Thread: WILD According to Sageous Q & A

Originally Posted by Sageous

^^ Hmm. Putting hypnic-jerk to work does seem like a new route; at least I've never heard of it.

Corralling a body function into a mind function seems a difficult task, but if you can pull it off, I think you will indeed have lots of success... of course, you will have the success; I almost never experience hypnic-jerks, so I can only watch from the sidelines as you develop your plan.

Interesting tip. I might just give it a try; thanks!

I'm gonna give my best shot^^

p.s. If I can find my old notes I can send you my own meditation technique I developed years ago. It gives the feeling you are high on LSD

Argh, Darn fake pens. My old notes got busted because of the humidity, I will try to recreate it by memory alone.

On other hand I have some questions related to WILD. Here is the list.

1)Did you ever tried FILD? Did it work like described or it is just an urban legend?

2)While repeating your mantra did you ever reach dream state without realizing it, I mean it happen so fast that you thought, you fail and you are about to suffer insomnia.

3)Did you ever found an object or DC(though that is not their true name) that is brighter and more colorful than the rest or even rainbow colored and can give you certain vibe while being lucid of course, unless you become lucid from meeting/finding that DC/object?

[Huh... I thought I posted a response to this yesterday; I wonder where it went? Oh well...]

Originally Posted by StarSeeker

1)Did you ever tried FILD? Did it work like described or it is just an urban legend?

Nope. At first I thought it was a joke, that someone was making fun of all those ILD's.... I mean, seriously, Finger? But after reading about it, it does seem a viable, if very silly, technique for WILD. I never tried it, though, as I'm comfortable with what I got.

2)While repeating your mantra did you ever reach dream state without realizing it, I mean it happen so fast that you thought, you fail and you are about to suffer insomnia.

Sure, but only when I've lost enough focus that I fail to notice he transition. Mantras help with focus; they don't cure a lack of it.

3)Did you ever found an object or DC(though that is not their true name) that is brighter and more colorful than the rest or even rainbow colored and can give you certain vibe while being lucid of course, unless you become lucid from meeting/finding that DC/object?

I'm not sure I understand the question, but I have found several unique objects in LD's and NLD's over the years; objects that seemed to transcend the dream, defy accurate description, and were very important to me at the time. And yes, when the objects appeared during NLD's, lucidity always followed. Not so much with DC's, though: lots of inexplicable strangers, sure, and a few DC's were more important to me than others, but no "brighter or more colorful" ones that I remember. Oh, and in both cases none ever appeared rainbow-colored.

Originally Posted by Sageous

Sure, but only when I've lost enough focus that I fail to notice the transition. Mantras help with focus; they don't cure a lack of it.

Lol if I focus too much I can't fall asleep, in some other tip on DV a guy said "You must be prepared everything to happen and ignore it, but don't wait something to happen". So are you expecting to hit a SP?

Tonight on multiple occasions I tried WILD and get the following experience:
I was repeating my mantra synced to my breathing and suddenly was awaken by my family, we talked, do stuff and even I get out of the house for a short while. When returned I got in bed again and start to repeat my mantra again to only be awaken by loud bang noise comming from the outside, an astronaut had trown a rock at my window, I yelled at him to go catch the ship and get out of here, because he was disturbing my WILD induction. I get back in the bed and start repeating my mantra again while trying to fall asleep, next minute I woke up in my real bed while still repeating the mantra and realized what had happened.^^

I'm not sure I understand the question, but I have found several unique objects in LD's and NLD's over the years; objects that seemed to transcend the dream, defy accurate description, and were very important to me at the time. And yes, when the objects appeared during NLD's, lucidity always followed. Not so much with DC's, though: lots of inexplicable strangers, sure, and a few DC's were more important to me than others, but no "brighter or more colorful" ones that I remember. Oh, and in both cases none ever appeared rainbow-colored.

I read your OP and just found one more similarity between us, interesting.

By that I mean you are in a dream (even when lucid), and nothing about the dream seems to have anything at all to do with you, your life, the people you know, etc. All the dream characters are strangers, the setting is completely unusual, and the plot of the dream relates to nothing in your life, your fantasies, or even, as best you can tell, waking life residue. I do not mean that you are watching the dream like it’s a movie, as that can regularly relate directly to the dreamer.

Lol as if I had written it, you totally took the words from my mouth.

I have experienced this countless times, and even investigated it while lucid -- for instance, while aware that I was dreaming, and who I was, I would ask dream characters who they were; also, I would carefully examine the scenery to see if there is anything at all I find familiar.

I did the same thing and got similar responces.

Oddly, when I questioned dream characters, they often looked at me like I was insane, but would not provide an answer. Also, these strangers in my dreams often acted as if I were an old friend.

Lol man you are blowing my mind. And I reach to my own theories:
1)They try to contain me into the ilussion of everything being real, they don't want me to become lucid. I think that have something to do with external forces. By acted as old friends and something in my mind saying that I know them as well(like fake memories), but the moment I say I don't know them at all and this is a dream, they are trying to kill me and forcibly awaken me. Strong minds must be contained!

