The problem with me when I do WBTB is that I can’t get back to sleep, I tried it last night.
I woke up exactly 5 hours after I went to sleep and when I woke up I couldn’t get back to sleep. I didn’t drink anything or read anything, I just woke up, turned on my GameBoy SP and played Pokémon for about 25 minutes then I went back to bed.
The only problem was I couldn’t get to sleep, like I just laid there thinking when I was actually going to get tired. It seriously pissed me off.
So instead of doing a WILD I ended up getting up at 7:30 in the morning and I had to take Hurricane shutters off my house because I was actually up early and it sucked two fold.
How could I get back to sleep or is it just a one time thing?
Hmmm… Don’t play Pokemon. When playing games, I’m sure you have a lot of adrenaline that awakes you totally.
Have rather a more boring occupation, like reading the Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.
might be a one time thing. But make sure you don’t get too excited during your WBTB, just relax
Five hours of sleep seems like an ideal time for me but maybe not for you. Try 5 hours again a few times, if you still have trouble getting back to sleep, maybe you should cut down 30 minutes and sleep 4½ hours ?
Well, I will say that last night I had a HELL of an experience but absolutly no LDs. I logged everything in my memory but can’t remember any dreams except for the fact that I know I had them.
I went to sleep at 3:30 something and set my alarm for 8:00. Well, the alarm goes off and I’m deadly tired but I just did not want to get up. The only thing that got me up is that instead of sleeping with my head right next to the alarm I flipped my body so my legs were right next to the alarm. I went to smack the snooze button with my foot and ended up getting a killer cramp in my calf that got me RIGHT up.
So I’m sitting up mending my cramp wiggling my toes with the alarm blaring and finally the cramp goes away and I am awake. Well, I’m sitting there thinking if I should get up and walk about, I did not. I just watched my screen saver sitting from my bed and just twiddled my thumbs.
I stayed up for 10 minutes and just went back to sleep. I attempted a WILD. But for some reason I just couldn’t keep my mind focused on my count(1. I’m dreaming, 2 blah blah). It was as if there were three minds in my head having a conversation and I just could not focus on anything no matter how hard I tried. I litterally got to like 7 before my mind just wandered. It’s extremely weird because usually I have no problem staying focused.
Well, I’m laying there and next thing I know I drift off and I had a dream. I looked at the clock and it was no more then 10 minutes after I had went back to bed. I was pissed because I actually driftted off.
[size=150]Well here’s where I need help.[/size]
On my second attempt I actually got into SP and heard the whoosing sound. I stayed completly calm and composed yet for some reason the SP and the sound just faded away and I was awake. What’s the ****ing deal? How did it just go away like that. Also I only saw one hypnagoic image and it’s like etched into my memory… It was a boss from Secret of Mana… the eye on this site only there were two of them.
Well any who, I ended up going into SP for a second time after awaking and had the whoosing sound but the same thing happened, what the heck is the deal?
After attempting it again I had a dream instead of SP, when I awoke from the dream I just abandoned my attempts for the day and slept until 1:30PM.
I’m going to bed right now in hopes of some nice lucid dreams.
I can’t get to sleep!! This sucks so much, I went to sleep at 10:30, I laid in bed until about 12:20 and I could not fall asleep. So I came to the computer.
Man this sucks so much, I really wanted to dream tonight.
I plan on not even going to sleep tonight and just going to school tomorrow iwth no sleep at all.
This is the part that people have problems understanding.
Too much thinking is the problem. The solution is to let go more of your thoughts to where you are aware of things but, not thinking about them. I don’t know if you understand this concept of letting your thoughts go. But you will with more practice. You are getting very close.
That’s not fair huh?! You want something, but get the opposite…
How about you lay in bed and tell yourself, “I want to lay awake in bed all night! I don’t want to fall asleep so soon! Oh…! I need to lay awake in bed all night and NOT fall asleep so easily!”
Reverse psychology-
This has worked forme. A long time ago, I was stressing; " I want to have a lucid dream! I need to have a lucid dream tonight!"
