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

Originally Posted by ThreeCat

So DEILD does not describe the process, but your own relative state of lucidity. Let me ask this: if you catch the false awakening, have you now DILDed and not DEILDed?

Yes, and yes.

DEILD is a version of WILD, and like WILD is not a technique but a description of your state of mind as it transitions from wake to sleep... aka a descriptor of "your own relative state of lucidity." The processes or techniques can vary, but in order to DEILD you must be self-aware as you awaken (preferably as a result of exiting from a lucid dream state) and remain that way throughout the waking process and return to sleep.

If you realize you are dreaming during a FA, then you just experienced a DILD, and there is nothing wrong with that!

Originally Posted by LouaiB

So, if I got it right, a transition to the waking state from a LD will cause a gap in consciousness, and a transition to a FA won't?

I think you might have this turned around. If you are DEILD'ing, there is no gap in consciousness during the transition from the LD to a waking state, and back. A false awakening is by definition a gap of waking-life consciousness, so a transition to a FA actually implies a gap in consciousness, and not the other way around.

So, if you suspect you had a FA, you can tell because you never lost consciousness, but if you woke up, you can tell because you had a gap in consciousness?

You can only tell you are in a FA by recognizing it as one during the FA. If you never lost self-awareness, then you can't be in a FA -- you might be in a dream-version of your room, but you will know you are still dreaming.

So you'll know when to do a DEILD, and also when it's still a dream?

The time to know when to do a DEILD is during a LD as you sense you are waking up, or (if there was no LD) in the brief beginnings of waking up. And yes, you will know when to do it, and when it is still a dream, because you must possess self-awareness to do a DEILD.

So we can definitely feel the transition from dream to waking and vice versa?

Yes

So this helps us by telling us our state, and so realizing whether this is a dream, or whether it's time for a DEILD.

I suppose. It isn't so much that we're having our state told to us, but that, because we are self-aware (as we must be during a DEILD), we know our state, and we know whether this is or is not a dream, and yes, the time to DEILD will also be clear.

OK, so if we are lucid, we will feel no gap in consciousness when we wake up because we are self aware before and after. But, if it was actually a FA we would lose consciousness, and then an attempt of DEILD would show us later that we are dreaming still.

OK got it, thank you Sageous

Originally Posted by Sageous

If you realize you are dreaming during a FA, then you just experienced a DILD, and there is nothing wrong with that!

Hmmm so I guess I didn't WILD yet , oh well...

My question though is if FA's are DILDS, then why are they always associated with WILDS? virtually every guide I look at says that FA's are a WILD phonomenon. Could this be a lack of knowlage on the nature of FA's?

Originally Posted by HeWhoShapes

Hmmm so I guess I didn't WILD yet , oh well...

My question though is if FA's are DILDS, then why are they always associated with WILDS? virtually every guide I look at says that FA's are a WILD phonomenon. Could this be a lack of knowlage on the nature of FA's?

FAs are not always DILDs. Sageous is saying that in order to WILD, you remain aware from waking to dream state. In order for an FA to happen during WILD, there must be some kind of loss of awareness during the WILD since if there wasn't, you'd know that you were dreaming. If, during the FA, you realize you're dreaming, then it would be a DILD. In this situation technique names don't really matter because the whole point is that you're trying to get lucid.

^^ What he said.

Also:

Originally Posted by HeWhoShapes

My question though is if FA's are DILDS, then why are they always associated with WILDS? virtually every guide I look at says that FA's are a WILD phonomenon. Could this be a lack of knowlage on the nature of FA's?

First, False Awakenings (FA's) are not DILDs or WILDs. They are FA's. A FA is merely a dream where the dream character "You" assumes that you have woken up from your sleep and have started (or are already well into) your waking-life day. They are not a WILD phenomenon, but a phenomenon unto themselves, and can and do occur at any time, whether you are attempting a LD or not.

I am not entirely sure how FA's came to be so closely related to WILD's though I assume that it is because many WILD reports end with a false awakening, rather than a successful WILD. I have some ideas about why so many WILD's end in NLD's about lying in your own room, or getting up for breakfast -- mostly revolving around a WILDer's unconscious being unable to assemble a dream in time -- but that's not important here. What is important is that FA's are a phenomenon unto themselves, and not a result (or a goal) of WILD.

One place FA's can have value, though, is in the way we have been discussing here: should your WILD/DEILD fail and you lose consciousness, you still made the attempt. The process of making that attempt included priming your mind for a lucid dream, so, come the FA, you might be much more likely to wonder if this bedroom you're in isn't a dream, and from that you might become lucid. When you do, that transition is a DILD. Now, because it was through DILD you became lucid does not mean that FA's are a DILD phenomenon, either!

