Thread: What happened? Post Your WILD Attempts, Good or Bad, Here

^^ Nice work, Ctharlhie!

... next time maybe it'll be about the dream, and not getting there!

I tried my first attempt at WILD last night.

I went to sleep at 10pm and woke up naturally at 4am (6hours). I got up, used the bathroom and drank a glass of water. I settled back down onto my bed and relaxed my mind/body. At first I was very relaxed and i felt myself drifting off to comfortable sleep. I visualized a scene in my head to keep my mind active and after after a while I noticed HI. I ignored them as they increased in frequency and felt myself drift further into the comforts of sleep. I started to notice a strange sensation like I was spinning down a drain. It was the first time Ive ever experienced anything like this but I tried to "ignore the noise". Unfortunately I was not successful in doing so and made myself too awake. I had trouble falling asleep for the remainder of the night.

^^ Excellent first attempt, I think!

At the risk of contradicting my own lessons, you might need to find a balance between ignoring the noise and just letting it exist around you. Fighting very hard to ignore all noise, especially odd stuff like that "spinning down the drain" sensation, has the same effect as paying attention to it... in other words, too much effort spent ignoring noise can be as destructive to your dive as is looking for the noise.

That aside, you seem on the right track, PennyRoyal; good luck and thanks for sharing!

Originally Posted by Sageous

^^ Excellent first attempt, I think!

At the risk of contradicting my own lessons, you might need to find a balance between ignoring the noise and just letting it exist around you. Fighting very hard to ignore all noise, especially odd stuff like that "spinning down the drain" sensation, has the same effect as paying attention to it... in other words, too much effort spent ignoring noise can be as destructive to your dive as is looking for the noise.

That aside, you seem on the right track, PennyRoyal; good luck and thanks for sharing!

Thank you for replying Sageous, I will definitely keep this in mind.

I think I was possibly just a little too intrigued to experience one of the sensations I've read about. Too be honest I was a bit skeptical of the intensity or truth that people experience these sensations (not to speak ill of anyone, I am just skeptical by nature). I plan on making many more attempts until I am successful. I fear you have not heard the last of me Sageous

I was wondering if you could give me some advice for timing my WBTB. I woke up naturally last night just a few minutes short of 6 hours which is a time a lot of people recommend. I've been recording the times that I naturally wake up - but for the sake of my question lets just say that I tend to wake up 2:30 (for me that's 4.5 hrs asleep) which would be at the end of a 90 hour cycle.

My understanding is, and correct me if i'm wrong - that we tend to wake up AFTER a REM period ends. So rather than targeting the time I wake up normally (end of cycle), should I be setting an alarm for say.. 2:15 (just for example), in order to interrupt my sleep during REM therefore going back to sleep DURING REM?

Nice to have you with us, PennyRoyal!

Regarding WBTB:

The reason it is wise to sleep several hours before WBTB is simply because REM periods get closer together as your night's sleep progresses. So, even if you wake naturally after a REM period several hours into your night, there's likely another REM cycle waiting in the wings. This is not the case early on.

Setting your alarm to interrupt REM won't help much for a couple of reasons:

First, when you wake up from REM, and follow it with a few minutes at least of WBTB (more time is okay, BTW, up to, you guessed it, 90 minutes), you are not interrupting a REM period, but ending it. So, when you go back to sleep you'll still have a long period of NREM as your sleeping body cycles to its next REM period... you're not going to trick it.

Also, setting an alarm is disruptive in itself, in my opinion, and should be used as a last resort. Alarms fire up your reticular system too suddenly, and tend to make you "too awake," and might cause memory of recent dreams, and your dreamy state itself, to fade quickly. Better to wake up naturally I think, which is a much calmer event!

So forcing yourself awake early in the night might not help much; the later the better for WBTB is a much better rule of thumb.

Originally Posted by Sageous

Nice to have you with us, PennyRoyal!

Regarding WBTB:

The reason it is wise to sleep several hours before WBTB is simply because REM periods get closer together as your night's sleep progresses. So, even if you wake naturally after a REM period several hours into your night, there's likely another REM cycle waiting in the wings. This is not the case early on.

Setting your alarm to interrupt REM won't help much for a couple of reasons:

First, when you wake up from REM, and follow it with a few minutes at least of WBTB (more time is okay, BTW, up to, you guessed it, 90 minutes), you are not interrupting a REM period, but ending it. So, when you go back to sleep you'll still have a long period of NREM as your sleeping body cycles to its next REM period... you're not going to trick it.

