My first WILD attempt.

[MrHiggs]

Hi All, Monday night I had not planned to attempt any LD. I was extremely tired after an exhausting but wonderful workout at my local Kung Fu class. I really just wanted to hit the sack and get some rest, without all the mantras, without all the visualisation. Just beautiful recharging sleep. Despite all this I found that I couldn't get to sleep. You see it was my fist Kung Fu lesson four years after leaving my old school that I wasn't happy at and I was still too excited by it all and very encouraged by my new Sifu. I decided that if I was going to lie in bed thinking about Kung Fu then I might as well listen to some music as well so I broke out the iPod and some headphones and just let it take me away, hopefully off to sleep. It wasn't long before I found myself in the hypnagogic phase and in a state of blissful relaxation. I had no sense of my days aches and pains at all, just the sense of being surrounded by a pure relaxing energy field. At least that's the only way I can describe it. I soon realised that the hypnagogic hallucinations where reacting slightly to the music. They were always monochrome though, white on black, yellow on black, orange, blue etc. If a song came on about sailing , for example, I could relax and I would see a sailing ship in the ocean. I soon discovered though that if I concentrated harder on the ship it would become more vague or even disappear completely but then something rather wonderful happened. I realised if I just let the image go and not give a crap (sort of letting it do it's own thing) then it would improve greatly and reveal itself in full multicoloured lucidity. Using this technique I could see all sorts of wonderful scenes. Beaches, waves, beautiful sunsets. I could even move but the sun across the sky! BUT I was NOT dreaming. I was still very much aware I was lying in bed listening to music and enjoying the hallucinations for what they were. I desperately wanted to dive into the scene and leave my physical body but I couldn't make the connection. Did I experience the onset of a so called WILD?? Reading the forums it seems like I may have. How do I tear myself away from my physical body and enter the scene in my dream body? I feel like I've really made some progress in achieving this and it seems like something that may be a preferable alternative to my usual MILD technique which more often than not seems not to work. KUNG FU! Warning. Do not attempt Kung Fu during a WILD attempt Some of the visualisations I created were some Kung Fu training drills I had been going through that evening in my class. When I interacted with the visualisation my physical body would carry out these moves for real. I realise now Kung Fu dreaming is best left to after SP. One of my intentions is to use LD as an extension to my normal waking life Kung Fu training. Clearly no benefit in the physical aspect but in terms of 'muscle memory' training I have a theory that the benefit could be enormous and this seems to be born out in other testaments I have read.

[DreamRaptor]

Congrats, my WILD's always make me feel some sense of dread or slight panic I always wake up or simply forget to LD or something :p From what I understand you can roll over out of your physical body, maybe try that next time.

[MrHiggs]

Congrats, my WILD's always make me feel some sense of dread or slight panic I always wake up or simply forget to LD or something :p From what I understand you can roll over out of your physical body, maybe try that next time. Isn't that an Astral Projection technique?

[Legion117]

I've tried it before, felt the onset of SP but never quite got there. It's a tough technique.

[dms111]

It sounds like you were experiencing hypnagogic hallucinations. These hallucinations don't mean you've fallen asleep or even reached sleep paralysis. The closer you are to sleep the more detailed they will become. The details you describe seem clear enough to say you were literally moments away from falling asleep and WILDing, but didn't quite make it. You couldn't enter the dream because you weren't asleep yet. Rather than trying to tear yourself away from your body, let it calmly slip away. Just let your body slip from your mind. This will carry the risk of falling asleep without retaining awareness but it's a risk you have to take. Otherwise you'll constantly find yourself stuck at the door.

[MrHiggs]

It sounds like you were experiencing hypnagogic hallucinations. These hallucinations don't mean you've fallen asleep or even reached sleep paralysis. The closer you are to sleep the more detailed they will become. The details you describe seem clear enough to say you were literally moments away from falling asleep and WILDing, but didn't quite make it. You couldn't enter the dream because you weren't asleep yet. Rather than trying to tear yourself away from your body, let it calmly slip away. Just let your body slip from your mind. This will carry the risk of falling asleep without retaining awareness but it's a risk you have to take. Otherwise you'll constantly find yourself stuck at the door. Thanks. I'll try to remember this next time.

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Moved to WILD subsection