I have found that strangers in my dreams seem to make great efforts to curb my lucidity … ie, when I am in a state of strong lucidity and seek to eliminate the dream around me in order to change it or pursue other things conscious, I often find the dream suddenly crowded with strangers clamoring for attention, and occasionally grabbing my legs should I try to fly away..

The same with all means necessary to keep me bounded. Sometimes even show me disturbing images (changes dream scenery), like my family is dying, my best friend is dead, my kitchen is in fire and I must wake up. Womans are trying to seduce me out of the blue.

But if I summon them, they are different than the rest, they are helping me. They even fight the others for me.

^^ Thanks for checking out my "other people's dreams" thread. Since it's more than off-topic for this thread, feel free to post there; it isn't a necro if I'm still here, and I mostly am!

Originally Posted by StarSeeker

Lol if I focus too much I can't fall asleep, in some other tip on DV a guy said "You must be prepared everything to happen and ignore it, but don't wait something to happen". So are you expecting to hit a SP?

I'm never expecting SP, for two reasons.

First, actual SP occurs when you are waking up, and not when you are falling asleep, so there is literally nothing to expect during a WILD, which occurs when you are waking up. The closest to actual SP is REM Atonia, which does occur when you're falling asleep, but, since you are able to exit REM Atonia whenever you want, it really isn't SP.

I also have the added advantage of learning to WILD many years before the term was coined, and before the internet made SP important. It never occurred to me that anything I was experiencing before a WILD should matter so, well, it didn't. I've had thousands of WILDS with minimal HI and no "SP" at all, so I don't bother expecting anything other than the dream.

Tonight on multiple occasions I tried WILD and get the following experience:
I was repeating my mantra synced to my breathing and suddenly was awaken by my family, we talked, do stuff and even I get out of the house for a short while. When returned I got in bed again and start to repeat my mantra again to only be awaken by loud bang noise comming from the outside, an astronaut had trown a rock at my window, I yelled at him to go catch the ship and get out of here, because he was disturbing my WILD induction. I get back in the bed and start repeating my mantra again while trying to fall asleep, next minute I woke up in my real bed while still repeating the mantra and realized what had happened.

Now there is a place I've been many times! FA's ability to erase lucidity can be pretty amazing -- and frustrating, when you wake up. I love the astronaut part, BTW!

I have been doing the Reverse Reality Check, as described in another thread of the WILD course, and i have been finding it an interesting exercise, besides the increased dream vivdness i have experienced in these first days.
I think it helps me to strengthen a sense of connection with my experience and a sense of order in terms of my actions and time. We are always interacting with the universe, and this exercise is interesting even if just for that matter. I hope to report again after some time. Thanks Sageous for the interesting exercise

Originally Posted by Sageous

Please use this thread to post any questions you have about the WILD According to Sageous Sessions, WILD, self-awareness, or any other related topic. I'll answer what I can, and maybe lively discussions will also ensue -- from which we all always learn!

Best of Dreams,

Sageous

Hi,

As I don't see an active thread about VILD and WILD is the closest thing and you are best in the field around here, I want to ask a question.

Can you have Rem rebound without falling asleep during nap hours, I have some strange experiences when laying down for a nap(very tired), but didn't fall asleep, just staying with eyes closed. What I am getting I can't describe as a HI, it looks more like a dream, but it cannot be a dream, because I'm awake, hear the TV in my room, feel my body and can open my eyes any time to end it. It looks like a interactive visualization, a lucid dream with limited FOV(field of vision). If a normal lucid dream have 120°-180° FOV, then main have 70° FOV. For example tonight I lay down and closed my eyes and after a five minutes or so it started again, colors appears, then something that resembles a room, which transform into classroom, I'm sitting on a desk, I look around mentally and see other students and in front there is a teacher writing on a white board and explaining something. I can talk and I'm asking the next person to me what is this place, he make a sign that he can't talk right now and then the teacher look at me and say why I'm disturbing his class, to stop moving and start writing, if not I can get out from there. I just start wondering what is happening and accidentally loss focus and everything fall apart. I'm still awake but if I close my eyes again a different scenario play out, until I get up or fall asleep on purpose. I only found that I must have absolute focus all the time or everything just fall apart.

So what is that, a rebound Rem or something else like a interactive hallucination.(I won't bother you with paranormal stuff)
I may have other questions, but need to mentally arrange them in order first.

^^ Sure, dreams -- or, more specifically, the imagery of dreams -- can certainly surface during awake times when you are still awake but are also hovering close to sleep, like waiting for a nap. This is especially true for LD's, which generally occur when you are very close to being awake, or perhaps are actually balancing on the fence between wake and sleep.

REM rebound (or the more exotic stuff) might have nothing to do with these phenomena. Your dreaming mind, I feel, is almost always ready to spool up imagery, and maybe a bit of a discernible storyline, regardless of your conscious state or your current position on the sleep cycle charts. This imagery might appear as dreamlets, like when you are working through a WILD transition, or as a full-blown dream during times when you are particularly relaxed, like mid-naptime. This can occur while you are still awake because, thanks to your relaxed napping state, your mind is receptive to the imagery. In fact, lately I've been wondering if we're not dreaming all the time, wake or not, and it just happens that during sleep or extreme relaxation the dream imagery can be perceived because the thick fog of waking-life perception has been lifted... sort of like the stars are always in the sky, but during the day the sunlight hides them. I, for one, have regularly continued a dream after waking, sometimes for quite a while (a very handy DEILD tool, BTW), and do so by doing little more than continuing to pay attention after I know I'm awake.

