After a long time of not attempting any lucid dreaming (I was discouraged by multiple failed WILD attempts), my inspiration was rekindled when I heard about experiences from some friends. I decided to give it a shot again, and see how far I could get.

So, after waking up after roughly 5 hours of sleep, I took a bit of time to "find my bearings", wake my mind up. When I felt reasonably awake, I laid down on my back and started to relax. As I felt my body grow heavier and more numb, I tried to distance myself from my mind, watch everything my mind did without interfering. I soon began to see swirling patterns and brief images of varying detail in the blackness of my eyelids, but it was a bit difficult to watch them without focusing so much that they went away. My mind also kept reminding me of my body, breaking my concentration. After well over half an hour of lying there, trying to let my body and mind to their thing with me still awake, I decided that I had something blocking me from fully "releasing" my body, and aborted.

I wasn't quite ready to give up yet, though. I rolled over on my left side to see if that had something to do with it, since I normally sleep on my side, not my back. Once again, I started to relax, and this time I also counted my breaths and repeated "I am dreaming" after each breath, to try and keep myself occupied. It wasn't long before I started seeing patterns again, and this time they were a bit easier to observe. I didn't get much more than that though, due to the fact that I had positioned myself quite poorly, with one leg over the other, and a hand under my head, and they were getting uncomfortable. I felt that it wasn't going to work, and called it early.

With over an hour having passed since I first woke up, I was almost ready to give up for the night, but I noticed I was a bit more tired than when I woke up, so I thought to myself: "One last try, for good measure". Said and done, I rolled over on my side, my right side this time, and positioned myself so that there was as little limb overlap as possible, and started to relax.

This time, I noticed that my body got relaxed much quicker, and it was much easier to observe the patterns and images when they appeared. This time, I also didn't count my breaths, but focused solely on observing my mind, as in the first attempt, discussing what I saw with my inner voice, to keep myself from drifting. My memory is a bit blurry for a moment here, but I do not know if it was due to me focusing too hard on observing my mind or if I fell asleep for a moment. The next thing I clearly remember though, is where it gets interesting. I suddenly saw the silhouette of my left arm and hand stretched out in front of me against the black nothingness (don't ask how that even works). Sadly I didn't try to control my arm, because I was afraid of breaking the effect, but I was fully aware at this moment. I could feel and see myself accelerating towards a tiny speck of light in the darkness, accompanied by a very loud, metallic "power-up" sound, followed by a loud, metallic bang as I reached the light and instantly stopped as if I hit something.

It turned out the light was actually sort of like a hole in a brick wall, revealing a cartoony looking scene behind it. I instantly saw that it was very, very sharp and vivid, hinting that I was about to have my first truly lucid dream. I got a bit excited, but quickly remembered that I shouldn't, it could ruin it, and I calmed myself down. I couldn't quite enter the dream landscape though, the hole in the brick wall was too small. Before I could do something myself, I automatically "resetted", and accelerated towards the hole again. This time, it was a bit bigger, but still not big enough. Twice more, I resetted and accelerated into the wall, punching a bigger hole each time. Eventually, the hole was big enough that the scene (which I now saw resembled some videogame-ish main menu) covered my entire vision save for the corners, but I still couldn't quite enter it. It was as if I was staring at a monitor, and I couldn't step inside it. I began feeling frustrated, and felt myself rapidly slipping back into my body. I tried to accelerate back towards the hole in the wall one last time, but at the end of the acceleration, I just landed in by bed. I decided that trying to WILD again this morning would be fruitless, and got out of bed.

This was a huge success though, since I barely got past the "swirling patterns" stage on my last attempts a year or two ago, and I feel that if I keep trying, I'll eventually break through that brick wall, and (literally) live my dreams.