Preventing Sleep While in WILD Transition Stage

Apologies if this has been asked in another thread already, but I couldn't find it.

I plan on trying my first Lucid tonight by means of WILD (I'm aware it probably won't work first time), but I had a question about the technique. After waking yourself up (I'll set an alarm for 6 hours after I think I'll fall asleep), do you stay in the same position if you're comfortable? Or get up/do something else?

Also, when comfortable and waiting for sleep paralysis, what's the best way of not falling asleep prematurely? Should I simply focus on staying awake?

Cheers

Hey moSh,

WILD has been the only technique that has worked successfully for me(though DILD did work once but it wasn't anywhere near as lucid as WILD). The idea, from my very newbie experience, is that you want your mind to be awake enough to stay lucid as you transition to sleep. If you sleep enough, like lazy 9 hours+ sleep, you can stay in bed and keep ur mind awake enough while your body falls asleep. Otherwise, it would be best to get up and wake urself up but not enough to keep your body awake. Staying up for 10-15 minutes I find is enough for me.

In terms of not falling asleep prematurely, I use the FILD technique. Basically you wiggle your index and middle finger back and forth until you realize sleep paralysis is kicking in. It works wonders for me, but I hear doesn't for everyone. Bottom line, as long as you stay lucid the entire time you transition, whether focusing on being aware, or some slight physical activity, it all depends on how you work best, just gotta find it.

Good luck!

Thanks for the tips. So I basically need to experiment with how much to wake myself up mentally then. I woke myself up last night (/morning) at 7.15, 6 1/2 hours after I went to sleep, went to the toilet, and fell straight to sleep. I suppose this time I'll try and think about something or maybe read for 10 minutes while still in bed and limit my movement.

I like the idea of the FILD, I hadn't thought about trying multiple techniques at once, so I'll definitely try something like that as well.

Much appreciated!

Usually I use a multitude of techniques to stay awake. I typically start off by just counting backwards from 100 to zero. The best way to do this is to count down one after each exhale. However, after about counting down to 80 or 70, I find that my mind starts wandering and daydreaming. Whenever this happens, I do one of two things:

1) Reverse blinking. If you haven't heard of it, it's just opening your eyes for a half a second, then closing them for a few seconds (like blinking, but instead of closing your eyes every few seconds, open them). Just repeat that process until you feel focused again and then continue on counting backwards.

2) FILD. It was mentioned above, so I won't go into detail about that.


That's what I do to prevent falling asleep. Usually, I'm in SP way before I hit zero counting backwards. Just remember to focus wholly on the task at hand; be it counting backwards, reverse blinking, or FILD.