I have been playing around with ways to fall into REM sleep automatically. I am usually able to nearly accomplish falling into a lucid dream, except that I never quite manage to get through with it. I am too obsessed with my own breathing, and the whole thing is like turning an ignition key in a car that won’t start but has an engine that keeps turning over. To combat this, I am practicing different things that will be useful when I want to LD.
Anyway, here is what I have been trying: I set my alarm for about an hour, because I figured I wasn’t going to get in any actual dreaming. I laid on my back and got comfortable (I find that if my forearms are down against the bed I feel less like I can breathe, so I either join my hands across my chest, or I lay my hands back against my pillow.) I imagine that a sort of liquid/jello/metal substance with the power to numb me is closing slowly around me. It reaches my hands and feet first, and doesn’t move on until what it has just covered has cooled and doesn’t feel like anything.
Basically, with this, I know I can move, but at the same time I can’t feel anything. I succeeded in numbing all arms and legs. I even managed to numb my face muscles (I could feel some of my bed cover against my face, but at the same time my face felt as if it wasn’t exactly there - but more there than my limbs. It’s hard to describe.
I would stop trying now and again and simply pay attention to how the light was playing against my eyelids. I’m fuzzy on what exactly hypnogogic imagery is, so I won’t call it that, but I just let my mind wander and produce whatever images come to it.
I only do this when I’m pretty awake, because otherwise I will fall asleep before I finish. When I have done it more often I’ll try it before sleeping.