The most amazing experience... Questions

[Leixor]

Hey everybody, so this is gonna be a pretty long story, but I gotta tell someone, and who better than you cause I have some questions and also just kinda need to tell someone thats gonna know wtf I am talking about. Anyway any of you (not many ><!) who have read my introduction know that last night was going to be my fourth night since I found out that this sort of thing could be learned. I had basically just decided to sleep for the night just like I normally would and see what happened. So as I attempted to do this I found that I was going to have insomnia that night. My mind began to wander and I began thinking about WILD, which I must admit seriously has intrigued me ever since I read about it the first time four days ago. However I had been telling myself "You're not ready yet" as basically as I understood it this was quite an intense thing. Last night though, I was bored as heck and knew it was gonna take me a good two hours to get to sleep anyway so I basically said screw it, might as well give it a shot. The following long segment is taken directly from my Dream Journal, because I just had to write everything down after it happened, I was so... stunned. It's unedited (err ok I actually added more stuff that I think is pertinent now), except for in the real journal random notes are scribbled every which way lol. Here we go: July 19 I started this whole process between 11:30 and 12:00 AM ---------I just failed a WILD. It was one of the most intense things i've ever done. I was afraid to try it, but whilst I was trying to sleep I thought I saw a purple blob image in my eyes and basically decided to throw caution to the wind and go for it. At first I was saying to myself "Tonight, when I am dreaming, I am going to realize that I am dreaming and I will remember what I dreamed" Whilst doing this I focused on breathing and envisioned myself becoming more relaxed every time I breathed out. I did this for what seemed like FOREVER. My mind eventually started wandering so I decided I needed more focus and began counting "1, I'm dreaming, 2 I'm dreaming etc" At first I set a goal of making this all happen by 100 (Not a good idea I decided later on, but at the time it seemed like the thing to do) Nothing happened by 100 and I realized this wasn't something you make happen, it's something you let happen. I decided to pick one more number and just forget it all. I figured it must be between 2-3 AM by now and I figured I had pretty much blown my night already so I decided to pick 1000 and just forget everything. Soon after my feet felt numb/heavy and I thought "Hey this might be progress" I willed my entire body to become this way but it did not. I kept having to swallow and having itches. I swallowed without letting it distract me and I tyold myself the itches were in my mind. Whether they were or not is irrelevant as convincing myself of this made them go away. After this point as progressively more of my body became numb/heavy, I became aware that occasionally it felt like I twitched. I'm pretty sure I didn't actually move. It worried me for a moment because I've experienced hypnagogic jerks before just trying to regular sleep and they always jolt me awake. But I told myself tonight that isn't going to happen. It eventually felt like if I didn't move my foot it was going to jump out of itself. I was afraid of waking myself up so I focused everything on staying still, breathing and counting. By the time I had counted to 300, this became less of an issue, but I realized I was sweating quite profusely (or at least felt like it) and I felt an immense pressure on my knees as I was laying on my right side with my left knee resting on my right knee. Off and on now I can feel my heart beating in my extremities. I am now also aware that it feels like my lips are numb (kind of novocaine-y). As time seems to drag on and I actually fear my 6 AM alarm is going to rouse me out of this, but I have know way of knowing as I always cover my clock when I sleep. The pressure on my knees turns to pain. It now feels like a hot coal is being crushed between my knees. I tell myself "It's all in your mind, you can stop it if you want but you'll waste all your effort this far" I decide to perservere. Everything is uneventful whilst I count onwards. As I approach 500 I am thinking I may have blown it somehow, maybe I tried to hard or just didn't do it right, this is after all my very FIRST try at this. I am just about ready to give up and let sleep take me, lucid or otherwise when it happens. The heartbeat I had been feeling in my