WILD - Getting into the dream

[KTDM]

Lately I've been getting better at WILD. Now I can get up to the stage where my body feels heavy and tired, but my mind is clear and sharp. The problem is taking it beyond that. I just lie there in that state forever. This morning I felt myself jolt into a deeper state for a bit, where I started snoring, but I somehow broke out of that even though I wasn't moving at all, save for breathing. I rarely get HI or anything. Is there some other step I can take to push myself further towards a dream at that point? Visualizing a scenario or something?

[cmind]

Lately I've been getting better at WILD. Now I can get up to the stage where my body feels heavy and tired, but my mind is clear and sharp. The problem is taking it beyond that. I just lie there in that state forever. This morning I felt myself jolt into a deeper state for a bit, where I started snoring, but I somehow broke out of that even though I wasn't moving at all, save for breathing. I rarely get HI or anything. Is there some other step I can take to push myself further towards a dream at that point? Visualizing a scenario or something? Read the guide in my sig. You're taking the wrong approach. WILD isn't about forcing your body to sleep; it's about altering your mind to allow it to remain intact while you are falling asleep. It is your consciousness that must change, NOT your body.

[gab]

Moved to WILD Are you trying to WILD after some hours of sleep? You need to be close to REM. And at the end, you do need to fall asleep, just at the right time, when dreams start to form and you are able to enter one while still aware. But not completely awake with clear and sharp mind. It's a delicate ballancing act, to be able to fall asleep just at the right time. If you awake too much when dreams start to form, you may get a WILD but will not be able to stay in it. If you too sleepy, you will most likely fall asleep before the dreams start to form. Please check out this WILD class. It will explain everything in great detail. happy dreams

[KTDM]

Okay, that didn't really help at all. I've read so many guides and whatnot that I've seen it all before. Falling asleep isn't a problem, it's getting to the middle ground where I can step into the dream. The tutorial you linked really doesn't have anything about that. I'm already using the counting and breathing technique, but there's nothing that comes to me that allows me to step in, I either fall asleep or lie there awake.

[KTDM]

Moved to WILD Are you trying to WILD after some hours of sleep? You need to be close to REM. And at the end, you do need to fall asleep, just at the right time, when dreams start to form and you are able to enter one while still aware. But not completely awake with clear and sharp mind. It's a delicate ballancing act, to be able to fall asleep just at the right time. If you awake too much when dreams start to form, you may get a WILD but will not be able to stay in it. If you too sleepy, you will most likely fall asleep before the dreams start to form. . It will explain everything in great detail. happy dreams Well, that's going to take me awhile to read all of. Thanks. And yes, I am trying after around 5 hours of sleep. I just very rarely get any dreams forming. If I do get any images/sounds, they last for 1 second and then disappear, and I don't get any more for quite a few minutes.

[Sivason]