So I guess the bottom line here is that yes, because dream imagery can be available at the edges of sleep, there's no reason a dream might not turn up during times when you are a bit further away from those edges -- as long as you are paying attention.

Originally Posted by Sageous

^^ Sure, dreams -- or, more specifically, the imagery of dreams -- can certainly surface during awake times when you are still awake but are also hovering close to sleep, like waiting for a nap. This is especially true for LD's, which generally occur when you are very close to being awake, or perhaps are actually balancing on the fence between wake and sleep.

REM rebound (or the more exotic stuff) might have nothing to do with these phenomena. Your dreaming mind, I feel, is almost always ready to spool up imagery, and maybe a bit of a discernible storyline, regardless of your conscious state or your current position on the sleep cycle charts. This imagery might appear as dreamlets, like when you are working through a WILD transition, or as a full-blown dream during times when you are particularly relaxed, like mid-naptime. This can occur while you are still awake because, thanks to your relaxed napping state, your mind is receptive to the imagery.

Unexpectedly good answer, thank you! So in this relaxed napping state, I can still be awake while having lucid dream, which mean that maybe my theory about Alpha lucidity is correct, I read that meditational state can produce alpha waves and if I understand it correct just before we fall asleep we also produce Alpha waves, but we are not conscious about it, unless we are observing the process on purpose. That actually open an entire new box of possibilities, if I remember correctly the experiment of Dr Laberge for proving LD exist, here can be done something similar, but this time the dreamer can directly talk with him what he see and experience. Which can lead to another conclusion, the deep hypnosis session in the movies can be done for real, like memory relive. I'm sensing that bunch of new experiments are coming my way.

In fact, lately I've been wondering if we're not dreaming all the time, wake or not, and it just happens that during sleep or extreme relaxation the dream imagery can be perceived because the thick fog of waking-life perception has been lifted... sort of like the stars are always in the sky, but during the day the sunlight hides them.

I'm not sure about this, unless we cross the borderline of paranormal, but I'm an active daydreamer from young age and I can ascertain you that I can daydream with wide open eyes. I found at such times that I don't perceive the outside world, completely perceive only mentally. Of course my augmented reality daydreaming is the best, not only I can mix reality with imagery, but receive tactile responses, even emulating pain.

I, for one, have regularly continued a dream after waking, sometimes for quite a while (a very handy DEILD tool, BTW), and do so by doing little more than continuing to pay attention after I know I'm awake.

I have done that too, when I was not happy with the dream ending, while awake but still in the dream scene trying to change the ending by my desire, but I never thought about DEILDing.

So I guess the bottom line here is that yes, because dream imagery can be available at the edges of sleep, there's no reason a dream might not turn up during times when you are a bit further away from those edges -- as long as you are paying attention.

Excellent bottom line^^

I have one more question about VILD, I'm not sure if you ever tried it, anyway I'm not talking about VILD technique from someone named Pedro all over internet, but the classical Visually Induced WILD. Now on the question, I'm not sure whether I'm overcomplicated myself or not, while doing the entry. Frankly I still cannot understand fully what is the fine difference between Imagination and Visualization. While I'm doing the entry I'm trying to see the visualization object in front of darkness of my eyelids, but it's tricky and I'm not sure whether I'm doing it right. I can very easily imagine objects or scenery and manipulate them, but the image is not lasting and need to constantly moving it, the colors are washed. There is another form which is more complicated and hardly reproducible, but I'm not sure is it necessary for the entry to occur. The second form is everlasting, full colors and completely in a 3D, something simple like a cube, which I can manipulate freely in the space behind my eyelids, mentally can rotate him in all direction, can change his color on the fly, just like in 3ds max software(if you ever used one). I can only produce small objects like that, my favourite is a model of Ferrari, but this require immense amount of focus and relaxation, but if I produce just one stable object and grab it mentally I get directly into the dream and the object is in my hand, last time was the first time I was able produce a human being. I just hope I overcomplicated myself and there is an easy way of entry. What you think?

Originally Posted by michael79

I have one more question about VILD, I'm not sure if you ever tried it, anyway I'm not talking about VILD technique from someone named Pedro all over internet, but the classical Visually Induced WILD. Now on the question, I'm not sure whether I'm overcomplicated myself or not, while doing the entry. Frankly I still cannot understand fully what is the fine difference between Imagination and Visualization. While I'm doing the entry I'm trying to see the visualization object in front of darkness of my eyelids, but it's tricky and I'm not sure whether I'm doing it right. I can very easily imagine objects or scenery and manipulate them, but the image is not lasting and need to constantly moving it, the colors are washed. There is another form which is more complicated and hardly reproducible, but I'm not sure is it necessary for the entry to occur. The second form is everlasting, full colors and completely in a 3D, something simple like a cube, which I can manipulate freely in the space behind my eyelids, mentally can rotate him in all direction, can change his color on the fly, just like in 3ds max software(if you ever used one). I can only produce small objects like that, my favourite is a model of Ferrari, but this require immense amount of focus and relaxation, but if I produce just one stable object and grab it mentally I get directly into the dream and the object is in my hand, last time was the first time I was able produce a human being. I just hope I overcomplicated myself and there is an easy way of entry. What you think?

