Thread: Breaking illusions:Sleep paralysis [WILD help (method)]

Breaking illusions: Sleep paralysis

We all got trough this. Itches, serious body sensations. We desperately wanted to have our first SP experiences and these damn body signals made us loose so many attempts. What about it? Are we doing something wrong?

Introduction

I started lucid dreaming maybe a year ago, and didnt manage to have WILD with unaltered consciousness transition yet. But I had a lot of unfinished attempts ending with DILDs. I had some DEILDs and best results came with slight modified MILD techniques. {I hate naming techniques, but it is the best way not to make it too long}. Nearly every evening i am doing WILD preparation exercises and it is starting to get serious.
I think, I can help you with problems you surely experience when starting your first attempts. So how dit it all probably start for you?

How it all starts?

You had your first spontaneous lucid dream {or not yet}. You try researching on google and you find dreamviews with dozens of motivated people here. You do your research and sign up here. You find some interesting techniques, how to achieve WILD and SP. You study them and try them yourself. And here are the roots of the problem. Nearly everyone thinks sequentially and as everyone here describes, WILD is technique which takes time to learn. So why not to achieve SP as the first step in a row. For most of you sleep paralysis is body sensation happenning on sleep onset, when you loose control over your body.
If you are just starting you are fully motivated and cant wait to achieve this cool new Sleep paralylis everyone talks about. Your first gate into lucid dreaming at will.

And what you do next?

Later on... You are in search of techniques to help you relax your body and sink deeper and deeper into relaxation, and hopefully sleep paralysis strikes and you go trough it all and you finally made it. You will eventually make it trough first step and you may continue further with another steps.

WRONG !!!.

Do you think, it would be that simple? You will surely experience things like itches which must be desperately scratched, body sensations sometimes even hurting. Swallowing sensation. And believe me, first nigths, you will not be able to sleep well, becouse you will be fully awake after the body finally wins the battle against you.

Most of you even dont search for sleep paralysis, most of you would like to experience the transition phase at first: When everything shakes, some electricity-like sensation, sounds... Well. Its almost impossible to achieve this intentionally {unless you are pretty good with concentration (most of us isnt)}. Remember. Your mind shuts your body down only if it believes you are no longer interested in sensations coming from your body. But if you are waiting for transition, if you would like to experience it. It simply cannot happen. Your mind is not and idiot

Your search after Sleep paralysis is something you should forget about as soon as possible. Remember your first and last goal. You want to achieve WILD and what happens en route, simply happens.

Forget about your body

So according to what I said, you should concentrate on WILD and not on SP. But how? You feel like your body is attacking you with itches, and these signals get stronger, the more you pay attention to them. So you will soon find out, you should no longer pay attention to your body. Simple task which is probably not as easily performed as stated. (luckily it is not as bad as it seems at first )
What now? You want to forget about the body, thats the task. I tried many methods like counting and breathing, but this methods are not fun, and they keep yourself within your own body, which is attacking you with signals, which you are probably starting to dislike. Bets way how to forget about your body is to create another, internal world. And this is really, really simple. Believe me. With practice you are heroes.

Internal world - gateway into lucid dream

You are in your own body. You feel your muscles. Take a deep breath or two becouse you are going to construct our own internal world. You will be using nothing more than your memory and one cool phenomenon:Inertia (As soon as you start something with your body, it starts performing on its own)

Step 1: Relaxation
Relaxation is vital. Relaxation is crucial. You have to be relaxed before you make your WILD transition. Everyone says that. But why?

Simply if you dont relax yourself, the body does it for your. It makes some twitches to relax the muscles automatically and this unfortunatelly breaks the concentration you will need later. So you should prepare your body to be slightly relaxed. You dont have to go into extremes, becouse as you go deeper, it will continue to relax more and more becouse you gave it the instructions, how to do it and Inertia does the rest. Use method you like most, but dont spend too much time here.

Step 2: Forgetting about the body

Your body is slightly relaxed and you start to sense, that the body starts to shut down on its own. Still you feel it. And thats what we are going to change in step 2. Pretend you are in your bedroom. You dont have to see it. Just pretend. Pretend you are near your desk. Touch it with your hand. You dont have to see your hand. How does the texture feel like?

You dont feel anything, but your own hand in bed? Doesnt matter .... use your memory. You touched that desk in past. You know, how it feels, try harder... You get it? Thats it. Now imagine it in your minds eye.

