WILD-Training: please feel free to join me?

My cold keeps me in the hold. So not much to update.

I sleep alot now, I just have to, feel miserabele. I am not using the mp3 now, breaks my sleep to much, and is not healthy for me at the moment, but I continue to observe my sleep. Everytime I wake up (and I do this alot, spontanesously now), I try to stay still, wacht for any dreamrecall and try to be aware for a little then let myself fall asleep again, without focussing on anything (I need my sleep, remember).
I discovered that I can fall asleep more easily nowerdays, but dreamrecall is very low. Only late in the morning dreams are recalled.

I learned the folowing:
The other nights I kept my awareness to high, this keeps me from falling back to sleep. This night I just kept awareness for a while and then no awareness at all, this allowed me to fall back asleep, but without awareness, no awareness of SP offcourse, so I need to find the wright balance between making myself falling asleep and keeping some awareness.
The other nights I had few dreamrecall, this morning I had better dreamrecall, I guess in the end my conciousness got more awake, so it could register the dreams better. I think I have to wake up my conciousness more anyhow during my WBTB sessions. I kept the WBTB very short, because difficulty of falling back asleep afterwards.

I think I understand now that concoiusness has to be activated enough when you wake up and do WBTB to have more dream awareness, and I guess dreams and SP are interlinked, so I should stay up a little longer during my WBTB.

I know you can read all about these things, but I am learning more from my own experience now and that is more valuable (to me). That’s why I like this training, it sets my mind on experimenting and learning gradually, in stead of trying out all kinds of techniques and getting discouraged soon. I hope the others who joined have a similar experience about this training.

Feeling better, so resumed the practise this night.
Got up at 5, back to bed at 6, too long i guess, cause I couldn’t fall asleep anymore. Heard all the beeps wide awake. Frustrating. After 1 hour I gave up, stopped the mp3 and tried to fall asleep normally, no way. More frustrated.

Then I decided to bring my mind in the body numb, mind clear state, better then being frustrated not able to sleep, and that was a good idea. I get there very easily. Normally feel stuck there, my mind is to clear to be able to fall asleep, so no dreams and no chance for lucidity, but very relaxing and inspiring, thus better than being frustrated. This turned out in a very nice experience.

Because I was not focused anymore on falling asleep or getting in SP, I could simply enjoy it. I experimented: blocking the feeling of body out, blocking all thoughts out, dissolving, staying in the empty space, … Also tried to lift up my mind to higher states, and it worked, felt very good, kind of high . After awhile, when I was very at ease, tried to get closer to sleep anyhow, and yes it seemed to work. Got very close to sleep to the point strange feelings began to arise, but my mind was so clear that my attention jumped on it immediately, so these feelings left me as soon as they raised, but that was no problem, was just nice to hover around sleep.
I stayed in this state until external noises began to disturb me to much, then decided to try to move, although i thought it would be very difficult, could move anyhow, so no, was not SP, but it was very interesting anyhow. And I woke up full of energy

Conclusion: I will not try so hard anymore to fall asleep, but get more used to this state, that seems to have more possibilities then I thought. I have a feeling that, except from having very meditative like experiences, i will eventually be able to use it to become lucid. But maybe I am just fooling myself and will keep myself from sleeping, from dreaming and thus from getting lucid. Any advice is welcome.

I am curious what experiences others are having with this mp3 or other techniques to get close to sleep an SP while still awake or waking up. Please share your experiences. I am getting bored of my own postings, lol.

I am happy to announce that I am being rewarded for my practise this morning: got my first LD since I started this practice and it was a real nice LD. My subconscious mind gave me a sign that I am not fooling myself, but am on the right track.

This is what happened:

I spontaneously woke up at 3 this night. In my bed started reading in my dreamjournal (on my smart-phone), got up (short toilet stop) and then went back to bed, trying to get to the body numb state. I couldn’t get there, my left leg was tense, it hurt, couldn’t relax it, so decided just to fall asleep, no way, got my mind to clear already. Relaxing not working, and mind to clear, damn. I had a big strugle again with myself. Lost a valuable hour or two of sleep like this. Finally I got up frustrated, did some stretching, stretching my whole body to the ceiling (hands in the air) and then dropping down folding, with my head towards my knees and arms hanging loose, did this until I began to yawn allot. And then I was ready to go back to sleep. I could get in the numb state easily now, stayed there for a few minutes, then from there softly let me slip into sleep. It worked. Some vague dream images began to form, I got involved in them forgetting I was falling asleep, until I suddenly remembered “hey, wasn’t I falling asleep? So what is this… dream images?”, but it was very fragile, so I had to stay very calm and focus my awareness on the vague dream, I could almost feel my sleeping body, but tried to block that from my awareness. My dreambody was sitting in a chair in front of a computer so, I tried to get completely involved in this dreambody, trying to move it. This happened with the shaking, and a feeling like tearing myself out into this body, but there I was… fully Lucid in my dream.

