Waking Induction of Lucid Dreams, or Wake Induced Lucid Dreams (often abbreviated to WILD), refers to several techniques used to induce lucid dreams. These techniques are unique in that they involve entering the dream state directly from waking consciousness while still maintaining consciousness (other techniques simply increase the frequency of becoming lucid in a dream).
Because one does not have to recognize a cue in order to induce a lucid dream using these techniques, they tend to be more reliable than other techniques. However, they can be difficult to master as the consciousness is not used to experiencing the transition from waking to REM sleep and is often frightened by the transition experiences.
The technique itself consists of some steps, so that you can stay conscious until you do actually enter your dream. Staying conscious is perhaps the hardest part of the technique: staying conscious is harder to do when in sleep state.
It is possible, but highly time consuming, to have a succesful WILD attempt in a daytime nap instead of during the middle of the night, but it will take around 90 minutes to pass from normal sleep to REM sleep and staying conscious for a period of time this long can be extremely challenging.
How-to
This technique is best performed combined with the Wake Back To Bed technique, as you will get to your REM sleep faster, making your attempt easier.
First, you should make sure you are prepared, and that nothing is going to be a problem during the attempt. If you share a bed, you may want to consider moving to a guest room, or the sofa for your WILD. Comfortable ear plugs and a sleep mask are helpful to block outside distractions. An atmosphere of serenity is necessary, antly be woken back up and be unable to progress into a lucid dream..
Once lying down, avoid thinking too much, as it may prevent you from losing consciousness. Stay completely motionless: that way, you trick your body into falling asleep. This will take some time, but eventually you will feel numb and as if you are 'floating'. This is the first part of a WILD attempt. Try to clear your mind and not trail off on a train of thought, as this will distract you from your attempt. And you may fall into a non-lucid dream.
After a while, you will feel completely numb, and at this point you will usually start to experience visual hallucinations in the blackness of your eyelids. This can vary wildly; for some people these are vivid, bright patterns or even distinct imagery, while for others they can be vague, dark shapes moving slowly across the field of vision. Whatever the individual case, this means you are close to entering a lucid dream.
After a few minutes of this, with no interruptions, you will eventually enter the dream. If at this point you cease to feel numb, and you just see blackness, you may start to think you have failed in your attempt and are back at the beginning, but this is probably in fact a common, simple phenomenon: Your dream eyes are closed. Open your eyes, do some reality checks, and then try not to get too excited. If you do start to get excited and feel like you are going to wake up, think about spinning and this will help stabilise the dream. After that, the sky is the limit, as you are lucid dreaming.
Waking Initiated techniques
Other WILD techniques are listed in the respective category
See also
Wild Lucid Dreams Through Meditation at Learn Lucid Dreaming
Lucid Forum to share your experiences and to learn from others.
Article on WILD at the Lucid Crossroads website.
Tutorials section at Dream Views website
Guide section at the LD4all website
Guide section at the DreamerBase website
Article on WILD at the Lucidipedia
How to Have Wake Induced Lucid Dreams at the World of Lucid Dreaming website
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