New to lucid dreaming

[MIW]

Alright, I have a few questions about lucid dream techniques. I learned about FILD technique and I've heard it's the easiest technique there is, I am excited to try it. I also learned about WILD which I tried a couple minutes ago. I layed down, closed my eyes, started to breath deeply and relax (I've never lucid dreamed and I've heard this is the hardest level of lucid dream) After a few minutes of just breathing deeply and focusing my arms felt very light. it happened in 1 second, they felt so light and relaxed, then a couple more minutes passed and the blackness I saw from my eyes closed formed into like a circle, it was so weird and I cant explain it. the circle was black and was in the middle, going bigger as if i was zooming in, I freaked out cause I thought I was going to start seeing the "scary" images people say you see when you go into the sleep paralysis stage and I opened my eyes. (i felt like i was in sleep paralysis because my arms had gotten extremly relaxed and light and I started to see that circle.) I realized that I wasnt in the sleep paralysis when I opened my eyes and started moving. It was a really amazing experience even though I didnt lucid dream lol I also have a question, since you are sorta consious and realize that it's a dream, how does it feel? Like do you see the world as if you were there or does it feel like a day dream and you're just thinking about it? EDIT: I just watched a "tutorial" video about WILD and they said that trying this can lead to insomnia if you try this technique before you sleep and wake up, so did I do it wrong? was I suppose to sleep and wake up after a few hours and then do it?

[Higat]

Please don't take anything I'll say as fact, I'm just speaking for myself Firstly I don't think that there are "easiest" or "hardest" techniques out there, simply because everyone is different. If you ask me I'll tell you Wild is hard af, but lots of other people will say otherwise. That circle you saw was hypnagogia (Am I spelling it right?), it's a good sign, for your first try And yes, you are supposed to wake up in the middle of the night to do WILD: WILDing out of REM sleep is much harder than in REM sleep. However some say it isn't necessary. Depends in the person, I suppose. Lucid dreaming feels like real life, most of the time. They may sometimes be fuzzy but if you take some time to observe the dream world and to stabilize it, you can be certain to make the world as realistic as something can be!

[Rothgar]

I just had a 30 or 40 minute LD and it was just like being there...heck, I WAS there as far as I can tell...not like a dream or daydream. I checked out the feel of a plastic coke bottle..felt the same...made the same crinkling sound as i squeezed it...even echoed when I was in a tunnel. I felt the wind on my face...heard music in a cabaret, drank a beer...flew around a bit. Those new to LD keep asking this question of "how real does it seem" because they cant imagine it is like real life, but it is....with a few caveates in my case at least.... Watch the Matrix...similar to when they are in the simulation worlds where you cant be hurt but do incredible things. Some minor differences... you may be walking around but you arrive faster, often with seamless transitions, and dont really notice these transitions as being odd. This is a carry over from how you move in dreams I think. Also you may act a lot, or only just slightly, different depending upon lucidity level. Last night I was pretty normal and making my normal rational decisions...but sometimes I do get angry and beat up a dream character if he was a bad guy...I am not normally a fighter but then in dreams you are invinvible so what the heck? But it ALWAYS still blows me away with how real it all seems. You just cant imagine until you experience it.

[MIW]

You guys make me more excited to lucid dream ) I think that WILD and FILD would be better for me but I'll still try other techniques to figure out.

[Laurelindo]

Don't get too hung up on techniques. They can be helpful, yes, but lucid dreaming is essentially about trying to bring your self-awareness and self-reflection with you into your dreams; there are lots of ways to do that, and some of them just happen to be called "techniques" and have names. I think that the most intuitive way to think about it is that we usually don't reflect on our waking state that much, and we just accept what happens and we always assume that we are awake, because we "feel" awake - and because of this, we will bring that attitude with us into dreams as well, so that we think of dreams as waking life! This is one reason why most of us don't regularly become lucid. So how do you solve this? Well, basically, you will want to develop an attitude that allows you to start questioning your dreams while you are still in them. One well-known way to do this is very straightforward - start questioning your waking state! Whenever you experience something in waking life that seems odd or weird in some way, or even when you experience something that typically happens in your dreams, try to prove to yourself that you might be dreaming at that point; these kinds of tests are usually called "Reality Checks". For example, try to look at an object, then look away and imagine that it will have an entirely new color, or try to visualize a different place and "teleport" over there, or anything that you cannot do in waking life (but of course, use common sense - you don't want to perform a check that is dangerous or embarrassing). Of course, if you really are awake then you will fail all these checks no matter how many times you attempt them, but if you keep asking yourself if you might be dreaming for one reason or another then you might actually succeed with this in a dream in the near future! WILD can be worth trying if you feel interested in doing that, but don't spend too much time on it - if it doesn't seem to work then you should try other things, and experiment with different techniques etc. Also, you should definitely read the book "Exploring The World Of Lucid Dreaming" by Stephen LaBerge - that book is easily one of the best and most popular books about lucid dreaming. It is very comprehensible, and written with a lot of passion.

