hello, i already WILD (kinda) but was unaware

Hi, today I was watching that Discovery channel show on pushing the human body's limits (the sleep episode) and it brought up lucid dreaming. A little later, a dorm mate had his laptop up with the wiki on it. When I read the description of a WILD, I realized that it I almost achieve it on an almost nightly basis. I read more that certain vitamins can also help induce lucid dreaming and I realized that I have been noticing this since the start of this school year (when I first started the vitamin). anyway what happens with me at least 3 or 4 times a week is after being in bed for 5 10 minutes thinking one thought will overtake and will become my main focus after that I will usually (often with my eyes open) enter a dream that will be about this main focus. Then for a very short period (still with open eyes), I will be in the dream. Then I will realize I am dreaming and come out of it. Then I usually just fall asleep a little later. Also being a high school (boarding student), I get the privilege of waking up later than normal students (I wake up at 6:25). I sleep with earplugs so my alarm (a radio on full blast) takes a couple of seconds to wake me. often times I awaken two or three minutes before my alarm but other times before the alarm fully wakes me I realize I am dreaming and wake up (I remember this happening when I was little). The other thing is since last year (maybe earlier)all the dreams I remember (I now have forgotten basically all of them) have been anything but extraordinary, they are always me doing normal pretty normal things (on occasion something strange), for example the most recent one I remember was just of my friends and her mom having me clean my dorm room, the only strange thing was that since my friend is a girl she isn't allowed in my dorm room and my bed was hovering a little off the floor while I cleaned(which I think is the most bizarre thing I have dreamed in a while) also the building was longer. I also intend to start keeping a dream journal. One last thing all the dreams I can remember I can relate to the day’s activities. All I really want to know is am I taking the right approach to lucid dreaming (journal and WILD nightly)? One last thing, I am also very interested in the nitty gritty of how and maybe why this happens and is possible.

p.s. thanks for tolerating the HEFTY post :oops:

Welcome to Dreamviews!

You seem to be off to a good start. Dream journals are essential, so it's a good thing you're doing that. They're extremely important for both lucid dreaming and dream recall. I normally wouldn't recommend starting with WILD, but this is only because it tends to be more difficult. If you can do it naturally, as you said, then it's fine.

You should also be doing reality checks every day, this is easy to do and is a great way to get spontaneous lucid dreams. There is a list of reality checks in this tutorial.

About why it happens - well, it's not anything very special. It really just takes realizing that you're dreaming. It doesn't happen normally because the logic centers of your brain are disabled, but things like reality checks (which are done by force of habit), still work. So while you might not realize that you're dreaming because you're living on the moon, you could realize it when, by force of habit, you ask yourself if you are dreaming. Once you ask yourself this, and take a look around, you usually realize that you are indeed in a dream.

This turned out to be a hefty post as well. Feel free to ask if you have any questions, or part of my wall of text was unclear about something. :)

:welcome: Definitely start a dream journal, it'll help you a lot.

As to the how: Read Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming by Dr. Laberge. Its explain exactly how it happens (it was his dissertation and continued research topic.)

The reason that most people don't lucid dream is because they don't know about it. Even if they see something weird in their dreams, their mind comes up with some excuse for it. If a light doesn't work the excuses that might come up are:

"I flipped the wrong switch" in which case another switch will appear.
"The light burned out" in which nothing will happen
"The power's out" in which you'll notice that everything else is off too

If you know about lucid dreaming you add a possible excuse "This is a dream" and you'll go lucid.

Hi, welcome to Dream Views.

It's recommended that you try WILD after you've had at least 5 hours of sleep. You'll be in prime condition to lucid dream after 5 or more hours because then you'll be hitting the good batches of REM sleep, which are needed to have some decent lucid dreams.

If you try at the beginning of nightly sleep it's much harder to WILD. It is possible, I've done it myself, but it's very difficult. Like you I slip into a dream and within a couple of seconds I realize I'm dreaming and immediately wake back up. Sometimes this happens a few times before I actually go to sleep and no matter how hard I try I usually can not stay in these little pre core sleep lucid dreams. The few times that I did make it the dreams were very dark and sluggish with low vividity and control.

Best to get your 5+ hours of sleep first, wake up for a bit and then focus on WILDing. It's much easier.

well thanks for the replies, It while it sounds kind of difficult it seems worth pursuing since i spend so much time doing it but barely understand it,i have a lot of people to talk about it where I am. One question though, if the logic center and the part of the brain that make you move turn off during sleep why do people and animals move in their sleep, and if you can't really reason without your logic center then how do you gain awareness? I also read that an experiment was done to test at what speed lucid dreaming occurred (counting to 10) and they found it to be real time. If this is so then why can you have a long dream in a short period time, does the dream slow down to allow you to make conscious thoughts and decisions? or am i way off track? :P

I move around a lot in my sleep too, I've kicked and punched people before in my sleep. I've also rolled off the bed a few times. I think the deeper into sleep you get the deeper into SP you're supposed to go.. so some wise person once told me.

I do know that when I have slept lightly I have awakened in mid motion, once I even punched my dresser. For me it happens as I wake up suddenly, that my dream motions continue on into my waking body, now free of SP.

I've had dreams that didn't sync up with real time. That experiment proves nothing to me because I KNOW that dream time doesn't always follow real time. There are always exceptions to the rule and perhaps those exceptions didn't have the chance to be in that experiment you mentioned.

Remember that there is a lot to still be learned about dreams and dreamers. That's why a lot of us are here, to learn from the site and each other. To experience this stuff our selves. To prove or disprove the things that others have experienced or claimed.

:welcome: BinoPanda