Well I must say, I wasn't sure where to post this. Sorry to any mods/admins if I should have posted this in the WILD discussion under the DV academy--but since I'm not taking any classes, I didn't think it would be appropriate for me to post in those threads. Let me know if I'm wrong on that

So my question is pretty basic. Any experienced WILDers out there, I would like you to take a look at my experiences and see if I'm doing everything right and just getting unlucky--or if I'm making a mistake. I will detail my last two wild attempts--last evenings when I took a nap, and this evenings, likewise at naptime.

LAST Afternoon's ATTEMPT

For this attempt I decided to try without any binaural sounds/music/etc. Just plain concentration. Anyway, I got ready, comfortable, and started my relaxation technique. I have been experimenting with meditation for a while now, so I just tried to use deep breathing to let my thoughts float away. After spending 15-20 minutes purely trying to relax myself, I started trying to visualize myself in a dream I wanted to have--in this case, walking through a forest, shape-shifting into a dragon, and taking to the skies.

Anyway, I kept trying, kept visualizing, but nothing ever happened. I focused on my attempted visualization, trying to ignore the sensations of my body such as the tingling sensations and the scratchiness of my blanket on my hands, and the heaviness of my limbs. In short, I tried to forget my body even exists, placing myself purely in the moment with my mind, on the dream I wanted to have. The thing is, I never got *anywhere.* Usually when I attempt the WILD, I get at least a few hallucinations, feel floaty, get small snippets of hypnagogic images, usually in the form of speckles or string-like things floating around. That never happened this time. I spent over 2 hrs and never even fell asleep or drifted off, nor did I get the true "visualization" where I can literally see/hear/feel (actually, I have never experienced visualization at that level before). After the two hours, I just got up since absolutely nothing was happening.


THIS AFTERNOON'S ATTEMPT

This time I decided to try using nature sounds. I did much better, but still didn't ever get "there" ya know? No lucid dreams or anything. I tried to visualize the forest as the sounds were forest/rain. Of course I did the relaxation stuff first, got that out of the way. Then I tried to visualize the forest, adding images to the sounds I was listening too. I tried that for about an hour or so, but nothing came of it. I blanked out a couple times, only to jerk myself back to full awareness when this happened. Again, I got feeling super relaxed, but never forgot about my body as I read will happen with the WILD. I still felt the bed, the dog lying against my legs, the blankets, etc.

So, I decided to change tracks and go with a binaural mp3 I downloaded. When I tried this, I had some extremely strange sensations. My body started tingling after a while, and twice I started hallucinating that I was telling my mother about the WILD I was attempting right now

I also kept going in and out of awareness, jumping from being alert to blanking out, to hallucinations, to being alert again. Unfortunately, about 15 minutes into this attempt, I had to get up. I wonder where I would've gotten though had I been able to keep that going at least half an hour or hour...


So my question is this. Am I doing something wrong in my WILD attempts? Should I be trying to relax longer than 15-20 mins? Why is it I seem to either black out entirely only to jerk myself back to awareness OR have hallucinations only to be jerked back to full consciousness when it happens? And and am I doing something wrong with my visualization? It never seems to lucid dream. A common problem I have is losing awareness entirely, starting a WILD only to wake up the next morning or after my nap, depending on when I make the attempt.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks lucid dreamers!!

~SilverWolf~