Alright guys, I’m a bit of a n00b here when it comes to LDing. I’ve been working on it off and on for about the last three years now, very unsuccessfully. Starting out I tried doing a DJ, RCs, the basics, but it never quite got me anywhere. Lately though I’ve been dabbling with WILD. Here’s what always seems to happen:
I start my night by laying down on my back with my arms to my side to get ready to go to sleep and work on relaxing every part of my body. There’s not a set order, but I will flex my muscle groups one at a time, and release, all while focusing on getting my breathing into a very deep, relaxing routine. Once I’ve finished that, I will remain motionless while focusing on my breathing. I’ve tried keeping my mind blank and also indulging in my thoughts, both having the same outcome. After a while, I start to notice my arms, hands, legs, and feet go numb, with my hands feeling like they’re in a different position than where they started. This feeling remains the same the entire time. With my vision, it starts out blank with nothing noticeably different than the typical darkness you get all the time. Eventually I’ll start to see dark purple shapes moving around, sometimes there will be green shapes like a lava lamp floating around, and other times it will look like static from a TV. Almost every time, once I get to these stages, I will inadvertently take a deep, short, breath, as if gasping for air, which will always disrupt the visions. I’ve tried a lot of the methods mentioned here, such as the counting, walking down stairs, what have you, but always end up in the same spot. I should also note that I really believe these methods work, and have faith in myself that I can accomplish this, all while remaining very calm and not getting too excited. I did have one time a couple years ago where this method almost worked, and I started to “zoom in” on a dream scene, but have not gotten anywhere close since. I’m really not sure what is going on here, or what I’m doing wrong so I thought I would finally post and see what the experts here had to say about it. I appreciate any feedback and will answer any questions and take any advice you have for me. Thanks for reading, I know it’s a bit of a long one.
Well you are doing the biggest mistake you can do relaying to lucid dreaming. I believe that in each and every guide on almost every technique is said that you need to combine whatever technique with WBTB technique.
Why? Well for very simple reason. When you go to sleep body is going through 5 stages of sleep(somewhere you can find different information but it generally 5 stages) which one of those stages is REM stage where we usually dream. It’s proved that we dream outside REM stage but usually those dreams are nothing like REM dreams.
Another problem is that our body cycles through those stages in periods of 90 - 120 minutes the whole night and always REM stage comes the last. But the good thing is that as we sleep longer stages before REM becomes shorter and REM stage becomes longer. That’s why you need WBTB to wake up and then try WILD when your REM is much longer then at the beginning of the night.
The problem with your way of trying is that you will need to wait somewhat between 90 - 120 minutes to actually enter first REM stage which is very short… And that is very non productive. So do what you do but with WBTB. Then we can talk more about the subject!
Good luck! 
Thanks for the response! I actually have tried combining the two, guess I left that part out haha. The issue I have with that though is sleeping through my alarm, not exactly reliable haha. I do set it every night though, have only remembered waking up for it maybe twice. The whole process lasts an hour and a half to two hours though, I would imagine something would start happening at that point at least. I’m staying with my dad for now, I’ll tell him to wake me up before he goes to work in the morning, see if that helps.
Well yes, that should help because your REM stage is going to be a lot longer then in the middle of the night. But you need to experiment with the time you wake up and the time you stay awake.
So if you wake up to late you won’t be able to fall asleep(that’s in the case if your dad’s gonna wake you up) but also if you wake up after let’s say 6 hours. If you stay awake to much you won’t be able to fall asleep easily but if you stay for some short time you might fall asleep too fast.
That’s where experimentation means everything.
Yeah, that is somewhat long… You see, for WILD it would be perfect if you could wake up somewhat before REM stage, stay awake enough to regain wake up your mind but not the body and then fall asleep right before the REM stage, but that is very hard to determine when one’s REM stage is going to be.
You can experiment with periods of 90-120 minutes and it may take some time but I guess it’s doable. Also you should have a constant sleep pattern.
I have nothing else. For now you should experiment with waking up time and staying awake time…
Good luck! 
Thanks! I’ll try experimenting a bit with times, it’s just been so hard to do lately with my current work schedule and Army stuff we’ve been doing. I have recently come across some binaural beats on Youtube, do you have any experience or thoughts about those? I’m going to try one of those tonight, see if one of the Theta ones does anything. I did a search on here, but couldn’t find anything worthwhile.
No, I’ve never try those. You can try and see…
While I agree with dB_FTS that performing WILD in combination with WBTB greatly improves its chances, I do not believe that it is the only way to WILD. Personally, I believe that if you practice it enough right before you go to bed, eventually you will be able to WILD straight from the start. Ultimately, in the end, belief is greatly important. And in the case of WILD, practice.
While dB_FTS saw your issue as your time of WILD, I see it as your discipline with LDing. I admit that I as well have for the past 3 years on and off attempted to LD with periods of activity ranging from one month to three. (Just look at the segments in my DJ. Link in signature.) I believe that if you had been practicing for 3 years straight with no interruptions, your success rate would be much higher. (Mine too as well…)
Ultimately, I think what will help you the most in LDing would be for you to diligently focus on your DJ, remembering your dreams, and increasing their vividness that you can recall. (My current game plan.) The goal I have is to maintain my DJ diligently and not have any breaks of intermission. And guess what? Over the past three days I’ve had 3 LDs; one this morning.
I don’t say this to brag, I say this to emphasize how important it is to be aware of your dreams. Your DR is the most important thing when it comes to LDing because it is what allows you to evaluate all of your dreams and become more familiar with the dream world in your waking life. This will ultimately carry over into your dream life in which you begin to have spontaneous lucids (DILDs).
And as for binaural beats, I’ve messed with them, but I’ve never had any results. Blame it on my belief in them.
Yes but the thing is that you can’t physically enter REM stage until 90 minutes passes. It’s a very rough number but that’s just how our body works. With a lot of practice and maybe with meditation and relaxing techniques you might be able to shorten that time but it’s just not physically possible when one has normal sleep pattern!
But isn’t it possible to dream in NREM? From what I gather, it is completely possible to go straight into lucid dreaming from being awake fairly quickly after relaxation, with practice, of course. It’s just not something most LDers talk about, as I’m sure it’s not a very popular method.
Yes and I said that in my first post:
Little more explanation. Mostly dreams that we remember and dreams that have some kind of story and coherence are the dreams from REM stage. NREM stage dreams are like vague memory and they usually don’t make any sense…
Most popular technique for that is WILD, there is also FILD, VILD and others but that’s all working perfectly when your REM stage is next in your sleep cycle. And at the beginning of the night as I already said you need around 90 - 120 minutes to enter first REM stage and later on that time shortens as you sleep more so that’s why we use WBTB to wake up when REM stage is longer and when we need less time to enter one.
Here’s the picture of NREM and REM stages. That’s how it looks roughly.
Also there are cases where you do enter REM stage/sleep immediately. One that is easy is nap, another one is when one is sleep deprived and brain needs REM sleep badly. Then body goes directly to REM sleep.