Relax...swallow...relax...swallow..relax? Swallow!

First of all I would like to say how great this website is. It really is a dream come true to see such a place that has all the information I need and other people that share the same interest that I have...

...But I've got a problem. A lot of people seem to also have this same issue, and that's the agonizing torture of having to constantly swallow. Now i can relax and stay still completely still for hours but but mentally I'm going insane from the constant urge of swallowing. In addition, my post nasal drip doesn't help the situation out in the slightest. So I know many of you have described tactics on how to relinquish the need of swallowing but I'm interested to know if there is a correlation between swallowing and failure at reaching sleep paralysis. The only few times I've ever reached SP and felt the vibrations was after attempting to consciously bring up the state and dozing of for a while and woke up from a strange dream remembering to keep counting my breaths... But then i swallowed and it ended as soon as it began!

So my main question is: Does swallowing hold you back from reaching a trance state or SP? Or does it not matter and i can continue to swallow before.. and during SP?

Sorry if this question is redundant, I just couldn't find the answers I've been searching for.

The title of this thread made me have dirty thoughts, tehe :cheeky:

Anyway, the best thing to do is try not to think about it :) Or sleep on your side, that helps too. If you want to try something disgusting... You can put a towel on you pillow and let the saliva drip out your mouth. Though frankly, I think drooling's minging.

Good luck mate :P

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Raspberry

The title of this thread made me have dirty thoughts, tehe :cheeky:

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Haha i had a feeling someone would take the title the wrong way. And honestly, the drooling method sounds utterly repulsive, and I'm not that desperate in order to try it.. well not yet at least :lol:

So i guess what your telling me is that im all out of luck and swallowing does effect my ability to reach SP? That sure is a bummer, but I'll try to change positions and work around it rather than fight because I truly believe its the only thing hold me back at this point.

Thanks for your input

Try tilting your head to the side, it allows the saliva to run down your throat and you wont need to swallow anymore :) Try not to eat anything that'll make you salivate before bed, and drink some water before lying down

So last night i attempted to change my position a bit and found that tilting my head did help out but it still was a problem for me. So next I tried to lay down on my side which alleviated the suffering of constantly having to swallow down to a bare minimum. I was very excited, but but also extremely exhausted so i found myself asleep within 5 minutes. Ill attempt it again later in the day and post my results.

Thanks again :D

It's not impossible to WILD on your side or your front; I find it easier to get to SP quickly if I lie down in my usual sleeping position. I suppose my body associates it with sleep more strongly than lying on my back. I never go to sleep on my back.

I do find that when I nap with my head resting on my arm I do sometimes end up with saliva on my arm... but it's nothing severe.

Honestly i find it easier to swallow and itch and stuff eventually youll get so concentrated on your images in your head you'll start to sub consciously swallow - its not bad to swallow.
It's like...if someone says - dont think about breathing. what do you think of? breathing then you cant stop thinking about the fact youre breathing until your mind wanders elsewhere.

Welcome to the forum! :welcome:

this was one of my main problems with WILDs (I don't really try to WILD anymore anyhow)
Try to lay on your side so the saliva can drip out, or, when you are WILDing, just don't think about it, just focus on your goal.
I find that when I meditate, I barely ever swallow...why? because I'm not focusing about not swallowing, then when I think "I haven't swallowed in a while, cool!" I swallow
so just try to focus on the WILD itself :)

If you need to swallow, SWALLOW.
Don't think about it.
Don't get your knickers in a twist and try to fight it, because that will only work against your WILD attempt.

Swallowing shouldn't impede your ability to reach sleep paralysis, as with moving your eyes (another common question people ask is whether they can move their eyes or not). I've done both of these a few times before with no troubles. Like others have said, if you're WILDing on your front or side and you don't want to swallow, you can tilt your head to the side, and perhaps into your pillow a bit so the saliva will drip out. It's not the prettiest thing in the world, but that's how I'd do most of my WILDs. If you sleep on your back, get an extra pillow so there's a bit of a tilt to your head, so the saliva will go down your throat without pooling, therefore causing the urge to swallow.

Once you become relaxed enough (remember that a part of WILDing is also to relax your mind and stay on that line between wakefulness and unconsciousness; it'll help speed up the process), you probably won't even be thinking about swallowing. Same goes with moving your eyes.

Hope that helped!

Just swallow and don't give two shits about it. It's not the swallowing that hurts your progress so much as the thinking. If you were able to completely ignore it altogether it would likely have no effect; at least that's what I've observed, mostly ignoring it has lead to almost no effect.

