Falling Asleep + Other things

**jbyrnes** · 08-24-2008 04:09 PM

I tried WILDing last night (I was going to try the night before but I had a headache so I basically lost my resolve to just lie there) and I was trying to do a WBTB. I went to bed around 12:30 am and set my alarm for 5:30. What was extremely annoying was that I actually woke myself up at 3:00 a.m. This is highly unusual for me, as I never wake up in the middle of the night.

I was also trying MILD in case I failed in WILD and I can only assume that all the excitement and thoughts about dreams somehow provoked me to wake up. But, when I woke up I had no memory of having dreamed anything at all. I decided that since it was 3 I might as well try to WILD, and if I mess it up, I can just try it again at 5 tomorrow. Well, I ended up lying in my bed for around 75 minutes, eventually feeling what I thought was a significant feeling of SP and at times a very small side to side rocking motion that happened, subsided, came back later, then left again. I never really felt like I saw any imagery or heard any auditory hallucinations. The only sensation of "strange lights" I had when I closed my eyes was what I normally have whenever I close my eyes at any time, so I attributed it to that. I tried visualizing dreamscapes but eventually I figured that waking up at 3:00 a.m. had screwed with the entire process and I basically gave up. I looked at my clock and it said 4:15 so I left my alarm set for 5:30 to see if waking up at that time might help, and I figured I'd give it another go.

This time, I woke myself up at 5:15 am (again, I never wake up in the middle of the night, and I attribute this to excitement about dreams), but at that time I had been dreaming. I hadn't realized I was dreaming in that dream, I just spontaneously woke up. I'm not sure if I had been dreaming at 3, but if I did I had no recollection of it.

At this point I was extremely uncomfortable in my bed and had no mental will power to actually try WILDing, so I figured I would turn off my alarm and just go to sleep.

After that, I ended up having a short DILD. I'm in no way experienced with this, so I had limited control. I found that my normal expectations of the world greatly affected my ability to act. But I'm not completely sure how logical I was being, though I felt fairly reasonable. I tried going through a brick wall, but was unsuccessful. At that point in the dream, I reasoned that I was inhibiting my dream actions by having expectations as though I was int he real world, and i figured I should just try to enjoy the lucid dream a little more before practicing to overcome my normal expectations. Another thing I noticed was that I was constantly wondering (wait, is this okay to do?). Sometimes I just wouldn't do something because I was worried about the consequences, despite the fact that I was aware that it was a dream. I think at this point I probably didn't have a full ability to reason. I heard in the dream my mother and nephew walking down the stairs and was worried that they might wake me up from my Lucid dream. I wasn't sure whether or not they were a dream noise or an outside noise incorporated into the dream, but I felt like it could go either way. So I decided to try to avoid the noise in the dream in the hopes that it wouldn't effect me as a result.

Eventually that faded and I went to my kitchen upon which I saw a donkey and instantly woke up. I think there was a significantly reduced ability to think and reason in this dream as well as strong inhibitions taken from my pre-existing knowledge of the waking world. Does anyone have any tips for overcoming that? I was in my house the entire time and never thought to try to go anywhere else, which was probably lack of experience and lack of full mental abilities. And I had caught myself losing a full mental picture of the world partway through the dream and started to spin around to help, and that seemed to solidify everything. But the second time with the donkey was a near instantaneous jolt out of the dream. I didn't really expect to have a DILD so I wasn't prepared to enter the dream without being mostly aware, so I probably didn't make very strong mental preparations to make sure that I was being logical and thinking things through, which I hope to practice.

After I woke up I kept going back to sleep and seeing if i could have another DILD, but I just kept having normal dreams, waking up, going back to sleep, normal dreams.

Anyway, does anybody have any tips on WILDing, falling to sleep, any of the other stuff I mentioned?

Lately I've been having some trouble getting to sleep normally and the only way I can consistently fall asleep is trying this meditative practice. After gaining sufficient focus on my breath, I switch my focus to the idea of a spinning, glowing, white disk located in my heart. It works very well to help me fall asleep, but I'm not sure if it would help me fall asleep if I tried to maintain active awareness of it, as whenever I maintain a strong active awareness I can't seem to fall asleep at all. When I think of the disk I know I have the intention of going unconscious so I'm not in any way trying to stay aware.

That's all I have for now, I'll share more when I experience it.

**adraw** · 08-24-2008 07:43 PM

Hello jbyrnes

I finished reading your topic and recalled my own memmories on that subject.The same happened to me really often becouse of the excitement which accompanies most of the attempts.

Yet i cannot give you much information about what you actually ask. You have pretty a good understanding of wild yourself.

If I might help you, it could be with the way, how you write your posts:

1. If you have many questions, It is good to summarize them at the end, so the people may see them and also quote them easily.

2. And also making the text more structured makes it more readable.

3. Dont ask people on tips. People tend to answer when they exactly know what is expected from them.

Sorry about this kind of answer. Hope something of this helps you.

**jbyrnes** · 08-25-2008 04:49 PM

Back again.

