WILD Session 7: The Other WILD

So we’ve learned about, studied, and prepared for classic WILD, and we’ve discovered one major aspect to all of this that haunts us, and makes us wonder: This is a crapload of preparation and work that promises only a distant chance of a lucid dream; isn’t there some other way to do WILD that bypasses WBTB, the noise, and all that unnatural focus?

Why yes, yes there is. It is possible to enter a dream without losing waking awareness without orchestrating and enduring all that stuff associated with classic WILD. It is currently known as Dream Exit Initiated Lucid Dream, or DEILD, though like WILD it existed long before the term was invented. If your self-awareness, memory, and intent are strong but your patience (and, if you’re like me, your sleeping skills) are low, this might be just the technique for you!

What is DEILD? In a nutshell, DEILD is simply the act of briefly emerging from a dream – preferably a LD, but you can DEILD from NLD's as well – gathering your self-awareness, and then stepping back into sleep and dreamland, this time with your awareness and intentions intact. Since it occurs, almost exclusively, during the very late cycles of REM, and does not ask you to find a way to go back to sleep, DEILD does not require a mantra, sidesteps most of the “noise,” and shouldn’t need any advanced “lie down, hold still, and wait (LDHSW)” techniques.

So what does it need? Well, of course it needs the fundamentals -- self-awareness and memory -- plus expectation and well-set intentions (from as long ago as the night before is just fine). But every LD needs that; what DEILD also needs is a real desire on the dreamer’s part to capitalize on the dreaming/waking cycle and use the force and moment of a dream to initiate another, this-time-lucid dream.

Huh? It is way simpler than it sounds, and pretty easy to do, once you get the hang of it. All you need to do is recognize that you are waking from a dream, and then, preferably without ever fully waking up, allowing yourself to drop back into that dream, this time (or still, if you were lucid earlier) with waking awareness in hand.

For instance, let’s say you are enjoying a LD about a ride on a school bus that’s dropping kids off on the moon. You feel yourself beginning to wake up – you know the signals: the dream loses consistency, you start to hear your breath and feel the light pressure of your blankets, and you know that waking life is approaching fast. But with DEILD, instead of waking up naturally, you choose instead to return to sleep and the dream. You step off the bus and stroll the moon, awareness intact … no need, thanks to your dreaming mind’s lingering presence, to form a new dream, because it has one to offer (be prepared, though, for the moon or bus to be much different than the previous dream, though, as your dreaming mind re-spools). Of course, you are lucid, so you can leave the dream or form a new one at will, all without juggling noise or repeating mantras!

The process is simple, though it does need some practice and, of course, mental prep:

1. Recognize that you are waking up from a dream. If you are emerging from a LD or ”recovering” from a false awakening (FA), this will be an easy step, for obvious reasons. However, if you are in a NLD, then things are a tad more problematic, but not insurmountable: what you need to do then is to have previously prepared yourself, via earlier mental prep, to be ready for the signs of waking up. One of the main purposes of this class was to instill into you a natural sense for that preparation so, if you’ve been doing your homework, you very likely will recognize if not actually expect that you are exiting a dream when the time comes. Also, you might have the awareness necessary to dive back in without all these silly instructions!

2. Keep your eyes closed and, yes, hold still. As the dream wraps up and sleep wanes, your body is going to start tripping automatic switches to bring you quickly and painlessly back to waking-life consciousness. You can’t let that happen. The first, and most effective “anti-switch-tripping” device is to keep your eyes closed to hold back morning’s light (even if you’re sporting a sleep mask). Next, to hold off the physiological progression from sleep to waking, keep yourself as still as possible – don’t roll over! You should be getting an assist of sorts from your body, as REM Atonia is usually still lingering during the first moments of dream exit, so you can let the “SP” work for you (finally, you say?). LaBerge suggests simply “rising” out of your frozen sleep body and walking right into the new dream; if you can do that without suffering delusions of OBE, then go for it -- it’s a good plan. Otherwise, read on.

3. Remember. Run your recently exited dream through your mind, and decide if you want to return to it. If you do, then simply visualize the dream -- it should still be readily available -- and picture yourself among its scenery and events. If you don’t care to return to your previous dream, then pause for a moment – without opening your eyes! – and imagine where you want to be (this phase can even be planned -- when you set your intentions the night before, you might include the scenario for the DEILD dream).

4. Reenter the dream, self-awareness intact. No need to explain that bit, I think!

That is it. Not much different than Lie Down-Hold Still-and Wait, is it? And yet, it is, because you are already lying down, REM Atonia (aka SP) is likely still holding you somewhat still, and though there may be a brief wait for sleep to restart and your dreaming mind to get back into motion, it is not long, because in real physical terms you haven’t completely woken up yet.

Then why, you ask, isn’t everyone just doing DEILD’s and LD’ing with ease? Well, mostly because DEILD is still a very difficult process, thanks to the required mental prep noted in step #1 above: it takes a good chunk of self-awareness to identify your “dream exit” state, and building the capacity for that self-awareness takes time and serious care. DILD, by comparison, is a much easier process, because all you really need do is deeply anticipate a LD, file away lots of dream signs, and make RC’s a habit. DILD, though, is much more hit-and-miss than is DEILD -- at least theoretically.

So that, in a nutshell, is DEILD. I suppose I should have given it more attention, but in the end it is difficult to say more about it without restating all we’ve already discussed about WILD. The things that matter in WILD are the same things that matter in DEILD.

Homework: Keep attempting WILD’s. That’s right: WILD’s, but do them with an additional level of intent. Now, whether you succeed at your WILD attempt or not, make a point of noticing when you are waking up, and, with that knowledge, carefully return your waking awareness to dreamland. Piece of Cake, right?

Next Week: There is no next week. I got nothing more, so I think we’re done here! I will continue to monitor the “post your WILD's here” thread for your progress, though, and will certainly be available to answer your questions.

Good luck, and Best of Dreams to you all,

Sageous