arcticfennec

So it has been almost two months since my second brief experience with lucidity. Perhaps because I moved to a new place and now sleep in a new bed with new noises and a new schedule, I've hardly been able to "drift" at all, to drift into that floating, buzzing sensation in the void, at the WILD gate to lucid dreaming.

But a week ago I experienced sleep paralysis for the first time in a while. Perhaps this was a sign that transitional states of awareness were becoming possible again. And now I have fallen back into the old sleep pattern of waking up several times throughout the night. It has been a familiar friend since childhood, but it only comes in phases.

Since then I have again experienced the "drifting" sensations a few times, but never leading to actual sleep.

Last night, however, was of note because of the different-than-usual drifting experiences. I was waking up all through the night, my dream thoughts carrying over into my waking thoughts, a continuous stream of thought carried by a discontinuous state of consciousness. Every waking period I would have racing thoughts and vivid visions, some pertaining to my actual life and goals, some completely awesome works of the imagination. In this state I even thought up a few new musical compositions in record time and was quite pleased with them.

I actually drifted a few times as I attempted to consciously fall asleep. Usually this lead to a clear tingling sensation as I was suspended in a refined blackness. But this night I was constantly barraged by an onslaught of visions and thoughts during every drifting experience. At no point was I not fully thinking and envisioning lots of things. At no point was there blackness or anything remotely resembling emptiness. The visions were sufficient to distract me from my usual problems- breathing bothering me, or being consciously excited by the drifting. But I still was subconsciously excited by the drifting, to the point that I would be breathing heavily, heart pounding, for "no reason", and I would be snapped back into full wakefulness, but barely noticing that because the whole process was in the back of the mind while in the foreground I studied the visions and thoughts being played, none lasting for long before the next took its place, like a reel of movies on super-fast-forward. Occasionally I would think, "Maybe I'm actually dreaming now? This does seem a lot like a dream, and hardly like the reality I usually experience, yet nothing here is inconceivable for one of my psychology. I guess it's time for a reality check." And every reality check (trying to breathe while pinching my nose) would reveal that I was, indeed, awake.

While the continuous stream of visions is fascinating, I find the most interesting point to be how I was still barred from achieving a WILD because the drifting experience was too exciting for me to fall asleep, even though I was not being consciously exciting, only noticing the symptoms of that excitement (heavy breathing, heart pounding).

Today has also been strange. I feel as if I haven't fully awakened. Sometimes I perceive reality, but I do not perceive reality as being reality. Also, my mind is running faster and further than it usually does. Strange how that works.

So... interesting experiences. Perhaps I have more hope of DILDing than WILDing.

Regardless,
To the future we go!

-[arcticfennec]