Read the guide in my sig. You're taking the wrong approach. WILD isn't about forcing your body to sleep; it's about altering your mind to allow it to remain intact while you are falling asleep. It is your consciousness that must change, NOT your body. I just looked at that guide, and it is pretty good. I like that he does not try to over complicate issues. he just helps you undersstand what it is you should actually be trying to accomplish. Also, good point about chhanging your conciousness. If KTDM just lays still but does not put his mind in the right state, he will never honestly fall asleep. KTMD, there is a bit of art to the mental state you want. You should stay aware, yes, but the awareness should not be a type that will keep your body awake. I do things a bit different than described in the guide cmind links to, but the author stresses that you will need to find your own method of getting it to work. I keep lots of mental awareness, so that I will be very lucid in the dream state, while some try to only stay a hint aware. Either way can work, but only if done correctly. I stay highly aware, but do not allow my mind to think much. I use an anchor, such as repeating a mantra, or counting until I loose track and then starting again. You can not let your mind wander in the wrong way. If you allow your mind to wander in a dreamy casual way, and keep your anchor going, that can work. However, if your version of letting your mind wander, involves thinking about your life, your job, your school work and other real life sos=rces of stress, then you will never fall asleep. You want to stay aware, but it must be in a dream like casual wayy that does not keep you mentally focused. It is hard to explain how you are supposed to stay both aware (in my version fully aware) and yet not stay focused. It is a subtle thing. I teach a skill called Diffuse Vision in the Dream Yoga class in DVA that I hope can help students get it. You want to avoid a sharp intense mind set, like staring at some thing would make you feel. Instead you want to be aware, but not sharply focused. It would be more like the mental quality involved in just watching the entire feild of vision without staring directly at something. I hope that helps a little. Okay, that didn't really help at all. I've read so many guides and whatnot that I've seen it all before. Falling asleep isn't a problem, it's getting to the middle ground where I can step into the dream. The tutorial you linked really doesn't have anything about that. I'm already using the counting and breathing technique, but there's nothing that comes to me that allows me to step in, I either fall asleep or lie there awake. Here is a link to my class that addresses exactly how I recomend transitioning into an LD after you are asleep, http://www.dreamviews.com/f157/dream...aining-133302/ Scroll down to post #6. Here is a link to the class where I teach diffuse vision, if that sounded helpful at all. But I wrote that part of the post before your latest post, so maybe it will not help, http://www.dreamviews.com/f157/dream...on-2-a-132235/ I'm already using the counting and breathing technique, but there's nothing that comes to me that allows me to step in, I either fall asleep or lie there awake. Just to clarify, I may do this different than some, but in my version, you need to fall asleep AND stay aware. You want to fall asleep, but not loose awareness. You then observe your sleep states until you reach a point in sleep (while aware) when you can form a dream, then use the skill I teach in the first post I provide. It is a new crazy weird thing you try to do, so stick with it. You do actually fall asleep, BUT you also maintain awareness through tricks like an anchor. The whole point I make above is simply, you will need to learn a new state of awareness. Cmind, is getting it right, you must figure out a state of mind that allows you to stay aware while you fall asleep. The normal state of mind will not really work. Anyways, good luck, and i hope some of my rambling made sense! Have fun, and stick with it.

[gab]

Well, that's going to take me awhile to read all of. Thanks. And yes, I am trying after around 5 hours of sleep. I just very rarely get any dreams forming. If I do get any images/sounds, they last for 1 second and then disappear, and I don't get any more for quite a few minutes. Then I suggest you experiment with WBTB time, because each sleep cycle is about 90 min long and ends with REM. So you should have REM at the end of first 90 min, then end of 3 hrs of sleep, then 4.5 hrs of sleep and so on. The longer you sleep, longer the REM stage is, untill after, idk 8 hrs, it's almost all REM and that's when it's easier to hit REM stage. Also, you may need to experiment with how long you stay up for WBTB. You should stay up till you can think clearly, but your body is still up for some sleep and doesn't think, that you have woken up and ready to start your day. I hope this makes sense. If you can do a morning WBTB, that's the best time, according to Stephen Laberge's study. 1. get up 90 min before your normal waking time 2. stay up for 90 min 3. do 10 min of MILD excercise (mantras, affirmations) 4. take a 90 min nap Another thing, not everybody, or not always you get the dreamlets. Sometimes you get vibrations or the exceleration sensation. Do you ever get those? Train yourself (just by thinking about it often), that after vibrations or flying at great speed sensations are over (there could be more than 1 bout of vibrations), you are likely to be in a lucid dream already. If you don't mind messing up your attempt in case you not in LD, do a RC, or just get up from a bed. I usually just wait, untill my dream vision kicks in and I start to see my room around me with my eyes closed and then I know to get up and walk away and do my thing. Please ask, if there is anything. And yes, sageous's lessons are long, but you will be glad you read them. Everything will click into place.

[KTDM]

gab, I think a short (2-5 minutes) WBTB is best for me, because I wake up far too easily if I do anything. I do get the vibrations and the buzzing, white noise sound, but they've only ever happened to me with DEILD. DEILD works for me when I actually remember to stay still, which is usually only if I was lucid in the dream before and prepared myself to do so, but I've been experimenting with auto-dismissing alarms because I want to get both DEILD and WILD down for the most reliable control. MILD and reality checks don't really appeal to me much because they seem very unreliable, and I'm not really a very aware person. Oh, and I have had that dream vision work two times (I must've fluked it, because I can't think of anything out of the ordinary that I'd done) where I saw my dream hands behind my eyelids and then climbed out of my body. sivason, Thank you for the links, I'll be sure to read through all of that, too. I understand what you mean by watching a field of vision without much focus, I'll have to try to apply that to WILD.