Thanks to everyone who gave their input, it really helped tremendously :)

But I have great news and not so great news. This morning I awoke around 10:00, got up used the restroom, and went back to my bed to try and WILD from there. I laid down on my side ( Which by the way, it has completely eliminated my swallowing issue) and started to count my breaths. Somewhere in between 100-200 breaths i fell asleep but i awoke in my dream to have a DILD! I remember I was in my school and looked around and everything was very strange and different. I then noticed i was dreaming and went with the flow. I didn't do anything too crazy but i went on an adventure throughout my school and saw how different everything was there. I had my friends follow me around and went down to the basement of my school and there was this eerie kind of stone room down there which turned out to be an opening to a parking lot which was very weird experience. But i remember distinctly on how different my field of vision was. It appeared that everything was closer and kind of warped as if i could see around the sides of my head.

But I tried to WILD again today but It just doesn't seem to be working. The swollowing isnt an issue anymore but i still cant reach any trance state or anything.

This is a description of how my WILD attempt goes:

Breaths Counted

0-40 Find a comfortable position and get the urge to swallow away by swallowing all of the saliva I have in my mouth. Start to feel relaxed.

40-75 My mind is becoming clearer and less busy. Twitching starts to occur in various parts throughout my body.

75-100 Body is feeling pretty warm by now.. I can still feel my body but it feels pretty relaxed.

100-150 Twitching has becoming more widespread and is happening much more frequently spreading from feet to shoulders to legs etc. This twitching becomes extremely distracting i can block out the smaller ones but occasionally there are some that actually moves a body part like a finger will jump or foot will slightly kick out.

150-200 By now I've had some occasional visuals that appear to be hazy and not so vivid but once i realize i snap out of the visual and realize i was in a deep relaxed trance like state but if i didnt jump out of it when i did i would have lost conciousness. Example: I would be me standing in a line of people to get food but theres an obnoxious woman ahead of me who appears to be screaming out the lunch lady if they have any oranges (these visuals appear to be very Blue and Purple in color but really hazy).. or sometimes I'll lose track of my counting by replacing one of the numbers with another word like: 26 becomes "Sound 6" or " Post 6" then i almost lose track of counting.

200-400 From here everything is almost the same. I go in and out of consciousness and everything appears to be a blur. I'm really never sure during this stage if I dozed off for a bit then woke up. My body is extremely warm and this point pretty uncomfortable from staying in the same spot for so long.

So thats usually where I end my WILD attempt after being very frustrated not sure what to do to improve my results of actually reaching a full trance like state or a WILD.

So all in all im very happy I had a DILD this morning. They seem to be occur more and more often now but im still a little heart broken about not reaching a WILD. But based on the imformation I provided, can you guys tell me anything i can improve on.. or possibly something im doing wrong?

Thanks again :)

Sometimes if you attempt a WILD, you can end up having a DILD because you've been trying to stay aware. My guess is that your awareness goes away and you fall asleep, but then at some point there's a "hiccup" where you'll regain that awareness, resulting in a DILD. :)

The twitching is relatively common; it happens to me a lot. It's best to try relaxing as fast as possible, by stretching before lying down, or doing reverse blinking. If you still twitch, try to ignore it. You shouldn't be aware (or trying to be aware) of your body. I tend to look at the back of my eyelids and relax in that way. As for the consciousness, that's the part that you want to be careful with. The objective of a WILD is for your body to fall asleep while you mentally ride the line between consciousness and unconsciousness. It can take some practice, but don't snap yourself out of it - continue to simply observe the scene while maintaining your sense of awareness. This should alleviate the rise and fall in consciousness you're experiencing.

I can see now why so many people say how hard it is to remain in the state between consciousness and unconsciousness. Normally when i start to see those visuals I have complete loss of body awareness, but as soon as i tell myself "Oh no i have to keep watching my breath!" I snap out of it and lose the trance state. So would you say when I reach that stage to just disregard watching my breath and start focusing solely on the visual, observing it and not getting lost within the dreamy sequence? Or is there something else I should be focusing on during that time period to make sure I drift off too far?

Yep, it's important not to snap out of it, but simply maintain passive awareness. You could always try to passively create the dream sequence around you, but don't get too involved because if you focus too hard, you'll snap out of it. You can always simply wait for the dream to form; by this time, you shouldn't worry about your breathing unless you still have some awareness of your body.