Thread: Was close I think to WILDing, I have a few questions.

Originally Posted by lazytitan

1. When I do get into SP what should I be doing? Everything I have read been about getting to SP but I dont know much about getting the dream going.
2. I assume I was close even if it was grainy. What can I do to keep it going and make it clearer?
3. Is it odd that I wasn't dreaming from my prospective. Will it always be that way?
4. When you Lucid dream how clear is everything?
5. How well do you remember your dream when you Lucid dream?

Hi lazytitan,

first of all, I have to mention, that what you have experienced was not SP. I don't blame you for thinking that, since you probably heard it all over the youtube.

SP is a natural state that our body puts us into, after we start dreaming, so we don't act out our dreams. Hallucinations, sounds, sensations... that you may have experienced, are normal signs of our body shutting down and falling asleep. The images may indicate, that indeed, a dream has began to form.

1. SP is not part of LDing process. It can't be induced, so to try to induce it, or enter it, or anything SP related, is futile and leads you away from your true goal of falling asleep while staying aware.
Induction Methods and Techniques
WILD
http://www.dreamviews.com/wake-initi...mystified.html

2. Every time something unusual happens, you can start doing some motionless RCs. http://www.dreamviews.com/induction-...hecks-rcs.html

3. Some people dream from 3rd persons perspective more then others. It happend to me only maybe 1-2.

4. Being lucid has not much to do with clarity/focus/detailes/colors... All that depends on your level of awareness. It will be probably different in many of your lucids.

5. If you wake up right after your LD is over, your recall should be very good, since LDs are more memorable than non-lucids. Make sure you write it all down as soon as you can.

Good luck and ask, if you have more questions. Happy dreams

Ok, Ill stop calling it SP then. 2 of the 3 times I have tried it it just feels...weird. It feels like my limbs where there but not there. Way I described it to a coworker is after a while of laying perfectly still I felt like I had a huge weight on my chest and my breathing becomes a lot heavier. I know my limbs are there but feels like they are gone. Is this normal or am I just imagining it because its what I thought would happen and its all in my head?

I have read the post you wrote on "WILD - Wake Initiated Lucid Dream" yesterday, I used that counting trick you suggested and that actually when I feel asleep and had that brief moment of "oh I am in a dream" but was gone just as fast as it came and I was back to just darkness and the feeling I described above. I did see other images come and go but all where very foggy as I said above. Nothing I could really make out. I would try to let them play out but soon as I could focus on them enough to almost get a picture of what I was seeing it was gone.

I know its not a question you or anyone probably can really answer, but just want to know what I need to do better. May just come down to practice and patience which I will have. Just want to know I am doing what I need to and not forming bad habits. I just don't know what expect so its hard to tell if I am doing anything right or just my imagination.

Yes, you can feel any strange sensations, including being VERY heavy. I have had that maybe 1-2 and I enjoyed it. You could also feel very light, vibrations, as if you vere moving, sinking through your bed, levitating up, being twisted into a pretzel, rotating horizontally or vertically, sitting up, your limbs rising up, ...

I think those happen, when our astral/dream body separates. That's why, when you feel anything strange, you can try and stand up or roll out. But don't use your muscles. Practice during day. Lay down on your back and try to turn to your side, as if rolling over. But don't use muscles, Give them mental command, see yourself rolling over, but stop just short of actually using muscles. Do you know those russian wooden hollow dolls matrioshka? You twist open the large one, and inside is another one just like that, only smaller. You twist open that one... Imagine your physical body being the largest one, and your dream body the one that fits inside this large one. Imagine you are trying to turn that one to the side.

Sometimes when I wild, I start "turning" this dream body, or making it move horizontally towards my toes, then head, and back and forth. While I'm awake, they will of course not move. But they will as soon as my body falls asleep. Then you will feel as if it was happening for real and thats one way of knowing, that your dream body has separeted or formed and you are free to stand up/roll out. As soon as you do that, your environment will change into 3D and you will find yourself standing inside your dream.

And it sounds like ou became lucid, even if for just a brief moment. That still counts, congrats : )

When that stops and you find yourself staring at the darkness, again, you can try to stand up/roll out. It's very likely that you are still aware in altered reality. Only dream is not available for you at that moment. That's why it's black.

Also pay attantion if you start seeing your room. This one is really tricky and hard to recognize. Because you see our room many times, wright? So nothing strange about it. Only this time you see it with your eyes closed. This happened to me few times and I didn't realize that. But I have read many posts saying "just stand up/roll out". So even if I was 100% sure I'm still awake, I thought I'll give it a try and to my surpise, I stood up into a dream.

Same will happen to you. When time is right, you will remember this post and yu will make leap of faith. But right now you have to tell that to yourself. That even if that sounds crazy, you will try, because it works for others, so it will for you too.

Entering into a LD via images is only one of the possible entries. Other ways are described in http://www.dreamviews.com/wake-initi...into-wild.html

I ahve even heard from someone, that he enters a LD, when blackness behind his closed eyelids turns from 2D into 3D. And that happens to me very early in the process. But not always.

It's important not to wait for anything specific to happen. Because we don't always get the same sensations or HH or anything. Just keep in mind, that anything can happen and you can start and try to enter LD when anything strange happens.

