I had my first successful WILD attempt a couple days ago and it was mind blowing. What I noticed was that along with my body feeling warm and tingly, there was a lot of flickering and flashing hypnagogic imagery that intensified until it eventually stabilized and I was in a pseudo-dream state.

I noticed a key difference between my successful attempt from that day and my failed attempt(s) last night. While the warm and tingly sensation and high-pitched ringing were the same as before (or perhaps a little less intense), I didn't have any visual hallucinations. No flickering or flashing or 'slideshow' imagery. Nothing more than some subtle shifts in the blackness behind my eyelids. My successful attempt had much more vivid colors and flashing that accompanied the physical sensation of my body falling asleep, and those hallucinations intensified exponentially as I 'crossed over' into the dream state.

During the failed attempt I felt like I was getting really CLOSE to the 'cross-over point', but never reaching it. I felt warm and tingly for a while and then it would plateau and the sensations would 'simmer down' until I was back to simply relaxing in bed. But there were NO hallucinations ever to accompany the physical sensations during this failed attempt.

One more difference was the TIME of the attempts. During my successful attempt I had already slept 7 or 8 hours. The failed attempt occurred after 5 hours of sleep.

My questions are:

1. Should HI always accompany a successful WILD attempt?

2. If there is no HI in my attempt, does it mean that perhaps I'm attempting WILD too early, when I'm not likely to enter REM directly?

3. Is it preferable to sleep MORE before attempting WILD, or try after only 4 or so hours? Does it matter?

Thanks for your help!

Dalal