extremities off and on suddenly encompasses my whole being and as the first beat resounds through me... I don't know how to describe it. I felt like I fell out of my own body. I begin to feel as though I am suffocating. My vision becomes instantly clear. It is black and dark like my eyes are closed but now it seems to have a depth to it. At first I instinctivly fight to breathe, then I remember reading someones post somewhere where they had said "I figure if I'm suffocating in my sleep I'll wake up" I let that comfort me and let go. At first my breaths immediatly become shallow and unproductive. I am still counting, approaching 600 now. Through all of this I have the most... immense mixture of fear/excitement. I think to myself "You've come really far now, don't blow it!"Just when I feel like I will pass out from suffocation my breathing becomes deep and regular. The heartbeat feeling continues, though it is less pronounced now. I wonder now how I will "know" I consider the fact that maybe I AM asleep at this point. I remember reading about hypnagogic imagery but I have seen nothing. I realize that my left eye is partially open, actually I had been fighting to close it in the 200-300 range but when what I now realize was sleep paralysis happened I completely forgot about it. I wonder what to do as I continue counting. The initial "falling out of myself" feeling repeats itself twice more, each time with less intensity. Unsure at this point whether I am dreaming or awake, I conclude that I must test it somehow. I remember having heartdto try to roll yourself into your dream but I fear I might awaken myself. I will myself to roll into a dream (unsure exactly how to do that) and nothing happens. I am up to between 700 and 800 now and I feel as though I could step through my eyes into the dream world. I will this to happen, but it does not. I ponder this for awhile and as I approach 900 I realize I am never gonna know for sure unless I give it my best shot. I consider stopping at 900 as the wierd "falling out of myself" sensations have stopped repeating themselves. I decide however, that I set an initial stopping point of 1000 so I would just see where it took me. As I reach 910 I realize I am too nervour/scared/excited and if I don't do something now and I AM asleep, I am going to awaken myself. As I hit 914 everything climaxes and I go for it. After a roughly 1 second delay I feel an immense tingly feeling and roll to the left and find myself in my own bed. I say "Aww crap." and mutter various expletives, but then I think "err... wait..." I pinch my nose to see if I can breathe through it. I cannot. I walk over to the clock, uncover it and check it. It reads 1:05. I look away and back willing it to change. 1:05. And again. And again. As one final effort I attempt to "zap" a nearby box of salt(Yes there really is a box of salt in my bedroom, I had meant to throw it away). Nothing happens. Finally I become convinced that I am indeed, most unfortunatly awake. I begin to think of what I had just done. Since it is now 1:05 although I had thought during it that it must be close to 6, the entire process lasted around 90 minutes. I think to myself "If this is what failing a WILD is like, then oh my God what will it be like when I succeed?" It was so amazingly intense. I can't wait to try it again tomorrow. I go to write it all down but I am still shaking almost uncontrollably. After 5 minutes it subsides.---------------- So that was my experience. I hate to use the word "failed" now because I realize I came damn far for it being my first time. This is where I need your help. I am really unsure what I did incorrectly or forgot to do or what. I am unsure why it didn't work. Was I too impatient? Or was I too patient? At the end when I tried to make it happen, should I have just let it happen? Did I wait too long and miss the window? Or did I never actually get there and was confused? I'm pretty sure the feeling I describe as "falling out of myself" as well as being unable to breathe are what I have read and understand to be sleep paralysis. Perhaps I was just too new and it was a bunch of little factors and my own excitement. I WILL succeed, be it tomorrow or a week or a month from now. I will probably not try tonight as I am super exhausted from lack of sleep. After it all I was so mentally exhausted and intrigued I couldn't go back to sleep for a while. I made a random post here and read some stuff... then eventually got to sleep around 4. Maybe tomorrow. Anyhow, thank you for reading this incredibly long story of mine, and any input you have would be greatly appreciated.

