Newbie!

**timelapse** · 07-14-2009 08:56 PM

Hey guys,
Well I studied lucid dreaming in my psychology of consciousness last year and I was actually chatting with a friend yesterday who actively does it. So last night when going to bed I took his guidelines and used my breathing as a sort of anchor to keep my consciousness alert while my body fell asleep. Anyways, what started as tingling turned into a sort of numbing feeling, and then a great blackness spread throughout my visual field and I had a sensation of falling or spinning wildly through space, all the while still focusing on my breathing and suppressing any deeper thinking. Eventually I lost all bodily spatial orientation, but whenever an image or vision would appear I found it very difficult to enter, form or sustain it, as my conscioussness would just abruptly snap back out of it and back to that transition phase. Eventually (after what seemed like only 15 minutes) I gave up and opened my eyes, and 2 hours had actually passed. Is passing through this transitory phase just something that comes with practice?

**NitePhlight** · 07-14-2009 10:01 PM

as with everything, it gets easier with practice. in this situation, however, practice isn't the only thing that you need. you need to create a firm belief in yourself that you will wake up in your dreams and be able to control them. you may want to start dream journaling to help recall and read EVERYTHING you can on LD. immersing yourself in this new exciting experience will passively increase your likelihood of having an LD.

browse the forums, read the guides, and im pretty sure the experience you posted will have much more significance to you. good luck!

**Shift** · 07-15-2009 12:02 AM

Hey, welcome! It's pretty cool that you've got a friend who is into it, that will make learning to LD even cooler

As far as your lucid dream attempt, it sounded like an excellent start to a WILD. I'm not sure if your friend is a natural lucid dreamer, or learned, and if learned where he learned. Since there's a possibility that he isn't familiar and thus hasn't taught you, the members on DreamViews follow a set of acronyms and definitions to talk about lucid dreaming. Make sure to check this dictionary out if you see anything that seems alien to you.

WILDing is just one 'type' of lucid dream, there are also 'DILD's. Do you know if your friend gets sleep paralysis or not? Since he's encouraging you to WILD (I'm assuming, anyway), it would be good to know if he's a natural and if he gets SP, which could make it significantly more easy for him than for you if you don't have Isolated Sleep Paralysis.

Either way, welcome and yes, WILDs can be tough but that is one of the best first attempts I've read about. All of those weird feelings that you experienced were hypnagogic hallucinations. Keep it up, and also read up as much as you can on other lucid dreaming topics and techniques! I'm not a skilled WILDer so I really haven't got much to offer besides that

Good luck

**lucidspark64** · 07-15-2009 12:44 AM

Wow your first try?

Thats pretty cool it took me a couple of tries. Turns out that the transformation to the dream world is about as much basic as it is hard for some.

Try doing little things to participate in the dream. Focus on a dream object, try saying something like "i'm dreaming". You don't have to do anything like flying right away but just be aware of false awakenings.

**Sora** · 07-15-2009 02:51 AM

Wow! My first attempt of lucid dreaming was about the same, about 15 mins in my mind but more than 2h in real life. Did you try it at WBTB or when you went to bed? Cause I did it when I got to bed and it is probably the reason why it failed in this way.

I'd really like the answer of an expert btw =D