You dont see it. No problem. But you saw it in past... Try harder. You see darkness? Pretend you see the desk. Move your imaginary hand over the desk. Construct the sequence of tactile feelings, maybe visuals, sounds.... Maybe each second one feeling. If you cannot see, feel, hear, touch, just pretend it. This way you build some kind of choppy film made only of your memories. This way you program yourself to act on its own later. I know, it needs some anmount of concentration to mantain at first. But as you progress, it takes its own inertia and it gets more detail. You are starting to move into your own internal world.

Step 3: This is the place for sleep paralysis

As you are using memories of touch, guess, what happens? You are forgetting about external world. About your body. And it continues relaxing without you being mentally present. And as you dont interfere with the process. You may or may not suddenly feel the transition which you awaited sooo much at the beginning. And this time it is becouse you were not present while it was happening. You were playing in your own internal world made of memories and fully forget about your body, just as in real life when you do something requiring concentration. Internal world starts to become more and more real overtime. The film you made with concentration starts to take its own way and you might discover yourself in your dream world.

Conclusion

WILD is the process of falling asleep consciously. But this doesnt mean, that you must consciously observe the process of shutting down. It is much easier to hide yourself into your own mentally created memory world and have fun within your head, while it happens.
Believe me. I cannot imagine well. I was not good at tactile imaging and i could see only blackness. But I simply use something what is natural, and what we all have. Memories and inertia.

I hope, I managed to break some illusions about sleep paralysis and helped to clarify the process of wild how i percieve it. You really should change your view on sleep paralysis, and start experimenting within your head. Let your body relax. The true WILD happens in your head.

nice job adraw that helped me a lot I will try it tonight

Wish you good luck.

I deeply agree with this.
I've found lately that if I just focus on staying aware, I get a LD.
I think you should not think about SP at all, just relax, and don't create the fake SP like I have before, thiss will just keep you awake.
Just remember to try falling asleep, but staying aware.
I've found that the lucid dreaming mp3's work great for putting ideas into your head while you sit in bed relaxing.
For me, it's all about producing that feeling like you just got home from the most exhausting day and hopping in bed, but keeping your concentration as you quickly fall asleep. This way you will notice HI much quicker, and you can sink into the imagery quickly.

Thanks man, I've been trying to immagine myself doing sports, and it starts to work but it always fails, but for a moment I can hear the sounds of my actions then it just all fades away.

I think I also need to relax because I get several body twitches (mainly in the legs) when I try to wild.

Originally Posted by a1112

Thanks man, I've been trying to immagine myself doing sports, and it starts to work but it always fails, but for a moment I can hear the sounds of my actions then it just all fades away.

I think I also need to relax because I get several body twitches (mainly in the legs) when I try to wild.

YEah. It takes some practice to be good at visualization. But the results are visible when you do it the first time.

It is simple to loose track about the body, but it is also simple to loose track of yourself too {especially when you do it at the evening}

Create a world inside your mind. Slip inside and have a fun time!

Originally Posted by Something Else

Create a world inside your mind. Slip inside and have a fun time!

HI again something else . I am glad you are still here in dreamviews. I am doing some experimentations with newly rediscovered view on WILD, which i presented here. Still i have some problems concentrating on internal world, becouse my visuals are not as clear as I would like to have them. And there comes the time, when the body starts to shift my attention back into it. Do you also have this kind of experience? If so, what is your strategy to remain stabilised in your internal world?

I am not talking about usual disturbances like itches and scratches. I feel some kind of urge to concentrate back on my body. Usually i find it in deep relaxed state.

Yes, I really love this website. I would say that we have a similar challenge to overcome with this experience of being drawn back to body. For me, I find that this type of thing ebbs and flows in cycles. Hopefully each cycle brings me deeper into trance and closer to LDing. So, if I find myself being drawn back to body, I realize such a feeling will pass as going into trance is cyclical. If I internalize this, it helps to calm and reassure me, which then helps the next cycle to be deeper.

As for the visuals not being a clear or vivid as I would like, that has happened to me off and on. I am not sure really what is the defining component(s) of great visuals. I have noticed that not LDing in a while usually makes my visuals more intense. Also, imagery exercises helps. But ultimately I still really am not sure.

I far as stabalizing a dream, I try to use my dream senses to really expand, intensify, and clarify the dream. Maybe it is the difference between touching and feeling, hearing and listening, seeing and looking at, really breathing in and experiencing my dream, letting my consciousness really experience the dream feeling it in my core.

Hope this helps.

