Frustrated & Discouraged

Hi there,

So I've been working on this whole lucid dreaming thing off and on for quite a while now - maybe 4 or 5 months. I've kept a dream journal and actually developed half-decent recall, which, I suppose, is all I can hope for - before starting this endeavor I remembered, on average, maybe 1 or 2 dreams a month, whereas I now remember about 4 or 5 a week.
Anyways, I've been primarily trying to WILD. For various reasons, it just sounds like the best and most reliable method to me. I normally try during an afternoon nap, but I'll also do the wake-up method on occasion. Here's my routine:
I'll lay down in my bed in the most comfortable position I can find, and after getting situated, I'll force myself to be completely still (which is a tad difficult for me; I'm normally a tossy-turny sleeper). During the first 10 minutes or so, I'll sort of just daydream and let my thoughts wander in order to get settled down for sleep. After about 10-15 minutes, I'll usually begin to feel uncomfortable or like I have an itch, but I will ignore it and remain motionless. After a few more minutes go by, I'll often (maybe 40% of the time) start to feel like my bed is slowly spinning, but this sensation usually does not last long.
From all my reading about WILDing, what SHOULD come next is sleep paralysis. However, I'm not sure if I've ever achieved this. While I do sometimes feel odd sensations like my body is getting heavy, or "waves" are going through it, I have never felt that I truly lost control over my muscles. In particular, throughout the entire process I remain in control of swallowing unless I can manage to "distract" myself enough to put it on autopilot, so to speak, which I presume is necessary in order to avoid signaling my body that I am awake. Many times I'll continue to get random itches even after 20 or 30 minutes since lying down, and consequently most of my attempts at WILDing end with me thinking, "I have been itching for 45 minutes, for pete's sake, I'm going to scratch it." It seems that if I were, in fact, in sleep paralysis, then I wouldn't be able to do this, however that has never been the case, even after more than an hour's worth of lying motionless. I do not know what's going on here, but I suspect it's connected to my incredibly low success rate so far.
I also read somewhere that if you've been laying down for a great length of time but have yet to start dreaming, you can open your eyes and you will "wake up" in the dream world. Not for me, though - only real-world eye opening here.
If I do not eventually give up and scratch an itch, reposition, etc, then what usually happens is I will fall into non-lucid sleep out of boredom. This normally happens after 45+ minutes of lying motionless, if I let my mind wander. When letting my mind wander, I often will enter brief non-lucid dream sequences (I would estimate these are probably only 3-4 seconds long), then realize that I am trying to LD and in so realizing pull myself out of them for fear of completely entering a non-lucid dream. I do not feel it is possible to have the realization and remain lucidly in the dream sequence, but maybe this is where I'm wrong.
On the flipside, if I do not let my mind wander and stay focused on my mission, then all I see is the back of my eyelids, and all I hear is the barely-audible hum of my fan. I have never experienced light sequences or hypnagogic imagery in this state.

It hasn't all been failure, though. I did succeed once at WILDing, however, unfortunately, it began with a false awakening, which I presumed to be failure (I NEVER experience false awakenings during normal dreaming), and thus squandered my success. I won't make that mistake again, though :cheeky:

If anyone has any suggestions, I'd really appreciate any advice on what I can do to get my success rate up! Thanks :shadewink: