For the past several weeks I've been using SSILD on-and-off and have found a few interesting tricks that I thought everybody should know.
1) For best results, time the alarm to be near the start of a REM cycle. Why? SSILD sort of works by causing you to put a significant amount of attention on the small stuff(sight, sound, somatosensory(touch)). The closer you are to a REM cycle, the more likely it is for the SSILD to work correctly(this applies to all techniques that use WBTB). Though the exact wake up time varies by as much as 30 minutes from person to person, a wake-up time of 5 1/2 hours after the time you fall asleep is in the right ballpark. However, you will have to experiment slightly to find the optimum time for you.
2) Use a top 40 or some other non-talk show alarm (don't use beeper unless absolutely neccessary). Why? I found that if I timed the alarm correctly--and it was talk show or something--unless the volume was obscenely high, the dream would just sort of incorporate the human voices. Music, however, I found was a lot better at interrupting the flow of the dream, because It would attract my attention. The better the alarm is at interrupting the flow of the dream, the more likely you are to wake up, because it draws your attention away from the dream. The days I used a talk-show alarm, the radio would stay on for an hour until I reached the end of the REM cycle, at which point I would promptly wake up. The disadvantage of this is that you would be attempting SSILD at the start of what is likely going to be more than 30 minutes of NREM. Finally, unless you sleep like a stone, don't use one of those obnoxious beeping alarms. That gets me wide awake, and I can't fall asleep for like half an hour. Of course, this might not apply to you, but you should keep it in mind.
3) Do not skip the 4-6 "Practice rounds" at the beginning. Although you could use as few as 1 or as many as a 100, do not skip them! It's usually quite hard to actually get the cycles started if you go straight for the 30-second ones. And those are the most crucial of the technique.
4) WBTB time should be long enough for you to turn off your alarm and gather your thoughts, but not significantly longer. Why? Longer WBTB times tend to make it more difficult to fall asleep, so you would be sitting for like 20 minutes doing the cycles again and again, instead of LDing. Also, loss of sleep. Long WBTBs are not necessary or even recommendable for SSILD, and in the long run they just cause loss of sleep. The previous points also mean that you should set your goals before falling asleep the previous day, just to prevent having a longer WBTB time.
These four points have given me and my friends consistent results, and I do believe they should work(with proper adjustments) for most other people. Also, my comments about timing the attempt also apply to most other techniques that depend on WBTB(one particular example that I have tried successfully is FILD). I have not yet tried supplements with SSILD, but I do believe that cosmiciron said something about not using supplements with SSILD. Well, that's all I have to say on the matter.
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