I’ve been keeping a DJ for almost a month, and I’ve succeeded in remembering at least something every night. I recently started trying MILD to get a lucid dream.
Last night I was setting my intention by repeating to myself, “When I’m dreaming, I will wake up.” While my eyes were closed, I relaxed them as I usually do to help me go to sleep. After a little while, my eyes started jittering around on their own. I realized I must be entering REM, and so I tried to go along with it. Suddenly, a wave of semi-paralysis swept down my body, and I felt very vividly that I was falling into a dream. However, I was still aware of my real-life surroundings. My heart started racing as I suppose it normally does during REM. I’d never felt this way before – not consciously, at least. I was excited at the prospect of having a LD, but I was also very nervous at how fast my heart was beating. My body must have picked that up, and after a short time, my heart slowed down and I felt that my palms had been sweaty. I opened my eyes easily and was very much awake. It took me a long time to finally fall asleep, and when I woke up, I didn’t remember any of my dreams.
How did I get this to happen? Would it have lead to a lucid dream? If I can do it again, how can I go with the flow instead of getting too excited or nervous? I appreciate everyone’s help.
Hi jordonk27, welcome to LD4all! 
What you describe looks like WILD, not MILD. 
Errr… is it really a good induction sentence?
Seems to me you should repeat “When I’m dreaming, I will realize I’m in a dream”.
Anyways, it sounds like you had good first results with the WILD technique.
And your reactions were accurate too, for instance when you were not such nervous when your heart started racing. This happens sometimes during WILD, there are many accounts about this on the forum.
I think it comes naturally with experience. Good start!
Keep it up!
My intention was that I would try to wake up from a dream, remember it, and fall back asleep while imagining myself being lucid in the dream. I guess my body had different ideas, though. Maybe WILD is better for me.
Thanks. Hopefully it will come more easily the next time around.
The racing heart beat is probably due to being excited, a feeling you’ve never really experienced. When I first tried WILD the first few times my heart would race like crazy but with practice it goes away.
I’m unsure of this. I’ve recently read that it could be due to brain waves which trigger REM sleep. Now, if it was trully the case, why does it disappear with experience? 
Note that I speak from assumption, not experience.
Possibly it is not your heart rate that decreases but the exitement and nervousness it brings that decreases (and after awhile you probably wouldn’t notice your heart beat).
Either way, one would assume that the exitement and nervousness (which woke you up) would decrease with experience.
I recently tried to WILD (for the first time) and I think maybe I reached SP (I’m not sure if it was SP, but it certainly felt strange), I suddenly got excited and slipped back to being awake. Your experience sounds very similar to mine (except that I was trying to WILD). However, I didn’t notice my eyes ‘jittering’ or have a particularly vivid feeling of falling into a dream, but bright colours were flashing in front of my eyes and some sort of object was spinning around. Perhaps I was imagining the SP feeling.