I am not going to describe the whole dream but it was superb. First was in a building, could fly through a wall, ended up outside somewhere not so interesting, but could climb, fly, jump up, higher and higher, until I had a spectacular view on a mountain lake, with a beautiful city at the other side of the lake and a amazing backdrop of snowy mountains.

Then I did something what I would never have done before: I sat down enjoyed the view for awhile then started to meditate, knowing that probably this would wake me up in my sleep body again. But I was curious what would happen, if I would be in SP or not. And I was confident: “from now on I will have regular lucid dreams, so I don’t have to do all I desperately wanted to do for so long in a Lucid dream in this dream, there will be more, relax”.

So, I woke up, and was able to stay perfectly still and keeping my eyes shut. I was in the numb body state, not SP, I didn’t move but had the feeling I could move (with some effort). I was little surprised. Normally you are in SP when you dream, and right after you wake up from a dream, especially if you do this consciously. So or I have very light SP and this numb state is the same or very close to SP, or I was dreaming in non-REM. If my SP is the numb state, then I have been looking much to far. I don’t know yet for sure, but I have a feeling I will find out more about it if I continue this way.

I stayed in the numb state for another 15 to 30 minutes I guess, enjoyed the after feeling in this state (normally after a LD I get up and make a dance of joy, not this time, I just stayed calm, perfectly still, eyes closed and body completely relaxed), this was nice. Tried to fall back asleep and maybe have another LD, but there was my wake up alarm. End of story (for tonight).

Congrats man! Sorry I haven’t been posting, I have had a lot to do over this weekend getting ready for Thanksgiving! I will definitely post tomorrow because I don’t have any activities or things going on tonight or tomorrow morning. Until then good luck again tonight man! Also, question: Did you lay in bed trying to keep focus on an anchor while you were falling asleep to realize you left reality?

Thanks,

Yes I did something to keep part of my brains awake. Repeating quickly and without stopping: “I am dreaming, I am dreaming”, have read somewhere that it is an effective Wild technique, and because my dream recall is so low, i thought this would boost my dream recall at least, and it works good for me. I have almost no focus on it, just checking once and awhile if I still am repeating it, so I can let go completely and fall asleep. I have difficulty falling asleep, so I have to try not to focus to much, with this mantra for me it is easier.

This night no special things, one rather vivid dream, but no special experiences, did not do any WBTB this night, was rest night.

Good luck for you!

Hello everyone,

I used to wild a lot in the beginning of the year. I have to say it is really much easier for me when I do it in the morning. I wake up, and then after 5-50minutes I go back to bed and I can Wild quite easily. The problem is that it’s not something everybody can do except maybe on the week end.

I also repeat things like Dreamystivi. Mine is “I am dreaming and I know that I m dreaming”.
Anyway I downloaded the bip (thank you for it !) so maybe I ll succeed in the normal nights now

Hi koala,

You are welcome, and good luck.
I had not o much sleep lately, so no real progress.

Hello all,

Long time since I posted here, but that doesn’t mean I have been sleeping all the time , well I slept a little bit (thank God)

I have kept practising, each night, every other night strong practise, the other nights just 5 minutes practise and getting more sleep. And I dare to say now that it worked. I have a rate of 1 LD every two nights now!

Here the history of my LD’s:
No LD’s for at least a year
18/10: started WILD Practise
11/11: First very short LD
25/11: long LD (first LD I posted here, in this topic)
08/12: long LD
10/12: shorter LD
12/12: very short LD
14/12: long LD

I guess I finally have a hang on it since 8th December, since then one night no or very low practise (keeping up with sleep) and one night with practise (I always loose some hours of sleep doing this, it is not yet very easy to me) with LD as result.

Conclusion: practise gives results, but you need to be very stubborn, never give up, coping with a lot of demotivation (its not nice to have nights of practise without results, but keep up the spirit), and believing that you can do it (I think this is the most important).

BTW I still never have real SP, even if I wake up straight from a dream. I believe I get in SP while getting Lucid (I have these strange feelings while I am already inside a very low quality dream and trying to move my dreambody), but I never consciously feel this SP. As somebody stated here earlier, it is not necessary for LD, very true.

