Question for experienced lucid dreamers

Hello everyone,

first of all I want to say that I first heard about lucid dreaming about a week ago and the concept sounds very intriguing to me. I've read a lot about it since then and almost immediately started working towards having a lucid dream of my own. There are many techniques for inducing a lucid dream out there and I decided to practise the WILD technique. Possibly because I read that it is a powerful, but more challenging technique and since I've always liked challenging myself it is the choice I made. Being new to the whole lucid dreaming concept, naturally there are questions and doubts I would love to know the answers to, so I thought why not ask the expert dreamers out there.

Once I've gotten into the habit of performing reality checks it soon happened to me that I've become aware I was in a dream. This occurred twice so far, the first time I was looking at my mobile and saw nothing but gibberish on the display, I immediately became aware it was a dream but sadly the realisation instantly jolted me awake. I woke up in my bed and first of all I did a reality check to rule out a false awakening - I was in reality.
The second time around I was in a dream and a lot of physically impossible things started to happen, like objects passing through each other and gravity being turned off, but it took what felt like an eternity for my mind to tell me that there is something wrong about it until I truly realised it was a dream. Alas, the realisation instantly woke me up again and the reality check confirmed I was awake.

My first question is about exactly this, I read that this sudden waking might be caused by the excitement of knowing I'm in a dream, but how can I practise to stay calm when this happens the next time?
Some people suggest to rub your hands or spin around when it happens, but it's all so quick I barely have time to do anything.

Now my next questions are about the WILD technique. I keep trying it every night, but last night was my most successful attempt so far. While I know that attempting WILD when going to bed in the evening is not the ideal time I thought the practise can't hurt. I have managed to reach what I think is the stage of sleep paralysis.
I usually lie on my back for this because I find it the easiest and after a few minutes my limbs started getting numb and my body feels heavy like it's sinking into bed. I get a tingly sensation all over my body and my mind tells me that it is difficult to move my muscles. However, when I actually move at this point it is not hard at all. Is that normal for true sleep paralysis? Or should it be hard to actually move and not just seem like it would be hard?

What I don't find easy is getting further than that. I had to reenter the sleep paralysis several times because I felt the need to start over and I found it difficult to shift my minds focus away from the fact that I'm in bed and that my body is feeling strange. I try to view the imagery flashing in front of my eyes but my mind keeps distracting me from focusing on it. I read that meditation can help with this but it's something I don't know how to do properly. Are there any other things than can help me to let go of that sensation in the back of my head?
I also find it increasingly difficult to keep my mind conscious at this point and not fall asleep. When I do manage to focus on the images created in front of my eyes I often find I'm losing my consciousness and if I grab a hold of it again the awareness of my numb body in bed springs back to my mind.

Amidst all of this I had one experience where I managed to imagine a door floating in nothingness and I tried to examine it closely, I opened it and closed it, scratched on the wooden surface and knocked on it and after some time the door started to feel real and it suddenly warped into focus, like I was zooming in at warp speed until everything was sharp and clear. This lasted a brief moment before everything went to black and then I felt myself in bed again.
Is this how you enter a lucid dream in the WILD technique? Or am I doing something wrong there?

Eventually I couldn't lie on my back anymore last night, so I turned on my side. It took me a few seconds to fall asleep in that position.
I woke up twice in the middle of the night after that but I am not sure why as I don't remember having a dream. I always perform a reality check, and both times I tried to use the WILD technique again because I read that it is easier to enter a lucid dream after you've woken up during your sleep phase, but both times I fell asleep very quickly because I couldn't stay conscious. I stayed in bed both times though, is that even neccessary? Or can I get out of bed, try to get my mind going and then try WILD again?

Anyway, lots of rambling on about my progress. Thank you all for reading and any help and advice would be more than welcome :)
Looking forward to my next try :P

Edit: I just read that what I called sleep paralysis is actually called REM Atonia and that it isn't necessary to experience it for a WILD to occur, in fact it might even be detrimental? However, it was sort of a byproduct when I was calming my mind and trying to focus on my visualisation. I was not scared of that state, but I found it very distracting, as described above. Is that just happening because it's taking me a long time to relax my body and go through the visualisation process?

Hey Intrepid, I'm glad you're challenging yourself with this! But as you said, you should try doing WILD after 3-4 hours of sleep if you can.

Anyways, staying calm while becoming lucid just takes practice, I woke myself the first time I became lucid as well. The next few times you become lucid you will find it easier and easier. Try grabbing onto something close to you, it doesn't matter what it is, just feel it and focus on what you're feeling.