Also, setting an alarm is disruptive in itself, in my opinion, and should be used as a last resort. Alarms fire up your reticular system too suddenly, and tend to make you "too awake," and might cause memory of recent dreams, and your dreamy state itself, to fade quickly. Better to wake up naturally I think, which is a much calmer event!

So forcing yourself awake early in the night might not help much; the later the better for WBTB is a much better rule of thumb.

This cleared up a lot of confusion for me, thank you again Sageous.

Hey I've been reading your lessons for a while now and was looking for advice on a few things?

Firstly: I am fairly new to this and have had only one brief DILD where I had little to no control, I started WILDing a few weeks back and have only gotten some HI and brief sensations, I try to ignore these but my heart starts racing FAST which wakes my body up, any way to combat this?

Secondly: I use WBTB With WILD and I use the mantra "I will stabilise my hands" to remember to stabilise the dream and it also has meaning to me, I also listen to my breathing to help relax but even with the mantra my mind starts to wander to other thoughts. As soon as I catch my mind wandering and snap out of it (regain awareness) my body gets shocked awake in a way and I loses a few minutes.

Any advice about these problems would be extremely helpful

Welcome, Fuz! A couple of thoughts:

Originally Posted by Fuz

Firstly: I am fairly new to this and have had only one brief DILD where I had little to no control, I started WILDing a few weeks back and have only gotten some HI and brief sensations, I try to ignore these but my heart starts racing FAST which wakes my body up, any way to combat this?

No ways to combat, really; more like wait it out. With time and practice, you'll be less excited about the noise, and come to recognize it as a normal process your body goes through every night -- you're just not usually there to witness it. So give it time, think often during waking life that noise like HI, vibrations, and SP don't matter. Also, for what it's worth, your heart isn't actually racing -- it just feels that way. A little calm thought, and focus on your mantra, and you ought to be able to get past it. And yes, someone actually had his heart checked during similar experiences, and the machines showed no change even though he was sure it was either racing or under pressure (I can't remember).

A major tool of successful WILD is patience; try to embrace that, both during the WILD and in waking life. The LD's will come.

Secondly: I use WBTB With WILD and I use the mantra "I will stabilise my hands" to remember to stabilise the dream and it also has meaning to me, I also listen to my breathing to help relax but even with the mantra my mind starts to wander to other thoughts. As soon as I catch my mind wandering and snap out of it (regain awareness) my body gets shocked awake in a way and I loses a few minutes.

First, that seems like a sort of long mantra. To ask your drowsy brain to keep assembling so many syllables seems a tall order to me, and might explain why your mind wanders. I suggest that you shorten that mantra to something like "Stabilize hands," or even just "hands." Either ought to keep you focused on your stabilization plan, I think, while avoiding all those extra syllables and grammar.

Of course, your mind might also be wandering just because that's its natural state at that point -- because it is. If that's the case, then your solution is to not snap out of the distraction, but to casually note that the thing you've found yourself thinking about has nothing to do with your WILD, so it's time to turn back to the mantra, and then simply let the wandering thoughts drift slowly away. This gentle approach should help you avoid triggering natural "wake-up" functions, allowing you to continue your dive.

Again, this too isn't easy (I still "snap to" on occasion, with similar wakeful results). but with patience you'll move forward successfully.

Good luck!

I had near successful WILD attempt that resulted in a semi-LD last night

I woke up this morning at around five, which is an hour before I had to wake up. I checked my phone for messages, etc, and then went back and lied in bed. I was thinking about attempting a WILD, and then I decided I would, and I was going to get up and go to the bathroom. I decided not to, and just try instead. I started about 10 minutes or so after waking up. I got into a comfortable position, and then I don't know how to explain what happened. However, I suddenly found myself vibrating, a little stronger than how it had felt before, and then I had some HI. The cool thing was that I didn't get excited or anything, I just let it happen. Next though, I felt like there was something large by or on my bed, and I felt a hand pushing on my blankets. The pressure wasn't that bad, it was just like something was feeling the blankets, not trying to suffocate me or something. I didn't do anything though, and I just ignored it. I was a little scared, but I knew I was safe and just let it happen. Afterwards, there was nothing, and I wasn't sure what to do. But then, I found myself in a dream, but I wasn't fully lucid.

Well done, Dragonmaster!

It looks like you handled the dive well, and maybe lost awareness just before REM, but close is good and "wasn't fully lucid" was better than "not lucid at all!"

Your reaction to that pressure on the blankets was excellent, BTW. It was probably nothing -- even some random neurons firing, so to treat it as such, rather than as some supernatural scary force, was the right way to go.

Hopefully the next dive will leave you fully lucid....

