Can't LD =(

Sorry for the long post =X. If you don't want to read it, you can jump to my questions in the end of it ^^.

I've tried to LD a lot in the past (some years ago), and never succeeded... last week I probably had one. I realized I started to question what was happening in my dream... that couldn't be "normal". Finally, in the 5th scene of my dream I just looked closely and said "Wait... I'm dreaming. It's a LD!!". I looked to the scenario: I was in a beach, and the sand was REALLY shiny; I looked around and saw an wood cabin, my friends (that were with me since the 2nd scene) and an old man (that was pursuing us since the 3rd one) -- this old man wanted to beat me, but he stopped once I noticed I was in a dream, like if he knew I was in control now and he couldn't hurt me. Then I thought "Well, if it's a dream, I can fly". I tried to fly, but I couldn't; so I pretended that there was no gravity and just jumped to let my body float. It worked, but after that I just saw myself going higher and higher quickly: the scenario just zoomed out until I finally saw the wall in my room, awake. That WHOLE scene didn't last even 5 seconds (and I have a feeling -- and I don't know why -- that it did last 4 seconds).

The weirdest thing is that when I realized it was a dream, I started to listen to a nice sound (after I realized it was a sound in Tropico 4 soundtrack, a game I've first played during the afternoon, some hours before going to sleep). I just read -- I don't know where -- that we can't hear music while LD. So I'm almost sure that I listened to that sound; but if I didn't, at least it surely did stay in my mind for hours after waking.

The feeling was awesome. So I googled for LD after that, and two days ago I found this forum. I've read a little of each technique, and kept trying DILD (I'm trying this since a week ago, before finding the forum), but it didn't work yet (I didn't expect to see it working so fast, but DILD doesn't look cool to me, so I quit it already). Since I liked CANWILD technique I decided to give it a try today. But I have some problems with sleeping that don't let me even sleep, much less dream or ldream.

First, I frequently suffer from insomnia. It takes me HOURS to fall asleep sometimes (other times I can't sleep at all). Only when I'm entirely exhausted I can sleep faster (but it still takes more than 30 minutes, usually).
Second, when I sleep, I usually wake up a lot of times during the night (3 - 4 times); some of these times I fall asleep really fast (5 minutes or less), but sometimes it takes 1 hour, or I even can't get asleep again; and so I can't know when I will be in a REM...
Third, I HATE my breath when I wake, so I need to brush my teeth before going back to bed.

When I woke TODAY (2 hours ago), I tried WILD (it wasn't a CANWILD since I didn't use the custom alarm), but applying the idea on CANWILD of not moving (I realized I had awakened the second I did, and didn't move at all, so why not trying?). But instead of falling asleep again, I just woke up totally while trying =/. So I came to my PC for a few minutes, and then returned to bed (since I'm still pretty tired); so, I tried WILD (in this tutorial dreamviews.com/wiki/WILD-Tutorial). Ok, I managed to relax my body, and focused on my mind. I started to count, slowly. My body started to feel the same way our arm feels when we sleep over it. It doesn't look like relaxing to me... my body was better before that feeling. But still I kept counting, imagining each number. For a moment, around number 165, my eyes destabilized and I saw a sunset, but less than 0.5 seconds after that I was again totally awake. I kept counting; the eyes, again, started to move from one side to another, and drawing some lines. But never for more than a second. I tried to imagine that beach I saw in my first LD, and draw the numbers in the wall of the cabin. But after I reached number 800 (it may have taken more than a half hour), I just quit.

My questions about WILD:
1. When you say the body will be paralyzed, what does it really mean? It means that if I try to move, I won't be able to?
2. What "Keeping the mind awaken" means, too? I kept counting, imagining each number, but when my brain wanted to put me to sleep and started to make me forget to imagine the numbers (just count unconsciously), I managed to remember that and start to imagine the numbers again. I don't think I will fall asleep this way =/.
3. Hallucinations... it's not clear to me. It happens even without you opening your eyes, or you only see the hallucinations (when they happen, of course) if you open your eyes? And can we even open the eyes during the process? Wouldn't it make us wake?
4. How long it takes until you finally fall asleep? And, for those who choose the counting technique to keep the mind awaken, which number you usually reach until you fall asleep or quit =P?

Thanks ppl =D.

1. its actually called rem atonia. its to stop sleep walking. with a smidge of effort you can actually move during the process, but you wreck your chances of going to the dream world. best bet is to ignore it. 2. you're doing it right! when you start losing your count, it means you're nearly there. keep yourself aware and you can expect a smooth transition3. the hallucinations are little blobs of colour that appear on your eyelids and gradually take on definite shapes. the more they actually look like something, the closer you are. they're not actually required and i personally don't see them.4 depends on your sleep cycle. with your current plan, it shouldn't take more than a few minutes. the sunset appearing shows that you're nearly there.

Ok thanks ^^. Forgot to ask... is there any problem about day light? Or should I find a way to make my room entirely "dark" during the morning (or the time I try WILD)? Also, I live in a city and a lot of cars keep passing during the night, people screaming, people talking in the apartments next to mine (yeah, students don't sleep...), people playing music during the "morning" (4 am), so there's a lot of noise. Any advice?

daylight can be a problem for some, but if you're close to your next sleep cycle, then you probably won't notice it much. darkness is best, though. playing white noise through headphones can drown out any disruptive auditory stimuli.

Hi Anomymate, welcome to Dreamivews!

Hey, to the contrary to the title, you can lucid dream! You already had LD, as you describe it in your post. When you realized you were dreaming - that is a LD. So, congrats :breakitdown:

It sounds like it was a DILD, so I would keep practicing that and add WILD only after more DILDs.

If you can't fall asleep - have you tried meditation? I just started using this guided meditation track and it puts me to sleep every time, like 5-10 min in, even if I wasn't tired at all.

If you wake up frequently at night - you can use that to your advantage. Most of the time when we wake up like that is between the sleep cycles, right after REM is over. That's the best time to try and recall a dream and write it down, or at least some keywords. RC and repeat your mantra a few times before going back to bed.

If you chose to go with WILD afterall, I suggest you try classic, basic WILD, before switching to a modified WILD. The tutorial you mentioned doesn't talk about being paralysed - and that's for a good reason. SP is not part of lucid dreaming in any way.

Here is a detailed WILD by sageous. It explaines the whole process, including mental preparation, when is the best time for WBTB, why not to pay attention to HH and other important things. WILD

But I would really recommend you concentrate and practice DILD at least for now Induction Methods and Techniques

happy dreams:alien:

Ok, thanks. I will keep trying both, then. I didn't like the idea behind DILD, and I liked WILD. But if you are saying that it will be easier for me if I keep with DILD, I will, I just won't quit WILD for that ^^. I will practice both. About meditation... what guide are you talking about?