Last night I got “close” to entering a dream while still conscious, but for some reason nothing happened, AGAIN! The same thing has happened every time I get close to a WILD; as far as I know I’m doing it the right way… I relax totally, make sure I’m not TOO tired when I lay down, and then I just focus on entering a dream, and becoming lucid – after a few minutes of total relaxation, the hypnogogic images become more noticeable, yet don’t really take any form besides patterns of light.
After that, the back of my head and neck seem to become numb, and I start to hear the swooshing noises - the noises very often sound off in patterns, which just keep “playing” over and over and become quite bothersome to my ears and back of my head and neck. I always sleep with a fan on, and I can usually tell when I’m getting “close” to maybe slipping into a dream when the noise of the fan completely subsides. Last night I thought for sure I’d have a WILD, because the noise of the fan totally disappeared and I could hear nothing in between the patterns of swooshing sounds (they go from a VERY low volume to quite a high volume).
The problem is, that’s as far as I’ve ever gotten (out of probably 6 or 7 times of this happening)! 
It’s a shame because I almost remember the period b/t blacking out and “waking up” in my dream last night, yet, through the whole dream I didn’t realize I was dreaming, even one bit. 
Anyone have any clue what I'm doing wrong?? I get so close, or so it seems, and then I lose it! :neutral: Should I try any other techniques after getting that far??? What have you experienced LDers done at that stage of WILD??? I'd appreciate your info!! Thanks.. :smile:
yeah i tried a WILD for the first time last night, i personally though that it wasnt for real. but after sleeping for about 5-6 hours i woke up and then straight away closed my eyes again and started counting my breaths in my head “1 i am dreaming, 2 i am dreaming, 3 i am dreaming” and so on, i soon took notice of the hypnogogic patterns, a few time m concentration dirfted and i had to start from 1 again, but after about 10-15 minutes i think, i had totally stopped counting andmy mind drifted, suddenly i felt this buzzing feeling that everyone talks about, and an audible ringing in my ears. i remember thinking, “wow these guys arent bullshitting”, the feeling started getting stronger and i started to get exited and my heart started rapidly beating, i realized i was way too excited to get into a dream state and gave up. but i was excited to be so close,
so things to remember i guess are that it is ten times easier to do it after 5-6 hours sleep, and if you want try the tecnique of concentrating and counting your breaths
It’s not that you’re doing anything wrong, you just don’t have a good idea yet of what’s supposed to happen. Getting excited is perhaps the best way to prematurely end a LD when you’re new to the idea 
To be honest, I’ve never experienced ‘waves’ of sound when approching a WILD. For me, what usually happens is (after no longer than 5-10 minutes) I start hearing clear music, and find I have the ability to imagine extremely detailed objects, which usaully animate before my (closed) eyes.
At this point I have full control, because I’m not actually alseep yet. Any time I wished, I could wake up. In fact, it’s more like just sitting straight up, since I was already fully conscious. However, if I chose to, I can interact with the object in any way I desire, though often I prefer to simply marvel at how detailed it is compared to my average waking imagination.
I’d like to know if anyone else experiences detailed hypnogogic images such as this, or whether it’s all just flashing colours?
Whoa dude, that sounds awesome! - I wish I could get to that stage of WILD, because I think once you start seeing such detailed “hypnogogic” images/objects, you’re VERY close to a full LD. All you have to do at that point is create your surroundings around whatever image you’ve subconsciously created, and step into your new world… 
Dreamscape:
You’re absolutely correct 
The only problem is that these generally occur late in the morning when I don’t have any more time to go back to sleep.
Usually I keep my secondary alarm set to about 4:30am though, so I get a valid oppertunity to try my luck with an actual LD each night 
I think every one of my lucid dreams (well, all 5 of 'em ) has occurred after I’ve gone back to bed after waking up early in the morning, any time from 4:30-6:30 AM. 
Also, that’s the ONLY time I can ever get close to having a WILD, because of the state the brain is in at that point, I guess (right out of REM sleep) - it’s then easy to return to the dream state pretty quickly. But, like you said, it’s pretty hard to do it when there’s no time left to sleep!! I wake up at 7:15 every morning, so, if I try WBTB at 6:30, it’s virtually useless since I have to get up in such a short time after.
If it is actually early enough in the morning, there’s still one big obstacle: the tricky part about the “W-B-T-B + WILD” technique is staying conscious enough through the phase shift into dreamland so as not to just let yourself slip into a dream unaware…that happens to me ALMOST every time…
Through more practice, keeping a dream journal + categorizing dreamsigns, doing 15+ RC’s during the day, etc etc., I think in time Anyone can start to have more and more LDs, regardless of what methods they use. It’s really all about conditioning; once the mind is prepared enough, despite what techniques you choose to use, it should still be fairly easy to induce an LD at will … (I’m hoping) …
I agree with you there.
While it’s important to practise all sorts of techniques and methods when beginning this experience, once the idea gets firmly implanted in the mind, it SHOULD start to come naturally.
Like any habbit (besides smoking), it might take a while to set in, but hopefully won’t disappear for a while
Yeah man…I just can’t wait till I get to that stage! I CANNOT believe everyone isn’t into this stuff! 
It’s like having a different fantasy every damn night (when you’re good enough to have 1 LD a night!). Anything and everything you want - as real, if not MORE real than waking life itself.
In my most recent LD, for example…only the 4th I’ve ever had - well the vivid colors and amazing clarity that I had was very much UNlike real life and/or any other LD I’ve ever had before. It was like I had on powerful glasses, and I don’t even wear or need glasses! heh It was like an ancient forest with some kinda abandoned building (kinda like in the settings of the movie Tomb Raider), and I saw every tiny detail of everything in the dream. I’ve never seen the color green like that before on any trees or plants…it makes me wonder if it’s not really just in my head, but maybe a different plane - some other plane like the one we reach when we die…
Maybe it seems unrealistic to you because you have never actually been to an Aztec village in RL 
Exploring is always fun in LDs. Personally, I’ve never left the country I call home. Well, not while awake anyway