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Lurked around for few weeks, decided to make an account
heard about LD a year ago, and has been successful only a handful of times, without any technique, mainly by thinking 'I will have a lucid dream...'
skip to 2 weeks ago, when I decided to try lucid dreaming again, using the WILD method, but I'm unable to achieve sleep paralysis; Half the time I get a knee jerk reaction, or just fall asleep completely
any tips?
First off, Welcome to DreamViews! Well, it is very difficult to have WILD success if you performing them at the start of sleep. I strongly suggest you perform WILDs with WBTB (generally after 4-7 hours of sleep) or during day time naps (1-8 hours after waking in the morning). When have you been attempting your WILDs?
Hello Neraken. :)
As Yoshi said, WILDs are often much more succesful if you combine the method with WBTB. Try setting an alarm for four and a half hours after you think you'll fall asleep. When you're woken by the alarm, stay up for 20 minutes (get a drink, read something (reading about LDing is good), etc), then go back to bed and try to WILD.
Two of your problems seem to be the jerking and the falling asleep completely;
- The jerking of certain limbs (I get the knee ones too) is just the mind's way of checking if the body's fallen asleep yet. You're doing it (WILD) right if you get these, just don't respond to the jerks and you should continue to get to sleep paralysis - eventually, it will set in, providing your mind isn't too focused. From there, you can enter a lucid dream.
- To combat the falling asleep problem, use an anchor. An anchor can be anything you can draw your attention to - a physical sensation, a mental image, and so forth. One good example would be lightly taping too fingers together and keeping your attention on the sensation - don't do it too heavily though. You need to be aware of it, but not fully focused on it. If you're fully focused on it your mind will be too active for you to sleep. If you're simply aware of it, however, your mind should stay awake enough for only your body to fall asleep. As a result of this you'll enter sleep paralysis.
I hope I've helped you! If you're in need of additional assistance, you might want to check the Wiki on the top. It has loads of great information, that's where I learnt most of the stuff I know about LDing from. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions! Good luck. :D
Thanks for the advice, so far I've been trying to LD during my normal sleep hours (which as a college student isnt very normal at all...) with not much success, so maybe a few naps are in order. I used to get sleep paralysis all the time while sleeping in class during high school (head on top of arms) without any effort so I don't know why it's so difficult in bed