I think there is a fairly substantial difference between imagination and visualization; you might look at it this way:

Imagination is a well of creativity from which you draw things like ideas, images, stories, daydreams, questions, answers. The depth of that well is up to you, based on your own lifetime experience, mental curiosity, and maybe your interest in a point of view that isn't necessarily held right out in front of you. Though imagination certainly draws from mental processes like memory, I like to think of it more as a process of consciousness than a function of the brain; kind of a sum of the parts being greater than the whole sort of thing, I guess.

Visualization is the physical function of giving your perception something to look at that otherwise isn't there. That something is usually something very simple, like that cube, and/or something you remember, like a specific object (i.e., a lamp, or that model Ferrari). Yes, you can draw from your imagination to choose that object, or maybe alter it to your preferences, and yes, I'm sure that there are folks out there who can do very complex visualizations drawn purely from their imagination, but ultimately (in terms of WILD) visualization is a singular technique that incorporates minimal imagination, if any, that is meant to focus our perception on something while navigating the transition to sleep and dream... and it is in the dream where imagination can take over.

So, where imagination has a "sum of the parts" nature, visualization is, well, just a part.



Oh, and I am absolutely awful at visualization, personally; hopefully that hasn't colored my thoughts!

Originally Posted by Sageous

I, for one, have regularly continued a dream after waking, sometimes for quite a while (a very handy DEILD tool, BTW), and do so by doing little more than continuing to pay attention after I know I'm awake.

Today I tried this and when the dream end I didn't move and quickly performed a FILD(not the one described by the author but the real one which the author is doing unconsciously), I returned in the dream fully lucid and a had one hour long intense action packed dream. Frankly to this moment I didn't pay too much attention to DEILD, yes I have done it before, but that is it. After today I can say that DEILD is a very good method of becoming lucid.^^

I wonder which of the three methods yield best results for you, WILD or MILD or DEILD? Which is your prime one?

^^ Well I'm glad I was of some indirect help; cool!

Originally Posted by michael79

I wonder which of the three methods yield best results for you, WILD or MILD or DEILD? Which is your prime one?

DEILD is by far my most-used transition, though I still welcome the occasional DILD, and do still attempt "classic" WILD's regularly (DEILD is a form of WILD transition, BTW). Though I'm not so attached to it anymore, the daytime techniques of MILD can be very helpful to gaining and maintaining a lucid mindset.

Originally Posted by Sageous

^^ Well I'm glad I was of some indirect help; cool!

Of course many thanks for the tip.

Today I made an experiment to try to wake up after the dream end and to stay still, with the help of a simple intention mantra "I will wake up at the end of every dream without moving.". It worked like a charm, woke up three times without moving, it seems I'm already trained for this or just my prospective memory is working fine. ^^
Up until now all my lucid dreams required strong conscious effort with many hours of loss sleep, but now thanks to DEILD maybe I can take back my loss sleep. Before now I only think of DEILD as a way to extend a fall apart lucid dream, not as a WILD approach. For two years SSILD was working fine for me, now it only gives me insomnia, I have no idea where is the problem, so I am open to all possible alternatives. Who knows maybe I can start having 30+ LD per month I just browse through Raduga indirect technique's and I'm good to go.

DEILD is by far my most-used transition, though I still welcome the occasional DILD, and do still attempt "classic" WILD's regularly (DEILD is a form of WILD transition, BTW). Though I'm not so attached to it anymore, the daytime techniques of MILD can be very helpful to gaining and maintaining a lucid mindset.

If you compare your WILD to DEILD, what is difference in term of quality, are you remembering your goals, your real name or you need to make an effort to do this like in SSILD/DILD?

Of course I have a tip for you about Visualization too, it is not exactly for lucid dreaming, but maybe for a daytime creativity. Some time before I was looking for tips and needed to browse an entire forum made for Artists>.<
The user who wrote this practice strongly connect with my own experience, but I was doing it unconsciously.
Once you reach the Zone(I call it "The Zero Point") your visualization skills increase ten folds. You can use it like meditation.

The Zone

To effectively enter the inner world of pure visualization there are many conditions that need to come together but generally all that is needed is effort, practice and basic skills.

Basic skills such as illuminating all the senses that are involved with the object.

1: Know the objects basic level: A piece of rope, it is thick, brown, rough, stale smelling, it looks old and worn, it has a history.

Play with it: What can you do with it in an ordinary way? I see it i create a horizontal line, i turn it into a circle, i make it spin and tie a knot.

Now you will be more warmed up and in the zone you can move on to actively use the imagination and go extra-ordinary. It then starts to hover, it turns into a ring of fire (go back to step 1 if needs be) it then becomes a square, then it becomes more 3-d like, it grows into a tree etc etc. It is floating in the air, singing a song, you speak with it, etc.

The trick is to move from ordinary to extra-ordinary in a step process but use 1 object that you become familiar with to get you into the zone, once in that zone everything is easy to visualize and concentration naturally develops. Jumping straight into it tends to feel a bit more out there and forced and usually the gap seems to great.

