WILD - 2 years of failure

Hello. I'm currently having issues with WILDs.
I've been trying to do WILDS for like 2 years now and I've only gotten 6 successes out of hundreds of attempts. It feels to me like keeping consciousness when wakefulness is lost is just a coin toss even though I know it's not, but everywhere I look just says the same thing. What I'm saying is, I know I have to be doing something wrong to be failing 99.95% of the time, but I just don't know what.

My attempts over the years have been this quicker variation of WILD that I switched to because I was having a hard time getting to sleep after relaxation. I call it a quicker version of WILD because it just skips the relaxation phase entirely which was useful considering that was what I was most struggling with.
1. Awaken at designated time. Do not move. (Auto dismissal alarm)
2. Repeat mantra in my head. in this case, "Go into a dream, lucid".
3. minecraft enchantment table text
4. Success (Mostly failure)

When it succeeded, you'd be in the dream in less than a minute. When it failed, you'd be up for a couple minutes or hours. It has its own problems though, chief among them being inconsistency and incredibly precise alarm timing.

After I got a new bed and switched to a more active lifestyle, I found that it was easier to get to sleep. I decided I'd give WILD proper another shot, so here was my plan:
1. Awaken at designated time.
2. Stay up for a little while (I tried 15 minutes but that was tooo long apparently)
3. Stretch and relax to 4-7-8 breathing exercise
4. Count backwards from 100. Inbetween each number, say mantra.
5. so far, nothing but failure.

To me, this is exactly what you're supposed to do. I've looked for years and yet still I am short of an explanation of what actually happens once you are relaxed and ready to attempt. You WBTB. I get that. You stay up for a little bit. I get that. You do relaxation techniques so you can fall asleep easier. i get that, but how do I get to the dream?? They all say, "just enter the dream" immediately followed by "this is the hardest part" and then proceed to not explain it?!

Look maybe I just don't understand, but it's one of those cases where I just don't even know what I don't even know. The thing that confused me for the longest time was people using wakefulness and consciousness interchangeably and I read in EWOLD that they are different; that you can lose wakefulness while retaining consciousness. While that's cool and all, I just I still don't know what I've been doing wrong, or just not doing at all! I'm frustrated.

I even tried finding what all my successes had in common, but it was nothing. The same attempt would just straight up not work another night, or the dream I'd get into would end despite my best stabilization efforts. That part would be cool to try and figure out but I can't even experiment with that because I cant even get into dreams in the first place!!!


I just; I feel like after 2 years I don't actually know anything. Clearly I don't with a 99.95% fail rate.

Unfortunately I have no useful advice to share on the front in which you need advice on, though please know that I don't mean to discourage you here.

The reality of it is that I am more or less in a similar position to you with regards to WILD, except that to be perfectly honest, I have less mileage on it than you, and even my count of lucids is probably smaller than yours, despite being into lucidity and dreaming in general for almost a decade now. I have always had issues with my sleep and with staying awake for too long anyway, which is what I attribute most of my frustrations to, but whether this is the real issue or not for me, difficult to say.

In your case, I did think of suggesting looking for common elements with your successes... Since you've already done this, have you been able to maybe instead identify any common elements to the failures instead? Something that was "always wrong"? Though, I'm guessing this might be what you mean about not knowing what you don't know.

For now, it seems to me like it's a better idea to actually return to your previous method if you want to keep on trying to WILD. Part of me thinks that there's a lot more effort in the "proper" mode like you described, and this makes me wonder if that has been part of my issue with WILD too, since it feels like a very long process with no guarantee at the end. Not to mention, you have to keep more on your mind about what needs to happen versus a simplified/quicker approach.

Incidentally, what sort of level of expectation are you aware of having when you're going through the process, if any?

I usually try to keep a cautious optimism when it comes to my mindset. Too excited and you run the risk of staying awake for too long. Without much intent, you just lose. I'm fine with walking the tightrope i guess, I just don't know what I'm supposed to do after; or something to that effect.

