Straight into LD?

Hm I have a question. Dreaming occurs during REM phase, and normally you go through a couple of other dream phases first, before getting to REM right?

Well I had this odd experience. I was extremely tired, I was trying to do work with my eyes half open and they kept closing for a few seconds and I'd open them up again. Then I decided to give up on my work and take a little nap. I was sitting on the couch, and what felt like a few minutes later, I started to feel like I was dreaming. I was imagining the room around me and I was walking towards a door. However, at the same time, I was conscious of my body sleeping on the couch, and I was sitting in an uncomfortable position so I readjusted my body and my dream disappeared.

If I'm dreaming, shouldn't I be unaware of my body? Maybe I was just really tired and wasn't actually dreaming? Any ideas on what happened? This isn't considered WILDing right? I didn't do the 6 hours sleep, then 1 hour wake then, back to nap or whatever, I just took a nap in the middle of the day.

Well, long story short dreams can happen during any phase of the night, but during REM you will have drastically more vivid dreams, along with a huge increase in dream recall because your usually in a less heavy sleep.

Naps are a great way to LD usually, because generally you nap because you didnt get enough sleep the night before (Interrupted your sleep cycle). This of course means you missed the last few hours of sleep, which has a large chunk of the REM cycle. Your body basically plays catch up for the night before, and you may start immediately in an REM cycle, and drop right into a LD.

It sounds like you were close to that, maybe you began slipping into a dream before SP kicked in and thats why you were only semi lucid/conscious? Sounds kinda like you were in a transitional state between awake/asleep.

Best advice I can say is keep it up, try relaxing a bit more or only stimulating your mind rather then thinking about your body if you reach this again soon. Alot of people talk about a "wave of heaviness" thats sets in right before SP, followed by.. a huge urge to move or reposition themselves. They say they get really uncomfortable all the sudden, if they dont move their body goes straight into sp...Maybe thats where you where, and you were just experiencing some vivid HI?

For me its a very gradual stage, happens slowly.. so cant help ya there :)

*edit* Oh, and wilding doesn't "need" like 6 hours of sleep, Its just that this will leave the average person with a few hours of sleep left, but its usually enough so that if you wanted/needed to you could stay awake.. This is just the kinda in between phase you wanna be in when attempting a wild. To awake and you'll lay in bed forever, to tired and you'll pass out till morning :)

Wow thanks! Next time I'll just try to focus on my mind rather than my body. And the thing about catching up on REM is interesting. I learned a lot from your post, thanks a lot! :D