Thread: Was I close?

I had my first serious WILD attempt last night, and I think I was going into SP but I got scared and jumped out of it. I was doing the 1, i'm dreaming etc with each breath until about 100-110. I then felt my entire body going numb and my eyes started moving or twitching, i know I wasnt going into REM but they were moving on their own. When I felt my whole body go number i sat up and opened my eyes. When I sat up, it seemed like my limbs were harder to move than normal. Does this sound like I was close to SP? If I was, how long do my eyes keep twitching because it was annoying. Finally, how long does it take once in SP for a dream to form? Thanks, sorry I have so many questions.

Sorry it took so long for someone to answer your questions. You were indeed, in the early on-set of SP. Just try to keep your eyelids relaxed and ignore your eyes twitching. This very common and after a bit you won't even notice them anymore. Just continue to stay calm and relaxed. It varies on how long it will take for the dream to form. You were very close to SP fully setting in. After that you just have to transition (finish falling asleep). If you stay relaxed and just let the process do its thing, it shouldn't take more than a few minutes for the dream to start forming. If you have any further questions, don't hesitate to ask!

No problem, thanks for the reply Yoshi. After SP fully sets in, my mind will become clear and random though won't come into my head, according to what I've read. When I get here, should I still be using my mantra? If I should, should I keep using it until I'm completely in the dream? Unfortunatly I need to wait until the weekend to try to WILD because I'm still a student and can't loose any sleep. Thanks!

Yeah, I hear ya. Weekends are excellent times to practice. You can use the week days to read up information, ask questions, think about dreaming, and really prep your mind for the whole experience. Once you get into SP, I would suggest stopping the mantra. Shift your focus more to the effects of SP. Like any HH/HI (hypnagogic hallucinations/imagery) you get. Don't really focus on any one thing, just kind of observe the entire process as you fall into a deeper and deeper sense of relaxation. If HH/HI hasn't really started yet, you can casually observe the darkness from your closed eyes until it arrives. Don't try to force/rush anything. WILD is a fairly delicate process and requires a bit of finesse. You will get more and more used to it with each attempt.

Sorry for all the questions, but these are my last. How will I know when I'm fully into SP? And finally, when you WILD, do you have perfect dream recall? I believe I read somewhere that when you WILD, you have perfect dream recall because you're starting the dream awake? Is this true? Thanks so much for helping me out.

No problem and ask all the questions you want...that is what I'm here for . When you fully get into SP your entire body will be paralyzed and the hallucinations become vivid. SP is different for everyone and usually never the exact same twice, so its hard to say specifically. You will be able to tell when you are in full SP most of the time, but even if you aren't sure...it doesn't really matter. Just continue on the process until you enter the dream.

You will have good recall with any sort of lucid dream. The only time you forget things is if you start chaining lucid dreams using DEILD. Sometimes you will forget the early dreams of the chain. It is still recommended that you write them down immediately upon waking up, so you don't forget any details.

Thanks for all the help Yoshi

No problem. If you ever have any other questions, don't hesitate to ask!

I was just wondering, does HH come in waves or instantly?
I mean like, will it just be silent, and then you'll huge loud noise, or will you hear mumbled or softer sounds eventually growing louder?
It seems difficult to stay calm because I'm expecting a huge scary noise or hallucination coming from complete silence.
Thanks

Originally Posted by chaoschief

I was just wondering, does HH come in waves or instantly?
I mean like, will it just be silent, and then you'll huge loud noise, or will you hear mumbled or softer sounds eventually growing louder?
It seems difficult to stay calm because I'm expecting a huge scary noise or hallucination coming from complete silence.
Thanks

I have found the hallucinations begin very subtly as I realize I am paralyzed. The two go hand in hand. First I realize very acutely I am paralyzed and unable to move anything other than my eyelids and that is momentary and fleeting. The just as I realize I am paralyzed I begin to hallucinate either in a sensory fashion (sensing presences in the room) or auditory hallucinations such as people breaking in the house, knocking on my windows or doors, jostling the door knobs, etc. When caught in these hallucinations I feel an urgency to wake up because on some level I think I really should go answer the door or stop the burglar. I have also had an out of body experience during SP but I am unsure now whether that was an hallucination or a dream beginning.

