Thread: Finally, my first WILD (for people who never think it will happen)

I'm writing this here because I have personally been thankful for every hard luck WILD story I have read, from people who aren't natural WILDers, and I've often wondered what could possibly work for people in my position, completely frustrated with the process.

I had resigned myself to not being capable of WILD, and had even tried galantamine a couple times without results, so I had stopped altogether those frustrating attempts to discover the perfect anchor and walk the fine line between passing out unaware and slipping into a dream.

Then last night, I had 200 mg l-theanine at 1 a.m. and had a spontaneous DILD a couple hours later. When I woke, I decided I was on the border of REM and it was a perfect time to take 8 mg of galantamine as well as a moderately sized chew from a Mint Skoal Xtra container. That may seem like an absurd thing to do in bed, but I have been feeling desperate, and I had just read Thomas Yuschak's 16-page paper that raved about the success rate of nicotine. For the next two hours, I tried every single WILD induction method I had ever learned. I switched sleeping positions four times. I felt like quitting an hour in, but decided no matter how exhausted I became, I would keep at it. Having never had a WILD, I had no clue what would work for me, and what it would feel like to be successful.

For me, hypnogogic imagery always starts like a black pulsating amoeba. I can tell when I'm on the border of REM when that happens, and it seemed to be picking up in speed about a half hour after taking the supplements. Soon, I was flitting in and out of dreamlets. I heard a lot of music, a lot of dialogue, but it was the same frustrating experience of dipping into a dream and getting spit back out again.

I tried:

1) totally passive awareness, trying not to engage at all in the imagery
2) deep breathing
3) repeating the mantra "I am dreaming"
4) counting down using number imagery from 100
5) SSILD techniques, moving from visual, to auditory, to feeling imagery
6) "seeding" dream imagery by imagining a scene then letting it passively unfold
7) meditating with tactile imagery on the "third eye" spot, and also my throat

I did all these things over the course of two hours, every method that came to mind, and I was still bumping against dreamlets and getting jolted back out. I even felt incredibly relaxed and capable of remaining passive. So frustrating.

Then out of the blue, after turning onto my right side, the black amoeba imagery opened up and I saw a crystal clear, high-definition popcorn ceiling. I decided to try to engage with it but couldn't imagine how. It wasn't like a road I could walk down, for instance. Then it appeared again, and I determined that I would just project my awareness at it.

Suddenly, I experienced incredibly intense vibrations, my vision grew brighter and brighter, and I realized that I was no longer laying on my side, but looking directly upwards. This blew my mind, because it was obvious I was in a "dream body" that had begun parting from my physical body. So I did what I'd read a hundred times, and continued rolling to the left, until I was standing presumably a few feet to the left of my bed, in a dream. I couldn't believe it happened. I'd tried this in theory before, but it never worked, I would just move in real life. It was like the power of the transitory moment reached a critical mass and allowed me to shift my body awareness 90 degrees and that was enough to get things moving.

Unfortunately, I was in a numb, almost paralyzed state. My body was buzzing deeply like it always does during dark false awakenings. I tried to speak but felt like my mouth was glued shut. So I began intending for a scene to form. But before it had a chance, I think my infant woke me up. I would still take this 3-minute amazing experience over a half hour DILD any day!

That's a WILD from someone who didn't think he could WILD. Granted, I used supplements. But at least now the sensation isn't a total mystery. Apparently, you don't have to lose heart if you worry, like me, that you just aren't neurologically inclined to experience the transition from wakefuless to dreaming.