WILD and LD-comparing experiences

[Ceno]

Hey, I've been following this forum for a long time now, but only registered today. So this is my first post, and so being, I would like to say thank you to all the people involved in this website in general. It's easily the site with the best community and overall information, the guides are wonderfull. This is the site that taught me to dream, so big thx! I would like to ask you all some questions, just to see to what point are all these sleep related experiences unique to each of us, or if we share a certain common ground since we are all humans. My first LD ever came out of nowhere. I'd been trying for a good 2 years, based on castaneda's "the art of dreaming". He said that a good method to become lucid during dreams was to look at your hands. If you could remember to do what, it would click and you'd be aware that you were in a dream. I never could, and the years passed on. Only when I found this forum, about a year ago, did I found about WILD, the breathing thru the nose thing and the absolute importance of keeping a dream journal. So the very first time I tried to WILD I experienced sleep paralysis, not bad for starters. But, never could do it again. It was only after spending some time constantly remembering my dreams, not actually writing them I'm too lazy for that lol, that I had my first LD. It went like this. All of a sudden, I "wake up" and I'm in a street. There are guns all over the sidewalk and I think to myself "strange, is this shit a dream?!" and then I touch my face, and I remember this feeling very vividly and say to myself "No, this isn't a dream, I'm really here. what's up with these guns though". then I do the nose thing, and the rest is unimportant lol. So my question is this. I have LDed in two ways, this one I told you about, in which I just wake up inside the dream and don't remember anything that happened before, and the normal LDs, in which you question what's happening, do a reality check and awareness ensues. Has the first type ever happened to you? The next thing is this. I have WIlDed successfully 4 times, and all of them were quite different from one another. The first time, I experienced sleep paralysis for quite a long time. It scared the shit outta of me, because it was really strong, the numbness of the whole body, but I kept going. And all of a sudden, it stopped. Just like that. So I think "Shit, not again!! Oh fuck this, enough is enough" and as I begin to move my legs, I feel them getting out of themselves. Like if you were moving your soul, unsticking it from your body. Can't explain it better, but I totally freaked out, I could have sworn I was awake. This never happened to me again, unfortunately lol. The other three were more standard, the process goes something like this. Sleep paralysis, then a big dizziness, like if the bed was moving, and then great acceleration, until it just... shoots me into a dream, that's really the feeling, like being shot into space. So my questions are. I dont' see any images whatsoever, I just have strange feelings with my body. I resumed this last bit, but truth is I haven't had two WILDs that were exactly alike, in terms of process. Are your always the same? Predictable? I also found that for me, maintaining lucidity in a WILD on in a normal LD is exactly the same. Previously I thought that in a WILD, lucidity was actually hard to lose.Your thoughts? And since I'm writing this, how long did it take it took you to be able to maintain lucidity? Right now, when I'm in a LD I get so terribly excited I rapidly lose it again. It's irritating. lol.

[JollyRoger]

First off welcome to the forums. but on maintaining lucidity I notice that usually am so excited that I can't stop saying "Holy Sh*t I'm dreaming" and I think just saying to myself that is helping, Like reassurance for you awareness. oh and I've done WILDS but with help of audio, I usually have the same experiance with the feeling of the WILD

[Luminous]

Most of my WILDs are spontaneous, or a mix of spontaneous and induced. They are rarely the same. Sometimes I feel SP start to kick in, with the vibrations and energy surges (but I enter the dream before SP fully kicks in), other times I don't feel anything, I just keep my consciousness, and the dream slowly appears before my eyes. Sometimes I see HI, sometimes I don't. Also, welcome to DV!

[Ceno]

thx for the welcomes : -) Jolly, you wild with audio? like what, I-doser? Tryed to have a obe with one of it's doses. didn't really work. but the whole concept itself is I think an enormous placebo effect. Luminous, that's some strange stuff. From what you're describing, is it like falling a sleep normally, but never losing awareness? that's really weird. For me, the really extreme feelings are a great part of wild. They're great fun actually, it's really different. Just going into a dream normally... How long have you been doing it?