I suppose a lot of guides will discuss FA's because they are sort of a "last chance" for lucidity, and, if you have properly prepared your mind to look for them, that last chance can become a powerful tool. So the guide-writers might not be lacking knowledge of the nature of FA's as much as their effort to incorporate them (FA's) into their WILD techniques serves up the appearance that FA's are a WILD phenomenon.

I still think the scenario I'm thinking of (and that I imagined the OP of this mini-thread had in mind) hasn't been addressed. I guess I'm looking for an "algorithm" that determines how best to approach handling the "Here I am 'awake' in bed" scenario. I'm not talking about whether or not a DEILD attempt ends up producing a FA.

I'm talking about the following scenario that begins with: "Oh, here I am 'awake' in my bed"

At this point should one: 1) RC in the hope of catching a FA if this indeed is a FA, or 2) remain still and immediately initiate a DEILD. #1 and #2 seem mutually exclusive since moving to perform the RC can interfere with the DEILD attempt by waking you up too much.

If you do not RC in the hope of catching a FA and immediately initiate DEILD, you could miss FAs.

If you do RC, you could miss the chance of a successful DEILD through excess movement.

One random note about FAs that I've noticed: they only happen to me when I've been recently lucid or really really close to being lucid, very high awareness / vivid experience.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

I still think the scenario I'm thinking of (and that I imagined the OP of this mini-thread had in mind) hasn't been addressed. I guess I'm looking for an "algorithm" that determines how best to approach handling the "Here I am 'awake' in bed" scenario. I'm not talking about whether or not a DEILD attempt ends up producing a FA.

I'm talking about the following scenario that begins with: "Oh, here I am 'awake' in my bed"

At this point should one: 1) RC in the hope of catching a FA if this indeed is a FA, or 2) remain still and immediately initiate a DEILD. #1 and #2 seem mutually exclusive since moving to perform the RC can interfere with the DEILD attempt by waking you up too much.

If you do not RC in the hope of catching a FA and immediately initiate DEILD, you could miss FAs.

If you do RC, you could miss the chance of a successful DEILD through excess movement.

One random note about FAs that I've noticed: they only happen to me when I've been recently lucid or really really close to being lucid, very high awareness / vivid experience.

Fryingman, love the new avatar.

I would say the answer to this is one of intuition and possibly timing. Trying to DEILD and its not working? Go for the RC.

On the other hand, are you really questioning whether you are awake? If so, why? I wear a sleep mask, so if I wake up and can see, I know I'm dreaming.

I think ultimately, even if you miss the FA, it's only a missed FA. You can't catch 'em all.

^^ Thanks, 3C, you win the award for noticing the new avatar first .
edit: actually looks like Dreamer noticed it first, but in a visitor message, it looks like you got the first forum notification

Yeah it may be too rigid but the question raised is a legitamate one: should one *always* RC upon realizing one is awake?

And sleep masks can slip...but yes I always wear a sleep mask. But both just-reaally-woke-up-sleepy in-dream thinking can be foggy at best sometimes.

And a DEILD attempt can lead to non-lucid dreaming.

But yeah, I suppose at worst: flip a mental coin and decide which one to try.

Or try a "gentle" RC and then immediately go for the DEILD.

As i believe Sageous was saying before, normally when I awake from an LD, I know I am awake; it's dark (the mask) and I can hear and feel the rhythm of my breath. Normally enough and I don't really think about it. Also, when I am seriously considering whether or not I am awake--either because something off is happening or whatever--I normally find that I am dreaming.

But no, not an exact science.

So have you made your own "ah" and hung it somewhere in the house? I had one up at work for a while. Surprising what most people won't notice.

Though I personally feel, FryingMan, that your question has been answered more than once, and I was content to see this thread revert to being one about reporting WILD attempts rather than a philosophical debate about FA's and the value of RC'ing, I suppose we could go around one more time.

First, I think the "OP's" initial question was answered, almost immediately, and most succinctly, by Ctharhlie, here:

Originally Posted by Ctharlhie

Well it wasn't LD, you didn't know it was a dream At the very least it can be said you transitioned? RC every time you wake up, every single time.

Now, I know you raised an additional argument about RC's interfering with DEILD attempts, and I responded to it at least three times that I noticed (posts 945, 947, & 949), with other mentions elsewhere -- 3Cat did yet another good job of it just above.. Apparently I did a very bad job of it; let me try again.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

Yeah it may be too rigid but the question raised is a legitamate one: should one *always* RC upon realizing one is awake?

