I Felt So Close!

[BamaDreamer]

Ok, so I'm still fairly new to DV and LD's, so far have only had one. Last night, I decided to try the WILD technique both when initially going to bed and after a one burst non repeating alarm woke me up (without me having to turn it off) about 6 hours after I went to sleep. I stayed up til about 3 in the morning so I figured the intense exhaustion would enable me to have a good shot even at my initial sleep attempt. I used the 61 points of relaxation technique upon laying down and it worked amazingly well. I didn't expect it to be so calming and I will be honest it surprised me how a little concentration can make that much of a difference. I noticed SP settling in but I continued to focus on each point in the technique, resisting the urge to let my mind wander to other thoughts and not rushing through the points but feeling fully aware and almost a pressure on a point before moving on to the next one. I started to see a light move around in front of me. My eyes were closed but it seemed as thought the light was intensifying. It turned into a person, as if they were walking around in front of me at a distance. My field of view could see the entire figure with space above and below them (as if they were 10ft or so in front of me). They walked back and forth, then got close and I could make out minor facial features. I took this as the sign that I was lucid and I attempted to "get up" like moving my arm without actually moving my physical arm and opening my "dream eyes". The light faded back into a normal shape, and I opened my real eyes to notice that the light was a slight creeping of light from my window from outside. I did an RC and realized that I had actually woken up, no FA and I wasn't dreaming. WHAT DID I DO WRONG??? Should I have continued with the 61 points of relaxation while I saw these images, was I not quite lucid yet or was there another option for transitioning that I could have done?

[PercyLucid]

Wow, you were very close!!!! Great job. As a personal advice, do not induce loss of sleep to lucid dream, that is not healthy. You do not want to screw your inner clock, specially, if you are trying to lucid dream. And what happened probably is that you put too much effort on it. Trying to hard can lead to failure. WILD is awesome, but if you want to lucid dream easier, I recommend you the MILD technique. Is my fav technique and it does not require loss of sleep or waiting for SP. Welcome to DV!!! Feel free to send me a PM if you have questions!

[Mancon]

Great job! Sounds like you were really close to getting in the dream! How long was the HH going on? You have to wait for it to become a complete dream scene, which for me usually take 5-10 minutes after HH starts. If that is still not working you can always try VILD, which you can read about here. Just scroll down to the Visualization WILD section. Good luck!

[BamaDreamer]

Thanks for the replies guys! I love this helpful community! PercyLucid-----It was more of the other way around, I'm somewhat of a night owl if I don't have anything to wake up early for the next day, so I was already up that late doing other things, and when I realized how tired I was I decided to attempt a WILD upon initially going to sleep because I was already exhausted, LOL. Mancon-----DANGIT! after reading your reply, I know I tried to early. I have experienced SP almost every night since I've started working with LD's, but I never got to the HH portion, so when I finally got there it kind of freaked me out and surprised me so I jumped the gun on trying to enter the dream. I have already pulled up a separate tab with your link in it so as soon as I make this post I will have a look and become more educated! Again, thank you so much for all of your replies and help so far. I'm sure anyone could lucid dream eventually but I feel since I found this site my progress has already taken off at much faster rate than if I were trying to go at it alone. THANKS!