The craziest part, is before actual images appear, I get the craziest HI. I go into spirals and things pop out, like an ITunes visualizer, and by this time my eyes are twitching twice per second, Then I always see eyes glowing in blue then a face outline appears. Its hard to get through that part, and when I do, I always end up in a dream, realize it and wake up. I'm either riding in a car with my buddy's, doing my favorite sport, or playing video games with my friends .

So I'm thinking that the next time I have crazy HI its time to visualize and I will pop into a dream knowingly and not be surprised and wake up when I do.

I'm just that close, and this happens every night. It's impossible for me to WILD in the morning, I'm just too awake, even after 4 hours of sleep.

Adraw, I was just wondering exactly how important the visulizations are? I've been doing pretty much the same things that you have concluded here when I attempt to WILD, I also found that remembering tactile stuff helps me to distance myself from my body. All this is good and all but I haven't made any greater progress, I also know that I suck at visulizations. So my actual question is if this "scene" or "film" that I am to produce in my head needs clear imagery in order to build a dreamscene? And if so how do I improve me visulization skills?

Originally Posted by a1112

The craziest part, is before actual images appear, I get the craziest HI. I go into spirals and things pop out, like an ITunes visualizer, and by this time my eyes are twitching twice per second, Then I always see eyes glowing in blue then a face outline appears. Its hard to get through that part, and when I do, I always end up in a dream, realize it and wake up. I'm either riding in a car with my buddy's, doing my favorite sport, or playing video games with my friends .

So I'm thinking that the next time I have crazy HI its time to visualize and I will pop into a dream knowingly and not be surprised and wake up when I do.

I'm just that close, and this happens every night. It's impossible for me to WILD in the morning, I'm just too awake, even after 4 hours of sleep.

Interesting. I am totally different. But maybe not as much different as you. Main difference would be, that your HI is wery vivid. Mine is really black and white without much detail. That is dissapointing sometimes, but i am working on this too.

Yeah I found myself really awake too nearly each night. SImple the wish to have wild ended my attempt making me physically tired, but i couldnt fall asleep. The only way out of this is what i suggested above. To construct internal world. Becouse that gives not much time to think about anything else. Maybe it could help you to focus.

Still there is one last barrier. And that is concentration. Now i understand what more experienced WILDers told to be most difficult part {not to fall asleep}. Even when i am constructing some imagery. Even when i am focusing, I fall asleep.

Originally Posted by Something Else

Yes, I really love this website. I would say that we have a similar challenge to overcome with this experience of being drawn back to body. For me, I find that this type of thing ebbs and flows in cycles. Hopefully each cycle brings me deeper into trance and closer to LDing. So, if I find myself being drawn back to body, I realize such a feeling will pass as going into trance is cyclical. If I internalize this, it helps to calm and reassure me, which then helps the next cycle to be deeper.

As for the visuals not being a clear or vivid as I would like, that has happened to me off and on. I am not sure really what is the defining component(s) of great visuals. I have noticed that not LDing in a while usually makes my visuals more intense. Also, imagery exercises helps. But ultimately I still really am not sure.

I far as stabalizing a dream, I try to use my dream senses to really expand, intensify, and clarify the dream. Maybe it is the difference between touching and feeling, hearing and listening, seeing and looking at, really breathing in and experiencing my dream, letting my consciousness really experience the dream feeling it in my core.

Hope this helps.

Thats fine. Cyclical trance. That reasures me, I am not doing as much wrong. So maybe you could help me with another think which is probably connected with fact I am doing my exercises at the evening.

And that would be: SOmetimes, when I want to construct internal world, it somehow does not work. As if i couldnt do anything mental. My mind stops to respond to my wishes and simply doesnt do anything. Do you have such experience? Is it part of the cyclic process you mentioned, or is it just becouse i feel so tired?

Thx in forward.

It is important to have your mind rested enough so that you won't fall asleep, but still relaxed enough that you can enter a dream. An odd paradox. For me, this is best achieved in the morning after having had most of a good nights rest but still a little tired so I can sleep more. This is why WBTB is so good for me. My mind is calm, controllable, and charged. It is ready to make a dreamscape and slip inside.

Originally Posted by adraw

And that would be: SOmetimes, when I want to construct internal world, it somehow does not work. As if i couldnt do anything mental. My mind stops to respond to my wishes and simply doesnt do anything. Do you have such experience? Is it part of the cyclic process you mentioned, or is it just becouse i feel so tired?

Thx in forward.

Originally Posted by adraw

Your mind shuts your body down only if it believes you are no longer interested in sensations coming from your body. But if you are waiting for transition, if you would like to experience it. It simply cannot happen. Your mind is not and idiot

Aha!

