Paralysis

A little bit of a break from dreamviews, but I have been continuing my practice with <PERSON> and now the more traditional version of WILD as well. All throughout April I was having some remarkable success with waking up in the middle of night motionless with my eyes still closed, and experiencing what are probably signs of sleep paralysis such as my legs filling up with bubbles and other bodily or visual changes. The waking up properly part seems to be a matter of confidence, and perhaps the amount of time you spend setting the intention. But falling asleep after waking up (while still intending to <PERSON>) has been a persistent issue for me; although my body is certainly relaxed waking up in this way, my mind is usually fairly alert upon waking in the night. I also have not overcome my problem of becoming too excited when anything starts to happen, and focusing too intently on things. I am also reluctant to stay up for more than 15 minutes or so trying, to prevent too much disruption to sleep for the next day at work. Maybe I could go to bed a half hour earlier, and extend the time I can devote to each attempt. I have decided to work on the traditional WILD method over the weekends. It will be a great tool for my repertoire, and I think that gaining proficiency with WILD will improve my chances with <PERSON> given that they are essentially the same thing. I encounter what are basically the same problems while doing both. Fortunately, I am enjoying the process of trying to achieve my first full fledged DEILD/WILD, and the failures have not begun to discourage me yet. Experimenting with various nuances of WILD, I am yet to figure out which technique works best for me. I love the idea of FILD, but it has shown very little promise for me. Simple counting to maintain awareness and to anchor my thoughts seemed to be working a couple of times, but has been hit and miss. Merely acting as a passive observer of the process has been very promising. But I also find that something to distract my thoughts is needed when any changes start to occur, so that I do not focus too intently on them or get excited. The past couple of days I have tried some simple visualization of a boring scene or task such as sweeping a wooden floor..the feel of the broom..the sounds..Yesterday doing this I got to this point where I was teetering on the verge of sleep. I tried to do it somewhat passively as well, and to allow any sensations that occurred, to happen. For instance, I noticed that my eyes have a tendency to dart around, and that I should not fight this. Today I did the same visualization but was probably having difficulty from focusing too intently on the visualization, so I decided to just 'let things happen.' Felt this tingling over my body and then saw some swirls. My eyes were darting around and going upwards as far as they could go, and it was like my eyes/eyelids were having a little seizure. I tried to just allow things to unfold, but got excited that perhaps I would finally succeed and then was too alert. So basically as a self-reminder: continue some gentle visualization and allow things to unfold during DEILD and WILD attempts. If this is a dud then try to passively observe back of eyelids as a method, or counting. The visualization is pretty orthodox when it comes to <PERSON>, so I think it warrants more experimentation.