My ritual is using a circle until i can make all kinds of stuff happen, i find myself disappear and everything is within my mind.

Originally Posted by michael79

If you compare your WILD to DEILD, what is difference in term of quality, are you remembering your goals, your real name or you need to make an effort to do this like in SSILD/DILD?

It may be because I started doing this stuff long before all these terms and techniques -- and the rules and expectations that eventually accompanied them -- were invented, but I've never known much of a difference between the types of transitions in terms of quality. For me lucidity is lucidity, no matter how I get there, and the quality depends on my presence in the moment, and little else... and that presence can be just as powerful (or weak, for that matter) whether I just finished a WILD or a DILD. And of course my WILD and DEILD dream experience would be about the same regardless, since DEILD is essentially a WILD transition without the bells and whistles of a "classic" WILD (aka: a DEILD is a WILD).

As an aside: I thought SSILD was a WILD technique, since you are maintaining awareness throughout the transition, right? This reminds me that I meant to include in an earlier post an annoying little clarifier that regular readers of my stuff will surely recognize (I'm sure you already know this but I feel oddly obliged to keep up my quixotic quest to keep the terms straight, in the hope that LD'ers will have an less confusing time of things):

Keep in mind that DILD and WILD/DEILD are not techniques, but names given to describe the two types of transitions to a lucid dream that are available (DILD = becoming lucid during the dream; WILD = maintaining lucidity through the falling asleep/dreaming process). All the rest are techniques meant to help you achieve a DILD or a WILD (i.e., MILD induces DILD's, WBTB and holding still help induce WILD's). This is not semantics, and coming to understand this might help LD'ers, especially novices, to more easily navigate the path to successful LD'ing.

Of course I have a tip for you about Visualization too...

Thanks for the tip! Though I do appreciate it, I have tried many visualization techniques over the years (including some that were very similar to the one you provided), often with substantial time and effort, I just haven't been able to develop the skill; I guess my brain just isn't wired for it. Which is kind of ironic because I am a fiction writer and a sculptor and my dreams have always been visually excellent.

Originally Posted by Sageous

As an aside: I thought SSILD was a WILD technique, since you are maintaining awareness throughout the transition, right?

It can be used as WILD because closely resemble the Raduga direct approach aka cycling 3 techniques/senses, but I'm using it as delayed awareness DILD, I do three cycles and must fall asleep quickly to work, it was working very good for some time, but lately it give me only insomnia.:-\

This reminds me that I meant to include in an earlier post an annoying little clarifier that regular readers of my stuff will surely recognize (I'm sure you already know this but I feel oddly obliged to keep up my quixotic quest to keep the terms straight, in the hope that LD'ers will have an less confusing time of things):

Keep in mind that DILD and WILD/DEILD are not techniques, but names given to describe the two types of transitions to a lucid dream that are available (DILD = becoming lucid during the dream; WILD = maintaining lucidity through the falling asleep/dreaming process). All the rest are techniques meant to help you achieve a DILD or a WILD (i.e., MILD induces DILD's, WBTB and holding still help induce WILD's). This is not semantics, and coming to understand this might help LD'ers, especially novices, to more easily navigate the path to successful LD'ing.

Yes, I know, I know, methods and techniques, but I'm not sure about DEILD, as you say DEILD gives WILD and DEILD actually can have second meaning Dream Entry Induced Lucid Dream For me there are only WILDs and DILDs!

Which is kind of ironic because I am a fiction writer and a sculptor and my dreams have always been visually excellent.

Maybe pure imagination is just enough for this. BTW when you enter the Zone, you start using your dream mind as a skill booster.

Hey Sageous,

I've gone through the WILD class and I was hoping for some help. I'm having a horribly hard time waking up in the middle of the night for WBTB. I'll either sleep through my auto snooze-alarms or get so startled by their volume that they scare the crap out of me and wake me up too much. Years ago when I first tried dreaming lucidly I started using an auto snooze alarm until eventually, I was waking up naturally each night. I'd love to get back to waking up naturally (or at all) but I'm not sure how to go about it.

I really don't know where to start, and if it would make more sense to stop everything relating to dreaming (RRCs, DJ, etc) until I can manage to wake up either by alarm or naturally, in the middle of the night. Its been about 2 months now and I'm really frustrated I can't even manage to wake up for my WBTB attempts.

A sidenote: I also seem to be being trolled with my DILD attempts. My dreams have involved me going to get my copy of EWoLD, reminding myself of which dream signs I should perform a RC when I encounter and talking to professors about Lucid dreaming and how excited I am to learn how to do it.

I'm getting pretty frustrated but I'm not giving up. I'd love to hear your thoughts/suggestions and perhaps any resources on autosuggestion. Thank you!

Originally Posted by PlatoPuss

Hey Sageous,

I've gone through the WILD class and I was hoping for some help. I'm having a horribly hard time waking up in the middle of the night for WBTB. I'll either sleep through my auto snooze-alarms or get so startled by their volume that they scare the crap out of me and wake me up too much. Years ago when I first tried dreaming lucidly I started using an auto snooze alarm until eventually, I was waking up naturally each night. I'd love to get back to waking up naturally (or at all) but I'm not sure how to go about it.

