Well, my adaptation continues, slowly. I can tell my circadian rhythm is being broken up, and I am starting to REALLY crave naps at certain times of the day (like now).
but I still can’t get SILD/WILD down. Here’s the standard experience (they are all unique, but this is the common trend)
lay down. relax tension from my jaw, from my shoulders, from my hips, from my feet. focus on the back of my eyelids for 1 breath, then listen to sounds for 1 breath, then observe sensation throughout the body for one breath. Repeat this cycle with 2 breaths, three breaths, four breaths, so on. By four breaths per sense I am “comfortably numb”/experiencing mild sleep paralysis, and I continue on. Thoughts will come in, I bring my attention back to the breath and then continue the cycle where I left off. By 6-8 breaths per sense I am fully paralyzed, observing steady tingling sensations, and there is 0 hypnagogic imagery behind my eyelids - just pretty colors. I hear a high pitched ringing noise, but it’s not overwhelming. my senses will begin to draw inward for a second, but snap back out with the next breath … this goes on and on until my alarm rings and I got very little rest.
Suggestions on how to get from there to the senses draw inward/hypnagogic imagery/crazy ringing sound/amazing vibratory sensations?
My feeling is you are doing it too rhythmically. Don’t count the breathe. You don’t want precise timing. The idea is to do it in the most relaxed manner… let your mind drift… Even though the duration of each repetition does not need to be the same – as you drift away the later repetitions might take seem forever LOL, you don’t want this intentional shorter-to-longer progression.
About the various sensations, if they happen vividly then you should pause and focus on increasing them. Ignore the minor ones though! The idea of SILD is to prep your mind/body for phase entrance AFTER you fall asleep. WILD during the repetition stage is only a side-effect and should not be sought after. Do SILD in the most relaxed manner, don’t spend too much time. Let’s it do wonders for you after you fall asleep. SILD should not cause you sleeless nights. If it does, then you are changing it to a different technique. Hope this helps.
That helps a lot actually : ) I’ll let go of the counting idea and just let my attention go between the three main areas of sensory input. More to come!
An update regarding this…
I think it’s not so much the order in which you do it (going from head to toe, from toe to head or whatever) but just finishing the cycle appropriatly…
It for me feels more natural to treat the head as the final point so when I reached my head for me the cycle was finished…wich caused me to fall asleep deeper…
The head to toe failed for me because I didn’t see my toes as an (appropriate) end point…so that when I reached my toe it didn’t feel like I finished the cycle…
But last night it did work…it doesn’t even matter which point you choose for that matter…as long as you treat that point as the final point (and so reaching it finishes the cycle) it seems to work…
So it is more something like: Everytime when I reach point X (f.e. head) → Cycle finished → Fall asleep deeper…
I see it is used in a self-hypnosis technique too…I guess that is what actually is going on…lol…
I hope I explained it clear enough…if not…say so and I will give it another try…
hey! i’ve read this thread and tried SILD out this night and it worked! the result was one DILD, medium-lucidity. i woke up in a middle of the night and did the 3 exercises for two times.then i fell asleep. i had those strange dreams, I’ve seen a few aurora borealis in the air, and i thought this is strange, i live in Slovenia, aurora borealis does not appear here. so i did a RC and it worked
definety gonna try this again tonight! thanks for the technique and welcome to the forum!
These pretty colors are probably hypnagogic imagery, but just the early stages. You usually start out with colors and patterns which then start turning into more defined shapes and then full scenes.
And ok, I guess I should try to find a balance between falling asleep during the process and taking long to fall asleep after ir . I ended up trying it a bit this morning, but I mixed in some MILD too. Plus I did a WBTB and ate a banana, so all of those might have helped my lucidity (I didn’t wake up right away, so that’s cool!).
I ended up trying a bit more MILD/SILD and when I got to the hearing part I heard music vividly . I’ve heard HH music many times but I never enter a dream with it, I guess it’s because it’s not that simple to associate it to a dream scene. So this time I realized that and stoped focusing on the music and imagined the sound of my hands rubbing and hitting a surface, and I entered a LD from there
I’ll keep trying this mixture of MILD and SILD plus WBTB whenever I can/remember, since I bet more practice will give me even better results.
I think I’m using the WILD technique more than SILD, although I am very aware of the sensations within my body and check in with it very regularly (not counting breaths though - thanks for that tidbit!) as I go about this.
Last night I had the most intense not-quite-step through experience I’ve had since my first WILD! I was taking one of my late night naps (1am) and I was listening to a sleep induction track (gnAural has a couple of powernap tracks that work well for learning to nap), and the colors were just SO BRIGHT! I kept feeling lighter, and lighter, and the world outside just felt less and less distinct, and wow, the pretty colors …
and then I was looking at my hands. I made them do a tai chi holding ball in the space, had a smile (not sure if I actually smiled) and then the wake-up cycle started, so I let it go.
