Gahhh! Trouble focusing your intentions on WILD attempts

Hello all-

for the past 4 nights I've been having my iPhone wake me up at 4am for a WILD attempt.

EVERY single night, I get up, go to the bathroom, kind of grog around for a little bit, and end up passed back out in my bed within 2-3 minutes. It's almost like my brain acknowledges that I'm up to attempt a WILD, but that I am too tired to be interested in such things and turns off all desire to lucid dream :P

Does anybody else run in to this, and if so, do you have any way of fighting it?

Thanks! :D

-Bob

Exactly like me.
I set my iPod touch to wake me up usually at 4:20 or 3:40 - I go to bed at 23:45 ~ midnight. I set two alarms, becouse I don't do a WBTB becouse I usually try FILD when I wake up in the middle of the night. I just slide to stop the alarm and get back to sleep, same with the second alarm, that I set two minutes later to the first one.

Looks like we just want to sleep and don't give a f. to lucid dream that time, hehe.

Shit, seriously.

If I'm lucky I'll get to the point where I say to myself, "Okay... you're going to lay down and try to WILD..." but about a minute in to the relaxation phase I lose concentration and fall asleep.

Tonight I think I might try staying up for a few minutes and waking myself up just a tiny bit.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DpsBob

Shit, seriously.

If I'm lucky I'll get to the point where I say to myself, "Okay... you're going to lay down and try to WILD..." but about a minute in to the relaxation phase I lose concentration and fall asleep.

Tonight I think I might try staying up for a few minutes and waking myself up just a tiny bit.

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Try to stay up a little more. Like ten to fifteen minutes. I don't do a WBTB becouse I try FILD, and it requires you to go straight back to sleep. I only try WILDs before bed.

I wake up, take some phosphatidylcholine, and focus on the backs of my eyelids. Out of the last 10 attempts, only three of them have I been able to focus long enough to even get to fleeting hypnagogic imagery before I'm out cold. And only one of those was I able to stay with the HI to the point where the images had turned into more fully developed scenes with a significant level of developed action. Then I went out.

I'm guessing it takes a specific type of energy to remain focused, and that our activities during the day tend to exhaust our supply of this type of energy. Eastern traditions point to sexual energy, but I have practiced celibacy for over 30 days with no discernable change in my ability to remain conscious in a WILD attempt.

The ONLY thing that really seems to help are those days when I have diligently remained in a very present-moment focused, mindful state for the duration of the day. This in itself is very much like trying to remain in a state of awareness while entering the dream state... it feels VERY similar in fact to try to hold a here & now awareness while going about your daily affairs, as it does while trying to hold a here & now awareness while allowing your body to sleep and awaiting REM, so perhaps they are - if not teh same - then very similar.

Both modes it seems have immense payoffs. I can only attest in the most limited sense to the value of mindful presence in daily waking life; I can only imagine the value of that in dreaming practice... but I hope soon to be able to attest to it there as well! :-)

Let me know if you discover anything that seems to really help in this respect, and in the interim, keep trying. At least you'll be building intent! ;-)

Pleasant Dreams!