Hi everyone, I'm new to these forums. I've had about 4-5 lucid dreams in my life, but after watching Inception, I thought I would try to increase the frequency of my lucid dreams.

In the past, I had only DILDs. However, I've been trying WILD for almost a week now. No luck so far, so I thought I would ask some questions to see if I'm doing anything wrong.

1. Sometimes when I become really relaxed, I get this surge through my body. It's like a hypnic jerk, which I've had before, but that's usually associated with the image of some object flying towards my head In this case, there is no such imagery, it just comes out of nowhere.

The first time this happened was during my NREM sleep. I was trying to WILD right at the beginning of my sleep just to practice. After it happened, I got this feeling that I was falling through my bed. I didn't get any imagery after that though, probably because I couldn't go into REM sleep.

So is this a hypnic jerk or something else?

2. How do I find a time to wake up before my REM cycle? I tried 6.5 and 7 hours in, but then I couldn't get back to sleep because it was pretty close to when I usually wake up (8 hours). Should I go later or earlier? I don't think I would be able to go back to bed later, but maybe it's because I don't have a way of keeping my current room dark. I'll be in my own room at home in a week, so maybe I'll wait until then.

3. I've had semi-dreams before, where I see imagery but still feel myself in bed. However, when I'm attempting WILDs, I can only imagine scenes playing out. It's kind of like daydreaming that doesn't require conscious input. However, I haven't been able to actually see anything while trying to WILD. I haven't even seen shapes or flashes of light.

I'm sure I'll have more questions later, but thanks in advance for any help.