Lucid Dreaming/Appendices/VILD
This is the most recent full description of the VILD technique by its creator, Peter Harrison (Pedro on the LD4ALL.com forums), with a TOC.
Visually Incubated Lucid Dream
OK guys, Pedro here. VILD is the method I use to induce lucid dreams and in this document I will do my best to describe how the method is used.
I have practiced and refined different ideas and techniques to come up with the best possible method for me to become lucid and I can now induce a lucid dream at will. I call it VILD . Hopefully you will also be able to use my method either directly or by taking parts from it to create an induction technique which may work better for you.
A few things before I go onto the VILD method...
Mind Model
First thing is first though......I tried explaining this method to some friends who try to lucid dream and I was shocked to discover they knew nothing of the "mind model"! I think anyone (using my method or not) should understand the mind model to achieve lucid dreams! Please read and understand this next section as it will greatly aid you in having lucid dreams!
You. I am going to talk about YOU. I want you to understand (if you do not already) that YOU cannot see. YOU cannot hear. YOU cannot taste. YOU also can't feel anything. I'll take sight for this example:
YOU do not see because it's your EYES that see. You are only your mind, you are your brain. This might seem strange but keep reading. Imagine there is a tree in front of you. YOU cannot see the tree but your eyes do. Your eyes see the tree first hand and the vision they see is totally 100% pure! The eyes then turn this pure image into DATA and send it to you! You do not see, it is your eyes that see. When you stand in front of a tree you think you can see it and the rest of the world, but the tree you see is only a model based on reality. Your mind takes all the information and data it can from the senses and creates a model of the world. This "mind model" is how you experience your world. Technically one of your senses could make a mistake or send some kind of corrupted data and the world you see would actually be different from the REAL world, but this is almost never the case. I hope you understood that...
A good example to back this up is radio waves! We have instruments that detect light (eyes) and instruments that detect sound waves (ears) so our mind model has these elements in the model. We do not have instruments that detect radio waves, we have no sense to interpret them or even show they exist. Therefore, we see no radio waves shooting around in our world! They are there in the real physical world. The radio waves are there as much as the trees are or the sound of your voice. They are not in our mind model though as we have no sense that detects them so they are not used to construct our mind model!
Now here is where dreaming comes in.... You experience your world in the same way when you are dreaming. The only difference is that your mind doesn't receive many signals from your senses when you are asleep. This lack of external information is countered by creating the mind model from mostly INTERNAL information such as wishes and memories. This is how a dream is created!
Now I hope you understand that, even in real life, the world you are experiencing is not actually the real world but a model of the world which is created in your mind. If you know this information when attempting lucid dreams it should help a lot.
Throughout the day you should stop and think about the world around you. Think about everything you can possibly tell about the world at that moment. Sight, sound, touch and think about how everything you experience is a model of the physical world. Think hard about it for a couple of minutes. Now on to another thing you should do a lot during the day...
Reality Checks
I'm sure everyone reading this knows that a Reality Check is an action used to determine whether the world around us is real or a dream. I would like to recommend two reality checks which always work with me and do not rely on any object or other character in a dream. (Plus these ones don't make you look stupid if testing while in real life!).
- Close one eye and try to look at your nose with your open eye. If you can see your nose then you are awake. If you cannot then you are asleep. Whether a reality check turns out positive or negative you should ALWAYS perform a backup one just incase. No matter how sure you are of the results from the last check. After you've checked to see your nose you should try this:
- Hold your nose tight and try to breathe through it. If you can you are certainly dreaming.
VILD Induction
VILD is my own method. It came about when I discovered I could incubate dreams of my choice. Incubation is when you go to sleep aiming to have a certain dream and "incubating" this dream in a way that you eventually go into the desired dream. Before I explain how I incubate dreams I will go through the rest of the method in brief. After I've went through the whole method briefly I will then describe the whole method part-by-part in detail.
In Brief
After a discussion on the LD4all.com forum I discovered how I could use my incubated dreams to get me lucid. I was told that I could incubate a dream where I was forced to do a Reality Check. I managed to design a dream where I would always remember to perform a Reality Check. This dream is the dream I would then incubate from now on and it has had a 100% success rate with me so far.
I enter the dream, do the reality check, and become lucid.
VILD Method In Full
Okay, this will be a long section so I will split it up slightly. I have split the VILD method into the following three sections:
Preparation
The key points in the preparation of VILD are:
- To have a dream designed early on and to keep to this dream no matter what.
- The correct times and actions when going to bed and when going to sleep.
Firstly you need a dream ready to incubate right now. After this next paragraph I would like you to sit and plan the dream out exactly. When I say dream I actually mean a dream "situation". This is the exact dream I incubate every single night, hopefully this will make a good example:
"I am in a room. The room is a normal shape and is totally bare and empty. The only details about the room are the fact that it is painted a dark red and that there is a door. I am in this room and so are two of best friends, A and C. They both come running up to me and say "Do a reality check! This is a Reality Check competition!" over and over again. I then agree and I close one eye and look for my nose and I cannot see it. I tell them that I might be dreaming. I then try holding my nose and checking if I can breathe or not. I find I can breathe quite easily and I look at my friends and say "I am dreaming!". My friends look at me with pleased faces and I head for the door in the room."
