I don't see hypnagogic imagery

I tried to go a WBTB/WILD a few nights ago. So after I woke up and tried to get back to sleep, I decided to try one of the methods that says to focus on hypnagogic imagery (colors, dots, flashes, images, etc.) while laying completely still. The thing is, I don't notice any colors/dots/flashes/etc. when I close my eyes. I stayed there for a long time and I just saw complete blackness. I observed this for myself every time I lay in bed to do WILD or even throughout the day when I closed my eyes to observe what would happen - nothing, just blackness. Is this normal?

It's not as simple and swift as it is oddly made to seem. From my own personal experience, I had the same frustration, then one time I decided to just go through progressive relaxation while falling asleep - that is progressively relax body parts from the feet to the head. That lead me to seeing hypnagogic imagery.

So, all in all, it takes quite the amount of relaxation for it to come, at least for me, and I'd imagine for you. But don't consider the progressive relaxation to be something tedious, it's actually quite...well, relaxing, heh, just like it's supposed to be. As long as it's done in a peaceful mindframe and just wanting to relax, it'll work and lead to hypnagogia.

You might try pressing on your closed eyes and watching the pattern that makes. I didnt think anybody could see complete blackness. I always see some dots and flashs , faint as they may be, imediatly everytime I close my eyes. However, I've always considered hypnotic imagery as being those odd pictures and images you might recall after waking up from stage two or three sleep, but maybe I'm wrong about that.

I always see faces...

and i can get it when i want, it's easy as hell \:

I (almost) never have HI (when I see something, it means the dream has begun and I'm already unconcious and it's too late). So I get WILDs without them. In fact, I start moving my dream body in the dark, and imagery of the dream scene only appears 5-30 seconds after that.

Instead of HI I get hypnagogic body movements (my arms lift in the air, my body rolls in the bed...), sometimes I have hypnagogic sound (loud noise, somebody calling me...). Maybe you could try looking for those instead of images.

just like MindDaguerreotype, my hallucinations are never related to hypnanogic imagery


people postulate that you WILL see HI when WILDing, but that isn't true. HI is one of the forms of hallucinations you may have

so, if you feel like you are falling, like someone is yelling at you, like you are drowning, focus on those: they are all hallucinations as well


actually, I don't like to focus on HI, because to focus on it you have to keep your sight aware, and I think clompete disclosure from the senses is necessary


just relax and focus on something that's substantial enough to keep you aware (hallucinations, breath, external sounds, heartbeats etc) and you will do it