Breaking illusions: Learning WILD (Amateur vs. Professional)

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Breaking illusions: Learning WILD (Amateur vs. Professional) Did you ask yourself question, why your WILD attempts are not successfull? Lets join me, when I try to explain what makes distinction between amateur and professional approach in terms of WILDing. Introduction My average WILD attempt in past looked like this: I woke up early in the morning, just about 4:00am. It was a perfect time to do some WILDing, dont you think?. I remained awake for a while to make my mind more aware, and then entered my bed, tried to do some relaxation. Eventually I got deeper. After some time, some numbness introduced itself and everything went as I readed here in DW. Great, At least I thought. And then i got that famous urge to swallow. I didn't know, what to do. This got my attention and i really had to think about what to do next instead of relaxing.The sensation itself was unpleasant, but having to decide was even more distracting. I finally tried to resist, becouse I read somewhere, that I could ruin the attempt when moving. After some time I couldnt do anything else but to swallow. My first decision was wrong. This got me out of balance and I was so upset, that I couldnt continue... You recognize this story, dont you? I made a mistake just as anybody else and got out of balance, when I could simply continue with (maybe?) successfull WILD, if I only knew, i should just reflexively swallow. Failtures are inevitable. But the difference between amateur and professional is, that the professional learns from his experience, where amateur simply does the same mistake again and again. I was definitely an amateur Learning from the experience WILD is a simple process, but doesnt mean, that you know how to do it. You will do lot of mistakes, start living with it. Sometimes you will enter situations, where what you took as granted, simply doesnt work. Thats a FACT. You can burn your WILDs again and again the same way only becouse you didnt learn from your mistakes. Just let me guess: What do you usually do after unsuccessfull WILD attempt? I will not be too far away if I said, that you: -eighter fall asleep, and in the morning continue with your usual daily routine, -or remain awake, feel miserable and wait till the alarm clock signalizes you have to start your day. Actually... What did you LEARN from your unsuccessfull attempt? That you wont do the same mistake again? And: What exactly was the mistake about? Why did that mistake happenned? What could have been the cause? What did You forget to do? Does this relate somehow to your previous experience? No. You didnt learn anything, becouse you didnt give yourself time to learn. You have to learn if you want to be successfull with your wilds. And learning from experience is considered to be way to success. Journal and Breafing If you want to get better at WILDing, you have to find a way, how to analyze your experience. It really does not matter, if your experience was something you would describe as good for WILDing or something preventing you from successfully WILDing. Everything what caught your attention in process needs your attention. You cannot analyze and even not fully comprehend whats happening on the fly, when you are relaxing or when everything around you collapses while transitioning. The only thing you can do, is to do your best and simply perform what you have learned. Let everything else step aside. After you finished, and you know the end result (success/unsuccess) you may start to actually learn. This is the place, where you should usually start with JOURNALING. You simply, write down what caught your attention, what was special about your attempt. That's all. Its not practical to analyse just after trying, when you are eighter frustrated after unsuccess or exhilarated after success. Eighter way, your analysis would be biased. Journaling allows you to further investigate your experience later, when you can clearly think. Journaling bridges the experience itself and further experiences, becouse you can actually learn from What you journaled. Later at that day, or at the evening, you can take a look at what you recorded after the attempt and think about what happened and what could be the cause to your unsuccess. If you have no journaled data, you simply cannot prepare yourself for the next attempt effectively. Without journal you will forget or bias, what happened and could interpret it wrong way. BREAFING is a time span, where you prepare yourself for the next attempt. Most of the time doing breafing means, that you analyse, what happened in previous attempt (attempts) and then use this knowledge to your advantage. Example: SITUATION: Monday: Performing WILD in the morning, trying to practice deep breathing to achieve trance. failed. JOURNAL ENTRY: I practiced deep breathing, and could not get deeper, becouse i was controlling my breath. BRIEFING: a)ANALYSIS - Probably I was trying to control the breathing instead of letting it go. Maybe I should try one of the following: - Try creating visualisation to distract me from breathing (harder) - Just trying to breath in tempo which feels natural and sacrificing deepness (simpler) b)TODO - Decided i will stick to simpler task. Breathing in tempo. In few minutes i will condition myself to remember breathing as naturally as possible when it comes to situation where I gain focus on my breathing. To do this i will repeat this mantra .....[/I] You start with performing WILD, which is purest experience, then you journal it, so you can analyse it later. Briefing closes this loop and allows the next experience to be different (and hopefully better) than experiences before. BRIEFING relates to WILD like training to performance. If you dont know, what to do, you cannot do it well. In learning process BRIEFING is equally important to WILD, if not more. Conclusion In your WILD attempts, it usually comes to situations, where you dont know, what to do next. Its perfectly natural, becouse you are exploring new teritory presenting itself in ways you could not even imagine before. Making decision on the fly, when everything is soooo complicated usually ruins the attempt. Especially when you dont know, what to expect. If you are not prepared, its hard to enjoy the ride, becouse you have to find out what to do (Which can be stressing), instead of doing something (Which might lead to LD) Remember. When it is 4:00 a.m. and you are tired, but ready to experience something cool in upcomming lucid dream, what is it you wish? -I want to learn how to WILD OR -I want to WILD now!!! Decide by hearth. You cannot do both at the same time effectively. My decision is clear. Hope this helps.