First Wild Attempt March 16th, 2008. Sunday (WILD)
I'll start this off by saying I am a bad DJer. I've had two nonlucids since the work epidemic, but they're so uninteresting. For future reference of my own, it was one about Hiding April (ugh) and another about a hacker in the DVs Chat. They're not interesting enough to talk about.
More importantly is a certain recent event... my first WILD night on BillyBob's schedule falls on the day after he took a long vacation from DreamViews. This saddens me, since even though I didn't get to talk to him as much as the other fine people that can be found here, he was the one I connected with most when it comes to Lucid Dreaming. His tutorials made the most sense, as well as his outlook... and when we did talk, it flowed nearly perfectly as well. Ironically, he left because he felt there weren't enough people here that think like him... when Sean999, myself, and I'm sure many others I've yet to meet would disagree.
Regardless, his ideas have fostered my beliefs on Lucid Dreaming... he's actually the reason I decided to register to these forums. So of course, he will be missed. He says he won't return for a half a year or a full year, and I'm not sure I'll be around DVs that long.
Luckily, I have other good friends at DVs, so not all is lost. Those of you reading this (that would be two people who don't even freqeunt these forums... and I'm guessing a VERY small amount of people who do (if you do actually read this, please reply and let me know o0) and even some who aren't are the ones I'm talking about.
In any event, tonight was my first WILD night. Early on, like EVERY newb (I can tell from the groans of the more frequent members when I talked about it) I though it would be the best technique. However, later on, when I learned what was actually happening when I was falling asleep (it turns out it is HI, but not what you normally hear, but we'll get there later) I found that WILD may actually be the most promising technique for me.
Excluding autosuggestion for recall and dream rehearsing (correct Reality checking paired with... decent Dream Journaling?) to get DILDs, WILD is also the only technique I've tried.
Only recently... like, this week recently, have I started using an alarm clock. Ever.
Yeah, thats extremely strange, and I'm not sure why I never used one. But this of course, leads to better time management... something as a procrastinator, and a night owl, I definitely need. It has been a "mental block" of mine, or rather... a self-imposed limit on my lucid dreaming that I have an irregular sleep schedule, so using this alarm signifies a huge step in my lucid journeys (or towards them?). I've seen this as the ONLY reason I haven't been Lucid yet, as I know a great amount of information from my short amount of time here at DVs. And the double part of this self-imposed limit (in this case, intentional... many of us have unintentional limits, but ALL are self-imposed) is that it was motivation to get my life in order. I won't go into details, but my life is a total mess, and time management is one reason.
Wow, this post is long. My apologies. Onto the good stuff.
I know that between 3 and 8 hours is when most people find its best to WILD (or more centralized, between 5 and 7), so I picked a number somewhere in there. Just to be silly, I set my alarm to wake me 5 hours and 50 minutes after the time I went to sleep (around 12:45... damned August Rush movie keeping me up). 550 happens to be my favorite number, don't ask me why.
I woke up irritated... the alarm came way to soon. Luckily, instead of just smacking the alarm to shut it off, I looked at it in an effort to get me more pissed off. It was only a bit past 6:30... why am I waking up now? THATS RIGHT. I have to WILD.
I am excited about this, because I honestly expected not to keep myself awake. I've had that trouble with waking up after dreams... in that I automatically go back to sleep. So this is success in my eyes.
I sit up, and look around my room for anything odd... ok, I lied. I look around so I don't fall back asleep. I forgot that part of the WILDing experience... but at least I kept myself awake. I notice that the sore throat I had been harboring for the whole day has gotten worse, and this irritates me, but after a few minutes (like 5) I lay back down. I feel aware enough, since... if awoken with a start, as I was in this case, I am relatively awake.
I get myself completely comfortable, my body flat to the bed, the back of my head against the pillow... I feel most of my pressure points disappear. I am a side sleeper, which makes WILDing on my back the best way. I rest my hands on my hips and near my groin (feels most comfortable that way... and don't look at me weird, I hear lots of people do it as well).
I focus on my breathing, counting everytime I exhale, until 30, as instructed in my favorite WILD tutorial. I try to lose focus on what's around me, only concerned with my breathing. Without any transition, my thoughts go from losing all thought to a random scenario sprawling through my head. I have asked many and confirmed this as HI.
It is not like the HI most people talk about. I see no images (nothing vivid or discernible, anyway) and I hear no sounds. My senses seem missing, however... I have a "knowledge" of what's happening around me. Its very possible that my experience of these scenarios started as definite sensations, however, I don't recall sensations... only a plot. These scenarios are illogical, but make sense at the same time. What I mean is, there is a flow, a cause and effect. This happens because of that, etc. I have yet to really recall any of these scenarios past a few seconds, so I can't tell of any recurring themes... however, I know there is a flow, which means this is my schemata acting.
When I find myself in these scenarios, I have lost any awareness of my breath. There is this urgency to... do something. And that urgency grows and all the sudden I am aware. I experience it as fast as a blink... the scenarios, then perfect awareness. Not once in the scenarios is my breathing (my "anchor" as I like to call it to the waking world... that is, that which keeps me aware as I pass into the dream realm) evident, noticed, focused upon. And whenever I recall I need to do that, I lose awareness.
I fall in and out of these scenarios several times, to my dismay. I realize something else inhibiting me... my sore throat.
I am not fond of medicine, only using it when something is unbearable. Typically, when a certain part of my body irritates me (in this case, my throat) I ignore it. So as each breath tickled the infection in my throat, my natural impulse is to forget that its there as best as I can.
I also realize, as I strain to focus on my breathing better, that I have no achieved a mental block. Great job. You think this sore throat will ruin the WILDing, so it does. I understand I ruin myself and continue doing it anyway.
I finally give up on tonight, choosing to go to sleep willfully (and in stubbornness) instead of letting the dream realm trick me into a nonlucid against my will. I look at the clock. I hasn't been ten minutes, and it pleases me that I saw so much HI in such a short amount of time of doing it.
I am confident that WILD will be my best way. But tonight is a WBTB, so I'll give it a chance for the first time.
Also, so as not to mix it with my WILD experience, I did recall two sets of lucid dreaming. However, when I woke up half past six I was too focused on my WILD attempt to write down my dream. Its a shame, too, because when I woke up in the morning I remember trying to hold onto three very specific plot points in my mind. I recall these points, as sparks of memory, and that has been successful to remembering the bulk of dreams. But I lazily never wrote them down.
In the morning, I was woken up earlier than I had intended for work, thus forgetting the contents of my other nonlucid. All I can say is that it was sexual in nature. I don't remember much else.
|
|
Bookmarks