Chapter 23 in
Thomas Yuschak's book 'Advanced Lucid Dreaming' tells about a variation of the WILD technique which he calls 'Breaking Down the Wall'.
What impresses me is the fact that it is not only a method of entering a dream conciously but this method improves dream recall as well. He claims that practicing this technique is about ten times more useful for building a good dream recall than writing a dream journal. But he recommends writing a dream journal as well.
The Wall
Between dream and waking reality there is, according to Yuschak, a wall. If you pass the barrier or wall you forget much details and information which are natural for you in waking reality. And vice-versa if you go back from the dream to waking reality you forget much of the information which is natural to you when you were still dreaming.
In a much smaller scale you may compare it to the fact that when you enter another room you forget why you came here. You just can't remember. But if you go back to the other room you will remember again.
There is the unsolved question if you are conscious the whole night long, even in the deepest moments of sleep and you just can't remember the next day or if your consciousness is just switched off when you are in deep sleep.
Yuschak presumes that consciousness remains the whole night long but you can't remember the following day.
But how can we increase the flow of memories between the different states?
And how how much easier will be recognizing the dream if you remember ten times more from waking life?
Breaking it down
But how to break down the wall between the different states of consciousness?
According to Yuschak there are two ways to remember things: Remembering facts and remembering events.
While passing into the dream it's quite easy to remember facts like your name, address and so on. But remembering events is quite more difficult.
And that's the key to this method.
Visualisation
One basic principle of 'breaking down the wall' is visualization.
Yuschak distinguishes between two ways of visualization:
Active visualization and passive visualization.
If you close your eyes and create internal images, that's active visualization. This way is quite familiar. But there is another kind of visualization when you just close your eyes and let the internal pictures stream, the passive one.
Both ways have certain advantages and disadvantages when starting a lucid dream. He created a synthesis of this methods: the Seeded Visualization which combines the advantages of both methods:
If you are very relaxed and tired and you start seeing internal pictures (passive visualization). You seed this pictures from time to time leading them into a desired direction (active).
If the pictures develop a momentum of their own you will seed them again.
The Transition
To increase your event-based memory you choose an event from waking life you want to experience again.
You start your WILD attempt as usual: Go to bed and wait for hypnagogic imagery. When the first image appears you start with the seeded visualization:
The appearing pictures will be seeded with details and impressions of the specific event and then you let go again and let the pictures develop a momentum of their own again.
You go on like that for a short time. The hypnagogigc imagery becomes more and more vivid.
Now you are almost in a lucid dream. After the transition you direct your dream towards the event and you will experience it again instead of just remembering.
If you practice that regularly you will increase your dream recall as well the memory of you waking life when you are in a dream.
And this increased memory of your waking life increases your awareness in the dream which enables you to recognize that you are dreaming.
