Entering lucidity directly from waking state?

[emh360]

I know about the WILD technique, but this seems to apply to waking up and going back to sleep in the middle of the night or morning. Your mind is already in the middle of a REM cycle. However, I was wondering if it is possible to go from the waking state (meaning you've been awake all day and it's time to go to bed) and go directly into lucidity when you first lay down to go to sleep at night. I know for myself there have been times when I closed my eyes when I first go to sleep at night and I could see the bedroom as if I had my eyes open. It was similar to a lucid experience (just not as vibrant and vivid as a lucid dream). I know that what I was experiencing was much more than simple hypnagogic flashes of images.

[ClearView]

This cannot happen because you need REM sleep to dream, and become lucid. This is why you cannot do a WILD state when your REM state expires (right before your bed time) and you have to do a WBTB. The things you experienced was probably just HI, trust me, its never simple. -CV

[Puffin]

It's possible to WILD right when you get into bed without sleeping beforehand, but it can take over an hour. It's much easier and less stressful if you just sleep a few hours beforehand, and WILD in the middle of the night. That way, you're already relaxed and your body's still ready to sleep. I've gotten HI right when getting into bed too; a few of these experiences include hearing a hollow ringing noise, and seeing a white circular light in the corner of my eye. If you do manage to get HI, lay still and relax; it's almost like a free WILD!

[ClearView]

I've gotten HI right when getting into bed too; a few of these experiences include hearing a hollow ringing noise, and seeing a white circular light in the corner of my eye. If you do manage to get HI, lay still and relax; it's almost like a free WILD! I've gotten these same things. But I do not agree. You cannot WILD without sleeping before hand, because your REM cycles have not been initiated. I have tried multiple times, and it is not possible, I can assure you.. -CV

[Puffin]

I've gotten these same things. But I do not agree. You cannot WILD without sleeping before hand, because your REM cycles have not been initiated. I have tried multiple times, and it is not possible, I can assure you.. From my experience, it is possible. I've WILDed twice when getting into bed. But it's fairly difficult.

[Baron Samedi]

I know about the WILD technique, but this seems to apply to waking up and going back to sleep in the middle of the night or morning. Your mind is already in the middle of a REM cycle. However, I was wondering if it is possible to go from the waking state (meaning you've been awake all day and it's time to go to bed) and go directly into lucidity when you first lay down to go to sleep at night. I know for myself there have been times when I closed my eyes when I first go to sleep at night and I could see the bedroom as if I had my eyes open. It was similar to a lucid experience (just not as vibrant and vivid as a lucid dream). I know that what I was experiencing was much more than simple hypnagogic flashes of images. That is so cool that you can see the bedroom with your eyes closed! To answer your question, yes it is possible. Difficult, but possible.

[ClearView]

I guess I haven't read something right then.. I've discussed this topic with some of the Dream Guide members, and it is not possible to WILD before bed. But then again everyone is different so I have nothing against not believing it.. -CV

[emh360]

I know about the stages of a sleep cycle and that's why this is not making sense to me. Going from wide awake to an LD, I would have to be alseep and wind down for a good 30 minutes or so, before entering REM and enjoying the dream world. However, and I may be wrong, but I don't believe these were hypnagogic images. My personal experience with hypnagogic images, they usually last around 5 seconds and then they morph into other images. If I'm really tired, I'll get the occasional hypnagogic voice of someone saying something. These are always of random things (other locations, funny faces, dancing polar bears, etc). They are nothing like this prolonged experience of looking around my room. The longest I've been able to stay in this state of observing my room was roughly 30 to 45 seconds. Way longer than any hypnagogic image I've ever experienced. The interesting thing is that it is an exact recreation of my bedroom, but visualized as if I have my eyes open (although I know consciously that my eyes are closed). Sometimes while I'm in this state, I'll lose lucidity and forget that I don't have my eyes closed and it takes waking up to realize that they were never open in the first place. ...and it is always an exact replica of my room from the perspective of lying in bed on my side (as I usually sleep). If I have a pile of clothes on the floor before going to bed, then I will see that pile of clothes in this "dream-like" state. It also definitely feels lucid. The sensation I'm feeling while looking around the room is similar to that lucid state where if I allow myself to become too conscious, I will snap out of it and wake up...and if I let myself get too "deep", then I forget my eyes are really closed and I fall into typical unconscious sleep. Anyway, just thought I'd share the experience. Not disagreeing with anyone. Just trying to figure this out...if there is some loophole in the cycle. Could it be possible to bypass the NREM stages and fall right into REM from wide awake. I think this maybe wishful thinking on my part. Still, would like to know what the hell this experience is.

