Thread: Need a way to get inward focus during WILD

I pay attention to a visual spot which tends to form between my eyes, through which I can see tiny things. While I am doing that, I just let my body go numb from lack of movement. I know I am there when my vision becomes crystallized into facets, sort of like how an insect might see things.

i use the HIT
works for me the best

is HIT hypnagogic imagery? And if it is, how long does it take you to get the the HI?
In otherwords, can you elaborate?

Have you tried the "stop, drop and roll"-way? It worked for me by accident the first time I tried WILD when I had just given up and thought I'd failed.

First lie with your arms over your head for maybe 10 minutes, this is more comfortable then having your arms down, try to relax. This also causes your muscles to actually build up tension so that when you put them down you'll get more relaxed.
So after 10 minutes you put your arms down on your sides and build up the roll-signal untill it becomes real uncomfortable.
Then eventually when you just can't handle it anymore and it's completely unbarable, turn on your side and lie in foetusposition (not to crawled up). Stretch your body, you'll probably feel very good, sort of like your whole body yawns. Then focus on dreaming, eventually you'll hear sounds and get HI.

Since you seem to get real uncomfortable already this could work, it makes your body "take the chance" and fall asleep quickly enough for you to notice the hypnagogic state.

Still, during all this you should follow this pattern "1, (breath in slow, breath out quicker), I'm dreaming, 2..." etc.

@debussy

huu
i noticed the same effect tonite...what a coincidence you mention this - maybe a connection through dreams?
ok, i´ll stop before i get arrested by Shift and Co ´



@bigCHEESEy77

yes, HIT = hypnagogic imagery
it varies how long it takes me to see the first signs of HH but the more relaxed you are the quicker you will enter hypnogogia
try to combine this with debussy´s teq - i´ll do it 2nite


thx debussy for mentioning!

Instead of trying to build a visualization from scratch, try using a memory. Just recall a vivid memory and relive it in your mind over and over again. Make it something tactile that engages your body and your attention.

If you can't come up with a good vivid memory, take some time in the next few days to create one. Go do something out of the ordinary and memorable. Be sure to stay aware during the whole activity, memorizing what it feels and looks like. Really engage the experience and file it away for later.

You could even do something really obvious or unimaginative. Lie in your bed, then get up, run out of the house, and jog around the block. Then, just replay that memory in your head while you WILD.

sounds good. I might do that tonight with WBTB (If I can build up the will power to). How long should I stay up for the WBTB?

Stay up for about 30 minutes. Drink some water, goto the bathroom etc. I'd recommend reading about LD during this time, go on this website. Then back to bed.

30 minutes?! wow. That's a lot more than the five minutes that I usually do (might I add the the 5 minutes never works). I guess I'll try it. So, here is the WILD technique I will use tonight.

1. Wake up around 3:30.

2. Stay up for 30 minutes. Get a drink of water, use the restroom, stretch.

3. Lie down on back with arms above head for 10 minutes. Try to relax as much as possible using breathe in white light, breathe out all tension.

4. Bring arms down. (what should I do here?)

5. Roll to side. Breathe in, "1", breathe out, "I'm dreaming". Focus entirely on the number and the words. (this probably won't get my mind off my body, so should I do memory visualization instead? Or should I wait for HH and focus on them?)

6. get past sleep paralysis and let a dream scene form then use Malac's fast grab

Almost correct. But there is usually no SP this way. This is how I do it:

1. Correct

2. Correct

3. Ineed your arms up. But you start the counting/breathing here after lying still for a while and getting used to lying in the bed, get comfortable. I only count to 100 then I start over ("too much thinking" when you're up to like 437 etc.). Now don't look at any watch, just lie stil, relax, then start counting to 100 over and over again. But when you think about 10 minutes has passed you continue to the next step.

4. Bring your arms down (on each side of your body). Make sure your neck is comfortable also (it can get a little uncomfy when taking your arms down). Then you continue counting/breathing. This is the big exausting step when you build up the rollover-signal/feeling for about 15 minutes. You might experience vibrations/numbness during this step. You can even fall into SP.

5. When this feeling is too painfull you roll over on your side. Now on this step I stop counting. I only breath and focus on dreaming. But not too hard. Just think about dreaming, and notice the HI (dosen't have to be vivid pictures on your mindscreen, it can just be light and coulours). You can try to control the colours and shapes of the patterns that appear. Eventually you most likely will hear a white noise and as you hear this you'll feel yourself entering the dream.

6. You might enter complete blackness. Now you can easily think about a scenery or use the spin-technique.

sounds good. I will do that tonight and post my results. I'm excited, because I've never even made it fully to SP before.

dissapointment....... My alarm clock didnt wake me up for a WBTB, and I slept undisturbed till morning. I'll try again tonight, and make sure to turn the volume in my alarm off.

