Help Me Achieve Sleep Paralysis

[eggbert]

Hello, I have been trying for years to have some substantial LD's without success. However, I have decided to first just shoot for attaining sleep paralysis, which I also have attempted many times (probably around 75) with no success. So, I basically am just asking for any help people can give, and I will try to journal my progress here. Now, I have tried both after WBTB and when just going to sleep. I find when doing WBTB I tend to give up after maybe 20-40 minutes, whereas I may try for an hour or more when just laying down. I have tried: -Simply not moving and ignoring itches, as suggested by a post on this forum. -Concentrating on breathing, third eye, or nothing. -Relaxing each body part in turn/Yoga Nidra -Concentrated on feelings, as suggested by another post, although I only feel a small amount of sensations like wanting to float up. -And mixtures of these things. Some problems I've run into: -Sometimes my eyes seem to "force" themselves open. I usually just relax and they will close again though. -I will feel my body begin to numb, and if I concentrate on the feelings they get more intense, but I find my real body will shake and tense up, not my dream body. Thanks for any help! I really want to at least achieve sleep paralysis! Edit: Should this be moved to the WILD sub forum?

[WakataDreamer]

I hate SP. Why would you actively pursue it? Only for the purpose of facilitating a WILD, I would hope. SP is unpleasant (in my opinion), and can be accompanied by disturbing hypnogogia. I would just stick to DILDS, DEILDS, and other non-WILD techniques. I find they work better, as I too have trouble WILDing/WBTBing.

[electronmaster]

I agree with WakataDreamer.... Sleep Paralysis is not very pleasant... I unfortunately have kind of been cursed with it since I was 13, and then it was only about 2 times a year... now its about 4-5 nights a week of fighting it off just to fall asleep.... Something I noticed last week though is that in sleep paralysis, when I sat through it and tried to listen through the "rushing" noise, I noticed a background sound that sounded like a very very fast heartbeat... this immediately scared me and I woke up and checked my pulse, and it was normal... this was the first time it happened...

[sephox]

SP is terrifying and plagued me for years. I eventually learned to wake myself from it. This sounds like the opposite of what you are doing, which leads me to believe that you can obtain your own SP. The trigger for SP is wearing out your mind and body in some sort of unfavourable way. A lot of stress helps. A key to SP is don't get enough sleep, go for unusually long periods of time without sleep, don't necessarily get exercise as much as exhaust yourself with undesirable projects (chores) and really wear yourself out. Eventually you will 'collapse' and this is when you will be the most prone to have your first SP. At least for me, that seemed to be when my SP was the worst. I could literally feel if I was going to have SP early in my REM cycle or not, before I fell asleep, because I had SP so many times during this scenario. Helps to leave a TV on in the room next to you just loud enough that you can't understand any of it while you are falling asleep ~ whatever channel your news comes on. This will keep your brain ever so slightly aware and will help with the disassociation. During your REM stage your brain will try and wake up because it will be stressed out and easily disturbed. Your body will not follow because of your exhaustion. Enter, SP. Warning, SP can be extremely unsettling. Growing up I had SP very frequently. It came early on in my REM and sometimes woke me out of deeper sleep cycles and almost always scared me out of my mind. I always thought I wasn't breathing and that when the SP was over I was passing out from lack of oxygen ~ which is what scared me into eventually learning how to wake myself from them because every time I had it I felt like I was experiencing death. During the process of learning to come out of the SP I noticed that trying to find my finger tips and move them was the easiest way to wake myself. Once I could find my fingertips my whole body would wake and I would gasp for air. I was always fine. Over time I could wake myself faster and faster and now I don't get SP anymore... probably because I wake myself so fast I don't remember it. I have a lot of vivid imagery in my mind from all of my SP events. They didn't manifest as the old lady or a cat or a demon, instead it came as flows of energy shooting from above my room through me and down into my bed... below my bed seemed to be another dimension that was sucking a lot of energy through and this is what was pinning me and causing me to be paralyzed. Sometimes the energy would manifest as tribal artwork, other times it would manifest as gravitational force (a vivid directional feeling of) that was crushing me or sucking me through my bed. There was one time I had SP and there was no feeling, I was completely awake except I could not move anything even my eye and there was no other feeling - in fact so few feelings that the only thought I had was that I was already dead. Everytime I woke up fine the next day. And the final key for SP, stay up all night and fall asleep during the day... that's when I got it the most. Good luck.