[CJC]

sivason, does the falling asleep part actually feel like falling asleep normally? (Wow, that sounded incredibly stupid) i mean do you feel groggy and about to loose conciousness if you choose to do so? thanks

[Sivason]

sivason, does the falling asleep part actually feel like falling asleep normally? (Wow, that sounded incredibly stupid) i mean do you feel groggy and about to loose conciousness if you choose to do so? thanks Yes, and no. If feels just like falling asleep normally does, but as soon as you would normally be asleep, it gets very very strange. You could loose awareness in only a moment, as normally you would loose awareness as part of sleep. You literaly trick the system by using an altered state of mind and an anchor, to sneak your waking mind into the sleep state. So everything feels normal, until the point when you would normally be unaware. Now, you experience something as strange as drug use. You experience all the chemical and physiologic changes that take place during sleep. this is when serious HI stuff happens. Your body temp raises and falls, your pulse races and slows, and what have you. It is a new experience and you will have to experience it to understand. It can also feel intensly pleasurable, like strong narcotics when the phase often called SP hits. I don't like the term, as it is a chemical change that prevents you from acting out dream motions, but is not actual bodily paralysis for most people. What ever you call it (REM atonia, sleep awareness, SP) it is when you have completed most of nREM stage 1 and begin loosing awareeness of your body. You may be able to still tell you have a body, but you feel drugged. Movement would take a lot of effort and you get very heavy. There is debate here, but the stuff I am talking about happens in the first stage of sleep. You have actually fallen asleep, but will briefly have a small awareness of your body that should rapidly become less and less, until you are only about 5% aware that you have a body. That is when you should start trying to initiate a dream, and stop using your anchor. The anchor 'sneaks' you past the doorway to true bodily sleep, and you must be sneaky. Thinking about your waking life and such will tell your body you are not asleep, so you reduce thought and use the anchor, like a mantra or counting to 10 over and over. After you can tell you have pulled it off and your body is asleep, then drop the anchor and start doing things like I describe in that first link.

[CJC]

Yes, and no. If feels just like falling asleep normally does, but as soon as you would normally be asleep, it gets very very strange. You could loose awareness in only a moment, as normally you would loose awareness as part of sleep. You literaly trick the system by using an altered state of mind and an anchor, to sneak your waking mind into the sleep state. So everything feels normal, until the point when you would normally be unaware. Now, you experience something as strange as drug use. You experience all the chemical and physiologic changes that take place during sleep. this is when serious HI stuff happens. Your body temp raises and falls, your pulse races and slows, and what have you. It is a new experience and you will have to experience it to understand. It can also feel intensly pleasurable, like strong narcotics when the phase often called SP hits. I don't like the term, as it is a chemical change that prevents you from acting out dream motions, but is not actual bodily paralysis for most people. What ever you call it (REM atonia, sleep awareness, SP) it is when you have completed most of nREM stage 1 and begin loosing awareeness of your body. You may be able to still tell you have a body, but you feel drugged. Movement would take a lot of effort and you get very heavy. There is debate here, but the stuff I am talking about happens in the first stage of sleep. You have actually fallen asleep, but will briefly have a small awareness of your body that should rapidly become less and less, until you are only about 5% aware that you have a body. That is when you should start trying to initiate a dream, and stop using your anchor. The anchor 'sneaks' you past the doorway to true bodily sleep, and you must be sneaky. Thinking about your waking life and such will tell your body you are not asleep, so you reduce thought and use the anchor, like a mantra or counting to 10 over and over. After you can tell you have pulled it off and your body is asleep, then drop the anchor and start doing things like I describe in that first link. thourough and understandable. Thanks! So it just feels like your barely awake?

[Sivason]

thourough and understandable. Thanks! So it just feels like your barely awake? You will have a barely awake feeling, that presists into the first say 10 to 20 minutes of the process (actual sleep). Longer if your WILD is not developing well. Even though you still feel barely awake, you also feel new odd sensations that very from person to person. The point I would impress is that you want to be sneaking your aware brain into true sleep (so an anchor, instead of self reflextion/worries). This first stage (see above post) is how you know when you have reached true sleep and can then drop your anchor (stop doing it) and start creating a dream,,, because you know you have successfully fallen asleep. I wait and keep to my anchor, until I am only about 5% aware of my body. Then I move to make the 'transition.' Side note: At no point should you worry about Sleep Paralysis (SP), it will only hinder you to think of that. Think instead of Sleep Awareness (SA), which means you learn what it feels like to experience the first stages of true sleep. One of the experiences is less and less connection to your body. You may even feel the onset of REM atonia, which causes some people to have SP. For most of you it will just feel like narcotics,,, a dopy, numb, tingley sensation that feel a bit like drugs are effecting you. Similar to the way you feel, if the dentist has every given you gas, or you have huffed nitris, in the first few seconds of it. Note each of these stages and think of them as SA, that is just an awareness (experience varies from person to person), that you are passing through each state, so you can time the shift of mental attitude at the proper point in your sleep..