You definitely entered sleep paralysis though. There is no way you would enter REM Atonia unless you were WILDing for a very long time. It is possible to move in sleep paralysis, but it would wake you up. Since you're having problems visualizing your dreams after that, I would recommend you enter the dream a different way. What you can do, instead of trying to visualize the dream after reaching sleep paralysis, is enter the dream by leaving your body. When you feel you have entered sleep paralysis, or are ready to dream, try to roll out of your bed with your dream body into the dream world. At this point, it will feel kind of like an out of body experience but it will be a dream. Try to imagine your room around you and focus your senses on getting out of bed. Make sure not to move your waking body though. Another alternative to this would be to sink through your bed and fall into a dream. This is harder as you have to visualize what you're falling into. Try both though, some things work differently for different people.

This might end up being easier for you, or you might just need practice visualizing. Let me know if you have any other questions.

Thanks for your input h1nchm4n,

I'll try doing what you suggested. I guess it is like you said, it's different for everybody and hence you have to try several methods until you find one that works for you.

My sleep before I started working towards lucid dreaming was usually short, between 5 and 7 hours the most and very deep at the same time. I rarely ever used alarm clocks for 2 reasons: First I tend to wake up before the alarm clock rings (usually by a couple of minutes) provided I had the amount of sleep I usually need, and second if I set the alarm for 3-4 hours into my sleep I don't hear the alarm at all (my neighbour actually complained once because my alarm had been going on for 90 minutes and it woke her up, while I peacefully slept through it).

I am by no means an experienced dreamer, but I'll give you some tips. I would use http://www.dreamviews.com/induction-...kingyoshi.html ADA is very good. Helps awareness in dreams a ton. Also I would use this: http://www.dreamviews.com/attaining-...-lucidity.html This night time routine is very good, also I think you will enjoy dream incubation, its very interesting to create a landscape in your mind.

About the REM atonia or sleep paralysis: I have been experiencing the same things, but I can feel my eyes moving. It feels kind of like you're falling into the bed, and a huge blanket is on top of you. I feel like it would be difficult to move, but when I do it isn't. Is this SP or RA? Don't mean to hijack.

Another good read and lots of things to experiment with. I guess the concept of ADA is something that came to me very naturally when I started reading about lucid dreaming. It gave me a whole different look of reality and made me ask myself what it is that defines reality. The whole process of my reality checks was to challenge and confront my mind with the possibility of being in a dream. It was about finding something "odd" in my surroundings. I'm trying to do this as often as possible.

Another thing I wonder is about keeping dream journals. Is the purpose of it simply that you want to get better at recalling dreams and writing something down actually forces you to explore your memory right after you wake up? Or is there any additional benefit in writing it down as opposed to simply recalling the dream? Or is it beneficial to read about dreams you had a few weeks/months/years ago?

Quick update about last night. What happened to me was something I didn't expect at all, I tried to relax as much as possible before going to bed and I was rather tired. After I laid down I soon felt my body fall asleep and I let the images pass in front of my eyes. A small part of my mind was still aware I was in bed, but it was way less focused than the night before. I tried to put it as far away as possible and practised to mentally roll out of my bed and sink through it. A few attempts later I had this strange feeling like I was being attacked and a dream picture started forming. There was a wall of blocks before me and it was occasionally struck by an object flying at it out of the darkness, knocking out some of the blocks. My mind tried to put those blocks back together, but eventually the strikes got faster and faster and the wall disappeared. It didn't feel like a dream and it certainly wasn't very lucid, it was more like I was still stuck in my body and observing my mind trying to defend itself against that unseen attacker. Eventually I came out of it and my muscles were all tense, like they had been trying to move. I felt hot, but I wasn't soaked in sweat. What was even more surprising is that when I looked at my watch it had already been over 2 hours since I went to bed in what felt like half an hour at the most.

Has anyone had similar experiences? I'm sure I must have been dreaming? But all I could do was watch it happen like I was tied down to a chair and couldn't move. At no point during this did I feel like I was asleep, I was capable of observing everything, but it was very vague. Like I said nothing felt particularly real, other than my inability to step in.

I know you said you like a challenge. However, I would say that attempting to WILD when first going to sleep is not a challenge, challenge is not the right word.

When you first go to sleep at night, you are unlikely to enter REM sleep, and most dreaming happens in REM. Only the most advanced lucid dreamers, like Tibetan Buddhists, report being conscious even in non REM sleep, and that is like toward the end of their sleep and dreaming practice after they have mastered being consistently lucid in REM sleep. When you first go to sleep your body and mind need rest, and that is why you get mostly nREM deep sleep without dreams or with limited dreams.

