Mind awake/body asleep masterlist
A collection of hacks/techniques/ methods/ whatever you wanna call it to let the body fall asleep while you stay aware. I’ve built this over the past year of shifting to different realities and learning how to control what my awareness experiences. They also work super well for lucid dreaming, the void state, astral projection, sleep paralysis, deep meditation—basically anything that requires consciousness without a body. There are probably better ones online, but these are the ones that worked for me.
I’ll probably expand on specific ones in this list in the future, but for now I just want them all compiled into a list. Once your physical form and surroundings dissolve, awareness has nothing to cling to. What’s left is blank and perfect as an open canvas for whatever you want to project onto your awareness :)
The most basic no-brainer. I’m only adding this here because I recently discovered a little hack to stop yourself from drifting off and losing track of the numbers. What helps is to hold the next ten in your mind as the entire goal. For example, if you’re at 23, focus on reaching 30 and even visualize it in your mind if you can. It keeps the mind just active enough to stay engaged while the body falls asleep.
2. Working with your eyes
Too many ways to do this. Focusing on the black behind your eyelids and directing all your focus and attention to it until it feels infinite is a great one. Gently moving your eyes up, down, left, right when they start to slacken (your eyes slacking, getting comfortable, or zoning out is your cue: body wants sleep). Doing fake blinks is another great one (doing the blinking motions with them closed, causing them to twitch). There’s also keeping them half-open or even fully open in the dark—opening and closing them periodically every time you feel yourself start to fade. Fun fact: if you keep staring at the darkness long enough, that darkness starts to move back :)
3. Moving your head...moving any limb actually
This one’s weird but gold. I came across it recently and tried it again to see if it was a set-in-stone thing. Turns out it is. You wake up in the middle of the night when you’re tired as hell and barely awake— then you lightly roll your head side to side, not really moving your neck but more like rocking your head on the pillow. Idk what this can do for you, but for me it triggers that slide-to-the-side feeling people talk about in astral projection, like your consciousness slipping sideways out of your skull. I’ve also had astral projection/lucid dream entries in the past where I’ve lightly moved my foot during WBTB, and that also triggered something....so,, it’,s effective.
4. Committing to a single position in bed
Whether you’re on your back, side, whatever—pick one and refuse to move. Don’t roll over, don’t try to find comfort. If you’re like me and instantly fall asleep after adjusting once, this one’s a godsend. Staying locked in one position, especially when you’re a little uncomfortable, lets the body give up faster. It drifts off while your mind keeps running in the background, perfectly awake, because you’re uncomfortable as hell.
5. Treating hypnagogia as a signpost
UNDERRATED. You know when you feel all the symptoms, like your body floating, hearing shit, feeling tilted, seeing weird shapes or visuals behind your eyes? That’s already your body’s natural, normal way of saying “hey, I’m falling tf asleep.” It’s free, comes with the system built in. The issue is people treat the symptoms as “I have to shift/AP/etc NOW because this is my only chance,” and then when they fade, you get mad because it didn’t work, and you roll over and go to sleep. Yeah, that’s like mining and reaching diamonds, but because the diamonds aren’t already cut into the shape of a star, you throw them out. I’d love to rip a hole through time, reach back and grab past-me who used to give up after hypnagogia symptoms faded, and slap her, because IF MY GOAL WAS MIND AWAKE/BODY ASLEEP, AND I REACHED THE SIGN THAT SAID “HEY CLO YOUR BODY IS FALLING ASLEEP WHILE YOUR MIND IS AWAKE”— WHY. TF. DIDN’T I JUST KEEP GOING?
6. Setting alarms every hour of the night
Okay listen, this one is chaotic but genius. If your main problem is knocking out too fast, this hell-bent hack makes sure you don’t. Set alarms for every hour of the night. Yes, every hour. You run the real risk of not getting a wink of sleep, but if you’ve ever tried WBTB and been struck by +100 instant sleep, this is the way. I tested it recently: drifted off once, alarm woke me up, but then because I knew another alarm was coming, I couldn’t fully fall back asleep. So I just lied there, mind running, body done for and needing sleep. By the next alarm cycle, my body was desperate to sleep but my mind refused because it was completely alert, waiting—so I fell straight into the void just by existing.
