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

I've been meaning to post here for a while. I've been lucid dreaming regularly for about a year and a half and most of my LDs are DILDs. I've attempted WILDs probably 50 + times and had maybe 5-6. The last two LDs have been WILDs so maybe I've come across a formula that works...time will tell. What I've done is I've gotten up after 5.5 hours of sleep and set my intention. I then laid down on my back and the second time I propped myself up on two pillows which was slightly uncomfortable. I think this helped me stay awake. I usually just fall asleep. I then felt vibrations, waited a few minutes while staying focused, and then tried to either float up or sit up. From there I went on to have a lucid dream. I noticed in both of these dreams that my vision was quite poor, especially at first. I called out, "clarity now" several times but nothing happened. Also at the beginning of both dreams I sort of felt I was making up a story in the dark. Eventually visual clarity increased. I wonder if I'm sitting up and joining the dream too soon. Maybe I should stay with the vibrations until a clear scene forms. I didn't really have any clear imagery at first but I did hear voices in the other room.
Anyway I'm excited to keep experimenting and to try this technique again and see if it works. I've heard people say that WILDs tend to be more vivid and lucid than DILDs but so far I haven't experienced that. Any suggestions are welcome!

I think vividness has to do with which REM state you are in, there is two very different REM stages : Phasic (p-REM) and Tonic (t-REM), One of them (p-REM) is very vivid and it's difficult to wake one's from it, and the other (t-REM) is more "daydream" like and you can wake up from it with a weaker external stimuli.

Rapid eye movement sleep can be subclassified into tonic and phasic modes. Tonic REM is characterized by theta rhythms in the brain; phasic REM is characterized by PGO waves and actual “rapid” eye movements. Processing of external stimuli is heavily inhibited during phasic REM, and recent evidence suggests that sleepers are more difficult to arouse from phasic REM than in slow-wave sleep.

from here

There you can read :

During sleep parts of the brain are isolated in different ways and to different extents.
Blocking of sensory input happens at the thalamo-cortical level in non-REM sleep and at the periphery in REM sleep.
There are also different phases of REM, and fMRI studies show that during tonic REM auditory stimuli still activate auditory cortex to some extent, while during Phasic REM, when eye movements and muscle twitches occur, the brain is functionally isolated with thalamo-cortical loops active as they are in waking.

So maybe WILDs are more vivid because they are more likely to happen during Phasic REM (to be verified) while DILD can happen during Tonic REM or Phasic REM, reducing the average of vivid DILDs ?

Thanks for your input Kaan. Yes maybe when vision is poor it has something to do with the phase one is in. I've had a couple of WILDs that formed very quickly and were crystal clear. It's all very interesting!

today fild worked for me for tthe first time. but soon i ended up in false awakening.first i do nose pinch RC.. then i find i am dreaming.. few seconds wandering in my dream house, i did a palm index finger RC.. then i find its not working, and i thought i am no more dreaming. then went back to bed . after some time i actually woke up from dream..

Originally Posted by anvish

today fild worked for me for tthe first time. but soon i ended up in false awakening.first i do nose pinch RC.. then i find i am dreaming.. few seconds wandering in my dream house, i did a palm index finger RC.. then i find its not working, and i thought i am no more dreaming. then went back to bed . after some time i actually woke up from dream..

What was the context ? (bed time, technique, timing ... )

I ask this since I see FILD more like a DEILD technique than a WILD, which reminds me my 5 chained LD I had 24h ago thanks to my experimentation with RemDreamer as a DEILD help.
But the real WILD, I am only successful when I also use LD supplements or if I am very lucky.

Last year I WILDed by accident. I simply slipped immediately into dream state from waking state: one moment I was lying in bed, the next moment I found myself seated across a desk from a man in a suit talking to me. If only dreams would always start seamlessly after falling asleep, it would be so much easier to recognize them as dreams! Mantras usually keep me awake, but I need to experiment with them more.

So what i did yesterday is the following : i woke up after 3 hours , stayed awake for 5 minutes , after that i returned to bed , slept on my side and stayed aware .
The urge to let go was powerful but somehow i held my mantra firmly in my head and just meditated on it . I did not let any thoughts invade my mind , and i was firmly repeating in my head "I will stay AWARE and CONSCIOUS AWARE and CONSCIOUS .... " Suddenly sleep paralysis hits me and i know i am already in the dream i roll out of my body and have a dream with very little lucidity . Now i did everything i could to avoid sleep paralysis because it always makes me enter lucid dreams without much lucidity , i did everything instructed and i relaxed . How can i alter the effect and avoid entering using sleep paralysis ? I want to watch the dream form around me and then enter it

^^ First, it sounds to me like you had a successful WILD, Ahmedoy; congratulations!