[MIW]

Don't get too hung up on techniques. They can be helpful, yes, but lucid dreaming is essentially about trying to bring your self-awareness and self-reflection with you into your dreams; there are lots of ways to do that, and some of them just happen to be called "techniques" and have names. I think that the most intuitive way to think about it is that we usually don't reflect on our waking state that much, and we just accept what happens and we always assume that we are awake, because we "feel" awake - and because of this, we will bring that attitude with us into dreams as well, so that we think of dreams as waking life! This is one reason why most of us don't regularly become lucid. So how do you solve this? Well, basically, you will want to develop an attitude that allows you to start questioning your dreams while you are still in them. One well-known way to do this is very straightforward - start questioning your waking state! Whenever you experience something in waking life that seems odd or weird in some way, or even when you experience something that typically happens in your dreams, try to prove to yourself that you might be dreaming at that point; these kinds of tests are usually called "Reality Checks". For example, try to look at an object, then look away and imagine that it will have an entirely new color, or try to visualize a different place and "teleport" over there, or anything that you cannot do in waking life (but of course, use common sense - you don't want to perform a check that is dangerous or embarrassing). Of course, if you really are awake then you will fail all these checks no matter how many times you attempt them, but if you keep asking yourself if you might be dreaming for one reason or another then you might actually succeed with this in a dream in the near future! WILD can be worth trying if you feel interested in doing that, but don't spend too much time on it - if it doesn't seem to work then you should try other things, and experiment with different techniques etc. Also, you should definitely read the book "Exploring The World Of Lucid Dreaming" by Stephen LaBerge - that book is easily one of the best and most popular books about lucid dreaming. It is very comprehensible, and written with a lot of passion. Thank you for the tips! i understand a little more, I am new to this topic and I do reality checks everytime I remember to, and everytime my phone vibrates from a notification. I think the phone is useful so if im asleep and hear a notification, i can do a RC. The RC I use is holding my nose and try to breath. When trying WILD, does it work if you try it when you're very tired but you havnt gone to sleep? or does it work best if you do it after a few hours of sleep?

[Laurelindo]

Thank you for the tips! i understand a little more, I am new to this topic and I do reality checks everytime I remember to, and everytime my phone vibrates from a notification. I think the phone is useful so if im asleep and hear a notification, i can do a RC. The RC I use is holding my nose and try to breath. Sounds like you are doing fine. Remember that it is important that you actually believe that your reality checks might work, even if you are sure that you are awake. This is one funny thing about dreams - if you expect them to work a certain way, then they probably will. This means that if you try to jump during a dream and expect to fall down, then you will fall down. So if you think of a dream as waking life then it will follow a lot of the normal laws of physics. In fact, I have tried walking through walls in some of my dreams and I have failed several times, because I have had problems imagining what it would feel like to walk through solid objects - and since I think of walls as "solid", they will indeed feel solid and impenetrable even if they are dream stuff. This is one of those things that you will require some practice, and you will have to get used to how dreams work and can work compared to waking life. When trying WILD, does it work if you try it when you're very tired but you havnt gone to sleep? or does it work best if you do it after a few hours of sleep? WILD tends to be most reliable during naps, or after you have woken up from a dream during the night. This is because you will enter a dream much faster at those times, since you don't have to go through long deep sleep phases before the dream starts. It can be a good idea to combine WILD with Wake-Back-To-Bed (WBTB) - this simply means that you get out of bed for a while when you wake up during the night, then tell yourself that you are going to become lucid in your next dream, then after about 30-45 minutes you go back to bed and attempt WILD.

[Rothgar]

I would recommend DILD, personally. It is a better starting point. You cant really WILD early in the night...so you gotta sleep some anyway (unless to are into afternoon naps) but sometimes I catch a pretty early DILD. If you then wake up at 4 or 5 you can try WILD if you wish. An easier form of WILD is DEILD or even a DILD is easier after awakening from a dream, as ypu are half way in dream land at that point.

[MIW]

Thank you for the tips and information. I noticed that before I really start trying to lucid dream, I need to become better at dream recall and reality checks. Today I woke up and didn't remember my dream at all, a few hours passed and I started watching a youtube channel that I watch every morning, its called 'good mythical morning' So after I watch their newest video, I go in their channel and watch one of my favorite videos of them and realize that I dreamed about it. In that video they say a quote and I remembered that in my dream I met them and told them about that joke on the video. i got excited because I didnt remember my dream until a few hours. I started my dream journal already and I just need to get better.

[Laurelindo]

A dream journal is definitely an important step, because it trains your ability to remember your dreams. Sometimes you can actually have a lucid dream and forget about it, so that you think you didn't become lucid that night, even though you did. In fact, keeping a dream journal can often be enough in order to get lucid dreams, because the routine of writing down your dreams makes you truly care about your dreams, which will of course also make you more alert while you are having them. Just make sure that you always try to remember as much as possible when you are recalling dreams. Dream recall is kind of like strength training - you should always train your brain to remember more and more details each time. Just don't rush it, but instead lie back and calmly go through your dreams, then focus on a specific scene for a while and let memories come back on their own.