7. Saying “fuck it, I’m not going to sleep” and committing to it
This one works too well, lol. Basically, you mentally commit to full-on sleep deprivation and genuinely accept that your goal is to not fall asleep at all—to stay awake the entire night. Forget about shifting, astral projection, void, whatever. Just decide you’re not sleeping. And your body goes “I think tf not,” and promptly knocks itself out while your mind stays awake. Best done during WBTB, imo.
Ridiculously good for MABA because you can reach hypnagogia with it so easily. You don’t even have to do anything, just listen to whatever song you want— but it’d be great if the song reminds you of your end-goal (shifting, the void, w/e). You can be deep in thought, zoning out and daydreaming to the song, when suddenly you feel hypnagogia symptoms and/or straight up falling into an altered state. Also, don’t worry about the actual sound; your awareness adjusts, and the music fades naturally as your perception shifts.
Beloved REM rebound <3 Sleep deprivation’s golden child. You stay awake way past your normal bedtime until you’ve only got around 2–3 hours left before you have to get up. By then, your brain is starving for REM sleep. When you finally lie down, your body plummets straight into REM almost instantly instead of cycling through the usual sleep stages. And because your mind is so primed for dreaming, this is a perfect time to induce MABA.
10. Lying still and not moving
But not in the 2020 shifttok “if you move you failed” way. Lying still is golden, especially when it’s WBTB and you wake up almost falling asleep. But you can move. The world won’t end if you do. I learned that focusing on making your body fall asleep >> making your mind stay awake. What slips me into MABA is waking up during some fuck-ass hour for WBTB, when my eyes feel all scratchy and want to close (you know that feeling when they’ll barely even open?). Then I just lie really still, but the point is to get comfortable and watch the body. You’ll literally feel it go numb as it falls asleep. After that, the surroundings start to fade, weird sensations start happening, you might feel pressure, sinking, floating, vibrations—or nothing at all, and then out of nowhere you’re in an altered state.
11. Trying to sleep with light in the room
You can go full overhead light if you’re brave, but personally I’ve had the weirdest results using my phone flashlight face up on the pillow beside me. It keeps the room dim enough for comfort, but bright enough for discomfort. If you’ve got fairy lights, those work great too! (I’d try mine, but I have an irrational fear they’ll catch fire) Anyway, just lie there and try to sleep with the light on. I always end up getting all the hypnagogic symptoms with the mind wanting to sleep but getting confused by the light. Usually I drift off and wake up a few times because of it, but I keep refusing to give in. Eventually, the mind says “fuck it” and stays awake while the body says “fuck it” and goes to sleep.
12. Listening to affirmations while you sleep
I’ll link the two Alunir affirmation videos I’ve actually shifted with (here) and (here). Basically, I’d either fall asleep with them on or use them after WBTB. The only problem was that I hated them at first, because they’d keep me awake and uncomfortable. But every single time I slept with them on, I’d start hearing affirmations inside my dream, then wake up in the dream, fall into an altered state, OR I’d wake up hypnopompic and the affirmations were like anchors that plunged me into a lucid dream or the void.
Look, I’m not condoning this one, but I’m being honest. There are tons of physical anchors that work if you stay awake easily— like sleeping in too many layers, putting a marble in your sock, not using a pillow, falling asleep with something heavy on you like a book, or sleeping too hot or too cold. Those all can work, and there’s probably more. I, unfortunately, can sleep through anything, so most of them did nothing for me.....all except for one.
I fell asleep with a clothespin on my finger (yes, the wise among us are already going “oh no”). It kept me awake for a bit, I got all the symptoms, but eventually I did fall asleep. Three hours later I woke up to find my finger completely drained of blood. I unclipped the pin, lied there half-asleep, half-freaking-out, trying to get circulation back while thinking “fuck fuck fuck fuck” and SOMEHOW, that mix of adrenaline and exhaustion slipped me right into an altered state. I actually shifted that night.
