My first WILD, though very short, a WILD nonetheless

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 :)

Good job! Looks like this technique works for you. Its easier said than done, but try to keep calm, not get too excited. Happy dreams:)

Thanks! Also, I have a concern about staying relaxed before entering SP. For the dream I described above, I got lucky and caught myself dreaming and didn't really experience any SP, I was tapping my fingers and drifted off then I was in the dream. So I have yet to really experience SP but I have been having issues with waiting for SP. I always get an itch as I am fully relaxing, thus preventing the whole process and having to start all over again. I think it's because I'm thinking about not itching the entire time while Im trying to relax. Trying to keep myself from scratching an itch or itching altogether is causing my itches and throat swallows. It's frustrating. The past two nights this has happened and finally I end up giving up and just falling asleep. Any tips?

It may help you to know, that although not moving would be ideal, it's better to scratch and swallow than be annoyed by it and ruining your attempt. So at first wait as long as you can without getting upset for it to go away. It may go away, if you know, that you are allowed to scratch. I you must scratch, do it slowly. And there is no need to start from scratch (no pun intended:) ). Just continue. if you do it slowly without getting angry, there is a good chance you will stay in state you were before.

And I wouldn't worry about trying to get into SP. It will happen without any effort from you, wheater you want it or not, since we get into SP each time when we dream, automatically. Just try to concentrate on getting asleep and to catch yourself exactly as you describe. Watch the swirls behind your eyelids evolve into objects and dreams. The SP will come by itself. I have WILDed a few times and never felt the SP, or had any hallucinations, maybe except once. Happy dreams:)

Well done!!!!

Thanks gab and Arch! And gab, the imagery you described...I have found myself seeing nothing to all of a sudden seeing certain images, if only for a split second, then I believe I start thinking about it too much and it goes away. It happened a few different times last night but I failed another attempt. I got up and used the restroom after I fell asleep but next time I think I will just try going straight back to sleep without getting up. For some reason I thought it would be better to get up before trying again but like I said before, I think I wake up too much.

I naturally wake up every single morning around 4 or 5 am. I have done this for as long as I can remember. So I have a natural advantage for trying WILDs. I always try to enforce the confidence that I will have lucid dreams before bed so I might have a few MILDs/DILDs as well. So it is if I have multiple chances each night.

On a side note, whenever I try to take a nap with WILDing in mind, it's much harder for me to fall asleep than when not trying to. I have an idea of what I might be able to do to combat this issue and I will post an update tomorrow.

Blimey - seems most people here struggle with these. I don't know much about them but I'd imagine practice will help.

I experienced SP and a little hypnagogic imagery in my first WILD attempt but in all attempts since I've been unable to even get that far. The first one was ruined by getting too excited and snapping out of it :lol: