WILD – Wake Initiated Lucid Dreams

WILD, or Wake Initiated Lucid Dreams, mean that you essentially move right from actual consciousness into a dream, maintaining consciousness the entire time. Having a WILD can be tough for beginning lucid dreamers, so it’s recommended that you try Dream Initiated Lucid Dreams – DILD – first. Sometimes, WILD is even a little scary, since weird things happen when you stay conscious through the entire process of falling asleep.

However, WILD’s can be very rewarding. Since you’re going straight from one type of lucidity to another, you’ll be able to control your dreams more quickly, and you may find that you spend more time in dreaming lucidly. Plus, it’s just interesting to actually experience what your body will go through when you’re initiating lucid dreaming straight from a state of wakefulness.

How to Have a WILD

It’s easier to practice WILD, usually, if you have experience with meditation techniques, as these techniques can help you more easily get into a lucid dreaming state. However, you don’t have to have any pre-known skills to help you practice this lucid dreaming induction technique.

Basically, you should probably start by waking up and going back to bed when it’s time for REM sleep to happen. Wake after about four and a half to six hours of sleep, stay awake for a while, and then go back to sleep. You may need to experiment with when you wake up and how long you stay awake, as your mind and body will work differently from everyone else’s, giving you varied preferences.

The key here is to trick your body into falling asleep without making your mind go to sleep, too. Keep your mind clear while practicing WILD, since thinking too much can actually make you stay fully awake. Lie in a comfortable position with your body totally still, and your body will slip into sleep while you maintain consciousness.

Often times, the scary part comes when you’re on the line between sleep and waking, as you’ll often experience hallucinations of different sorts. However, keep your mind clear and stay calm through these, as well as the body spasms that are likely to occur.

When your body goes numb, you’ll probably be able to move your dream body while leaving your physical body in place. You can actively take part in forming the dream scenario if you’re experienced in such techniques, or you can use WILD to just let the dream form. Eventually, you’ll need to actually enter the dream state and do reality checks.

Keep in mind that when you are in a WILD, you may experience a false awakening. This is common. If you think you’ve woken up, remember to do a reality check, which can help you see if you’ve actually woken up or if you’re only dreaming that you’ve woken up. If you have a false awakening, you may be able to start practicing dream control techniques.

WILD can be combined with many other techniques. In fact, it may be best if you have a few particular dream symbols that you use to prompt for reality checks, as this can help you know that you’re dreaming. You’d be surprised how it can be difficult to understand that you’re dreaming even when you’ve maintained consciousness between waking and sleep!

In my experience, WILD is much harder than DILD. It’s best to already know something about lucid dreaming before attempting WILD, or you’re likely to just get frustrated and give up. Start out with DILD and learning to do reality checks. As you start to have lucid dreams more often, you can implement WILD techniques to see what works for you.