I don't think you are forming any bad habits. It really comes down to what you are saying - practice. I'm glad you have patience. It's important not to be anxious about it and take everything, even seemingly failed attempts as a gift, as a learning opportunity. Good luck and please ask more questions.

Few more questions.

1. Finding your REM cycle. I read on here that everyone has a different time. How do you tell what your best time is? Seems REM is always at the end of your sleep but REM could start at different times from what I am understanding.

2. When I wake myself up before trying to WILD how long do I stay awake. I read that this also varies, the time you should stay awake. I am not a groggy person when I wake up. Even after 5 hours I can wake up fairly quick. If I stay awake to long it can be hard to go back to sleep. Do I want to be fairly awake when I try WILD or do i still want to be groggy and ready to fall asleep. Specially when trying to WILD I wake up quick because I am so excited to try it again.

Originally Posted by lazytitan

1. Finding your REM cycle.

I don't believe it's important to find your REM stage. Because every time you wake up, you start again with NREM and then REM. And it doesn't matter which stage you woke up in. So even if you woke up in a middle of your REM, falling asleep, you will still go through NREM before reaching REM.

More important question is, how long will the NREM be before you reach REM. I can't tell you exact numbers, but you can go by this:
At the beginning of our sleep, our NREM is about 80 min long and REM is last 10 min of a 90 min dream cycle. As we sleep, NREM is getting shorter and REM longer. Untill after about 7-8 hrs of sleep, they have almost reversed their length. Cycle is now about 10 min long NREM and 80 min long REM. Mind you, that these last numbers I have not seen anywhere confirmed, I'm just going by how I read that they become shorter and longer. It could be 20/70, or anything like that.

That's why we recommend a long sleep before WBTB. Because when we WILD, we have to stay aware during the NREM, until a dream is ready for us in REM. If the NREM is short, it's much easier to not fall asleep prematurely but to make it till REM consiously.

Originally Posted by lazytitan

2. When I wake myself up before trying to WILD how long do I stay awake. ... Do I want to be fairly awake when I try WILD or do i still want to be groggy and ready to fall asleep. Specially when trying to WILD I wake up quick because I am so excited to try it again.

This can be anywhere from minutes to hours. It can be different even for the same person on different nights. One night you may wake up and you are alert and can think clearly after 5 min. So that should be enough. Other nights you stay groggy for longer, and if you went to bed then, you would fall asleep into unconscious sleep.

The goal is not to wake yourself up too much. Just enough, so you can think clearly, but you still sleepy enough. You can also tell yourself, that you are not up for a day yet, so your body knows not to switch into day mode yet. Basically tell yourself, that you still going back to sleep. So no loud TV, not too many lights, or exciting activity like excercising.

I WILD during morning naps. I wake up either at my normal waking time, or little bit sooner. I get dressed, have breakfast, check my emails... But all this while I'm thinking about WILDing and setting a mood up to that activity. So I may read a tutorial, answer a few questions here, to keep myself focused.

I stay up anywhere from 1 - 5 hrs. But 1-3 hrs is the best time for me.

Btw, naps are exemption from the NREM-REM rule. When we nap after a normal nights sleep, we go almost straight into REM. Just a very short falling asleep NREM part. That's because REM part of sleep is more important for our body, so when our body knows that we just had both NREM and REM at night, it throws us almost directly into REM.

This is tru for midday naps, and even afternoon naps. But it can get sketchy towards the evening. You still may have success, but if it's too close to your normal bed time, your body may think you are just going to bed early and put you through normal NREM - REM stages. How close to bed time is too close? Not sure, as this could also be individual. have fun experimenting.

So I have tried this now a few more times and getting little frustrated...Almost every attempt I have made to WILD I have had the same experience each time.

Each time I have tried I have got my body to go numb is how i would describe it. I have yet to hear sounds or really see any odd things(hallucinations). I do sometimes start to see images in my head but to be honest it feels more like my imagination then me starting to dream. Did try after I got home from work with a nap today and I actually did see lines and different shapes. I have read is normal but they ended pretty quick. Happens every time though so far, its like I hit a wall and cant get over it. So I have a few more questions.

1. How long does it take usually for newbs to get to that dream state? I feel taking me a while to get to those pre stages of dream state let alone dreaming. Example is my try today after work. I counted each breath I made. While by the time I made it to 50 I was having hard time counting correctly kept forgetting what number I was on(good sign I think), I didn't notice any physical or mental progress till i hit 500 breaths which seems like a lot. Around that time when I started to finally notice some lines but just like every other time, ends quickly as it starts and I really cant tell if it is actually something or just my imagination hoping I would start something. Ill see about 3 to 4 different images before they just stop showing up. They never really make anything clear just like a foggy image.

2. I am just bad at this, but I have read several things that say to mentally move your body and should feel like you are moving but I just cant do this. I have yet to have that sensation. Any tips?

3. Are these vague images anything that I keep seeing or is it just my imagination making me think it MIGHT be working. If it is right how do I get it to stay and become more clear and not disappear with in seconds?

4. Snoring? This keeps happening, and makes me laugh. I will be laying there feeling pretty aware and randomly either take a deep breath or snore a bit. Its funny but distracting because it makes me jump every time.