Hitting a Roadblock? - Help needed

[MeatBag]

I am not quite sure if this is the right thread...but here goes. Hey everyone. I am new here and i wanted to ask for some help. I have been trying to lucid dream using the WILD technique mainly. It has been unsuccessful...mainly when i try to do it when going to sleep for the night. But today as i was cleaning my house, i went to take a nap. I laid in bed and started to calm myself and all that. Now i have a few problems. My first is that when i am trying to get my body to go to sleep, i can not stop my eyes from twitching all over the place unless i blank my mind or start daydreaming. But if i do that then i start ebbing into sleep without staying conscience. My second problem is that when i do start falling asleep, i spasm a little bit and get knocked back into being fully awake. My third problem is that when i do start to fall asleep, it seems to me that i keep a small but of lucidity...but i do not realise this at the time!..i do not realise it until said muscle spasm wakes me up and i notice that i was slowly going into dream mode, i assume with a small bit of lucidity going with it... Now i will tell you of the closest i have been to a OBE/lucid dream...or basicly the closest i have gotten to the WILD technique working for me. I went to take a nap today, and started to calm down and such. I was laying there and started to fall asleep with that little bit of lucidity i was talking about. This happened a few times but every time a muscle spasm woke me up, and thus the cycle started again. After a few times i had my first "breakthrough?". I was ebbing away and (even though i did not notice it at the time) i was in a car, on the highway. I was driving and i could feel the wind on my face and in my hair. I could also hear a mild reverberation/wind noise in my ears. I could see the road stretching out in front me as well. I had one of those spasms and woke up, thus realising i had actualy heard and felt those things. i could not control anything and did not even realise it was happening at the time. After i snapped back into reality i quickly went back to work trying to go back into that state. A few more wakings from my muscle spasms later and i got one that went fairly deep. I do not remember anything lucid happening with this one but somehow it seemed...deeper. More bold i suppose. I also get the feeling that is was important but i don't know why. It feels as if i am trying to grab water with my fists; the answer keeps slipping out of my fingers, but i know it is there. Anyway i had no idea that it was happening until i spasmed and woke up, just like all of them before. If anyone can help me or tell me if i am doing something wrong, please do so. I would be much appreciated. Thank you -MeatBag

[Tara]

This happens to a lot of people during WILDs. It's called a hypnic jerk. I get them too when I begin to fall asleep during that technique. There's no way to stop them really, besides simply staying aware and not allowing your lucidity to falter. I'm not sure why they happen or what the science is behind it, but they seem to only occur as people fade into sleep during a WILD. As for the faint dreams, it sounds like you're pretty much in the transition zone between sleep paralysis and a dream. Good job! If your eyes want to twitch, that's fine. In fact, moving in general is fine. Technically, you're trying to fall asleep, so being as comfortable as possible is important. If I have a strong urge to move as I WILD, I go for it. Sometimes if I'm close to sleep paralysis but am incredibly uncomfortable, moving suddenly to a much more comfy position will almost immediately project me into SP. Attempting to WILD as you go to sleep is incredibly difficult, pretty much impossible. The stage in which we dream the most and vividly is the REM stage, but this is quite far into sleep. Our brain must go through stages 1-4 first before it can happily slip into REM. Trying to WILD as you go to sleep for the night is like trying to force it into REM. That's why it's best to do it in conjunction with the WBTB (wake-back-to-bed) technique. If you've slept for a few hours and wake up before your longest REM stage (5-7 hours into sleep, according to some, 4-6 according to others), your brain can easily slide into REM/a dream during a WILD. As for keeping yourself conscious to avoid twitching/hypnic jerks, you could use meditation techniques. Focus on your breathing, visualize it. Watch and feel the breath move into your nostrils and down your windpipe, then expanding your lungs, and then out again. Try to imagine that the breath is breathing you. You could also focus on sounds around you. Putting on a quiet fan in your room is a good solution (and also nice in the summer). You could do simple math (like 2 + 2 = 1) in your head, though I've heard this is too much brain activity for some (I kind of agree). I find it best to just imagine what I want to dream about and occasionally I focus on my breaths and/or count them to keep myself from getting too involved with my LD visualizations. Another thing you could try (which I have not tried myself, yet), is to gently hold something in your hand. Not tight, you want to be relaxed, obviously, but maybe just have a toy or crumpled piece of paper or a pen resting in one of your hands, and focus on it and the sensation of feeling it. That's all I've got for now.

[MeatBag]

Thanks. I am going to try the fan thing because it is hot anyway. To be clear on this, i just focus on the sound of the fan until it goes away? I haven't ever been conscious while i was in paralysis...I'm grasping at straws and just don't really know what should happen or if i am even capable of it...

[Tara]

Don't worry, everyone is capable of being conscious during sleep paralysis, it's just difficult. But we go through it every night, so you always have an opportunity to practice. However, some people don't experience it during a WILD, for whatever reason. It sounds like you had already begun entering a dream with that car scene, maybe you're one of the few folks who doesn't have to bother dealing with SP. But, if you are, I can't totally describe how it feels. It's somewhat different for everyone. I mean, obviously you can't move. And feelings of either heaviness or floating are quite common. It's very easy to tell when you're in SP, you'll never second guess. If it's fairly intense, it can be a bit of a shocker at first, like a paranormal experience. For me, I begin to feel a disconnection with my body. I lose awareness of where my limbs are and it feels like my head is floating around. It feels as though the darkness behind my eyelids is expanding. Then, very suddenly, the SP kicks in and all at once, my body tingles, I hear very, very, very, very loud humming noise that sounds internal rather than external, I feel like I'm sinking into my bed because I'm so heavy, and I feel/hear other sensations and hallucinations depending on what I'm going to dream about or what I try to visualize. Once the feelings of the real world (i.e. my bed) begin to disappear and the humming stops, I'm left with only sounds of people talking, laughter, birds, the wind in my face, the sensation of sitting in a chair, etc. Then it's time to open my eyes and voila! I'm in a dream and I see and feel where my hallucinations were coming from. Overall, SP is kind of hard to truly explain. It's an amazing experience. A poor man's psychedelic trip, really.

[MeatBag]

I hope you are right about "It sounds like you had already begun entering a dream with that car scene, maybe you're one of the few folks who doesn't have to bother dealing with SP." that. I keep wondering though...why? Why did I spasm and weak up? That is so infuriating...I guess I'll spend my time trying to stop doing that.

[Tara]

Like I said, I'm not sure what the science is behind it. I wish I did though. The only solution is to stay fully conscious, rather than partially conscious or on the verge of unconscious. But you need to stay fully conscious for a WILD anyways, so that's not a problem. Perhaps the reason we jerk and twitch is because part of our semi-conscious brain is aware that we are falling asleep, even though during a WILD we try so hard not to, so it causes us to spasm in order to wake back up and start the WILD process over.