And please don’t ask me precisely what I do each night. I discovered that it depends very much on who you are, tips of some were often useless to me, tips of other were usefull, you just have to discover, experiment a lot, and see and remember what is helpful for you and stick with it.

Anyhow I can say that whatever I do, I still experiment with many kinds of techniques, I once come to a point where I feel “now I feel LD is possible” and then I try to dissociate my mind/attention from my body, including my head (having my attention somewhere outside my head, above, aside, under me, sinking in my cushion, …), If I start to early with this, it is not working and only keeping me awake.

Good luck, and keep practising, no matter what, don’t ever give up, it’s worth it.

I will test this out and see if it works for me too, thanks for sharing! And congratulation on getting your LD’s.

Cool, good luck!

Thanks for sharing. I found this very useful since I also have trouble reaching real sp. (I have years of intermittent practice with trying to reach sp for astral projection.) I can reachthat numb state pretty easily but have only very rarely and very shortly been able to feel anything besides that numbness. I will keep trying. Thanks for the encouragement.

Hi buttercup,

Yes keep trying to wild or astral project, I think there is not so much difference. But don’t try to reach SP to hard. According to me there are people, probably like you and me, who just almost never experience SP conciously. We experience it anyhow, you can’t dream without SP, but my SP only starts when I am already in a dream, I feel it at that moment, and that is perfectly ok.
Maybe it is little harder to project yourself out of your body without this SP, but there are other possibilities. I have read that you can turn a LD into an OBE, and vice versa, so if you focus on getting lucid, you are training the right way to get OBE. The only difference is the focus on where you project that dream/astral body, in a dream or in your normal surroundings.

I have no experience or knowledge about AP or OBE and don’t even now if it really is so different from lucid dream (I will only have this knowledge once I experience it myself, and I am very open for it), but what I do, placing my attention somewhere completely outside of my body, which helps me a lot, is kind of an AP technique, isn’t it, and it works very well, once you get used to it. It helps me to project myself in a dream (I am only familiar with this) without going trough SP. That’s what we all want, isn’t it? Projecting our consciousness in a state where we can function and be aware without a physical body.

Good luck.

thanks foryour support. at this point my goal is lucid dreaming. the ap was intermittently inmypast. I agree that ld or pre ld state must be similar if not exactly ap.

So last night I flittited in and out of this numb state. at some point I became aware of a pressure on my chest. that was encouraging even though I am still not convinced it wasn’t just my sleep position. The only problem is that damn itching!!! I also tend to think “hey I’m starting to hallucinate!” as soon as any image pops into my mind’s eye. of course that makes it stop immediately. I think you are right, I am trying too hard. I should have also kept in mind the goal is NOT yet ld at this point.
something I have noticed though is that when I am slipping towards sp, I become aware of what I can best describe as white noise. focusing on this background noise helps me move towards sp.

Thanks for putting up your method, dreamystivi. Over the past 2 weeks I’ve made and tried my own adaptation of your method with another one involving vibrating alarms. This morning I had my first WILD, and I don’t think it would have happened if I hadn’t read this thread

@buttercup,

Cool, that background noise is indeed a very good thing to focus on. Maybe try to focus only on that, and ignore what you feel in your body, even if it hints you are approaching SP. I don’t know about you, but my biggest problem is getting to much fascinating to what is happening, that keeps the thing that is going to happen from happening
When I manage to just ignore everything even lucid dream approaching signs, only focus on the thing I am focussing on (mostly awareness somewhere outside my body), this helps greatly to let my body fall asleep and with some luck stay aware and get lucid.

@catfish
Great, that makes me happy, and yes I believe the same, reading things here on the forum has big effect on our lucid dream achievements, that’s why I like to share and like to read what others share.
Please tell us little more about your variation? How do you produce these interval alarms, what kind of intervals do you use, from what time you start with this? I am very curious, and probably not only me.

I decided to make a thread about it,here

Cool,

At the moment Wilding without any external device is working again for me, but I am sure there will be times when this diminishes again, and then I will try out your method.
Good luck with your method and please keep us updated (in your thread off courses).

I am curious to hear more about maintaining awareness outside the body. how exactly would one do that? I have found its very much all or nothing by me. Either I drift towards a deep sleep or I stay in a semi awake state in varying degrees of consciousness. Sometimes I can spend over an hour in this non sleep meditative state.

I had a period of stress and less sleep, although I kept trying a little bit, I wasn’t succeeding in Wild anymore, but now having Christmas holiday, it came back, two successfull WILD’s per night the last two nights.

