Thread: Am I doing something wrong? WILD

The moment you fall asleep is the same moment a WILD occurs. The truth is everyone goes through the WILD process every night. It's just they don't realize they are doing it. We frequently move from wake to dream without a loss of consciousness, but most people most of the time just aren't aware of it when it happens. Our minds wander too much and when the moment of sleep comes we are already busy thinking about how many purple goldfish we see in the sky. We lose our logic before full sleep begins.

So your problem was simply losing all awareness of what you were doing before sleep took hold. It's the same problem everyone has. WILDing is sort of like navigating a Catch-22. Your brain triggers sleep when that awareness of yours is gone. But you need that awareness at the moment sleep occurs. So you need to let your mind wander to the brink of oblivion but not go over the edge. With experience you will be able to find that moment where your brain will trigger sleep and you still hold just enough awareness to recognize it when it happens.

Thanks for the info dms, so I'll just keep practicing and eventually I will get it then.

Very good WILD (sageous) tutorial that explaines the whole process. Long read, but you not be sorry. Happy dreams

Thanks Gab, I've read that before but it's all sunk away. So I'm going to read it all again.

how is your external environment at 8am ? i usually find it very noisy and more light entering the room, but if you can fall asleep its not a problem.

i think falling asleep is good, you need it to WILD. it´s not so good when you can´t fall asleep.

have you tried visualization? it usually keeps your mind more active and easily numbs your body too.

Good luck

Hey everyone! I've been practising really hard lately to enter a WILD but it's just so hard. I went to bed at around 3am today and woke up at 8:10 or so. So I wake up, write down 3 dreams I remember and then go to the toilet, get back up and read some stuff on my phone about dreaming. Jeff's freefalling guide in particular. So I was trying to WILD according to his steps. Here's what happened in steps:

1. I lay down and keep passive awareness, noticing illogical thought patterns. I let it happen a couple of times for about 5-10 mins.
2. I proceed to the next step and lay on my back while having deep, but not too deep, controlled breaths.
3. I count down from 100 to 1 to maintain logical thought patterns and to keep awareness.

Now at this point I don't feel very much I'm just getting bored and about 15-20 mins have passed.

4. Nothing happens... weird. I count down from 100 to 1 again and when I'm at about 70 something happens.

It feels like my perception of space and time is really weird. Almost like I'm sort of zooming in and out. Eventually this feeling wears off and I'm waiting for it to come back. It doesn't, and I call it quits after 10 more minutes and get up.


My environment? Well my luxaflex sucks so light is very visibly coming through. It's a big distraction, but it isn't keeping me from falling asleep. I've tried visualizing when I felt things happen (step 4). I'll practise more.
Does it seem like I'm progressing?

Sounds like you have reached hypnagogic state but not fallen asleep afterwards, maybe you were little bit too awake? You could try doing less active tasks next time or doing attempt little bit earlier, also it indeed does sounds like some progress.
Also don't think about WILDing as about something that is hard, since anything dream related is based on expectations, if you think that it's hard it will be harder than it could have been otherwise, be confident and keep trying, and you'll reach it!
Good luck!

Originally Posted by Athylus

Hey all, this morning I tried to wild once again. So I got up at around 8 am and went to the bathroom, read my book for a while and after 20 mins of being awake I went back to bed. I used the counting down from 100 to 0 technique which I've tried before but I couldn't maintain focus and fell asleep, however this time I could count down all the way from 100 to 0 while taking deep breaths and after that I just concentrated on my breathing but nothing happened. I did see some HI but that's all... I swear I was lying down for like 15-20 mins.

Am I doing something wrong or is this just normal?

You're doing something wrong. You're counting and focusing on your breathing. Don't do that.

cmind is right, any type of thinking that demands your attention or some kind of focus is going to make it harder to fall asleep if not keep you up altogether. The key to getting back to sleep is to let your mind continue to talk or whatever it wants, but don't force the thinking... it will happen on its own. If you "listen" to the babbling it starts to get pretty random and nonsensical, it's neat to hear what comes up sometimes, but actively listening will probably keep you awake too.

Thanks for the advice guys! I'll use it well next time I'm going to WILD.

And checker thanks, that's a great tip. I can't think of it as 'ah I'll just do it' because I haven't. But I don't have any hard expectations either and I'm quite positive that it's going to happen for real soon!

Hi Athylus, I would classify myself as a DILD dreamer but I also want learn to WILD to increase my LD frequency. I haven't done that many attempts on WILD but I want to share my impressions so far.

Initially I would set an alarm to wake me up like five hours after sleep and stay awake for up to half hour, then go to bed thinking, now I am trying to wild. I had a difficult time falling asleep, and when I finally did it was unconscious.

Then I decided I would reduce the waking time to minimum, but then I was asleep too fast. I think you can see where I am going with this. Well, I think that perhaps finding the middle point would do the trick. Also, I think that just paying more attention to sensations when normally going to bed on a regular basis would eventually become a habit when trying to WILD. I will currently implement these for me, hopefully this info also benefits your quest.

Originally Posted by dms111

The moment you fall asleep is the same moment a WILD occurs. The truth is everyone goes through the WILD process every night. It's just they don't realize they are doing it.

So true! I remember years ago when I just went to bed and obviously fell asleep so fast, I suddenly found myslef looming over the balcony of my room. The change was so abrupt that I immediately woke up after that.

Thanks Nyx, great tip! I'll keep trying. I actually had a lucid dream today but I don't know wether it was WILD or DILD. Since it happened when I woke up and fell asleep.

Congrats on the LD!

About definitions:
WILD is when you wake yourself up (naturally or using alarm), stay awake for some time and go back to sleep with the intention of having a lucid, where the key point is keeping your mind sufficiently wake, while your body falls asleep. So one minute you are relaxing in the bed until body is asleep, then you may use different ways to enter the dream (rolling out if in SP, entering dream images). So there is more or less a direct transition of consciousness to LD.

DILD: You spontaneously realize that you are dreaming (this may be in the middle of the dream, by recognizing a DS, noticing something strange, performing a RC, or just by getting lucid). You can also wake go back to bed and think that you want to lucid (intend it). The difference is you just fall asleep as usual, no need to try to be alert when falling asleep, although you could still use some mantras.

Note: sometimes attempting WILD can result into a DILD because your mind is more alert and you are thinking about LD.

DEILD: they call it a type of WILD, you wake up, usually close you eyes and remeber the dream you just had and try to re-enter it lucid.

I hope I am not confusing you with too many definitions, others please feel free to add or correct me.

No you aren't Nyx, thanks for the info! I've still been trying but it's not working out so far, I've also had some other things on my mind lately. I recently stopped smoking weed and I just started taking a physics course, which is actually pretty cool. I'll never give up though!

And I think that WILD attempt resulted in a DILD yeah, lols.

Oh well, gonna keep trying!