Originally Posted by KingYoshi

Make sure you aren't doing anything that will keep you awake and your anchor should be as passive/non-distracting as possible. I like to simply observe the darkness of my closed eyes. No matter what starts to happen HH/HI wise, I always keep that darkness as a running background. I don't focus on it, but I don't forget it either. Keep practicing WILD and you will eventually get a "feel" for how everything works. It will just take practice and experience.

After reading everything you are saying I am beginning to think I inadvertently created my own anchors. One I am leaving the TV on turned down very low on Court TV (rambling talking) and I am falling asleep in a semi prone and supine position. I think these two things as well as being really tired mid day are what is bringing these episodes on lately.

Originally Posted by KingYoshi

Well, I will say that HH doesn't always respond directly to your thoughts. I can think of times where I have been in SP and started imagining screams and monsters and whatnot, but none of it showed. It really isn't as bad as it seems from all the stories. SP just takes some getting used to. If anything scary happens just remind yourself that it is all a hallucination and you cannot be harmed. In my experience, 90% of the time nothing scary happens. Just take SP head on and the, "bring it on" attitude. Once you get through it a few times, it likely won't be scary at all. You can also try to WBTB in the late morning when there is some daylight outside if you wish. I have never had anything scary happen during the day for some reason .

Yoshi, when I hallucinate I am alert but not alert enough to control my response to it. A part of me takes over that is afraid of those sounds and presences and I can't seem to get a grip on myself. It is like me but not me, make sense? I try so hard to control my response to the hallucinations but I just can't seem to! I get annoyed, frightened and a sense of urgency from them whether I want to or not. It is frustrating as hell!

It really varies, but in my experience the noises will slowly grow louder and louder (most of the time). There have only been a few instances where a loud noise came out of nowhere and startled/surprised me. Even during those instances, however, I had already hit SP and had been hallucinating a bit already. Like one time I heard glass breaking really loud and it startled me out of SP. Once I checked to make sure no one was breaking into the house, I remembered thinking, "Oh, come on now! That is cheating!" lol. Nothing will come directly out of dead silence and startle you. You will at least be in a relatively quiet SP state before anything like that could happen.It will just take some practice and experience to get used to SP and how it feels/works.

I see, thanks. I think it's easier for me to deal with them if i'm already experiencing HI or HH. If it's just dead black and dead silent and something happens, I might scare myself out of SP. I got some earplugs to mentally help me deal with it, so hopefully that'll work.

Two more Q's sorry. You said when I start experiencing HH or HI, I can stop my mantra and observe. Can I move my eyes while doing this? Also, how long do WILD dreams usually last, and can you manipulate the feeling of time in a dream so it's 3 hours dream time 30 min real life? Thanks again

geez guys, ive gotten to HI twice now, both times i tried. i cant get myself to rc in dreams so im sticking to this for now. cuz apparently im close. chaoschief i am in EXACT boat you are, i get numb, my eyes twitch, which is annoying haha. but i can't get HI to form anything. my experience ends with that, either i fall asleep or open my eyes. I just dont know what is supposed to happen at that point, i never hear anything, no dream seems to form.

Well, for me, once I got numb and my eyes twitched, I got scared and got myself out of SP on purose. I've never experienced HI/HH because I've never let SP set in for long enough. If I've read the tutorials correctly, I think you just need to stay calm and relaxed and not get too excited about SP or anything.

Make sure you are doing this at the right time in your sleep cycle. You want to transition directly from this limbo state into a vivid dream, so try to hit a long, late-night REM cycle. If you are already close to a dream, the transition is much easier and faster.

Originally Posted by chaoschief

Two more Q's sorry. You said when I start experiencing HH or HI, I can stop my mantra and observe. Can I move my eyes while doing this? Also, how long do WILD dreams usually last, and can you manipulate the feeling of time in a dream so it's 3 hours dream time 30 min real life? Thanks again

Yeah, don't worry about moving your eyes. With WILD you are going directly into the REM state (Rapid Eye Movement), so your eyes will likely start moving anyway. Like any other lucid dream, a WILD can last a long time or it can last only a few seconds. There are many factors like stability, where you are in your REM cycle, etc. With WILDs, you aren't wasting time without lucidity (because you are immediately lucid upon entering), so on average they tend to be longer dreams (in my experience). WILDs are often unstable at the beginning, so you will want to brush up on some stabilization techniques as well. With proper stabilization, they will clear up nicely. As for time manipulation, this is something that really has no proof behind it. Time is definitely different during dreams than in real life, or at least the perception of time is different. This is something you will have to explore/experiment with yourself. I really don't have much wisdom on the subject. I have tried to extend time and produced mixed results that seem quite random to me. I haven't been able to pinpoint a particular method for altering the perception of time.