I really don't know where to start, and if it would make more sense to stop everything relating to dreaming (RRCs, DJ, etc) until I can manage to wake up either by alarm or naturally, in the middle of the night. Its been about 2 months now and I'm really frustrated I can't even manage to wake up for my WBTB attempts.

A sidenote: I also seem to be being trolled with my DILD attempts. My dreams have involved me going to get my copy of EWoLD, reminding myself of which dream signs I should perform a RC when I encounter and talking to professors about Lucid dreaming and how excited I am to learn how to do it.

I'm getting pretty frustrated but I'm not giving up. I'd love to hear your thoughts/suggestions and perhaps any resources on autosuggestion. Thank you!

Sageous' Reply:

Hi PlatoPuss:

I had two thoughts when I read your PM: First, I wondered why you didn't just go back to your auto-snooze alarm, until you again got in the habit of waking naturally? Second, and the one I'll focus on (because I don't feel any alarms are helpful to WILD, though your auto-snooze plan seems pretty good), is why do a WBTB in the middle of the night?

Instead of trying to force yourself (or, ultimately, train yourself) to wake up in the middle of the night, why not schedule your WILD attempt for a day when you can sleep later in the morning? That way you can do your WBTB when you wake naturally in the early morning, so no alarms are needed. Also, because REM periods tend to be closer together late in a sleep cycle, you should have a better chance of entering a dream during your WILD. This implies that you won't be trying WILD every night, which I think is okay -- anticipating a WILD dive that comes once or twice a week is way better than failing at one every night.

If you think you won't wake naturally, it might just be that you don't notice yourself waking up. We all briefly awaken several times during the night, and do so more often in the morning after 5 or more hours' sleep. The trick here is to learn to notice these awakenings, and then to shake off enough sleep to find the interest in getting up and doing a WBTB... it can be a real trick for some, but with practice these brief awakenings can be registered. The first step toward catching them is setting an intention at bedtime that you will notice your awakening -- thinking about doing this during the day is a good thing, too, so that your mind can become familiar with the idea. The final step is, of course, practice practice practice!

Also:

A sidenote: I also seem to be being trolled with my DILD attempts. My dreams have involved me going to get my copy of EWoLD, reminding myself of which dream signs I should perform a RC when I encounter and talking to professors about Lucid dreaming and how excited I am to learn how to do it.
Yeah, I've been there enough times! Practicing LD'ing has some side effects, I suppose, and that is definitely one of them! There's not much you can do about those dreams except shrug them off; I once tried to make them dream signs, but the, at least for me, never worked.

That's what I got; hope it helped!

Best of Dreams,

Sageous

Thanks a lot for the response!

As to why I've been trying to do a WBTB in the middle of night is because of my previous experience and quite possibly some misinformation I got years ago from Reddit. I first started with Lucid Dreaming doing the FILD technique, which I'm sure you know is basically CANWILD with the finger movement. It was my impression that an auto snooze alarm during a REM cycle 4.5 or 6 hours into sleep would be the proper place to attempt FILD/DEILD as I would have a strong desire to go back to bed, and if my awareness was high it would only take seconds for me to start experiencing the vibrations or 'woosh' as I used to call it. Eventually, and not with any intention to stop, I wound up ceasing to do the finger movements, as I was experiencing the vibrations and HI without it, which is why I believe that what I was doing was really just DEILD.

Based on this logic, I thought the middle of the night (4.5 / 6 hours of sleep) would again be the right time for my attempts at WILD/DEILD or whatever you may call them. I've also tried training myself with the auto snooze alarm and haven't had any success with it. I'm honestly pretty amazed that somehow I'll either sleep through the alarm or wake up so incredibly startled.

Note: I've had close to 20 vibrations/HI sessions during my LD attempts but to this day only have had one lucid dream, lasting a minute and was the second time I ever experienced the vibrations and HI. For the longest time I would get so excited by the vibrations I would wake up with my heart beating out of my chest in anticipation, now I don't even see the road marker. I'm well aware of the importance of ignoring these vibrations et al, and my mantra 'float' is what I'm planning on using to keep my focus on my awareness, relax and wait rather than focus on the HI.

^^ Though you had no questions, maybe I can try to clear up a couple of things:

Originally Posted by PlatoPuss

As to why I've been trying to do a WBTB in the middle of night is because of my previous experience and quite possibly some misinformation I got years ago from Reddit. I first started with Lucid Dreaming doing the FILD technique, which I'm sure you know is basically CANWILD with the finger movement. It was my impression that an auto snooze alarm during a REM cycle 4.5 or 6 hours into sleep would be the proper place to attempt FILD/DEILD as I would have a strong desire to go back to bed, and if my awareness was high it would only take seconds for me to start experiencing the vibrations or 'woosh' as I used to call it. Eventually, and not with any intention to stop, I wound up ceasing to do the finger movements, as I was experiencing the vibrations and HI without it, which is why I believe that what I was doing was really just DEILD.

Hmm... misinformation indeed...

