Nov 10, 2007. 11:30 p.m. An entry into a lucid dream.
Over the last couple of weeks I have been reading about and actively trying to use the WILD technique to induce lucid dreams. I jump right into it from the minute I go to bed, but it hasn't seemed to work for me. I get relaxed and feel my body go numb and fuzzy, my senses become hypersensitive (hearing and breathing), and then I just lay in bed in blackness. Nothing ever comes except my thoughts about "why is nothing happening and how long do I have to lay here in bed doing this".
(OKay first off, you would get much more success doing WBTB/WILD. By trying to WILD when you first go to sleep you are effectively trying to get to sleep and dream and become lucid in your first stages of sleep (theta). This is very light sleep, and trying to WILD into your theta sleep, I am told if quite difficult.) When I get tired of that and wake up, I find that large chunks of time have passed that I cannot account for. Once I get a WILD hair ( :) ) I can't let go of the desire to do this and I end up trying it over and over through the whole night. The only result I have noticed from it is that I feel less rested during the day and am ready for bed much earlier than normal.
So, I decided to give up WILD for now and just focus on dream recall, increasing vividness, and perhaps experiencing my first LD through DILD. I laid down to sleep at 10:00 p.m. and told myself over and over "I will not WILD. I do not want to WILD. I will remember my dreams. I will wake up when I am dreaming so that I can get the key points down. I will work on dream recall, but I will not WILD." I did this until I don't remember doing it anymore and fell asleep.
I was having a dream (no idea what is was)
when I spontaneously realized that I was having a dream. I could feel my conscious mind wake up but could feel that my body was numb and fuzzy (the same feeling when I was trying to WILD). I could feel my eyes twitching and my heart beating loudly and steadily. The dream itself consisted of....blackness. No thoughts, no images, just blackness and my awareness of it and my body at the same time. I tried to focus on the dream to see if I could create images or thoughts, but I could feel it already starting to fade. I tried rubbing my hands and making verbal statements to myself, but it was gone. I awoke and looked at my watch. The time was 11:30 p.m. I went lucid on my first dream of the night!
(Never heard anyone reporting on knowing how their waking body was feling whilst lucid, and I certainly have never done this, so couldn't comment. But as for everything being black, this is typical to new lucid dreamers, because rather than the subconscious mind creating your dreams for you, your consciousness has to take ovver, and some people when lucid panic, and don't know what to do, and the dream fades quickly - sounds to me like the same thing here?)
I got up and went to the bathroom, got a drink, and thought about what had occurred. Then I rechecked my watch hoping perhaps for a false awakening - no such luck. I then laid back down to go back to sleep. This is normally where the desire to WILD would kick in and I would spend the rest of the night awake trying to force it, so I told myself "do not WILD, just go back to sleep". I closed my eyes and tried to relax, but I could feel the familiar feelings of trying to WILD despite my efforts to resist them. I decided to just go with it and I could see HI floating across my eyes and could feel my body go numb and fuzzy.
Then the HI was replaced with blackness. I was aware of my breathing and hearing and was conscious of the house around me. I had the following conversation while laying there in blackness. "Why can't you just go to sleep. Why do you have to be so excited by a stupid LD that you can't go back to sleep. Let your mind wander and go back to sleep."
It seemed to me that only a few minutes of this had passed and I was rapidly getting bored it when I heard the hour alarm on my watch go off. Without waking up or looking at my watch, I knew I had been laying there in the blackness for the last 25 minutes! I carried on the "go to sleep" conversation for a few minutes more (so it seemed) and then forced myself to wake up and change position in bed to try again. It was now 12:15!
This same cycle of trying to sleep, feeling myself go numb and fuzzy, and laying there in blackness having a stupid conversation about trying to sleep happened once more and I force myself up again at 1:00 a.m. Another 45 minutes lost!
I wasn't about to do this again and again through the night, so I got up and am now sitting here writing in my journal, reflecting on the events and their meanings. I will wait up until I am truly tired and then will try to go back to sleep.
My reflections have led me to wonder if what is happening to me is really my way of LDing - being awake and aware, but just seeing blackness (especially since this seems to be a pattern for me, see links below) . For now, I don't have the answer. In the meanwhile, am just going to keep writing in my journal, trying to improve dream recall, and see what other lucid experiences may come.
The Pattern
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http://www.dreamviews.com/community/...ad.php?t=45649
http://www.dreamviews.com/community/...ad.php?t=46192
