WILD Problems

I’m not positive about what I’m saying here, but if I WBTB, I almost always go lucid with WILD, and if I use WILD when first going to sleep I typically can feel myself go into SP (I think). Often my body starts itching or feel like I have to move and wake myself if this happens. I was wondering if I really am asleep (since I still have these sensations) and also what you do/think about for the first few hours until you enter a dream.

What’s actually your question?

I don’t believe you are asleep. Itching, feeling the urge to move, are due to relaxation problems.

For the first few hours…you don’t really think about anything. You yourself skips those hours in a second [so it seems] and you enter the REM period…then the NREM, then back to the REM.

Yes, usually you remember almost nothing from the NREM periods and the first REM period. The memory filter is just too big during those periods. However, this doesn’t mean it’s impossible to become lucid then. It’s pretty hard and often just happens on coincidence, but when you’re lucid you have ofcourse a bigger chance of remembering something afterwards.

The itching feelings indeed happen when you’re still awake, as Basilus West said. But they’re signs that you’re slowly falling asleep… they’re side effects of the process of falling asleep, happening in your body and brain. Normally your mind also falls asleep then, but as you experienced yourself, sometimes your body is falling asleep while you’re mind is still pretty much awake. WILD is exactly about staying conscious during this process of falling asleep again, and quickly reentering the dream state. Because the gap between waking and dreaming is rather small after you did WBTB, you have more chance then to bridge the thin gap fully conscious. If you practice WILD after say only 2hrs, that gap will be much bigger, so then it’s much harder to practice WILD and stay conscious until you’re dreaming again.

Good luck with your practice :smile:

Is it possible to try WILD and succeed first thing when going to bed?