In terms of switching back, I'm probably going to do that. 1, it was the only one I actually got success with, and 2, it is easier. However, as stated before it is a tradeoff.
With this shorter form, in order to skip the relaxation phase of WILD, ideally you'd wake up as relaxed as possible so you can just jump back into the dream, etc. Unfortunately, you really have to make sure your alarm is perfect. It's not even hard, just tedious. You have to do a lot more trail and error with it because it relies on you being way closer to REM than WILD would traditionally need you to be. It's basically DEILD but the alarm wakes you up instead, but I'd rather do this than DEILD because, at least for me right now, Anything DILD related is literally just luck. At least I can control the alarm and eventually hit my time.

Speaking of which, I think I've recently stumbled upon a good one. For some reason, I've woken up exactly a minute after it went off and already dismissed itself- Twice. In a row. It's never happened to me before and is basically a natural awakening which I'm told is better than an alarm.

The main frustration here really does lie with the fact that I can't even get into a dream, you know? I'd much rather have attempts where I get into the dream and then lose lucidity from some mistake rather than fail to even enter the dream because reasons. When I fail to enter a dream it feels like that night was wasted; not because I failed, but because I didn't learn anything about my dreaming experience from it. I'm really tired of failing and not learning anything.

Didn't come this far just to give up though.

Hmm... Let's get back to the essentials, and work from there.

First, is sleep health. Do you regularly have restful sleep? Do you maintain a mostly consistent sleeping schedule every night? Do you feel you have to sacrifice restful sleep to attempt LDs?

Second, dream journals. Do you have one? Do you write in it every day? Can you find time to write in it? How detailed do you keep your entries? Do you record notes of recurring elements from your dreams? Do you keep notes on what occurred during sleep? Your mental state? External interruptions?

Third, outlook and expectations. What do you expect when you practice for LDs? Do you expect a day's effort will result in a night with at least one LD? Do you value lucid dreams over non-lucid ones? Are LDs your sole pursuit in these practices?

Sleep health is better than ever. I have no issues getting to bed on time, and I consistently wake up every morning at around the same time. LD attempts used to affect sleep, but ever since I got my new bed and such, I haven't noticed any change. Even after a wbtb failure that keeps me up for a while, my sleep schedule doesn't seem to be affected.

I do have a dream journal. While it has many dreams in it, I have not been writing in it much lately. I just got a tablet though, so maybe that will encourage me to do it more often. In terms of their level detail, it really fluctuates. I found that when I did consistently keep a dream journal, I didn't notice any change regarding my dreams, helpful or harmful. That's why I stopped doing it so often; I wasn't really motivated to continue.

As stated in my reply to DarkestDarkness, I think I have a cautious optimism when it comes to LD attempts. I don't expect much, but my mind is open to the possibility of success. I'd say I do value LDs over non LDs simply because the few I've had have been way more fun and impactful than the vast majority of Non lucid dreams. As for the last inquiry, are you asking if LDs are what I hope to gain by practicing LDs? I'd imagine so, yeah. I don't think I understand that last bit.

Hmmm... By the sound of it, there's some reframing to be done, but we'll get back to that.

So, sleep health. Looks okay from here, save for word choices. I'll save that for the end, as it ties to a later point.

As for your dream journal, I must implore you take more time and effort to engage it. Fill it with whatever details you can scrounge from memory. Even in days when you don't recall anything, just write down anything, like what occurred in the night. You really want to make a habit of doing this.

Now, for the crux of the matter. IMO, it's not good long-term to practice LDing solely for LDing's sake. There's a lot of skills, techniques, and training involved, all of which can and will help in ways more broadly than the subject itself. Take your dream journal, for instance. Writing in it doesn't just benefit your dream recall. It also lets you improve on your writing skills. When you record your dreams in your electronic dream journal, it'll give you a reason to learn more about your word processor or other medium in which you write it. You'll have reason to learn how to better organize your data. And that's just from one foundation. The list goes on with reality testing, prospective memory training, sleep scheduling, dream recall and so forth.