[sloth]

Waiting for and willing a WILD to happen is sometimes like a small child trying to go to sleep the night before Christmas. If you are too excited, it's like you doom it not to happen. If there is one definate flay in what you did, that would be it. However, I wouldn't worry about it. You are definately on the right track. What you experienced are many many different sensations that occur during the hypnagogic stage. There are a lifetime's worth of things that happen during this stage, and they are all weird and powerful, like this. Some of them can be uncomfortable at times, but that's merely because they are so powerful. WILD is the hardest method to use, and I've only accomplished it a handful of times in the last eleven years. My favorite is a VILD, because you never lose consciousness, or awareness. One second you are in your room, the next you are somewhere else entirely, and your brain is still entirely awake. Anyway, good job on your first attempt. Is this your first attempt at LD, or just WILD? At any rate, you did fine, but don't try to make it happen quite so hard. Have you ever tried to MAKE yourself fall asleep? Doesn't work. -sloth

[Leixor]

Originally posted by sloth Anyway, good job on your first attempt. Is this your first attempt at LD, or just WILD? At any rate, you did fine, but don't try to make it happen quite so hard. Have you ever tried to MAKE yourself fall asleep? Doesn't work. -sloth Hehe yes it is my first attempt at WILD, no it is not my first attempt to LD. I have done it a few times that I can remember in my life, albeit by accident. I have never done it with intent however I tried to MILD a couple nights and it just succeeded in keeping me awake a while. Yeah I know all about attempting to MAKE myself fall asleep. It takes me 45-60 minutes every night to fall asleep. In the past I tried to combat this only to make it take 2 hours instead. Now I just kind of figure "Meh, I'll fall asleep when I fall asleep" What I do when I am trying to sleep is just pretty much play out random scenarios in my head. Stuff you might actually dream about. It's usually pretty vivid to the point where I eventually stop thinking about what whomever I might be speaking to is going to say and they take on an existence of their own. Note that I have rarely (if ever... not sure) dreamed about the scenario I played in my head before I slept. Eventually it just becomes foggier and foggier til I fall asleep. Occasionally whilst "daydreaming" as you might call it, I will suddenly twitch, these I imagine are the hypnagogic jerks I spoke of earlier. In the end doing that has many similarities to WILD. The major difference being that in the formor method I am wanting to lose awareness, not focusing on it at all, while with WILD the object is not to lose it. As for being too excited, yeah I figured that may have been part of my problem, probably the biggest part, but hey it's a learning experience right. I'm not discouraged at all. I am actually rather excited that anything happened at all. I had fears I would just kind of lay there and be bored as heck. But from what I've experienced its rather progressive, so its not like your clueless. My biggest problems were when I lost something to focus on. For instance, after I stopped feeling the need to twitch, but before my knees started feeling pressured, there was really nothing. I wanted to wander but I forced myself to find something to focus on. I had been counting all along as I said but I decided to focus on breathing making it as steady and relaxing as possible. This worked until the next phase. Actually I realize while saying this I may be focusing too much. Perhaps... Well in the end I didn't expect it to work the first time, it's just that I came so far (at least I think) and was like "Holy Crap!" and now that I know that I can do this eventually, I just gotta perfect it. Thanks so much for your input!

[blade5x]

It makes you wonder how you could possibly sleep through the transition stage where you feel all these intense feelings. I had really intense SP two days ago where it felt like powerful electricity was flowing through me pulsating, and I could hear it... very very loud as well. I've found no problem with emotions getting to intense once in Sleep-Paralysis, if you can reach stage, then I think you are fine. After all, people get freaked out during it, and don't wake up immediatly and have to fight to move. Rolling out might be wierd at first. The first time I did, it felt extremely uncomfortable, like some kind of glue or whatever was trying to hold me back, and I heard like a really loud tearing noise while I was rolling. But once I was out, all was calm... but I heard this annoyingly loud high pitch noise, which turned out to my graphics card which you can barely hear while awake when no other noises are present. Wierd because I've never had a problem with it in other dreams. You'll get used to it though, sometimes the intense feeling are there, sometimes not (I'm beginning to think if you don't feel vibrations and hear loud noises that you are actually already dreaming of attempting to WILD). Set your alarm to 4AM, it's alot easier around then. If you get up for like 2 minutes and lay back down (you might feel re-charged when you wake up, almost very awake, but after a few minutes you'll start to feel drousy, 5-10 minutes is my time before I start to get a head-ache), you could achieve SP within a minute because your body begins to feel heavy... and heavy fast!

[Ev]

It sound like you were very close. The "I dont know how to explain this" feeling is a good sign. Numbness is not a sign of WILD tho, it results from poor blood circulation. The fact that you experienced the rush few times is a good sign. From my experiences WILD happens on it's own. It doesnt matter how your body feels before the WILD, it doesnt matter what you are thinking about. WILD is a process in your body, you have no control over it. The WILD technique is basically about staying awake till that process starts. You may try WILD before or shortly after a dream. If you abruptly wake up from a dream, just lay there, relax and try to stay aware for a few minutes. Chances are you will have a WILD

[Leixor]

