Close, but not quite there yet

I have been trying to WILD for ages. Started using the LDOC technique (focus on back of head, feel mind falling backwards) which is getting me closer than ever.

Almost every time now I can fall asleep whilst maintaining conciousness, but it lasts for a maximum of about 1 second, once I felt like I was in a dream but it was so fast I'm not really sure, every other time I feel that I have drifted off but get pulled back immediately. It is as if I can't just let myself go and the act of falling asleep is too much and my mind soesn't like the loss of control and yanks me back out.

Is this a normal part of the learning process and one day it will just click?? or is there anything I'm not doing that I should be? Even just knowing that there is a few moments gap between falling asleep and something else happening would be helpful so I feel as if I know what to expect.

I have to say I have yet to have a lucid dream (over 6 months so far) so don't really yet know what to expect so it's all still uncharted territory. I'm slightly frightened of going lucid by a WILD but prepared for anything, maybe it's actually a bit too exciting still and that's why I always wake, or a combination of the two.

I feel so close and yet still so far from actually getting there.

Thanks in advance for any comments.

I think that one day it's just going to work out - since it's very hard to find the border between aware enough and aware too much... After that one time you'll have a better sense of how it feels and will be able to have more control next time. Even though it's likely that some of the next tries (after the first success) will probably fail - on average you'll see an improvement.

That's how it's for me - after I restarted my LDing practice 4 months ago, I also started doing WILDs again (something that was fairly easy for me in the past). But just like it took me quite a few months to get better at it in the past, now after 4 months I'm still with a relatively low success rate (where it comes to directly maintaining awareness). But on average (monthly) I see improvement.

The yanking back out feeling, at least for me, is associated with maintaining "too much" awareness - so it's like my mind has to wake me up from that (and it also makes it harder to sleep afterwards). Maybe you should start experimenting with the level of focus you maintain, and focus slightly less. At least in my experience, even if I just lose awareness altogether it still raises the DILD chances in the following dream by a lot. So I lean towards falling asleep rather than over-focusing and not being able to sleep at all.

About going lucid by WILD - you shouldn't be frightened by it especially if you had DILDs before. The only difference is how you enter the dream... Have you experienced HH and HI? These are the hardest parts to me to pass, but after that one of the HI can develop into a full dream or a full dream can just appear. It's like some figures suddenly appear out of the blackness. For example, in a recent experience of mine a crack of light appeared in this blackness. Then the crack changed shape and looked as if it's a crack between a door and a wall that lead to a very bright space (relatively to the lighting inside - which is still blackness). So I just pulled the "door" away and entered the well lit hallway (and the dream started there). On a different recent occasion, the blackness changed into fog that started going away revealing a city. The way the scene starts varies a lot, but it's not frightening. Might feel like floating or falling or something similar, but it's not uncomfortable, just weird. Plus, FAs are very common so sometimes there won't even be a transition...

Thanks Spock.

I have actually just read through one of the sticky threads on this topic and it has been enormously helpful (I should have read it before I posted!)

I very easily get HI and it can be extremely detailed. I find that if I focus on it then I don't fall asleep and I can watch it for ages with nothing happening, so I haven't really concentrated on getting that and more on staying concious into sleep. I also get just about every other sensation decribed in the WILD tutorials but it never goes past that.

I agree with you I think it will just click soon, I feel just a little bit closer each time I try.

Thanks, and I'm glad you found a helpful thread too!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Smudgefish

I very easily get HI and it can be extremely detailed. I find that if I focus on it then I don't fall asleep and I can watch it for ages with nothing happening, so I haven't really concentrated on getting that and more on staying concious into sleep. I also get just about every other sensation decribed in the WILD tutorials but it never goes past that.

---

Yes, it's the same for me - focusing on HI gets me nowhere and HHs wake me up if I focus on them, so I usually just try to passively watch the HI and ignore HH... I was asking to know how close you are, so sounds like you're very close. No way to tell which of the HI or HH is going to be the last one before the dream - sometimes it's very quick and sometimes takes longer.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Smudgefish

...

I very easily get HI and it can be extremely detailed. I find that if I focus on it then I don't fall asleep and I can watch it for ages with nothing happening, ...

I also get just about every other sensation decribed in the WILD tutorials but it never goes past that.

---

When you get HH, you are either very close to falling asleep and dreaming, or the HH are already dreams. I used to get visual HH, ranging from photographs of flowers, animated cartoon images, or full videos of something happening. For the longest time I had no idea how to "go past" this or how to turn them into lucids. Tutorials saying "just let the dream envelope you" didn't mean a thing to me.

Until one day, while flying over a landscape, I picked a spot in it and said with strong intent not allowing any doubts. I said "I am there". I said it slowly for dramatic impact, haha, and also so my mind has time to comprehend what i want. After I said it, I felt physical motion of my body being moved to the inside of the dream until I touched down. At that moment I changed from observer to participant and I was inside of a 3D environment, lucid.

Later on I learned, that if I have no suitable HH to enter like this, but when I as much as suspect that I could already be dreaming, all I have to do is stand up.

Oh, and that "falling back" sensation. When I first read that in posts by Matte87, I had no idea how that would work but since I'm opened to anything, I tried. And omg, it worked amazingly. All I have to do is push my dream head into the pillow. Not for real, only mentally. If I'm already dreaming or close to transition, this will definitelly start the transition or at least gives me a tangible clue that I am already there. Because somethimes it's just ahrd to know where exactly in the process you are. So best thing is to start doing motionless RC like trying to stand up or fall backwards, or move our arm pretty much as soon as you start WILDing.

One more thing. The timing of falling asleep at the precise time of when HH show up is not the easiest thing to do. If you fall asleep too soon, you will end up in non-lucid sleep. If too late, you wake yourself up from excitement of HH. The key is to keep your awareness till dream is ready for you and then fall asleep.

Sometimes this requires to say soma mantras to wake you up a bit if you notice falling asleep without dream being ready, or stopping the mantra and just try to fall asleep with intent to wake up in few seconds and check if you have a dream ready. Kinda dip in a sleep, wake up, check, and repeat till everything is aligned.

Thanks gab,

Useful information there, perhaps I should try using the HI again, and I like your description of dipping in and out that is how it seem to happen for me. Interesting to hear you have had success with LDOC.

I had a weird sleep paralysis last night that started as a dream about WILDing (full write up in my dream journal). Real shame I missed the opportunity to turn it into an OBE or lucid, I think I tried too early whilst it was still a dream, by the time it was a sleep paralysis I wasn't think straight I panicked and just wanted to get out of it. Talking about all of this certainly triggered that one! I hope it happens again.