The stages of falling aslep

I've been trying to pay attention to the different stages I go through as a I fall asleep. I've always had trouble falling asleep so I hope this will help me and maybe others in my situation. Actually I don't know why I'm posting really, I just want to throw my experiences out there and see if anybody has anything to say haha:

So I first lie down after a hard day's rockin, my bed feels very uncomfortable and I toss and turn and such.

After like 5 minutes-ish my body starts to relax and my thoughts turn to the day's events, and other random things. I usually stay in this stage for a long time due to itches, general untiredness, feeling compelled to change the position I'm sleeping in (it's strange, I can be 100% comfortable at one point, and then I slowly start to become dissatisfied with the position and I need to change to my side or back).

Eventually I move into the next stage which I think might be SP but I'm not sure. At some point, my body "locks" into place. There isn't much change in my mental activity at this point, but all bodily movements below the neck stop. I feel like I could move any of my muscles if I really wanted to, but I don't get the same automatic response to an itch or something uncomfortable as I get when I'm fully awake.

These next two stages are kind of a blur as they happen fairly close to when I fall asleep (it's hard to tell exactly when I fall asleep, I'm just going by the last thing I remember before falling asleep):

My body starts to feel strange, I'm not quite sure how to explain it. I'll give an example - last night, I had my hands resting on my stomach whlie I was "locked" into position on my back. I took notice of how my stomach went up and down as I breathed in and out. Slowly that movement began to feel exaggerated, kind of like the waves of the ocean going up and down. My limbs began to grow sort of numb. Weird things like that.

In the next stage (which I tihnk is the one directly before I fall asleep), my mind starts to race very very quickly, going from one thought and then switching to another before finishing with that one. This state of activity in the brain sort of reminds me of how non-lucid dreams are - nothing seems to stay constant.

After a few minutes of skipping around like this, I think I fall asleep. At least, the mind racing stage is the last thing I remember before falling asleep.

I think it's strange that the stage in which my mind seems to be the most active is the one right before it basically shuts down for non-REM sleep. Then again, maybe it isn't working as hard since it is basically freely drifting between thoughts and not really focusing on anything.

Keeping track of what happens as I fall asleep has sort of been a little project of mine lately, so I figured I'd post my findings here :-p Any comments?

- Pete

very interesting. I've been trying to figure out my stages of falling asleep as well.... hehe.

here's a link to a tutorial on the five phases of falling asleep (WILD) by Seeker. I found it very helpful in identifying how far I am from dreaming.

When falling asleep, I sometimes notice my body getting numb to movement, but not paralyzed. While in this state, if i change my position, it's like I didn't even move at all. I also can sense where my limbs are, it's like they're not even there at all.

My method is to zone out until I fall asleep.

I close my eyes, don't think about anything, don't move, and allow myself to drift off. Its kind of hard to explain, probably because I don't really ever think about what I'm doing consciously.

Sometimes with my eyes closed I'll make it so I feel like the room is spinning around me. and that helps me zone out even more.

I can't sleep on my back so usually I get on my side. If i want to relax more first, I get on my back. But I know it start to be very uncormotable for me in few minutes.

I start to not-feeling my body. First it's with legs and arms, later it's whole body, like zero gravity.

Then unfortunately I fall asleep and don't remember anything.

BUT!

Few days ago I was in my work and after we get back to office from lunch, I decided to lay with my head and arms on my desk (because I heard about better chance for LD).

I starting to have funny feeling... it happened like... maybe 7 or 10 times, maybe more... like... I felt I'm really starting to sleep. Like, I woke and realized that I was sleepeng for a second... and then falling off again and again realizing and another fall off...

Also sometimes when I'm falling asleep, I got some "short dream" or something, and when I'm realizing it and I KNOW i had one but - DAMN, there's no way to remember it. Event it happend one second ago! It's weird, how my mind delete it so quickly.