Help with inducing a WILD

Hi all,

I've been attempting WILD's for 3 weeks now. I've read a lot of hints and tips on this site, but I couldn't find any that helped me out. My problem is not losing consciousness, but going into a dream state. I know I'm relaxed enough, because when I give up and turn over I'm sound (not lucid) asleep. The main problem is that after 2 hours of continuous trying my eyes open up and I can't keep them closed anymore, no matter what I try. This is what I do:

I start off with simple relaxing until my body starts feeling numb. Then I try reverse blinking and I get really sleepy. When I keep my eyes shut I start seeing star like objects, but nothing more than that. I tried looking at them, ignoring them or looking past them, but nothing seems to change. Eventually my body starts to do things on its own. My fingers bend a little and my thumb gets lifted, my legs spread and I start breathing really shallow as my torso turns numb. Eventually my head goes numb too. My mouth either randomly opens up or shuts tightly, then my nose starts itching and my eyes go all over the place and my body feels like it's in a position I know it isn't and my forehead feels strange (somewhat painful even) and my skeletal muscles start twitching. At this time my body either feels as if it sunk deeply into the bed or floating above it, but I'm still aware of it and awake. In the end after 2 hours (exactly each time) my eyes start opening up unless I squeeze them tightly shut, I feel rested and I can't go back to any previous stages (not even with reverse blinking). All the while I've seen nothing, but these star like objects.

At first I thought I wasn't good enough at visualizing, but the exercises mentioned on this site seem to go easy on me. Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong? Have I missed anything mentioned on this site?

Sorry for the overkill of text on my first post. Any help will be greatly appreciated!

So, after the two hours you feel rested? Hmm...are you sure that you haven't actually transitioned into the dream at some point during this. Instead of getting up and carrying on with your lucid, you may just be staying with the WILD process within the dream. I have purposely laid down within a dream and WILDed (already in the dream) and it feels about the same. Your mind could be tricking you into thinking you haven't been successful, when in reality...you have already transitioned. If your body starts floating/sinking and it suddenly stops. Try to get up and perform a RC to see if you are actually in the dream or not. When I WILD, my body usually starts floating/sliding around the room. Once it stops, I know I have transitioned and I get up and carry on with my LD. The WILD process should not take 2 hours to complete.

First of: thanks for replying to a rather common thread.

As for the RCs, every time I wake up or after my WILD attempts I do a reality check. I usually look at my digital clock and several glances won't change the time, this is a proper RC, right? I'm quite positive I wasn't dreaming :(. Last night these starts finally got more than stars though, but at random these completely disappeared with nothing to replace it, are they meant to disappear? Not much more progress as to time though. Still everything stopped after 2 hours.

Ah, I see. Once these stars (or any HI for that matter) start appearing, just keep calm and relaxed. Act as if nothing unusual is happening and don't focus on them. Try to observe them as if you are uninterested (even bored). Just continue to let your body fall into a deeper and deeper relaxation. Keep your mind free and try not think things like, "This is SP," or "I'm hallucinating right now," or "Am I about to enter a dream?" Just open your mind and allow the HI to do whatever it wants. Don't try to succeed...expect to succeed. You really shouldn't be doing anything during this process, besides trying to fall asleep. Any time you lay awake for long periods of time or lose HI/HH/SP, you have done something to keep yourself awake. Never forget that the goal is actually to fall asleep.

I've had my first LD! It probably wasn't a WILD though. I was trying to WILD, but I lost consciousness. When I "regained consciousness" I decided to break off my WILD attempt with a RC and BANG I was lucid. I think my big problem is still to fall asleep, since I'm too focussed on keeping conscious. At least I know my problem now and I've had my first lucid! Thanks a lot for your help!

No problem and congrats on becoming lucid! The beauty about WILD attempts is even when you fail, you fell asleep with LDing on your mind. This helps increase your chances for DILDs! Nice job and just keep practicing. WILD just takes a while to get a good "feel" for it.

Yoshi gives good advise. Just something to add: Make sure you are relaxing your eyes. Your whole body can be physically relaxed but if you are trying to follow the imagery around with your eyes it can mess you up.

Are you WILDing straight after you get into bed or are you trying WBTB?
WILDing straight away rarely works

Thanks again for all the advice! I've stopped focusing at the images, but this sure causes me to fall asleep. And I usually try it immediately after getting into bed since I've got 0 discipline after waking myself up mid sleep. I'll try it again though.