Lucid Dreaming DILD vs WILD

People daily talk about and ask what method is better to get lucid. Is this DILD or WILD? I will explain both strengths and weaknesses and will explain what method I prefer and what method you should prefer.

What is DILD?

DILD is Dream Induced Lucid Dreaming. DILD is when you are getting aware of the lucid state from within a dream. Techniques that use DILD are:

• Reality Checks. Reality checks are a check that you are doing during the day. Inside a dream, you may do a check or question reality this is created by doing reality checks.
• Dream Journal. A dream journal helps you remember dreams more vividly and improve recall. Dream journal also helps you be more aware of dreams and this can cause you to lucid dream.
• MILD. Mnemonic Induction of lucid Dreams is when you do a certain mantra, visualization, or something related to that before bed. A MILD makes you question reality inside a dream.
• Intention. Setting an intention makes you question reality or incubate a dream that makes it for you obvious that you are dreaming.
• Meditation. Meditation gives you more clear and vivid dreams but also gives you more awareness in a dream.

There are way more examples but these are the most important ones.

The benefits of using DILD

DILD has a lot of benefits. These are:

• Helps you with more than just getting lucid. DILD can also help you get more vivid dreams more recall and awareness! DILD is basically the complete clear package to success.
• Increases recall. DILD helps you increase recall quickly because you are thinking all day about it and write about it. This reflects in your dreams.
• No skills are required. If you don’t know any lucid dreaming technique you can still use DILD by saying to yourself ‘I want to lucid dream’.

As you can see DILD has great benefits for beginners. Want to learn how to lucid dream tonight? Read my article on how to lucid dream in one night.

The cons of using DILD

DILD also has a weak side. These are:

• All-day every day. Of course, DILD can happen without using any techniques, but when you do use them you have to do them every day for the rest of your lucid dreaming career.
• No starting point. When you achieve a DILD you are not inside the world you visualized directly and you have to perform dream control steps to become in the position you want yourself to be.
• Shorter lucid dreams. DILD’s often occur at the end of your dreams. This means the lucid can be really short and you wake up directly after that.

DILD is amazing but you see that there always cons for a method like DILD.

Conclusion on DILD

DILD is amazing for beginners it does not require any guides to start with and can occur naturally. DILD techniques are sadly time-consuming, definitely those that require you to question reality so often. DILD is still the base of lucid dreaming, without doing DILD techniques you would probably have less recall and less awareness. I always recommend everyone to use a dream journal and write daily in it just for the recall alone. You can experiment with it by trying different stuff out and see if it benefits you or if it is a waste of time.

What is WILD?

WILD is wake induced lucid dreams. WILD is when you try to become lucid from an awake state. To know how this is performed and what exactly wild is please read my guide on how to do wild the right way.

The benefits of WILD

WILD has some benefits. These are:

• More vivid lucid dreams. WILD is amazing since you are the one that starts the lucid dream. WILD gives more vivid lucid dreams because you are 100% aware of the state.
• Direct gateway into a lucid dream. WILD is from awake to lucid, this means you are directly inside the lucid dream. No luck all skill.
• Control where the lucid starts. When you perform WILD you can visualize where the dream starts, so you are in control of how the lucid build-up or even continue your last dream but then lucid!

WILD has some great benefits, and they are so unique compared to DILD.

The cons of WILD

WILD definitely has some flaws, and these are:

• Requires skill. WILD requires skill. WILD can be performed out of luck but technically requires some skill. People who can keep aware of the state of falling asleep has a lot of advantage by trying WILD, but the people who don’t have this may struggle with this technique for months.
• Dedication. WILD requires dedication. You can’t do WILD without the dedication, it does not just fall out of the sky like DILD. You have to try WILD during the night and if it does not work you wasted some quality sleep.
• Less sleep. With WILD, you have to wake up in the middle of the night or you can try it before you are going to sleep. WILD can take some time before you are transforming from an awake state to a sleep state. This can harm the quality of your sleep and you probably have less sleep. If this is already an issue for you consider taking a look at my recommended sleeping masks.
• Chance of sleep paralysis. There is always a chance with WILD that you come across sleep paralysis. Sleep paralysis is completely normal and not scary at all when you know what it is. You can read my article about sleep paralysis here.

Conclusion on WILD

WILD is an amazing way to lucid dream. WILD does not benefit you with recall or more awareness in dreams, but it does give you a direct gateway inside a lucid dream. WILD is definitely recommended to someone who has a lot of dedication to try this technique over and over again. People will say it takes a lot of time and it is bad for my schedule, and I think this is not true since you are doing it in the middle of your sleeping period. I may suggest you sleep for at least an hour earlier or an hour longer so you catch up on the missing sleep.

Is DILD better than WILD?

DILD is definitely better for a beginner lucid dreamer. DILD gives you opportunities to build up recall and awareness of the dream state. I would always suggest someone start with DILD first before they start with WILD. WILD is amazing, and I am not going to say this is a worse lucid dreaming technique. In fact, you can do DILD and WILD at the same time, so if you are really dedicated to lucid dreams you can do both and slowly decrease the number of techniques. Want to read more about this? Check out this amazing PDF on ResearchGate.net