Buttercup, I will do my best trying to explain. If I focus on my body, or my breath, I get to excited when I begin to feel something and thus loose my focus, so I try to focus somewhere outside my body, and also outside my head. And ignore everything that is happening in my body and head, ignoring the strange tingling feelings, ignoring the sounds, even ignoring the visuals behind the eyelids, just focussing my attention somewhere outside my head, it depends and sometimes I switch little bit, above my head, or beneath my head, just little bit, not to much outside my head. How, very hard to explain, I think I use what I know anout Buddhism and the notion of just being aware that you are aware without being aware of something, only being aware of the fact that you are aware, breing aware of awareness itself, although I can’t actually do this, just trying it places my awareness in some sort of meta position, like looking at my mind, from a little distance, if I can hold onto this feeling it Is like I am aware, but not of something particular, but just aware, and this give a feeling of being aware outside of my body, which helps me to fall asleep keeping some awareness.

But as I mentioned in a previous post, I think: I should not start with this out of the body awareness to early. I first have to relax my body enough, at his stage it is ok for me to look for sometime to the visuals behind my eyelids (have not so many), or count a little bit. It is only when I am in this sleep meditative state, as you describe it, seems very familiar, that I can start doing this. And off course I should prevent to fall asleep, sometimes with force, like opening my eyes wide open for some time if I feel I tend to drift of to sleep in this stage. So first of all try to get in that body numb mind awake state, that’s how I call it, not focusing on falling asleep at all, this is for the next stage (the awareness out of the body stage).

So my WILD technique is:

1. Short WBTB (only 5 minutes awake, little stretching, toilet)
2. Relaxing, but almost forcefully staying awake, getting to that body numb mind awake state.
3. Placing awareness outside of body, and let myself fall asleep, keeping this awareness, if I feel I can’t fall asleep very easy, keeping this awareness rather vague, just trusting it will come back stronger as soon as I see a dream is forming

If I get to awake, in stage 2, I often do some short SSILD cycles, that always helps me to relax my to strong awakened mind, before I go to stage 3.
In stage 3 it is important to have a very laid back attittude, nothing is important, no feeling is worth enough to give attention, except the feeling of that awareness that itself is not aware of something only about awareness itself. I guess this helps me to really disconnect from my expectations, from my fascination for things that I could get aware off, from my body, and thus brings me finally to sleep with something (that doesn’t keep me awake) to hold on to.

Good luck and feel free to share your thoughts, experiences or other questions about it.

I just recently got back into lucid dreaming by doing the WILD technique since it usually brings in more results than any other technique I’ve done. I’ve had about 4 WILDS before and have also done chain dreams where I would wake up and then resume the dream again, that was pretty cool.

WILDs for me is quite simple. I usually do it right when I sleep but because sometimes my parents are watching TV when I’m sleeping at 9:30 PM (I wake up at 5:00 AM; early bird always gets the worm) I sleep two hours or so because that’s when my house is actually dead quiet and no one is watching TV or doing anything distracting. Once I’m awake I keep my mind clear by just focusing on my breathing, trying not to think of anything. After a while my body falls asleep (can’t feel anything on my arm or legs) and suddenly have these weird feelings (my body feels like its floating or flipping over), I then let my mind run through a bunch of things, usually imagining a scene or doing something crazy. This step is the most trickiest part to get right, if I fail at it then two things can possibly occur: my body wakes up and I have an insomniac night because my mind won’t clear up or I fall into the dream without realizing that I’m dreaming but the dreams are really vivid.

The key is to constantly stay AWARE. I have to pay attention to the images that are forming in the darkness while focusing on my mind running wild. If I get too into my thoughts I usually jump straight into the dream without realizing it, but if I focus too much to the darkness I wake up. It’s kind of complex of how this works for me and I have to keep them both balanced, it’s like trying to listen to a class lecture while daydreaming at the same time.

When I perform the technique correctly I usually get one image suddenly appear in the darkness while I’m feeling a strong tingling sensation at my finger tips and hearing this weird buzzing noise. From what I’ve experience the images do weird things. Once I saw a image slide into my view and started to play like a movie, next thing you know it I’m in the image and now I’m dreaming. Other times I see an image appear in black and white which then turns negative to purple and black, shatter into a hundred bits and then liquidate into some type of portal. It’s really weird but an amazing experience.

It became easier to WILD once I realized what was my process of going into a dream. The dreams are extremely vivid and sometimes I forget that I’m dreaming when halfway through it as I’m taking part of the action. The things that I have to keep in mind is to stay aware that it is a dream and not overreact as I’m going through the transitions.