New kid with questions

[Andy82]

Hi all! my name is Andy and i am new to this forum and wanted to introduce myself + i have some questions already :-) Many years ago when i was a child i had a LD but just couldn't grasp the possibilites that come with it. So a few days ago i started my dream journal. I can remember 2 to 4 dreams at night, mostly pretty detailed. I also already have some of my dream signs so i am really looking forward to my second LD! I have a few questions though on which i weren't able to find any answers using the forums search function. 1. Yesterday after going to bed i tried WILD (i read it's very difficult to impossible without having been in REM sleep). But anyway, as i laid in bed for about 10 to 15 minutes without moving any muscle, i started to feel like i was being sucked halfway out of my body and started spinning. but i couldn't stop the spin. I wasn't in sleep paralysis as i could have easily moved my muscles, also my eyes were moving very fast. i was able to hear my surroundings like my girlfriend breathing. does this has anything to do with falling asleep or WILDing? 2. Does the feeling of falling out of your bed, or body has anything to do with falling asleep or being out of your body? Thanks in advance for your help and i am very happy to be here in the forum! Andy

[tattoogirlTT]

Well I don`t really have an answer because I haven`t been able to WILD successfully yet, I do better with WBTB, but your description definitely sounds to me like the explanations I have read of falling into sleep paralysis. good luck and sweet dreams!!

[Shift]

Hey Andy, welcome i read it's very difficult to impossible without having been in REM sleep). This depends on the person. You CAN lucid dream outside of REM, they have evidence of this from the lab studies that have been done. Some people claim it's impossible to WILD without having slept a bit first, but they don't really specify on what exact conditions they think apply- for example, how long do you have to be awake for for your last sleep period to no longer to be considered?). Some people say they are able to WILD without sleeping first, and no one who makes these statements seems to take things like REM rebound into account. The bottom line is, though, that I have yet to see any actual empirical evidence saying that it is impossible to WILD without getting some sleep first, and to the contrary I have heard a lot of people say that they do it often. As with nearly everything in lucid dreaming, be careful what you read and remain critical. I'm incredibly anal, but it's good to take the things you read on these boards with a grain of salt, especially when people talk in the extreme. But anyway, as i laid in bed for about 10 to 15 minutes without moving any muscle, i started to feel like i was being sucked halfway out of my body and started spinning... i could have easily moved my muscles... These are common hypnagogic hallucinations, and as you have noted you could have easily moved, which means it wasn't SP! While hypnagogic/hypnopompic hallucinations do occur during SP, SP does not always occur during hypnagogia or hypnopompia... meaning that you can have either no hallucinations or SP at all, hallucinations but no SP, SP but not hallucinations, or both hallucinations and SP. People like to group them together, and many people mistakenly believe that you can only have SP with hallucinations or that if you were hallucinating you were in SP (even though they did not even test their bodies, or even when they were capable of moving). So again, yea. Misunderstanding of the topic but your observations of correct. SP and HH can occur separately or together or not at all. ...also my eyes were moving very fast. i was able to hear my surroundings like my girlfriend breathing. does this has anything to do with falling asleep or WILDing? Now that I've agreed that I don't think you were in SP, I do want to point out that the eyes themselves ARE capable of moving during SP! In addition to that, people who are in SP are capable of accurately reporting on their surroundings, meaning that generally speaking you can still hear/see/feel/whatever is around you. This is probably why hallucinations during SP are sometimes frightening- because you know that everything else around you IS real, so why not the hallucinations! I've yet to actual hear a good explanation for the eye movements. Could be any number of factors and since I don't know, I'm not willing to make an assumption. Does the feeling of falling out of your bed, or body has anything to do with falling asleep or being out of your body? Experiencing Hypnagogic (while falling asleep) hallucinations is common, and you have named a couple of the most typical types of HH. These certainly have to do with falling asleep, although such hallucinations can also occur while waking up (hypnopompic hallucinations). If you want to know more about it you can look up stage 1 sleep, hypnagogia (often misspelled hypnogogia), hypnagogic hallucinations, etc. As far as 'being out of your body', it depends what you mean here and what your personal beliefs are. I don't believe that the 'soul' or 'essence' of a person can literally leave their body, but if you mean in the case of whether or not your perceptions are internally or externally generated, then I do believe that you can 'leave your body (behind)' in the sense that the sensory receptors on your body become irrelevant when you switch to hallucinogenic/dream worlds and that the physical body can be almost entirely ignored. Again, a big important factor is personal belief on that one. Now that I've rambled, I'm curious how did you hear about lucid dreaming? I dropped a ton of 'dv bombs' over the weekend but as far as I know not a single one has attracted new members

[Andy82]

@tatoogirlTT: thanks for the reply, if so i'll try to stick with the weird sensation and wait for the SP :-) @Shift: thanks for the explanation. i have heard the term hypnagogia but didn't really know what it was. that really sounds that i was in a pre SP state or so...(?) to answer your question, i always knew about lucid dreaming since i had one when i was a child but it never really got my attention until recently where i watched a lecture by Dr. Thomas Campbell called "My big TOE (Theory of everything") which blew my mind. I also bought the book "Exploring the world of lucid dreams" by Stephen LaBerge but i kinda have to read when i'm alone because my girlfriend thinks i'm going nuts with all this stuff. but the funny thing is she actually has LDs once in a while but only use them to avoid nightmares. about the whole OBE stuff, i don't know. i am a very open minded person but i think i can only be 100% sure if i experience it for myself... thanks again for all your help guys! andy

[Andy82]

Hi everyone, i just wanted to share my first 2 lucid dream experiences! Like i said earlier in the post i bought this book by stephen laberge and did my dream diary, reality checks etc for about 1,5 weeks. after that we went on vacations. On arrival at the hotel we had a really bad jetlag so we went to sleep at around 4 pm, thats when the first LD began... I was in my childhoods living room, my girlfriend was there and a friend of mine which i haven't seen for a long time was standing at the balcony looking at me. That's when i realised i was dreaming, it felt so realistic that i did a RC. I lifted my left foot and then tried to lift my right foot and i was floating in mid air, wow! Then i realised i was naked but immediately had my underwear in my hands and was putting it on whilst floating in the living room haha. Then i just took off through my friends body and shot up in the air. The flying was very cool but i kinda couldn't control it really. I was sorta flying loopings all the time haha. The second LD was the same day and pretty scary. I was lucid and looking through a window watching myself sitting on a couch. It was so strange because it looked so real. The interesting thing was that i couldn't really move and by trying to i woke up. Take care Andy