This is the dream situation which I use. Your dream can be like this one or totally different, that is your choice. Pick whatever is comfortable for you, if mine sounds good then use it by all means! BUT take note:
Don't plan the whole dream, only this situation. Don't make an end for the dream or any kind of plot change. Keep it simple! Think of it as a small part before a proper dream rather than designing a whole dream.
Make sure that the same characters (I use 2 friends) and in the dream every time and that they always do and say the exact same stuff each time. Keep it constant!
Also keep YOUR reactions constant! Always see yourself doing and saying the same things just as you do with the other characters. Keep everything the same order every time!
The idea is that you will have this dream so planned that you know EXACTLY where everyone is located, what they say, what they do and how they act. This means that each time you imagine the dream it should be the exact same. No changes...EVER! Please take the time to plan it now. If you do decide to plan it later could you please come back and read this again incase you forget a key point when planning! I really think you should do it now.....NOW DAMN IT!
Next part of the PREPARATION is what you should do leading up to going to bed.
This may seem vague but the best time to go to bed is not too late but not too early. OK, perhaps I should go into more detail there! Do not go any earlier than is natural for you. Any earlier than you usually go to bed and you will have trouble getting to sleep and you will be too awake for VILD to work. You need to go to bed when you are feeling tired but do not overdo it! Don't go to bed at about 4.00am or something stupid! I recommend getting into bed at about 11pm personally. If you are someone who goes to sleep very early then maybe 10pm or 10.30pm would be better. Try to get into bed before midnight though.
Sometime before you have went to bed you should have had a little something to eat and washed it down with a drink. You should then go to the toilet as this is a major cause of waking up from dreams! Make sure there is a good time gap between drinking and using the toilet. If you choose to go to bed at 11pm then you should eat and drink at 10pm. Eat and drink whatever you would usually have at this time of the night, don't change drastically as it can disrupt your sleep.
I'm going to assume that everyone chooses to go bed at 11pm. This is what I do when using VILD...
Get into bed at 11pm and have a lamp or some kind of light source beside your bed. Also keep your dream journal and your pen/pencil handy. (BY THE WAY: Write using a weird colour in your dream journal and never use that colour anywhere else....try it out...). Turn the main bedroom lights out and turn the lamp on. Now you should read a book for about an hour. I say an hour because after an hour I am usually having some difficulty keeping my eyes open and find it hard to read. If you get like this after half an hour it should still be fine. Push yourself to read an extra 10 minutes to insure you are pretty damn tired. Now put the book down and turn of the lamp. Make sure you do not need to get up to turn the lamp on or off. This is so you don't make any movements that can get you more awake and this is also why you shouldn't use the bedroom lights! Lie down and relax in darkness...
TIP: Read a book about lucid dreaming if you can get one! This is the best choice of book although any book will do essentially as it is only to get you tired but keep your brain fairly active. The reason a lucid dreaming book would be good is that if you have just read things about lucid dreaming they stay with you. So even if you do not directly think about anything you read when you go to sleep you probably do subconsciously. It is good to have these thoughts of lucid dreaming in your head even if your not thinking about them, this is also why I mentioned the "Mind Model" as having this knowledge in your head will greatly increase your chances of becoming lucid.
Whenever I read about lucid dreaming and relaxation I see MILLIONS of different positions to lie in. Forget them and also forget about positions altogether! The more you think about how you are lying it keeps your UNrelaxed! Just lie any way you want and just basically do what you usually do. Changing your position in bed from its normal one can disrupt sleep. Just get in the bed and r e l a x.......
Some techniques for relaxation are crap and some are truly helpful. Try downloading some relaxation/hypnosis sound files from the net. Some are not very good but I've found some great ones. Try warpmymind.com for a couple of really relaxing files! A good method is the one where you start from your toes are work your way up. What you do is you tense the muscles in that certain part fop the body your working on. You tense for about 30 seconds and then you just stop and let the body part relax. Feel it get heavy then work your way up to the next limb or body part. When you reach your head sit and focus on the point between your eyes in the middle of your head. Imagine it getting emptier and emptier while you get more and more relaxed and sleepy. You will feel very heavy.
Incubation
This is the process for actually incubating your pre-designed dream which you hopefully will have practiced thinking about during the day. Remember...keep it EXACT!
When you feel sufficiently relaxed you should be ready to begin straight away. Hopefully you will be starting to feel sleepy by now after that book read! This is perfect as the technique for incubation requires you to think of nothing else other than your dream. If you are not tired at all and you'll be awake for several hours it could be disastrous! Who could think about their dream EXACTLY over and over again for hours!? Not me anyway! So hopefully you will be near sleep...
Close your eyes. You should be tired enough to have your eyes closed no matter what anyway! Now think of the dream as you did earlier. Think about it happening around you. Whenever you get through it you must start again straight away. Keep thinking about it. After a couple of time try "seeing" the dream. Imagine the dream happening right before your eyes. Remember your eyes should be closed. You should start to see shapes or at least still images from your dream. This should be like daydreaming, try to see the dream moving and alive in front of you. Remember to keep the dream CONSTANT every time!
