Question for experienced lucid dreamers

[IntrepidXplorer]

Hello everyone, first of all I want to say that I first heard about lucid dreaming about a week ago and the concept sounds very intriguing to me. I've read a lot about it since then and almost immediately started working towards having a lucid dream of my own. There are many techniques for inducing a lucid dream out there and I decided to practise the WILD technique. Possibly because I read that it is a powerful, but more challenging technique and since I've always liked challenging myself it is the choice I made. Being new to the whole lucid dreaming concept, naturally there are questions and doubts I would love to know the answers to, so I thought why not ask the expert dreamers out there. Once I've gotten into the habit of performing reality checks it soon happened to me that I've become aware I was in a dream. This occurred twice so far, the first time I was looking at my mobile and saw nothing but gibberish on the display, I immediately became aware it was a dream but sadly the realisation instantly jolted me awake. I woke up in my bed and first of all I did a reality check to rule out a false awakening - I was in reality. The second time around I was in a dream and a lot of physically impossible things started to happen, like objects passing through each other and gravity being turned off, but it took what felt like an eternity for my mind to tell me that there is something wrong about it until I truly realised it was a dream. Alas, the realisation instantly woke me up again and the reality check confirmed I was awake. My first question is about exactly this, I read that this sudden waking might be caused by the excitement of knowing I'm in a dream, but how can I practise to stay calm when this happens the next time? Some people suggest to rub your hands or spin around when it happens, but it's all so quick I barely have time to do anything. Now my next questions are about the WILD technique. I keep trying it every night, but last night was my most successful attempt so far. While I know that attempting WILD when going to bed in the evening is not the ideal time I thought the practise can't hurt. I have managed to reach what I think is the stage of sleep paralysis. I usually lie on my back for this because I find it the easiest and after a few minutes my limbs started getting numb and my body feels heavy like it's sinking into bed. I get a tingly sensation all over my body and my mind tells me that it is difficult to move my muscles. However, when I actually move at this point it is not hard at all. Is that normal for true sleep paralysis? Or should it be hard to actually move and not just seem like it would be hard? What I don't find easy is getting further than that. I had to reenter the sleep paralysis several times because I felt the need to start over and I found it difficult to shift my minds focus away from the fact that I'm in bed and that my body is feeling strange. I try to view the imagery flashing in front of my eyes but my mind keeps distracting me from focusing on it. I read that meditation can help with this but it's something I don't know how to do properly. Are there any other things than can help me to let go of that sensation in the back of my head? I also find it increasingly difficult to keep my mind conscious at this point and not fall asleep. When I do manage to focus on the images created in front of my eyes I often find I'm losing my consciousness and if I grab a hold of it again the awareness of my numb body in bed springs back to my mind. Amidst all of this I had one experience where I managed to imagine a door floating in nothingness and I tried to examine it closely, I opened it and closed it, scratched on the wooden surface and knocked on it and after some time the door started to feel real and it suddenly warped into focus, like I was zooming in at warp speed until everything was sharp and clear. This lasted a brief moment before everything went to black and then I felt myself in bed again. Is this how you enter a lucid dream in the WILD technique? Or am I doing something wrong there? Eventually I couldn't lie on my back anymore last night, so I turned on my side. It took me a few seconds to fall asleep in that position. I woke up twice in the middle of the night after that but I am not sure why as I don't remember having a dream. I always perform a reality check, and both times I tried to use the WILD technique again because I read that it is easier to enter a lucid dream after you've woken up during your sleep phase, but both times I fell asleep very quickly because I couldn't stay conscious. I stayed in bed both times though, is that even neccessary? Or can I get out of bed, try to get my mind going and then try WILD again? Anyway, lots of rambling on about my progress. Thank you all for reading and any help and advice would be more than welcome Looking forward to my next try Edit: I just read that what I called sleep paralysis is actually called REM Atonia and that it isn't necessary to experience it for a WILD to occur, in fact it might even be detrimental? However, it was sort of a byproduct when I was calming my mind and trying to focus on my visualisation. I was not scared of that state, but I found it very distracting, as described above. Is that just happening because it's taking me a long time to relax my body and go through the visualisation process?