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

Thanks Sageous. Although, the waking up "in the middle" of a dream isn't really for the WILD attempt--I do that for recall, since my dream recall is sketchy and unreliable right now. Notice in my signature, I haven't even managed a solid 7 days in a row remembering a dream every night. I can still go a few nights in a row and remember nothing; so that's why I was so intent on waking myself in the middle or just after a dream :)

I do need to remember to repeat my mantra in my head; I have a couple: "the next thing I see will be a dream" or "I am dreaming." Or I just count; but often I end up getting so fuzzy I forget to repeat the mantra, so that time I did only counting. Didn't work, obviously.

I'll try WILD again tonight, this time repeating my mantra and hopefully forcing my mind to stay alert. That fuzzy feeling is a bit hard to combat though once it really hits you :o

~SilverWolf~

I just tried to wild and I reall got into it. I had a mini dream 20 min into it then boom. my foot shakes violently and my whole bed shakes. I'm sure I was imagining it. I then was aware of my waking body again. I laid there another 10 min thinking to myself that Im not giving up and then I opened my eyes I had no intention to. my eyes just opened. what did I do wrong

^^ Sounds to me that you either got distracted by the noise, which must have been pretty hard to avoid, or else maybe you actually fell into a non-lucid dreamlet, from which it would have been difficult to recover.

So I guess you might not have been doing anything wrong ... indeed, you could have been doing everything right, and still got stuck at this point.

Best I think to chalk it up to experience an move on; maybe if it happens again you'll be able to move through it!

So I had a few WILDs like a year ago, then changed to MILD looking for a less time taking technique and also had some success. Later decided to take a break and aim for DILDs and finally this summer I just forgot about LD. Now I'm back to WILD and have read your guide but I can't recall how did I even succeed once with WILD, my last attempts:

I decide to try an afternoon WILD, I relax breathing deeply for 5 minutes or so, then lay down on my back and hold still. With each breath I repeat my mantra and try not to get distracted by the HI (I usually begin to experience "soft" HI the minute after I lay down). Eventually either I fall asleep (rarely happens), get some solid visual HI, or the movement one. In the second case my attention always moves to the scene I have in front of me and immediately the scene disappears. When I feel like I'm turning or falling, the sensation continues for a few minutes and finally also disappears, after which I loose patience and stand up.
Any suggestions Sageous? Maybe I´m focusing too much on the HI? Not enough? :?

Also, I seem to be able to chose, up to a certain point, what kind of HI I want to experience just by moving slightly my attention towards the "soft" visual HI I mentioned before, which leads into the stronger one, or focusing all my attention on my respiration and mantra resulting on the movement HI. Is this Usual?

[QUOTE=Eddydpyl;2047834]
Any suggestions Sageous?
One suggestion comes to mind: don't lose patience and stand up! Your description tells me you got very close to the dream, and may only have needed to hold your focus a little bit longer. When you lose patience, or your body starts screaming that it wants to roll over or something, try doubling your efforts by doing things like attempting to visualize your planned dream, or slowly repeating your mantra. Try not to relax your mind, even if that feels like the thing to do, because you will fall asleep without awareness. Basically keep your mind off your impatience while also keeping your mind.

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Maybe I´m focusing too much on the HI? Not enough?

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Too much, I think. Just the fact that discussion of HI makes up more than half your post tells me you might be giving it a lot of thought. Try, if you can, to just let the noise happen, and move along without concerning yourself with it. A test of whether you're succeeding at this is to see how much noise you remember upon waking; if you don't remember much, if any, then you did a good job sidestepping it. If it's all you remember, the noise won.

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Also, I seem to be able to choose, up to a certain point, what kind of HI I want to experience just by moving slightly my attention towards the "soft" visual HI I mentioned before, which leads into the stronger one, or focusing all my attention on my respiration and mantra resulting on the movement HI. Is this Usual?

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It's not unusual. HI is fairly elastic, and will respond to your wishes if you focus well enough (which you did).

Thanks for your answer! I know I shouldn't loose patience but it felt like a failure when the HI stopped... But not any more, forget about the noise, gonna try again today.