Nice, insightful post, and well written too. I'll be sure to try this tonight. I managed it once when I was imagining a lift I regularly use. Obviously I almost always press the same button and then just stand there waiting so the image was not too hard to picture. I tried to increase the detail by willpower I guess and it became almost lifelike. Then I thought, woah, and snapped out of it...

Originally Posted by Semja

Aha!

Nice, insightful post, and well written too. I'll be sure to try this tonight. I managed it once when I was imagining a lift I regularly use. Obviously I almost always press the same button and then just stand there waiting so the image was not too hard to picture. I tried to increase the detail by willpower I guess and it became almost lifelike. Then I thought, woah, and snapped out of it...

Finding the sweet spot... Hard as hell. But also a lot of fun. May I ask you how you increase the detail in more detail? Please. Even if it is hard to formulate, try to.

Thx.

Originally Posted by adraw

Finding the sweet spot... Hard as hell. But also a lot of fun. May I ask you how you increase the detail in more detail? Please. Even if it is hard to formulate, try to.

Thx.

It was a long time ago, and thinking about it now, it is really hard to express! but I'll try. I thought I got the idea from EWLD but looking through it briefly I can't see it mentioned. That time really stands out in my memory...

I must have been really relaxed but also alert, as I can't do it right now, naturally. I think the crucial thing when it happened was recreating the mental feeling, the atmosphere of the place. You know how every single place has a certain feel to you? A feeling which is impossible to put into words.

Right now, every place we have ever been to conjures up a unique feeling when we go to it and we should be able to remember that mental sensation of being there. In my opinion that particular feeling associated to that particular place is mainly linked to time, not the place. Therefore imagining a place we have been to recently, should be far easier. Some memories will be hard-wired into our brain, but we should be able to relate more and better visualise a recent memory. Maybe that's why I'm unable to re-create the same experience with that particular memory because the memory was from several years ago.

It may help if the particular memory is something we don’t have any negative feelings towards because we may subconsciously try to avoid re-creating that. The best sort of memory may be a completely neutral one, for example standing in a lift, because we may be more aware, we are neither lost in happiness nor sadness. Although we may feel neutral towards, and more aware of, that particular memory, the surrounding period and emotions of our lives may help to pinpoint and visualise it.

So as you’ve gathered I think the feeling and atmosphere of the time and place was the crucial factor for me at that time, and the details flowed from that.

I’m sure I did try to consciously increase the detail though, and I’m sure I was focused on the buttons in the lift. It was a big button pad. I remember I used to have difficulty remembering which floor to go to! So I would check it carefully. My best guess is that I focused on the atmosphere, remembering how the walls looked, then the button pad, and then focused down onto a single button, held the focus and it just sprung from there. Almost like peeling away layers. There was definitely some effort of willpower involved on my part, but not a great deal.

Actually, the reason it became more detailed, lifelike, could have been simply because I crossed into a dream with awareness, by holding my focus on something - the surroundings. But the root cause of it all was definitely starting with the feeling/atmosphere/emotion of the place.

I tried!

Originally Posted by Semja

It was a long time ago, and thinking about it now, it is really hard to express! but I'll try. I thought I got the idea from EWLD but looking through it briefly I can't see it mentioned. That time really stands out in my memory...

I must have been really relaxed but also alert, as I can't do it right now, naturally. I think the crucial thing when it happened was recreating the mental feeling, the atmosphere of the place. You know how every single place has a certain feel to you? A feeling which is impossible to put into words.

Right now, every place we have ever been to conjures up a unique feeling when we go to it and we should be able to remember that mental sensation of being there. In my opinion that particular feeling associated to that particular place is mainly linked to time, not the place. Therefore imagining a place we have been to recently, should be far easier. Some memories will be hard-wired into our brain, but we should be able to relate more and better visualise a recent memory. Maybe that's why I'm unable to re-create the same experience with that particular memory because the memory was from several years ago.

It may help if the particular memory is something we don’t have any negative feelings towards because we may subconsciously try to avoid re-creating that. The best sort of memory may be a completely neutral one, for example standing in a lift, because we may be more aware, we are neither lost in happiness nor sadness. Although we may feel neutral towards, and more aware of, that particular memory, the surrounding period and emotions of our lives may help to pinpoint and visualise it.

So as you’ve gathered I think the feeling and atmosphere of the time and place was the crucial factor for me at that time, and the details flowed from that.

