Quote Originally Posted by TheSatyricon View Post
I read in several articles that before your first REM period you enter a stage of deep sleep. How is it possible to keep your awareness from the transition from awake to asleep when there is a long period of deep sleep between in between?

I've spent the last few months doing lots of meditation to improve my awareness and mental discipline, and so far I never got lucid with WILD. I had about 7 DILDs but those were totally random and accidental (RCs have never worked for me).
This is why WILDing upon first going to sleep is very difficult and most dreamers use WBTB (WILDing after several hours of sleep) and naps (WILDing while the REM period is still fresh in the mind...1-8 hours after waking in the morning). I haven't WILDed upon first entering sleep enough to give any advice (from experience), but I'm guessing it is possible (though difficult) to skip this deep sleep stage initially. I haven't had muc success at all WILDing upon entering sleep (happened twice, but it was accidental and I hadn't had much sleep the night before), but there are some LDers on this site who have achieved it many times.