But I didn’t get a lucid dream. One night later, “Oh…! I hope I don’t have a lucid dream! I do not want to have a lucid dream! Oh, This sucks, I might have one tonight, but I really don’t want to!” - Then that night, I had a great lucid dream!
Goin’ to school without sleep is one of the worst forms of tourture…try not to deprive yourself of sleep and also try not to actively worry about wether you will dream or not, just have the intention, and the will to dream…the rest will follow.
What i mean is instead of getting in a wreck because you’re not seeing any major improvements, try and be care-free about it, keep an emotional attachment to the subject…by the sounds of it you’re already experiencing most of the big signs of WILD… don’t be pissed off if you can’t do it straight away…dont show any negative emotions towards your achievements because they only slow ya down.
Can’t sleep? hah!..that makes two of us…and there’s too much reasons as to why it’s near impossible to fall asleep some nights. You probably already know about all the relaxation exercises and so on…they only help if you’re willing to completely rid your mind of all worry and thought that will distract you, and arn’t supposed to be learned instantly although some lucky buggers are able from natural ability. Otherwise, when you’re about to finally end your day/night, take some time a few hours before bed to turn off your TV… dim out the lights and Read untill your getting that irritating feeling to stop because your brains getting ready to shut off, and your logical side is flying out the window.
then take a few minutes to close your eyes and imagine/remember as much as you can about what you read without worrying about the parts you may have forgotten and simply recreate the scenes/images that you remember most vividly, relax and stretch your muscles however you feel comfortable(counting seems to keep the mind above the level of tiredness needed to fall asleep so you’re lying there for hours counting away with no results)… once you’re at the state where you’re almost pointlessly lying there “trying” to get to sleep after about half an hour or more, wandering what to do next, don’t try all the methods you know to stop yourself thinking, even though there might seem like 3 or more minds trying to converse it’s just you distracting yourself…dont let it get to you!
say quietly in your mind, “relax” after every exhale and focus mainly on your breathing, visualize yourself in a pitch black room (easy pz!) and stare into space like you would a day-dream…focusing mainly on your breath but with a clear mind; every time you begin to distract yourself; don’t stress and think “damnit there I go again!!!” but try to learn why you find it so hard to stop thinking and just go with the flow…its not starting from square one again if you randomly get a thought while trying to clear your mind, learn from that thought and keep visualizing yourself in a dark room, if you find it really hard to stop thinking… instead of using logical numbers, try using the words sleeeeeeeeeeeeep and relaaaaaaaaaaaaaax.
There’s so many ways to go about attaining peace of mind in the western world…it doesn’t come easy for the average conditioned mind, almost like having to break free from the chains of thought that are wrapped around our minds every day…
try not to watch any tv before bed if you can… even if you think it’s making you tired and shit, it aint helping you one bit. trust me. TV is an evil contraption, stay away from it during the last hours of the night.
(the computer is alot different, the monitor effects you ever so slightly and can be adjusted to lessen the strain on your eyes…still, the best thing to do is write or read, draw or simply RELAX.
Wow nice post! Thanks alot I’ll try that tonight, I’m going to bed after my chemistry homework, hopefully I’ll get a wink of sleep tonight.
Last night I got 0 hours of sleep but the damnedest thing happened in chemistry. Classes are 90 minutes long, today we go in and get the test for unit one and I finish it in no exageration, 15 minutes. I ask what to do and the teacher tells me “I don’t care.”
Well, I went to sleep. So I have my head down with my eyes closed and I was thinking about the car I just got. Next thing I know I go into SP and had the wooshing sound.
It startled the hell out of me and I snapped right out of it and snapped to attention like someone yelled “FIRE IN THE HOLE!” It was the coolest and weirdest experience I had while sleeping in school, and I didn’t even intend on it to happen… I couldn’t get to sleep after that, I was trying too hard to WILD.
