Trying to lucid while grounded in reality + Pain during WILD (New guy needs help!)

[VideoJames]

Hi there everyone. I've been trying to get into lucid dreaming for a while now, but because of how I use logical thought in every day life, I have a hard time trying to LD. Almost every dream I've ever had has been hugely realistic. My greatest desire is to explore the galaxy. That's what I'm trying to accomplish in my dreams. There's been some fresh information I found here on the forum, and I'm going to try to put it into practical use. I'm also a rather large fellow and toss and turn a lot in my sleep. Anyone have any information that can help me combat this? In addition, something happened recently that I feel the need to discuss. During my last WILD attempt, I got very close to falling into a dream. Unfortunately, I didn't know that I had to consciously form a scene for me to fall into. As a result, I let fear get a hold of me. I was actually enjoying the physical hallucinations (The vibrations were very relaxing, but a bit foreboding). As a result, a greyish monster formed in my peripheral. I tried to ignore it, given I expected something like it to appear. I braced myself for the visual aspect of it. I couldn't prepare for what happened. Suddenly, the thing snapped, got very, very close to me and slammed a scythe-like appendage into my abdomen. I felt hot metal plunging into me, and the sheer agony of the situation caused me to flip out of my bed. I had never expected, or even imagined something like that happening. When I realized what happened as I lie on the floor, I went to feel for a wound. Nothing, obviously, but I almost felt an echo of pain, a stark reminder of what just happened. Have any of you experienced something this awful before? I realize this is because of my logical thought (I've "imagined" pain before; I wondered what it could feel like to break a major bone so I created a situation in my mind and attempted to simulate the sensation) and I probably won't go through it again. Still though, I haven't tried LDing again because of this. Anyone have some insight on this matter?

[Onidrago]

For the first paragraph, you need a comfortable position to lie in For the second part, that can happen (happened to me sometimes) but I don't exactly know what causes it. Could be that since you're much closer to your subconscious mind, you'd be able to control things like pain in certain areas. What can help in situations like this is the self transmutation of oneself into an abstract upon any death type blow (Falls in line with the you turn into spirit when you dead, theory). Maybe someone else would beable to point out what exactly causes the pain, sorry...

[Maxis]

If you haven't already, I recommend starting a dream journal and updating it on a daily basis, preferably when you first wake up (even if you don't remember anything, just write "I don't remember anything"). After a few weeks or so, go back and flip through the pages and try to notice any patterns that you see frequently--dream signs. Get into the habit of RC'ing whenever you see them, and hopefully the habit should start popping up in your dreams as well, allowing you to go lucid. I'm a logical thinker myself and figuring out my dream signs were the way I worked around it. The thing about dreams is that, even if they appear to "mimic" reality, they still are extremely personal to you because they're created by your subconscious. The trick is to find out what in the dream makes them personal, and then use that to your advantage. Even if they appear extremely realistic, dreams aren't perfect, and there's always going to be one or two things that breaks the rules of realism and makes them look more personal to you. I also agree with the above post in that you need to find a comfortable position to lie in. Lie on your stomach, lie on your back, lie on your side, figure out what position you like best and use it. Hopefully this will combat the urge to move. As for the hallucinations--I'll start off this section with a disclaimer stating that the advice may be more based off of personal experience rather than scientific fact, so some of this might not work for you, but I hope it helps nonetheless. I've never had a problem with pain during WILD attempts but theoretically, it is possible. Hallucinations are defined as any misperception of your senses, and this doesn't just apply to sight and sound, but also smell, taste, touch, temperature, proprioception, balance, and of course, pain (oh, fun fact: you actually have 9 senses). Since sight and sound can easily happen during WILD attempts, why can't the other 7? I also couldn't help but notice how you described that 'echo' of pain, considering I think I've felt something very similar before: when I was 3 or 4, I had a very vivid nightmare and ended up waking up still feeling where I was hurt in my stomach. It wasn't as painful as it had appeared in the dream, it was more just an ache gradually fading off, a reminder that I felt it. I never really understood how it worked or what it was, but my guess is that it could've been my mind going "Heyy???? Aren't I meant to be in pain??!? What's going on?!?!?!!?" Back to WILDs: since hallucinations are icky and nobody likes them, I'll offer some tips on how to combat them that have worked for me personally. You're welcome to try none/some/all of them, and none/some/all of them might work. It's best to understand that like dreams, hallucinations in WILD attempts are most likely more or less fueled by expectations. Because of this, I've genuinely found that in terms of getting through the hallucinating process of the WILD, it's best to just ignore them. It might be wise to have your eyes shut as well--if you keep your eyes open to keep yourself mentally awake, a sleeping mask could be in your best interest, too. You don't want to focus on the hallucinations, because that'll open doors in your mind to both have you expect that something might happen and also allow room for more intense experiences to happen. Instead, when you realize you're starting to hallucinate, recognize they can't hurt you and then past that point continue thinking about something else. Think about what you're going to dream about, perhaps start imagining/forming a scenario. This won't fully get rid of the hallucinations, but will push them aside to a point that they're just passively in the background and won't do much other than maybe annoyingly disrupt your thought process. Perhaps most importantly, remember what you're doing it for. You want to explore the galaxy, right? I'd say that's worth facing a fear for less than a couple of minutes. Keep yourself motivated, keep trying, keep dreaming (lame pun). As long as you keep trying, you'll get there one way or another, and I'd say myself, the feeling of being able to do whatever you want is totally worth the process to get there. I hope I helped! Whoops, this is lengthy; my apologies! TL;DR: Dream journal, find a comfortable position to lie in, try ignoring the hallucinations, and keep trying.