Sageous, I have been a secretly taking your course for 3 or 4 weeks now. This morning I had my first WILD, the first time I actually formed and entered a dream consciously. I've had some DILDs before when falling asleep from WILD attempts but this was a very different experience. I had a very long WBTB (1hour+), went to bed with a new mantra (simply self awareness) and after a while of changing sleep positions and some reality checking (thought I was dreaming a couple of times before I actually was) I saw a face in the darkness. It felt like my body started to spin around the face and then it was replaced with what I think was random HI. Suddenly I layed still again and saw a womans body. I started to play around changing her looks, the color of her hair, clothes etc. She started to talk to me and I knew I was fully in the dream world.

I will have myself a nap this afternoon with renewed confidence. I always thought of the transition into a dream beeing the hardest part for me. Now I know its not.

^^ Nice work, Paperplane, thanks for sharing, and for giving the class a chance!

Hi, last night I tried to do a wild the way you described it with a little change. Instead of repeating my mantra I did the counting from EWOLD(the "1, I'm dreaming" "2, I'm dreaming"...) because it feels like I can keep my consciousness better and remember what I am supposed to do. Anyway, I was lying(?) there and waited for my body to fall asleep. I feel the vibrations, there are two waves of them and the second was way bigger than the first one. Then nothing happens... No sounds, almost no pictures and just nothing. So I wait a little while and just nothing. I start trying to create and visualize my own dream, when I since my mind didn't do anything I created it so detailed as I could make it. Then I did the "I am there" entrance and here something happens. It feels like my mind is just whirling around in my head, maybe trying to unfocus the body or something. Then this feeling fades away and I'm back at nothing. I thought that maybe I need to get away from my physical body, and focused at the front of my head like I was trying to get out. I managed to "loose" my hands so couldn't feel them, but that wasn't enough to get out.

From here on I tried these things a few times, but it never worked. At last I took the chances of that I maybe already was in a dream, I sat up and did the nose plug... Reality.

What happened here, why couldn't I enter any dream? What happened to the sounds? I can mention that this was my first really serious attempt to do a WILD. Also I've been doing ADA for a couple of weeks now, thought that I would mention that.

Thanks for the help // Zurs

^^ What happened? Sounds to me like you simply never fell asleep.

Either that, or you did fall asleep and found yourself in NREM rather than REM, and NREM can have a tendency to offer up pretty much nothing. So, if you were sleeping, you needed to hold your awareness a little longer until REM set in. Did you try your WILD after several hours' sleep, as is recommended in the timing session? If so, then you just had some bad luck in missing REM... if you were actually asleep (again, I have a feeling you never were).

In other words, you were unable to enter your dream because there was no dream to enter, either because you were still awake or still in NREM. In either case, you may have needed to simply endure the nothingness for a while longer, either until you fell asleep or until NREM set in. Trying to make the dream happen, to enter a thing that wasn't there yet, was likely counterproductive. You must allow your sleeping body to work through its cycles; forcing it to begin dreaming when it is not ready simply will not work. [Note that in the forming the dream session of my class there is an implicit understanding that you are about to dream (HI are on hand), or are already in a dream that is basically dull (you're in your room); I didn't state but should have stated that it can be very difficult to form a dream before the actual dream (and REM sleep) begins.]

It also seems that you were rating your success, your forward movement toward the dream, on those sounds. That is not a good idea, I think. Try to remember that those sounds don't matter, and are more distractions than help. Rate your success on the arrival of the dream, not on the noise that comes and goes during the WILD process.

Finally, be assured that this was just your first attempt. Very few people successfully WILD on the first try. Just tell yourself "Next time!" and start working on your next dive with confidence.

I had a WILD a few weeks ago. I was just laying in bed when suddenly I found myself on the computer. Apparently, I was watching porn (lol), then I exited out of it, and saw an icon that stayed on the computer no matter what I did. I felt bad it was gonna stay on the computer.

