Almost there? Physical sensations in dream world, but not vision

I've been teaching myself to WILD for the last couple of days, and I feel like I had a breakthrough and almost got there last night. I had two episodes where I felt only my physical senses in the dream world, but had trouble getting all the way there. How close was I, and what was I doing wrong?

The first time, I felt a distinct moment where felt my physical body and dream body separate. "This is it!", I thought. I tried to sit up, and I couldn't move. I tried again and imagined the bed coming with me. That worked! Suddenly I was in an art gallery, but the walls were slanted at odd angles. Everything was dark and fuzzy but I could see white walls with paintings and I could feel the beige carpet on my feet. I tried to do a backflip and it worked, but the walls moved with me. I realized I was still conscious of my physical body's face, my eyes slightly open and my breathing. I wanted to get out of the dark art gallery but in the process of trying to get my vision to clear I opened my phsyical body's eyes and realized I was looking at the posters on my bedroom wall.

The second time, I felt the same shift in consciousness as before but I was much more aware of my other senses in the physical world. This time I tried to float upward. It didn't work, so I imagined handlebars on the ceiling and lifted my dream arms to pull me upward. I floated up, hung from the bars for a moment then stood up on the ceiling. I was completely blind and I could hear the fan in the bedroom, but I could feel my bare feet walking on the rough ceiling. A minute or so later I woke up.

Congratulations!! I think the only thing you did wrong was to start moving before the dream had fully formed or solidified. I haven't been able to WILD yet myself, so I'm talking more about what I've read than from experience, but I think you're not supposed to try to interact with the dream until your vision comes in clearly or you'll wake up. But somebody who knows better can explain it more clearly than I can.

Since you were aware that you were dreaming, congrats on successful WILD! :thumbup:
Sometimes in dream we can become aware of waking body senses, often those aren't exactly waking body senses at all though, it can be one of the weird things about dream, maybe you were focusing on waking body and that caused you to have those sensations. :-?
I am not entirely agree with Darkmatters though, for me personally WILDs almost always start with my dream eyes closed and i have to open them manually, but maybe for you it could be indeed a bit too early and you were in very light sleep, many of dreaming things including WILD transitions vary from person to person anyways, i suggest checking out this thread: http://www.dreamviews.com/wake-initi...ntry-wild.html :)

Darkmatters - I was wondering if I might have tried to get up a bit too early, but I was so afraid of losing it or falling asleep that I just went for it and hoped for the best. In any case I'm glad I did, it boosted my confidence after the previous 2 nights of failed attempts.

Checker666 - Thanks! I've had a few LDs before but this was my first (semi) success at trying to WILD. The sensations thread was a good read, thanks. Hopefully I'll do better tonight!

Well, Checker knows better than me, so listen to him! Though from what he says, it sounds like I've experienced the same thing a couple of times, when I was taking Galantamine and experienced dreams where I was blind or nearly so. Galantamine gives dreams that are very much like WILDs, even if you don't enter consciously directly from the waking state. In one of them everything was pitch black, but I knew I was in the hallway outside my bedroom, and I could very clearly see a wasp flying toward me (!).

Yeah, I think I need to experiment with this a lot more to really be able to turn off the awareness of my physical body without losing consciousness. During the second dream I was aware of my eyes moving rapidly which was a very strange sensation!

Did you do any reality checks, and stabilize? Highly recommended as soon as you realize you're dreaming. For me, when I remember to do this, it greatly increases the vividness and clarity of the dream. In fact, in my highest level lucid, I heard a song playing as I was standing in my room and the song's lyrics told me to rub my hands over surfaces around me and feel the textures, and then to punch out the glass in the window and reach outside and feel the bricks. I did, and things got a lot clearer, and then the song told me to eat the broken glass! I did that too, and it felt like licorice but had no taste. Now I always envision doing these things as I'm going to sleep, and say a mantra consisting of "I realize I'm dreaming, reality check, and stabilize, (and then I add whatever my goals are for the night)". And as I'm saying it I also picture it happening and try to feel it.

Great advice, thanks -- and I laughed out loud at eating broken glass! It didn't even occur to me to do a RC while in the dream (since I was pretty certain I was dreaming!) and I'm sure just simply looking at my hands would have helped a great deal. Hopefully I'll get the chance to try some of these out tonight.