WBTB hack for shifting, the void, lucid dreaming, AP, whatever you want
Yes it sounds click-baity, but it is what it is :‑X I actually thought I had posted this already, but apparently not !! Anyway,
First thing: whatever you intend to do with WBTB, you are not going to try to do it. In fact, you’re going to discard it completely. Don’t try to shift, don’t try to get into the void state, don’t try to lucid dream, forget the thing you’re trying to achieve. If your goal is to shift, don’t even think about shifting. That’s step one, trust me. I’m labeling this a hack for a reason.
Now, set an alarm for about four to five hours after you fall asleep, because that’s the sweet spot. If you wake up before the alarm, go back to sleep and let it ring later, that’s fine. The reason this timing works is because by then your sleep is favoring REM (those vivid dream windows where the mind is more likely to re-enter dreams/lucidity while you still maintain awareness).
When your alarm goes off, wake yourself up fully. Not a soft nudge, I mean WAKE UP. Jolt yourself awake, stand up, splash water on your face, check your phone if you must. Do whatever it takes to feel properly awake. Traditional WBTB advice says “don’t wake up too much,” but if you’re the type who falls asleep too fast, do the opposite: wake yourself up completely. If you reach the point where you think “Oh fuck, now I’m too awake and nothing’s going to work,” perfect! That’s exactly where you want to be.
Now tell yourself: “I am not going to fall asleep again tonight. I will stay awake if I have to.” Be comfortable with nothing happening, be comfortable with waking up back in your CR, adopt the mindset that you’d rather stay up all night than accidentally sleep and not progress anywhere. You want to be stubbornly awake in will even while your body wants to shut down.
Lie back down and let your mind do its thing. Dwell in frustration if you need to, think about your favorite food, even plan your day in this reality tomorrow—it doesn’t matter. Sing a song in your head, drift, daydream, anything. Even zoning out here is beneficial, because you just snap yourself out of it, and go back to doing whatever you want.
The point is: don’t try to induce anything. Don’t try to shift, don’t try to become aware of the void, don’t try to lucid dream. Your only goal is: “I will not fall asleep. I will stay awake until morning.” That’s it.
***And don’t go on your phone. Stay in the dark, roll over, toss and turn if you have to. It honestly doesn’t matter what you do mentally as long as you’re not forcing anything to happen.
From here, one of three things will happen.
1) Your body will fall asleep while your mind stays awake. And you won’t even notice because you weren’t trying to induce it. Then you’ll feel the pull of AP, or sink, or you’ll start sliding into a lucid dream or become aware of the void, and you’ll have that “Wtf just happened??” moment. You’ll probably jolt awake, sit there panting, and realize you just found a method that could change everything. Cheers!
2) You’ll accidentally fall asleep. That’s fine!! We’ve all been there. Just try again the next day, because now you know what to expect.
3) You’ll stay awake all night and nothing happens. You’ll wake up in the morning wondering why you lost sleep trying this stupid thing. That’s fine too, because you now know this method isn’t for you and you can try something else.
But !!! if you just read #3, and your brain is already spiraling into worry reading this, stop. I’ve had really, really bad chronic insomnia in the past— was heavily medicated for it—and the only thing that ever reliably helped me sleep was a version of this method, because I used it to sleep. What I did was stop trying to sleep in the first place. I lay there, relaxed, not trying to sleep, not forcing anything. And I’d tell myself: “if I don’t fall asleep, at least I’ll relax and let my body rest.”
That’s the state you want. Not the nervous, fidgeting, angry state of “why am I still awake?” The point isn’t to force what you crave, it’s to settle into the calm state of “this is good enough, so whatever happens, happens”. If you wake up tomorrow still in your CR, that’s fine, because your body and mind at least got some rest.
So yeah....forget the void, forget shifting, forget lucid dreaming… your only mission is to stubbornly not fall asleep.
