Hi.
I am not at all an experienced lucid dreamer, though I had my share of “accidental” lucidity, so I guess my experience is nothing unusual. Well, you can never be sure, so I want to share it anyway.
A few nights ago I was lying in my bed, slowly falling asleep with some thoughts still circling in my mind. I noticed how my thinking slowed down and then lost consciousness. I believe I’ve never recalled the actual point just before falling asleep as well. Then I suddenly regathered consciousness. I was still asleep, and aware of it. It was more a realisation than a conclusion, just a bit of knowledge popping up in my mind. I don’t remember thinking in the usual way (vocalising your foremost thoughts), but I may remember incorrectly.
I heared a loud noise all the time (imagine a CD full of noise that’s scratched and always repeats half a second over and over), though I knew that kind of thing as a hypnagogic hallucination and didn’t wory about it. I didn’t feel my body at all, only some kind of “noise” if you can apply that word to feeling. Well, I made the mistake of trying too hard and starting to feel my body again, so I slowly woke up.
Is this kind of thing common? Can you maybe use it to “start” a lucid dream? I once read of a state of consciousness achieved by meditation where the body falls asleep and the mind stays awake… is this maybe the same?
Yes, the noises you experienced are very common. They’re a sign that your body is falling asleep, and are only heard when the mind is still awake. The origin of these noises must be found in the physiological changes the body is going through when it makes the transition from waking to sleeping, like a decreasing blood pressure, alterations in the brainwave activity, lowered body temperature and heightened awareness of the neural activity (usually these are very small stimuli, but when the physical senses are slowly shut down during the onset of sleep, these bodily phenomena become magnified until they reach the audible level so they can be picked up by a brain which is still being aware of its state). So… nothing to worry about
However, you can indeed use these sounds, visuals or vibrations to enter a dream consciously. That’s what we call a WILD - Wake Initiated Lucid Dream (we have a BIG topic about that: https://community.ld4all.com/t/a-wild-variation/12100
Also, if you really want to learn WILD, it’s best to do it after some 6hrs of sleep: wake up very briefly, concentrate, and let yourself drift back to dreamland while trying to stay conscious. You cán also achieve it when you first go to bed in the evening but it’s far more difficult because the gap between the waking and dreaming world is still very wide (after 6hrs of sleep, it’s much smaller, so it’s far easier to practice WILD then).
There’s much much more to tell about WILD, but I suggest you take a look at the topics I mentioned and browse around a little