A few seconds later, I started feeling vibrations and a rushing sound. The kind of sound you hear when you have your hands covering your ears, like blood rushing by. I knew I was lucid, but I needed to confirm it. I tried playing a sound or something next ot my bed, but all I heard was that rushing sound. I decided it was no use and woke myself up. That was a dumb move. If I stayed in the dream, I probably would've eventually been able to do stuff.

Hi again Sageous, you told me that you thought that I never fell asleep. But how do I know if I ever fell asleep? I attempted the wild try after almost 6 hours of sleep, and was awake for 10 minutes thinking about dreams. Also, when I really am asleep but not in a dream, will be able to move my physical body? Because I gave up and sat down in my bed then.

A little off-topic: This night I had my second lucid dream since I knew what it was :) Maybe it had someting to do with my wild attempt? But thanks for the help Sageous :D

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Originally Posted by Zurs

Hi again Sageous, you told me that you thought that I never fell asleep. But how do I know if I ever fell asleep? I attempted the wild try after almost 6 hours of sleep, and was awake for 10 minutes thinking about dreams. Also, when I really am asleep but not in a dream, will be able to move my physical body? Because I gave up and sat down in my bed then.

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This may sound odd, but there's no need to know that you fell asleep or not. In a WILD, sleep is the function that your body is going through while your mind stays constantly awake. So in a sense, sleep is just more background noise as you make your path to the dream. And remember, since it is the dream that is your goal and not sleep, That ought to be the only thing you need to know you entered -- and you will. So don't look or wait for sleep; look for the dream.

That said, after you get up, it's relatively easy to know whether you never fell asleep or not. That you were able to sit right up is a dead giveaway, because had you been asleep, that action would have been sluggish or difficult at best, if not impossible for a moment, due to REM Atonia. Also, sensing things like no change to your environment, that your body still feels normal, or that time passed normally (no lapses due to falling asleep) are pretty good signs that you never fell asleep. Also, trust the most obvious sign: if you feel like your body is still awake, it likely is.

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A little off-topic: This night I had my second lucid dream since I knew what it was :) Maybe it had someting to do with my wild attempt?

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That's good news; congratulations! The second LD is more important than the first, I think, as it proves to yourself that you're on your way! Yes, it certainly could have had something to do with your WILD attempt, as making the effort puts your mind in the right place: even if the actual WILD effort fails, you might still find yourself in a DILD later. That happens to me often.

Let me just preface my note here with the fact that I PM'd Sageous yesterday asking about a few of my failed WILD attempts, and he advised that I should probably concentrate on just MILDing at this point (I'm a newbie) before giving WILDing a serious try. So that makes last night's "almost-WILD" experience all the more amusing....

Last night I attempted MILD -- I'm habitually now waking up several times every night and recalling/recording my dreams (it's amazing how autosuggest / setting intent works as an internal alarm clock!). I woke up last night about 4 hours after going to bed, and attempted MILD using one of the dreams I had just recalled as the visualisation. I stayed reasonably focussed on the repetitions and finally thought I had my intention well set, and tried to go back to sleep. But I couldn't, I was just too aware. All I wanted to do was fall asleep and hopefully let the MILD magic do its thing for an LD.

So there I was, slowly passing through the initial signs of sleep, just tangentially noticing them not really caring while being fairly alert, but sleep still seems a ways off. "Hey," I suddenly realize, "this is actually what I think doing a WILD correctly according to Sageous is all about."

