My fiancée and I have started on our second try of obtaining lucidity. We have already shared a few dreams, but we haven’t be conscious during these dreams. He seems to fall into a very light Non Rem sleep quickly, while I stay awake for up to three hours.
This is my main issue with obtaining lucidity. I have been trying the WILD technique for a while. I know I am doing something right, because in under two minutes, my whole body is numb, and my hands feel like the fingers have merged into mittens. I can entirely relax my body and make it feel like I am going to fall asleep, and I have even felt myself falling asleep, but I seem to get too excited when this happens, and I just can’t stop my mind from running. It is either what I am doing the next day, or thinking “How long have I been doing this!?” My body goes numb so fast, that I have no sense of what time it is.
I have also been meditating, to calm down before bed, and even been listening to a track given to me by my fiancée. There have been occasions where I have been up until three am, but I usually give up if I am up too late, due to having school.
I am just wondering, does anyone have simple “falling asleep” techniques?
I am sorry if I sound very amateur, seeing as how usually I just read the forum through Nephanim’s account. I figured it was time for me to get one, seeing as how I have a lot of questions.
Well, first of all, are you combining WILD with WBTB? If not, then that may help.
Second, WILD takes A LOT of practice. I mean a lot. I would be very surprised if you had a WILD your second night of your quest for lucidity. If you want to stick with WILD, you will probably need to keep at it for a while before you get any results.
Third, WILD may simply not be for you. I would first try practicing it more, but if you feel like you’ve been trying for a while and nothing has happened, you may want to try something different.
well…see, the issue is, I can get it to work in the sense I go numb, and I should be asleep, but even once I stop and just TRY to sleep without thinking about it, I am restless. I am just trying to get to sleep faster. My mind runs a lot when I go to bed, and I am just seeing if anyone has anything to help me calm down.
I think that the WBTB would really throw me off, due to me already being restless, getting up might make me more awake.
I am going to keep WILD for a week or so, because I feel like it is working, just my restlessness keeping me from the full thing. Thank you for your help and suggestions though!
Ah…See, Nephanim told me that if I am awake for more than forty minutes, that I was trying to hard and should just stop. Then again, I have only tried it while he has spent the night here the passed week or so. I am going to try again tonight with the track he gave me and just continue to work on WILD.
Ah, ok. Well, the same thing happens for me. It’s like if you try to stay awake for long enough, you get into this mode where you’re very conscious and can’t fall asleep at all. It’s happened to me a lot, so I kinda see what you’re getting at.
Like hero said, it takes time to WILD and you should try to be patient, I suppose. But, if you have a hard time waiting that long, try WBTB. You said that it might mess with your sleep schedule, but all you really have to do is wake up in the middle of the night and then immediately start to try to WILD. The idea is that your body will fall back into a sleep state fairly quickly, but you can stay conscious because you just woke up.
In any case, I think you might want to also look around and see what other people have said in regards to your kind of situation. Also, I think it’s important to find your own way when trying to become lucid. If you develop a “method” for your own personal use, your mind will probably think it as more important and familiar than if you just straight up use someone else’s method. Basically what I’m trying to say is that people here can give you advice and everything, but you need to find what works for you. Try some different things out, see what works for you and then synthesize them to make your own method.
I have been thinking about [and I know this sounds super silly] putting on sunglasses at night so when I dream I remember that the shade of the world should be very different, or I can at least check for them. I have been thinking about a lot of crazy ideas, but of course, I think they are crazy and probably wouldn’t work, due to me being so amateur at this…
No, not at all, Tera. Do crazy things. Do things that occur to you but have no backing anywhere else. These are the things that are most endeared to your mind and will probably be more effective than anything else you can copy from someone else.
Thank you both for helping me kinda sort this out. I have been trying to lucid dream for about three months now, and before now I had tried a separate time, but gave up due to my very bad recall. Now that I am remembering about three dreams a night, I feel like I am much more capable of becoming lucid.
I am glad I don’t sound too crazy or like an amateurish, since this was my first topic here.
