Pushing it and being pushed

Hi all!

I'm new to the scene but I'm pretty determined to achieve lucidity. It mainly came about after seeing Waking Life, I thought it was a fictional concept and started questioning friends and family about it and some had experienced it.

So I've been trawling the site and gathered that I most likely have but didn't remember. I'm an avid dreamer and have a catalogue of vivid dreams I can pull on 10 years after the fact, and I'm always amazed by dreams, mainly for being able to create concepts and scenarios outside what I thought to be my scope of knowledge.


Anyway I started with dream recall on Thursday, going to sleep saying, "I will wake up, and remember every dream" and had a lot of success. I've been trying to drill reality checks into myself as well. So boosted by this I tried to MILD last night, repeating, "When I'm dreaming I'll know that I'm dreaming" and visualising becoming lucid (once when I went to bed and once when I woke up), but it was one of those occasions where sleep for five hours and it feel like only a moment has passed, and I didn't remember a single dream either. I'm guessing I pushed it too soon and should stick with Dream Recall practise for a couple of weeks (?)

I also have one question I haven't been able to find the answer to. Fairly regularly when I'm falling to sleep my body goes into paralysis, but it feels like it's more than that, specifically it feels like there's an invisible sheet of wood falling on me with the weight of a lorry, pushing me down and trying to suffocate me. I'm always terrified and fight it like crazy, I can usually only move my eyes if that. After a few seconds of what feels like I'm really pushing I manage to break out of it (and usually can't sleep for a while afterwards). I'm guessing there's a logical explanation.

Thanks

Quote:

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Originally Posted by iarpo

I also have one question I haven't been able to find the answer to. Fairly regularly when I'm falling to sleep my body goes into paralysis, but it feels like it's more than that, specifically it feels like there's an invisible sheet of wood falling on me with the weight of a lorry, pushing me down and trying to suffocate me. I'm always terrified and fight it like crazy, I can usually only move my eyes if that. After a few seconds of what feels like I'm really pushing I manage to break out of it (and usually can't sleep for a while afterwards). I'm guessing there's a logical explanation.

Thanks

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Hi Iarpo, welocme to the forum. So, lets get to your question.

That sounds exactly like sleep paralysis. Sensations of suffocation, and weight above you are normal (feel free the read up on the "Old Hag" myth). Rest assured they are normal and nothing to split hairs about; just part of sleep paralysis and have happened to you every night of your life.
It sounds like you may have been trying to WILD (Wake Initiated Lucid Dream), in which case here is a tutorial:

Adam's Wild Technique

Quote:

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Originally Posted by iarpo

Hi all!

I'm new to the scene but I'm pretty determined to achieve lucidity. It mainly came about after seeing Waking Life, I thought it was a fictional concept and started questioning friends and family about it and some had experienced it.

So I've been trawling the site and gathered that I most likely have but didn't remember. I'm an avid dreamer and have a catalogue of vivid dreams I can pull on 10 years after the fact, and I'm always amazed by dreams, mainly for being able to create concepts and scenarios outside what I thought to be my scope of knowledge.


Anyway I started with dream recall on Thursday, going to sleep saying, "I will wake up, and remember every dream" and had a lot of success. I've been trying to drill reality checks into myself as well. So boosted by this I tried to MILD last night, repeating, "When I'm dreaming I'll know that I'm dreaming" and visualising becoming lucid (once when I went to bed and once when I woke up), but it was one of those occasions where sleep for five hours and it feel like only a moment has passed, and I didn't remember a single dream either. I'm guessing I pushed it too soon and should stick with Dream Recall practise for a couple of weeks (?)

I also have one question I haven't been able to find the answer to. Fairly regularly when I'm falling to sleep my body goes into paralysis, but it feels like it's more than that, specifically it feels like there's an invisible sheet of wood falling on me with the weight of a lorry, pushing me down and trying to suffocate me. I'm always terrified and fight it like crazy, I can usually only move my eyes if that. After a few seconds of what feels like I'm really pushing I manage to break out of it (and usually can't sleep for a while afterwards). I'm guessing there's a logical explanation.

Thanks

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Welcome to DreamViews,

Yeah it helps to not try to many things or try to hard, even just examining your dream journal and learning from your dreams and the way they feel can bring great lucid dreams.

You described SP (sleep paralysis) and yeah it's completely normal usually people have to go through that well doing the WILD technique, it's caused because your own mind doesn't want you to act out your dreams

Hey guys, cheers for filling me in - I usually really freak out but next time I'll try just going with it.

I've been doing a Reality Check every time I pass through a door way as well as drilling Dream Recall into my brain and I think I made some progress last night; although my recall is sketchy I'm pretty sure I have vague recollections of lucidity - nothing concrete I know but I felt pretty encouraged.
Plus I'm waking up after most REM cycles now (I'm really glad that's not as disruptive as I thought).

So yay!...and time for bed now :boogie: