WILD gurus.. I need help!! I’m going nuts.

[sprada]

After a lot of time wondering if I should start a thread or not here it goes… A little background on me. I’m a noob when it comes to LD. There’s no doubt about it. I’m starting. I've had around 20 LDs. One DEILD and the rest DILDs. Half of them didn't last more than a couple of seconds and one of them was the most amazing and surreal experience I have ever had. Now WILD… I’m a bit ashamed to say that I've tried probably more than 100 times with no success. Maybe more J I believe that I've looked more than once into every single tutorial around. The thing is – I can’t stay awake long enough. I can literally fall asleep in seconds. No kidding. I don’t even need to be that tired. It usually goes like this… I lay down on my back (I never go to sleep in this position) and start counting backwards from 100… 99.. 98.. Bam!! I lose consciousness before I reach 80 or so. Jolt awake after 1 or two minutes asleep. I try again, same thing.. Once more.. now I´ll use a mantra. Exact same thing.. I have tried everything to maintain consciousness. Binaural beats, mantras, visualization, every technique around. Nothing. Once in a while I spend the first half hour falling asleep and waking up. And only after that I can stay awake for some time. When this happens there's no way I can fall back to sleep. There was a couple of times when I reached the point were HI was starting but fell asleep or got jolted awake. By now I know quite well my REM cycles and I got most of my DILDs after a failed WILD. So I'm pretty sure that I'm timing my WBTB attempts correctly. Also the problem happens way before the transition period. The only time I reached it I got into a LD (DEILD after a failed WILD attempt). So by now the thought that I just can't do it is getting stronger. But I'm really stubborn and refuse to believe it when there's so many people here that do it regularly. What am I doing wrong? What can I do to improve? Is falling asleep quickly that bad for WILD? Shouldn't it be an advantage? This is long Please help! Cheers.

[Sivason]

Are there that many people here who do WILD regularly? You may have the wrong idea about that. It is something that takes a whole new mindset and skill set to do, and even then takes some luck. I would guess only 1 in 10 or fewer of the members who post in a week are any good at WILD. So, do not get discouraged, it is hard and there is nothing wrong with you. Now, what to do about your problem? I want you to try a couple things as an experiment. Try sitting cross legged with a pile of pillows in your lap. Lean forward with your arms crossed on the pillows. Now, in that somewhat difficult position go through all the same steps you have been using. This position is comfortable enough to allow you to get some what trance like, but should prevent an easy transition into sleep. You will likely reach a point where you desperately want to lay down so you can actually sleep. Put it off as long as you can, or until you reach a point of seeing H.I. or actually sleeping. Try this one second. Sit cross legged in a dark room and slouch comfortably forward, but do not lay down as above (forward on pillows), so that you are still more or less up right. Take something very light such as a spoon and support it by applying very light pressure with the finger tip of your index fingers on both hands. So, you are holding it from falling, and it is between your hands, but the amount of force used is almost nothing. Now, go through all of your WILD steps. Try to get as relaxed and drifty as possible, but do not let the spoon (or what ever) fall. Your goal is to get so mentally relaxed that you are basically asleep, but maintain just enough awareness to prevent the item from falling. No, you likely will not have a lucid dream in either of these positions, but I think if you try these each for bout a month, you will figure out the correct state your mind should be in. You need to be barely aware, but not unconscious. I say barely aware because you DO want to sleep. You just need to take your mind on the journey which is not normal and takes training.

