Keep falling asleep when attempting WILD

For the past week I've been attempting to do WILD after around 4 or so hours of sleep. When I wake up, I quickly turn off my alarm and stay up for a minute or so. When I'm ready to go back to sleep, I turn over and start counting from 1 to 100. The problem is that I keep falling back to sleep pretty quickly. I don't think I've even gotten past 10 before I fall asleep and wake up 3-4 hours later. Should I try staying up a bit longer so I don't fall asleep so quickly? Also, what exactly am I looking for in this process? I've heard sleep paralysis usually isn't associated with WILD, so I'm not really sure what I should expect.

You should try getting a glass of water, read a few pages of one of your books, or even turning some lights on before attempting to WILD. Whenever I do get the chance to attempt a WBTB I almost always fall by falling asleep. It happens :P. You just need to find your personal perfect time to wake up at, and amount of time you should stay up when attempting WBTB. It's different for everyone and takes some experimenting.

But if you can get lucky and find the perfect balance between awareness and unawareness, you will be able to feel confident that the lucid dream will be coming. Just lay down and relax, but don't completely let your mind drift off. You will probably start seeing colors and lights, and start feeling these numb-like sensations. You probably won't enter sleep paralysis but you might hear noises and feel vibrations. If the dream doesn't come to you after you've been laying down for a while, try to stimulate your senses by using your imagination. Imagine yourself doing something where you can imagine what it feels, hears, looks like etc...

It's quite amazing once you get it because you'll be laying in bed seeing black and weird colours, then BAM. Your vision completely changes to you flying around and shooting guns or whatever else you come up with

Good luck :)

Much of this will be redundant, but why not...

You could try staying up longer, and/or you could try getting in a more uncomfortable position, such as lying on your back. I would stay up longer or resolve not to fall asleep with more emphasis. The danger lies in not being able to sleep if you overdo it, and in my opinion this would be the worse scenario. You need to fall asleep in order to WILD, so it is better to rest and try again another time than to stew there for hours in frustration. Keep experimenting to find the right balance, and don't try too hard. Simply fall asleep with a confident intention to keep just enough awareness to get through to the other side.

The answer to your next question is a long one; so I suggest checking out some of the tutorials that explain this in detail. The short answer: don't worry because you can't miss it. Any number of sensations may or may not arise; if you are using imagery, then the images will become realistic and you can enter the dream. If you are not using images, ultimately you will feel a "shift" after which you can just get up into the dream.

Usually if I use images it is smooth, but if I am not I usually get vibrations and static noise in my ear, from there I can get up or wait until I float. This is an oversimplification, as you can enter in any combination of ways really. You can use images and then cancel or banish them; likewise you can enter directly and then create a dream scene as you enter. Just know that if you try too stubbornly to hold on to your awareness you will not fall asleep. Err on the side of sleep every time and your practice may be more successful, or at least less frustrating.

Just to clarify, when trying to WILD, your goal is to actually fall asleep, so that's not the failure. It's the not staying aware that is failing you. Happens to me a lot, too. I am thinking more awareness exercises during the day may help. Also I think getting more undisturbed sleep for the previous few nights so that one is well rested, and thus one's brain is more ready for awareness. Anyway, that's my current thinking, but I am struggling with achieving that perfect balance as well, most WILD attempts I do I either fail to fall asleep or fail to stay aware - it's a tough balancing act. Good luck to both of us.

I am not sure if this helps you. But when I started to meditate I always ended up falling asleep, it didn't matter in what position I was in I could be uncomfortable laying on the floor, sitting in a chair, laying down on my back in bed, I almost even fell asleep meditating standing up!

But then I just accepted the fact that I might fall asleep and focused on continuing to meditate when I woke back up again instead.

What happened then? .... I never fell asleep! (unconsciously)

So what ever fear you might have just accept it and it will go away. Rather see it as an oppurtunity to progress. Because everytime you accept a fear you are free from the troubles it otherwise gives you.