Originally Posted by car4soccer

geez guys, ive gotten to HI twice now, both times i tried. i cant get myself to rc in dreams so im sticking to this for now. cuz apparently im close. chaoschief i am in EXACT boat you are, i get numb, my eyes twitch, which is annoying haha. but i can't get HI to form anything. my experience ends with that, either i fall asleep or open my eyes. I just dont know what is supposed to happen at that point, i never hear anything, no dream seems to form.

Well, you want to fall asleep...that is the whole point of WILDing. You just need some sort of anchor/technique for keeping your mind conscious as you fall asleep. Make sure you aren't doing anything that will keep you awake and your anchor should be as passive/non-distracting as possible. I like to simply observe the darkness of my closed eyes. No matter what starts to happen HH/HI wise, I always keep that darkness as a running background. I don't focus on it, but I don't forget it either. Keep practicing WILD and you will eventually get a "feel" for how everything works. It will just take practice and experience.

Going to try to WBTB-WILD tonight. One last question. When I start having the HH/HI, how do I get into the dream, or does it just happen after some time. I hear about 'Exit Methods' but I hear those are for OBEs and not lucid dreams. So once i'm in SP experiencing HH/Hi, do I just wait and I'll get into a dream without doing anything?

Yeah, basically you just wait it out. Try to casually observe the HI/HH and continue to fall into a deeper and deeper sense of relaxation. You need to finish falling asleep to complete the transition, but you need to focus just enough to stay conscious. Too much focus and you won't be able to fall asleep. It will just takes some practice and experience to learn that "sweet spot." Keep practicing and Good luck to you!

Sorry for so many questions, but I hear that staying conscious while in full SP/transitioning is very difficult, and if you become unconscious, you will sleep normally and the WILD will have failed. Do you have any tips on staying conscious during this?

Sure, you just need to find yourself a good anchor. An anchor is what a WILDer uses to stay conscious during SP and the transition. There are many common anchors like counting, counting breaths, music playing, fan noise, sleeping on a small object (like a marble), slowly moving a finger/toe every now and then, feeling/noticing the bed beneath you, etc. I simply observe the darkness of my closed eyes and never forget its there. Once I start to get hallucinations, I switch my anchor. I casually observe any hallucinations as if they were semi-interesting. I don't pick out details, I just let them come and go as they please. Basically, I use any hallucinations as my anchor. You may want to try several of them out and see what works best for you. You could even come up with a new anchor...the possibilities for them are endless.

Ok, this is getting kind of annoying. I can't seem to get into SP anymore. I can recognize the difference between numb limbs from lack of motion and the SP heaviness. The only thing I can do now is get the numbness, from lack of movement, or at least I think it's from lack of movement. There's sometimes a decent amount of noise around me. Could it because I'm hearing the sound and that won't allow me to switch my attention? Thanks!

Any time you find yourself laying awake for extended periods of time and can't hit SP, you simply aren't falling asleep. Something you are doing is keeping you awake. You either aren't tired enough, are focusing too much and not relaxing, overworking your mind with forced thoughts, etc. Just try to relax and not even really think about the whole process. Once your body gets numb, just continue to try to fall asleep as if you were normally falling asleep. Make sure your anchor is subtle enough to where it isn't keeping you awake. You don't want to focus on the anchor, you just want to be aware of it at all times.

So it's ok to do the anchor "in the background"? Mine is just counting breaths and has worked before. I thought you're not supposed to acknowledge the random thoughts you get or that pop into your head?

Yeah, just let the thoughts flow in and out of your mind as they please. Try not to focus on them. An anchor is great for WILDing, but make sure that your anchor isn't keeping you awake. If counting breaths has worked for you before, that is fine. Just make sure you aren't too focused on what number breath you are own and whatnot. Don't allow the anchor to become a distraction.