Struggling to find a WILD technique that works for me.

[Safor]

Hey guys, Past few weeks I have been making tremendous progress to WILDing, but past week and a half I've hit a nasty snag: I keep slipping in and out of sleep paralysis, very quickly, and I can't get into it! The most success I had was yesterday, where I am pretty sure I was in sleep paralysis, or about to enter it for several seconds. My problem is I really cannot find a technique that works, and keeps my distracted enough. The thing with WILDs is if you try to note what stage you are in you get pushed away. I've been getting good about this but I notice sleep paralysis incoming every time (my vision becomes white, I lose sense of my body completely and my mind feels like it's rolling over and over again), and lose it pretty quickly. I will list the techniques I've tried and then the order of events when I try to WILD: I have tried visualization, physical visualization (focusing more on the physical senses, touch and whatnot), counting my breaths and I've also been trying a little bit to play with the vibrations, as, I read in an post on here about how you can control the vibrations and use them to get into a dream. I've read so many guide on how to do this it's kind of absurd (in a good way I think). Some things to note: I try and WILD in the afternoon (12p.m. seems to be the strongest afternoon REM period for me), and I get vibrations within seconds of lying down (2 to 3 seconds, usually), and about 50% of the time the vibrations are accompanied by my eyes twitching like crazy, as if in REM. When I wake up to WILD at night, after 6 hours of sleep, I don't get vibrations, hypnagogic hallucinations or anything. I don't notice HH unless I'm looking for them, anyway. I might be jumping to the gun a bit because my visualization has been improving lately, and I'm going to continue to try it. But I was wondering if anyone had any tips on visualization or any techniques I should try out. I'm also wondering if there is some sort of way to make my visualization more vivid and immersive? I know they can only be so vivid anyway but my minds eye produces a pathetically foggy image that is hard to watch and get sucked into. I feel like visualization is my best shot at this, but it's extremely difficult for me to do. I am getting so close, I just need to get over this final barrier! Even little tips or advice would be much appreciated!

[ChrolliSpears]

Honestly, just like you I have not had one single WILD yet but I only started trying like three days ago. I'll be trying Jeff's free-falling WILD technique tonight though because it dosen't need the whole WBTB thing which I find annoying. I can't post a link since I haven't been a member for seven days yet but you can find it on the other page though.

[Robot_Butler]

It sounds like you are doing everything right. That final transition to the dream can be tricky. If you are having a hard time visualizing, try using a memory instead of something invented. Right before your nap, practice some activity, then all you have to do is recall that memory. You could also try to roll out of your body. When you feel vibrations or paralysis, imagine your body rocking back and forth. Build up momentum until you can rock your dream body right out of your sleeping body. This is really easy if you are paralyzed. Just keep rocking back and forth until you roll right off the bed. If this works, try to get out of your bedroom as soon as possible to avoid confusion.

[Safor]

Great suggestions, thank you so much! I will try the rolling technique tonight, and we'll see how that goes.

[Safor]

Well, I've been working on the rolling technique, I'm getting closer. Today, during my afternoon WILD attempt, I tried a few techniques... which may have been a mistake, but I tried taking the vibrations and putting them into visualizations, and I feel like I got super super close to the transition, the vibrations would feel intense, so I would imagine being in an earthquake and running for my life, and then I would feel like I'm rolling over, so when that would happen I would visualize (and it felt pretty real)getting knocked over and rolling until they stopped. I have had similar sensations before but with the added visualizations they got much more intense and lasted much, much much longer than I have even been able to make them last. I think I should have tried rolling though, as that might have been successful... oh well. ... Eventually that went away, it was quiet for a while. I would start feeling contorted or itches but I just kept going, eventually, I saw my computer screen, it looked 100% real, but I noticed it, and it faded. That happened again (with a different image)and it hung around for a little bit longer. A while later, I broke off the attempt, as 45 minutes had passed and I wasn't making any new progress. I'm basically just posting progress, but some more questions: how exactly should I go about the rolling? I've been trying rocking back and forth, back and forth until it feels really real and strong, then just keep pushing until I feel as if I have rolled off my bed. It doesn't seem very fast, and I never feel disconnected. Is there a trick to doing it? My theory is how I should do it is rock back and forth until it feels strong, and then push it until I am rocking (FEELING like I'm rocking, of course)really quickly, then shooting myself out, quickly. I'm pretty sure I'm doing the rolling right but I just wanted to make sure. I have yet to try the memory visualization, perhaps after a couple weeks of trying rolling I will try that.

[Ruck0]

Hey Safor, here is something that worked for me this morning. Once the sleep paralysis kicked in I tried to lift my left arm - however I imagined it not being my real arm but more or less trying to peel myself from my physical body. Once I got that arm lifted I just threw myself as hard as I could and rolled off the bed. Once I landed I was able to stand up and continue on. I rubbed my hands together and that helped solidify things once I stood up. I kind of screwed it up tho because this is the first time I've done it intentionally and I didn't quite believe it. My subconscious convinced me I was sleep walking and I woke myself up. I'm excited to give it another shot tho, I think with anything else once you feel it the first time it'll be easier to reproduce in the future. Good luck.

