On the Verge of a Successful WILD. Couldn't control it... any advice?

[tyrantt23]

The following is an excerpt taken from my Dream Journal that explains exactly what happened: Plenty of Reality Checks! (WILD) After waking up from the first dream (about 6 hours after I went to bed), I decided to give another try at WILD. I went to the restroom, came back, and laid in bed, face up. I got to the point of subtle muscle spasms as my muscles were relaxing. Then came the point where I couldn't feel my arms or legs. After that, I felt a little bit of tingling on my legs. At around the same time, I was seeing some flashes of light for HI, but they were on and off. I was trying this for what seemed to be 20 to 40 minutes, and could not get the dream started. I decided to change positions, turned around quickly, belly down, head on the pillow to the side (I believe hadn't gotten to the point of being paralyzed because I was able to turn around fairly quickly). I laid in that position for a few more minutes and the next thing I remember is opening looking out of the window in my room. I didn't think any of it, but there were tall brick buildings right outside the window. I then remembered that there aren't any brick buildings around where I live. This made me quickly lose control of the dream, and everything faded to black. From this point on, I had become lucid, but what started happening was very strange. With my eyes closed, I was able to move my dream arms with my thoughts, and do a nose reality check, which proved I was indeed dreaming. However, I couldn't see any imagery around. At the same time, it seemed as if I could feel my real body, as if I had my dream hands plugging my nose, and could still feel my actual arm laying there. After laying there for a little longer, I was able to create some imagery of my hands, and then went on to attempt a finger-through-hand RC, which was a bit hard to accomplish, but finally proved that I was indeed dreaming. When I tried getting up or doing anything else, the dream once again faded to black. I was able to once again create my dream hands, and do another finger-through-hand RC only to have the same result when I tried to do anything in the dream. This went on to happen about 3 more times... until I gave up. The whole experience was really frustrating, knowing how I actually managed to WILD, but couldn't get any further. I kept having the feeling that I could sense my real body. I don't know whether this was all in my mind, or if I was actually drifting from dreaming, to awake, back to dreaming and so on. At one point, it felt as if trying to stand up in the dream, was about to make me stand up in real life. I couldn't get a grip on the dream, and didn't have any control. Well, I'm just really glad that I'm slowly becoming more familiar with WILDing. Thus was my second experience! Has anyone ever had this happen to them? Was all this trouble just in my head? Any advices on how I can get a dream stabilized once I get to the point of seeing my dream hands? My dream hands actually looked very vivid when I managed to do the RCs, so every time I got really surprised that my dreams kept blacking out when I tried to take it any further. Any help is greatly appreciated!

[Xaqaria]

I've found the best time to for me to go directly from being awake to lucid dreaming is right after waking up but before getting up or doing anything or even thinking about too much. My brain is still half asleep and if I can manage to become just rational enough to try to go back in to a dream it works almost every time. I haven't done this but it occurs to me that you might try putting a note to yourself above your bed so that the first thing you see when you wake up reminds you. Also, as far as thinking that trying to stand in your dream feels like you might actually stand up, I've had that problem before. For a long time I couldn't go directly into a dream while I was sleeping with my girlfriend because I would still feel the weight of her lying on my arm and I felt like if I tried to stand I might disturb her. The way I got around it was to just do it anyway. It would wake me up a couple times and I would actually do the action but it didn't matter and eventually I became more accustomed to the action and was able to get past that feeling in the dream.

[ForgottenRemembrance]

Thats so frustrating. I got so close to WILDing, saw beautifully vivid imagery, even managed to controll it. I waited almost forever for the 'dream to take me away', but it never happened, and then i got tired and stud up, super tired, and found I had been dreaming for two hours! But, practice makes perfect

[Lunalight]

Similar thing happened to me: I could feel my legs running, and my real body, and everything was black. I did what you did, gave up.

[hockey833]

that ahppened too me accept i knew i was dreaming but i sat there waiting for someting to come up, like my bed, or soemtype of imagery but all i saw was black.. it was completelty quiet and darkk, i eember seeing the work HELLO in bg letters and it started to fade away.. hoping to have a real lucid dream!