SSILD - Difficulty relaxing eyes

**Rallan** · 03-07-2015 12:34 PM

Hey chaps and chappettes!

I have been practising SSILD for a week or so. When it has worked it has been seemingly very effective, and I especially like that it is a fairly meditative technique, which I feel probably makes it beneficial for sleep and dreams regardless of whether you become lucid.

However, sometimes I find the 'visual' cycle difficult. Basically, my eyes just don't want to relax! As soon as I try to bring awareness to the blackness, my eyes seem to desperately want to find something to focus on, which seems impossible. This can cause aching in the brow area as well as working against feeling more relaxed and falling asleep. I feel I can relax my eyes when they're open fine, it's just when they're closed that the problems occur.

Has anyone else experienced this, and does anyone have any tips/tricks to work with it?

**JustASimpleGuy** · 03-08-2015 12:41 AM

Check out sivason's Dream Yoga Basic Skills: Lesson 2 Diffuse Vision in the DVA forum. I think that will help with relaxing your eyes when closed.

I do something very similar when attending awareness while meditating. Without doing this my eyes want to latch onto all the HI floating around behind my closed eyelids.

EDIT: Clarification. I first learned this technique when I wanted to relax at work without closing my eyes. Now it has a certain feel in my mind and I find I can easily attain it with eyes open or closed.

**yaya** · 03-08-2015 05:11 AM

Hi! maybe this can help:

when you close your eyes and are near to fall sleep, there are some vague white dots which can be used to focus on.

also in order to relax your eyes, you can use the method which i found in a web site and have used it untill now and it is working well.

the method is that when you close your eyes, you should divide the the black scene into 2 equal parts and then just look at line between these two parts. in this way, your eyes would stay relaxed.

**Rallan** · 03-08-2015 11:35 AM

Originally Posted by JustASimpleGuy

Check out sivason's Dream Yoga Basic Skills: Lesson 2 Diffuse Vision in the DVA forum. I think that will help with relaxing your eyes when closed.

Very helpful! Thank you!

Originally Posted by yaya

when you close your eyes, you should divide the the black scene into 2 equal parts and then just look at line between these two parts. in this way, your eyes would stay relaxed.

Sounds good! Will try it out tonight!

Many thanks guys.