Thread: First Wild

Yo.
Lucid dreaming means being aware in dream that you are dreaming, and it does not sounds like you were aware of dreaming if you needed confirmation. But don't be discouraged, it sounds like you were slightly more aware of sleeping state than usual, which is still a good sign. Also it could have been false awakening where you just continued lying there with closed eyes until waking up, i have had quite a bit of false awakenings that started with me lying with closed eyes until i was either distracted into non-lucid or figured out that i could be dreaming.
Also you don't need to experience SP or HH in order to WILD, WILD is just about falling asleep while being aware of it. Some people don't experience much HH, and also, SP is pretty rare and most of people only experience it like once or twice through lifetime, and it can't be induced and only happens often for people with sleep disorder. http://www.dreamviews.com/wake-initi...explained.html
Since i guess you are aiming for WILD, i highly suggest you to check out this tutorial for more in-depth information about WILDing: WILD

That is kinda strange. Maybe you dreamt that you were still meditating calmly. If you look at it that way then it COULD be classified as a WILD... that you weren't aware of. Sorry if I don't make sense.

Paul: Could be you had half your WILD right, but didn't give it enough time -- or rather your parents didn't, because they woke you up. If you had continued meditating for a while longer, you might have found yourself in a dream.

You may have been experiencing NREM, which can last 90 minutes or more as your sleeping body cycles toward REM. NREM is a period where dreams as we're used to them don't tend to form, and it might indeed seem like a lot of nothing (for me a very pleasant nothing, BTW) as you pass through it.

This is why it's not a great idea to attempt WILDs at night. Better to do them after several hours of sleep, when NREM periods are very short and your chances of WILDing into REM very good.

feels like beginning stages to me

Originally Posted by paul1912012

So did I have a wild or just fell asleep?

Not a WILD. WILDs make themselves known through intense physical, auditory, and visual hallucinations. There's absolutely no mistaking one.

Originally Posted by cmind

Not a WILD. WILDs make themselves known through intense physical, auditory, and visual hallucinations. There's absolutely no mistaking one.

No, they don't.

A WILD is the transition from waking to sleep without loss of waking-life consciousness. Period.

It is not about "intense physical, auditory, and visual hallucinations," and saying that it is marks both a grave misdirection from the truth, and the truly sad state of LD'ing on these forums. WILD is, simply, a way of becoming lucid and, yes, its path can allow you to witness the absolutely normal physical processes your body goes through every night, but those processes can easily be ignored and certainly hold no bearing on the success or validity of a WILD.

I've had thousands of WILDs over the years, and I can safely say that the vast majority of them occurred without any intense physical, auditory, and visual hallucinations. Of course, I did start LD'ing long before the Internet was invented, so I guess I never had opportunity to expect them, or dare I say, to look forward to them!

WILD is a state of mind; an option for enjoying lucid dreaming. It is absolutely not a vehicle for "SP," HI, vibrations, and whatever other "noise" might be encountered during a WILD attempt. Yes, those things can and do occur, but they are not the priority, and they certainly are not the way "WILDs make themselves known." It would be real nice if we could all just step back and erase just some of the sensationalism about the "noise" that has come to fully replace the dream as the real goal of WILD. It would be nice if newbies could be led to understand that WILD is about the dream, and not about the stuff they might encounter on the way to that dream.

Sorry for being so harsh, Cmind; DV's was enjoying a brief bout of sanity for a few months regarding all that noise, but that sanity has been losing ground lately to the excitement that comes with the noise ... your post was a sign for me that we're once again right back where we started.

Originally Posted by cmind

WILDs make themselves known through intense physical, auditory, and visual hallucinations. There's absolutely no mistaking one.

You can enter WILD so gently, that you don't even notice. No sounds, no sensations, no visuals. You may think you are still awake, thinking about your day, when you are already dreaming. Sure, you can have any of the hallucinations, but you also can have none. If you wait for them, you will miss bunch of opportunities for a WILD, because they may never come. Plus, waiting for them makes you pay attention to your body, and that may keep you awake.

Originally Posted by Sageous

No, they don't.

A WILD is the transition from waking to sleep without loss of waking-life consciousness. Period.

It is not about "intense physical, auditory, and visual hallucinations," and saying that it is marks both a grave misdirection from the truth, and the truly sad state of LD'ing on these forums. WILD is, simply, a way of becoming lucid and, yes, its path can allow you to witness the absolutely normal physical processes your body goes through every night, but those processes can easily be ignored and certainly hold no bearing on the success or validity of a WILD.

I've had thousands of WILDs over the years, and I can safely say that the vast majority of them occurred without any intense physical, auditory, and visual hallucinations. Of course, I did start LD'ing long before the Internet was invented, so I guess I never had opportunity to expect them, or dare I say, to look forward to them!

WILD is a state of mind; an option for enjoying lucid dreaming. It is absolutely not a vehicle for "SP," HI, vibrations, and whatever other "noise" might be encountered during a WILD attempt. Yes, those things can and do occur, but they are not the priority, and they certainly are not the way "WILDs make themselves known." It would be real nice if we could all just step back and erase just some of the sensationalism about the "noise" that has come to fully replace the dream as the real goal of WILD. It would be nice if newbies could be led to understand that WILD is about the dream, and not about the stuff they might encounter on the way to that dream.