I tried inducing a WILD again but am coming up with the same problem. If I'm paying attention to what I'm thinking, or even if I just keep track of counting, I can't fall asleep. I ended up lying in bed for two hours, completely conscious and not asleep.

Just to make a note, both of these past nights I've been fully aware and remember waking up after each dream and then going back to sleep (each dream I remember anyway). Based on the timing of when I'm waking up (seems about every 90 minutes) I would say it's after each REM cycle, but I wouldn't know this for sure. I'm not sure if this information is important, but I thought I'd mention it.

I was able to recall 2 of the 3 dreams of the night (I only have a few vague impressions of the first one) but I didn't actually fall asleep again after the third dream because I was trying to WILD. I tried to MILD before going back to sleep, but I wasn't as concentrated on the task because I was tired.

In addition, I'm questioning whether I was experiencing any kind of sleep paralysis. I'm fairly certain that my body is simply feeling numb/heavy but I have the full ability to instantly move my entire body as I wish.

This is a summary of my sleeping last night.

-Lay down to sleep
-Relaxation Exercise (Tensing and Relaxing Muscles)
-Strong MILD effort
-Some Difficulty Getting to sleep (Not trying to WILD)

90 MINUTES OF SLEEP

-Wake up.
-Only Vague Impressions of Dream (Tried to remember more, couldn't)
-Very tired. Weak MILD effort.
-No Difficulty Getting to sleep (Not trying to WILD)

90 MINUTES OF SLEEP

-Wake up.
-Conscious memories of dream (Wrote down in Dream Journal)
-Moderately Tired. Moderate MILD effort.
-Little Difficulty Getting to sleep (Not trying to WILD)

60 MINUTES OF SLEEP

-Wake up.
-Confident memories of dream (Wrote down in Dream Journal)
-Slightly tired. No MILD effort
-Inability to get back to sleep while attempting to WILD

~120 MINUTES OF LAYING IN BED CONSCIOUS, NOT SLEEPING

-Give up WILDing.

My questions are-

-What kind of mental state should I be in while trying to WILD? Fully focused on counting/breathing? Only vaguely aware of counting and let my imagination go?

-Could taking sleeping pills help if I try to remain concentrated despite side affects?

-Would it be better to attempt to WILD earlier or later in the sleep cycle? I feel like trying to WILD will have the benefit of increased fatigue, but I know that there are longer breaks between REM cycles earlier in the sleeping cycle. I'm worried I'll be waiting for a long time even if I'm successful, and get too discouraged and give up, especially considering I'd probably be less motivated because I'm tired.

-One question about Hypnagogic Imagery. Can it be similar to just letting your mind wander excessively? How intense is it compared to normal dreaming? I might have had some Hypnagogic Imagery while attempting to WILD but I'm not sure if it was just my mind wandering, and I don't know how to tell the difference between just consciously imagined images and Hypnagogic Imagery.

**The Subatomic Level** · 08-25-2008 10:57 PM

Originally Posted by jbyrnes

-Would it be better to attempt to WILD earlier or later in the sleep cycle? I feel like trying to WILD will have the benefit of increased fatigue, but I know that there are longer breaks between REM cycles earlier in the sleeping cycle. I'm worried I'll be waiting for a long time even if I'm successful, and get too discouraged and give up, especially considering I'd probably be less motivated because I'm tired.

I could be wrong, but from what I've read you actually have longer REM cycles later in the sleeping process. So after your 4th or 5th dream, it is best to try inducing a WILD. I too have had problems falling asleep when trying to WILD. The last two nights are the first times I have tried to WILD, and I have so far been unsuccessful. I get close to a state that you have described, but then I think I get a little excited and wake myself back up, as opposed to just relaxing and letting myself fall asleep. I would try to stay focused on simply staying as relaxed as possible. At least that is what I'll be trying tomorrow morning. Good Luck on your next attempt!

**jbyrnes** · 08-26-2008 03:27 PM

Back again.

As a result of not getting a lot of sleep the night before I was pretty tired yesterday so I decided to take 3mg of melatonin to make sure that if I kept waking up in the middle of the night I'd be able to get to bed more easily and actually get a decent night's rest.

This time I woke up around 4.5 hours after I went to sleep so I figure I slept straight through some REM cycles or had an exceptionally long period of non-REM sleep. The first seems more likely to me, but I don't actually know.

Alright, so I remembered the dream that time. I went to start writing it down, but then I realized that if I wanted to try WBTB (because I felt more tired than usual) I should just stay in bed and not wake myself up to write the dream down. But by the time I realized that I had already woken myself up quite a bit. And after that I had trouble getting myself to stay still because I felt much more restless than I usually do. It probably had something to do with the higher than normal temperature.

Regardless, I didn't manage to LD at all, and I figured I should just sleep as much as possible and get back on a normal schedule, so whenever I woke up I just went straight back to sleep.

From now on, given that I have so much difficulty getting back to sleep when WILDing, I'm not going to write down my dreams when I wake up and try to WILD, only when I wake up before or after attempting (unless I try it again I suppose).

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