I think that loss of lucidity was not due to SP, but rather to your loss of focus due to the attention you were paying to that SP:

First, it probably was not true SP at all, which usually occurs upon waking, but rather the onset of REM Atonia, or maybe just a state of deep relaxation, both of which ate totally normal and pretty much unavoidable in a successful WILD... but "unavoidable" and "unimportant" are two very different things when it comes to dealing with them during your WILD dive.

Next, and more importantly, it wasn't the presence of REM Atonia that caused you to lose lucidity, it was the attention you were paying to it. REM Atonia, or SP, for that matter, cannot make you "enter lucid dreams without much lucidity." It is simply a bodily function that reduces sensation to your physical body, and nothing more. Any loss of lucidity is probably due to your focusing on the phenomenon as it occurs, rather than staying focused on your dream. Keep in mind that trying to avoid something, especially something that will likely happen, uses up a whole lot more focus than simply noticing it; it probably even uses more focus than looking forward to it, which you also should not do. So the answer here I think lies more in learning to just let that REM Atonia happen and to think as little about it as possible when it does; keep your focus on the dream, and not on the noise along the way.

But wait, there's more! You say you lost much of your lucidity during the transition; doesn't that mean you still had some when the dream started? If so, then you still have an opportunity to lucidly dream, and to increase your lucidity. There are lots of techniques for doing this, but I recommend simply taking a pause and calmly remember that you are dreaming, and that your actual body is right where you left it, asleep in bed (it doesn't hurt to remember things like the date/time, and maybe your specific dream goals). In fact, if you find the influence of "SP" unavoidable, you can even build this pause into your WILD routine by including it in your intentions or even your mantra (i.e., "I will remember"). The important thing here is that for the most part you had a successful WILD, and that is a good thing. What you do after that successful WILD (i.e., reinforcing your lucidity) is the next step; a time for you to leave the WILD transition behind and get to work on the quality of the LD itself.

tl;dr: "SP" (aka, REM Atonia) can't cause a loss of lucidity; that is your choice, always... try to pay no attention to "SP," including trying intentionally to avoid it, and stay focused on your dream. When you reach your dream, there are things to be done that can increase lucidity, after you've left your successful WILD behind.

All in all, though: Nice work, Ahmedoy!

THANKS !! . I just have a question : i always find people talking about entering WILDs by just letting the dream form and visualizing it , but this never happens to me and it tends to be COOL so can i enter dreams that way or is that just my body and this entry is impossible ? It doenst matter that much i know they both lead to lucid dreams , it is just a question

Originally Posted by ahmedoy

I just have a question : i always find people talking about entering WILDs by just letting the dream form and visualizing it , but this never happens to me and it tends to be COOL so can i enter dreams that way or is that just my body and this entry is impossible ? It doesn't matter that much i know they both lead to lucid dreams , it is just a question

Sure, I don't see any reason why you can't try it this way... but I would recommend that you do so after you've had a few WILD's using techniques that work best for you. There's no need to try something new and possibly more difficult before you've established your skills to consistently WILD at all.

I thought I might throw in a "what happened?" of my own, since it seems relevant:

Last week I was doing my usual Wednesday WILD attempt, which in general haven’t been going too well these last few months, thanks to problems with memory, focus, and way too much drinking on Tuesday nights. I was having the usual issues when suddenly I had a combination inspirational/huh-duh moment: I changed my mantra from a tired mix of “Here&Now“ and “Remember” to one simple syllable:

“Dive.”

This worked on several levels.

* “Dive is what I’ve come to call the WILD process in my DV posts.
* It worked metaphorically, which helped me keep my mind focused with imagery of diving into the ocean of my dreams.
* “Dive” is an exciting word, one to which I can emotionally attach myself as I repeat it; i.e., as the dive went deeper, my repetitions sounded a bit lie those of a submarine captain, which was both exhilarating and kept me focused).
* The word “Dive” is ridiculously easy to repeat!

The WILD worked perfectly, especially because I had an odd bit of HI that amounted to a screen-filling purplish eyeball with a red iris that filled my vision for most of the transition (not scary at all, BTW), keeping my “visual” focus pretty sharp. My dream finally began in a very bad copy of my bedroom, from which I left quickly and went about my LD.
Later on, after a wake-up, I used the mantra again, and it worked exactly the same, and just as well.

… And to think it only took me 40 years to think of this!