Sure.

If you "know" you are awake -- eyes open, looking around at your bedroom -- then the time for your DEILD attempt has already passed (you should have started it before your eyes were open, BTW, and of course would have kept your eyes closed during it). So, if your RC succeeds then it is perhaps time for a WBTB and a WILD, as DEILD will only work now if you have very powerful images of your last dream, coupled with a certain knack for falling back to sleep.

So yeah; you can RC whenever you wake up fully (eyes open, room in view). Because the circumstances of being awake coincide with being too late to DEILD anyway and with the usual imagery of a FA, doing a RC cannot interfere with a DEILD and can help you catch FA's.

And yes, as I said before, doing a RC during a DEILD (before you are fully awake, before your eyes are open) is not a good idea, for the reasons already noted above.

And sleep masks can slip...but yes I always wear a sleep mask. But both just-reaally-woke-up-sleepy in-dream thinking can be foggy at best sometimes.

On the contrary; a missing sleep mask is a great indicator that you are dreaming. If it slipped, your RC (or increasing awareness) will verify that quickly. This is an excellent "quickie" RC; I use it all the time. Instead of arguing against it, you might consider incorporating it into your waking-up routine -- couldn't hurt, right?

Or try a "gentle" RC and then immediately go for the DEILD.

you mean, like noticing that your sleep mask is missing?

From your previous post:

I still think the scenario I'm thinking of (and that I imagined the OP of this mini-thread had in mind) hasn't been addressed. I guess I'm looking for an "algorithm" that determines how best to approach handling the "Here I am 'awake' in bed" scenario. I'm not talking about whether or not a DEILD attempt ends up producing a FA.

I'm talking about the following scenario that begins with: "Oh, here I am 'awake' in my bed"

The algorithm you seek, I think (and believe have already said at least three times), is a simple mix of self-awareness and timing: If you have DEILD-level self-awareness, and are doing a DEILD properly you will not have a FA (that's the self-awareness part); you might be presented with a dream that begins in bed, but you will know it is a dream -- your self-awareness will not allow you to be fooled. And if you should suddenly find yourself awake in bed (this is the timing part), dreaming or not, then it is clear you have failed with your DEILD attempt, and it's time to do something else (like WBTB/ WILD); the first and most logical thing to try here is a RC, just to be sure you are not still asleep.

It's that simple: the two things -- FA's and DEILD -- cannot happen at the same time, so dealing with one will not interfere with the other.

At this point should one: 1) RC in the hope of catching a FA if this indeed is a FA, or 2) remain still and immediately initiate a DEILD. #1 and #2 seem mutually exclusive since moving to perform the RC can interfere with the DEILD attempt by waking you up too much.

1. Yes.

2. Sure. But if you've already opened your eyes and are awake enough to wonder if this is your room, it may be best to switch to classic WILD. DEILD is not about laying still, it's about holding on to your last dream, and the mindset that accompanies it. You could literally get up and go to the bathroom and still complete a DEILD (done it many times, to my great relief). But open your eyes to the world, which is what a FA represents, and your DEILD is over. So, no harm done doing a RC at that point.

#'s 1 & 2 are indeed mutually exclusive, but the two would be done/happen at different times, so their mutual exclusivity will not be a problem.

If you do not RC in the hope of catching a FA and immediately initiate DEILD, you could miss FAs.

Why on earth would you want to "catch" a FA? I never got that. FA's are inconveniences for which you can prepare and maybe do something about, but I really don't think they ought to be sought out. I know this might run anathema to all those guides, but it is what I think.

If you do RC, you could miss the chance of a successful DEILD through excess movement.

No. You already missed the DEILD, and the RC is your first step in moving on.


I hope all this was clear, FryingMan, and without too much repetition, contradiction, or, contrarily, terseness. If you'd like to pursue this further, I'd deeply appreciate it if you would switch over to the Q & A thread!

An aside:

Originally Posted by ThreeCat

So have you made your own "ah" and hung it somewhere in the house? I had one up at work for a while. Surprising what most people won't notice.

Hey, I did that too! Used it as a mandala for a while -- most helpful, especially when the whole design starts shifting! And yeah, I've also worn a T-shirt with it, and no one ever asked, once, what it was...

I think the disproportionate prevalence of FAs from WILD attempts may be due in part to the LD community's fixation with OBEs. And Inception.

^^ That is an excellent point!

Originally Posted by Sageous

Please use this thread to let us know how your WILD attempts worked for you. Be sure to include any questions, hazards, revelations, cool experiences you might have encountered during your dive.

