Thread: jolting keeping me from relaxing enough?

When trying to WILD, sometimes I keep feeling myself jolt back to alertness, much like if I were sitting in some boring lecture and trying not to fall asleep. I think this must be the so-called "hypnic jerk." When it happens I always get a brief flash of hypnagogic imagery, so I'm sad when it immediately goes away. I'm sort of concerned though that constantly getting this shot of adrenaline from jolting awake might be preventing me from relaxing enough to enter SP fully. Another thing that happens is that I involuntarily gasp for air suddenly or today my hand suddenly moved on its own and I was very surprised because moving caused me to feel my blanket, which I had lost all awareness of.

So far I've never succeeded in getting into a dream, nor have I ever fallen asleep while trying (I'm one of those people who NEVER falls asleep unintentionally, and is jealous of how easily other people fall asleep). I haven't gotten as far as full sleep paralysis either, even though I've managed to lie totally still for at least an hour. I start to feel tingly and very heavy, but I'm still aware of the exact position I'm lying in, and if I try to move my body I still easily can even though it can feel a tad harder than when fully awake.

Suggestions, anyone?

i'm having more or less the same problem as you , in the way i find so difficult to fall asleep fast, and so much i try it , i find it much more difficult to fall asleep. I think the problem is that sleeping has to be a natural process from which the thought goes from the neocortex or normal awareness level to the deep limbic and instintive brain , and every attempt to try to sleep or try to something blocks that . Following that , the solution could seem to be not to think , but again , trying not to think is thinking . I think the solution then might be simply not to try anything and let the body go on the natural sleeping process , but on my experience , when I ''do'' that , I fall sleep earlier , but I don't have luck with the WILD . I think we need suggestions from anyone who really have been trought that problems and has the capacity to have WILDs when he want ... keep dreaming and luck

I find myself with the same problem as you and am waiting for a response to this thread. Usually, i either completely fall asleep into a normal dream or i catch myself falling asleep and it feels like what you were describing, a rather sharp jolt back into awareness. i guess i have to find the middle for myself but i was wondering what other people will say for this thread.

is incredible that i've been reading on the forum and the 90% (for not to say the 100%) of the people have the same problem with WILD , not only in this forum , in an spanish forum about lucid dreaming i used to post also it was the peoples problem there . there's not anybody in this huuuuuge forum who has had this kind of problems and have found a way to go on?????? :S:S
also I licked the expresion ''I catch myself falling asleep'' because it is exactly what i wanted to say and that describes the point of it . Maybe the solution could be don't pay attention or not to give importance at the moment we catch ourselves falling asleep , as our experience says that paying attention to that bring us back where we won't ; that's the awaken or normal awareness state.
I repeat.....does anybody in this forum have been trough that??

I was reading BillyBob's tutorial (sorry I can't post the link, I haven't been registered long enough) and I think it partially explained my troubles. I think two things I was doing wrong were:

1. I had it fixed in my head NOT to fall asleep. But actually, falling asleep is what you want, just with the added point that you still hold onto a tiny thread of awareness.

2. I kept inadvertently focusing on anticipating various things...SP, HH, dreaming, etc. Like thinking, "Is this SP? How is this going? When will I start hallucinating? Etc." Since I was too intent on waiting for and expecting things to happen, I couldn't really fall into a dream state.

These points are worsened a lot for me since I have an abnormally large amount of willpower when it comes to staying awake.

Another point, not in the tutorial, that I realized is that I've had an abnormally hard time getting used to sleeping in all kinds of situations. Like it took me a long time to learn to sleep in a hotel, or on a plane, or sharing a bed, etc. I had to very slowly get used to them first.

So here is my plan in a nutshell:
1. Try to habituate myself to experiencing hypnagogia and SP without being overly alarmed by them, even if it doesn't immediately lead to lucid dreaming at first.

2. Experiment with different anchors until I find one that works for me. I can actually do this in a somewhat systematic way. For each attempt, there are three possible outcomes:
A. I can't manage to fall asleep at all.
B. I fall asleep but without becoming lucid.
C. I successfully enter a dream.

If A happens, it means the anchor is too absorbing or I'm holding on to it too tightly. If B happens, I know the anchor isn't strong enough or I'm not concentrating on it enough.

First I intend to test the control cases. The first control case is getting up early in the morning and going back to sleep without any intention to have a lucid dream. The second is to get up and go back to bed, while setting an intention to become lucid but not doing any specific technique. If I can't even manage to fall asleep in those cases, then I know my problem runs deeper than the specific method of WILD I'm using.

I think you just answered your own question, as I had the same question before you and it was answered in the same way. Now I just gotta find why all my LD's keep ending soo fast!!! LOL good luck

Well, THAT was interesting!

Being really sleep-deprived, I fully intended to just go to sleep and wake up in the morning. Instead, I fell asleep for around 2-3 hours and woke up just as I was entering SP. I think it must have been my first REM phase of the night since I couldn't remember any dreams. It felt like the blanket was vanishing off my body inch by inch. Even though I was having NO other hallucinations of any kind, I felt myself starting to freak out because a) ever since being little I hate sleeping without a blanket. I feel too exposed, and b) I started worrying about whether I was about to start experiencing something freaky. Actually, up until now I've really only been trying WILD during the day in naps because I KNEW I was going to be all freaked out at first going through SP if it was dark out...I have woken up to full SP in the middle of the night before while hallucinating something unpleasant, and it definitely left a mark on my memory! Anyway, I was trying really hard to tell myself to just chill out, and every time I succeeded I could feel the SP advance a couple inches. But after a few minutes I knew it was going too slowly so I just got up to go to the bathroom, intending to come back to bed and fall asleep normally.

OK, so an hour and a half later, I'm up typing this because even after taking melatonin and turning down the thermostat so I wouldn't be hot, I STILL can't sleep! Normally I don't really have a problem with insomnia but sleep deprivation actually makes it worse for me, and also I think I'm still amped up from what happened. Meh!

But what I am reminded of from this is that I am MUCH better at waking up at an opportune moment than I am at falling asleep, so I should probably work with that. I probably don't need to set an alarm to wake me up in order to do WBTB because if I can manage to wake up just as I'm about to enter a dream, without even meaning to, then it seems quite likely that I could learn to do it on purpose also. What I don't know is how to get over this nagging insomnia issue at the moment, though...