Sleep deprived, without WBTB but still I had my first WILD

After 3 months of trial and error I had my first WILD last night when I least expect it to happen. Here it is.

It was 3:00 A.M and the third night I go to bed this late for a stupid computer game. I went to bed very sleepy and started my routine to WILD. My plan was simply: lie on back, count to the point that you feel totally relaxed, pull an imaginary rope with mental hands. I counted to 300 or something but couldn’t relax on my back. So I decided to take risk of falling totally asleep (I’m still surprised why I didn’t) and rolled to my right side and give it another try. I started seeing floating images somewhere around 70 so I thought “ forget about the rope I think I should watch these images “ I waited for a dream scenario to expand which didn’t happen but instead every object before me got more and more detailed to the point that I felt like I was really seeing them with physical eyes. Then suddenly I found myself in total darkness. I was in the bedroom, my wife poking my back and says she couldn’t sleep because she had a nightmare. I got up out of the bed with this feeling that this can be a dream but still not quite sure. I looked around and saw in the darkness that the shape of the room does not fit to our bedroom. So I decided to do a nose reality check to find myself in a dream. The rest was a beautiful LD with lots of flying, out of the house and over the city where there is this huge aqua park installed over the whole district. It was lots of fun.

Congrats on your WILD success!!! It sounds like you had a false awakening at the very beginning of the WILD, and you did a nice job conquering it! I myself, like to just watch the images/hallucinations that appear better than any other technique (such as rope pulling, etc). Nice job and good luck with your future attempts! The first WILD success is always a great feeling. Remember, keep practicing and you will only get better!

Thank you KingYoshi! :-)) I think WILDing will be much easier from now on. I was just stuck with the ideas "I should lay on my back" and "Techniques utilizing tactile senses work better for me"

I was trying other postures and techniques as well but somewhere deep in my mind I felt like these won't work and should go back to how I used to do this... I was just hindering myself. LDing has no tolerance for rigidness I suppose.

So you tried to relax into SP on your back, felt a little restless and rolled over to your side and saw hypnagogic imagery while counting?

Interresting. Say would the counting be replacable with imagined Rythmic beats?
I have this meditative Ambient track I made for relaxing the body and clearing the mind.(Mysterious Drummer: http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm...ndid=444233483 ).

Do you think I could drum an imaginairy repeatative beat, along with the rythm of my ambient track as a replacement for counting during WILDs?
I find counting so boring I easily wander off. I'm much more into music so I made this track to play nonstop on repeat as I fall asleep.

Maybe I'm going to try and mimic what you did, but replace counting with drumming.
Maybe the repositioning of your body had something to do with it too.

I guess because you were so sleep deprived the onset of sleep and of dreams was much sooner than usual. And the slight unrest and the roll to your left side might have reawoken your awareness a little so you were conscious enough to become lucid.

Congrats!

[QUOTE=SKA] Interresting. Say would the counting be replacable with imagined Rythmic beats? I have this meditative Ambient track I made for relaxing the body and clearing the mind.

- For someone else it can work but not me. I used to listen brainwave generator and ambient music to have a LD and would end up start listening closely and enjoy them. It's hard to explain but I kind of build an attention anchor to what I listen and that keeps me from drifting off to sleep. I think people who are having trouble to go to sleep should avoid such aids. They don't come like a lullaby to everyone.

[QUOTE=SKA] I find counting so boring I easily wander off. I'm much more into music so I made this track to play nonstop on repeat as I fall asleep.

- Yes because counting is a boring thing :-)) I agree on that. But I found it the most effective method to relax myself gradually with control. You see, there is this threshold that we must pass where you no longer make an effort to keep thoughts away. It's like the wandering mind finally understands that it's not needed and leaves an open space for you to work on your LD. So if listening music leads you there, I think you should go with it.

[QUOTE=SKA] Maybe the repositioning of your body had something to do with it too.

- Yes it's highly probable because I've been trying to induce the same experience for two nights without success. In both of the attempts I skipped the part where I was lying on my back and lied on my right side and started counting. It was a disaster, I frequently forgot what number I was on. Lots of pestering thougths came and I couldn't accumulate enough mindful emptyness to keep me lucid when I dozed off. I'll try it tonight exactly the same as I did before.