Hello. Lost my old account. Anyhow I've cultivated tons of LD's, DILD's mainly. No issue with lucidity. Comes quite easily in fact. LD'd first day I learnt. Since I experience DILD's with no effort. These 2 weeks I've returned to being active in seeking out LDing though. I'm posting like most because I can't WILD. There are only two times I've ever come close.


1)

I had a Polyphasic Sleep Cycle (PSC), stupid, I know. I realize physiologically it's impossible.

Regardless I begun PSC out of desperation. I had Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder (DSPD). Couldn't sleep until 5:00am. Any earlier = Insomnia. Melatonin (light/dark response) wasn't doing it's job and other sleep neurotransmitters as a result. I'd sleep like a brick for 9 hours, which at 5 am is just bloody awful. Made me depressed and often late to work/college (purposefully sleep deprived to make it).

Huge sleep deprivation was the only option as alarms wouldn't wake me in REM Periods (?) (even a 125db alarm). Of course PSC helped me a lot because I could wake up during Deep Sleep (?). Didn't even feel tired, PSC meant I broke up REM periods so intense drowsiness didn't occur.

My first WILD came on the 2nd day of the PSC.

1st nap of the day, 30 minutes, 12am. Plugged in Binaural Beats and hit the sack. I had the most amazing experience ever. Dozed off but the beats kept me aware, out of the blue decks of cards flew out into my FOV with unimaginable vividness. Everything was in slow-mo, it was incredibly odd, a dream starts molding around me, books are flying. I'm suspended backwards, floating, in slow motion as it's forming. I couldn't interact. Just watched like the Matrix as this world formed in lifelike clarity. Then boom I get pulled out.


2)

After my whole PSC experiment, I concluded my sleep was awful. Started taking 200mg 5-HTP and 0.3mg Melatonin at 1am. Cured the whole issue. Melatonin made me tired, 5-HTP increased Seratonin and caused a REM rebound effect, more lucid dreams plus better quality sleep. This didn't stop me feeling drowsy after REM sleep, don't know why that occurs.

I write down 3 dreams a night, 6 sometimes. I thought I'll attempt WBTB. It was great, I could wake 5 hours into sleep. Didn't get extreme drowsiness like before. Any more then 5 hours though and I could barely awaken. Notably though towards the 7-8 hour mark when I awaken, theres intense drowsiness but I'm fading in/out of short vivid/long dreams. WBTB attempts caused insomnia aswell, or horrible constant micro-awakenings during the night. At one of these microawakenings I felt SP (very hazzy/unaware) and a sensation of strangling, this sudden awakening plus nightmare snapped me awake.

Once, I simple wanted to WILD and just woke in SP, utilized that lucky situation and suddenly intricate Hypnagogic Patterns up the wazzoo, it was beautiful. Though I couldn't maintain it and the dream dissipated.


Techniques:

During WBTB I've tried numerous techniques.

Counting:

Effective, but keeps me far too awake, never get SP/Hypnagogia. Got SP with no prior sleep many time thought. The awful part, Insomnia. I fail, I can't sleep. Micro-awakenings the rest of the night. Seems to happen with active WILD techniques. FYI they aren't awakenings, just drifting between sleep and complete wakefulness. A sleep limbo. It's a nightmare. I sleep but chaotically, I don't remember anything just sudden spurts of awareness.

Visualization:

I can't visualize. It's a problem. Outside of LDing I can draw still life perfectly, but not from imagination. When I visualize I'm too detail centric. If it's walking down a staircase, I fixate on clothing, hallway, steps. Throw in physical stimuli, the weight of my feet,a banister it works but only in a vacuum. I become distracted unable to combine all stimuli into one giant image.

Free-Falling:

Should come naturally. My micro-awakenings are often illogical thoughts. But I can't think of Illogical thoughts myself easily. I've waited for illogical thoughts to occur, can't move beyond that, any awareness stops it. I have had horrible episodes where I've awoken and for 30/40 minutes is a persistent stream of illogical thoughts. Followed by the worst headache ever. Had that twice, after bad sleep plus huge amounts of cramming for an exam.


Wrapping Up:

Sorry for the giant sprawl, tried to make it as presentable as possible. My sleep is complicated so without the prologue of problems I don't think you guys would understand where I'm coming from. Any help would be appreciated. I just don't know where to move from here, I've had some success with DEILD but the transition never holds or typically my lucid dreams black out for the latter half even after lucidity (not lucid enough?).

I don't think I've ever had a dream longer then about 5 minutes (in dream longevity). That one experience with PSC was the greatest I've ever felt, I wish I could have it every night. That's literally why I'm intensely interested in WILDing. It was the most profound and vivid dreams I had and after that like some addict I need more .