Sorry for being so harsh, Cmind; DV's was enjoying a brief bout of sanity for a few months regarding all that noise, but that sanity has been losing ground lately to the excitement that comes with the noise ... your post was a sign for me that we're once again right back where we started.

Wut?

It looks like you are moving backwards. It's a shame, because I thought that this community was finally starting to separate SP from the real sensations of HH. But judging by this post that shamelessly groups them together as if they're all in the same category...you guys have a long way to go.

There are physical, auditory, and visual sensations during WILD. They are more intense than anything a sane person might experience while awake and going about their day. They are not SP. But wow, denying the existence of HH? That's fucked up.

And since we're giving anecdotes, I too have had many, many WILDs, and none of them were free from HH. None.

^^ Wow, yourself.

Did you even read my post before assembling that biizarre conclusion? Was I that unclear?

Let me try again:

A. I wasn't "grouping" SP with anything, except to say that none of those things matter, including the most popularly misunderstood concepts like "SP" (did you notice the quotation marks, BTW?), when it comes to actually doing a WILD -- and they don't matter whether they exist or not; no denial intended!

A small aside: Who are the "you guys?" doing such shameless things like telling people not to worry about things like Hypnagogic Imagery (I hope you don't mind my calling it HI; I hope that's not backward as well.)? I wrote this all by myself, thank you.

B. Yes, indeed, HI exists. Of course it exists, and I don't believe I ever denied that fact. What I said, and what I will say again, is that HI is not a necessity for a successful WILD. It might be a handy roadmark, sure, and even can be helpful in building your dream, but it is not a requirement.

C. What I was saying is that all that intensity is a distraction, and with the sales job the noise gets on these forums -- especially from folks who insist it must be encountered for WILD to happen at all -- that distraction may be causing people to make goals of things like HI and vibrations and, yes, I'm grouping it again and please note the quotation marks, "SP," rather than making the dream the goal. That was my point, and I take no shame in saying it.

D. The sensations of HI might be intense for you, but that does not make it the standard. My point was that the act of announcing that things like HI must be intense implies that they must be encountered intensely during a WILD, and if they're not, then you mustn't be on your way to an LD, is a categorically incorrect statement. I'm sorry that may not dutifully follow your rules on the subject, but honestly I don't care.

E. It's great that you've had lots of WILD's with HI in them. Again, because you regularly notice HI and are able to continue to the LD, that doesn't mean it must work that way for everyone.

I hope that was clearer. I feel like I repeated myself too many times, but what I had to say was so simple, I hadn't realized it would have been misunderstood. I'm sorry you did, and truly sorry that you've decided to accuse me of going backward, given the efforts I've made on these forums to reduce the importance of noise like "SP," vibrations, and, yes, HI.

tl;dr: Of course HI exists; I never denied that, nor do I understand where you got that idea. What I said was that it doesn't matter in terms of WILD, so to determine that a person was not experiencing a WILD simply because there were no "intense physical, auditory, and visual hallucinations" is erroneous, misleading, and continues to keep things like HI on a pedestal, far above the dream itself.

Gab: Gab, I'll understand if you delete this post, but I felt a need to put it up anyway.

I'm out.

Originally Posted by Sageous

Gab: Gab, I'll understand if you delete this post, but I felt a need to put it up anyway.

No, no, no desire to delete it. We have worked on debunking the SP with many other folks, put lots of hours into "SP explained" article. It was pretty clear to me from your previous post what you meant about "SP". HI are not SP, nor does any of that matter for WILDing purposes and for someone to claim that you call them SP is frankly, insulting. I was gonna reply, but you can do it so much better.

^^ Thanks Gab!

... and so the effort continues...

Are you guys differentiating between Hypnagogic Hallucinations(HH) and Hypnagogic Imagery(HI)? Or is that just something that I do? To me HH are the supposed physical hallucinations like vibrations and sounds. HI is the imagery that flashes before your eyes.

I have had WILD's that included no HH, no strange sensations, but did include HI. When this happens I find myself simply moving into an image and then find myself in the dream.

I have had WILD's that include very strong HH, roaring sounds and my body feeling like it's being ripped apart atom by atom, but did not include any imagery until I was already fully immersed in the dream.

But I have never had a WILD that included neither HH nor HI. And now that I think about it I don't recall ever having a WILD that included both. I've never felt the physical hallucinations while also seeing imagery. It's always seems to be one or the other.

I'm pretty sure that HH and HI are the same thing. I'm also pretty sure that those physical sensations you feel are not HI (or HH); they're simply your noticing things going on with your body that, were you not attempting WILD, you wouldn't have noticed.

In other words, you really can't have physical hallucinations -- either something is physical or it isn't. Those physical events that you experience are not hallucinations... of course, they're still best if ignored, so they don't get in the way of your dream.

I personally call them all HH. Maybe that's wrong, never really though about it that much.

