WILDly successful (finally!!!)

[Replicon]

Sorry, just had to modify another thread title hehe. I finally had my very first WILD two nights ago! Covet me LOL! And thanks for all your help, those that put up with my many (well... three) WILD threads in the Attaining Lucidity forum hehe. It was pretty intense, and very vivid compared to regular dreams (including lucid non-WILD dreams). It looks like there were three sets of vibrations. I bet the first two failed, and the third succeeded, but then, they were all different in nature. The first set was the usual one... just kinda there, pretty intense, but with no audio, just the vibration feeling... same with the second set, but much stronger vibrations... and finally, the third one came on much lighter at first, but progressively got much more intense... until I started hearing audio (which also started out quetly and got loud much more smoothly). It kinda sounded like a modem handshake, which was nice and comforting (I was worried it might sound like the loud honr things the aliens use in War of the Worlds or something freaky like that hehe, but I guess it can be anything). As an interesting sidenote, there was a thunderstorm going on outside as I was doing this, and as the audio got louder, I could hear the thunder sounds get fainter and fainter, which is pretty cool, since I could observe my senses being severed from the world. The other interesting thing is that I got virtually no sleep the night before (I attempted this late in the morning, maybe at 8am or so). Looks like your body keeps track of where your sleep cycles should be regardless of how miserably you sleep (there was a mosquito in the room, and I was on a rather unpleasant matress for most of the night, so I just kinda laid there and relaxed). Anyway, after the vibrations were over, there was a dream fragment where I was flying, chasing a yellow schoolbus or something like that... Then, once I gained control of the dream officially, turns out I was sitting at a laptop, while looking at this chase thing. My eyes also felt really groggy for a second (you know when you get up in the morning and you're having trouble keeping them open cause they're glazed over)... so I blinked a whole bunch... but interestingly, it didn't weaken the dream vividness or anything, but maybe because the grogginess made me shake my head a lot. Looking around, everyone looked like a weird computer generated figure, until everything cleared out and I was in a lifelike environment. I walked around, talked to a few DC's, and ended up waking up. Dream-spinning didn't work all that well that time around heh. Still, it was a pretty awesome experience, and I really want to make sure I repeat it. Having had both flavours of LD's, I really do think it's highly worth learning. Ok, I'll shut up now hehe.

[Seeker]

Congrats! I know you've been working for this for a while now!

[nesgirl119]

Congrats on your 1st! May you have luck on your 2nd!

[Replicon]

Thanks *proud* Of course, I haven't been able to do it since. Still trying to figure out exactly how to behave (or not) during vibrations... I've had them 5 times this morning and nothing... And it just felt so natural that night that I forgot what I did, but I got almost no sleep, and it just came super-easily (and I don't plan on repeating the no sleep thing, not very fun).

[Hedphelym]

congratulations! i have some questions for you, i've also been trying to wild for a long time, but has not sucseeded yet.. (sorry for my spelling). and i wonder what you did, how you got relaxed? some of the details of what you did before you got lucid would be nice to know if you dont mind telling.

[Replicon]

Originally posted by Hedphelym congratulations! i have some questions for you, i've also been trying to wild for a long time, but has not sucseeded yet.. (sorry for my spelling). and i wonder what you did, how you got relaxed? some of the details of what you did before you got lucid would be nice to know if you dont mind telling. Sure thing (I may ramble for ever, but here ya go, hope it helps): I started with the whole dream journal/dream recall thing, which is boring to go into detail with (check the tutorials ). I had a few LDs here or there, but they didn't have serious lucidness, so I decided to WILD. Getting up: ...anyway, I usually do it in the morning. I go to bed sometime between midnight and 3am, and wake myself up sometime between 6am and 8am, depending on stuff. I stay up somewhere between 15 minutes to an hour, doing various things (for high mental awareness, programming; for medium, playing FF9 (what, never got to it before), and for low awareness, I'll usually check my email and read a couple of pages of Laberge. For caffeine, I may or may not have some green tea. As you can see, there are tons of parameters you can vary. I would guess that everyone can setup some operating point by experimenting with these. I think half an hour of activity (but not super brainy, like game programming) is a good place to start. Read, etc. **In my one successful case, I had almost no sleep due to crappy bed/mosquitto in room/summer heat/thunderstorm... but it still happened in the morning. Initial Relaxing: I usually just put on my sleep mask (light annoys, i don't like forcing my eyes shut too much) and go to bed, starting off on my back (if I can't get anything done on my back cause of being too awake, i go on my right side, which is way more comfy for sleeping, so I'll wear myself out faster). I usually just tense up all my muscle groups, one at a time, for a few seconds, and then observe as I let them relax. This is usually when I get an itch, so I just do something about it. Waiting for the damn vibrations : I usually just focus on my breathing and slow it down. For each breath, I count up one (when I reach 100, I think nothing of it and start over at 1). I am trying to think of a better way to do this phase. I don't know how much of a visual imagination exercise I want, cause I'll end up falling asleep. Vibrations: The most common case of vibrations comes to me when I'm in a light-sleep/dreamy (non-lucid) state, and my awareness of it goes up just a bit. Like once I saw a picture of a mountain, and for some reason, I imagined warping it with my mind, and it warped. As this happened, the vibrations came. I think I should stay more focused and maybe they'll come when I'm more awake. But it doesn't seem to matter, cause when they arrive, they wake me up somewhat, and all I see are HI (don't really see it much before this point actually). Unfortunately, after a while, the vibrations go away. **When I had the above successful experience, I must've been exhausted, but at the same time, mentally ready, since I was lying there with closed eyes most of the night. Vibrations came within seconds of closing my eyes to try (don't remember if I meant to try, but I went with it anyway). Also, they still went away, but I stayed focused, and it worked the third try. The LESSON to be learned, for those (like me hehe) who are having trouble at the last stage is that even if it fails, don't move, just stay where you are... your body is still relaxed, and you're still close to the next vibrations stage. But alas, I had 5 in a row yesterday that didn't work out. ======= Unfortunately, this is how far I can document it, since I don't know what the right/wrong things to do are afterwards. Once you're inside your head, you're home free (as long as you stay lucid), but before then, I still have to figure out exactly how/what to focus on. They just say ride it out, but what to do with breathing? keep it slow-paced? Let it speed up as it naturally does during vibs? Maybe slowing it down to a near standstill will help push it into "automatic mode", cause focusing on it focuses you away from the dream state? All I can say is, try to visualize more than just one of your senses.