[Sageous]

Sprada, consider listening to Sivason, as that is excellent advice targeted right to your problem; I also agree with him in that there might not be as many people doing WILD regularly as you might think. I won't offer any specific advice (if you're curious about what I think you might check out my DVA WILD class, if you haven't already), but I had a couple of thoughts you might consider: First, what's wrong with DILD? If you've had some success with it already, why not focus on it for a while? As your skills improve, you might eventually find a path to WILD, perhaps via another DEILD (BTW, DEILD is a form of WILD, so technically you've already had a successful WILD ). Also, once you're lucid, does it really matter how you got there? Next, yes, as I read your post I was feeling a bit jealous. I am a very light sleeper who takes forever to get to sleep (my average WBTB is at least an hour), and would pay dearly to fall asleep immediately. Your "condition," believe it or not, will likely be an asset as you develop your skills. Remember that you must fall asleep to WILD, so if you can do so quickly and without effort, you are at an advantage... you just don't know it yet! This might all just be a matter of mindset, of finding that sweet spot of focus, intention, and timing that allows you to maintain your self-awareness straight through to sleep. You know what a major destroyer of mindset is, though? Harboring the thought that you just can't do it. Try not to go there. Anyway, listen to Sivason, stay positive, and maybe you'll get there before the next hundred attempts pass... and don't forget about DILD! Good luck!

[ThreeCat]

*gets more pillows out of closet* Sivason, could you use this support to eventually sleep sitting upright?

[MasterMind]

I had the EXACT same problem, until... I accepted it. In fact I can still fall asleep in a blink. I tried everything from falling asleep with urge to go to the bathroom, drinking coffee and energy drinks to falling asleep in a sitting upright posture. Nothing worked, I always fell asleep. No matter what I had eaten that day or how much sleep I had got, I even did attempts after many hours of sleep and still fell asleep super easy. So how did I stop falling asleep unconsciously? I didn't... What I did do however, was to change my attitude torwads it. I found ways to incorporate it into my practise like for example. Step 1 - Fall asleep and set a timer to wake me up some minutes later. Or Just accept that I might fall aslep and that I will resume what ever I was doing afterwards. What happened? Somehow I stopped falling asleep. I do not know why, but I think that the problem was resistance. When you accept the problem and find ways to make peace with it, it will no longer happen, and if it does, it will no longer disturb you. Hope this help.

[Sivason]

*gets more pillows out of closet* Sivason, could you use this support to eventually sleep sitting upright? Yes This is one way to work towards Yoga Nidra Keep adding pillows until you can drift into conscious sleep in each position. Eventually you can sleep in a traditional upright yoga pose. At that point you can preform Yoga Nidra in a meditation posture and experience lucid dreams or deepest meditations while say "waiting for the bus"

[MasterMind]

I just wrote in the thread without reading the previous posts and I just want to clearify one thing. I still sleep while sitting upright and find that to be the most effective sleep posture for experiencing higher awareness in my dreams. And it's as sivason said an tradion of yoga nidra, and now when I read about it, the description of yoga nidra is very similar to the state of nothingness I have started to experience now. I have also seen videos of tibetan monks sleeping balancing on a rope or on thin planks that requires them to concentrate while they sleep otherwise they fall. So weird sleep postures is a good way to practise not falling asleep, because when you do, you fall.

[sprada]

Sivason you have just made me remember that shortly after I started, I experimented a couple of times with a similar technique where I laid on my back and kept my forearm in a vertical position. I believe the purpose is the same. If memory doesn’t fail me, it did prevent me from quickly falling asleep. Since (just like you said) I probably won’t be able to WILD during these experiments and the goal is mainly to figure out the correct mindset, I’m assuming that there’s no problem in trying during late naps where I’m sure I won’t hit a REM period, right? I am going to give those two experiments a good try and update this thread with the results. BTW I’ve been reading your dream yoga class for a while now. I’ve always been a bit reluctant to join in but maybe it’s time for me to consider it. Sageous don’t get me wrong, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with DILD. I don’t care how I get there. I just want to get Lucid. I can easily fit WBTB with my current schedule so why not try WILD? And yes, I have read your awesome WILD class (and the “what happened, post your results thread”) more times than any other thread around. Mastermind it’s good to hear that you turned it into your advantage. Hope one day I can too (checking your meditation guide now). You guys are awesome. Thanks