Especially for beginners one of the challenges of lucid dreaming is to build up alertness and awareness, and even in the morning hours, after one has had several hours of sleep already, this is a challenge because one has to overcome the mind's grogginess, lack of awareness, limited logic, and incomplete memory. All those are worse earlier at night before you have gotten plenty of rest.

So I understand that you like a challenge, but would you start learning physics by going to a high energy physics lab and attempting to participate in a cutting edge research experiment without even having had a basic elementary physics course at school?

Edit: Now that said, actually, as long as one is not expecting to succeed at lucid dreaming at that time, I do find that attempting to stay aware when first falling asleep at night can be quite enjoyable or interesting.

Yes, I agree with you Joanna, and like you mentioned in your edit it is more about enjoying the experience than actually expecting to succeed. I would say it's like flying an airplane without any knowledge of avionics. It will overwhelm you and you're going to fail, but the ride can still be a great experience, except in this case I don't have to fear a crash. Maybe I should have made that clearer.

I'm currently trying to work out what suits me in terms of other techniques, and I'm trying to work out when, and more importantly how, I can wake myself up to attempt a WILD after a few hours of sleep (I plan on using a vibration alarm because accousitc ones don't reliably wake me, like I mentioned before). The beauty of being new to something is that you have so much to explore :P But by no means am I trying to pressure myself into a success, I merely am enjoying the ride so far and I think that's what counts, isn't it?

The concept of WILD still intrigues me the most and I'm planning on learning and experiencing it as much as possible.

As far as your question about how to wake up check out this podcast:
http://www.dreamviews.com/dreamviews...eamworlds.html

The first segment is what I'm talking about but all three segments are very useful and the other 2 segments deal with the things you may have been experiencing. Drinking enough water before bed that you wake up about the right time seems to be more of a natural awakening than a potentially jolting alarm.

Sorry for taking awhile to respond Intrepid.

Dream journaling has many purposes, and has proved itself useful to me quite a few times. It helps your dream recall as you said, and forces you to remember things. But upon compiling a lot of dreams together, you start to notice habits or irregularities that are common in all of your dreams. It can be certain characters, events, objects, etc. These are called dream signs, and if you start to recognize them in your dreams, they can help you become lucid (Through DILD!)

Based on your experience last night with the blocks, I cannot say I have had that happen. I think you may be focusing on your physical body a little too much, which is keeping you tied down. When I WILD, I've had the most success when I ignore my body as much as I can. This allows you to set your thoughts on something else. Next time you try a WILD, try letting your mind drift, but maintain consciousness. It will take some practice, and you may lose consciousness accidentally a few times, but you will get the hang of it.

For reference, it took me almost a month of experimenting with different things to find something that worked well for me, technique wise. I still haven't perfected anything! So I recommend just taking your time. Explore how your mind works when you sleep, and learn from each experience until you find something that works for you.

EDIT: Of course you're doing a complete 180 if you compare this suggestion to my last suggestion, but I believe you'll progress by trying all kinds of different things

Interesting podcast, thanks for the link fogelbise. I haven't had the time to listen to all of it yet, but I tried your suggestion about drinking water just before going to bed, something I hadn't thought about. The short feedback, it helped! Last night I took the approach of waking in the middle of the night and trying to WILD from there and it is, like many of you posted, much easier to relax and focus on the right things. I couldn't have asked for a better time to wake up too, it was right in the middle of the most vivid dream I have had in a very long time. It wasn't a lucid dream, but I can still recall most details of it now as I can recall the memories of my day yesterday. I took a few minutes to run through that dream and remember as much of it as possible before I went back to bed and into my favorite WILD position to give it a go.
As I said before it was much easier to relax and follow the visuals, which were much clearer and more vivid than before, and it was easier to forget about my body as well. It gave me the opportunity to observe something I hadn't experienced before. It's going to be hard to describe but I'll do my best.

When I first start observing the images it is as though they are appearing in a very specific "location", after a while of observation and forgetting about my body these images seemed to rapidly change position and shift closer towards me. Colour and sharpness also seemed to improve and at this point I wasn't aware that I was in bed at all - for a very brief moment. I'll draw you a picture: Imagine being a dog out for a walk, for a moment you forget that you belong to someone and you start running and you feel free ... until you feel a yank around your neck because you've run so far you put a strain on the lead. That's pretty much what it felt like. I had two such experiences last night. Not sure what to make of them but it seems like I'm on the right track with this and now I just need to get more experienced in keeping my calm?

