Originally Posted by
wer
First off, WILDs don't just require you to completely relax every muscle in your body, although this is extremely important. The second step you have to take is to relax your mind. You have to be in the state that is in between sleeping and waking.
As for how you do it.. well, first off, relaxing your body doesn't mean that you don't move, there is more to it then that. I would suggest you try some tensing and relaxing techniques to relax your body. Tense every muscle in your body for ten seconds or so (and I mean every muscle, including all of your face and neck), and then release the tension. Do this a couple times. After you do this, I would mentally go over all of the muscle areas in your body to make sure they are as relaxed as they can get. I wouldn't move around much at all, as it can easily make you tense your muscles. You'll know when you have successfully relaxed all of your muscles. After you succeed in doing this, it is time to relax your mind and enter a trance. For a start, after you have completely relaxed your body, begin to passively observe your breathing. Try to keep all other thoughts out of your head except for your attention to your breathing. When you enter a light trance you will know. There will be noticeable shift in consciousness, and you'll begin to feel heavier and mentally you will feel much more at peace and relaxed. I don't have much experience with WILDs, but I do have experience with astral projection, and would assume you have to be in a similar state to induce a WILD, which is a medium to heavy trance. After you have reached a light trance there are a couple of things you can do to bring yourself deeper into a trance. First off, you can simulate a falling or moving sensation in your mind, which will bring you deeper into a trance. Something else you can do, which makes it easier to slip completely into sleep if your not careful, is to just let your thoughts flow freely. The trick is, you don't want to pay any attention to them, or your mind will quickly begin to wonder off and you will fall asleep. You want to just passively let your thoughts flow by, not paying in attention to a particular one.
When you enter a deeper trance you will know. Personally I get a very noticeable feeling of warmth and begin to loose sense of where I am laying down. You will feel significantly altered. When you are doing trance work like this it is important to always keep a clear mind and don't wonder off, because its extremely easy to fall asleep. If you succeed in entering a deep trance, you may notice that images begin appear in your vision. This is known as hypnotic imagery. Once this begins to happen you are in the preferable state to enter a WILD. Once again, I don't have much experience with WILDs, but from what I've read you should begin to imagine you are in a certain environment. You want to visualize yourself being there as realistic as possible, visualizing as vividly as possible not only the visual aspect of the environment, but also visualizing all of the other sensory aspects (sound, feeling, taste, smell) of the environment as well. If you do this right you should slip into the environment completely conscious of the fact that your dreaming.
