New to the forum, some experience to share !

Hello everybody, I just recently registered to the forum the moment Google led me to it and just wanted to express myself and hopefully be welcomed by the community ;)

So I'm a mexican (so excuse my english), 20 y/o guy who is getting interested in lucid dreaming, I've read a bunch of stuff about it (related to metaphysics such as astral projections, meditation and such) and had never really make something to start getting into it. I've had the "typical" couple of lucid dreams childs sometimes have, so it was years ago. I've also had sleep paralysis (I'll say SP from now on..?) when I was a kid and freaked me the hell out but I read about and now I'm cool with it...

So couple days ago I was reading something about achieving "high" effects with only your body and read that going into a lucid dream while being awake (later found out it's called WILD) causes it.. I thought "what the hell" I'll give it a try without any practice in this field I actually nailed it.. (later found out about REM sleep and how getting up and then going back to sleep helps, I was lucky cus thats why I did but not on purpose..) so I'm there laying calm trying to stay conscious and start to feel the SP.. already know what that is so it doesn't freak me out... I start to hear sounds, see colors.. I'm just there watching my "high" effect.. and suddenly a forest starts appearing and I'm in it... now I'm thinking "OMG I did it.." and yeah I pretty much messed it there so it ended.. lol

And now I'm here, hoping to learn the secrets to a controled lucid dreamings and have like billions of questions (such as how do you even create a scenario if possible, I saw the year challenge about the movies and man that pumped me so much about learning this!) but I'm not throwing them here (besides the one already thrown :P) and assuming I'll be ready someday... for now I'm guessing I'll lurk this newbie zone? read the stickies for starting here or are there any other guides for starters beside in this section?

Anyways, sorry for the wall of text, but I pretty much think this is a standard protocol when starting on a new forum!
See you around! :D

Welcome to DreamViews dude. Congrats on your WILD success btw! I think you just got a little too excited once you made it into the dream. It happens all the time when you first start out. An excess of emotion can cause a dream to become unstable which, can end the dream. As soon as you enter the dream, you should give the environment around you time to stabilize and perform some stabilization techniques. Once everything is nice and stable (won't take but a few moments), you can proceed. Try to keep your emotions in check for the most part. You can be happy and excited and whatnot, but with experience you will learn your emotional limits. In a lucid dream anything you can imagine is possible (literally, because it is your mind that is creating the environment). Since you have had LDs in the passed (as a child), it shouldn't be too hard for you to get into the swing of things. First, I suggest you check out the tutorials section. Any basic information you need will be there. All the different types of induction methods and information about LDing in general. There is a link in my signature actually. If you have any specific questions after that, don't hesitate to ask. Good Luck to you and Welcome!

wow dude, basically the same thing happened to me! I also found that guide about getting 'high' with only your body, and that's when I found out about SP, and I saw that it led to lucid dreaming, which sparked a new interest. :D

Thanks for the reply and the welcome I really appreciate it... one quick question: should I focus in only learning one technique (with each of their variations) or should I mix it up?

Reason is I was able to pull off (well almost) the WILD attempt so Im guessing doing it again wont be a problem just need discipline plus I could mix it with DILDs.. Already starting my DJ after searching here for a while

Cheers!

Edit: and above we might even saw it from the same site lol

well for me I did a combination of MILD and WILD, doing mantras at the same time waiting for SP, only I did it the first time I went to bed, not after sleeping for 5 hours or so. :D

I saw it from tumblr lol :D

Yeah, it is fine to try out as many different techniques as you want. Doing that, will help you find out what you are most comfortable with. In general, DILD will be where most of your LDs will come from, so always practice/train for DILDs. You can also attempt WILDs any time you feel like it, or when the opportunity arises (often times you will get random SP without even meaning to, so always try and take advantage of this). What I do is, practice and train for DILD (mostly with reality checks and keeping up with a dream journal) and then I attempt WILDs pretty often as well (whenever a good opportunity arises...if I wake in the middle of the night, or am taking a nap during the day, etc.). Good luck to you!

Something I've always wondered.. is there any risk at all without going to extreme scenarios? I mean I'm not asking if I can get trapped in the limbo... but a friend told me once.. "as you can control your dreams, the dreams can control you too" as in if something bad were to happen I would have trouble getting rid of hallucinations in real life or something... and he told me this... "if you ever doubt, by any second, about your progress... quit" I just don't know what to think... but I'm getting into this no matter what lol

I suppose everyone's susceptibility to mental health issues is different, but lucid dreaming isn't going to effect you any more than say...a video game would. I've never heard of anyone hallucinating in real life because of LDing. You don't have anything to worry about. He may have been referring to losing the ability to tell the difference between reality and a dream. I suppose if that ever happened you should stop, but I haven't heard of that happening to anyone. Its easy to tell if you are dreaming or not...just do a reality check (RC) :P. Don't worry about it, lucid dreaming is a natural phenomenon. You will fine.

At the risk of losing my mind (which I never really thought of this happening) I was still going to do it :P so yeah thanks for the reply... still working on my dream journal havent had the time to do attempt WILD, I'll be uploading a question later with a graphic (obtained from the Sleep Cycle iPhone app I'm guessing a lot of people are familiar with)