Fast heartbeat, involuntary blinking, heavy breathing
This became long. I really want responses from WILDers and hope the length won't scare people off who would have otherwise read.
I decided to attempt a WILD again (at 7pm), as I felt tired and that I could sleep easily. I lay for about half an hour, not moving, and my body felt numb. I was swallowing every so often but not too often, and it wasn't a big deal. I was about to give up and move when I decided to give it a few more minutes. I felt extremely uncomfortable and a few minutes later strangely comfortable, numb, but not in paralysis and still aware of my surroudnings. I counted to 100, then decided to focus on my breathing.
It seemed I started sort of reverse blinking unintentionally. I wasn't aware of trying to at all, but I kept seeing flashes of light near the bottom of my vision which seemed to just be the light from my room (because my light was on) appearing when I opened my eyes. I focused on relaxing completely and the blinking didn't go away. I didn't want to actively try to stop it becuase I thought it was possible I was hallucinating or this was some sleep stage that I shouldn't interrupt.
Then, I started to hear a thumping noise which kept getting louder. I realized it was my heart beat, but thought it would make no sense for my heart to beat loudly now, and felt a bit excited that it might be an auditory hallucination. I considered that the blinking was a hallucination too, and I was really just experiencing hypnagogic imagery.
I noticed I was breathing very heavily and deeply too, even though I felt relaxed. This scared me a bit because I've only heard that breathing is supposed to get lighter while asleep, not heavier. I was afraid as my heart started to beat even faster, and the noise was unrealistically loud in my ear. I focused on it and became more and more sure that it really was my heart beating, not a hallucination, and I thought, 'this can't be right...', got scared and sat up. Sure enough, my heart was beating quickly, I was shaking, and until I got on here and begun to type this out my hands were still shaking.
My palms were also sweating. I forgot to mention that during this blinking-heatbeat-beathing thing I also felt very hot under my covers when only a couple minutes ago I had been shivering. I put my ear to my pillow as it had been and could hear my quick heartbeat, but it wasn't nearly as loud, which makes me think it had been a partial hallucination. Can someone plase tell me what they think might have happened? I've been trying to WILD and want to know, if this happens again, whether I should stay with it or if there was something wrong with me.