If you are afraid that swallowing while WILDing will screw up the process and make you unable to transition, guess what then that is exactly what will happen.
If you are afraid that a technique might not work for you, because that wil reinforce the negative thought that you are not able to lucid dream, well then you will become that. And lastly if you are afraid that you will fall asleep because that will make you lose your whole WILD attempt, well guess what -> zzzZZZZ

Instead just fully accept that it is a possibility and just take action, and don't judge your progress until atleast 3-4 months have passed.

Also how the WILD process looks like doesn't have any universal truth, and even if it did it wouldn't be your truth if you had just read about it anyway.
In MY experience what works best for me is to not expect or hope for anything and just let go of thoughts and everything that has to do with the physical world and when you do you will find yourself in the non-physical world (dream world). Also the REM brainwave states only makes it easier or atleast impossible for us to remain in the physical focus which is why we then go to the non-physical. This means that IF this is true (which it in my and many other experience is) you don't have to aim for REM and you don't have to aim for some special sleep paralysis, hallucination or whatever you want to call the transition. All you have to do is to let go of this world's focus. Which means to let go of your ego, and thoughts. <- Meditation - The irony with meditation is that it tells you not to focus on something, but rather focus on nothing. :meditate:

This is just a little bonus for you, but my point is that real personal truth isn't in techniques and theories, real personal truth comes from experience.

So if you want to learn to WILD, practise, practise, practise and judge later.

I think you received some real good advice from the 3 posts above mine. I honestly need say nothing more, other than to make sure you've seen this link: http://www.dreamviews.com/induction-...cid-dream.html



*applause* for the good people here. :clap: :D

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All you have to do is to let go of this world's focus. Which means to let go of your ego, and thoughts. <- Meditation - The irony with meditation is that it tells you not to focus on something, but rather focus on nothing.

This is just a little bonus for you, but my point is that real personal truth isn't in techniques and theories, real personal truth comes from experience.

So if you want to learn to WILD, practise, practise, practise and judge later.

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I think I love you..WAIT??!! WHAT??!! :cheeky:

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Originally Posted by bemistaken

I think I love you..WAIT??!! WHAT??!! :cheeky:

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Haha! I can send you a PM, because that information is really off topic. What I meant to show was just that you should never fully trust what's not in your experience.
Why? Because it limit your experiences. If you believe that a dream is dependent on REM sleep you are going to have to WBTB at special times, have to sleep before being able to do a WILD attempt etc. My motto is to try the impossible in order to find new possibilities. It's the story of my life really.

People told me dream incubation was impossible but I did it as a kid several nights, people told me lucid dreaming would be impossible but now I practise it daily.
People told me that it would be impossible for me to meet a total stranger during the day and seduce her, well it's rather making her like you for who you are, but for the people watching it looks like I am making the impossible pick up line work, and I got a girl to kiss me after just 10 min of meeting her.
People told me I couldn't find the bigger picture of life and that OBEs was impossible, well... :)

But my point is not that you should believe what I say, my point is to not fully believe anything except your own experience but at the same time not dismiss that there might be things out there that, it is rational for you to be skeptical about right now but, might be a good idea to look at in a different perspective.

So in your mind right now tell yourself how you want your lucid dreaming knowledge and practise to look at and then aim for that.

“Aim for the sky and you'll reach the ceiling. Aim for the ceiling and you'll stay on the floor.” - Bill Shankly

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But my point is not that you should believe what I say, my point is to not fully believe anything except your own experience but at the same time not dismiss that there might be things out there that, it is rational for you to be skeptical about right now but, might be a good idea to look at in a different perspective.

So in your mind right now tell yourself how you want your lucid dreaming knowledge and practise to look at and then aim for that.

“Aim for the sky and you'll reach the ceiling. Aim for the ceiling and you'll stay on the floor.” - Bill Shankly

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Dude! I can read your post all day (literally 'running' to check my inbox :cheeky:)!