Thread: What am I doing wrong.

Every time I WILD nothing happens. I usually so a WBTB for a few minutes but also have tried in a nap. First I relax my body and mind. Then I focus on my breath for a little while to clear my thoughts. After that I just lie still and start to imagine sensations like falling or flipping because I've heard that could help, but at this point I get no where. I know I'm not supposed to expect HI, HH, vibrations, etc, but I seem to be going nowhere in my attempts. I also wait a good amount of time before giving up. What am I doing wrong?

Relax enough to fall asleep. Keep your mind aware, but barely. You must be able to let your body fall asleep. Don't wait and then give up; wait and fall asleep, either with success or not.

Wow thanks sivasion. I never really thought of trying with that much effort. I also didn't know I was supposed to be barley aware. Thanks. This really helped.

I agree with Sivason it is better to fall asleep to fast and fail the WILD than focus to hard and not fall asleep. I'm not that great at WILD but my failed WILD attempts usually turn into succesful DILDs.

The key thing is you *must* fall asleep! No sleep, no dreams. Getting good at WILD means becoming an expert in learning how you sleep and dream. I know for me that I just can't fall asleep with any kind of clear thinking at all, or if I have the sense that I'm "trying to do something" at all. If I try to keep an alert mind and wait to fall asleep I never do. The thoughts must be really really quiet and indistinct, and I must "let go" entirely. Somehow I need to sneak in a tiny bit of awareness, and I haven't yet figured out how to do it. Finding that sweet spot takes a lot of experimentation.

Thanks for the responses guys. I tried last night a few times, but didn't have enough awarness and fell asleep after around 2 minutes. What I'm going to try is to have slightly little longer WBTBs, relax through some breathing exercises, then try and fall asleep, but catch my self as I dose off. Hopefully this will get me close to sleep, and I can remain just slightly aware. To remain aware I might just focus on one part of my body like a finger or arm until I get to a dream.

Originally Posted by AlexTheDreamer

To remain aware I might just focus on one part of my body like a finger or arm until I get to a dream.

That's actually a pretty good idea. There's a technique out there called FILD (finger induced lucid dream) I don't know if you've heard of it or not but basically, after you WBTB, you get up, maybe go to the bathroom or something, then you go back to sleep. But when you do go back to sleep, move your index finger and your middle finger up and down like you're playing a piano. As you move your fingers up and down, start to move them less and less until you're not moving them at all, but you're just focused on the thought of them moving. I've never tried this technique myself, but I heard it works well and is easy to do. If you haven't heard of it, I suggest you go read about it online or something and then try it out. Best of luck my dude

I tried sivisons advice last night and had a WILD after a couple of tries. I don't usually WILD when I try so this was encouraging!

@fluffbutt1 I actually got this idea from the FILD technique, which I've tried before, but haven't succeeded.

@dolphin nice job

For my relaxation technique I've actually found something that could work really well. I found it on this website, and it's mainly just inhaling for 4 seconds, holding it for 7 seconds,and then exhaling for 8 seconds. Supposedly this is able to get some people asleep in just 1 minute, so I'll be using it for relaxation for WILD.

I am glad some of you are getting ideas from this. With the FILD variation try instead moving only the tactile sensation of you dream body instead of your actual fingers. Learn more on that stuff in the Dream Yoga class.
Alexthedreamer is onto something. You do not try advanced things until you can do the first stuff. Well sleep is the first step. Everyone should put aside chasing lucid for a few days and instead learn how to sleep. Can you sleep easily; what state of mind brings in a blurry half world at the moment of sleep, and so on. Spend some time knowing your sleep and then look into improving it.