Once posted, we can discuss what went right/wrong with your attempt, find things that were not included in the class, or just offer some oft-needed moral support!

1 hour ago I just had a WILD and it was simple but beautiful, it was like, after SP I was trying to go out of my body and some force pulled me out of my body. My WILD started from my room and I RC'ed, then went out of the room by opening my room's door by my hand, while doing this, I was thinking I will re-check my room door when I will actually wake up. Btw, then I floated down through the stairs and went downstairs. Then I was having a look of outside view through my backdoor. Everything was almost in order but the difference is there was an extra road in the corner, which was made of soil and some yellow flowers were there standing on the ground. The view was amazing to me, then, after exploring a little bit more, I woke up. Then, I rechecked my room's door and it was still closed, when, I opened it in my WILD. That's what my experience was. Thank you

I had a great night full of LDs, but I'll just post the parts here with my successful DEILD attempts. (Sorry it's a bit long-winded, I just recorded everything I remembered experiencing.)
I was surprised that my first LDs (a DILD followed by these DEILDs) all happened during the first hour of sleep. I was quite sleep deprived, so that might explain the longer REM periods early in the night.

I've copied this over from my DJ, with the following colour coding:
- waking/notes
- semi-lucid (I've used this for transitioning)
- lucid

I've only included an excerpt up to the part where I gained full vision:

Spoiler for DEILD #1:

As I exited the previous dream, I decided to remain still and attempt to DEILD my way back in.
I relaxed my body and mindfully waited and focused on being aware of the dream state.
I started to feel really strong vibrations. I suddenly had the sensation that my phone was resting on my leg next to my hand, like I'd fallen asleep holding it earlier. I thought I should probably move my phone out of the way so I didn't accidentally call someone in my sleep. I considered the fact that this might ruin my chances of a successful DEILD, but I kept my eyes closed and made a very slow movement to grab my phone and put it next to my pillow instead. (In hindsight, I'm pretty sure that my phone was never on my leg.)
I settled into stillness again and the vibrations continued.
The first imagery that appeared was some white glowing text. I think it formed a real word that I recognised at the time, but I wasn't too focused on making sense of the word, because I thought that could be a distraction and draw me into a non-lucid plot.
The next image that appeared was a scary holographic face right next to me, and a feeling of fear rushed through my body. I got a familiar feeling of déjà vu, and believed that I had encountered this face in a nightmare earlier in the night (I'm not sure whether that was a true or false memory.) I tried to move past the feeling of fear and stay present. The face disappeared and I was in darkness once again.
I seemed to stay vibrating in my bed for quite a while before anything changed.
I noticed that I now had the sensation of lying on carpet, instead of my bed. The holographic face appeared again, along with a rush of fear, and I found myself back in my bed, lying still, hearing the ambient noise of waking life again, seemingly needing to start from scratch.
I stayed calm and the vibrations began again, and the sensation of the carpet under my back returned. The face appeared yet again, along with the jolt of fear. This time I felt myself rising up out of my body. I wondered if this was the sensation that Xanous and others refer to when they talk about OBEs. The thought occurred to me that I may have just incubated that as an expectation from reading other people's DJs. I was experiencing this from 2 perspectives - from the ghost body, and from a third person perspective at a higher angle where I could see a blue ghostly figure rising up from a sleeping body on the floor. As the ghost body, I felt myself spinning forward into a few somersaults.
I felt myself back in my bed and heard the ambient noise of my room... time to start from scratch again.
This cycle of bed/carpet/face/fear repeated a few more times. The feeling of an endless déjà vu cycle was similar to the feeling I've previously experienced during psychotic episodes.
One time, I realised I was lying face down on the carpet instead of lying on my back. It occurred to me that my body must be completely in the dream now, since my sense of gravity had shifted. Everything was still completely black, but I remembered what Sageous said about not needing to open your eyes for vision, because you don't have eyes in a dream. I focused instead on heightening the sense that was already present: touch. I rubbed my hands along the carpet and gently scrunched parts of it up in my hands (yeah yeah, laugh it up, Xanous...) and realised how similar it felt to the carpet in my very first induced lucid dream - fuller and fluffier than I would expect normal carpet to be. I felt grounded in the scene now, so I slowly started pushing myself up from the floor. My body felt slightly heavier than in waking life, and I still felt like I needed to move slowly and carefully. It crossed my mind that there was actually no floor here and nothing to push against, since I was facing up in my bed. When this thought occurred, my hands fell through the floor and started sinking into empty space. I made the decision to accept the physics of the dreamworld and focus on being present in this space, and I was able to push against the floor once more. I slowly stood up and decided I would try flying to gain some vision. I imagined myself flying, but I still felt heavy and didn't really get the sensation of movement. I tried making swimming motions with my arms instead, and my body started feeling lighter. I felt myself floating through the air now, and felt much more stable and grounded in the dream.