First, FILD and CANWILD are techniques for achieving a WILD, which is not a technique, but the name given to one of the (only) two types of transitions to lucidity; all those techniques are meant to induce either a WILD transition (lucidity achieved by not losing waking-life self-awareness from wake-to-sleep-to dream) or DILD transition (lucidity achieved during a non-lucid dream, after you are asleep). In other words, WILD and DILD are the things you are trying to make happen with the techniques, and therefore cannot be technique unto themselves. This is not semantics, or a "whatever you may call them" moment; if you can come to understand that WILD and DILD are not techniques but the targets of techniques, lucidity might be gained much more easily.

Unless I misunderstood, you may have been woefully misinformed about DEILD, which is also not a technique but a form of WILD transition. DEILD, or Dream Exit Initiated Lucid Dream, is a transition that occurs when you are waking up from a (usually) lucid dream, and allow yourself to return to lucidity after a very brief awakening without losing your waking-life self-awareness. I'm not sure how you're equating it with FILD, a technique for inducing "classic" WILD's; also, vibrations and HI rarely accompany DEILD's, so I'm not sure why you're making the association... Maybe it's time to unlearn some of the stuff the good folks at Reddit have fed you?

Again, since DEILD's do not involve WBTB, you generally cannot experience one after you get up and go back to bed (you potentially can experience a DEILD if you can hold onto your last dream throughout your WBTB time, but that can be very difficult). You were likely having a "classic" WILD in those moments and, honestly, I would love to be able to achieve one so quickly! ... Well, okay; you were achieving half of a WILD: If you can persevere until you are able to ignore those vibrations and HI (the noise) until your body fully falls asleep, you will be rewarded with a lucid dream. And yes, if you are able to hold onto your awareness through the noise, then FILD might not have been necessary, since your head was already in the right place. Maintaining your mantra through the noise might help here, though, to keep the noise from convincing your head to leave that place.

Based on this logic, I thought the middle of the night (4.5 / 6 hours of sleep) would again be the right time for my attempts at WILD/DEILD or whatever you may call them. I've also tried training myself with the auto snooze alarm and haven't had any success with it. I'm honestly pretty amazed that somehow I'll either sleep through the alarm or wake up so incredibly startled.

This one I suppose is my bad, as I never thought of waking after 5 hours' sleep to be the middle of the night -- I guess I just go to bed too late to see it that way! Oh, wait, unless you sleep 10-12 hours per night, which would make me very jealous! Anyway, yes, awakening after 4.5 - 6 hours of sleep is an excellent target for WBTB, and if that was your target you were right in the first place. Since, as I think I said already, awakenings generally tend to be more frequent by then, with some practice you ought to be able to notice them without that pesky alarm.

Note: I've had close to 20 vibrations/HI sessions during my LD attempts but to this day only have had one lucid dream, lasting a minute and was the second time I ever experienced the vibrations and HI. For the longest time I would get so excited by the vibrations I would wake up with my heart beating out of my chest in anticipation, now I don't even see the road marker. I'm well aware of the importance of ignoring these vibrations et al, and my mantra 'float' is what I'm planning on using to keep my focus on my awareness, relax and wait rather than focus on the HI.

I think I already responded to this so just a quick tl;dr: stay calm, ignore the noise, and let your body fall to sleep... oh, and be sure to maintain that mantra until you are in the dream!

Hey Sageous,

Currently, I've been testing out using a WBTB session of around 10 minutes while reading EWOLD before going back to bed and repeating my mantra. I was hoping you could help me understand the physiology of the timing of WILD a little more.

Is there any inherent difference or reason why one should prolong their WBTB session? My understanding is its function is to bring a little more awareness to the conscious brain and away from the dreaming brain. I've recently started wondering how/if the length of the WBTB session relates to one's REM cycle(s). In other words, if I have a 10 Minute WBTB session instead of a 45-minute session, am I ensuring I'll be lying in bed for an extra 35 minutes before I hit a REM cycle / can have a successful WILD? Or is it rather that some individuals need more time to get more awake/aware and for others less time.

Thanks

^^ On its face your question seems straightforward, and one that I'm pretty sure LaBerge addresses somewhere in EWOLD (though its been decades since I read it, so I could be wrong); but then I got to thinking:

First, a little clarification (and this is not semantics): there is no "dreaming brain" and "conscious brain," there is just your brain, and your consciousness is present in all of it. Try not to separate your Self into independent units, even in conversation, lest you find yourself creating battles that never had to be fought. It's all you, in the end, and to know this will only help you to maintain your waking-life self-awareness as your brain goes about functions that usually don't include that sort of awareness. I know that wasn't what you wre asking, but I figured I'd throw it in. [Full disclosure: I often refer to the unconscious functions that deliver dream content as your "dreaming mind," but by saying this I'm not implying that there is a separate brain inside you that operates your dreaming processes; it just sounds better than "unconscious."]. Anyway:

Ten minutes is a pretty short term for a WBTB -- that barely gives you time to get out of bed! -- but if it works for you, then it is plenty of time, right? There's certainly no reason to prolong it to last longer than the minimum time you need to successfully complete your WILD... just as there is no reason to avoid extending your "up" time if 10 minutes isn't working. Practice will find the WBTB time that works for you, not stuff others tell you. Now to the other things:

To me, WBTB does indeed serve the two purposes you basically mentioned: to rouse waking-life self-awareness as much as possible without abandoning your sleep cycle, and to help ensure that you "catch REM" when you go back to sleep, but you might be reading a bit too much into the second part, which is not a surprise to me, given the amount of attention Rapid Eye Movement -- the movements your eyes make as they are following the action in a dream -- gets in the LD'ing community.

