Wild - My Experiences

So, today I attempted to do my first WILD. I have never had an induced lucid dream since I started trying to induce them, which was about three to four days ago. I do have some dream recall, although I did not try to recall tonight's dreams. I decided that I want my first lucid dream to be a WILD one. No pun intended.

Yesterday I went to bed late, around 12:00 (damn it... should've went to bed earlier!). I set the alarm on my cell phone for 5:45.

When 5:45 came around, I dragged myself up and went to my living room. There, I sat for about 30 to 40 minutes, until around 6:20-ish. During this time, I was basically just sitting there, sleepy. I did, however, find the time to get a drink of water and to relieve myself. When the time came to attempt the WILD technique, I put some earplugs in my ears and got a small, folded towel to cover my eyes.

I went back to my bed, covering my eyes with my towel. Everything was absolutely silent. The only thing that I could hear was my pulse in my plugged ears and my breathing. I said to myself, something like, "You will fall into a lucid dream".

So, basically, I was listening to my breathing. Some of the time I was just listening and relaxing, while some of the time I was counting in my head with my breaths, like so: "One... I am dreaming. Two... I am dreaming".

Well, I was somewhat starting to get into it, when I heard a noise! I think the first noise that I heard was a cross between banging and things falling. Obviously this noise was just in my head, because I was very good earplugs.

I knew that these voices were being made by myself as I was falling asleep, and I told myself this. neverthwless, I felt my pulse begin to quicken. The noises stopped.

Basically, I went through a cycle. Calm -> Relaxed -> Hearing the noises again -> Being startled against my own wishes -> Back to being calm.

I felt like I was overcoming the fear of the noises in my head and was making progress toward the sleep paralysis stage. My body felt numb and distant. All of a sudden, I felt that my bladder was full. "Crap," was what I thought. "How could my bladder be full again?" Well, I continued with the exercise, slowly but surely.

All of a sudden, my stomach started growling. I could not keep my relaxation if I wanted to use the bathroom AND I was hungry. I accidentally opened my eyes and light peeked through the bottom of my towel. From then on, my concentration level detiriorated.

When I finally opened my eyes and removed the towel and earplugs, I became very tired. It was as though I had just woken up from a sleep! I did not feel even remotely this way when I was in the WILD state. It was amazing, like I was actually "almost" dreaming (ie. the sleep cycles before the REM activity), alhough I was fully conscious.

The following are the noises that I heard. Note, these noises were somewhat quiet and they sounded distant, but they were distinct.

• Things falling
• Stones banging into each other (well, this was the only real-world analogue that I could find)
• A babbling brook (the thought that came into my mind)
• Roaring-like noises (not exactly like roaring, but it sounded like a roar).

So, I have a few questions:

1. What can I do to achieve lucidity after WILD? I want to try wild in a few hours, as well as tommorow morning.
2. Did I do everything right? Are your experiences similar to mine?
3. How can I stop this irrational fear of going further into the trance?
4. Are there any effective techniques for getting into the trance quickly?
5. When is the earliest effective time to try a WILD? When is the latest time?
6. I didn't really see any images (like an actual landscape). I think that I did feel one vibration. Is this okay?

So thanks for your time. Sorry if these questions have been answered before, if this post is too long, or if you consider me to be too much of a "n00b". I only learned about lucid dreaming a few days ago, stumbling onto lucid dreaming by accident. The only accidental lucid dreams that I can remember involved me trying not to lose the dream! But now I know some stabilization techniques. :wink: By the way, this is an awesome forum/website.

Hi there. I'll try to answer some of your questions. That is, I'll try to answer all of them except the 2nd, because I do not use methods resulting in WILDs myself. I take too long to fall asleep for them to be effective.

What can I do to achieve lucidity after WILD? I want to try wild in a few hours, as well as tommorow morning.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by this. If you're wondering about how you should become lucid after having entered a dream succesfully, there's no need for that. You'll know you're dreaming when the actual dream starts.
If you are asking about other methods you could try after succesfully inducing a WILD. Doing reality checks will greatly increase your chance of a DILD, as will autosuggestion. These are the methods I prefer (especially the latter)

Did I do everything right? Are your experiences similar to mine?
I guess I can at least say about this that it does seem like you did everything right. The problem was that you got freaked out about the hallucinations. That's very common for people trying to induce a WILD for the first.

How can I stop this irrational fear of going further into the trance?
Unfortunately, for as far as I know, this is mostly a matter of will. All I can say is that these hallucinations are in no way dangerous and that you should reassure yourself that no big deal. Just part of the drill. However, you probably read that somewhere already. Therefore, you're just going to have to keep practicing until you can convince yourself completely that they're nothing to worry about. Fear is tricky like that many situations, but eventually anyone can conquer it.

Are there any effective techniques for getting into the trance quickly?
I don't really think there's any way to reach the stages you have to go through faster, apart from being tired and naturally falling asleep easy. The things many people do when trying to induce a WILD are designed to prevent them from losing conciousness (and thus falling asleep normally).

When is the earliest effective time to try a WILD? When is the latest time?
The best times are either shortly after waking up from a dream (i.e from REM-sleep) or when taking a nap. In both cases, you'll reach REM-sleep much quicker than when going to bed at night. Inducing a WILD when going to sleep for the first time during the night is (nearly) impossible.
Time of day doesn't matter. Just that it might not be easy (or practical) to take a nap at 2 p.m. It would do the job though.

I didn't really see any images (like an actual landscape). I think that I did feel one vibration. Is this okay?
Judging by your experiences, you were on the right trick. The images, if I'm not mistaken, are a result of the fact that you're in the transitional phase between the waking state and sleep. The point is that you reach that stage (and go past it, eventually), and a symptom like images can let you know that you have. However, not seeing them does not mean that you haven't.


One last thing. DILD is usually seen as the easiest kind of LD to induce when you haven't had any before. If inducing a WILD turns out not to be working for you, you might want to try that. Then again, don't give up trying too soon, cause judging by your experience, it sounds like WILDs might work for you.

That's all I have to say for now. I hope it helped.
Good luck. :goodjob2:

Hey, just a comment on the fear of the voices/imagery/feelings, I had that the first time I tried a WILD. I started getting, like, a random HARD pinpoint pressure and seeing slight imagery. I couldn't get farther.

Though I haven't had a full WILD yet, I did get pass that and partial SP. It's more of a practice thing, since you get more used to it each night you try. But I found that I didn't make much progress trying several times that night.

I got really freaked out the first time I got the hallucinations too. Just keep trying, and it will work as long as you have the will to succeed.

Thanks for the input. I was typing a reply, when the Firefox tab suddenly closed!

Anyways, here's what I was saying:

This is the outcome of the WILD at 1:00 PM. I used the reverse blinking method (effective!), and got myself to a feeling of numbness. I heard noises like people talking indistinctly. I saw some images, of some rooms, and an image of two large gears. One of the images was even moving around in perspective.

I can't really tell what happened to me after that, but I think that I saw bright light and I felt a waking sensation. This lasted for about three seconds. I was then back at my bed. I thought that I finally had a false awakening, so I opened my eyes, and it turned out that I did not hav a false awakening.

I will try it again, waking up at 4:15 to 4:45 AM tonight and staying up for 5 to 15 minutes, eating a snack and drinking some water.

So, what do you all think? Was I close? What happened to me during the time when I felt like I was walking? Or is that my imagination?

When I try it tonight/early morning, I'll use the audio/visual/movement technique, which involves you singing music without words to yourself in your head and moving towards the images.