As I flew, I thought about my goals for the dream. I was still in darkness, but I thought it would be a good time to summon CanisLucidus. I held my hand out slightly behind me and expected him to grab on. I felt a sensation around my hand, but it wasn't quite solid yet. I focused on allowing that feeling to form, and called out loud for Canis a few times, and then switched to his real name and repeated that a few times. I soon felt a definite hand holding mine, so I tugged him up beside me and we kept flying together.
My vision started forming at this point, but it was still quite dark and vague. I felt like I had a good enough hold on the dream to start using intention and expectation to change the surroundings, so I willed it to be bright and clear around me, and the dream obliged. Canis still seemed to be in a shadow though, so I focused on bringing the light up around him and making him look like himself. This only took a moment, and I was really pleased to see him.

The full entry is here.

Then, in the middle of this dream:

Spoiler for DEILD #2:

I felt the dream destabilising and fading away. I was feeling really confident after my successful DEILD, so I relaxed and convinced myself that I would return to the dream very shortly to complete the dare.
Everything went black and I felt myself back in my bed. I focused on visualising the purple room.
My body felt numb and tingly, and my vision of the room returned very quickly.
There didn't seem to be much of a transition period this time, and I felt like I was back in my dream body almost immediately.

I attempted a WILD after my WBTB later, but was unsuccessful.
I tried doing SSILD cycles for the first time, and did fine with the quick cycles at the start, but I lost focus very quickly during the longer cycles and fell asleep.
I haven't read through all your lessons yet Sageous, so I'm not actually sure whether SSILD is a method you advocate. I know you and sivason often share similar thoughts, and I seem to remember him ridiculing any 'ILD' that doesn't start with D or W.

I have a few questions:
Was I doing something to cause such a lengthy transition the first time?
Do you think I was really awake during the bed phases of the repeating cycle? Should I have tried moving earlier?
Why do you think the second DEILD was so much simpler? Could this have been a false awakening?
Any other comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks, Sageous!

Originally Posted by ~ Dreamer ~

Was I doing something to cause such a lengthy transition the first time?

Aside from noticing that you seemed to be paying way to much attention to the noise, what I immediately spotted here was that you seem to have been doing your DEILD without any thoughts about your last dream, or thoughts about your specific plans for your next dream (if you were not planning on returning to your last dream). Though it is important, just being mindful is probably not enough for a DEILD to work properly; your unconscious needs something to grab on to in order to quickly get your dream-processing engines fired up again (remember that, since you were waking up, your unconscious was wrapping up its dreamworld creation for the night).

So, because your dreaming mind (your unconscious) had nothing with which to work, it likely took a bit longer, and some very noisy stuttering, to get back into gear. I suggest that next time you sense a DEILD coming on, pause for a moment and remember the dream from which you are emerging, and picture yourself returning to it. If you have no wish to return to that dream, then picture where you plan to go next in your dreams (though even here I suggest that you return to the original dream and start your new exploration from there, just to give your dreaming mind a break).

Also, if you were thinking of your last dream but failed to mention it in your record, that omission is a sign that it really was not that important to you. Try to keep the memory of that last dream important, and you will find that the transition will be much quicker, more palatable, and more navigable.

Do you think I was really awake during the bed phases of the repeating cycle? Should I have tried moving earlier?

That's hard to say. It seems like you might have been toeing the fence that divides wake and sleep, as evidenced by those repeating dreamlets and HI (both unusual things to have in DEILD, because there ought to be no time for that stuff to form). But you also could have lost consciousness completely, and all that noise was your dreaming mind struggling to give you something. If I were you, I would set this experience aside as a failed DEILD/successful DILD, and try not to make the things that occurred in it relevant to your work, or your next DEILD.

One quick note here: I noticed you seem to do a lot of thinking about what is going on while it is going on (i.e., "I wondered if this was the sensation that Xanous and others refer to when they talk about OBEs. The thought occurred to me that I may have just incubated that as an expectation from reading other people's DJs.") This is not a great helper to a DEILD (or classic WILD) dive. I suggest you save those sort of thoughts and observations for later, after you wake up for the day. Entertaining them during the dive might confuse you, or create unnecessary expectations that could lead your dreaming mind to manufacture its version of an OBE, just to oblige those expectations... or, worse, your dreaming mind will fail to reproduce consistent OBE imagery, and set you on a loop of repeated attempts to get it right (that's a total guess on my part, but it sort of makes sense, doesn't it?).

