Not another "My first WILD attempt" thread

Okay, maybe this is about my first semi-successful WILD, and I know its a long read, but its not your typical "I laid there for 'x' minutes and nothing happened". It's an interesting read.

I will be extremely grateful to anyone who helps me with the questions at the end :D.

First some breif background:

Yesterday afternoon I took a 4 hour nap, so I was quite rested when I went to bed for the night at midnight (which is pretty close to my usual bedtime of 11:30 PM).

Just before going to bed, I was reading about CrazyInsane’s CANWILD method, which involves setting a custom alarm that turns off by itself after a few seconds, with the purpose of waking (hopefully) during REM and not moving at all and immediately attempting to WILD. I decided I’d give it a shot so I set the custom alarm on my phone and then went to bed.

I woke up once at 12:45 and could almost swear I was just dreaming, but couldn’t remember anything concrete. I decided not to write about it in my DJ and went back to sleep. The interesting part happened at around 3:00 AM-ish.

I woke up, probably naturally because I don’t recall any external disturbance. I was laying on my back, legs crossed. I immediately remembered CrazyInsane’s instructions to not move at all. My CANWILD alarm had not one off yet but I thought "since I’m already awake I’ll give this a try". So I just laid there and waited. After just a few seconds, I started feeling the vibrations... But I mean extremely strong and intense vibrations. This is how having a seizure must feel like! Also I could hear all kinds of stuff in my ears, indistinct loud noises (you know the drill). After just a few more seconds, it was over.

I remembered CrazyInsane said to “roll over” once the SP had passed and I thought “okay, here goes”. As I tried to roll, I noticed my dream body felt extremely clumsy. I awkwardly dropped myself from the bed onto the floor.

I stood up and looked around. I was in my room. Suddenly a very unpleasant feeling came over me, which triggered my escape instincts. I had to get out of there.

So I went towards my window to jump out, but my clumsy hands were unable to undo the shades and open the stupid window. "Okay then", I told the window. "We'll do this the hard way". I stepped back a few steps, broke into a run and dived towards it. As soon as I hit it, though, I woke up with a jolt.

Again, I remembered CrazyInsane’s instructions and decided not to move. A few more seconds, the same intense vibrations, and again everything went calm and silent. This time I didn’t feel so clumsy. “I think this time I’ve got it”. I sat up, and noticed I could see through my blindfold. I plugged my nose and took several deep breaths through my nose just to make sure. I was definitely dreaming. But, as I sat there, the unpleasantness from before returned.

Compared to my first intentional DILD in which I immediately started running, laughing and screaming from the joy I felt for becoming lucid, this was completely the opposite. I felt uneasy, frightened, like something was wrong but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

I thought I must be suffering from lucid old hag syndrome, or something. So I searched my bedroom for the evil presence, hoping to find it and somehow banish it, but the room was empty except for me. At that point, I decided I wasn’t having any fun and I was out of ideas to fix it, so I decided I would wake up. I began grabbing at my face to remove my blindfold and eventually I woke.

I was completely startled and did several RC’s just to make sure I was really awake. I felt so worked up that I had to grab my dog (who sleeps in my room, but wasn’t in the dream) and hug him for a while to calm myself. I preferred not to CANWILD later that night and removed the alarm I had set before going back to sleep. It was 3:18 AM.

So, that was my experience.

What I want to know is, WTF happened? Why did it end up like that? What did I do wrong and how do I prevent it or fix it if it happens again? Was this an actual WILD or just lucid old hag syndrome? And also, how is one supposed to get out of one’s room after “rolling over” into the dream world (damn locked windows!)?

Please help me, I’m thinking I may never want to WILD again :(.

Whoa, take it easy buddy! Congrats on the WILDs though. I always love reading a good WILD story. Anyways, I'm not exactly sure why you got scared... Next time just try to relax a little more!

So you think it's just a matter of keeping calm and stuff? I wasn't doing anything wrong?

I think the first WILD just randomly got scary, and when you WILDed the second time, you were probably expecting that one to be scary too, so therefore it was. Try to remember that everything you see is a creation of your own mind. Maybe you could imagine a beach outside your house? Or other pleasant things? Don't give up on WILDs! There are tons of people who would murder for that skill, lol.

Hey I have a quick question. When you did the WILD were you fully concious and aware of what was happening? Or was it fuzzy like regular dreams? My DEILDs were pretty fuzzy and I can hardly remember anything about them... Which is weird because if you're aware of what's happening you would assume it would be easier to recall.

I was fully concious and aware of the fact that I was dreaming. I can say that because, for example, I was about to jump out of my 2nd story window to get out of the bedroom, and I knew I would be able to because it was a dream. Also did several RC's, and when I finally didn't feel like I wanted to be in the dream anymore I was able to will myself awake.

But if you're talking about whether it was visualy fuzzy, its hard to say because my bedroom was dark in my dream as it was in RL as it was night time so I wasn't able to appreciate much vividness and detail.

Then if you're asking about fuzzyness of the memory of a dream, my memory is comletely vivid because the dream was an intense emotional experience and those kinds of "shocking" dreams tend to really stick in your memory.

Sadly, I haven't had enough lucids to know if the awareness aids in recall or not.

Thanks. I just wanted to clarify that it felt like you were truly there. To get SP, and get up from bed fully aware it's a dream must be an AWESOME feeling. I can DILD whenever I want, but frankly it's getting boring.

You should try the CANWILD method. It's great because you can try it once or twice per night, every night, without disrupting your sleep paterns. You should give me some tips on DILDing too. Is there anything you do apart from the typical "keep a DJ > identify your dreamsigns > hope to catch one during a dream" method?

Thanks for the advice :). As for my DILDs, I use MILD. It never worked in the beginning but I kept doing it and doing it for months on end. Now, all I have to do is sleep for at least six hours, wake up, tell myself I'm going to remember I'm dreaming a few times, and I'm set. Thing is, my recall sucks. I'm trying to see if going into a dream directly (WILD) will make a difference. Like I said earlier, I've had a couple accidental WILDs, and a few DEILDs, and they weren't very impressive. I'll keep trying, though.

So you use Stephen LaBerge's traditional MILD technique?

Also, on recall, I don't know if you're already doing this but for me the key to recalling is to write down the dream immediately upon waking from it in the middle of the night, instead of waiting untill morning. If you wait untill getting up in the morning, you will have lost a lot of the info. Also, most sources recommend laying still when weking up, eyes closed, to allow yourself to remember. This doesn't work for me because I'll fall back to sleep if I do. So, I keep my DJ right by the bed and reach over at once when I wake and start writing right away.

Yep, that's what I use :).

When it comes to the DJ, I guess I'm just lazy. I probably will get back to it tomorrow.

That's happened to me in a lucid dream before. I know it's a lucid dream but I care more about waking up because it's scary (dild) then I wake up and i'm like " ... Damnit."