So tonight went like this:
11:30= Went to sleep.
3:15=Naturally woke up and thought to myself "might as well try WILD'ing". I stood up for 30 minutes.
3:45=Went back to bed, laid on my back and started repeating my personal mantra while trying to sleep. After about 10-15 minutes I felt like I was doing something wrong because nothing was happening. Then I remembered a guide which was saying to change your position if you can't fall asleep while WILD'ing so I did that and after a couple minutes I just fell asleep.
5:15=Naturally woke up again and decided to give it one more try. I stood up for 30 minutes again.
5:45=So I did the same thing I did before; went to bed, focused on repeating my mantra, tried to stay aware and all. But this time I made up my mind, I wasn't going to change my sleeping position or stop trying even if nothing was happening. After a while I felt like my body was getting really cold but still, I wasn't seeing or hearing anything. And after a while, I fell asleep again...

This was my third try but every time I try WILD'ing I either focus on my mantra too much that I can't fall asleep or can't stay aware enough and just fall asleep.
I was wondering, how can I find the balance between staying aware enough to let my body fall asleep and not losing my conscious while I do so? Thanks in advance, Sageous.

OMG I was almost successful . I was sleeping on my side and i saw a street , but from a very high place like a helicopter or something .Then buildings started to appear , then i saw a garden then a full city with a garden with streets and buildings ! I had no body in the dream , and i could still feel my sleeping body . My body felt like it was floating . Then i descended inside the dream to the garden . I was moving by will cause if i moved my body i would probably wake up . Then every thing disappeared , then i willed it and it appeared again . I was in the same place in the garden with a wall in front of me . I willed to float to the right and then i found a path leading to the city , at that moment i decided to start stabilizing . I start imagining rubbing my hands together . And oh my god it felt real , it felt so real that i thought that i had moved my hands in real life and screwed everything up (I am not sure till now if it was real or not , but what makes me think this very vivid feeling happened in the dream is because i felt i rubbed them together while sleeping on my back , but in reality i was on my side . Any way i decide to look to the ground cause i heard it stabilizes the dream but for some reason , i blinked and the ground looked brown and i think i know why it was brown (the back of my eyelids is actually brown , it was because the dream ended .

Originally Posted by krnt

This was my third try but every time I try WILD'ing I either focus on my mantra too much that I can't fall asleep or can't stay aware enough and just fall asleep.
I was wondering, how can I find the balance between staying aware enough to let my body fall asleep and not losing my conscious while I do so? Thanks in advance, Sageous.

There is only one way to find that balance, Krnt, and that is with practice. In time you should grow more comfortable with maintaining your wakefulness while your body falls asleep, which can be an odd thing to get accustomed to. So give it a few more tries; given your apparent focus and ability to hold your mantra (which is a good thing, BTW), I think you might find yourself successful.

Here are a couple of things I can suggest right now, though:

* It might be better if you plan ahead for your WILD attempt, instead of deciding to have a go at one upon a random awakening. Though there's nothing wrong with making a WILD attempt every time you go to sleep, just for practice's sake, if you have a specific plan to do a WILD attempt on a specific day after 5 or so hours' sleep, and you know well ahead of time that you will be making this attempt, then you might find that your mind is more prepared for the attempt... in other swords, if you give yourself a few days to plan and anticipate your WILD dive, then you might find your head in just the right place for lucidity when the time comes, and thus will be better able to hold onto your awareness throughout the transition.

* Fifteen minutes is not a very long time for a WILD attempt. I would recommend holding your position for a lot longer -- up to a hour or more -- before changing it (my personal throw-in-the-towel limit is 90 minutes, but you'll likely find your own limit in time). So, though you should certainly change your position if you are very uncomfortable or have no hope of getting to sleep, I personally suggest that you try to avoid doing so for as long as you can. And if you do feel a need to change position, I suggest that you get up, walk around a bit, and then settle back into that new position. This is because there is a thing called a "rollover urge" where you feel a need to get out of the position you are in (especially if you are lying on your back) so that you can get to sleep. Simply moving to a new position might be satisfying that urge, and you will indeed find yourself asleep. In other words, try forgetting that guide you read and try to hold your position for as long as possible -- and 15 minutes is not a long time.

Originally Posted by ahmedoy

OMG I was almost successful . I was sleeping on my side and i saw a street , but from a very high place like a helicopter or something .Then buildings started to appear , then i saw a garden then a full city with a garden with streets and buildings ! I had no body in the dream , and i could still feel my sleeping body . My body felt like it was floating . Then i descended inside the dream to the garden . I was moving by will cause if i moved my body i would probably wake up . Then every thing disappeared , then i willed it and it appeared again . I was in the same place in the garden with a wall in front of me . I willed to float to the right and then i found a path leading to the city , at that moment i decided to start stabilizing . I start imagining rubbing my hands together . And oh my god it felt real , it felt so real that i thought that i had moved my hands in real life and screwed everything up (I am not sure till now if it was real or not , but what makes me think this very vivid feeling happened in the dream is because i felt i rubbed them together while sleeping on my back , but in reality i was on my side . Any way i decide to look to the ground cause i heard it stabilizes the dream but for some reason , i blinked and the ground looked brown and i think i know why it was brown (the back of my eyelids is actually brown , it was because the dream ended .

