When I was 8 I had a recurring nightmare. I would wake up, and the Wicked Witch from Snow White (that hooded hag), would appear above me and try to kiss my face. Many times I would wake up just as her cold lips touched mine. My mom told me “If you don’t like your dreams — change them.” I decided I wouldn’t let that cartoon wench get me anymore.
"I am powerful, next time ill just kick that creepy floaty ho.", I told myself.
Sure enough, that very night I had the dream again. I “wake up” and Her Boileyness is floating and cackling above me. She lowered ever closer for her routine molestation, when I yelled “Not this time!!” and vertical Sparta-kicked her into oblivion.
I never had that dream again.
Satisfied by being rid of my nightmare, I did not adventure any further into changing my dreams. Until….
Freshman year of college — For my eccentric English teacher’s semester-long assignment, almost every night my homework was to meditate before bed with the intention of entering a lucid dream without a lapse in consciousness. Allowing body to fall asleep while the mind remains aware, entering a psychedelic in-between world of hypnogogia; and then use that state to enter a dream. Oneironauts refer to this as the WILD technique, Wake Induced Lucid Dreaming.
This post is a continuation of Journey of a Lucid Dreamer #1. Consider reading that first. But I wont tell you how to live your life, besides that you should live it.
@avesa/journey-of-a-lucid-dreamer-1
Below is one of the first papers I wrote for my "Heroic Journey" project.
I was 18; it describes some of my first attempts at WILD…
Narrative Essay
“Went to dinner. James missed football practice. He got kicked off the team. I had déjà vu. Natalie was there. Rand was there. Went to a club.” These sentence fragments are scattered across a piece of paper as a part of an entry I made in my dream journal last night while trying to have a lucid dream. However so insignificant seeming this may be, it is actually a big step I have taken in my heroic journey. One of the most important things about lucid dreaming is being able to remember your dreams. What’s the point if you cant remember? Over the last few nights, I have kept a notepad beside me while I slept, so that when I awake from a dream I can immediately write down what I remember. In the past I have never been good at remembering much of any of my dreams unless it is particularly intense of meaningful. By following this memory training exercise only for a few days, I was able to write down and partially remember three dreams last night. This is exciting for me, but my real goal is to have WILD‘s, a wake induced lucid dream. Where one goes directly from waking life to a dream, with no lapse in consciousness.
It is pretty late at night, and I decide to call it a night and begin my attempts at lucid dreaming. I set my alarm to wake up in the morning. And then I set two more to increase my odds of having dreams. (WBTB - Wake Back To Bed method — We’ll get to this later) I retrieve my dream journal, and it is placed on my bed beside where I normally sleep with a pre-clicked pen. And finally, I turn off every light I can to remove any unnecessary distractions. To aid me in my quest, I looked up several helpful techniques I was looking forward to employing.
When researching tips on lucid dreaming, I came across binanual beats. Binanual beats are sounds that help your brain relax and concentrate when listened to. It is widely reported that if listened to while going to bed you have a better chance of dreaming. I decided this was worth a shot and plugged in my headphones and started playing the strange sounds.
It is very important that I not move at all while in my attempts. If even just a small movement is made, my brain will know I am awake. I began a muscle relaxation exercise, to help quell the urges to move. I start at my feet and one-by-one flex every muscle I can up to my head. Then relax and am still.
Another necessity for inducing a dream is keeping the mind focused and aware without having random excess thoughts. This is more commonly known as meditation. This is harder than it sounds though because if you don’t concentrate long enough or hard enough, you will either fall completely asleep or stay too awake to dream.
I lay completely still after the muscle relaxation exercise, clear my mind of all the thoughts I can, and focus on the sounds playing in my ears. Within 20 minutes I could tell the binanual beats were more distracting than advantageous. I take off the headphones and continue. After about 10 more minutes I feel my whole body tingling, and within another 10 to 15 my entire body is numb. I begin to see colors and patterns flow across my vision, I hear very faint random sounds that occasionally resemble voices. These phenomena are known as hypnagogic hallucinations, and include a variety of strange sensations to many of your senses. There is a low pitched humming noise that when I focus on gets louder and louder. One particular visual image I experience is of dark rings starting to fly from behind me to the center of my vision, it looks like I am falling down a infinite tunnel. I imagine the sensation of falling, and I begin to feel my body moving downward faster and faster. I am now in free freefall falling down this dark tunnel. This continues for maybe 5 minutes until I get slightly distracted and now can only see the tunnel again. After multiple attempts to freefall again, I un-willfully lose consciousness and fall asleep.
Even though I have not been successful in inducing a lucid dream since beginning my journey, I am getting closer. I believe I will have my first WILD any day now. I will continue to try different dreaming techniques and variations of the ones I already utilize to find the ways I best respond to. In time, I will be the master of my conscious’s.
Fin.
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Within a few days I did have my first success with Wake Induced Lucid Dreams. Even my normal dreams continue to get more and more detailed — in Journey of a Lucid Dreamer #3.
Here are a few of my more ridiculous early dream-journal entries…
Meg, Dylan, Josh, Carrie, an old dude, and a midget were all at my future-like funeral, where you go before you die to the moon, where you launch out to space.
Went to a John Mayer concert with Dad. Wore My Little Pony stuff someone gave me. Was still the life of the party. Lexie Boley was there sporting a mustache.
Goku - Austin T. Me vs samurai & 5 others. He kept just jumping around doing combos. Then in real life, but I was just as good. When Izzy & others ate this soup, they could be mind controlled with this one microphone.
Pearl Harbor type bombing happened. I watched from atop a cliff. When bombing stopped I jumped down with a parachute and like a bio suit. There was a bunch of dead bodies. I half knew it was a dream but I wasn’t lucid. Tried to manipulate the dream scape to no avail.
And here’s one fucking-crazy one from a little further on in my quest….
Was chased by various things and a small girl was in my company. While fleeing giant lions, a zombie was about to bite the girl. I put my gun to its head & pulled the trigger, but I was out of bullets and it bit her before I killed it. We escaped and me, friends, and others tried to make her happy as possible for as long as possible till she died. We had a huge party for her. I was very attached to the little girl and when she died it evoked an extremely strong emotional response. The next day in real life (I think), as I write this I can still feel that emotional attachment and feel like she was real and died.
The dream was so vivid and real — despite the absurd circumstances. Never before had I experienced such sorrow from a dream that lingered into the next day.