:3 I am glad this IS here. I mean, I have Nephanim to go through, who has really taught me a lot so far, along with Writerscube, but sometimes their knowledge is limited, and I just need help making sure I am not doing something wrong, or something that will stop me from being lucid.
Nephanim helped me decide I should get a sleeping mask and try the idea out…So we are getting a cute one off of ebay!
So, I just happened to wake up about two hours after going to bed. I was about to go straight to bed, when I though “I guess I will try WBTB. It couldn’t hurt.” So, I have been up for the past about…ten minutes just on the site.
I found out, counting to sleep really helps me, and the plugging my nose reality check works nicely too. They both made me very tired, and slowed down my brain fast!
I will check into tomorrow if I have an LD or if my DR is much better.
There’s no thing as an amateur! Or, even better, we’re all amateurs It’s just that some of us have been amateurs a little longer As Yves said, everything you read or hear about LD’ing can be very useful, but I believe something like 80% of what you learn is from yourself, your dreams, your mind, your insights and deffinetly your crazy idea! I’ve thought about getting a dream mask too Good luck!
the WBTB didn’t work as well as I hoped. Well, it may have, but I woke up so early last night, and then was forced to be fully awake, seeing as how i woke up late for school this morning. 9_9 Aye! I can’t even remember the one dream I had last night, so good thing i kinda scribbled it down with a few points about what happened. I also feel like I was not in REM sleep after I woke up and went back to bed. I woke up twice during the night.
Oh well, tonight is another night, and until I get my sleeping mask, I will continue doing a few reality checks as I fall asleep.
So, after crawling around the forums, I took a look at the WILD faq thread. Let’s just say, I blame Nephanim for all my trouble XD…
So, when I attempt to do WILD, I lay in bed, and I start imagining my body sinking, and I soon get the numbness, followed by SP. After that, I enjoy the calming track given to me by Nephanim and drift to sleep…or well, I tried. Yesterday I tried counting, and sure enough, my brain slowed down and it began getting harder and harder to count. Ah! I was so happy that I was able to sleep two hours before waking up. I tried WILD again after that, following WBTB.
What is the problem…? Nephanim made me think that WILD was like mindless meditating! I was simply waiting to fall asleep, and BOOM, LD. I have not been imaging my reality checks, nor imaging my body doing anything after SP kicks in. I have been laying there, trying to stop my mind from moving, and stopping all HI I have been seeing. Needless to say, I feel ridiculous!
I am looking forward to my cute sleeping mask though…~ >w<
Just extending my thanks to everyone who’s provided their input. Tera seems really excited about finding a method that works for her.
Tera… In all fairness, it’s more appropriately called a misunderstanding than misinformation. When you asked about meditation, I talked with you about meditation! XD I’m glad you looked up some formal techniques, though. The process of trying different techniques and altering them to suit you as an individual is always helpful.
@Nephanim
You just want to sound smart and right. The reason I asked about it, is because the way you explained it made me misunderstand the WILD technique. I call that misinforming me on your part. – Let’s not have a spousal argument on the forums, eh XD?
Last night while trying new things with the ideas and knowledge found on here, I hit SP so much faster. The intense, but not painful tingling kicked in, and I could feel my brain going to sleep. I started counting as soon as I got into bed and closed my eye, and at 100 I began imaging myself doing reality checks. As this continued, I slowly lost count of my numbers, and this intern- made me fall asleep. I lost my count, and my consciousness!
I know about the few Reality checks to imagine as you think you are falling asleep, but does anyone have anything besides counting to help me keep track of my brain XD? I was thinking about getting a list of words and going through them, or really easy words and spelling them, seeing as how you can imagine words better, and the more I would do the words, the better chance I would end up seeing them in a dream.
It’s just that some of us have been amateurs a little longer 
As Yves said, everything you read or hear about LD’ing can be very useful, but I believe something like 80% of what you learn is from yourself, your dreams, your mind, your insights and deffinetly your crazy idea! I’ve thought about getting a dream mask too 
When you asked about meditation, I talked with you about meditation! XD I’m glad you looked up some formal techniques, though. The process of trying different techniques and altering them to suit you as an individual is always helpful.