No, Ahmedoy, it seems you were fully successful; nice work! I can't tell from what you wrote if you had a successful WILD transition (it might have been a DILD, but who cares, really; either way in the end you're still lucid), but you certainly had a successful LD!

Also, should you have a sensation that what you're doing in the dream is happening to your waking-life body (like rubbing your hands and thinking your sleeping body is doing it as well), I would recommend that you simply ignore it, and certainly don't worry that you're screwing anything up. As you discovered, since you are in a dream this sensation is very likely an illusion and is nothing to worry about. Now, given that LD's happen at times when you are very close to a waking state, there is a chance that your body might respond to your actions (this happens with me with talking, BTW), but trust me, should this happen you will know it (and if it does, just relax, hold still, and let sleep and your dream re-separate you from your physical body... no need to give up the LD). In either case, try not to see it as a problem.

I am pretty sure it was a WILD i did not lose consciousness .

^^ There you go! Again, nice work!

Hi, I attempted my first WILD according to the course. I went to bed as planned, but kept waking up after each of several sleep cycles, so I practiced the dive each time and then at my planned WBTB time. All resulted in falling asleep. In one of the attempts when I woke up, the first thing I noticed was that I was still repeating the mantra.

Then at a mid-morning nap I did get into a dream with a very low level of awareness apparently. I saw this huge bat flying outside of the car window, it got into the car and started biting my arm. I yelled, swerved, panicked etc, and then I heard me saying, "it´s OK, it´s just a dream..." But I was too busy trying to fight off the bat to care! Maybe that voice was just the dreaming mind speaking, and not self-awareness.

Anyway I enjoyed the whole process and look forward to many more dives. I need to get charged up with more self-awareness! Thanks for such great material!

Several last WILDs = fail, mind fell asleep.

RC and RCCs during the day. To bed at 23:00, wake up at 04:00, back to bed at 04:30. Set intentions/expectations, repeat mantra paired with breathing, inhale, "mind awake", exhale "body asleep". Notice and ignore some "noise", continue sensing I´m aware of myself....Next thing I notice is I am waking up, realizing at some point my mind must have fallen asleep, do remember NLDs.

Hi Sageous, my mind keeps falling asleep during the dive. I think I am making some progress because it seems like it's taking longer for my mind to fall asleep and also when I wake up it seems I am becoming self-aware right before I actually wake up and experience the coming up part of the dive. Is there anything else I can do during the dive to keep my mind awake? Is it a matter of will power to try to plow through at that moment when I'm noticing that my mind is falling asleep? Thanks

Originally Posted by Fly_by_Night

Hi Sageous, my mind keeps falling asleep during the dive. I think I am making some progress because it seems like it's taking longer for my mind to fall asleep and also when I wake up it seems I am becoming self-aware right before I actually wake up and experience the coming up part of the dive. Is there anything else I can do during the dive to keep my mind awake? Is it a matter of will power to try to plow through at that moment when I'm noticing that my mind is falling asleep? Thanks

Be a little careful with trying to keep your mind awake. It sounds a bit like you're referring more to keeping yourself awake longer more than simply retaining consciousness through the transition into sleep and dreaming. If this is actually the case, it's actually counter to/antithetical to the goal of achieving WILD. Falling asleep is the most essential part, after all, lol.

Also, if I may offer some input regarding your question for Sageous myself, there are several ways to increase the likelihood you remain conscious through the process of falling asleep and your skill in pulling it off. One thing that is rather essential is to simply keep gaining experience with the hypnagogic and hypnopompic states themselves and REM Atonia/Sleep Paralysis. As you do, your mind and even body will somewhat reflexively become more familiar with the feel and sensations of these altered states and being in them, the process of going to sleep itself, and all the sings/symptoms of getting close to or even just being in the states themselves. In the same way you build up an unconscious muscle memory of performing certain (specifically physical when talking explicitly about muscle memory, but unconscious memory can include mental tasks as well) tasks, you will build up such a thing when it comes to recognizing, entering, and remaining conscious through entering these states.

