q: What if I get too excited?
A: It's a common misconception that excitement wakes you up. The mechanism for waking up is its own thing, though. It's not controlled by excitement.

Q: Can I do WILD without an anchor?
A: You can use pure awareness as your anchor, essentially having an "anchorless" WILD experience. Anchors are just an easier thing to teach.

One hour long dream. I did V-WILD but decided to just pay a lot of attention to the process, feeling it, being present. I've been running lots of tests like this lately to try and get a better idea of how it works.

After doing V-WILD into my bedroom, I climbed out the window. I noted how a lot of things were different in my neighborhood like lighting and rearranged buildings.

I decided to test out waking myself up in a way where it’s more dream body instead of waking (trying to get a better understanding for the difference between dream and waking body lately). I tested to see if I can trigger a false awakening.

Yes! Maybe? I woke up back in my bedroom. I assumed this was either a dream, or I woke myself for real. I did a reality check with finger through palm and it didn’t work.

I was pretty sure it was a dream anyway though. I didn't take the failed RC too seriously, since I know that happens sometimes. I plugged my nose and breathed, that worked.

I proceeded to practice false awakenings a few times. Knew I was still dreaming each time, got a better feel for it.

Most of the time I was with my dream character version of SO. She watched me do all this nonsense lol. Most times I told her it was a dream, she acted mock concerned like half-heartedly gasped. I responded “Yeah, I know if you were my rl SO you would be rightly concerned about me thinking everything is a dream, but since we both know it’s a dream, you’re fine. No need to act all shocked haha."

I eventually woke myself up for real when it felt it had been an hour. My timing guess was right (I seem to still have a good sense of RL time in dreams).