The WILD technique illustrated at the Lucid Crossroads dream space

Wake Initiated Lucid Dream (WILD) WILD man! Don't let anyone tell you that WILDs aren't the holy grail of lucid dreaming. In a nut shell you lay down on your bed or in a comfy chair, close your eyes, relax, go through the WILD process and your there! You're in a lucid dream "whenever you want." Some people find it easy. Some find it impossible, but WILD's are what we all would like to be able to do on demand.

Having said WILDs can be done on demand I would add that you need to be in a relaxed state of mind to begin with so having a stressed day and thinking "you'll have a go" won't really work too well. Try to clear yourself sometime in the day to try this technique.

lucid dream technique

Take a window, place your face next to the glass. Like this image left you can see the outside, your reflected face, and the interior of the room you're standing in.

Tuning in will help you to play with the hypnagogic imagery you'll get when you are in the stages of relaxation before leaping into a Lucid via WILD.

Look though a traditional SLR camera at a large expansive landscape. You can use the focusing ring to either make the "whole scene sharp" or "just the background sharp" or just the "midground or just the foreground". Human vision works the same way but its automatic.

dream view 1 fig1 dream view 2 fig2 dream view 3 fig3

You can refocus your eyes to make different parts of what you are seeing more prominent. Focus into the distance to see the outside (fig1). Focus on your reflection (fig2) or the room behind you (fig3).

It's strange when you focus on one layer; It's like the others have failed to exist. This tuning of the images will focus your real eyes behind your closed eye lids better and trick the brain into thinking your seeing a full three dimensional scene.

1. Find a quiet room. Make it dark, but not pitch black. If it's noisy outside, use ear plugs (I find ear plugs great because it focuses attention to your breathing, heart beat etc). The best time for WILD is just after eating midday, this is a natural time for a nap as a human.

2. Lie down on your back or in a reclined comfy chair. Wear loose clothing or use a cover so your body so its not cold but not too hot, basically get comfortable.

3. Now close your eyes and think to yourself, "I will lucid dream. I will move from waking to lucidity". Its very unlikely that what you'll see behind your closed eyes will be pitched blackness.

4. What you might see is random flashing and streaks of colour. Look carefully at this blackness. You'll find it's a complex layered space. This is all the beginning of the hypnagogic imagery. You need to watch this imagery but do not focus hard, your vision needs to be relaxed, your eyelids should gently be closed not forced shut.

At the bottom of this page is a hypnogogic animation to help you visualize what I mean.

5. Patterns in the random space might start to appear, shapes could form, let your mind be a blank canvas (don't let your mind wander). Just relax and passively observe what you see. You might have noticed that your hearing has switched off and you have become deaf to the outside sounds, this is good you are getting deeper.

hypnogogic image3 hypnogogic image4

6. More solid objects or scenes might start to appear. They could randomly flash up in very quick succession or they could slowly float around. The shapes and patterns that you were viewing before can now auto suggest the images you see now. Your body might feel slightly different, the normal feedback from your body is lost and replaced with imaginary sensations that are difficult to describe.

7. The images could take life, like short films they could overlay or be clear, they can change quickly and flow into each other.

hypnogogic image7 hypnogogic image8

8. Imagine at this point in the sequence above and left you are seeing a trees spring blossom swaying in the breeze. This turns into a a sad cartoon fish swimming in his bowl. The sad fish turns into Millets painting of two peasants who are grieving the death of their child. These two figures become the receptionists at the Lucid Crossroads, Glad and Clem. You might also be experiencing a sort of vibration. This could feel like chills or warm water or static sweeping all over your body. They can get intense, but stay focused on the images.

9. At a point like this the images can spring to life infront of your eyes, its as if someone just turned on the lights in your dreams. The images you see are sometimes described as being like watching a film on a screen but its like a screen of clear glass with a real 3 dimensional world living and breathing beyond, its breath taking!

Reach out and step beyond its surface and become part of the scene. You will zoom into the scene like a camera zoom in a Hollywood film, and you'll be there, lucid and ready to enjoy.

in the lucid dream

You are now in one of the most unusual and amazing states of being you can ever imagine, its very difficult to describe to anyone who has not done it before. I think the fact that you were awake only minuites before only helps to intensify the experience.

The image below is a link to a flash animation of the above sequence of hypnogogic illustrations. The animation goes far too quickly but it gives you an idea of how it all flows together even though the time has been compressed. The flash movie is 500KB in size and you need to have flash installed to play it.

The Gatekeeper technique is based on an combination of different techniques that have worked for me over the years but it is most firmly based on WILD and Buddhist clear light practices. Click left to see a full page illustrated guide with animation to teach you the gatekeeper technique.

Back to How its done where you will learn the general ways to get lucid including DILD's, MILD's and reality checks.

This section is used to explain a little of the science and history behind lucid dreaming as well as talking about dream guides and what they are.

The Lucid Crossroads Guides and Sleep Paralysis. This page details the phenomenon known as old hag and also teaches you how to turn this nightmare to your advantage in order to summon a Lucid Crossroads guide.

This page addresses issues about, the Crossroads experiment, my own shared dream, thoughts about psi/paranormal, scientific proof, why the Crossroads might work and how do I confirm a shared dream?