today i did a WBTB and as i was falling asleep i noticed i couldn’t feel my legs or arms… this was strange… i was very focused on my breathing and i began to feel very frightened (or excited) but it was a very distinct feeling in my gut. i started to feel the vibrations everyone talks about and i knew what was happening but i still couldn’t get further than this point because i would begin to breathe heavily and i basically just couldn’t handle the feeling of no feeling. can anyone else relate and is there any way to get by this feeling?
I agree that the vibrations experienced at the onset of a WILD can be weird at first. My only advice is to let go and relax. After all, these sensations can’t harm you in any way.
Yeah, The Wizard’s right…
I used to have really bad nightmares with sleep paralysis, so I was nervous about WBTB and WILD.
If you keep practicing WBTB and just try going to sleep, chances are you’ll sooner or later have a hypnagogic experience by accident (that is, figure out you’re in the middle of falling asleep) and you’ll see it’s not that scary.
Try looking on the WILD topic or “sleep paralysis topic” for some reassurance.
Yeah, you should search some of the sleep paralysis topics. The ones written by Hypnodude are very good.
Basically, as you fall asleep, your body goes through a process of “turning off;” that’s why you can’t “act out” your dreams physically. You aren’t used to experiencing this “turning off” phase, because usually you’re either dreaming or unconscious at the time. But when you are aware you can feel your body becoming paralyzed. When you are partially aware (in a half dream state), you might interpret the strange feelings to be other things, magnify them, etc.
A scientific explanation for what is going on in the brain will be easier when you ask “what” questions: i.e. “what is physically going on in the brain why you fall asleep,” and more difficult for “why” questions, depending on how scientific you want to go. Your answers are out there somewhere
