Thread: help with sleep paralysis

elaborating on this, this morning I woke up about an hour and a half before I needed to be up and I thought that it would be the perfect chance to try WILD. Normally I try it at night or during a nap because I have a really complicated sleep cycle from being a college student and such. I woke up and walked around for 10 or 15 minutes and then I laid down and tried to enter sleep paralysis and I ended up just laying there. I don't know if the problem is that I am having trouble clearing my mind of everything or if it is because I cannot curb my urge to swallow. Usually i start to swallow and then stop myself midway. I still feel super relaxed and have the tingly feeling still, but I have gotten nothing more then a swirling colors and a few auditory hallucinations like a whisper or the sound of rustling. I have always had problems sleeping because I cannot clear my mind. If anybody has ANY tips at all please help. I have been experimenting with trying to LD for a few days now, but over the weekends I usually drink and don't remember my dreams. Also my weekend sleep schedule is horrible from partying all night.

I'm not 100% positive here but I believe you should not be getting up once you wake up, you want to try to induce sleep paralysis as fast as possible. Try waking up next time and try to minimize movement and keep your eyes shut, also try not to think too hard or it will keep you awake.

yeah, my biggest problem is thinking too hard. I did some reading about getting up versus laying in bed and from what I read it didn't seem to matter too much which i did, but next time I will try to remember not to move around too much and see if that works better for me. Like I said, I am just learning about LD so I am willing to try just about anything to find out what will work for me.

You can get out of bed if you want. That's why people do wbtb. But don't worry about swallowing or moving at first. Just keep moving and swallowing untill you get comfortable and you feel like you can fall asleep. And remember that you want to be falling asleep and using an anchor to keep you mind consious enough through the process. Everytime I've gotten SP now, I've been hearing full length songs playing in my head. Its kind of cool because I get to listen to music without headphones haha.

would actually listening to music help? like I close my eyes and my mind just goes crazy. I have been working a lot to at least make my mind go crazy about topics related to lucid dreaming, but I have noticed that when I listen to music quietly when I sleep that I can concentrate on the music more and the thoughts buzzing less. Would music make me unable to enter SP and ultimately LD?

Originally Posted by kauff

would actually listening to music help? like I close my eyes and my mind just goes crazy. I have been working a lot to at least make my mind go crazy about topics related to lucid dreaming, but I have noticed that when I listen to music quietly when I sleep that I can concentrate on the music more and the thoughts buzzing less. Would music make me unable to enter SP and ultimately LD?

What I was saying is that I hear music during sp sometime. I'm not actually listening to music, its just a thing that has been happening to me during sp. Although I got lucid in a FA because I fell back asleep listening to music, and the music transfered to my dream and I recognized that. But it was too short of a lucid.

yeah I understood what you meant, but I with me never having LDs before I don't want to try listening to music and falling asleep if it's going to make it harder for me, ya know. lol.

Ok, yea I haven't tried getting into sp while listening to music. I mean you can probably listen to music and LD but it might transfer into the dream and be annoying. But I don't know if one can use music as an anchor to help you get into sleep paralysis. I mean for me it would probably keep me awake but I might give it a try now.

so I just had another unsuccesssful night of attempts to reach SP. The most I got was a tingly feeling in my arms and legs. I'm pretty frustrated because I attempt every night when I go to sleep and again after every time I wake up. I'm going to try to attempt during a nap today because the first time I tried I got the best results and it was during a nap, but I was also sleeping with somebody. I think I am going to try to find a way to record my breathing and listen to it during an attempt because I noticed last night that I would focus on breathing, then I would start to shift focus to my thoughts, then back to my breathing and I think that possibly all of the changes in my breathing rhythm may have something to do with it.

Are you trying during wbtb or as your first falling asleep for the night?

I usually try just as I am going to bed and I generally wake up after my dreams and I try then and I also have an alarm set to wake me up 5-6 hours into my sleep and try again then. The only time I was semi-successful was when I tried during a nap but I have been too busy the last week with college so I haven't been able to try during a nap. The nap was also my first time attempting and I am pretty sure I brought myself out of it, it WAS the first time and I didn't really know what to expect. It kind of scared me at first and I think that was why i didnt complete the process, now i know a little bit more of what to expect.

I would say to just forget about trying it before going to bed because that is even harder because youd have to go through your deep sleep cycle. Then after your deep sleep you would finally hit your rem. I think it would just be hard to stay conscious during deep sleep. But some can do it.

Sometimes when I try to enter SP, I suddenly get a overpowering urge to swallow, like a gag reflex almost. Maybe because my throat's so dry after breathing through my mouth for a while? Anyways, the best advice one can give is to just swallow. If you're relaxed, SP will still come. If you fight the swallowing, you'll just get tense and worked up, focusing on it too hard, and SP won't come.

So i tried to take a nap and induce SP today. I never reached full paralysis. I laid in my bed for 2 and a half hours. When I finally decided to give it up, my fingers were kind of frozen in a funny position so I know that I had reached partial paralysis, but for some reason I just cant reach full paralysis.