Originally Posted by bigCHEESE77

dissapointment....... My alarm clock didnt wake me up for a WBTB, and I slept undisturbed till morning. I'll try again tonight, and make sure to turn the volume in my alarm off.

I know that feeling. More than half of the times I try WBTB I'll turn off my alarm clock without waking up

ok. I did the WILD last night after a little more than an hour WBTB. I don't really know what happened.
I did the arms up position and tried to count my breaths, but counting screws up my breathing, and I end us gasping for air or hyperventillating. So instead, I just played back an episode of MASH that I had watched earlier that day. It was pretty effective, and I got very relaxed. I then brought my arms down, and again didn't count breaths because of the problems it presented. Instead, I tried visualizing. I think that worked, because eventually images and short events started happening in my mind's eye (I don't get any HI on my eyelids). They were pretty vivid, and I'm not sure if these were dreamscenes forming or HH. They didn't last very long and none of them turned into dreams except for one, but because I didn't correctly transition into it, I lost lucidity. Overall, I was trying to WILD for.....umm....well....I don't know. My guess is a little less than an hour.

So, the new problem. How to tell if the dreamscenes are solid enough to transition into and how to transition into them.

(SP never happened. I had numbness for a little bit, but I did not have any SP signs. I didn't try to move until I woke up from the dream, so I don't know if I am a signless SP person. Also, I stayed in the second position, on my back, because the roll over signal never built up, so I assumed I might have already been in SP.

Counting can indeed mess with your breathing and can be very boring.

If you find it difficult to count, breath and "hypnotize" yourself I suggest reading this article by adraw: http://www.dreamviews.com/community/...ad.php?t=61525

Sort of what you actually did, rather then counting, it's about "forgetting your body" and constructing a dream-film in your internal world out of memories. It works effectively since you don't put energy into supressing your whole thinkingprocess rather just focusing its direction imagining tactile sensations and such.

This morning when I did WILD I followed some of adraws advice. I didn't count anything and I didn't even have to turn on my side like I usually have to, I was just suddenly thrown into the dreamworld (and no SP). (OT: However I lost control and was thrown out, but then I turned on my side and went back again and had chained DEILD:s for about an hour).

I think if you are having problems with our attention being stuck on your body, I am guessing that your problem might be that your body has too much tension and is not relaxed enough. I haven't heard of the "stop, drop, and roll" technique before mentioned by debussy, but it seems like it could be very helpful. On many occasions I have been laying on my back for over an hour trying to WILD, only to give up and roll over into fetal position and shortly there after find myself LDing. I would also like to emphasize stretching. It is really that important. It helps for the body to become deeply relaxed. Often times when I do WBTB (successfully) I will have stayed up for around thirty minutes, not five, and have spent at least ten of those minutes stretching. Actually ten minutes of stretching is not even really that much, but can usually help the body achieve the minimum amount of relaxation needed for a good LD.

As for when dream scenes being solid enough to transition into, well, you will know and just be able to do it. When the visions typically start off, they might be very small and not very detailed. But if you are going deeper and deeper into trance, then later waves of visions should get larger, last longer, and be more detailed. Eventually when you have a dream scene that takes up your whole field of vision and is lasting for a little while you can just think yourself into it, just like you can think things into experience in a lucid dream. Think of entering the dream scene as your first lucid act of the LD. You just kind of do it, just like you do anything else in a LD. It won't be difficult and it will feel like you kind of get sucked into the scene. For me that is the shift from 2D to 3D. I often enter the dream scene just by walking into it. I often find that I am just able to move my head or something to look around the dream scene and I know I can just walk into it, because I have already moved my head. If you have tried to enter the dream scene and it didn’t work, you just weren’t deep enough in trance. If you are patient and can go deeper in trance then in a later wave of visualization you should be able to enter with more ease.

Good luck. :-)

This post is wierd because Billybob(the LDer I respect the most) actual wrote a thread suggested using a dull ache or pain as the reference point to remind you of your own body(or whatever it was for). And that it could be very useful in that manner, try looking at his wild thread to see if you can use this to your advantage.

Edit* here it is
http://www.dreamviews.com/community/...ad.php?t=62282

I read Billy Bob's informative tuturial. He is right about what he says and his tuturial is simple and staight forward. His thread in the link is a "general" all purpose tuturial and this thread, which is not a tuturial but answering specific points seems to me to compliment Billy Bob's tuturial very well. Billy Bob's thread was introducing using pain as an anchor, but not "THE" anchor. And this thread is discussing other types of anchors. Billy Bob mentions the importance of the being relaxed, and this thread is giving bigcheese77 suggestions on how to relax his body. How do you think they are conflicting with each other?