Over the years I've come to think less to very little of the whole "catching REM" concept, for two reasons. First, if you do your WBTB late in your sleep cycle, your REM periods are so close together that you probably will be pretty close to your next period whenever you go back to sleep (so there should be no 35 minute waiting period after a 10 minute WBTB); also, be wary of the standards set by sleep science, as they are generally averages/standards based on a surprisingly small group of subjects who, in my mind, tend to share similar physiological traits (like being able to go to sleep in a lab while wired up to machines). Second, and maybe more important here, is to keep in mind that REM periods aren't a thing unto themselves, but a measurable symptom of something else: dreaming.

In other words, it isn't REM that causes dreams, but dreams that cause REM. You are in REM whenever you are dreaming, regardless of any proscribed schedule. This means, in essence (and with the possible exception of Delta sleep), that you can start a REM period whenever you feel like it, assuming that you are able to successfully WILD/fall asleep, and form dreams. There really is, in the end, no need to catch REM at all; only a need to get your next dream started. The only physiological bit you must heed is keeping your body as close to a sleeping/dreaming state as you can during WBTB, so you can be sure to continue your sleep cycle, and just get back to sleep, when you lie back down. [Full disclosure #2: I wrote the DVA WILD class years ago, while I was still okay with the "catching REM" concept, so what I'm saying here might not quite match what I said there (I never edited because, well, in that context it still seems to work!).]

With regard to WBTB, physiologically speaking, I think that the real danger with timing is staying up too long, and finding yourself fully awake and unable to complete a successful transition to sleep and dream, lucid or not. And yes, of course some individuals will need more (or less) WBTB time to fully gather their waking-life self-awareness without losing touch with their sleep cycle -- and there is the reason to experiment until you find the time that works for you... so feel free to keep testing!

So I guess the tl;dr: here is that, physiologically speaking, try not to give too much thought to REM periods; and mind even less the sketchy science behind when they are detected; just know that you dream more often late in your sleep cycle as your mind is more actively approaching waking up to a new day, and know that this will be especially likely if you intend to dream when you return to sleep. REM isn't a thing you hit; it's just stuff your eyes do to follow the action when you are dreaming, so you will "catch" REM whenever you start dreaming, even if that happens at a moment that isn't indicated on those charts.

Just read something interesting that can contribute to this thread, I hope this can help people in their wild process.

When people think, they have a tendency to talk to themselves. Even if you are not consciously aware of this subvocalization, your body, more specifically, your tongue is. It will tense up when you are thinking, ready for action.

You may experience this as a general rigidness of the tongue or it may lift up off of the floor of your mouth or pull at the back of your throat or you may not feel it consciously at all. If you relax your tongue completely, it is very difficult to talk to yourself. Go ahead, I know you have to try it. Thus, relaxing your tongue makes it much more difficult to think also. This simple technique can help you stop the internal chatter and quiet your mind when meditating or when you just need a moment of peace. Just relaxing your tongue radically reduces the active thinking, beta brain waves and stills the mind.

Relaxing the tongue is such an effective practice that, in her book, Awakening the Mind: A Guide to Harnessing the Power of Your Brainwaves, Anna Wise, says “If you take nothing else away with you from reading this book, you will have gained enormously from this one practice.”

She offers the following exercises:

-Close your eyes and allow your tongue to relax.

-No one will be looking at you, so it’s OK to let your mouth hang open slightly.

-Just simply let your tongue go, especially the back of your tongue.

-As you exhale, feel it let go even more.

-Exaggerate the relaxation.

-Exaggerate it again.

-You can almost feel your tongue floating in the cavity of your mouth.

-You may feel it shorten some – or thicken.

-Exaggerate the relaxation even more.

-Focus on only relaxing your tongue – nothing else.

Originally Posted by Sageous

In other words, it isn't REM that causes dreams, but dreams that cause REM. You are in REM whenever you are dreaming, regardless of any proscribed schedule. This means, in essence (and with the possible exception of Delta sleep), that you can start a REM period whenever you feel like it, assuming that you are able to successfully WILD/fall asleep, and form dreams. There really is, in the end, no need to catch REM at all; only a need to get your next dream started. The only physiological bit you must heed is keeping your body as close to a sleeping/dreaming state as you can during WBTB, so you can be sure to continue your sleep cycle, and just get back to sleep, when you lie back down. [Full disclosure #2: I wrote the DVA WILD class years ago, while I was still okay with the "catching REM" concept, so what I'm saying here might not quite match what I said there (I never edited because, well, in that context it still seems to work!).]

That is very interesting, you reached the same conclusion as me and because of that I have ~5 hours long WILDs.

[Full disclosure #2: I wrote the DVA WILD class years ago, while I was still okay with the "catching REM" concept, so what I'm saying here might not quite match what I said there (I never edited because, well, in that context it still seems to work!).]

You are misleading people like that, you really need to change it.