Am I doing this right..?

Hi all,

Lately, I've been very interested in getting myself in to SP. I've been very curious; am I doing this right? I'm pretty sure I am, but let me explain what's been happening every time.

So I go to bed, again, not expecting to sleep. I simply lay there for about a half hour. Then, my body gives me that little "Hey, you still awake?" jab to my brain. (You know, the itching, the sudden uncomfortable feeling, etc. (which I'm actually pretty good at ignoring)) After ignoring it completely, I start to feel like I'm again, rocking back and forth at a steady rate. Then the tingly-vibration things start to set in. Again, they work their way from the feet to the head at a very slow rate. Next, my body gets very heavy. (This is where I got stopped a few times ago). I felt like I was falling directly through my mattress (Thanks to ClearView, I managed to convince myself it was a normal occurrence and was able to make it by without waking up).

However, it all just ended. Boom. That was it. End of story. No dream paranorma or anything. I didn't go into an LD, which was just depressing.

So can anyone tell me if something's out of the ordinary here? This is my third attempt at SP. This attempt and the last one left me with the result of nothing, as described above.

Any help would be much appreciated.

It doesn't sound to me that you did anything wrong. Is it possible that you just became too alert of what was happening? Also, did you remember to reality check after wards?

The sensation of falling through your mattress is very common. I usually feel as though i'm falling through my mattress. However, it varies from time to time. Sometimes I float up out of my body and other times I just feel as though i'm standing on my feet. It's not always the same. So to answer your question, no, there's nothing out of the ordinary. The best thing to do when this happens is just relax and go with the flow. Often times I'll fall for a while or float around in a circle for what seems like 10 min before I enter a LD. The most important thing to remember is not to become too excited or try to focus too much on creating the environment you want to be in. It will happen naturally. Later once you get pretty good at it you can try to create your environment, but when you start I'd advise you to just go with the flow and get a feel for the dream world.

Your REM periods are very short at the beginning of the night and gradually get longer, so if you did this before bed your chances of going into a dream are not that good.
I recommend doing this with the WBTB method (if you aren't already) - wake up 6 or so hours into sleep, stay up for as long as needed (long enough so you won't just immediately fall asleep) and then try to WILD.
Good luck! :)