Anyway, one thing I realised is that time flies whenever I attempt WILD, all of this felt like 15 minutes at the most but my watch told me that nearly a full hour had gone by. I decided to put a stop to it then as I didn't want to interrupt my sleep to much last night and my mind was very much awake at this point. I managed to sleep for a bit longer and had another dream I remember very well.

Another thing I'd like to mention is that I'm working on my all day awareness quite a bit and it seems that in my first dream that night it was almost successful. I say this because I remember it very clearly and in this dream I was giving a speech. At some point during that speech I noticed something out of place, a group of people playing a game of cards in which they had to dip half the card into a chalice with some sort of liquid before playing the card, this struck me so much that it made me pause my speech for a good while, but eventually I dismissed it instead of fully realizing that this was in fact a dream.

Those podcasts are great!...Especially for listening to while driving or doing chores or something that doesn't take your focus away from the discussion...or if you don't want to be reading off of a bright computer screen right before bed.

You have probably seen some of these, but for reading there is:

http://www.dreamviews.com/induction-...cid-dream.html For a simplified, easy to read tutorial
WILD Great for the detail oriented person. There is a lot of back and forth help in the "Post your attempts" section lately.
Dream Yoga Just in case it is up your alley...this is a wider field of study, of which WILD is a part (but not covered in this tutorial)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by IntrepidXplorer

Now my next questions are about the WILD technique. I keep trying it every night, but last night was my most successful attempt so far. While I know that attempting WILD when going to bed in the evening is not the ideal time I thought the practise can't hurt. I have managed to reach what I think is the stage of sleep paralysis.
I usually lie on my back for this because I find it the easiest and after a few minutes my limbs started getting numb and my body feels heavy like it's sinking into bed. I get a tingly sensation all over my body and my mind tells me that it is difficult to move my muscles. However, when I actually move at this point it is not hard at all. Is that normal for true sleep paralysis? Or should it be hard to actually move and not just seem like it would be hard?

---

I understand why you think this is SP - for years, all sensations prior to sleep have been mistakenly called that.

SP is just that - paralysis. In SP, it's not hard to move, but impossible. And unless someone has SP disorder, he is very unlikely to experience SP. It's initiated by our body only after we start to dream, so we don't act out our dreams.

Every pre sleep sensation is just that. Experiencing our body as it is getting relaxed and slowly shutting down for a sleep. We normally don't experience it, because when we not WILDing, our body and mind go to sleep at pretty much the same time.

http://www.dreamviews.com/wake-initi...mystified.html
http://www.dreamviews.com/wake-initi...explained.html

Good luck:alien:

I'm not one who should really comment on WILD because I'm horrible at it, but it does seem like you were close with your door experience.

I agree with h1nchm4n about staying calm, it will come with practice. I woke myself up in my first LD also and barely had time to realize what had happened before it all faded away. With my second one I was able to have just enough time before it completely faded to grab onto the ground and concentrate on how it felt. It was tough and I almost lost that one also, but I was able to keep hold and it all came back. I think the same will happen to you. After a few times you should at least have enough time to do some stabilization and once you're able to fight and hold onto one dream, the rest will be much easier. Once you're able to hold on consistently you can channel that excitement into making the dream more vivid and clear, at least that's how it seemed to work for me.

Also congrats on becoming lucid after only a week. Many of us took a lot longer than that... Keep up the awareness work and I'm sure you'll be cruising the skies in no time :)

ah very good, thanks for the clarification gab. Important to use the proper terminology, but I can understand why it gets mistaken by beginners like me ;)

Another challenge is staying lucid. Concentrating on your surroundings and using all of your senses helps you stay lucid. :)

As for your first question, I wouldn't be of much help. In most of my lucid dreams I've been calm most of the time, and even when I get excited I usually won't wake up (unless it involves sexual things :D). You'll probably get used to it after a while of becoming lucid.

For your second question, your body is falling asleep so at first it might not be hard, but later on it might be more difficult as your body goes to sleep. :3

You might want to try imagining something else, like a song or sound. For number three. :3

Number 4: No, that is not how you enter a WILD XD, because you were already in a lucid dream :D.

