4 ms·

Counting your breaths seems like a better way to do it. When I tried wake-induced LD'ing, I didn't have any strategy in mind when it came to what I should be th

by speff 2y ago

Counting your breaths seems like a better way to do it. When I tried wake-induced LD'ing, I didn't have any strategy in mind when it came to what I should be thinking of. When I was right at the boundary of dreaming, my thoughts would start racing and I would usually snap myself awake. Your advice would likely have saved me from a few failures.

soulofmischief 2y ago
Yeah, I've had some success with WILDs, which I'd typically practice on a Saturday or Sunday morning, but ultimately it was a crapshoot compared to just meditating myself to sleep. I'd also recommend lying on your back when attempting to lucid dream, it always made it much more likely to occur for me, along with sleep paralysis. There is some unexplored physiological reason for this, but it's real and many sleep experts have found the same results. I would also recommend not getting caught up in losing track of the count, simply starting over from 0 the moment you realize that you lost your place. I have severe chronic insomnia, ADHD, tourettic OCD and a predisposition for body-focused repetitive behaviors so if I can meditate myself to sleep, I'm pretty sure anyone can with some practice. The reason why I can't do it every night and "beat" insomnia is two-fold: One, because it paradoxically aggravates sleep avoidance for me. It's an excruciating experience spending 30-60 minutes lying completely still while alarm bells are going off in my head, paired with intense urges commanding me to scratch an itch or adjust a limb, and it's anything but meditative until the very moment sleep paralysis kicks in and my body goes numb. Two, it usually puts me into sleep paralysis which is just rolling the dice for a metric ton of adrenaline to get released during a paralysis hallucination. I've had sleep paralysis encounters keep me up for the next few days, shit gives me the creeps.
- jamal-kumar 2y ago
  Yeah that's exactly why I never actually got deep into these techniques, I dunno about any diagnosed mental conditions but I used to have the sleep paralysis thing just as like what felt as my brains last resort to knock me out or something, and sometimes it would flip me into a lucid dream while others I'd just have like intense nightmares where I'd get sucked into a black hole appearing in the sky or creepy faced creatures from beyond would show me future technologies. It just felt way too close to insanity lol I remember a friend of mine saying how he went manic and hadn't slept for days after trying some stuff he read in a book about 'dream yoga'. Always honestly left the impression that you can fuck this up just like you can pulling a muscle in your leg, except this is your mind you're talking about
  - soulofmischief 2y ago
    I like the analogy to pulling a muscle. You also got me reading about dream yoga, which I hadn't encountered before. Going to try that! I've done dream math and dream poetry/freestyle before, but I haven't tried dream meditating. Fascinating idea. The "getting sucked into the sky" dreams are always incredibly exhilarating. Had some like that. I had an extraordinarily rare moment a few years ago wherein I actually had one single 8-hour interrupted sleep session. For the entire 8 hours, I was sucked in a single, continuous lucid dream that took place over a full day of school. I was completely convinced that I'd died or was dying in my sleep and was experiencing an extended DMT-fueled hallucination. I was literally running my hand across surfaces and studying reflections in the CRT monitors trying to find imperfections or proof that it was just a normal dream. But everything was hyperrealistic and vivid and continuous. The dream even started out with me waking up, getting ready, getting on the bus and arriving to school. Even the clocks were behaving. During the dream, between classes, there was a hole in floor of the main hallway which just got bigger and bigger each time I saw it. And each time, there was a larger crowd of people surrounding it. Eventually, I saw someone jump in. Towards the end of the day, there was a full-blown hole cult worshiping and praying to the hole, wearing religious garb, making offerings, etc. It took a few weeks to recover from that dream.
    - jamal-kumar 2y ago
      Yeah just be careful with all this stuff. People end up doing these things and having experiences I barely understand like 'kundalini awakenings' which to all appearances to me just look like mania or light psychosis, these aren't particularly enjoyable experiences to go through and alot of the time I see people who seek that kind of thing out, they end up going through it for like a whole year or so before getting back on their feet. You can lose your job and all sorts of other life disrupting side effects which is why I'm pretty sure there's religious infrastructure to handle people who take this path in life in cultures where doing this kind of thing is normal. Maybe start with reading a book or some meditation classes or something before jumping into the advanced techniques right away I think is the wise way to go with anything that requires discipline
- Gooblebrai 2y ago
  Is WILD something that needs to be done in the morning after having been in REM phase or can you do it at night when getting into bed?

by speff 2y ago

soulofmischief 2y ago

Yeah, I've had some success with WILDs, which I'd typically practice on a Saturday or Sunday morning, but ultimately it was a crapshoot compared to just meditating myself to sleep. I'd also recommend lying on your back when attempting to lucid dream, it always made it much more likely to occur for me, along with sleep paralysis. There is some unexplored physiological reason for this, but it's real and many sleep experts have found the same results. I would also recommend not getting caught up in losing track of the count, simply starting over from 0 the moment you realize that you lost your place. I have severe chronic insomnia, ADHD, tourettic OCD and a predisposition for body-focused repetitive behaviors so if I can meditate myself to sleep, I'm pretty sure anyone can with some practice. The reason why I can't do it every night and "beat" insomnia is two-fold: One, because it paradoxically aggravates sleep avoidance for me. It's an excruciating experience spending 30-60 minutes lying completely still while alarm bells are going off in my head, paired with intense urges commanding me to scratch an itch or adjust a limb, and it's anything but meditative until the very moment sleep paralysis kicks in and my body goes numb. Two, it usually puts me into sleep paralysis which is just rolling the dice for a metric ton of adrenaline to get released during a paralysis hallucination. I've had sleep paralysis encounters keep me up for the next few days, shit gives me the creeps.

jamal-kumar 2y ago
Yeah that's exactly why I never actually got deep into these techniques, I dunno about any diagnosed mental conditions but I used to have the sleep paralysis thing just as like what felt as my brains last resort to knock me out or something, and sometimes it would flip me into a lucid dream while others I'd just have like intense nightmares where I'd get sucked into a black hole appearing in the sky or creepy faced creatures from beyond would show me future technologies. It just felt way too close to insanity lol I remember a friend of mine saying how he went manic and hadn't slept for days after trying some stuff he read in a book about 'dream yoga'. Always honestly left the impression that you can fuck this up just like you can pulling a muscle in your leg, except this is your mind you're talking about
- soulofmischief 2y ago
  I like the analogy to pulling a muscle. You also got me reading about dream yoga, which I hadn't encountered before. Going to try that! I've done dream math and dream poetry/freestyle before, but I haven't tried dream meditating. Fascinating idea. The "getting sucked into the sky" dreams are always incredibly exhilarating. Had some like that. I had an extraordinarily rare moment a few years ago wherein I actually had one single 8-hour interrupted sleep session. For the entire 8 hours, I was sucked in a single, continuous lucid dream that took place over a full day of school. I was completely convinced that I'd died or was dying in my sleep and was experiencing an extended DMT-fueled hallucination. I was literally running my hand across surfaces and studying reflections in the CRT monitors trying to find imperfections or proof that it was just a normal dream. But everything was hyperrealistic and vivid and continuous. The dream even started out with me waking up, getting ready, getting on the bus and arriving to school. Even the clocks were behaving. During the dream, between classes, there was a hole in floor of the main hallway which just got bigger and bigger each time I saw it. And each time, there was a larger crowd of people surrounding it. Eventually, I saw someone jump in. Towards the end of the day, there was a full-blown hole cult worshiping and praying to the hole, wearing religious garb, making offerings, etc. It took a few weeks to recover from that dream.
  - jamal-kumar 2y ago
    Yeah just be careful with all this stuff. People end up doing these things and having experiences I barely understand like 'kundalini awakenings' which to all appearances to me just look like mania or light psychosis, these aren't particularly enjoyable experiences to go through and alot of the time I see people who seek that kind of thing out, they end up going through it for like a whole year or so before getting back on their feet. You can lose your job and all sorts of other life disrupting side effects which is why I'm pretty sure there's religious infrastructure to handle people who take this path in life in cultures where doing this kind of thing is normal. Maybe start with reading a book or some meditation classes or something before jumping into the advanced techniques right away I think is the wise way to go with anything that requires discipline
Gooblebrai 2y ago
Is WILD something that needs to be done in the morning after having been in REM phase or can you do it at night when getting into bed?