There's something to be said of labeling things "successes" and "failures". Cautious optimism or no, I don't think such a perspective will really help. Take, for instance, those nights where you claim to have "failed" WBTBs. This is an opportunity to ask why such occurred. Is there some physical ailment you weren't aware of? A developing cold, or perhaps vitamin deficiency? Was there outside interruptions? Construction going on, or such? At times, it may very well be a plan that fell short. Other times, it's outside factors that just can't be resolved without time. And yet, at other cases, it's an indication that one needs to put their attention elsewhere. Anyway, just beware using such severe, dichotomous language.

Furthermore, a lot of these practices take time to see results. A lot of time. Looking at it day by day is really not the way to go. What you may think of as one night of "failure", may very well be setting up the groundwork for results in a later date. It could be for tomorrow, it could be for next week, or even next month. There's really no way to tell for sure.

If there's one takeaway here, it's that you must find ways to enjoy and make use of the entirety of your practice. The journey, not the destination and all that. Sure, it's fine to indulge when you get to the occasional LDs. Just be sure to appreciate as much of the rest of the voyage as you can. The non-LDs, hypnagogic experiences, all the techniques and skills you learn. It's a long trek. Make the most of it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RelicWraith

Writing in it doesn't just benefit your dream recall. It also lets you improve on your writing skills. When you record your dreams in your electronic dream journal, it'll give you a reason to learn more about your word processor or other medium in which you write it. You'll have reason to learn how to better organize your data. And that's just from one foundation. The list goes on with reality testing, prospective memory training, sleep scheduling, dream recall and so forth.

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It's funny; I just recently wrote an essay about LD and how being a practitioner can promote a change in lifestyle. Yet, I never thought about dream journaling that way before. I do agree with the premise. I guess my problem comes when the destination is so incredibly interesting that the journey seems so dull in comparison, and even frustrating at times in my attempts to make it into a dream.

What you're describing is not alien to me, however. Something I used to enjoy a great deal was the Non lucid dreams I had, but they stopped being interesting after a while. Maybe if I just get excited for whatever happens the night before, LD or not, then my interesting dreams that used to take hours to record will return.

I'll be honest, though, this ain't what I wanted to hear. As I understand it, I've been rushing to the end for over 2 years now, but to no avail. If I'm to make it to the end, I have to slow down... maybe stop and enjoy the sights on the path... yeah, not the best news.

When I think about now it makes sense. You only gain lucidity when you stop and raise awareness. I guess I gotta do it metaphorically if I hope to do it literally.

Any advice on which roses to smell, so to speak? The stories told by Non LDs could be one...
Learning about the existence of a new technique or about stuff like Hyperphantasia is fun too...

People are different, and everybody has their own particular sleeping and dreaming rhythms. I for one detest real WBTB. (I do not deny its effectiveness, I just hate doing it). Micro-WBTB, I'm on board with that, and in fact do that several times a night when recalling dreams after waking.

WILD is tricky. It is a very delicate balance. Most people are just not wired to fall asleep consciously. My take on it is that WILD is really tricky for people who wake up quickly, fall asleep slowly, and are prone to middle-of-the-night insomnia (yours truly). I can't say I've every really had a WILD, at least, as defined as an unbroken chain of consciousness all the way from wakefulness into the dream. I've been conscious/lucid at the moment when a dream forms and begins and then I enter it, but there is always a discontinuity between the period were I was conscious and when the dream begins. Where they WILDs, or start-of-dream-DILDs? Who knows. (In some sense it doesn't matter I think since the goal of entering the start of the dream consciously was achieved). But all I know is that I've tried dozens of times, and only had 2-3 "successes", as noted.

In Sageous's WILD class, he recommends setting time aside when you know you won't be disturbed, when you don't have to get up and do something, and I think that's part of achieving success.
That and training yourself to fall asleep quickly in the middle of the night, I think are important for that class of dreamer who struggles with WILD.