Thread: Many attempts and weird sensations but nothing happens? Suggestions?

I've been attempting to WILD for several months now. I've read a lot about it over several years even, but I've never really attempted to do this or other types of lucid dreaming because it has seemed like too much effort before. Especially if I would have to do a routine frequently while I'm awake.

Well anyway I decided to start trying to WILD around august of 2012... and I've attempted at least 30 times since then, but never once have I entered a dream yet? I guess I am doing something wrong but I'm not really sure what it is.

The procedure is something like: find a time where I have a few hours that I don't need to do anything, then get in bed and find a comfortable position. Then try not to move and try to let my thoughts wander to whatever I feel like but remember to keep thinking about things to avoid going unconscious. The first 10~20 minutes usually go something like me trying to fight off itching and other weird sensations of wanting to move. This time is somewhat annoying but I try to stay relaxed and usually after that I'm able to forget about these sensations and get into a completely relaxed state.

Then after about 20~30 minutes I usually start to lose sensation of different parts of my body, starting with my arms/legs. They just get more numb until the point where they're completely numb. I continue mentally as I did before most of the time, just thinking of various things, sometimes from my life or something from imagination. A few times (5?) I've tried focusing specifically on a single scene and trying to "build" it in my mind and remember all parts of it. This works but it's still only conceptual. Also during this time I get occasional sensations of movement (i.e. falling or accelerating) but they usually only last 10-20 seconds. I also sometimes get sensations of feeling like I'm a very large or very small scale compared to my room, the earth, etc., I just forget about all scale differences.

If I allow this to continue, eventually my entire body becomes totally numb and it feels like I no longer have a body at all. I stop being aware of all of my senses at this point. It usually feels like I was suddenly "submerged" under a blanket that takes away all sensation. The first few times this happened I was somewhat excited because it felt like this is where I would begin having a dream, but every single time nothing at all happens? I've gotten to this state at least 10 times in my attempts, and the same thing always happens: I just see a dark void and feel/experience nothing other than my thoughts, but they don't turn into an experience, they just remain thoughts as normal. It sometimes feels like I don't remember how to control or "get back into" my actual body anymore and I've wondered if this is sleep paralysis at times. But still, during this entire time I never have any kind of visual or auditory experience. I usually wait through 5 to 10 minutes of this before attempting to move my body to wake myself up because I just get tired of it.

I've tried doing it at different times of day, lying in different positions, listening to music while I do it, using ear plugs (sometimes the sounds just make it so I can't relax this far), after I've woke up, before I go to sleep at night, etc. I've tried not thinking about anything, I've tried thinking about random things that my mind decides, and I've tried thinking about a specific scene. And still always find myself going into the same state of "dark void with no sensations of anything".

So I am just wondering if there's something I'm doing wrong? Am I trying too hard to stay conscious?

I've noticed that sometimes as I'm normally falling asleep I consciously notice myself going into a dream, but usually I either do not realize it is a dream and think that I'm doing something in reality, or I just wake up as soon as I realize that it is actually a dream. Going into these sort of dreams seems to be more like what I would want to happen while trying to WILD, but every time this happens I feel like I go completely unconscious first and would not have any way to remember that I was actually entering a dream.

Any suggestions and telling me if I'm doing this right or not would be helpful. Thanks.