Falling Asleep During FILD

[Defixen]

Hello , this is my first post , and im new to lucid dreaming , so I need your help , recently i started trying to do FILD . I wake up by my alarm clock after ~4 hours of sleep , turn the alarm clock off , lay down and try to do FILD , I try moving my fingers as less as possible ( I dont really move them , just smoothly squeeze my matress with them , hard to explain ) And I just fall asleep in like 10 seconds . what am I doing wrong ? What should I think about while trying to do FILD ? And should I turn off my alarm and try to wake myself up a bit ? Helperino pleaserino , thank you.

[ParanoidLlama]

Welcome to dream views! I think you're too tired when attempting your FILD. Keep in mind that you should continue to retain consciousness, as though you were WILD-ing. You might wanna try combining your method with WBTB, but make sure you don't stay up too late or you might have trouble falling asleep. With thinking, just clear your mind, maybe even thinking about your mantra, and remember to keep your mind awake. Hope this helps .

[ThreeCat]

FILD is really not a great technique, in my opinion. We do have a lot of good WILD guides on the site (Mzzkc's and Billy Bob's come to mind), as well as Sageous's WILD class in the DVA. I would check them out. You might try the WBTB, like llama mentioned. You might also try giving yourself a few affirmations to notice when your mind drifts into sleep. This can help prep you for your WILD.

[TDHXIII]

This is happening with me too, is there a clear answer to this?

[AnotherDreamer]

That's a pretty common problem, a lot of people have trouble with falling asleep too early when trying to do any kind of WILD technique (including FILD). Some of the advice I've read is that you can try to sleep in a position that isn't your natural, favourite one. I usually fall asleep on my side, but when I want to WILD, I have more success when I lie on my back. That can go the other way if you are too uncomfortable as well, where you won't be able to fall asleep. So I guess you just have to be slightly less comfortable than you would be in your super comfortable normal position for sleeping so that you don't fall asleep too quickly. This is in addition to WBTB as well, a proper WBTB is quite useful, like previously mentioned.

[~Dreamer~]

^ I know some people like to start out in their favourite sleeping position, and then when they feel like they're close to falling asleep, they'll roll onto their back to WILD (or FILD). That seems to reduce the chances of keeping yourself awake. WILD is not my forte though, so I can't speak from personal experience. And agreed with the above advice on WBTB. Instead of just turning your alarm off, try to at least sit up or get out of bed and go to the bathroom, etc. If you'd rather just stay in bed and fall straight back to sleep, then DEILD might be a better technique for you. In that case, keeping your eyes closed and moving as little as possible while imagining your next dream scene might be more effective than FILD. Good luck!

[sisyphus]

Sleeping position is a good thing to consider but something else stood out to me from the OP's description: "after ~4 hours of sleep." That's too early in my opinion. Timing will vary for each person, but I think it predictably generalizes that: trying too early will result in falling asleep too fast and trying too late will result in staying awake too long. Finding the sweet spot requires some combination of experimentation, luck, and opportunism. I would start at 6 hours and adjust up or down from there.