I just watched the process happen. When all the telltale WILD-ing things started happening (dreamlets, scenes, little sounds out of nowhere, body sensations), I decided "well, why not?" So I did something like counting "One. I'm dreaming, Two, I'm dreaming," and some other things I'd read about to keep the awareness awake (imagining body motions like sitting on swing / rocking) while WILDing but being very relaxed and not "trying to make a WILD happen." Well the result was I eventually started seeing some pretty clear, consistent scenes of a place I was thinking of, different from daydreaming visualizations, more real, deeper, more like I was "there." I saw some things in the scene that I hadn't imagined (a woman lying on the grass in the distance), and thought I may be almost there. I felt "on the edge" and just a small push would put me in, but the transition never came, maybe because I don't have prior experience of just how it feels. I went back and forth between seeing nothing and seeing these scenes. But I think I got a taste of it last night. I do recall at one point "sinking deeper," and noticing that I felt like I was breathing "dream air," cooler than my WL room air, and breathing was easier and freer [the more I think about this, I may have fallen asleep at this point, but being still aware. It was like nothing I've ever felt before, kind of a "dual reality"]. All the time I had a notion of my physical body in bed, sometimes stronger, sometimes more distant. I sensed I was pretty uncomfortable but there was pretty strong inertia against moving. I don't think I was paralyzed but I didn't want to really test it, I think I twitched a finger a teeny tiny bit just to test. I tried to wait it out and did for a while. I did a few throat-close-nose-breath RCs that don't require moving, thinking I may have transitioned to a scene-less LD, but was awake each time.

Anyway, since I didn't enter into the night with the expectation of trying to WILD, I felt no frustration, just interest and wonder at the new experiences, learning a bit more about what the process feels like. I hope this is a sign of some progress!

Reading through some of the recent messages here, it seems I may have just been in NREM, and if I had gotten the timing a bit luckier, I could have had an unplanned WILD! Sageous, do you think that sounds about right?

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Originally Posted by FryingMan

Reading through some of the recent messages here, it seems I may have just been in NREM, and if I had gotten the timing a bit luckier, I could have had an unplanned WILD! Sageous, do you think that sounds about right?

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Sounds about right, FryingMan! You did indeed seem almost there; maybe next time...

One quick note, though: You still seem very concerned about identifying the "transition" from physical wakefulness to sleep and dream. Instead of looking for some signs of transition, which seems to be very important to you, why not just patiently wait for the dream? Being patient, calm, and full of expectations for an interesting LD is much more conducive to that transition (and actually falling asleep) than being overly concerned about the passage of each moment of your dive, and what its significance might be. Try to relax, and remember that the entire WILD event is a transition; there isn't necessarily one moment or sign you need to look for.

Still, it looks like the MILD work is going well for you, and that is always a good thing.

Next time!

I think what actually made me get that far is that I was generally unconcerned about the whole process and just wanted to fall asleep! But yes since I've never made the transition from LD to awake, I don't know what the awake to LD feels like (which BrandomBoss mentioned is very much like the LD to awake but in reverse).

Will a dream always 100% occur once the body is asleep in REM? What about the cases you wrote about where we should have an incubated dream handy in case there is no dream presented to us? Is that something that needs to be watched for? I'm also curious about when you try to "stand up", or looking for FA. Can a WILD result in an FA that seems entirely continuous from the WILDing attempt? In that case, are there signs to watch for? That's the sort of stuff I'm thinking about when I'm worrying about the transition.when the dream doesn't obviously manifest (or is that a pointless concern?)

FryingMan, you may be thinking too much about this stuff, or, worse, worrying too much. I fear you may have read too many opinions and instructions, and they are clouding your mind. You really need to clear all that out and just simply attempt your WILD on your own terms and at your own pace -- I'm not sure my class really says anything like that, but it should.

Since you asked:

* Nothing is 100%, ever, but generally a dream will occur during REM. I was specifically talking about forming a dream (not incubating, which is something else altogether, and unrelated to LD'ing) when your dreaming mind isn't quite ready; it will give you something, but often it is a ready-made schema like your own bedroom or house -- which may not be where you want to be in your LD. Occasionally you may have a period of NREM when nothing at all is there, but you might be able to form your dream during that period, sort of priming the pump for when REM arrives (and yes, for those paying attention, you can form dreams during NREM/delta, but that's not really where I'm going here). No it is certainly not something that needs to be watched for.

* I have no idea what the significance of "standing up" is, though I really don't see it as a method for, well, anything -- you can just as easily stand up while completely non-lucid as you can when you are aware.

* Never "look for" anything, including a FA. If a FA occurs, and you recognize it, great! But keeping an eye out for one is not a good idea on a lot of levels, the primary one being that your dreaming mind might honor your expectations and give you lots of dreams about false awakenings. When you're an experienced LD'er, FA's will be commonplace for you, and you'll likely develop a routine for dealing with them or avoiding them, but in my opinion they are not the best tool for a beginner to use to gain lucidity.

