My uninformed a priori LD idea: The FAILD
Falling Arm Induced Lucid Dream: the uninspirational acronym that Just Might Work Anyways. This is a supplementary technique meant to be used in conjunction with any form of wake-initiated induction - WILD, FILD, VILD, or anything else performed while still conscious.
This technique is meant to be a sort of assistant or shortcut for other WILD or WILD-inspired techniques, which shortcuts you through the falling asleep phase and lets you start WILDing at the brink of sleep instead. This is a preliminary idea for a lucid dreaming method that I got the idea for during meditation sessions. If a similar idea's already been proposed or developed further, I'd love to hear so I don't have to waste the effort.
During my meditations, I usually experience one of two different... journeys, I guess you could call them. The first is the Affirmative Experience, which is where I go into meditating with a clear purpose and an optimistic outlook. These tend to begin with a string of clear and calm affirmations that taper off into very relaxed, very constructed lengths of quiet mindfulness. In short, they're good meditations. I feel alert, refreshed, and relaxed afterwards. My other sort is the Soporific Experience, or the "bad trip" you could call it. Usually when I enter these meditation sessions I'm trying to escape a stressful situation or a set of circumstances where I feel I'm helpless or have no way out. In these scenarios I'm not really sure what I mean to achieve by meditating, only that I can stop thinking about whatever horrible thing is consuming my consciousness. I'm nervous and irritable, and these sessions tire me out, a lot. Within 10-20 minutes I fall into a trance and find myself almost falling asleep. I'll zone out and then catch myself suddenly in the middle of slumping over, on the cusp of sleep. Then I'll zone out, catch myself, over and over again. I'm a hair away from going into SP, but prevent myself from it because I want to meditate instead.
Tensed muscles are a surefire safeguard against falling asleep without your permission. A traditional cure for "resting one's eyes" without risking falling asleep is to hold a spoon in one hand and to suspend it over a frying pan while you rest; if you begin to fall asleep your hand relaxes, you drop the spoon, and the loud clang will bring you to your senses. If involuntarily relaxing muscles are the last warning signs you can rely on before you fall asleep completely, then they make ideal waypoints for us to gather our consciousness at for a successful WILD attempt.
The process behind a hypothetical FAILD is like this:
1. Either at the beginning of sleep or during a WBTB, set yourself up to go to sleep as you normally would, preferably on your back or side. I'm not sure how you'd conduct this sleeping on your stomach.
2. If on your back: take your arm (whichever) and rest it at your side. Bend it at the elbow until your forearm sticks straight up into the air. Let your hand rest parallel to the floor like you're being flamboyantly gay with somebody. You'll notice that it's possible to hold your arm like this with very little muscle effort, so little that you quickly forget you're doing it.
If on your side: same as above, but you're forced to use the arm you're sleeping on... I think.
3. Just go to sleep. Don't try any techniques at all; just relax and let your mind wander. Most importantly, forget that you're holding your arm up.
4. Eventually you'll be brought back to your senses as you feel your arm begin to fall: this means you are on the cusp of falling asleep! You'll probably instinctively jerk your arm back upright, but now let it fall into a relaxed position.
5. Employ a primary WILD method now. You should already be at the brink of sleep, and your body already wants to go into SP (as evidenced by the involuntary muscle relaxation). Transition into the dream state should be vastly easier from here.
Keep in mind that this technique is completely theoretical. I've only attempted it a few times straight at bedtime rather than in WBTB, and while I got a few encouraging arm-drops and wonky states of consciousness, I never got near a lucid dream experience. If this technique sounds interesting or useful to you, I would love it if you were to use it and report back whether you find it useful or not. I'll keep on experimenting with it and see where it gets me.
