Hello :) New Member here with my latest experience inside!

Hi everyone, I haven't introduced myself yet, Im Jake and I am very intrigued by Lucid Dreaming. I've had them naturally as a child and have read about them for years but just now, in the past few months have become interested in learning how to produce them on command. I had a LD about 6 months ago that got me interested again and in the past month I have had 2 Lucid Dreams since lurking DV, one being and DILD that was pretty cool; I was able to conjure a few items but wasn't able to stay in it for too long. My latest was a WILD which I will talk more about now since this occurred last night. My main goal is to learn how to have LD's on command and how to stabilize them where they will last longer so I can explore my dreamworld more. Written below is my LD from last night:

OK, so last night I woke up in the middle of the night and had to use the restroom. So I figured I might as well try to WILD since I had woken up. So I lay back down and begin to relax and drift off, I soon forget what I am trying to do and luckily wake back up shortly after nodding off. Then I remember reading about "the finger technique", where you tap your index and middle fingers softly, one after the other. So I begin tapping my fingers and the next moment my eyes are open and Im still in my bed except for the fact that I hear a radio softly playing in the background. Well immediately I recognize that there is no radio in my room so I plug my nose and do a reality check. While holding my nose I can still breath so I deduce that I was dreaming! This is where it gets lame though. As soon as I reality check and realize it's a dream, I get super excited and can actually feel my heart beating very hard for a second and the dream immediately starts to fade away. At this point, I'm not even out of my bed yet in the dream, Im still laying down. I try to stabilize the dream but it doesn't work and I wake up. I was definitely lucid for a moment and the WILD/FILD technique worked even though it was really short lasted.

After waking up I tried again but was too tired and drifted off before I could prepare myself. This does give me hope though, it tells me that I am getting better at it and getting better at recognizing good times to try different techniques Just thought I'd share.

Any feedback would be great and I always welcome advice!

Welcome, Borovan.
Your WILD is definitely great progress, so you should definitely feel encouraged. It is quite common you first start LDing to get too excited and wake yourself up. When this happens, just take a few deep breaths and try to remain calm. Eventually you should be able to lengthen your LDs. If you are interested in WILDing, I highly recommend taking Sageous's WILD class in the DV Academy going on right now. :)

Hello Borovan, welcome to DV. Congrats on your recent LDs!

You had success with WILD on your first attempt? That's really impressive. If you find WILDs to be best for you, then just keep practicing, and you'll be just fine. :) Whatever technique works best for you, just stick with it.

Hey,
Stabilisation is pretty tough, I'd say the main contributer is experience, so keep at it, well done for becoming lucid though!
Try to always remain focused on the dream stability and maintaining awareness, this should be your main piority, it might take afew lucids to for this to sink in ;D
If you need anything else just ask

I do have one question concerning WILDS. This morning I woke up at like 4 AM and decided to try to do a WILD again. But, I lay down and try to relax and for some reason if im thinking about it too much my body wont let me fall asleep. Like ill get an itch every few seconds or ill need to swallow. And even sometimes I can feel myself on the brink of SP (or so I think), I start to feel a wave of energy come over me and my hearing gets very hollow (if that makes sense), but right as this happens ill get a terrible itch. And even when I dont have an itch or have to swallow, all I can think about is avoiding them, thus inducing the itch's. I focus so hard on not having them, that I end up having them. So my question is: How can I avoid this?

Also: When I woke up this morning I almost decided to do the WILD immediately after waking up but then chose to get up and use the restroom first. I thought that my mind needed to wake up a little and I believe that was my downfall. I think if I would have just stayed in bed and tried to go back to sleep right after I woke up, I would have had more success. Any thoughts?

If you feel an itch early in your WILD, just go ahead and scratch it. Don't think too much about it. When you are towards the end, feeling hypnagogia, paralysis, vibrations, and such, it can be more tricky. I usually still scratch or fidget. It doesn't set me back too far. It only takes a few seconds to get back to the same state of mind I was just in. Usually, it is best to direct your attention away from your body towards the end of your WILD. Forget about it altogether, so you don't experience uncomfortable transitional hallucinations.

Ok cool, i'll def. try not to focus on them. I just thought about when I am trying to just normally go to sleep and not trying to WILD, normally it doesn't take me long at all because then im not focusing any attention on trying not to itch or swallow so maybe ill just act like I am trying to just normally fall asleep until I start feeling very relaxed, and then I will focus on the task at hand. Instead of thinking about the WILD at the beginning and messing myself up. I see now how focusing too hard totally screws it up. Ill try to put less effort into it.