My experience so far and Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS)

Sorry for the long thread, but I'm new here and I thought this newbie zone would be the best place to post this.

For the last two mornings I have attempted the WBTB technique with little or no luck. This morning I woke up at 3:45 after having gone to bed around 11:15-30 the night before. I drank a lot of water so I naturally would awake to use the restroom, then try to invoke a WBTB.

I wrote what little I could remember about my last dream, but I'm fairly certain it wasn't a lucid dream. The only thing I could remember about my dream was that I was with someone who had been telling me he had a very high chance of become lucid in almost every dream. It was funny because I saw a list of the top ten people in the world that could induce lucid dreaming on themselves, and the person I was with supposedly was number 3 on list. I'm not sure if he told me that or not, and I'm not sure how I knew this because I do not remember any dialog between us.

It sucks because I had a dream where I was most likely speaking with someone who claimed to have incredible lucid powers, but I did not think to do a reality check to become lucid. I guess I need to work on that! :)

So after I made an entry in my dream journal at 3:45, I went to the restroom and drank a little water. I then tried the WBTB technique, and didn't even end up falling back to sleep! I counted my breaths, but I think I was trying a little too hard, and every time I got close to falling back asleep I maybe got a little excited and kept myself awake. Maybe I just have such a high anticipation and excitedness about having a lucid dream that I am making it harder on myself when I should really just be letting myself falling back asleep. What do you think?

Also, I wanted to let you know about something that will likely be an impediment for me in my lucid dreaming attempts. I believe I have had Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS) for 13+ years. It is a condition in which one's legs often get awkward sensations that one can only relieve by moving them. In my case it is an uncomfortable feeling and I have always fallen asleep only after shaking my legs for usually 10-30 minutes to the point where I am so tired that I just must fall asleep. A lot of the LDing techniques demand that one stay completely still while they are focusing breathing or doing other things with their mind. Obviously this poses a problem for me as I have noticed it is very distracting for me to feel this uncomfortable feeling in my legs, and not only do I have to not move them, I also have to not even think about them. It may be something I can overcome by myself, but I also have an appointment to get diagnosed for this issue tomorrow, and I will see what if I can get some medication or advice to deter this problem. Feel free to offer any advice you might on this issue. Also, do you believe it is absolutely necessary to keep all of your body completely still to enter a WBTB dream with high lucidity? More specifically, would it still be possible for me to use a technique suck as WBTB while I move my legs before falling asleep? It is basically second nature for me to move my legs before I sleep by now so maybe it would work.

Finally, I am trying to find an induction technique that might work good for me. I don't really have a clue as to where to start, and was wondering what you thought, and if you had any advice for me regarding which methods to attempt?

Thanks for the help, I look forward to advice from anyone,

The Subatomic Level

Welcome, BTW, if I haven't welcomed you before!

Sounds to me like you got too awake and too excited to be able to fall asleep easily during your WBTB. This happens to me if I stay up for longer than about 8 minutes. Maybe a shorter WBTB period would be good for you. I also find that if I am counting it will keep me awake. So I only count "one...two...one...two..." Just repeating the two numbers. When I feel my mind getting all drifty I stop counting and let my mind wander as I fall asleep.

You may want to try DEILD, as it doesn't require you to lay still for very long at all -- less than two minutes if you do it right. DEILD takes some prep work, but I think is very much worth it because it is the only LD technique that nearly garuntees a LD when done correctly. Here is a link to the tut.

Hope this helps!