Originally Posted by
spaceexplorer
For me, having had a lot of WILDs, the process is basically:
Letting go whilst still maintaining a witnessing consciousness, just the bare minimum, so that when the dream starts to form, that minimum awareness is able to trigger a fuller awareness. It's a similar process the mind uses when trying to remember to do something in the future (well i suppose it's exactly the same actually), If for example i need to remember to post a letter, whilst heading into town to do various chores... i'm not constantly focused on posting the letter, instead a small area of my mind is active just enough so that when the correct environmental cues are in place, that it fully awakens from it's "silent waiting watchman" mode, and suddenly i remember what it is I have to do. It's the same with a WILD, I know full well that trying to retain a full waking awareness is going to be counterproductive to falling asleep, so instead my "silent waiting watchman" is given the task to cue the rest of my awareness into action when a dreamscene starts to form.
Of course, I've experienced WILDs where the transition is almost seemless, and a suprising amount of full awareness is active during the entire process of falling asleep. But these situations are much rarer, and often other factors like extreme physical tiredness or extreme REM rebound are in place. The most successful WILDs for me are almost always, a diminished witnessing awareness, a small trickle of continued consiousness, that acts like an anchor, or thread, with which full awarness can be restored when the dream forms. This way, the restful mindset required for sleep, can still take place, without the the conscious mind interfering too much. If you can diminish your consciousness to the bare minimum, just enough so that you'll notice falling into the dream, then the process of falling asleep is much faster and natural.
That's what works for me, but it takes practice, and really requires you to deveop prospective memory abilities.