[CJC]

You will have a barely awake feeling, that presists into the first say 10 to 20 minutes of the process (actual sleep). Longer if your WILD is not developing well. Even though you still feel barely awake, you also feel new odd sensations that very from person to person. The point I would impress is that you want to be sneaking your aware brain into true sleep (so an anchor, instead of self reflextion/worries). This first stage (see above post) is how you know when you have reached true sleep and can then drop your anchor (stop doing it) and start creating a dream,,, because you know you have successfully fallen asleep. I wait and keep to my anchor, until I am only about 5% aware of my body. Then I move to make the 'transition.' Side note: At no point should you worry about Sleep Paralysis (SP), it will only hinder you to think of that. Think instead of Sleep Awareness (SA), which means you learn what it feels like to experience the first stages of true sleep. One of the experiences is less and less connection to your body. You may even feel the onset of REM atonia, which causes some people to have SP. For most of you it will just feel like narcotics,,, a dopy, numb, tingley sensation that feel a bit like drugs are effecting you. Similar to the way you feel, if the dentist has every given you gas, or you have huffed nitris, in the first few seconds of it. Note each of these stages and think of them as SA, that is just an awareness (experience varies from person to person), that you are passing through each state, so you can time the shift of mental attitude at the proper point in your sleep.. I think my understanding od WILD just increased by 50%

[Sivason]

I think my understanding od WILD just increased by 50% Hey, that makes me feel good. Thanks

[CJC]

Hey, that makes me feel good. Thanks You deserve that. To be honest, I think I actually know what to do now...I really really think I can do it!

[KTDM]

Finished reading everything that was linked, and that will hopefully help me with visualization so that I'm able to form a dream. I'll also try to push myself further towards sleep than awake, by lying on my side (like I usually do for sleeping) than trying it on my back. I'm having difficulty seeing any kind of solid dots of color or anything with my eyes closed, though. It's more like static, and all of it's constantly changing color and flying around at speeds so fast I can't keep track of it. Thanks for all the help.

[Sivason]

Finished reading everything that was linked, and that will hopefully help me with visualization so that I'm able to form a dream. I'll also try to push myself further towards sleep than awake, by lying on my side (like I usually do for sleeping) than trying it on my back. I'm having difficulty seeing any kind of solid dots of color or anything with my eyes closed, though. It's more like static, and all of it's constantly changing color and flying around at speeds so fast I can't keep track of it. Thanks for all the help. That is good though. The fact that you already see color and movement is great. it takes some work, you do not have to master it for the concept to be helpful. Some members report not really seeing anything, so I bet you will do good.

[gndiego]

KTDM, you seem to have exactly the same issues as me. - I also usually sleep lying on my side, and am unsure about trying it on my back on my side too. None have worked too well so far. - I need a 5 min max WBTB. If I get awake too much I'll also have a lot of trouble getting to sleep again. - I also stay still in my bed, for like half an hour, feel the numbness but I get stuck there too. I ask you, how long have you been trying WILD? I've been trying for like a month now with no results so far. I'm starting to lose my motivation. >( But this was a very good thread nevertheless. Thanks everyone

[KTDM]

On and off for a few years, alongside other techniques. It's pretty disappointing. Every time I think I've gotten closer it's just been a fluke and I haven't been able to do the same thing again.

[KTDM]

Okay, well it seems like I've gotten the visualization for getting into the dream down. I just visualize the darkness in front of my eyes being torn in two and tossed aside and bam, I'm in the dream world. Would've got a DEILD, too, but I woke up on my face and barely able to breathe. Now I just need to work out the ideal time to do it. Might try lengthening my WBTB until I've been awake for longer, because I only ever seem to pull this off when I'm quite awake and almost forcing myself to go back to sleep.

[Sivason]

Yes. Personally it is good to wake up a bit. Congrats on figuring out the visualization!