Staying Awake Through HI

[tapanojum]

Lately, I've been practicing maintaining focus at night. I know it's an uphill struggle to try and WILD when going to bed at night, but I do it to practice focus. Lately, I've been noticing when I'm starting to slip into sleep. Where I will realize I can't remember what happened in the last 30 seconds or so, or I will hear a random noise that I know is part of HI. I'll even start HI and see landscapes or other scenes etc, and remind myself "You are starting to fall asleep, focus on staying awake." My goal is to reach SP. I've only had SP once on accident when I awoke from a nap and experienced the old hag, despite it being scary as hell, I enjoyed the experience and want to reach it again. On to my question....are there any advice on staying awake at this stage? I know I am nearing sleep, and it's hard to stay focused on being awake. Is it simply more practice that is needed or what?

[Captain Sleepalot]

I think you are right in that it really comes down to practice. I tend to use the same mental reminder technique ("You are starting to fall asleep, focus on staying awake") when I start to experience HI and sometimes it works well and other times I am just stuck in that stage so long that I grow bored or get distracted and fall into unconsciousness. One technique that I have read, attributed to many different people, is that of holding something in the hand while falling asleep. If you are unable to maintain consciousness past the initial HI stage, whatever you are holding will drop to the floor and will (hopefully) wake you up. You then grab the object from the floor and try again. Salvador Dali used this technique to train himself to stay awake during HI, I think it might work well as a training device but it is not something I would want to have to do everytime I fell asleep. Keep trying!

[tapanojum]

I think you are right in that it really comes down to practice. I tend to use the same mental reminder technique ("You are starting to fall asleep, focus on staying awake") when I start to experience HI and sometimes it works well and other times I am just stuck in that stage so long that I grow bored or get distracted and fall into unconsciousness. One technique that I have read, attributed to many different people, is that of holding something in the hand while falling asleep. If you are unable to maintain consciousness past the initial HI stage, whatever you are holding will drop to the floor and will (hopefully) wake you up. You then grab the object from the floor and try again. Salvador Dali used this technique to train himself to stay awake during HI, I think it might work well as a training device but it is not something I would want to have to do everytime I fell asleep. Keep trying! Good input, thank you. Last night I tried again, I saw a crystal clear HI of a leaf falling through the darkness and started to feel my body stretch and such and then it stopped. What felt like 30 minutes later, I had a building up uncomfort/pain in my shoulder that was unbearable, after staying in that position another 30 minutes or so, I finally laid my arm down next to me to relieve the pain and was completely awake. I simply couldn't afford to waste any more time as I had work in a few hours and just gave up.