[Safor]

Hmm, perhaps my problem when I try to do the peeling/shooting out of your body, is that I focus too much on making it feel real. I've read those sorts of techniques work during later vibrations, which I get to in 15 minutes, with spurts of full-on sleep paralysis after about 20 minutes. By sleep paralysis, do you mean the transitional stage? I've seen a couple definitions for what SP is, with the most commonly accepted being the actual transition. How long did it take you to get you where you could do that? I'll just work on reminding myself I'm trying to rip my dream body away from my real one, and not worry about how real it feels, because when I do, I tend to get frustrated and try something else.

[Ruck0]

To be quite honest It was completely accidental for me. It's something that has been a part of a recurring nightmare of mine for the last 5-6 years and I just never understood what it was. It's a pretty brutal nightmare that occurs for me after a false awakening followed by sleep paralysis. It's kind of like the old Incubus/Succubus stories from ancient cultures where I can feel a malevolent presence messing with me - I'm still trying to fully grasp it. I wake up frequently during the night every night and it would always occur when I went back to sleep I just never knew why until recently. I think somewhere along the line my brain in trying to naturally defend itself threw me into lucid dreams and the only way I could get away from whatever was "attacking" me was to will myself to roll off my bed which usually ended the torment. I think I just hit sleep paralysis easier than a lot of people because it's something I've had pretty much my whole life and normally have extremely vivid dreams. This morning was my first attempt at actually purposely inducing a lucid dream and the above method worked for me. I guess before I got to the SP state I tried to distract my mind by focusing on an image of a pretty girl and staying very still - i've had SP so many times that I recognized it immediately and knew I was asleep, that's when I tried to "peel" myself away and roll off the bed. But yeah, I just tried to focus on imagining my dream body separating from my physical body, but it helped to just focus on the arm first, once I got that part "out" I was able to just roll the rest out and onto the floor.

[Safor]

I have never really got to the point where I have felt/known I was asleep, I think I do more than I know. I like to visualize something then let the random HI mold itself into my visualization, kind of like a very bizarre and disconnected dream. It gets me to the stronger vibrations, from there I go in and out of transition (I think). The transition period is longer, lately, so I should be able to use it to pull myself "out of my body" and into the dream. I do know what you are talking about, the Old Hag syndrome I think? I have had that happen twice recently, once during a MILD attempt (woke up, tried to DEILD, failed, tried to MILD, ended up like that). The first time I sat and watched as a hooded figure approached my bed and laid it's hands on me, it was quite disturbing and had me shaken up the whole morning. The second time, I simply saw colors all over the wall, then I realized it was SP, and woke up. Something I keep in mind before I fall asleep, is if that happens, it's simply the embodiment of the fear of not being able to move and (feeling) like it's hard to breathe, and if it happens, to remember it's not real, and then try and use that to have a lucid dream. It happens rarely though, once every few years for me. It's one of those things where you will tell yourself over and over again, and you know it's not real, but no matter how much you tell yourself that it's still scary as heck! Like I said before, I read you can employ those sorts of techniques BEFORE the actual transition, can anyone confirm that? I would like to try Ruck0's technique during my later vibrations, where the HH is at it's strongest and I feel almost fully paralyzed.

[Terrin]

I don't know if this counts but I lucid dream whenever I want to with the wake back to bed method which I feel is just a prolonged WILD.. I just go to sleep and wake up after 5-6 hours tell myself I will be dreaming soon.. maybe listen to some binaural beats and go back to sleep.. I usually keep that to myself because I haven't mastered DILD.. I still find them hard but I've noticed the more I do my WBTB the more it seems to carry over into DILD's.. I've run into sleep paralysis after two days of doing the WBTB.. the 3rd day I didn't do it I had a DILD and the 4th day I didnt do it I WILD'ed by mistake.. I couldn't sleep that night and lay in my bed and realized I was dreaming.. I never have any hynagogic images.. after the 6 hours of sleep I go back to sleep and 90% of the time find myself in a dream.. Do take into account that sometimes I have to lay down for 30 minutes before I fall back to sleep.. other times it's faster.

[Safor]

I try regular MILD/WBTB techniques after a failed WILD, without much success. I would use binaural beats more often but my ipod has a permanent white screen of death problem, I can't fix it, so for now that isn't an option. They are truly incredible though, if you find a good one. For me, they bring complete focus to lucid dreaming and give me the most vivid visualizations of dreams I would like to have, so I can hopefully get that whole thing working again and use those as I fall asleep, and to relax prior to a WILD attempt. My basic lucid dreaming "schedule", of sorts, is to do WILD during afternoon, try to DILD as I fall asleep, wake up at about 4:30 (I go to bed at 10), and try to WILD, and if not (I give up after 30 minutes, because I have things to do in the morning and need my sleep), go for a MILD/DILD. Slightly off topic post, but seems relevant to Terrins response.