Oh, and no, a WILD cannot form from a FA. FA's by definition mean that you have already lost awareness, so even if you become lucid from one you will not be doing so from a waking-consciousness state; in other words, a FA literally cannot be entirely continuous, waking-consciousness speaking, from the beginning of your WILD attempt. A LD resulting from a FA is a DILD. So, no, there is nothing FA-related at all to "watch for" while attempting a WILD. If someone has told you otherwise, I believe they are wrong.

* Yes, "worrying about the transition when the dream doesn't obviously manifest" is indeed a pointless concern. In my opinion worrying about anything is a pointless concern. A dream is not obliged to obviously manifest on cue; sometimes a little calm patience is required while your body falls asleep and the dream begins. Try not to rush, force, or worry about a transition. It will come.

I hope that helped, and I hope very much that you are able to set aside some of the information you've absorbed, as it seems to be getting in your way.

Hey Sageous,
First of all let me say that I find amazing that you keep this thread going for over a year sharing your knowledge for free, instantly replying to (often) the same questions over and over again.
Hats off to you sir.

Little background.
English is not my main language. If something doesn't make sense please feel free to point it out.
I'm a noob regarding lucid Dreaming. I've had one! successful DILD. I'm focusing mainly on DILD and WILD.
I've been trying to incorporate RRCs during the day and building my self awareness. Not sure if I'm doing it the right way but you've provided all the tools I need. I know it's a personal thing and that it's up to me now.
I've read all your classes, threads, etc hoping I'm not posing questions that were answered before. I'm really sorry if in some way they were.

Life in general is simply taking the best of me. I'm always running and as much as I don't want to admit I believe work related stress is somewhat preventing me from achieving an ideal mind-set for WILDing and LD in general.
Still I'm really stubborn and determined so LD definitely came to stay. So everything that I can learn and develop at this point will probably serve me well in a near future when things slow down a bit.

I've tried a couple of times during WBTB after a 5 hours' sleep. Since I simply can't sleep more that 6 or 6½ hours a night I can't spend that much time gaining awareness and properly waking up during WBTB. So I just fall asleep instantly when going back to bed.

So I've been trying to WILD during naps almost every day in the last 3 or 4 weeks with no success.
I wake up every day at 7am and get home from work at 17:30. I usually have 1 or 1½ hour before I have to leave.
I know that this is not an ideal time for a WILD attempt and that I'm probably far from an REM cycle but I have no other time available.

So, I usually lay down, I try to relax my body and properly clear my mind from all the worries.
Then I repeat my mantra "I am Aware" (sometimes I count backwards from 100). I use my mantra in English. I think it makes more sense to me because everything I read regarding LD is in English and I tend to think about it in English too. Hope there's nothing in a deeper level of my brain that removes meaning from it for not being in Portuguese.
Sometimes in just a minute I get strong hypnagogic jerks. Then no matter what I do to preventing from sleeping too soon and keep my awareness up I simply fall asleep. Then after a short sleep I wake up and feel more rested.
Then if I still have some time I can give it another try.
What usually happens is that I start to visualize some random scenes. Not sure if it's HI, just daydreaming or the dream starting to form.
Sometimes it's just random scenes changing, sometimes it's already a full scene with plot and DCs and all but I'm never fully aware of myself at this point that I can consciously "walk" into the dream or "imagine" myself there.
Then I am violently "awake" by some really strong vibration. I mean really strong.
I couldn't care less about them. But it's like someone is grabbing my foot (usually my left foot…) and shaking it. I almost jump out of bed like "shit what was this?! Oh damn vibrations again".
Which leads to believe that I'm slipping into a non lucid dream.
I got really close a couple of times but seems like there's something blocking me.

Ahhhh sorry for the really long post.
Would really like to hear your thoughts.

Best regards.

Welcome Sprada!

Ironically, I am going away for a couple of days and simply do not have time to post responsibly right now, so please forgive any delay in responding.