Excited to get back to that place though! I think I’m making progress. gnAural has by far aided my progress in learning to nap, and thus make it deeper into SP and experiencing hypnagogia. Highly recommended - I made a 20 minute nap track for it, and if napping is a skill you’d like to learn, PM me and I’ll send you the link for it.
FYI mattias, I wish I could click like on your avatar : )
@ShaneTheShaman and @zziga, glad it worked. Please post more details when you have time as the experience will help us further improve the technique! Thank you!
Just one question, when you say to scan your body, do you mean to stay in a still position and feel the senses on your hands and toes, or do you actually wiggle your toes and move your hands?
shane - your goal is to obtain sleep paralysis. when paralyzed, moving is either difficult (shallow paralysis) or requires all your willpower just to twitch your finger (deep paralysis). during this whole time you are scanning your body …
keep it still buddy. use the jedi powers of your mind that the Great Pastamonster gave you.
what I do is imagine a single fingertip touching every piece of exposed skin (as a meditative exercise), then go through and scan all my muscles, ligaments, and tendons the same way, then my bones, then my organs, then all the stuff that’s not corporeal, then repeat the cycle. if you try to go through that whole thing while sleeping you won’t sleep, but you could take a much broader surface area and scan the skin with very little focus required (think 3 fingertips, or the palm of your hand).
fun fact: that meditative exercise, applied for 10 years straight and using increasingly smaller focus points, was how the Buddha finally attained enlightenment - it’s called vipassana meditation, and is very useful for beginning and experienced meditators alike.
but this isn’t a topic about meditation, it’s a topic about dreaming.
My progress: 1 step forward, 3 steps back. I suffered an undesirable setback in my polyphasic adaptation today (that was my own fault) that has made my naps of supremely poor quality. I intend to keep napping through the night and continuing to apply SILD to see if I can achieve another dream body experience.
This technique is great. The first time I used it yesterday I had two lucid dreams in one night (that’s super good for me) and a false awakening that I nearly caught. I recalled other more vivid dreams as well. I’m gonna use this again tonight. Thanks!
I finally used this properly and had success with it. After waking up a second time I was able to easily induce a WILD as HI came on during the vision part.
I will say this, it felt a lot like I had been using a relaxation technique. In the end, I think that is what SILD really does. It relaxes your body and mind making active techniques easier, and also adds to your general awareness which seems to help with passive techniques. I’m still not prepared to call this a holy grail or miracle, but I will continue to use it because it does seem to help with very little effort.
I’ve had some pretty intense hallucinations (visual, feeling, sound) when using this technique while lying on my back. I’m uncomfortable with the idea of getting into SP as I don’t want to have demons sitting on me
So my question is: does this technique require you to lie on your back / does it loose its effectiveness if lying on your side or stomach? For some reason I only expect to get into SP while lying on my back.
SPs do not always occur when using SILD so don’t fear too much – it might be a different experience next time. As for your question, it doesn’t matter what position you use to sleep. Just use one that’s comfortable, but not so comfortable that you fall asleep right away without completing at least a few cycles.
Glad it worked, Rhewin. Your observation makes a lot of sense. I look forward to hear more your feedbacks.
I just tried this, three hours after having slept six hours. I laid in bed on my back (I’m curious if I should be on my back or just any position most comfortable to me) and I did what you said. My body will always immediately start to vibrate and feel heavy. I can’t progress it myself but I can feel it start to progress. I also noticed after going throu my senses rotation about 3 times that i was getting a light ringing in my ears and it started to seem like it was getting louder. I also noticed what seemed like fading in patterns that started to appear a dark bolded white. Which might just be my brain playing tricks on me. This was about 5 rotations in maybe 4. Then I coughed a whole bunch due to having the flu recently and now I’m wide awake.
but I’m curious if those are good signs that I’m on the right track. I figure the vibrations are but I’m afraid that the others are just tricks from my mind. And should I like refuse to open my eyes at all costs? Cause I keep getting strange light paralysis sensations that make me think I’m asleep and I open my eyes and I’m awake
. I ended up trying it a bit this morning, but I mixed in some MILD too. Plus I did a WBTB and ate a banana, so all of those might have helped my lucidity (I didn’t wake up right away, so that’s cool!).
Yes, mixing in MILD and WBTB will definitely increase your chance with SILD, or you could say vice versa, LOL.
. I’ve heard HH music many times but I never enter a dream with it, I guess it’s because it’s not that simple to associate it to a dream scene. So this time I realized that and stoped focusing on the music and imagined the sound of my hands rubbing and hitting a surface, and I entered a LD from there 