I love these classes. Three questions though:
If you get really excited and the effect stops after that, is it any use to lie down and try again? Also, is there a way to tell if your WILD failed or you are just getting closer when such a thing happens?
Last: Do you recommend spending a whole week on the homework of your classes? I skipped class 3's homework partially (I believe) because you just had to ask yourself a question about WILDing and HI where my answer was the expected: Yes.

Three quick answers (let me know if you need more):

Originally Posted by rockonguy

If you get really excited and the effect stops after that, is it any use to lie down and try again?

Absolutely. Sometimes the knowledge that you just missed an LD chance by being to excited will be enough to keep you calm during the next effort. Be sure to put a few minutes between efforts, though, and fill those minutes with calm, dreamy thoughts!

... is there a way to tell if your WILD failed or you are just getting closer when such a thing happens?

Well, the easy way to tell your WILD failed is that you didn't have a LD. If you did have a LD, but aren't sure you got there via WILD, the easy way to tell if it was a true WILD is if you can remember every moment leading up to the dream, without gaps. If there was a gap (i.e., you lose track of things, or "suddenly" you were in a dream), that was likely a DILD -- which is just fine, BTW!

Last: Do you recommend spending a whole week on the homework of your classes? I skipped class 3's homework partially (I believe) because you just had to ask yourself a question about WILDing and HI where my answer was the expected: Yes.

Yes, in that case the homework would only take a few seconds, so no problem!

Thanks for joining the WILD bunch!

Made my second attempt at WILD today. I managed to get myself extremely relaxed, and after a while I started to notice colors and faint shapes. I watched them passively seeing if any shapes looked like something familiar. My mind drifted around quite a bit and I almost fell asleep a few times. At one point I felt like I could feel my heart beating in my face and my eyes. I eventually decided I could not fall asleep and got up, I figured I had been laying down for an hour or so but It turned out to be 2 hours which was very surprising.

Originally Posted by PennyRoyal

Made my second attempt at WILD today. I managed to get myself extremely relaxed, and after a while I started to notice colors and faint shapes. I watched them passively seeing if any shapes looked like something familiar. My mind drifted around quite a bit and I almost fell asleep a few times. At one point I felt like I could feel my heart beating in my face and my eyes. I eventually decided I could not fall asleep and got up, I figured I had been laying down for an hour or so but It turned out to be 2 hours which was very surprising.

Wow, 2 Hours? Interesting :3 - I'm going to try to wild tonight.

Wurgh... My dad was snoring all the time. Somebody told me it is a good thing to use that as an anchor though, so it might even help my WILD attempt...
Trying again tonight and maybe in the afternoon too.

I woke up this morning after sleeping for 7 hours. My cat and girlfriend were making it difficult to sleep in so I moved to the couch

I laid down and did a relaxation exercise in my head until I was feeling nice and drowsy. I feel like my anchors have been keeping me too aware so this time I attempted to repeat my mantra almost "in the background" of my head, I don't really know how to explain it. I used the mantra "Calm and drowsy" It was short enough that I could remember it easily once my mind became fuzzy and it had meaning to me, because I need to remember to stay calm if I experience something strange, and to remain drowsy in order to sleep.

I would say after a good 15-20minutes my thoughts start to drift away from my mantra, I dont force them away but gently push myself back toward anchoring myself. Twice I was on the brink of falling asleep; once I was startled awake because my left hand clenched closed like I was trying to grip something. I drifted off again a few minutes later and I am looking at a motorcycle that's outside, then I realize hey wait.. my eyes are closed and it disappeared as soon as it was there.

I tried to drift off for a time but felt too awake to drift off again. I felt like I had been trying to sleep maybe 40 minutes, it was about an hour and half.

I tried to WILD today. I went to bed at 9 but had trouble sleeping. At 0:20 I woke up and for some reason I kept getting a hard-on (hooray for puberty) which prevented me from falling back to sleep easily. I just laid in bed and told myself I was going to have a lucid dream.
Then when the moment was there, I took a toilet break, drank a bit of water and got back to bed. I took some deep breaths and confirmed I was going to have a lucid dream again. Then I laid down, tensed every muscle in my body, and released them. I remember that the WILD was going pretty steadily, and I was just counting at the moment of inhaling, and thinking "Calm and aware" when exhaling. (That's the mantra I came up with, is it any good? I always have straying thoughts and overexcite myself in my WILD attempts a lot, so that should kind of remind me)

I remember having some HI with white and purple patterns, but then I kind of lost it. I failed to take control, and while I was just visualizing a bit, the HI went away again and I was just lying there. What am I doing wrong?
Also, could you elaborate a bit more on the Self-Awareness RRC which you want us to do? It is not that clear to me...