#5 - I would recommend getting up, go to the restroom or something, then lie down again. c:

El número seis (in the edit :3) (don't speak Spanish :D): Since your body is falling asleep, you will almost always feel that. But yeah, you can go into a WILD without feeling the sleep paralysis. One time when I successfully WILDed, I gave up and tried to sleep on my side. Right after I relaxed I went into a WILD. :p

Are you recording your regular dreams along with your lucid ones in a notebook or something? Recording your dreams after waking up will help you remember your dreams. It's advised to have a good memory for dreams before you start to WILD. Since if you have a WILD and you don't have a good dream memory, you could end up experiencing one and not remember it. :c

Waking up after a two and a half hour nap should do the trick for the easier WILDs in the middle of the night. That way you're in the middle of your sleep cycle and are closer to paralysis that way for a while after your sleep. :-)

Oh wow, so much information and so many tips, thanks a lot :)

Hoping I can get another WILD try in tonight. Last night I must have been too exhausted, I went to bed and it was instantly "lights out". However, I remember more dreams than usual, a total of 4, so at the very least my dream recall is getting a lot better already :D I learned not to underestimate the power of normal dreams, one in particular was extremely emotional and I've never woken up being so happy none of it was real. I don't remember any inconsistencies in my dream, everything seemed so plausible.
Which brings me to another questions, could it be successful to get in the habit of asking yourself "how did I get here?" to trigger a DILD? It seems to me that often in a dream you just appear in a place without any recollection of how you actually got there.

Yes, saying "how did I get here?" and visualizing how you got there recently is a pretty common technique. The one I got triggered by the most is the one where you examine your hands and tell whether there's something wrong with them. After a while of practicing to be more aware, you start to notice things in dreams quite easily and randomly XD. Even if you don't do a reality check in your dream, you can still become lucid. :3

I have good news and bad news. I'll start with the positive thing, I found a reliable way to wake me up for WBTB attempts. Drinking enough water in combination with my alarm works very well, so I'm happy about that. However, this spawned a new problem.

Knowing I'm a short sleeper, I'm trying to find the "best" time to wake up for WBTB, so my first attempt was 4 hours into my sleep. I took about 5-10 minutes of awake time before trying to WILD with the result that I couldn't fall back asleep, not even when I stopped my WILD attempt and just wanted to go back to sleep normally.
I figured I'd reduce my sleep time and awake time for my second attempt, so I woke up 3 1/2 hours into my sleep and just a few minutes of staying awake with the same result. On my most recent try just last night I tried 2 1/2 hours, just went to the toilet and then straight back to bed, no improvement. After about an hour of trying to WILD I gave up. It's like the longer I try the more I wake up and it's so difficult to tell wether I'm just not tired enough or if I simply get overexcited and ruin my attempts that way. I think it might be the latter, because when I start my WILD I feel tired enough to fall asleep.

I guess I'm trying too hard to stay conscious, what to you think?
I'm hoping I can teach myself to stay relaxed enough :)

Mm, It's been a while since I've attempted a WILD. Maybe you could try doing a WILD with your eyes open? I've never had a successful WILD with my eyes closed and it might help you stay awake (and decrease the amount of effort you have to put into staying conscious) if you feel tired enough to sleep again.

For me, the challenge was to keep my heart rate from going very fast while in sleep paralysis, it doesn't really scare me, but concerns me in a way. XD

You could also try the VILD and HIT technique, VILD seems to be similar on the WBTB side of things and HIT involves relaxing and is quite challenging apparently. These might be good to try if you want to try something similar in either technique or level of challenge. You can find these two techniques in the Wiki -> User Tutorials section.

Oh, one thing I ought to mention. Drinking a lot of caffeine makes it much more difficult to have a WILD, try to minimize the amount of caffeine you consume. :3

Good luck on your future attempts! I hope this information helped. :)

I wish it were the caffeine, my consumption is practically 0 already :P

I'll certainly keep trying, though it's been a very long day today. Kinda starting to wonder what'll be my first stable lucid, a DILD or a WILD lol :p

Yeah, keep going at it. Basically, the more practice you do, the better and higher chances you'll get at it. It took a month to get my first lucid dream. I've had them very rarely a couple of times. The last accidental lucid dream I had before I knew about them was I looked down at my hands, wondering how I got here. Then I woke up. The concept of controlling your dreams sounded fascinating to me so I googled it and found this site, that was quite a while ago. I even still have my old notebook from three years ago lolz. Just recording your dreams and looking back at them after a couple of years can trigger some nostalgia, for me, at least. :3

Yeah I'll be soldiering on :) Dreaming is very enjoyable right now, even in non-lucid form since my dream recall has become so much better. Let me stretch that for everyone who's getting into this and having problems with dream recall ... it's a massively trainable skill, I went from recalling a dream fragment every few days to being able to recall 3-4 dreams per night (not just fragments but full sequences) in no time.