"In Your Dreams!"

Today I attempted a WILD, I was really hyped up about it and I was kind of nervous... I'll explain why ;D.

Well, if you don't know, I've been trying to train myself to become a Lucid Dreamer for about a year now and I really want to keep on trying. Lucid dreaming, in a nutshell, is going to bed, dreaming, and recognizing you're dreaming. In doing this your dream becomes as real as reality, that's why there are things called reality checks. There are a lot of famous ones, the hand reality check is basically looking at your hand and counting your fingers to see if you have 5 fingers... Sounds dumb, but it works really well. My personal favorite is the blocking of the nose... Basically, you'd block the air passage to your nose (I don't really know how to explain it, but it's plugging your nose without using your fingers and breathing through your mouth.) if you were dreaming though, blocking this passage and trying to breath would confirm to you whether you're sleeping or not because your body goes under sleep paralysis before you hit your R.E.M. (Rapid Eye Movement) stage (your dreaming stage =P).

What sleep paralysis does is blocks all your motor functions, if it didn't, whatever you did in your dream would happen in the waking world... Don't want that though ;D. I'm going to get a bit more in-depth with this a little later, but for now, just know that you go through this stage.

Ok, before I continue I want to explain what happens when you enter your bed... To my knowledge, I don' know if it's 100% correct but here are the stages...

1. You enter your bed.


2. After a while, you become unconscious.


3. Your body enters sleep paralysis.


4. After 4-6 hours, you enter REM, which is when your dreams are most vivid and remembered.


5. If you wake up during your dream, you will remember that dream much more than if it were to end and then you wake up. This is because your memory of the dreams gets fuzzy after every REM cycle. That's why you remember you nightmares since they usually scare you awake, during the dream.

Now, last night I attempted a WILD (Wake Induced Lucid Dream) following Clarity's WILD Technique. What you are trying to do when you attempt the WILD is lay in your bed and trick your body into going into REM. So you lay down, stay conscious and aware while your body goes into sleep paralysis and you enter your dream consciously. It's one of the coolest things to do.

The one thing I was really freaked out about was the Sleep Paralysis... Because during this stage, your mind is jumping from the waking to sleeping and during this time you start to hear sounds, feel vibrations (that can be quite violent), have a feeling that someone is in your room, etc. It varies, but it usually scares a lot of people. I remember my friend Austin told me about him taking a nap one day and he heard some music and then he just woke up... (or something along those lines xD). Though, none of this stuff actually happens to you, it's all just a mental step from waking to sleeping.

Clarity actually recorded an experience with her sleep paralysis that scared the bageebers out of me! Read about it here, worth reading. I was freaked out about it before going to bed, and I wasn't into that whole "mantra" thing she did, but I made sure I was taking Jesus with me, so that made me feel safe =)!

I failed my attempt. After lying down for an hour (I think it was 58 minutes...) I got up, repositioned myself, and fell asleep =P.

The main reason I failed was probably because I let my mind wander and imagine and when I did that, I kept increasing my heart-beat which didn't allow my body relax, keeping me from entering SP/REM. I never had that problem until today =(.

I'll take a shoot at it for tomorrow, if I do, I'll report back and tell everyone all about it =D!



If you would like to learn more about Lucidity, please check Dream Views, check out the links on the side to get your curiosity fed and exactly what Lucid Dreaming is. It's really cool, I suggest learning it to everyone reading.