^^ What are you doing wrong? My first guess is that your mind is way too active... i think you already know this and are working on it, but be sure to keep it up.

Also, if HI "goes away," that doesn't mean your WILD attempt is over. As I said in the "noise" session (and in at least a dozen posts here), HI is a symptom of WILD, not a goal. You must try very hard to keep that in mind, and keep the noise from becoming priority: Your dive might have just been in a pause when HI went away, with more to come. Be patient, and try to make your only goal the LD and not the stuff on the way.

I hope you'll forgive me, but I think I've poured every possible ounce of elaboration that I could into the significance and importance of RRC's in WILD Session One and in dozens of posts on this and the WILD Q&A thread; any more commentary would be redundant and potentially damaging.

The RRC is as simple as it sounds, being a brief exercise to remind yourself that you are always an integral part of your local reality, you influence it with every action and thought, just as it influences you as you pass through it. Developing this attitude in waking life should help you better recognize and control your dream state when you are in it ... there is no more complexity to it than that. I hope you'll reread the session and browse the very many posts on the subject, and I believe that what clarification you need is already there. [Sorry f this answer was a bit gruff]

I woke up this morning and rolled over onto my side. I drifted off unconciously for a second(heck it could have been a few minutes)and noticed strange vibrations in my body accompanied by a sensation like I was laying down on my back in a boat on a lake. I ignored this pretty easily and just enjoyed the moment. Several seconds later I see what kind of resembles a blurry window. It appears to come closer and I notice that inside of it is a kitchen sink, it's surroundings very blurry. I 'reached' for it with my mind and the air felt like jello that I clawed myself through. I got my head through and looked around. I saw the kitchen for a brief moment before I woke up. I had my eyes closed and saw the same strange window but everytime i tried to enter it again my eyes opened.

Don't worry haha, it's fine... Really, I should just keep doing it and if it doesn't work then just read up a little

When I lie in bed for doing wild, my body aches and then i start thinking about my body ache and change my body positions and ruin my wild.

Another (rather unexpected success), I barely focused on process this time and just made it to the dream. However, I didn't have a dream on tap this time and struggled to establish visuals/get of bed until I woke myself. Any advice for such situations other than incubation and developing mental schemata? Next time I'm going to try visualising a new scene.

Spoiler for DJ Entry:

Went to bed at 12, got up at 8 for a lecture, got back and decided to nap, drifted in stage 1-2 for what seemed like quite a while, then all of a sudden started getting vivid dreamlike 'hypnagogic movies' playing, very abruptly I transitioned. However, I had no visuals and could not get out of bed! Twice I woke from the effort of moving my dream body only to transition again, I tried imagining myself moving at high speed through the void and tried to build up the dream scene by touching the wall adjacent to my bed but to no avail.

Originally Posted by Ctharlhie

Another (rather unexpected success), I barely focused on process this time and just made it to the dream. However, I didn't have a dream on tap this time and struggled to establish visuals/get of bed until I woke myself. Any advice for such situations other than incubation and developing mental schemata? Next time I'm going to try visualising a new scene.

Though incubation and developing schemata are your best bet (that waking-life work is oh-so important; try not to skip it), and visualizing next time is also an excellent choice, there are other options:

* You can simply go with whatever your dreaming mind provides you ... if it provides you nothing at all (ie, still in NREM, perhaps, or you caught your subconscious off-guard), you could just "sit" quietly and enjoy the piece of nothingness -- I often do this on purpose, as it can be more rewarding than an actual dream at times!

* You can spend more waking-life time preparing an extensive list or file in your memory of Things to Do at WILD Onset that includes many plot/activity options, beyond just rolling out of bed or starting up that session's specific dream. If you've spent enough time daydreaming about possible scenarios (and don't we all do that anyway?), you shouldn't have a problem calling one up -- or having it called up for you, at moments like this. Also, this file helps patch up gaps left by impromptu WILD dives done without sufficient mental prep!

* Finally (and perhaps as an addendum to the first suggestion), just relax and wait a bit longer. REM and dreams will come eventually, whether they're what you wanted or not. If you think you've got nothing, don't give up; just hang back a bit and let your dreaming mind fill in the blanks. You do run the risk of losing lucidity with this choice, but at least you'll still be dreaming!

I hope that helped, and sorry it's abbreviated -- my time is short today but I wanted to answer...

I got to hear trains outside but rolled the ball too hard and fell asleep, I cannot find a balance to wild. If anyone wants to be my LD partner so we can inspire each other and disscuss expectations that would be awesome! PM me