[OldMan]

Hi Emh360. Lucid dreaming is one of those areas where the eventor phenomenon is reported by many, many people, but the actual source data can'tever escape the realm of personal experience - so there will be different ideas and yess and nos reported for various things. First of all, the experience you recount of seeing your bedroom very clearly is, in my experience, very closely connected with lucid dreaming. I know because it was one of the techniques I used to start lucid dreaming in the first place. I used let my eyes 'look' in to my eyelids and form whatever visual shape or image they wanted, then I learned to 'hold' that image as I slipped in to that familiar threshold area between sleep and waking. I've heard numerous people say things like it's not possible to remember or be aware of the moment you fall asleep. Actually, it's completely possible and I've done it many times using the above method. The first time I did it it simply felt like somersaulting backwards in to my mind, and remains one of my best lucid dreaming experiences, even though it was one of the simplest. However, as has been mentioned, the 'type' of sleep you are having is very important. For example, as has probably been mentioned here many times, a siesta is by far the best time to lucid dream. So if you go to bed in that part of the sleep cycle that gives you that type of sleep, then you can do it at night - but for me, and I think for many, that early point of bed time isn't the best or easiest time to lucid dream. So, advice would be, try to take a siesta - and it also seems to help, in my experience, if you siesta in a place other than your bed, such as a chair. You can try the 'holding image' method - it has numerous different versions, and varying degrees of lucidity. Never think there's only one or two types of dreaming state - in my experience, there's a continuum of different states, with different levels of awareness.

[OldMan]

Emh360 - totally with you on the bedroom imagery thing. Not only that, I often 'see' the room I'm lucid dreaming in - many of my lucid dreaming experiences, especially at first, involved sitting up my dream, in the room I was dreaming in. Hell, I've even woke up from lucid dreaming, got the post, put the kettle on, then realised I was still dreaming! But usually, the room I wake up in is a 'version' of the room I'm asleep in, like, everything will be the samebut different, like, the mirror is on the wall - and I can look in it - but it's a slightly different shape. The ornaments are all there, but they are all 'types' of the same ornament I have in those places, but not the exact same ones. A very strange thing to decribe, like someone is recreating the room from memory - which they are! If you can see your room then try to get up and look around. 'Holding' the image is a skill that takes practise for many. Maybe you'll even see yourself in bed, dreaming away!

[emh360]

Thank you, OldMan. I appreciate your post. It's reassuring to find someone who relates to my experience and isn't just spouting off default answers from textbooks based on research that has been done regarding the sleep cycle. It sounds like you have had a very similar experience to mine. What you said about the "looking into your eye lids" is exactly what happens with me just before I fall into this state that I'm describing. It's as if I'm looking through my eyelids and seeing my room.

[OldMan]

Well glad to be of help! I didn't get in to lucid dreaming through textbooks so I've explored a lot of different angles to it, experimenting organically with different ideas and approaches - especially the idea that there is a continuum of different levels of awareness in dreaming states, and including looking at how certain levels of dreaming awareness can be in process in waking hours. 'Looking in to your eyelids' was one of my first major methods for beginning to lucid dream - I used to use it especially to train the ability to 'hold' an image. It still astonishes me just how clear - how perfectly clear - those images are when they click in properly.

[Philosopher8659]

.However, I was wondering if it is possible to go from the waking state (meaning you've been awake all day and it's time to go to bed) and go directly into lucidity when you first lay down to go to sleep at night.. In the Judeo-Christian scriture there is a distinction between lucid dreaming and a vision, a vision does happen quite suddenly while awake. In the vision, just like in the lucid state, one can respond to the environment. I have had two of these, and quite frankly, one definitely saved my life. If one is a lucid dreaming and has one of these, one will experience identical stimulus.

[The Cusp]

This cannot happen because you need REM sleep to dream, and become lucid. That is so not true. You don't need REM to dream. REM dreams are just more intense, while non REM dreams tend to be dull and boring. I know for myself there have been times when I closed my eyes when I first go to sleep at night and I could see the bedroom as if I had my eyes open. It was similar to a lucid experience (just not as vibrant and vivid as a lucid dream). I know that what I was experiencing was much more than simple hypnagogic flashes of images. Yes it's possible to go directly into a dream after being awake all day. This is what causes people to think they are having OBEs. Dreams form around what you have your attention focused on. Usually they form around the last hypnogogic image you see, but sometimes you skip the hypnogogic state and end up with a dream based on the last thing you were aware of, being in your room. But I have to ask, were you seeing things normally, or were you seeing things like you were looking through night vision goggles? Because sometimes while waiting to fall asleep, I notice I can see my room and it looks like night vision.

[Hukif]

Yeah, what Cusp said, also, WILDing when first going to bed tends to take longer than a normal WILD, and is also harder to achieve, from experience, at least. So unless you fall asleep easily, I wouldn't recommend it. Oh right, there is people who have REM really early in the night, I has seen my sister enter in REM after like 15mins of falling asleep, so I would guess that helps for WILD at the time too.