I do know what you're talking about. I've gone through the exact same thing above and literally entered a lucid dream in a sleep state. Plenty of times. When I read people's accounts of a WILD, this is what I think of. This isn't what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is literally spinning two plates. I am completely aware of wakeful things within a lucid dream. I'm completely within it. I can also be aware of what is going on in my house, or sirens going by...or people getting home and walking around upstairs. If the TV is on, I can hear it faintly within my ludic experience. If someone were to walk into my room, I'd know it, sit up, and be completely awake. It's like everything in wakefulness is happening in another room. I don't know how better to explain it. I've been raking through these forums and have not seen any experience like what I mean here. I do know exactly what you're talking about when you refer to WILD, because I've had plenty of experiences like that also, where I would go through the above steps and be asleep but aware when I go through...without having lost the concentration in the process. I know when it's happening because when I'm asleep I get these slight twitches in my fingers and toes when I'm going through. I don't have the same amount of control in my lucidity when that happens, however...I can still fly and I can still try experiments and the like...but things don't work as well and I am aware of this in my dream and I try to listen for things in my house to get me up a notch. It never works. It's even less from a dream that goes lucid...and I know it but I can't change it. I get the same experience in a wakeful lucid experience as I do in a sleeping one...the buzzing or static and a feeling of going through...but what I'm talking about is different in that I also know what is going on as if in a wakeful state. I can hear what is going on in my house within my dream state...or smell food cooking and stop things and get up when I think dinner must be ready...I can't explain it any better than that. It's different. I am literally awake. (I have had experiences where the minute I lay down, without any of the above preparations that I would normally do, I am completely lucid. Just, zzzsshhhhoooom. There I go. When this happens I have no control to get out of it and no control in the dream. All of this being said, I haven't had a lucid dream in years. That's why I'm here. I'd very much like to get it back.) I'm sure I don't have to tell anyone here that when it's good, there is no better feeling. Maybe what I was experiencing was something different. I don't know. I don't know what else to call it other than a lucid dream. The dreams that I relate to on this forum are more so the other types of experiences I've had. Like I said, I know exactly what you're talking about when you say that of course you're obviously asleep, as I know what that feels like. This, what I'm talking about was just like that...only different and with the awareness. I definitely didn't feel asleep. Meditative state? I wouldn't know what to call it as I don't actually know a lot about these sorts of things. Again, that's why I'm here. To learn what I can to get it back. I'm talking about these things because these are my experiences...and I honestly wasn't aware that it wasn't just completely normal for a lucid dream until I started looking around here to see that most of these experiences only somewhat match my own. Where to go from here? I'm not sure, really. Does it seem like something else to anyone?