Audiobook (not necessarily about dreams) to help SP WILD?

[JET73L]

I was reading through some of the more recent thrads about WILDing techniques, and had an idea. If you play an audiobook, high enough volume to hear but not so loud that it bothers you and wakes you up, would that assist in 1. keeping your mind awake without tellign your body it's awake? 2. distracting you from the itches or impulses to move that keep so many people from SP'ing? What I mean, is, to play the audiobook, and instad of trying to think of things in which to focus, one could attempt to construct in one;s mind, with as much accurate and consistent detail as possible, the scenes, characters, and settings of the story. I'm wondering if this would not only keep one distracted from itches or twitch impulses (as long as you keep at lkeast part of your mind focused on not moving), as well as possibly give you a pre-made world for when you do slip into an LD. Has anyone tried this? Are there any reasons why it is inherently fallible, and could not possibly work according to the basis of induced Sleep Paralysis as it is defined? Or might this work? PS: I plan to do this at the beginning of the night, after I;m sleepy or more tired. I've never been able to WILD in the morning or the middle of the night, becuause it just wakes me up more.

[Clairity]

What I mean, is, to play the audiobook, and instad of trying to think of things in which to focus, one could attempt to construct in one;s mind, with as much accurate and consistent detail as possible, the scenes, characters, and settings of the story. I'm wondering if this would not only keep one distracted from itches or twitch impulses (as long as you keep at lkeast part of your mind focused on not moving), as well as possibly give you a pre-made world for when you do slip into an LD. What an interesting idea! I would love to give this a try during a WILD attempt but I would have to find a book that wouldn't be too exciting/scary/intense as that would keep my body as well as my mind awake. Please let us know how it goes and what audiobook you used!

[JET73L]

Well, it didn;t go very well, but I think it was because I had to sleep on the couch to hear thew speakers from the computer. It wouldn't record an MP3DVD, and an audiobook would require roughly 5 cds (and I don;t have a CD changer, or a music player over 1/2 gb), so having to sleep on a damaged couch kind of ruined it. If I can;t figure out how to play the audiobook in my room, I'll remove the couch from under the cusions and try again tomorrrow- erm, tonight. PS: the audiobook I chose was Terry Pratchett's The Last Continent, as read by Nigel Planer, with an alpha-theta sound tape on my mp3 speakers on the opposite side fom the computer speakers. I also had Thief of Time on the playlist, after tLC ended, but that was as read by Stephen Briggs, who adds an annoying nasal tone to all his character voices. Figured it might wake me up, never actually got that far since I moved back to my room later this morning. Edit: Tried atgain tonight, got a prettty nice dream in, I remember thinking it was interesting, and recognizable as a dream, but I don;t remember anything about it, because my ***** cat, who has a vendetta against my glasses and doesn;t care what else is destroyed, woke me up. I should've typed it out and tried a WBTB instead of a WILD, but I didn;t think of it at the time. Felt marvellously rested the first time I woke up, though.

[JET73L]

I would've edited my last post, but the forum's acting up this morning. I've only just managhed to get the forum to remember that I've logged in, and now the Edit button has disappeared. Going to try and get to the bottom of that later, but for now I'd like to report my findings on this thread subject. Attempts 1&2: couldn;t properly get to sleep one night, and my cat woke me up the other. Inconclusive results for both tests. Attempted attempt 3: Added about 1 hour, 20 minutes or two hours of silence before the audiobook. Computer shut dowmn unexpectedly, so the attempt failed. Full attempt 3: Set 2 hours of silence before the audiobook. Managed to go to SP for the first time since joining the forum, and the first time ever intentionally. This was after the audiobook started. Managed to keep from moving for several hours, but did not reach the hallucinatory stage, or whichever it is in which one begins to dream but has not fully attained unconsciousness. Plan for attempt 4: set 4 to 5 hours of silence before the beginning of the audiobook, and will set the volume louder. Plan is to be asleep by the time the audiobook begins, and see how that would affect lucidity. Perhaps see if I can transition to the dream stage if I am just barely woken by the audiobook in the middle of the night, rather than being stuck having not yet reached REM stage.

[Clairity]

JET73L, thanks for the updates! Have you tried using the audiobook and WBTB? For example, wake up after 4 hours of sleep, start the audiobook right away (with no silence) and listen to it seeing if you can transition into mind awake/body asleep (WILD) and then into a LD?

[Robot_Butler]

That sounds like it could make for some cool dreams, Clairity. What if you had the audio book as your alarm. Just set it to start playing in the middle of the night, from the middle of an unfamiliar chapter. I can see that getting interesting.

[Clairity]

The key is going to be finding the right audiobook.. one that isn't so boring it won't hold your attention at all and puts you to sleep yet isn't so exciting that you become too involved and too awake.

[Robot_Butler]

That's exactly why I can't listen to audio books. They put me right to sleep. I always thought it would be fun to listen to them at the gym or in the car. Too bad those are two places I really don't want to fall asleep

[JET73L]

Actually, I tried setting the audiobook (still Terry Pratchett's The Last Continent) louder, so it would just wake me up. I have trouble waking up in the middle of the night without staying awake, so it was a fine line. Attempt 4: WBTB with audiobook. Possible success. Around about the time when, in the book, Ponder meets the god of evolution, to the point where the Lecturer in Recent Runes was talking about croquet as a means of "continuation of the species" (suggestive cough). I'm not sure what that has to do with the subject of the dream, but I'm sure it helped with, if not the format, then at least either the recall or the fact that I was able to WBTB at all.. I have not previously had this sort of dream before (with the still images and the empathy, I just realised I hadn't yet mentioned that on this thread. it had nothing to do with... "croquet.") Anyway, for attempt 5 or 6, I plan to set a short burst of music at the beginning of the sound portion of the playlist, then set the audiobook to be less loud. For attempt 5 or 6 (depending i the order in which I am able to do the plans), I may set to wake earlier, with an audiofile referencing lucid dreaming, or possibly a dreaming autosuggestion file before restetting to the audiobook, to remind myself that I intend to be dreaming.