Originally posted by blade5x Set your alarm to 4AM, it's alot easier around then. If you get up for like 2 minutes and lay back down (you might feel re-charged when you wake up, almost very awake, but after a few minutes you'll start to feel drousy, 5-10 minutes is my time before I start to get a head-ache), you could achieve SP within a minute because your body begins to feel heavy... and heavy fast! Hehe 4AM. Yeah I also considered it would be much easier after sleeping for a while as evidenced by WBTB. 'Cept no way in heck is 4 gonna happen hehe. After struggling with insomnia for almost 3 years I finally found a quasi-solution. After observing that regardless of how tired I was I slept better during the daytime hours, I shifted my attempted sleep schedule. I now try to maintain a schedule of 2AM - 10AM. It works most of the time. The amusing thing is this: Consider one night I go to bed at 11PM. In theory I would be rested after 8 hours, and able to awaken at 7AM. Unfortunatly it is not as such. If i do that I will be dead on my feet all day. I always sleep better during the daylight, even though I completely black out my room with curtains and covering up anything that emits a tangible amount of light. If I can sleep from roughly 11AM to 5PM, which is only 6 hours I feel just as rested as my 2AM-10AM schedule. Unfortunatly the real world isn't very accomodating of that. 2AM-10AM shifts enough of my schedule into the daylight hours that I can manage, and also doesn't destroy whatever real life I might attempt. Now currently it is summer, and I am not attending college again until fall so I can screw around a little bit. It is VERY hard for me to wake up earlier than 10am no matter when I went to sleep. My attempt when I do try some WBTB stuff is to go to bed early, and wake up say around 6AM and try it. Actually I had intended to go to bed at 11 the night I spoke of in my original post, which meant falling asleep around midnight and waking up at 6am to attempt some sort of WBTB. Knowing that at 6am I was likely to be like "Shut up clock". Even though its across the room and I bury it in things to make sure I have to work to shut it up, if it ain't around 10 it doesn't usually rouse me enough. Knowing this but also knowing my fierce determination to learn this, I wrote a giant sign to the effect and placed it nearby my clock. The WILD attempt just kind of happened (actually it almost happened last night too, hehe I am thinking way too much about all this... its just so exciting!) and after exhausting myself and being awake til 4 the initial plan kinda went by the wayside. Originally posted by blade5x Rolling out might be wierd at first. The first time I did, it felt extremely uncomfortable, like some kind of glue or whatever was trying to hold me back, and I heard like a really loud tearing noise while I was rolling. But once I was out, all was calm... but I heard this annoyingly loud high pitch noise, which turned out to my graphics card Question which you can barely hear while awake when no other noises are present. Hehe yeah actually before I did the full roll I tried to see just what my hand felt like, along whilst visualizing. It felt sticky/tingly/wierd. I heard no tearing noise. When I actually so to speak "went for it" it took a lot of concentration. In retrospect I think I may of been focusing too much on the physical, hence why I rolled my ACTUAL self out of bed. Also after the initial SP type feeling, the fan which is in my room (which runs year round, for the purpose of white noise) sounded kind of like it went from low to high. I was aware that it didn't, aside from it being pretty impossible for a fan to change itself, it does not function on high anymore, due to running 24/7 for almost a year (hehe I have ruined so many fans) As for last night, how it "almost happened" I was dead tired from the night before. Whilst trying to sleep, I was thinking about random things as usual. At first I definetely saw some sort of hypnagogic stuff, crap streaking across my eyes. I remember thinking "Dammit! Not tonight I can't afford another super tired day!" I basically kind of ignored it til it went away. Pretty soon I was getting really fuzzy, about to fall asleep when a loud "TWANG" noise happened. I was half out of it at this point and it startled me as such. I wasn't expecting TWANG sounds cause I wasn't trying to be aware when such things happened. Hehe... thinking about not doing something is almost as effective as doing it apparently. Regardless in the end I fell asleep and slept well. Originally posted by Ev The "I dont know how to explain this" feeling is a good sign. Actually it occured to me later that I have experienced this at LEAST once before that I can remember. When I was much younger, say 10 or so, one day during the day I was on the couch. For some reason I was super tired and I was fighting sleep very hard as I remember it. As I lay there, losing the battle to sleep, I eventually "fell through the couch". Being 10 years old this scared the $#!% out of me lol. Eventually last night I slept well, so I am feeling quite rested... That means tonight I will likely attempt something. My big question I have left is this. Assuming I do get to SP again, at this point what should I do? Should I wait patiently for some sign. Or should I take an active role? Hehe actually at first I remember thinking "How will I know when I get SP?" Things I had read stated something along the lines of "You'll know". I basically was like "bah, I doubt it" at this statement. Then it hit me (most literally). Thank you Blade5x and Ev for your help. Reading about it is one thing, but actually talking to people is much more helpful. (P.S. Also by now anyone who has been reading my posts has noticed my tendency to say... well basically everything that is on my mind... I hope I'm not boring haha!)

[ReaLIllusion]

...Numbness is not a sign of WILD tho, it results from poor blood circulation. The fact that you experienced the rush few times is a good sign. [/b] Is this true? I've also found myself feeling numb in my extremeties while trying to WILD. It makes sense that you would go numb to me because your body is shutting down your senses to the outside world. Also, when I've felt numb and then moved, the sensation comes back immediately, no pins and needles like when part of my body goes numb when I'm awake.