Hello all,

I'm very new to this. I had never really paid much attention to LDing, I never really thought it was something one could induce. However I am sure I have had lucid dreams in the past, numerous times as a child, when I realised I could control a dream, or make myself slip back into the same dream after having woken up.
The other day I saw a BBC documentary on dreaming and LDing and Stephen LaBerge. It absolutely gripped me. So I have been reading up a lot and trying to achieve atleast some progress in this short space of time. I am even writing a dream journal of sorts, and this coming from a man who has never kept any kind of diary in his life, even for appointments.

The first time I tried to WILD was in the afternoon. I'd read that binaural music helps (?) so i downloaded some and put it on my headphones and counted breaths. Relatively soon I started to see HI, colourful swirls and "curtains". and kind of snippets of images, like a plant swaying in the wind but they would disappear before I could even see the whole image. and then a roughly circular still-image in sepia, of a man in a white suite walking down a cobbled street holding onto a crude iron railing kept appearing and then fading away. Then the music track finished. Quite the distraction. So I gave up and thought I'd leave it til bedtime.

That night, not a WBTB, just at my usual bed time, I tried to WILD and I think I achieved Sleep Paralysis. I was counting "1 I am Dreaming, 2 I am Dreaming". I got to over 1000 so it must have taken a long time. But i was deffinately completely unable to move. I felt totally numb and any attempt at movement only resulted in little twitches here and there.
However I got no HI and the boiler in my closet kept distracting me so i pulled myself out of it by forcing myself to roll over, and I just fell to sleep.
That night I had a dream, which is brilliant because I havn't recalled a dream in months. I only remember being in a restaurant getting served a Roast Beef dinner, however it came in a large ceramic white rectangular high-sided bowl. We were eating this roast dinner out of what seemed like tall white cermaic coffee-mugs with no handles. I do so wish I'd have been practising reality checks.

Lastnight, again not a WBTB just trying to WILD at bedtime, I achieved what i believe to be SP (with earplugs this time) relatively quickly. I had slight HI. but then I started to almost "sense" dream scenes. I had little to no visualisation but i had 2 or 3 distinct daydreams, where i was still counting "120, I am Dreaming, 121, I am Dreaming" but it was if what i sensed going on around me was normal. At one point i was suspended on a small wooden side-car on a huge wooden vehicle, and someone was telling me to stop counting because "you have to wait for Larry" (i don't know anyone called Larry). everytime I finished one of these little daydreams i asked myself "what the f*** was that, why did it feel normal".

This went on for a bit until I had another sense, or a visualisation, I'm not quite sure. In which i was suspended from a a kind of church spire or tall pointy building, and i was held by a harness, which was caught over the spire with a metal ring. Whenever I counted "180 I am Dreaming, etc" it would jump and come back down hard as if trying to snap the ring. Eventually the ring snapped and I started to fall. I stopped counting and tried to go with it, but I got a feeling almost like a huge plughole or flush had opened up under me and I was about to fall and I kind of mentally "grabbed on" and woke myself up.

While i was SPing (i think i was... a clear 'yes you were' or 'no you werent' would be very helpful haha) i think i had "vibrations", which i have heard mentioned. but Im not sure if these were vibrations or just me feeling my heart beat very hard all of a sudden. i tried to follow and felt for a second like i was on an enclosed water slide. but my mind went wandering about whether it was just my heartbeat and then they went away.

I've heard someone mention that you have to fall asleep in order to WILD. does this mean, that you get to the point of SP, and then try and fall asleep as usual. Or does it mean, you have to "fall asleep" with you're conscious still counting/chanting/concentrating?

So, that's my very brief journey so far. I'm finding myself looking forward to going to bed, to see if anything different will happen.

I would love it if someone more experienced (ie anyone who has had an LD lol) could give me some advice or feedback on what I have experienced. I have quite a scientific mind, and thus a tendency to doubt things that I don't quite understand.

Tonight I'm going to try the WBTB technique, but i find it quite hard dragging myself out of bed. I lack a bit of discipline. But I have a free day tomorrow so i don't mind losing some sleep.

Please post responses, it'd be nice to know if what I'm feeling is me getting marginally closer to LDing, or if I'm just lying in my bed convincing myself that its happening?

thank you for taking the time to read this

Dan