Having Difficulty.

[lifeinsteps]

For the past week or so I have been trying to induce a lucid dream with several different WILD techniques that I've read on this forum and also in Stephen LaBerge's book, "Lucid Dreaming: A Concise Guide to Awakening in Your Dreams and in Your Life". These include several of Jeff777's techniques (e.g. sleep paralysis induction and his Free Falling technique). While I find that the techniques generally tend to work, I have a difficult time pulling them off without an intense amount of effort. As a general list: I go to bed at about 10:00 PM every day. I have an alarm set to wake me up at 5:00 or sometimes 4:00 AM and have experimented with other times. I have a second alarm set to wake me up at 7:00 AM for good so I can get ready for school. I sleep in a bed, in a dark room. My issue, however, tends to be that I am by nature a very anxious person. I tned to have a rather immense difficulty keeping myself under-wraps and quiet. I'll find that after a bit my eyes will have an intense urge to open. My legs will start to tense up and I will begin to feel the need to move. While I can fight most of these things off for a pretty decent amount of time, sometimes the bits add up and I feel that I am pushed to the edge and must respond to my body's call to move and awaken. One of my most major issues is random muscle spasms. I'll be lying there trying to fall asleep when suddenly my leg or arm will begin to twitch. Usually it's not much a battle to simply ignore the spasm, but sometimes it can cause me to really lose focus. The other thing I fight with a lot is trying not to swallow. Even if I attempt to divert my focus to the task at hand, or something that I'm just doing to keep my mind awake while my body falls asleep, (Multiplication, Other forms of simple math, counting) I can't help but accidentally pay attention once more to my dire need to swallow. Perhaps someone could give me some ideas about things I could do to combat a few of these problems? I realize that because of my nature WILDing is not gonig to be the easiest form of lucid dream induction for me. I am also making sure to do constant reality checks during the day, and trying to make sure I live more externally so that I will notice if something in my environment seems strange. I hope that I will eventually be able to DILD since WILDing has been such a problem. I'm just trying to learn both at the same time, however.

[Arch]

1. WILDs are the hardest method of lucid dreaming. 2. You've only been trying for a week, come back after a month and tell my you've had no progress! 3. Don't focus, relax, transitioning is very difficult because it's so hard to relax when you want to achieve something, chill out. 4. If your spasming your either thinking about it, and then it happens, or its just what you do - so dont think about it! I wouldnt really read a book or focus on any guides too much, as its all very similar, and its different for each person. If you are good at visulizing then try and picture a dreamscape after SP. If your not, try to fall asleep and stay aware. Do you get to SP? Ignore your body, it's just trying to ruin the fun.

[Ctharlhie]

Slightly negative feedback, Arch, should Lifeinsteps just give up because he's been trying for a week? Do you think people should wait for success? But otherwise, as Arch said, just chill out. You're trying to fall asleep, first and foremost. You can always 'try too hard'. I suggest that you try some relaxation or meditation before your attempt (the cd with the book you mentioned is pretty good) try to bring your focus away from your body, because you're trying to 'transition' from external attention to internal attention, and some people aren't aware of sleep paralysis when they WILD as they're already switched to that internal focus. There's a guide in the Stephen Laberge book called the dream lotus and flame technique, or something similar, that instructs you too visualise a lotus flower in your throat. I'm not a fan of that particular visualisation as it brings rather too much attention to the throat and makes me what to swallow more but visualisations are good for drawing your thoughts away from your body. I've experimented with visualising myself walking my room, having WILDed, engaging my senses. I think that's a good approach as it not only brings my attention inward but is also motivational as it shows the goal of the WILD.

[angie746]

[QUOTE=Ctharlhie;1733852]Slightly negative feedback, Arch, should Lifeinsteps just give up because he's been trying for a week? Do you think people should wait for success? I think he's saying that a week isn't long enough you need to try for longer than a week, maybe a month or so then if it's still not working come back and let us know..I usually say try each technique for about a month or so and if that doesn't seem to be working then try another

[lifeinsteps]

Thanks for the comments and replies, guys! I understand that a week is not all that long to have tried WILDing. I just thought I would try and ask about some of these things as I continued my practice to see if there were any insider tips to getting the hang of a few of these things. I will more than likely continue trying to have a wake initiated lucid dream for a couple months, and only then if I don't have any progress whatsoever will I stop and switch techniques. Until then I like my little method of trying and if I don't do so well, falling asleep with the increased hope of DILDing. I'll try and ignore my body a little more bluntly. I just become a little bothered by my natural spasms and anxiety. Hopefully with some practice I can learn to just either calm down or tune it out for the purposes I require. Throwing a few visualizations in surely shouldn't hurt, and thanks for the idea!

[Ctharlhie]

Thanks for the comments and replies, guys! I understand that a week is not all that long to have tried WILDing. I just thought I would try and ask about some of these things as I continued my practice to see if there were any insider tips to getting the hang of a few of these things. I will more than likely continue trying to have a wake initiated lucid dream for a couple months, and only then if I don't have any progress whatsoever will I stop and switch techniques. Until then I like my little method of trying and if I don't do so well, falling asleep with the increased hope of DILDing. I'll try and ignore my body a little more bluntly. I just become a little bothered by my natural spasms and anxiety. Hopefully with some practice I can learn to just either calm down or tune it out for the purposes I require. Throwing a few visualizations in surely shouldn't hurt, and thanks for the idea! I get where you're coming from with the anxiety, when I try to WILD I have to suppress worries about thrombosis from lying still so long, even though that's entirely irrational :/

[lifeinsteps]

I get where you're coming from with the anxiety, when I try to WILD I have to suppress worries about thrombosis from lying still so long, even though that's entirely irrational :/ Haha, I find myself plagued by often irrational fears myself, quite often. I can't say that thrombosis is necessarily one that has bugged me before. Last night I attempted to WILD once more but I was so worn out that I woke myself up by alarm at 4:00 and promptly sat up. Then I fell back asleep because I was just too tired to force myself to actually get up and focus on doing something else to actually wake up completely. It was kind of depressing. Try and try again!

[AD0123]

I am having trouble with WILD as well but I read when going into sleep paralysis and when in sleep paralysis that muscle twitching is normal. If your muscles twitch it is your body's way of testing if you are paralyzed. Different body parts will twitch that need to be further paralyzed. I think if you resist this then it might make you more tense and make things more difficult.

[Playlaughdream]

I am having some difficulty with WILDs too especially regarding dream control but in the case here maybe if you use other method like DEILD, waking up at 4 or 5 am, remembering your last dream and remaining motionless with a pleasant image in mind, you will feel very relaxed and this may trigger lucidity in some people. It is a lot more relaxing and in harmony with "normal" sleep.