At a glance, though, it appears that you have a problem with timing and with not having enough sleep in the first place, both of which can make WILD's difficult. I'll try to look more carefully when I'm back.

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Originally Posted by Sageous

Welcome Sprada!

Ironically, I am going away for a couple of days and simply do not have time to post responsibly right now, so please forgive any delay in responding.

At a glance, though, it appears that you have a problem with timing and with not having enough sleep in the first place, both of which can make WILD's difficult. I'll try to look more carefully when I'm back.

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No problem ;)
Take care.

when I was trying to do a wild about 40 min into it saw all these lights and images and I was like this is it.
then my eyes started to flicker and it was hard to control them. then I started coming back to the waking world and I was all like y u no let me wild! what happened. did I do something wrong?

Sprada:

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Originally Posted by sprada

Hey Sageous,
First of all let me say that I find amazing that you keep this thread going for over a year sharing your knowledge for free, instantly replying to (often) the same questions over and over again.
Hats off to you sir.

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Thanks -- I never thought about the "for free" part, though! ;)

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Life in general is simply taking the best of me. I'm always running and as much as I don't want to admit I believe work related stress is somewhat preventing me from achieving an ideal mind-set for WILDing and LD in general. Still I'm really stubborn and determined so LD definitely came to stay. So everything that I can learn and develop at this point will probably serve me well in a near future when things slow down a bit.

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Yes, "always running" is not the best consciousness state for successful WILDing. WILD is basically a form of meditation, and works best, I think, in a state of calm detachment from the general torrents of waking life activity. That's not always easy to do, but it is very important.

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I've tried a couple of times during WBTB after a 5 hours' sleep. Since I simply can't sleep more that 6 or 6½ hours a night I can't spend that much time gaining awareness and properly waking up during WBTB. So I just fall asleep instantly when going back to bed.

So I've been trying to WILD during naps almost every day in the last 3 or 4 weeks with no success.
I wake up every day at 7am and get home from work at 17:30. I usually have 1 or 1½ hour before I have to leave.
I know that this is not an ideal time for a WILD attempt and that I'm probably far from an REM cycle but I have no other time available.

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That's not ideal at all, I think, as WILD's tend to have their best chance for success after those six hours of sleep. Also, trying to insert a WBTB into a night's sleep that must end after 6 hours can be difficult. If you can arrange for attempting WILD's on your day off (you must get one occasionally) so that you don't even have to think about when you must get up (and thus avoid thinking of all the things that come with that). If you can never find a few hours (after that initial five) to add to your night's sleep for WILD attempts, you might want to stick with DILD.

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So, I usually lay down, I try to relax my body and properly clear my mind from all the worries.
Then I repeat my mantra "I am Aware" (sometimes I count backwards from 100). I use my mantra in English. I think it makes more sense to me because everything I read regarding LD is in English and I tend to think about it in English too. Hope there's nothing in a deeper level of my brain that removes meaning from it for not being in Portuguese.

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That's an interesting choice, using English for your mantra. This is totally my opinion, but I think you might be better off using Portuguese, even if you've begun to think in English on these sites. Dreaming is a very primordial activity, and using a language that might work intellectually for your waking-life activities but is not the first language of your unconscious, dreaming, mind might cause a communication block somewhere on the way to a dream. You want to open doors to your dreaming mind, not hang new ones! I could be wrong about this, but it is a direction I would not take.

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Sometimes in just a minute I get strong hypnagogic jerks. Then no matter what I do to preventing from sleeping too soon and keep my awareness up I simply fall asleep. Then after a short sleep I wake up and feel more rested.

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There is little you can do about those jerks except, of course, just letting them happen and trying to stay aware as your body sets into physical sleep. It's that simple, and that hard.

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What usually happens is that I start to visualize some random scenes. Not sure if it's HI, just daydreaming or the dream starting to form.
Sometimes it's just random scenes changing, sometimes it's already a full scene with plot and DCs and all but I'm never fully aware of myself at this point that I can consciously "walk" into the dream or "imagine" myself there.

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Those random scenes might just be dreamlets that appear as you are drifting between physical waking and sleep states, and it's best to ignore them as just a bit more noise, or perhaps use them to help you form your dream.

Those full-blown dream scenes might be a problem, though, because, as you describe them they could be actual non-lucid dreams, which indicates that you did lose awareness at some point. That might mean you missed your WILD chance, but if you've done your mental prep well, then you might still have a chance at a WILD ... so, it's not a bad thing altogether, as long as you are flexible enough to switch to becoming aware, rather than maintaining awareness.

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Then I am violently "awake" by some really strong vibration. I mean really strong.
I couldn't care less about them. But it's like someone is grabbing my foot (usually my left foot…) and shaking it. I almost jump out of bed like "shit what was this?! Oh damn vibrations again".
Which leads to believe that I'm slipping into a non lucid dream.
I got really close a couple of times but seems like there's something blocking me.

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The violent foot-shaking thing is certainly a problem, but after you make many WILD attempts and become accustomed to it happening, you'll likely be able to move past the shaking toward your dream. Also, I suggest that you try avoiding ever thinking or, worse, worrying, that you are slipping into a non-lucid dream or that something is blocking you. Thoughts like that tend to create the condition: assume that you are losing lucidity and, sure enough, you will. Stay positive and rest assured that if you are able to ask questions like that, you're probably still at least a little aware!

I hope that helped and wasn't too scattershot. Let me know if anything was unclear.

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Originally Posted by xIGSxTEMPERR

when I was trying to do a wild about 40 min into it saw all these lights and images and I was like this is it.
then my eyes started to flicker and it was hard to control them. then I started coming back to the waking world and I was all like y u no let me wild! what happened. did I do something wrong?

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What you may have done wrong was paying too much attention to the noise. If your eyes flutter, don't try to control them; just let them have their moment and move on. Your eyes might do that every time you fall asleep and its quite normal for you, but you just don't usually notice because, well, you're asleep and lack the awareness that comes with WILD.

Also, try to avoid imagining that some force (or perhaps your own unconscious) is preventing you from a successful WILD. Yes, your brain is not naturally wired for WILD, but it's also not intentionally trying to prevent it. However, if you start thinking or believing things like that during your dive expectation will win and your WILD will be blocked. As I told Prada in my last post, be positive!

Sageous, if I may draw on your expertise again, I would like to ask if you approach naps any differently? I normally take 20 minute naps but have been trying longer naps (40-120 minutes) when I have the time to give me additional opportunities to LD. Sometimes I do it on the weekend 2-3 hours after waking up, sometimes 5-6 hours after, and a few times as much as 10 hours after(some weekdays). I am beginning to wonder if napping for LDs is not for me. If I remember correctly without going through my extensive bedside dream journal, I don't think I have had a true lucid so far while napping.

My gut feeling is that WILDing is the best chance for me to get an LD while napping since I usually get HI's and/or dreamlets (scenarios and sometimes dialogue) when napping with the intention to have an LD. My success so far has been coming from WBTB DILDs, some WBTB WILDs, and some DEILDs. Some of what I am counting as WBTB WILDs it feels like I lost awareness and then regained it upon feeling vibrations so I am not sure if they were all true WILDs.

If you have some input, there is definitely no rush! :)

^^ I guess I treat naps just like I do WBTB. I definitely only attempt WILD/DEILD during naps, though accidental DILD's have occurred many times. This is probably because REM is very likely during naps, and you never quite enter a deep enough sleep that would break up a WILD attempt and make DILD necessary.

Also, if I'm napping more than a few hours after waking, I don't bother at all. This may just be my experience, but it seems that, once my night's sleep is well behind me, my dreaming mind has no real interest in working with me. So naps more than three or four hours after waking just don't produce LD's. So if you're like me at all, it may be that you're taking many of your naps too late.

And yeah, if you get most of your success at times that are not napping, it could be that they're not right for you. It's all a matter of timing, and if you've got the timing down, then stick to it; no sense trying to produce LD's at times when your mind simply isn't into it!