Try not to see yourself in your dream, see the dream through your eyes just as you would if you were in the dream. Don't go too far in your thoughts...Once you discover you are lucid and tell your friends you should then start over. Don't think about what happens next except you head for the door perhaps. This isn't important because you will be lucid by then in your dream and not need to remember to use the door!
If you notice yourself thinking of ANYTHING else, other than the dream, you must forget about the thought and just let it go. Don't think about a thought! Don't answer any of them. Ignore it and think even harder on the dream when this happens.
Be patient, don't think "ah I don't feel like I'm about to dream or sleep, I'll leave it for a while". Once your finished your dream situation just rethink it. Over and over and over and over and over!
You will not realize the transition between these thoughts and the actual dream.....but eventually you will enter the dream...
At the time you will just think you are still just imagining your thoughts and then suddenly you will do the Reality Checks and you REALLY will be dreaming!!! How strange! Now head out that door, after thanking your friends of course!
Once you are lucid
Now that you are lucid you can do whatever you like. My VILD method stops now and this is technically the end of the document but I would like to comment on some techniques I have discovered through experiments in my dreams. These are all for use once you are lucid.
Shortcuts
A shortcut is a little technique I've developed and I accidentally titled it a "shortcut" when describing it to a friend and the name has stuck. There are different levels of lucidity and some people can start very lucid and other have trouble. Absolute lucidity is the state I have reached where I can literally do ANYTHING. Full stop. Some people become lucid but not fully lucid, this is what I used to be like. For example you may be able to fly and walk through walls which is impressive but if asked to create a house from nothing, right in front of you, you may have problems. This would be because you do not have full control yet. A shortcut is something that skips needing to have full control which doesn't seem to improve you but it does in the end......I think an example is needed here:
You cannot fly. You are lucid though and you can do other things but flying is too hard. Even though it's all in your head you just can't take off! Instead of just trying to fly you should take a different approach....try creating a jetpack! Or a rucksack with wings! Anything that would give you flight. Now you can fly! This is what I call a shortcut. These shortcuts seem to make matters worse because they do not improve overall control. They just make the task easier. But this is not true! You just need to do one more thing which you have done before....become aware!.....
You become lucid by becoming aware that you are in a dream and that nothing in your world is real. This sudden awareness is needed again once your up there flying around with your jetpack on. Become aware that the jetpack is not real. It does not exist and is only another part of your mind! Therefore, you don't really need it at all to fly! You can fly yourself as the jetpack was never really there!
Shortcuts allow you to achieve what you want and they can also be used to get more fuller control in the long run!
Shortcuts could be used for many things! Having trouble creating people? Draw pictures of them on a magic scrapbook so they appear! Having trouble morphing or body swapping? Use a magic body swaping kiss or a sex change gun or anything your imagination can think of!
Prolonging your lucidity
Spinning is known to be the best method for prolonging lucidity. I do not think it is the best but I do believe it is the best out of all the common techniques. The reason it works is because you feel yourself in the world around you. Spinning gives you multiple impressions that you really are in the world you believe you are. You can feel the air, you can see different angles of the world quickly and you can feel yourself change position in the world. This brings dreams back when they fade. Other techniques work better though....it all depends on the person dreaming! Any technique which makes you "feel" and gives you proof that you are a part of the complex world around you will work. Spinning, jumping and touching the ground, clapping your hands as you spin and also rubbing your hands together are good ones. Don't just rub your hands together...rub them on the wall or floor and FEEL the textures!
I had some other things to talk about when you are lucid but I'm tired now and can't be bothered.
Okay, I hope this was of some use to someone out there! This whole document took me just less than an hour to write and it wasn't planned or anything! I just wrote it all now! I am planning on making a website where I can describe the method in the most detailed way possible except that will take planning and time. So until then I hope this quick document is enough information and I hope I didn't just waste an hour for nothing!
Thanks for reading (if you did).
I hope you do actually read it! (If you didn't).
Pedro.
Or Peter Harrison if anyone cares!
P.S. VILD is copyright (C) Peter Harrison 2003 lol....hmm maybe not
Questions answered by Pedro
Something doesn't seem to make sense; when you go to sleep at evening, your body goes through some stages before entering REM mode. So why do you claim that you immediately enter your dream after visualizing that dream scene?
I'm sure you don't remember any of the other sleep periods... you have no recollection of the periods between RL and dreaming. So it seems immediate. I'm thinking of my dream scene over and over and suddenly I realize that this time I'm not just imagining it! I'm in the dream - how strange...
Let's say I do VILD and eventually I do end up in the dream. How am I supposed to know that it is a dream and I am not just imagining the scene again?
It might not make much sense just now but if it works you'll see that there is a difference. When you get in the dream you are actually in your scene rather than just visualizing it. You do realize this but you don't really since you aren't lucid and your goin with the flow. As soon as you do the reality checks you become lucid. I promise you won't still think your imagining it. It's a totally different experience.