I’m sure I did try to consciously increase the detail though, and I’m sure I was focused on the buttons in the lift. It was a big button pad. I remember I used to have difficulty remembering which floor to go to! So I would check it carefully. My best guess is that I focused on the atmosphere, remembering how the walls looked, then the button pad, and then focused down onto a single button, held the focus and it just sprung from there. Almost like peeling away layers. There was definitely some effort of willpower involved on my part, but not a great deal.

Actually, the reason it became more detailed, lifelike, could have been simply because I crossed into a dream with awareness, by holding my focus on something - the surroundings. But the root cause of it all was definitely starting with the feeling/atmosphere/emotion of the place.

I tried!

Atmosphere of the place, details, attempts. WILD seems to be all about our own imagination. As imagination is directly dependent on memory, we have to be good at recalling. As the images start to take over, we must show our skills at passive observation and concentration at the same time. This is what other wild guides often suggest.

This thread was mostly about imagination and concentration, I cannot omit passive observation mentioned in other guides. There are many guides talking about being passive observers, when the imagery takes over. It seems that to kick off the imagery, we can use technique I mentioned above. But it is contradictory to passive observer stance, at least at first sight. There must be something important on this, becouse technique I used was never successfull becouse I lost awareness. And this is the question..

When I succeed with creating some kind of dream scene, should I switch to passive observation? If so, when is the right time for that?

Originally Posted by adraw

Atmosphere of the place, details, attempts. WILD seems to be all about our own imagination. As imagination is directly dependent on memory, we have to be good at recalling. As the images start to take over, we must show our skills at passive observation and concentration at the same time. This is what other wild guides often suggest.

This thread was mostly about imagination and concentration, I cannot omit passive observation mentioned in other guides. There are many guides talking about being passive observers, when the imagery takes over. It seems that to kick off the imagery, we can use technique I mentioned above. But it is contradictory to passive observer stance, at least at first sight. There must be something important on this, becouse technique I used was never successfull becouse I lost awareness. And this is the question..

When I succeed with creating some kind of dream scene, should I switch to passive observation? If so, when is the right time for that?

For me the passive observation comes into play when my mind already has enough energy and momentum and is not quite but up and going with all kinds of threads anyway. In such case I am passively observing what is happening and pictures/sounds/sensations might arise on their own. In such a case I can use that to start a dream.

On the flip side, sometimes my mind is quiet or in some kind of disposition that is not ideal for LD. In which case I can use visualization techniques and imagination to figuratively speaking get it primed up for a LD.

Most of the time it is some combination of the two.

I also agree that in a dream a person can use passive observation and concentration. In the physical world a person can just do something, but in the dream world, the rules are different. The same way to do something in the dream world is not the same way to do something in the physical world. This combination of passive observation and concentration is a working guide to getting things done in the dream world.

I would say passive observation and concentration might be a bit vague definitions though. I know this sounds weird but a working formula for me is "passive positive observation" or more simply allowing what is happening ot happen and being okay with the situation plus "hopeful urges." I person might call these hopeful urges concentration but I kind of consider them more like wishes or wishing something to happen. This is not a great way of explaining it but comes close. I think a tricky thing for me starting off was how much passive positive observation in ratio to positive wishes. If the ratios are wrong then weird things can happen or not happen at all like a LD when a person knows the are LDing but can't do anything.

Hope this helps. Sometimes I am long winded I think.

I would like to say thank you to the author of this post.
I usually do not read others techniques because, well...
it's "Their" technique and it doesnt seem like it'd work for "Me".
I read this post and I honestly felt as if you were talking to me.
I've been tryin to WILD for the last 2 months now, with no luck at all.
As you continued to talk it only became more significant, I have a desk in my room and i've experienced every symptom you mentioned, and I've tried everything in that exact order.
Thank you so much i'm definitely gonna try this tonight.
DEFINITELY.
Thanks again!!

Bump - I believe this to be very important. Worrying and focusing on your body while attempting a WILD is a very bad thing to do.

Originally Posted by rynkrt3

Bump - I believe this to be very important. Worrying and focusing on your body while attempting a WILD is a very bad thing to do.

Thank you. That is exactly what was the point of my post. When you stay in your body with your thoughts, it is much
less believable, that you are in the dream world.

Really detailed and helpful. Thanks!

Thank you.
Very same day (yesterday) I read this post I had my second longest LD. And after quite long time of LD-lull so I really attribute it to this thread.
So I'm pretty stoked.
I was not concentrating too much on WILDing just play in my mind with thoughts (well, it was more like prayer to Jesus) and I slowly drifted into sleep. It was app. 00:30. At 2:10 I woke up from the LD.

Great. It must have been a great dream.