“Wow Clover, the things you did to try to shift early on were crazy.” Friend this was two months ago. I’m a dumbass. Part of the fun of shifting for me is finding new ways to do it. Anyway, do I recommend this? Absolutely not. What I do recommend is finding a physical anchor that’s safe and sustainable for you. They’re annoyingly effective. Just...seriously....don’t try the clothespin thing and then come blaming me for any disasters. “Oh I lost a finger because this strange girl on the internet told me I could shift realities this way” this is not a conversation I want to have with CNN.
14. Use the reticular activating system
The reticular activating system is the part of your brain that keeps track of your surroundings even while you sleep. It filters through sounds, touch, light, even emotional significance, and flags what might be important enough to wake you up or keep you half-awake. So when you put something under your pillow (like a notebook, a coin, a note, any object) your RAS says “huh that’s different.” It keeps awareness running even while the rest of your body falls asleep. It’s the same reason you can sleep through one thing but instantly wake up because of another.
To use this, put something your awareness can’t ignore under your pillow. I put my (annoying, thick) shifting notebook there, and it automatically made me think about it even half-asleep. I’ve hit MABA twice this week from that alone. But it could be anything, like a random spoon, a coin, a piece of jewelry, a note with something written on it, ....or even your phone, turned on, maybe with the flashlight (help is that a fire hazard?). The key is that your RAS keeps pinging that object in the background.
15. Pavlov yourself with a song
I swear by this one but I never really talk about it because it sounds a little insane until you try it. Basically, loop one song all day nonstop. Same song over and over while you go about your day, until your brain gets sick of it but it’s still playing in your head anyway. You’re basically conditioning yourself so by the time night hits, the song is burned into your skull. So when you lie down and start drifting off, it keeps auto-playing in your head without effort, like your brain can’t let it go. And because you’re mentally singing or hearing it on repeat, your mind stays just active enough to avoid shutting down with your body. The most recent one for me was with Misery Business , I listened to it the entire day because I get hyper-fixated on songs that give me DR memories, the emotions, all of it. I had it on repeat for hours,, then when I went to bed (at like 3 am lmao), I was still hearing it in my head. That automatic loop pulled me straight into MABA, and from there I actually managed to shift back to my main DR.
For people who fall asleep easily: your mission is to make the sleep setup hostile, not ideal, just enough that your body craves sleep but your mind keeps screaming “AHHHH.”
For people who don’t fall asleep easily: focus on comfort and commitment to resting, but not sleeping. Insomnia can actually be your secret weapon if you’re stubborn enough to choose sleep deprivation over not (insert desire).
For some god-forsaken reason, not caring about the outcome and being open to failure is highly effective. If you approach things with “eh, fuck it, I’m okay with failure”, you’re not forcing your awareness to perform a life-or-death coin toss— where if you get heads instead of tails, the little tricycle puppet from SAW will appear to collect your soul. You’re allowing the possibility of letting the coin roll under the couch, because for all you know, there could be a pot of gold under there.
Will any of these guarantee anything? Let’s be real, the path to failure is paved with ignorance. Your road will stay foggy if you keep putting blind faith in methods instead of yourself. Thinking something outside of you will get you to your destination is a hamster wheel— and not a fun one. Don’t be a passenger complaining about the route while the self-driving Tesla drives you straight into a lake.
The way I’ve been shifting/ lucid dreaming/ even accidentally reaching the void lately isn’t by doing a specific method. I honestly just have the intention to shift, then lie down with “whatever tf happens is part of me shifting” so I treat everything as such. Everything I listed here are just things that happened to come up in the moment, or experiments I ran out of curiosity. The best course of action to take is ALWAYS, always to not put pressure on yourself. Unless you’re shifting to be a helium balloon, you don’t need pressure.
