WILD query - how to not freak out
I have tried to WILD once and had the most amazing experience of my life.
I was lying still and conscious of the dream i had previously had. I could 'notice' my thoughts were all over the place and i was starting to have flashing imagery like changing channels on a TV. Then i felt i could 'latch on' to the old dream i was having and i started to fly toward it. (this is a very poor description, but the best one i can use)
As I started to connect to the dream, it felt as though my head was inside a bucket that was spinning around with neon colours flashing through. like my head was in a zoetrope with flashing rainbow colours through the slits.
Then I started hearing a really loud noise like an when an aeroplane is landing or taking off.
I have since read about wormholes being the connectors between dream scenes, and that is the best description anyone could have.
I was travelling through a wormhole away from this reality ("waking life") and going to another place ("dream state") and they were so distinctly different from each other. It was the only time i have truly felt there are 2 seperate places and there is not any way to explain how they are connected, because they exist in completely different functional terms. (again a poor description there, but it is extremely difficult to put into words)
I freaked out a bit and instead of fully transitioning to the WILD, i woke up and was amazed at what I had experienced.
I thought I will just go back to sleep and try it again some time.
Here is my problem. I can't get close to it again.
I really feel like I am "waiting" for it to happen, or I will feel some hypnogogic imagery then start thinking to myself "is this it? is it about to happen again" and I will get distracted by a noise in the room, or outside my house (i live next to a metro train line).
I came closest again last week and here is my dilemma.
I could feel the imagery and dream state coming up. My eyes were twitching like crazy, I wasn't paralysed but i definatly felt like i couldn't move my body unless i consciously broke the relaxation.
Then as i was getting close to entering a dream state, My heart rate went up really high. Hard beating and Fast beating. It was very loud and distracting. It freaked me out quite a bit, because my heart was just pounding in my chest getting faster adn harder, so i had to consciously stop the WILD attempt and get out of bed and walk around a bit to relax back to a normal heart rate.
I really felt like i was too scared to let my heart rate continue to get racier, it was just going up and up.
There was none of the fantastic colours or wormhole experience, just as the dream imagery started coming through, i kept thinking "here it comes, can i hear my partners breathing, dont focus so much, let the dream happen etc..." and i was pretty distracted and couldn't just let it happen, then the heart pounding threw me right off.
I have 2 questions.
1. Any general advise for what i can do to try to not be so distracted by conscious thoughts when trying to slip away into the dream?
2 Anyone else experience this insane paced heartbeat that is so scary you think you better abandon the attempt?
I appreciate anyones words. If there are threads covering these things, just let me know and i will search for them. I have had a look around without much luck.