Something else that helps is to practice meditation, or rather the essential mental process involved in meditating. That is to say, learning to observe any thoughts, feelings, or sensations you experience while trying to keep your mind quiet and the ability to simply let them go or otherwise flow out of your stream of consciousness and return to the quiet, no-mind state. This not only helps you in falling asleep quite quickly (which I feel actually helps you remain conscious through the "dive" the more quickly you are able to because you don't have as much time to go fully mentally unconscious or have your mind wander), but being able to simply acknowledge and recognize mental phenomena in a very passive way. The more you can passively observe and acknowledge the sensation and realization/recognition of beginning to dive, the less likely you are to wake yourself back up and stay in a more semi-conscious state that facilities transitioning into hypnagogia and REM Atonia.

That said, the more the process of letting thoughts go and being able to passively recognize and observe mental phenomena becomes a kind of "muscle memory" that you are able to simply execute by a very simple and nearly unconscious will or desire to do so, like a habit you are performing by second nature, the more likely you are to succeed. It's a lot like driving or something similar. You don't have to pay conscious attention to what you are doing, you simply do it. This lack of consciously directed attention and awareness is what allows you to more easily slip into and through the dive without waking yourself back up and without simply losing consciousness entirely during the process. I feel as though will power of any kind being required is an indication of being too consciously awareness during the process to successfully transition through the dive into an LD or stay conscious through REM Atonia and then transition into a dream once there.

^^ That.

Also:

Originally Posted by Fly_by_Night

...and also when I wake up it seems I am becoming self-aware right before I actually wake up and experience the coming up part of the dive.

If you are able to notice yourself waking up from a dream (or just waking up in general, for that matter), you probably should consider putting that awareness to work and attempting a DEILD; you're already halfway through one anyway, so you might as well finish it!

Did have a brief LD, on my Saturday Supplements Day....

https://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/fly...tm-fail-84439/

Hey Sageous (and everyone else reading),

after a year or so I'm still struggling with WILD, so I guess I'll just ask here.
My problem is that I can't stay aware throughout the dive. I fall asleep very quick, with it taking about 2-5min or so (only while wbtb) and it's hard to keep my mind from wandering. Funnily as I started with WILD it was the other way round, I couldn't fall asleep at all. But after the break I took from LDing it's now as described.
Because I read in the thread above and in your course, that awareness is key, I started doing Dream Yoga. I do this instead of RRCs just because it seems to resonate with me more and I guess that's important too. Now, do you think that's a good idea or should change anything? Also I do some meditation in my wbtb.
Also it was or is (I didn't try it for some time) possible for me to stay awake during WILD if I imagine a story of some kind. While I know that staying awake longer is not the goal, do you think that might be useful? I always seem to fall asleep, no matter if I use my mantra, counting or music.
Because I know that my wbtbs are pretty short (about 5min) I also tried longer ones up to half an hour and 40min once. I didn't really help, except that I was able to keep my awareness one or two minutes longer.
I sleep about 5-6 hours before I do my wbtb and on weekends it can be up to 8 hours or more. But that doesn't really change anything.
And I did do DEILD succesfully about 5 times already but each with a few months inbetween.

Well, I guess thats it, hope I didn't forget anything. And just as a quick sidenote, thanks for doing this class, despite the effort it is. It's really appreciated.

^^ First, Kasy, let me say that I would give a lot to be able to fall asleep in 2-5 minutes; I often take well over an hour, and it can be very frustrating! That said:

I think you already know this, but it bears repeating: a major facet of WILD is falling asleep. If you manage to get there quickly, all the better; I would suggest that you try to see this as a positive, and not a problem. No, the problem here might be that you haven't got enough waking-life self-awareness on hand when you fall asleep. In other words, it isn't about the falling back to sleep after your WBTB, but about the being "awake" while you are falling asleep.

From what you wrote, it could indeed be that your WBTB period may be too short; you might not be giving yourself enough time to gather enough waking-life self-awareness to maintain it during your WILD dive. In other words, you are still more asleep than awake when you lay back down to attempt your WILD (which could also explain why it's so easy to fall asleep, BTW). I know you already tried longer "up" times for your WBTB, but I suggest that you try that again. Stay up for a solid amount of time -- I think I list 45 minutes as the max in the Timing Session, but you could experiment with as long as an hour or more -- to give yourself opportunity to be more "awake" when you lay back down... don't get carried away, of course: stay off your phone/computer, keep the TV off, and keep your mind in a dreamy place; you don't want to stray too far from your sleep cycle and find yourself fully awake. I think if you do a little experimenting, you might find a sweet spot for your "up" time that both strengthens your awareness and keeps you in your sleep cycle.

Of course, it could be something else altogether, but I think lengthening your WBTB "up" time might be worth looking into.