Well, the subject says it all: I would like to know how your level of tiredness and timing affects your ability to WILD?
My impression (after just one week of trying, though) is that if I’m too awake it’s hopeless. My body doesn’t want to relax at all, and I feel the urge to roll from one side to the other all the time. However, if I’m too tired, I can’t keep my consciousness. In this case I wake up a few hours later wondering at what point in time I fell asleep.
But I think the tiredness is just one dimension. The other dimension seems to be the timing when to start with WILD techniques (like counting). If I start too early, I don’t get tired, but if I miss the right point to start (when the first HI appear), I loose control and fall asleep. Exactly this happened to me the past few nights, so my goal for tonight is to start counting earlier.
Summing up, my impression is that for a successful WILD there is only a very narrow corridor you have to hit. So I think practicing WILD first and foremost means getting to know your body so well that you know how to hit this corridor:
I think that’s a really good way to think about it . I’ve tried WILD many times, and have only been partially successful when I have been in the state you describe as the “corridor”. I used to try it whenever I could, even during the day and have no luck. Lately I’ve been quite stressed and sleepless (exams) on the nights when I don’t try to WILD, but when I do I fall asleep pretty rapidly. I am definitely working towards finding the corridor to lucidity .
I like the idea of the Corridor of Lucidity. Has a nice ring to it, heh.
As for the chart, I think it sums up what the problem is quite nicely. During the first two weeks I tried to WILD I became a semi insomniac because I kept trying it when I was too awake or something. Then I gave up on it for a whole week to relax my mind a bit and to catch up on my sleep. Since then and until now, I’m past the corridor
I awake after a few hours of sleep (I actually automatically awake a couple of times a night on my own) and then I’m ready to try WILD. What’s usually the case is that I’m not at all tired and I find it extremely difficult to concentrate on something simple, because my mind is apparently having a party up there. I just lie in bed, trying to calm down and become tired, but before I know it I’m too tired and at that point I can’t seem to concentrate long enough on something. If, for example, I start counting, I’ll lose count at around 10 and then wonder what I was doing and why I was doing it. But if I focus on it too much, I become too awake again lol.
So far I’ve had two almost successful WILDs, where I found myself in the transitional stage, but woke up during it. I still have a lot to learn, but I won’t give up. I’ve got plenty of time on most nights