3rd attempt at WILD, insight appreciated

I’m new to this forum but have been part of another popular LDing forum the past week, but I’m trying to not limit myself to one community. Theres a lot to offer here too.

The thing is, I’ve always been in the habit of meditating. I’m fully awake and aware while meditating, but I’m often at a deep level of relaxation/concentration/awareness that falling asleep isn’t an issue. Unfortunately, I’ve built the habit of keeping myself awake in deep relaxation(meditation), rather then consciously falling asleep(lucid dreaming). I’m currently learning how to do the latter.

I think I seriously just spent an hour trying to enter sleep paralysis. It was like 2 AM before I got to sleep though, so maybe all I need is some good rest? I did a Wake Back to Bed of like 4hours 30 mins, sipped some water, went to bathroom, then back to the bed. I went over relaxation techniques first to get myself relaxed. I then spent the next 30mins to an hour just laying, breathing, getting more and more relaxed, feeling my body get heavier and heavier, started seeing flashes of light in my visual perception and mini dream like images/scenes(hypnog. images probably?), but I still felt no physical sensations that lead to sleep paralysis.

Upon finally decided to call it a night, I paid particular attention to how my body felt upon shifting positions. When I moved my body I could tell it felt locked into its position, weighed down, relaxed, and constricted, so I needed to do a big stretch. It feels like my body was pretty close to sleep paralysis because initially it took more effort then normal to switch positions and I felt the above, but it was not FULL sleep paralysis.

You see as a kid I would wake up still in sleep paralysis stage sometimes, so I KNOW what it feels like to be in it fully, you can’t move, you can’t scream/yell…etc. However, I’ve never felt the in between stages of sleep paralysis, so I’m in a situation where I’m kinda sorta guessing what I should be feeling.

I’ve just got to do some more testing and figure out if its a matter of not being “disconnected” from my mind enough, or what?

I would love some insight on this.

As for now, the only thing I can really do is “keep doing it”. Sure this was only my 3rd attempt and I don’t really have room to complain, but I feel since I’ve been meditating since a kid it really helps with relaxation and everything. In reality, all I need to do, is just do it, and just keep doing it, and do it some more. It’ll happen eventually. However, I believe with a better understanding I will be able to WILD sooner, rather then later. That’s what I would love for this post to accomplish.

Thanks for your time

I don’t know if I can help here, but WILD is much harder as soon as you go to bed. When I try it I end up laying there for an hour before giving up… Try it with WBTB, if you can. You might want to expeiment with different times… I, for example, usually sleep for 5h 30min and then stay up for 30min. If you can’t WBTB you can try to WILD when (and if) you wake up in the middle of the night.

And welcome!, btw :happy:

maybe try putting all your attention in your navel as you are drifting off to sleep

I did do a WBTB mate :content: . Maybe you just missed it?

Hmm interesting, does this work for you?

Personally if I was in your position I wouldn’t worry too much about entering sleep paralysis. The flickers of dream-scenes you’ve seen definitely sound good. I think the best thing is to keep doing the relaxation technique you were doing, and try to forget about your body. Thinking of sleep paralysis will draw your attention back to your body and away from the dream-world. The worst thing that could happen from this is you’ll enter a dream, but moving will move you in waking life and pull you out of the dream. To be honest I think it’s more likely you’ll hold yourself back by worrying about SP. You might get into it, but some people can get into it and then not go any further, they can’t get the HI you describe.

Man just thinking about this seems so true. I really think that’s it. I was still in the habit of being aware like in meditation, so I tried to be aware of SP and aware of the WILD transition, but thing is you can’t be looking for these things and find them, you just have to drift off while OBSERVING them silently, being a “Silent observer” and not getting involved or attached to these images/sensations.

Hello dtrevinofl,

I had the same problem as you until I discovered a way to let sleep paralysis drive you to a dream.
Do you have vibrations while in SP?
If so, I advise you to let them intensify and let you drift off. I found that the vibrations are really useful to get into a dream. You just have to let them transport you. The farther they get you from your body, the simpler it is for you to enter a dream.

I haven’t gotten my body consciously in full sleep paralysis period, so I can’t really comment on vibrations. I do know as I get closer and closer to SP, more HI appears and little mini dream scenes. The hardest part is observing these as a silent observer, and not letting them make associations in my brain to thoughts. If I get carried away in these mini scenes ill either:
1)become further away from concious SP(this is what happens to me, I don’t let HI get myself as carried away as to fall asleep, but it does set me back a little)
2)fall asleep into a none lucid(this is how i fall asleep regulalrly when im not trying to WILD).
If I just observe the scenes but let them quickly pass like the clouds and not identify with them, then I get closer and closer to SP.

If only it were that easy though, HI after HI mini scenes hit, and one of them is bound to strike one of my intrests and absorb me for a little, untill I catch myself and realize to be a silent observer. Its appears to just need practice

:eh: oops, my bad. I don’t think I can help much then… :shy: I’m faaaar from being a WILD master. Although the not focusing on SP does seem like something I’ll pay more attention to!

Thanks guys. This morning in my session I came to that some conclusions . The key things that helped me this session was:
1)feeling and allowing myself to become as sleepy or as close to sleep as possible.
2)not allowing any “vocalizations”(which there were tons of ex: you hear yourself say something in your mind “What is this feeling”), and
3)also to not get carried away in HI. It was a mental battle, my HI scenes are so intresting my disipline breaks and I get absorbed in them. I then become aware that I’m absorbed in it, correct that, and then it starts over lol.

But at least now I understand the concept of not allowing “vocalization” and only observing the HI, not letting any thought stem from them. I still love the clound analogy. If HI scene appears, become aware of it, and then allow it to pass by your mind like a cloud. Thats how it works for me, my HI’s are seconds long, little mini things. I swear if I have HI and its about something that doesnt keep my attention/peak my intrest for 5+ seconds, the bloody HI ends, and then immediatly starts another one completly different once again trying to absorb me .

How do you guys come to being as “sleepy” as possible in this postion(the goal is to approach the sleep stage), not identify with HI or get lost in thought, and not vocalize anything all the while remaining conciously aware? By the time these 3 things were happening I was soo close to a sleep stage and so sleepy that I no longer had the will/concentration to keep myself from drifting off in thought of HI’s/self vocalization, and I just wanted to sleep. So I rolled over and did.

I have the same problem as you! Dream scenes flash in my head… and sometimes even a story unfolds, however, I never feel the effects of SP. I have no vibrations or anything of that sort… but for some reason it feels very natural for me to move my dream arms and not my real arms. So… My advice to you is to ignore your physical body! Move your dream arms when they appear to you! (i know that may sound difficult… but it feels very natural when you actually get to it.) I have had some amazing HI without ever feeling any SP sensations. So… stop worrying about your body and start worrying about your dream!

And also… Don’t be too worried about moving your physical body while your dream body moves. The worst i’ve ever done is twitched a finger which bumped my stomach and woke me up… besides that, i’ve never had any major RL movements. It’s usually quite easy for me to move my dream body and not my physical body. Like i said… When it happens, it will feel extremely natural to you.