Questions from a WILD beginner
EDIT: I just realised I posted this in the wrong section. It regards lucid dreams, not non-lucid ones. So feel free to move it where it belongs.
Hello there. It's my first time posting here, after lurking for a few weeks. I've been reading a lot about lucid dreaming around the web lately, and decided to try it. The method I chose to start with is WILD. I was aware that it may be difficult at first, but according to what I read, it was also the most rewarding method in the long run. Very surprisingly, I managed to get myself into a WILD after the second or so try, less than a week ago. While I consider that strange by itself, some other things about it don't quite add up. So registering here and asking you people felt like the right thing.
First of all, it was the most incredible thing I've ever experienced, even though I was lucid in it for only about 6 seconds or so. After waking up from it, I felt very serene, if not too much. I actually cried tears of joy and couldn't think of anything else for the next few hours. It was probably the most emotionally-loaded moment of my life. Now, at first I thought that was normal. After searching these forums for other people's first WILD experiences though, it seemed like I was pretty much the only one who was so heavily affected by it. What's the deal with that...? What's with all the emotion...?
The other question I have has to do with the way the induction actually happened. I read multiple tutorials, and tried to see which methods work for me. I WBTB'd, layed on my back, entered sleep paralysis, and started counting. It took a whole while, I think more than 30 minutes. It was obviously not working, but I wasn't giving up. I knew that eventually I'd just become too tired and enter a WILD. But I didn't. Instead, I started feeling pain all over my body. As time passed, the pain intensified, up to a point where I couldn't handle it anymore. I felt like I was dying. Now, I knew that was perfectly normal, and completely harmless. But the pain was so severe that I just had to stop. I forced myself out of sleep paralysis, and laid on my side. While most of the tutorials I read suggested laying on your back, I read one that night which said that any comfortable stance works. So I didn't exactly give up, I just tried something different. Strangely, after just a short time of laying on my side, I started transitioning to my WILD, even though I initially thought I was just falling asleep. I later found out that pain relief can help a lot with relaxing, but this still doesn't make much sense. So my question is, how did I enter a WILD without doing anything to keep my mind conscious...? It just seems very strange after reading all these tutorials that said you need a sort of "anchor" to induce a WILD.
The third question regards my inability to WILD again, after attempting it every single night. I tried the exact same method that worked on my first try all the following nights, but to no avail. I realise that counting just doesn't work for me, so I didn't try it again. I tried simply relaxing and freeing my mind, but that just got me asleep and not consciously dreaming. I tried mental anchors, like focusing on my breath, but seeing as I can barely focus on anything for too long even while fully awake, it just got me to regular sleep even faster. I tried inducing slight pain or discomfort, but I was just unable to relax properly like that. I even tried staying up for longer during my WBTB, but that just made it impossible for me to fall asleep at all. So what am I doing wrong...? How can it be so hard now, when I managed my first WILD with little to no effort...?
