Lucid Dreamers Get WILD! The Wake Induced Lucid Dream

Lucid Dreamers Get WILD!  The Wake Induced Lucid Dream

WILD stands for Wake Induced Lucid Dream.  With this technique one enters directly into a lucid dream from a conscious state. The basic idea is to allow the body to fall asleep while keeping the mind alert.

The best thing about this technique is that resulting dreams tend to be more vivid.  Also if you are able to master this method, you can theoretically have a lucid dream whenever you want with no worries of missing dream signs and forgetting to question your surroundings in a dream (as with DILD).

From what I gather, here are the basic steps to a WILD lucid dream:

1. For best results try during a nap or after about 4-5 hours of sleep at night.  These times are when you're most likely to be approaching or to be within an REM cycle.

2. Relax. If you have recently woken from sleep your body should already be in a relaxed state.  Some people use meditation for this purpose.

3. Be still.  The goal is to trick your body into falling asleep before your mind does.  It's said that the body will send "roll over signals" to test and see if the mind is ready for sleep.  These signals may emerge as a strong urge to roll over or as a nagging itch or twitching muscles, etc...  If you ignore these signals, the body takes it as confirmation that your mind is not aware enough to detect and react to them.

4. Stay alert.  Some count from 100.  Others concentrate on the ringing in their ears.  Many focus on the colors and swirlies behind the eyelids, known as hypnagogic imagery. There is a very fine balance here.  If you are too mentally alert, your body will never sleep.  But if you allow yourself to lose too much consciousness, you will just  fall asleep and wake up kicking yourself for ruining the attempt

5. If all goes well, you will soon (or not so soon) enter sleep paralysis.  Sleep paralysis prevents us from physically acting out when we dream and all of us experience it when we sleep.   We're just usually not aware of it.  Sleep paralysis can be a scary thing for lots of people--especially those who have disturbing visual and auditory hallucinations.  Also note that some people don't 'feel' sleep paralysis during WILD.

6.  The transition step to enter a lucid dream generates a lot of confusion because it's different for everyone. Some instructions say that you should concentrate on the hypnagogic images behind your eyelids until it morphs into a scene that you can step into.  But what if you are like me and do not see hypnagogic imagery?
In my case, I ride with the sleep paralysis and when the sensation fades, I'll pinch my nose and find that I'm dreaming.  Then I'll open my 'dream eyes' and I'm there.

I've done WILD a couple times but I can't say that I have achieved it successfully.  That sounds like a contradiction, right?   Most times I've attempted WILD, I've fallen asleep before the end of the process.  The few times I've achieved WILD were when I just 'happened' to wake back up during sleep paralysis.  In other words, I've never remained aware straight through from relaxation to sleep paralysis.

Although I fail 98% of the time, WILD is still my preferred method because the resulting dream is so real. I aspire to figure out the right personal formula for having WILDs consistently.  I need to learn the best times, how to keep my mind from sleeping, the correct position, etc....

You may also want to note that the WILD method is very similar, if not identical, to the techniques used for those seeking OBEs and astral projection.  This causes some confusion and people are always wondering if an OBE or AP is the same as a WILD lucid dream.

What do you think?