Wake Induced Lucid Dreams (WILD) are moving from waking consciousness to dream consciousness directly and without losing awareness or ‘falling asleep/unconscious’. It’s generally ‘ok’ to lose awareness for a few seconds, but any more than that, or if you start to recall regular dreams before you become aware again, it becomes a DILD. Ultimately, although I have a tendancy to label and box experiences up for ease of description, it makes no difference whether you have achieved a “DILD” through a “WBTB and MILD” or a “WILD” nor anything else – the only important thing is the experiences you are having.

The WILD is nowhere near as difficult or elusive as is commonly thought and discussed on forums – it just takes practice, and more for some people than others. I personally needed over a year of practice and coaching before I was able to have WILDs almost on demand.

There are numerous techniques for achieving the WILD, and I don’t mean one or two, but probably over ten. I’ll cover two of the simplest and most effective ones here. The two techniques below are best performed AFTER a WBTB – there are other techniques that can be practiced during the day, and I will cover these in future articles.

1. After a WBTB, move to a couch or recliner (I find this easier than going back to bed as I just fall asleep otherwise). Just focus your awareness calmly on your breathing. Keep calm, focus ‘gently’ and remain aware, but do not let yourself drift off into unawareness or you’ll fall asleep. This is a fine line that does take some practice for most to achieve.

2. Commonly known as ‘phasing’, this technique has very rarely worked for me, but seems to be a big hit amongst other seasoned WILDers. After your WBTB just lie calmly relaxing and focusing on your breathing. Gaze gently at the back of your closed eyelids without straining, thinking, or attempting to see anything. Just notice the blackness. After a while, you may see some brief light flashes – just ignore them but acknowledge they are happening. This is thought to be down to random neuron discharges. If static images pop into your head, don’t get excited or start thinking about them, just NOTICE them as they are without any more or less effort, excitement or expectation [easier said than done, I know!]. Eventually these images will turn into short movie clips, continue to observe until eventually a dream scene unfolds in front of you, you’ll generally know instinctively what to do at that point – just let it unfold, remain aware, and step into it!

NOTE: A KEY to success here is remaining ABSOLUTELY still. Get comfortable and try not to move at all. If you have to move to scratch, then go ahead, but really try and avoid it at all cost.