Music as an Anchor: So Annoying

Some of my recent WILDs have been done using loudish music as an anchor. I used music because I generally fall asleep to it anyways, and I needed something to drown out the noise going on around me. Normally, I don't use anchors at all for my method, but I figured why the hell not. What could go wrong?

Needless to say, I was successful. Unfortunately, the music followed me into the dreamworld, and boy howdy was it annoying. Distorted lyrics, noticeable beat shifts, and no way to turn the damn thing off were just a few of the wonderful things waiting for me upon dream entry.

Now, when faced with something like this you have a few choices: wake yourself up and ruin a perfectly good WILD, try to ignore it and go about the dream as per usual, or obsess over it and waste your WILD trying to turn it off or change it. Great options, if I do say so myself.

I've tried out the latter two. Going about the dream and getting any goals done becomes much harder when you've got a song distracting you, and turning it off is harder than it sounds. . .

Moral of the story: Using music as an anchor just plain sucks, in my experience.

Has anyone else ever experienced this phenomenon? Got any ideas on how to make it less invasive and downright irritating?

Or do you not have this problem at all?

I used to do this quite a few times, I used to meditate and then I just drifted off in something closer to a kind of a trance state but a few times I figured why not try WILD this way and I did. First I thought just like you do, I found it really distracting, but then I figured that since there isn't that much I can do about it, I built the dream around the music. I figure this might be better for music at least somewhat similar to what I was listening (monotonous drumming) instead of "pop" music (rock, metal, whatever). I have to say though, it was one my best lucids ever. It was kind of like having a set theme for the dream and not having absolute, complete control over everything.

I just sing/play songs in my head. When hypnogogia sets in, it actually turns into an audio hallucination (sometimes I have been tempted to get up and turn the radio off, until I remembered that it's only playing in my head)...when the dream starts...it goes away nicely. Though sometimes I have continued singing it in my head into the lucid dream, but could have stopped had I wanted to. I would not choose to listen to music during a WILD, and have heard too many horror stories about CDs skipping and weird songs coming on unexpectedly. I have entered a WILD listening to some nice holographic audio waves crashing though, but the sound of the waves didn't follow me into the dream world. White/pink noise is also tolerable.

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Originally Posted by Aquanina

I just sing/play songs in my head. When hypnogogia sets in, it actually turns into an audio hallucination

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Yeah that I still do when I'm writing music (most of the time I just draw/paint because visuals are somehow just easier than music) I just force myself to "wake up" and recreate the things I hear/see.

I guess that is kind of like a failed WILD, but intentional.

What if you put on some special earmuffs in the dream that would drown out all unwanted sounds?

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Originally Posted by Muggler

What if you put on some special earmuffs in the dream that would drown out all unwanted sounds?

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Didn't work. When I say obsessive, I mean obsessive. I tried everything I could think of. . . multiple times.

Meh. As long as it's good music, I don't think I'd mind having music playing in my dream.

Well, if you listen to heavy shit, I guess it would make sense that you feel frustrated. Have you ever tried calm piano music or something? :D

I listen to lighter more relaxing stuff when I sleep. Really, the biggest problem I have with it is that it messes up my focus, attention, and emotions which makes control really difficult.

I would imagine that there's a concert taking place. Open a door and join it. I had a concert dream once and it's ranked among my best dreams ever. Although I wasn't lucid during this. But that actually sounds like a lot of fun to me. I'll have to try this some time. But, I guess I may be imagining it totally different than how it would actually be.

If I'm tired in bed listening to music, I usually fall asleep and wake up like 15 minutes later. I've tried using this to WILD but it hasn't worked.