Should you have tried to move earlier? No. Or maybe yes. Movement, or holding still, isn't as important as people make it to be, so it really doesn't matter that much -- unless of course you find yourself thinking about movement, either struggling to hold still or deciding whether it's okay to, say scratch your nose. Worrying about such things is just another distraction, I think; try to step past such thoughts, and stay focused on your next dream.

Why do you think the second DEILD was so much simpler? Could this have been a false awakening?

Well, based on what I said above, you've probably already answered this one: in this case you were mindful of your last dream, and had specific plans for your next one, so your dreaming mind had no trouble getting to work, skipping easily past all that gear-grinding noise you experienced in the first attempt.

To me, the second DEILD is a far better reflection of what accompanies a successful DEILD than the first attempt: the transition should be immediate, with little to no noise, and it ought to feel like you never left the first dream when the new one starts up (which is why DEILDs are so handy for chaining LD's).

I haven't read through all your lessons yet Sageous, so I'm not actually sure whether SSILD is a method you advocate.

Though I don't advocate it (or any technique), SSILD seems a fine way to attempt a WILD transition.

That's all I have for now; let me know if anything was unclear.

Interesting stuff, Dreamer; thanks for sharing!

hey Sageous, I have one question, most of the WILDs I have experienced was more like Astral Projection, I have had a couple of studies about LD and AP. There I learnt that LD starts from any place or dimensions, when AP starts from the LDers own room or from wherever he is trying to induce. Therefore, the first step of AP matches with my most of the WILDS, when the other things like, I opened the door in my WILD, when it was still closed in reality and the view of my surroundings are slightly changed, than the reality. Which makes me confused, that, what it really was? is there any possibilities that, the place I visited outside of my body really exists? was it AP or just a LD?

First, UdIe, it is never just a LD...

My personal opinion is that pretty much all perceived AP's (and OBE's) are actually LD's with a bit of imagination thrown in, and that we generally do not leave our bodies when we dream or otherwise mentally travel. Interpreting an event as an AP often is, I think, merely a misunderstanding of the creative ability of your own dreaming mind. But that's just my opinion; I could be wrong, and I certainly want to be wrong, because if AP and OBE are as common as the reporting on these forums indicate, then we live in a very interesting wold indeed! Because of that, I leave my mind open and include in my work a goal of confirming that "this is more than a dream."

That said, from what I read in your post, I would say that you were still dreaming when you opened that door in your WILD. If you are projecting yourself into reality, then nothing in the room you are entering should be different from waking life. If something is slightly different, then odds are you are creating your environment, and not visiting it. That might be a good tool for you, come next time you are confused: simply look around the place to which you think you have projected, and try to confirm that everything is where it should be.

I hope that helped; good luck in your journeys!

Originally Posted by Sageous

First, UdIe, it is never just a LD...

My personal opinion is that pretty much all perceived AP's (and OBE's) are actually LD's with a bit of imagination thrown in, and that we generally do not leave our bodies when we dream or otherwise mentally travel. Interpreting an event as an AP often is, I think, merely a misunderstanding of the creative ability of your own dreaming mind. But that's just my opinion; I could be wrong, and I certainly want to be wrong, because if AP and OBE are as common as the reporting on these forums indicate, then we live in a very interesting wold indeed! Because of that, I leave my mind open and include in my work a goal of confirming that "this is more than a dream."

That said, from what I read in your post, I would say that you were still dreaming when you opened that door in your WILD. If you are projecting yourself into reality, then nothing in the room you are entering should be different from waking life. If something is slightly different, then odds are you are creating your environment, and not visiting it. That might be a good tool for you, come next time you are confused: simply look around the place to which you think you have projected, and try to confirm that everything is where it should be.

I hope that helped; good luck in your journeys!

Yes, this is very true, and most scientific minds do agree with that, not just you. I definitely agree with this, and it would definitely be much more interesting if OBEs and AP are real!

Definitely our creativity can go wild (punz), and add to it expectations of OBE and AP believers, and bam, little charlie felt his third leg!

Note: This is why a healthy amount of video games (lol as much healthy as it can get) is nice for LDs, will add much more creativity to the dreams! My approach to everything new is to see it as a new upgrade to my LDs! Learn new and beautiful and, well, anything great, things to add them to our LDs to create much more satisfying LDing experiences!


I think I forgot to post my first successful WILD. Here it is:
I was doing WILD but got impatient and just decided to take a brake for the night, and complete the WBTB. As to add to the break, I decided not to bother on repealing my thoughts, so I jnjst went with the flow of my thoughts.