And as you say, dms111, most of the time I get either, or. But it also happened, that I got images and vibrations and sense of movement. I very rarely have audio HH, maybe just 2-3 times out of couple hundread of attempts (50 WILD).

And I have had transitions so gentle, that I didn't even realize. Had to take a leap of faith, after reading all these 'just get up and walk away". Is it possible that I blacked out for a moment just at the time of gentle vibrations so I didn't notice them? I suppose it's possible.

I just did a little checking, and must take back part of my statement. Though HI and HH are indeed the same thing, apparently the experts have come to include vibrations and other auditory stuff as types of HI. I don't really agree with that, but if the experts are saying vibrations are HI these days, who am I to argue?

I hope that clarified more than muddled things, dms111. And remember, its okay to ignore HI, or at least to not take it too seriously! Plus, as Gab pointed out, it's not only possible but just fine to experience WILD without a lot of HI.

There are physical, auditory, and visual sensations during WILD. They are more intense than anything a sane person might experience while awake and going about their day. They are not SP.

If this was true we wouldn't get reports of people experiencing the situation where they still think they are waiting to enter in the dream but are actually experiencing a FA. Right?

I wouldn't mind reading another post of yours in this thread, as my question is for sure not rhetorical. I'm actually curious if there could be other explanation to the "lack" (I'm putting " for the sake of being neutral here ) of HH during certain WILD inductions.

Would you Sageous and Gab say that there could be a chance that when we're having those "smooth" transitions, we could simply be experiencing HH but not being conscious of them? In some WILDs, I don't recall the entire experience before the transition into the dream. But if I get what cmind is saying, these "events" would happen during the transition, because what we call a WILD is like Sageous said, the transition to the dream (while being conscious).

As I mentioned above, it's possible, that I black out during the whole thing, and I may not notice some HH during a blackout. But I have also heard from a friend of mine, with huge exit experience, that at first, her vibrations used to be strong, but after time, she barely has any, if any at all. She only relies on a feeling that she is in a dream and can exit.

But I think the main point in all of this is, that if someone waits for something monumental to happen, and it doesn't come, he will miss the opportunity. Plus, it keeps his attention on body and that's what a WILDer is trying to avoid.

It used to happen to me frequently, that I kept falling asleep and coming out of it only to fall asleep again. Until I realized I see my room. No indication that I'm in a dream. Only reason why I got lucid is because I took a leap of faith and got up to end up in LD. It's possible, that during these episodes I missed the HH entirely. They were there, but I didn't notice them. Had I waited for them, I would have never gotten up into LD.

I think it was more of the categorical tone that I was disagreening with, than the occurence of HH.

Originally Posted by Zoth

Would you Sageous say that there could be a chance that when we're having those "smooth" transitions, we could simply be experiencing HH but not being conscious of them?

That could certainly be true; in fact, it makes a lot of sense.

I think Gab addressed all this very well in her last post: It isn't the existence of HI that's in dispute, but the need to elevate its importance in WILD. Too much focus on an event that might not be as monumental as advertised, or appear to be an event at all, could definitely cause a WILD attempt to fail. Indeed, too much attention on anything other than the dream could cause a WILD attempt to fail.

Hmmm... Interesting discussion. I never focused much on hh or hi. Every time I close my eyes I see things that one would normally see when you are going to sleep. Nothing really substantial, lion, sword, castle, dragon, Tolkien, wardrobe. How your mind kind of wanders, but in picture form. So i just pay attention to those and keep trying to teleport. As soon as I do I am in a dream. I used to not teleport and the images would get more and more substantial and more random. Then they would just be a dream. A lot harder to keep my consciousness. So I don't feel anything (I lose track of my body through a weird system and am only aware of the images) until I start feeling a dream. The images are always there, the sounds and feelings are not there till a dream.

When I wake up in the night the images are much more clear and substantial.

When DEILDing I feel my body for a half a second and then move back to the dream. It normally feels like I jump right back out of it and am looking at it from above (can't see... Just feel above all of them... Hard to explain) then teleport away.

This is my own experience, not my opinion. Haha.

Originally Posted by BrandonBoss

... Nothing really substantial, lion, sword, castle, dragon, Tolkien, wardrobe. How your mind kind of wanders, but in picture form.

So i just pay attention to those and keep trying to teleport. As soon as I do I am in a dream.

That is so cool. Never heard of teleporting from the get go, while you still have just individual images.

Althogh lately, more and more I realize, I have been waiting too long to initiate some kind of an exit. I can get out much sooner than I ever thought you could.

Originally Posted by Sageous

In other words, you really can't have physical hallucinations

That's very true. "Physical" was a bad choice of words by me. I'm not talking about something like an itchy leg. What I was referring to were the classic hallucinations like vibrations or movement, and auditory hallucinations. For me these seem to occur separately from visual hallucinations.

^^ You're correct. The experts, as I noted after that post, have come to include vibrations, sounds, etc, in the HI definition.

I'm more than okay with this, too, because, in a sense, calling vibrations HI makes them even less significant, and more conducive to being ignored (or, if not ignored then used as tools for forming the dream). ... and that is a good thing for WILD.