And to make my day suck even more my Chemistry teacher approached me during lunch and told me I had to retake the test or fail. Apparently I got 106 points out of a possible 110 and that I got the best score in the class and it took 30 minutes before someone even turned in the test after me… So I had to retake a fully written test instead of multiple choice.
Last night’s WILD attempt I can only remember the alarm going off! And that’s it!
That means what ever happened I forgot, which translate into I fell asleep.
I went to sleep telling my self to do that method you taught me of clearing my mind, when I first went to sleep it worked wonders, but damnit, when I awoke for my WBTB I must have fell asleep extremly fast, because I can barely remember the alarm waking me up at 4:30.
Before I retire, I have a new question. How do I keep my mind from passivly doing something. Because I know I’m going to be using Karizma’s unwillingly and I won’t remember anything.
rofl… I don’t envy you having to retake that test… not your fault those multiple choice things are so damn easy Wish my teachers used to let me fall asleep in class!
GRRRR I did it again! I can’t remember ONE thing from last nights WILD attempt, that only means I attempted Karizma’s thing and it backfired and I got into a nice sleep.
The only upside is when I awoke I was WELL rested, I mean when I woke up I actually hopped out of bed.
I got 100% correct on the next test, there were no multiple choice and I had to answer every question with a word or complete sentence. I totally owned my chemistry teacher, now he thinks I’m like a rain man type dude when it comes to chemistry, I just have a photographic memory
Seriously though…have some patience and let your mind learn the techniques routinely. I don’t really know exactly how to help but I will try my best because I know how incredibly frustrating it can get.
Sometimes you strike gold, other times you get a face full of coal…untill you have trained your mind like you would train a dog it isn’t going to respond to every little detail you want it to perform, it will just “shut down”.
Firstly, since it worked wonders in some ways and not others means that you just have to fine-tune what advice helped you and filter out what doesn’t feel comfortable. What you do when falling asleep at night, should just be your relaxation time. Get rid of all the worries and crap loaded into your mind throughout your day by and sleep.
I usually find it insanely hard to use the WBTB method, actually… most techniques seem to hate me, or it might be the other way around I don’t know… but over time you’ll come accustomed to what you can use and cannot to help you through your journey…it just takes a bit of time.
WBTB, in my opinion is a great way to routinely set up your REM sleep efficiently.
I can’t come up with another sure-fire way to induce REM/SP… Its near impossible for me to WILD at night… and it’s really difficult to remain conscious long enough when I first wake up to do anything…
I lost alot of hope, and I took some time to lose interest…but I can’t exactly dodge the whole ordeal of sleep, so I came up with a plan…
Not untill I was able to make my own decisions could I take time to think about how crazy life really is, so I took advantage of the weird state my mind has been in for the last few years and used it to make my overall shitty life a bit better by forgetting about lucid dreaming for a while and focus on living my life lucidly…it helps alot.
Then dreaming came a bit more naturally when I wasn’t stressing out like a strung up crack-head…
you also said you’ve got a photographic memory, use that gift to its limits, don’t stop practising memory techniques…they will progressively help maintain your ability to visualize and remember certain aspects of your dreams much more vividly.
yawn
all this talk about sleep…sortayawn making me sleepyyawn
zzzzzzzz
once you’re relaxed enough to know that you’re in a state of trance, try creating an object in the room that you have a very strong assosciation with in reality.
You probably won’t beable to hold the image for long…let it go and visualize another object, something peaceful that reminds you of lucid dreaming…
in actuality, there’s way too much techniques and ways to induce lucidity that it’s best to learn yourself through trial and error…
hope i’ve been of some help.
Wow, Garlic, that must be frusterated. Try getting more sleep, SP really makes it harder to do any techs.
As for not waking up, I have 2 watches, I set one in my pillow but I can still here it. Then, I set the other one to go off 5 minutes after the other one. Soo…what happens is I hear the 1st watch, I have to go reach in the pillow which wakes me up…so now i dread the other alarm clock. So I go as fast as I can to disable the other one. Also, if you tell yourself the shrieking-ness of the alarm is terrible at night, you might wake up close to when you set it that night.