Due to the coincidently good WBTB conditions, I actually noticed later that I've suddenly come to a weird place in my thoughts where the thoughts were really random and illogical. I've noticed the weirdness of my thoughts. There was a consciousness gap before that, so I'm not sure if it's truly a WILD, but seems so because I mamnaged to carry some awareness that I used to become lucid. So a WILD/DILD hybrid . After noticing the weirdness in my thoughts, I realized that my thoughts, involving being in a bus, were actually happening. I was like, "Did I just do a WILD?!". RC, and indeed it was a dream. I got out of the bus that was on a road, but when I got out of it the scene has been changed to an underground military bunker (scenes changing illogically during moving through rooms, or changing of the current place to a more proper expected version of it is very common to me, and maybe everyone?). The DCs were soldiers in my team, whatever teams there were, and they really enjoyed me being lucid. They would ask me to do dream control stuff for them! We entered another room and suddenly enemies come in! I raise my gun just to find it a pillow, but that didn't stop me! I started shooting them using the pillow, no smoke or sound or even any shots, but they still seemed to get hit. Then others came from another door, but they got stuck because they all entered at the same time, then they struggled to get out of that! They would move, get hit and fall in a very funny way, kinda like in the Charlie Chebline (spelling?) movies! Then I saw a tank and decided to ride it. I climbed up at it, but then woke up.

Sooooo..... I totally forgot about my goals

That's the story ōvō

Originally Posted by Sageous

First, UdIe, it is never just a LD...

My personal opinion is that pretty much all perceived AP's (and OBE's) are actually LD's with a bit of imagination thrown in, and that we generally do not leave our bodies when we dream or otherwise mentally travel. Interpreting an event as an AP often is, I think, merely a misunderstanding of the creative ability of your own dreaming mind. But that's just my opinion; I could be wrong, and I certainly want to be wrong, because if AP and OBE are as common as the reporting on these forums indicate, then we live in a very interesting wold indeed! Because of that, I leave my mind open and include in my work a goal of confirming that "this is more than a dream."

That said, from what I read in your post, I would say that you were still dreaming when you opened that door in your WILD. If you are projecting yourself into reality, then nothing in the room you are entering should be different from waking life. If something is slightly different, then odds are you are creating your environment, and not visiting it. That might be a good tool for you, come next time you are confused: simply look around the place to which you think you have projected, and try to confirm that everything is where it should be.

I hope that helped; good luck in your journeys!

I've wondered whether or not our perspective on what it might mean to have an energy body is too limited, in the sense that we say, "It's all in your mind"; well and good, but what does that actually mean? What are the limits of a mind, and does a mind actually take up space, or can it overlap with another mind? Anyway . . . . I also try to keep an open mind, as dreams are so enlightening and strange, that I feel I learn something new all of the time. I'm still coming off of my first "days long dream," where I felt I was carrying out my normal life for several days. Quite discomforting to wake up in bed after that!

We might get this thread pulled into Beyond Dreaming . . . .

^^ I would start by considering the concept (or perhaps fact) that everything is energy. Given that LD's are about as close as we can consciously get to a world of pure energy, one formed by our own wills and desires, we might just use them (LD's) to explore the limits of that energy, and of our minds in the process. And, because LD's are so intimately our own, we might even get a chance to understand our minds' energy, its potentials, limits, and maybe even its source.

Energy as it relates to our being and our thoughts is an excellent subject, 3Cat, as is the concept that there's no such thing as time, but as you noted this is not the thread for such chat; maybe it'll come up somewhere else!

I was intending to wait until I had a bigger window of time to respond in full to your previous post, but I've had another DEILD experience in the meantime to share.

Firstly, I want to thank you for taking the time to answer my questions so thoroughly.
You were absolutely right in your observation that I was not paying enough (if any) attention to visualising the scene I wanted to enter. Being a very inexperienced WILDer, I have never quite known what to do when I find myself in 'the void'. I've read bits and pieces on DV, and I recall a mantra that Sivason mentioned using a while ago, "Watch for the dream." I guess I had in mind that I should be watching and waiting for something to appear, rather than focusing on creating it myself. I had been thinking of this darkness as a matter of waiting for my vision to form/return, and not really paying any thought to creating a vision.
I remembered your advice in the middle of a void experience last night, and it proved to be extremely effective:

Spoiler for DEILD:

