Thread: Longest LD Possible?

How about this crazy thought? Sleep paralysis doesn't matter, particularly in the context of this thread. In fact, I would say the only reason it's relevant to this thread is that people who get caught up with prioritizing LD'ing side effects like SP are the same people who are going to have a hard time achieving long, worthwhile LD's.

I think Hukif is right that there may be another name for SP during sleep. I don't remember it either, but it is essentially the same thing: your body reduces its ability to move during dreaming so that you don't mimic the motions of your dream in your bed and risk injury. I think the only reason the term was invented was because people in near-conscious states -- like LD'ing -- tended to notice that they briefly were unable to move because their otherwise sleeping body hadn't yet adjusted to their wakefulness; or, as during WILD, the aware dreamer must "feel" the onset of SP as they witness their body falling -- normally -- to sleep.

The condition that causes SP is a natural factor in everyone's sleep every night. It is not a mystical event, and does nothing to improve your LD'ing skills, regardless of the often breathless "advice" regularly posted on this site. It is simply an LD'er witnessing a physical symptom of sleeping. Nothing more than that passing notice, for matters of timing and of course to avoid becoming scared, is necessary.

Also, Hukif made a good point when he said that nobody gets SP during REM -- they don't because they're asleep during REM, and thus unable to notice any paralysis. If you notice SP, you're awake*. So there is no need to discuss it. Really.

Oh, and before someone sternly corrects me: yes, I am aware that SP is integral to astral projection. That's fine. But this is a thread about LD'ing.

Sorry, I might be venting. I'm just witnessing yet another interesting thread being hijacked by the elevation of an amazingly unimportant side-effect of LD'ing.

* The only possible exception to this is when you have difficulty moving during an LD, which might imply that you're closer to wakefulness than you think, or perhaps might have to do with dream control itself, but either way its an arguable exception that I don't think is terribly relevant here.