Some questions

[drea]

Hello! I got very interested in LD few weeks ago and started doing WBTB method. This method did not work out for me very well, although i saw some very vidid regular dreams. I found it too difficult to fall asleep again. I thought that lucid dreaming is not for me and i did not try anymore. But few night ago i realized i'm dreaming, got too excited and woke up. Last night i woke up in sleep paralysis and it seemed like i couldn't breath at all. My eyes were closed and i couldn't move a muscle. I started to panic and few moments later i woke up. I was very sleepy and i fall asleep right after waking up, then i was in sleep paralysis again and it was like the previous one. I woke up again, but then i got out of bed and stayed up a little and after that it was normal. Today i was taking a nap and i woke up in sleep paralysis again. This time my eyes were open and i saw somekind of blue light in my room. I think i saw a scary girl standing next to my bed but i wasn't scared. Instead i tried to concentrate on my breathing and i realized that i can breath, heavily but atleast can, so it wasn't that scary anymore. I tried to be in sleep paralysis because people have told that you can somehow get to lucid dream by sleep paralysis, but i woke up. My question is, how can i use sleep paralysis to get lucid and why am i having so many sleep paralysis episodes? Thank you.

[melanieb]

Welcome to the forum! Sleep paralysis is a rare condition among the general population, though the rumor that you need it to lucid dream is not. If you are experiencing true sleep paralysis then you might be able to use it to help induce a lucid dream but it's not required. Your descriptions sounds much like the ones found all over the net but most of those are built upon each other and not a lot of experience. Most episodes of "sleep paralysis" are normal false awakenings, hypnagogic images and other sensations experienced as the body falls asleep. Are you having regular sleep issues even when you are not attempting a lucid dreaming method? Do you find sleep difficult all the time? Are you tired throughout the day? Have you had any recent physiological or major hormonal changes? These are conditions that can explain episodes of sleep paralysis. When done properly many people find WBTB works very well, myself included. Still, every method depends on you and your sleep habits. Knowing more about your sleep habits and what you're doing specifically can help the people on this forum give you better answers.

[drea]

Thank you for your answer! I have noticed that i tend to wake up in the middle of the night at least once for some reason. I have been under a lot of stress in the past week and have felt tired throughout the day. I sometimes have problems falling asleep but not always. I usually get 6 - 7 hours of sleep each night. With WBTB i saw many vivid dreams but none of them was lucid sadly. I'm thinking of giving WBTB another go.

[elucid]

I do not know how you can use sleep paralysis to induce a lucid dream but it is theorized that you are getting close to entering a dream when you are in sleep paralysis. Anyway, I myself think that wbtb is too much of a hassle because it takes you waking up at night and hoping to fall alseep. Try my method, I just practice visual awareness during the day and when I am in a dream and start staring at it, I somehow realize it is a dream.

[melanieb]

Thank you for your answer! I have noticed that i tend to wake up in the middle of the night at least once for some reason. I have been under a lot of stress in the past week and have felt tired throughout the day. I sometimes have problems falling asleep but not always. I usually get 6 - 7 hours of sleep each night. With WBTB i saw many vivid dreams but none of them was lucid sadly. I'm thinking of giving WBTB another go. I'm a parent of two kids and I always wake up at least once in the night, if not several times. I have a tendency to stay up late and then wake up early with my alarm to get kids to school. After a day or two of that I'm often tired enough in the morning to go back to sleep after the kids go to school. This is a perfect time for WBTB. The thing about WBTB is you need to be tired for it to work. Lying around for a long time with no hope of getting back to sleep only results in frustration. Missing out on a couple hours of a normal weekly sleep schedule increases the effeciveness of WBTB attempts. For me, I go one step further than that. When I make my WBTB attempts I try them in my living room recliner chair. The combination of a different location than my bed and the semi-inclined position help me fall asleep the way I would while taking a nap. Additionally the change in ambient noises and sensations that I experience in the living room help me maintain a heightened level of awareness. These are the elements that work for me. With any method you attempt you need to find what works for you and make it your own. Combine any method with visual awareness during the day, as elucid suggests above, and you increase your chances of a lucid dream even more. Funny thing...I see a lot of posts where people say, "I somehow realize it is a dream." as elucid did above. What you are doing by regularly visiting this site, reading the posts, and writing down your dreams in your dream journal is training your brain to treat dreams as memories that are important to you (so you remember them). You are also teaching your brain that you can exercise control over these scenarios that play out in your head. It's not some magical thing that just happens, or at least that's not the reason why we put forth so much effort into learning how to lucid dream. The idea of all the methods and exercises is to train your brain to exert control over what is normally a passive experience. If you haven't yet visited the DreamViews Academy (DVA) I can totally recommend it. Many people have learned their skills by reinforcing the basics in the Intro class, and then building on it with the material posted on the forum. Try it for yourself: Intro Class (OpheliaBlue RareCola CanisLucidus Chimpertainment Xanous)

[drea]

Thank you both for your answers! I think the sleep paralysis episodes were just a phase because i haven't experienced them anymore. I'm sleeping better now and not that tired anymore. I got lucid just a few moments ago. I went to bed early and slept for almost 9 hours. Then i got up and watched some tv but i felt still kind of tired and thought that maybe it still counts as WBTB. So i went to bed and soon i fell asleep. I saw a long quite vivid dream. I was in my room and on my computer. I was in facebook and i actually accepted a friend request. Then it seemed like the color of facebook changed and it felt different. I refreshed the page and then looked at the address bar. It said ''omalotta.com'' although i was in facebook. It was quite funny and then i got scared because i thought i have computer virus maybe. Then i realized that i don't even have a computer in my room. I did a RC and it worked but i woke up after that. I'm really amazed how realistic it all seemed.