The dream started fading and I found myself in the void. I felt like I'd woken up, but I didn't feel my bed, I just found myself surrounded by blackness.
I tried to stay with the dream so I could get back in and complete some lucid tasks. Initially, I was just waiting for my vision to return, and forgot to focus on visualising a scene. I focused on my sense of touch and rubbed my hands against my arms.
I found myself in some kind of circular chamber with a silver fan/vent in the distance. It felt like I was in a spacecraft with zero gravity, so I allowed myself to float up and held my knees in a fetal position. Everything was still very dark and I could barely make anything out. I remembered what Sagous said about needing to visualise the scene I wanted to enter. Still in a fetal position, I started spinning forward in fast somersaults to turn the vague vision I had into a blur, and I pictured the enchanted forest I wanted to visit:

Almost immediately, this exact picture appeared before me. It was boxed in a frame that took up about half my vision, surrounded by blackness. I was still floating weightlessly, so I swam through the air towards the image and jumped in.
I was now standing on the pathway from the picture, feeling gravity as normal, surrounded by a highly detailed and vividly coloured forest.

Full dream here.

One other thing I wanted to mention from your last post:

Originally Posted by Sageous

One quick note here: I noticed you seem to do a lot of thinking about what is going on while it is going on (i.e., "I wondered if this was the sensation that Xanous and others refer to when they talk about OBEs. The thought occurred to me that I may have just incubated that as an expectation from reading other people's DJs.") This is not a great helper to a DEILD (or classic WILD) dive. I suggest you save those sort of thoughts and observations for later, after you wake up for the day. Entertaining them during the dive might confuse you, or create unnecessary expectations that could lead your dreaming mind to manufacture its version of an OBE, just to oblige those expectations... or, worse, your dreaming mind will fail to reproduce consistent OBE imagery, and set you on a loop of repeated attempts to get it right (that's a total guess on my part, but it sort of makes sense, doesn't it?).

For me, there seems to be a fine line. My prospective memory is one of my strongest LD-related skills, eg. I am often able to recall all 5 tasks of the month in a single dream, and can recall long strings of personal goals or multi-step tasks that I've designed while awake. I attribute this somewhat to the fact that I do spend some time thinking about waking life thoughts/scenarios while I'm lucid. I also use these thoughts to aid my dream recall from within the dream, sometimes running over the dream while it's still happening and imagining how I will write about it in my DJ, or imagining the conversations I will have with DV friends when I wake. This means when I come to write the DJ or have the conversation, I've already focused on recalling the dream as it was happening, so the memories are more deeply embedded than if I'd just had the single experience of the dream activities. I think this habit of allowing myself to think about waking life situations in dreams is useful more often than not, but it can certainly distract me at times too, either making me lose lucidity or waking me up from the dream. I will keep an eye on this and see if it has a negative effect on my WILD efforts. At the very least, I will try to remain primarily focused on visualising the dream scene during dives, rather than letting my thoughts stray too strongly into analysing waking life situations.

Thank you for your tips and comments, I look forward to continuing on this journey!

No WILD but a DEILD last night! Nothing really exiting but I thought I'd just post it anyways..

So I woke up from a really cool dream. I drove a quad over a long bridge and managed to flip it. I fly right in the water with a big splash I wake up...
(I have a new mantra sleeping ritual, inspired by FryingMan's mantras, which consists of one mantra telling me to wake up after every dream, staying still, and remembering that I am awake)
I am in bed, knowing that I just woke up, so I stay still and close my eyes again (It is really dark with my new curtains, so I wasn't able to see anything anyways). I slowly breathe out and let my body sink in my bed. A rushing noise starts building up. I get an exiting rollercoster feeling and the rushing noise intensifies. It feels like sliding down a noisy water pipe at high speed (best description I can think of) and as soon as it started, I leave the pipe and everything is calm again. During my "ride" I constantly tried to relax myself further and tried to just go with the flow, if that makes sense
I am in my bed and everything feels normal, I do a nose RC and voilá... I am dreaming!

I tried to sit up then but my grounding and stabilization problems made me wake up and the idea of doing another DEILD didn't come into my mind

Sup everyone
Nice thread, reading successful WILD experiences will sure help everyone out.

My only successful WILD happened like 3 weeks ago;

I woke from my alarm clock around 4 hours after going to sleep.
I was lying on my back for something like 15~20 minutes, trying not to move and that kind of stuff, but I couldn't fall asleep.
Then I gave up and rolled over to my side (which is a more comfortable position for me than on my back).
Within a minute, or so it felt, I started dreaming, it went really smoothly and I didn't try anything at all!

It was amazing how easily it went after rolling over. Unfortunately I haven't been able to repeat it yet.
I think the most important thing is finding the balance between how much you try to keep yourself awake and how much you're letting yourself fall a sleep.

Tips & feedback appreciated!
-lean