Originally Posted by Awhislyle

This post is wierd because Billybob(the LDer I respect the most) actual wrote a thread suggested using a dull ache or pain as the reference point to remind you of your own body(or whatever it was for). And that it could be very useful in that manner, try looking at his wild thread to see if you can use this to your advantage.

Edit* here it is
http://www.dreamviews.com/community/...ad.php?t=62282

Billybob really nicely stated, that the expectations ruin the WILD attempt. But what happens, if the consciousness is not occupied anyhow? Simply it eighter passes out, or it finds something to DO. The correct way is somewhere in the middle. The key is to let the consciousness be as passive as possible by transposing it from manipulative to observative stance and later to passive stance, the stance of simple being without performing any action to prove it. Conscious participation in transition processes is unwanted and causes only disbalance.

Therefore you have to retain its coherency using some kind of stable anchor. (Example of which is the pain). It has to be subtle to avoid interference with transition, and also unrelated to transition itself for the same reason. Thats why some of the people prefer to subtly observe some external source (It simply doesnt need much consciouss effort). Visualisations need conscious effort.... Thats true, but if you take into consideration, that consciouss effort is needed only at the beginning stages of visualisation and later on, creative inertia kicks in, you may make consciouss attempt more and more subtle and you may get the same result.

I WILDed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YEEEEEESSSSS!!!!!! I am so happy, and so hopeful. I thought I would never be able to WILD, and I had almost given up on the whole LD thing because I was having a killer dry spell. Well, dry spell over (sort of).

I would write out what happened again, but I am lazy, so I will just post the thread where I wrote about it. thanks for all the help!!!

http://dreamviews.com/community/showthread.php?t=79162

Congratulations It should get easier with practice. At least now, you know what you're supposed to be practicing.

HA! Lucky Guy!

Congrats cheeze. Been fun reading and learning from this thread. We share much the same symptoms, so if you can post your exact technique, I would much appreciate it!

thanks OfficerFlake. And I'm still working on my technique. I have been using it a lot to see if it has flaws. It does.

I use the stop drop and roll techniqe along with visualizations. So basically, I just start in stop position, and visualize for a while. Then I bring my hands down and visualize for a while. Then I turn over and visualize until I'm in a dream.

The flaw is this: when I visualize, I start out the picture then let it take off like a dream would. This happens when you're tired (WBTB). Because of this, I don't really use conscious thought that much. I just experience the visualizations. This makes it super easy to just fall asleep. I am basically letting my mind drift, so if a dream does form around me, I won't be lucid. I'm trying to fix that.

As for what to do for the visualizations, I use something that I really like/want to do. visualize something you are passionate about doing. I visualize myself flying. Make sure it is something that will take your mind off your body. Adraw's thread about this is helpful, but he talks about visualizing something like walking around your room and feeling things. To me, this is boring and doesn't get my mind off my body because it does not capture my attention or entertain me, so I have no inspiration to keep visualizing it. With flying visualization, I am involved and happily keeping my mind off my body. I'm sure other things than flying could work also, like having an epic war, swordfight, and umm....."other" activities.

Yeah I tried last night too. No lucidity just yet, but I am advancing... I have made it to the next step (ie: Inward Focus) just from being in the stop position.

It'll take me a while to fully get there, but I'm making it.

My technique, was to think of something i really enjoy as well. I thought of doing a parade as an officer on the parade ground... sword and all. My mind let thing exagerate for me... For example, Cadet Warrent Officer Adams is now Squadron Leader(AAFC) Adams.... I was a Cadet Under Officer at first... then after a little bit, I decided to spawn a jet on the runway... It worked! Although it was a Sukhoi 27 at first... so i just looked away and tried again. Eventually i got that F/A-18A... Then I swapped bodies with the pilot of the aircraft...

The person I was, Was CSGT James, Who is now CUO James. I am now Myself... But Air Cheif Marshall . So myself and james get the jets airbourne of that tiny parade ground... And do some aerobatics around Rutherford at first, and then move to Williamtown.

The whole time I was conciously saying to myself "Hey you're not a CUO! Oh well..." Acknowledging the dream. I was also trying to immerse all the senses, primarily the sense of touch (to ignore the body's sense of touch). It worked to the point that I decided to do an RC... But I was awake at the time... I moved my arms to the Drop position... And then things just fell apart after that. I lost focus on becoming lucid... ETC. ETC...

My SP, I've noticed, Is very light. I rarely feel waves... I rarely feel "Floaty" or "Heavy"... i just go numb from the extremities to the core eventually... This makes it very difficult to tell when I am to RC. Practice makes perfect!

Thanks for all the help, Especially Adraw, Whos technique has made this so much easier!