Wake-Initiated Lucid Dream (WILD)

[woven ice]

Background

WILD stands for Wake Initiated Lucid Dreaming, the act of falling asleep consciously to directly enter the dreamstate. It's is one of two major categories for lucid dreaming techniques, dating back over a thousand years.

The other category is https://discord.com/channels/722272427354357771/1131424883092496514 (where you become lucid during a non-lucid dream).

There's many WILD techniques. All of these techniques are just with different "anchors"—different things to keep your consciousness anchored while you fall asleep. For example, for FILD, the anchor is imagined movement. Anchors can involve any of the senses and be either physical or mental.

Even though anchors are the heart of WILD, they're not the only part. It's important that we understand the entire WILD process.

The stages of WILD

As you fall asleep consciously, there's different stages you'll go through starting with a fully awake state, followed by transitional state, then full sleep onset.

Stage 1: Dreams don't really occur. They shouldn't, anyway.
**Stage 2: **During the second transitional stage, dreams may or may not occur. This is known as hypnagogia, which is a dream in the beginning stage of formation.
**Stage 3: **Dreams also may or may not occur. It's not too uncommon for dreamers to fall asleep consciously without knowing because the dream either didn't occur, or the dream mimicked a replica of one's bedroom. This is why it can help to understand each stage, and learn what to do with each stage in order to progress past it.

If you apply an anchor to every stage, for example, you may end up laying in bed for a long, long time. WILD really shouldn't take more than a few minutes if you understand each stage and what to do to progress through each part individually.

Step 1: Wind down physically and mentally

It's really important when you do WILD, especially at the beginning of the night, to wind down and relax both physically and mentally. Doing this part first, before jumping into anchor, is going to make the process faster and help keep you from over-focusing on that anchor.

Some people can fall asleep quickly, so if that's you, feel free to skip this step. You'll need more or less relaxation depending on how tired you are. The goal is to wind down and prepare to sleep both physically and mentally.

If you're physically restless, itchy, swallowing, tossing and turning, find your favorite sleeping position and get comfy. Feel free to itch, swallow, and do whatever you want to get comfortable, like you would on any night. Then, when you feel physically at ease, shift your attention onto your thoughts.

The goal is also to relax mentally. If your thoughts are racing, ideas popping into your head, you're thinking about what you did that day, what you'll do tomorrow—make peace with it at least temporarily so that you can sleep. I know this is easier said than done sometimes, so here's a few tips for those especially restless nights:
• Get up and do something relaxing for a few minutes if you have the means and time. Take a bath, watch a soothing video, listen to nice music, something to help change your train of thought.
• Meditation can also help clear your thoughts.
• Think about dreams and the dreams you would like to have. These are a great way to wind down. You can walk yourself through a lucid dream you'd like to experience, and this will actually help incubate your dream—you might even WILD into it if you don't stop before sleep onset.

Step 2: Anchor

When you feel fully relaxed and ready to sleep, you can use any anchor of your choice.

There's two types of anchors: physical and mental.

Physical anchors include things like:
• A fan, noise machine, or music
• A light or other visual in the room
• Tactile sensations such as a blanket, or holding an object in your hand
• Any other physical sensation that you can pay attention to as you fall asleep

Mental anchors include things like:
• Imaginary sounds in your head
• Visualizations in your mind, like imagining a dream scene
• Imagined movement, like with the FILD technique
• Any other mental activity that you can pay attention to as you fall asleep

The goal is to be aware in the present moment as you fall asleep. It doesn't matter what the anchor is or whether it changes throughout the process, as long as you're aware!

Note on physical anchors, one of three things is going to happen upon sleep onset that you should be aware of:
• The physical anchor might disappear. For example, if you're listening to a fan noise to stay aware, the noise may suddenly shut off as you fall asleep. This is totally normal and a sign of success.
• The physical anchor may change, becoming distorted or otherwise morph into a dream. This is also good news.
• You may continue to experience the physical anchor unchanged after falling asleep. This is just another one of the possibilities. It's not uncommon for dreams to mimic physical reality, so you may be hearing a dream fan that sounds exactly like the physical fan, even though it's not (for example, a person in the room could turn the fan off, but you still hear it in your dream).

While going through step 2, you may or may not experience hypnagogic hallucinations, which are the beginnings of a dream forming. Hypnagogia can come in the form of visuals, sounds, tactile sensations like buzzing or vibrations, etc. It normally has static qualities, but could also involve more solid hallucinations like a distinct sound, visual, or sensation. This is all totally normal.

You can use dream control on hypnagogia. If you don't like hypnagogia, there are possible ways to get rid of it, but hypic jerks are harmless and hypnagogia is an excellent anchor, since it allows you to fully engage with your baby dream. The more you engage with a dream, the more it forms.

Falling asleep is a gradual process starting during this stage. If you're dealing with a lot of hypnagogia or just paying all attention to your anchor, you may not notice it coming, but sometimes you might notice signs such as weightlessness, numbness in the body, deep relaxation, or mind wandering/slippery thoughts that may become more odd or abstract (good sign that you're about to reach sleep onset).

Step 3: Sleep onset

Sleep onset is a distinct threshold. If you're getting hypnagogia or dream formation is coming fast, you might not notice it as much, but if your mind is clear and there is no dream formation yet, you may notice your body become completely weightless without usual sensation, body temperature will drop, and any physical senses may become dull or disappear completely from your perception. For example, sounds in the room suddenly turning off is a good indicator that you've fallen asleep.

Once you've recognized a sign that you've fallen asleep, it's time to dissociate. Dissociation with WILD is an excellent way to kick-start your dreams, since dream formation isn't necessarily guaranteed, but if you already have dream formation or prefer that approach, this isn't necessary.

To dissociate, imagine yourself leaving your body. Imagine the tactile sensation of what it will be like to float up out of your body towards something in your surroundings.

If you do this during sleep onset, it will take effect within seconds. Keep imagining it until it takes effect. You will soon start flying in the direction you chose, and can exit through a window or door to begin your dream!

There are other ways to start dreams, though. Any dream formation method is fine. You can imagine a dream scene around you, transform your hypnagogia into a portal, or do numerous other things to jump-start a dream.

Sometimes dream formation comes naturally as well, in which case you don't need to do anything!

Step 0: Pre-WILD

Now that the whole process is outlined, it's worth mentioning some of the pre-WILD things you can do! Like when to perform WILD and how it effects the process. You can perform WILD any time including before bed at the beginning of the night, with WBTB, during daytime naps, from sleep paralysis, or even from within dreams—though technically that would be considered a DILD, a dream about doing WILD. But it can still trigger lucidity if you do WILD within a non-lucid dream.

If you do WILD at the beginning of the night before bed, the relaxation step is more important. If you're not already extremely tired, you'll likely need more wind down than you would otherwise.

The importance of the relaxation step depends on how tired you are in general. We're usually more tired during WBTB, so sometimes you can breeze through or even skip the relaxation step, especially if you're doing short WBTBs—just being awake for a few minutes or less. Naps generally have the same situation going on.

WILD from sleep paralysis or within dreams can also be very fast, skipping the relaxation step entirely, and possibly even skipping the anchor step.

If you're still struggling with WILD, another way to enhance it is though incubation. Rehearse successful WILDs in your mind before doing it. You can even combine WILD with MILD or use other hybrid techniques to get the best of both worlds. The effects of doing a DILD and a WILD technique together will stack.

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Written by @tulip furnace

Edited by @woven ice